Chapter 4
FOUR
“Come on, Lena, get in the truck.”
She frowned at him. “Why are we going in your truck? This is Daddy’s weekend.”
“I know, baby doll, but we’re going to the zoo. Daddy’s coming with us, remember? I know he told you.”
She nodded, looking just a little suspicious. He couldn’t blame her, really. This was new and weird. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Huh?” Jack played dumb.
