Chapter 12 #2
He took a step forward, ready to storm the room with all the righteous fury of a protective dad. Why had Lucy run to Daphne?
Had she seen her first?
“I’m so sorry, Lucy. What those kids said wasn’t kind at all,” came Daphne’s response. He’d missed some of their muffled conversation,
but he waited in silence a beat more to calm down before entering the conversation. He shifted another step forward.
Why did kids have to say such horrible things?
Daphne’s voice paused his approach. “Words hurt sometimes, don’t they?” She remained too calm. Not angry enough. “And those
kinds of harsh words hurt even worse if we believe them.”
Believe them? He almost rounded into her living room, but Daphne’s next question brought him to a complete stop.
“So how do we figure out whether we should believe those words or not?”
Finn braced a hand against the wall. What was she doing?
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we have to ask someone who knows better. An expert about the topic.”
Finn peered around the corner of the wall to see Daphne curled up with Lucy on a large blue chair, pink pillows around them
and Lucy holding a handkerchief in one hand and a . . . milkshake in the other?
Daphne looked around the space and suddenly seemed to find what she was looking for. She picked up Lucy’s lunch box that lay
beside them on the floor and ran her finger over the pink monogram. “What if Mavis or that little mean boy on the bus”—maybe
Daphne wasn’t as calm as she seemed—“pointed to this L and said that it was an A? What would you say?”
“It’s not an A,” Lucy whispered, indignant. “It’s an L. For Lucy.”
She still couldn’t quite land the L sound, but that didn’t seem to bother Daphne at all.
“Exactly right. It’s an L for Lucy. But what if Mavis kept saying it was an A and didn’t believe that it was an L? What would you do then?”
“I know how to spell my whole name,” Lucy said, a touch of sass sliding into her tone.
Atta girl.
And at least Lucy was distracted. That was much better than the quivering bottom lip and woeful eyes he’d imagined.
“That’s because you’re very smart.” Daphne leaned down and pressed a kiss to Lucy’s forehead—and Finn’s heart tumbled into
a free fall. Just like that. No warning. No parachute. Just plummeting into some terrifying, wonderful void.
“But is there anyone in your class who might be an expert on the letters and writing and . . . teaching?”
Finn’s breath squeezed through his throat. Where was this leading?
“Miss Krissy!” Lucy piped up, her previous sadness dissolving.
“Exactly!” Daphne squeezed Lucy’s shoulders. “Miss Krissy is the teacher, so she should know a lot about letters, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” Lucy took a sip from her frosted glass.
“So you can trust Miss Krissy to be an expert with letters, right?”
Lucy nodded. “And she writes very pretty.”
Finn almost grinned.
And from his view of her profile, so did Daphne. “Excellent for a teacher. So, Miss Krissy knows the truth, and she helps
you know the truth because she’s an expert on letters,” Daphne continued, brushing a wild curl off Lucy’s forehead with gentle
fingers. The feeling in Finn’s chest squeezed tighter.
“Well now, if someone says something unkind about you, then I suppose we need to ask an expert on you to figure out what’s actually true. Right?”
His brain snagged on the question like an epiphany waited just in the shadows of his mind. An expert?
“Does anybody know you best of all?” Daphne asked.
Lucy took a proud sip from what was unmistakably a pink strawberry milkshake—because of course it was—and declared, “Daddy.”
Finn’s eyes burned. He pressed his forehead against the wall, swallowing the knot in his throat.
“That’s right. I bet your daddy knows you better than anybody in the whole world.”
“Mm-hmm, but God.” Her voice grew to show her excitement. “God knows me better than anybody in the whole sky.”
He smiled, eyes closed. That’s my girl.
“Exactly.” Daphne chuckled, her voice filled with a tenderness so familiar it settled in around his heart. Daphne cared like
she was meant to belong right there with his little girl. “So if we wanted to ask an expert—like, if you’re pretty or not—who
should we trust? Some boy on the bus? Or Daddy?”
“Daddy.” Not even a pause.
Finn’s breath shattered. He pressed a fist to his chest, as if that would keep his heart from coming apart entirely.
“And what would Daddy say about you, Lucy?”
“He finks I’m beautiful.”
That did it.
His heart cracked, expanded. Wanted to keep whatever beauty made this moment so good and right.
Or rather . . . who made this moment so good and right.
“And he thinks you’re beautiful all the way through, from the heart out.”
Finn opened his eyes and looked at Daphne. The sun caught her hair, casting a warm halo around her as she sat beside his daughter.
She was genuine. Compassionate.
Beautiful from the inside out.
Someone to trust with Lucy’s heart?
His throat tightened. Yes.
“And you know what God says about you?” Daphne asked softly.
“That I’m beautiful?”
Daphne smiled so tenderly it made Finn ache. And when she touched Lucy’s cheek, Finn nearly felt the gentleness to his soul.
“He does. He also says you’re precious to Him. Do you know what precious means?”
“Special?”
“That’s right. But not just special.” Daphne leaned in, like she was sharing the best-kept secret in the world. “A treasure.”
“A treasure?” Lucy’s eyes widened. “Like pirate’s treasure?”
“Bigger than the biggest pirate’s treasure.” Daphne nodded, their noses nearly touching. “And that’s what God and your daddy
know about you. That you’re wonderful. Precious. Beautiful.”
“And a treasure,” Lucy added with a giggle.
“Exactly.” Daphne tapped Lucy’s nose and grinned.
The whole scene blurred in his vision. Something shifted inside him—quiet but seismic. Like the ground beneath him had tilted. Or was that the hesitation inside him unfurling?
“That’s exactly right.” Daphne wrapped Lucy in a hug.
And just like that, Finn fell.
Hard. Crushing.
Fantastically. No going back.
“Okay, sugarplum,” Daphne said, still holding Lucy close. “You remember that the next time someone who doesn’t really know
you tries to act like they do. If what they say doesn’t match the truth, you catch that thought”—she waved her hand above
Lucy’s head like she was snatching fireflies—“and toss it away.” She shook her fingers like she was dusting off crumbs. “Don’t
hold them in your head for very long.”
Lucy nodded and mimicked the movement.
Finn’s world tilted upright, like a camera lens coming into focus after far too long of seeing things wrong. For the first
time in a long time, emotions he’d buried deep inside his bruised heart expanded through him, filling the broken, hollow places
in his chest. Shoring up the weak spots.
And hope rushed in.
Daphne wasn’t competition.
She wasn’t even a rival.
She was the risk worth taking.
His throat closed. But he’d fumbled things so badly. She didn’t trust him. Probably didn’t even like him. And as for seeing
him as anything close to a suitor? That ship had sailed, sunk, and been picked over by sea creatures.
Still.
“You spying on the competition?” came a voice behind him.
Finn turned to find Jack leaning in the doorway, pizza box in hand and a mischievous tilt to his brow.
“No,” Finn whispered. Then sighed. “Well . . . maybe a little. But for good reason.” He jerked his chin toward the living room. “Your sister is being her beautiful self and rescuing my daughter’s day.”
“Her beautiful self?” Jack’s other brow rose to meet the first, but he didn’t question further.
Finn cleared his throat. “Evidently another child said something particularly nasty to Lucy on the bus and Daphne is smoothing
things over.”
“Sounds like her.”
Finn glanced at the pizza box. “Is this why you’re never available Thursday evenings? Pizza night?”
“It’s tradition,” Jack said, grinning. “Thursday night engagement and wedding photo shoots, followed by Austen Gang Game Night.
It’s sacred.”
Austen Gang? Game night? The two of them? Finn might as well have walked into a cozy sit-com. And he kept liking it more than
was good for his mental health.
Or . . . perhaps it was exactly what his mental health needed?
“Can I have another cookie?” Lucy’s voice brought his attention back to the little scene in front of him, a new lightness
in his chest.
“Just one more, but don’t tell your daddy. It’ll ruin your supper, and he’ll get fussy with me.”
Finn shot Jack a grin and stepped into view. “Fussy with you, my dear Miss Austen? You wound me.”
“Daddy!” Lucy launched at him, and he caught her with ease, swinging her onto his hip and kissing her cheek.
“Hello, lamb. Have you had a proper chin-wag with Miss Daphne?”
Jack rounded the corner into the room next and set the pizza on the table as Daphne rolled her eyes and stood, hand on her
hip, holding a cookie like a gavel. “Jack brought you to game night? Desperate times—he must need help reevaluating his tragic
Uno strategy.”
“You wish,” Jack shot back.
Finn stepped closer to Daphne, lowering his voice. “I was only just able to get away. Thank you.”
She looked at him longer than she needed to, something searching in her eyes. Maybe she noticed the red-rimmed edges of his.
Maybe she saw more.
“So,” she said finally, “how long were you eavesdropping?”
“Long enough to know you’re a wonder.”
Then she shrugged and winked. “Only when it comes to little girls and baked goods.”
She winked. His grin bloomed into something ridiculous. She was beautiful, tenderhearted, authentic, and fun? How had he dismissed all of those qualities before when all he could see was his own fear?
He shifted Lucy to the floor, and she skipped over to Jack. Which meant—blessedly—Finn could take one step closer.
“It seems we owe Miss Austen another debt,” he said, meeting Daphne’s gaze. “That’s, what, rescue number three? Should I just
go ahead and relinquish my car keys in gratitude?”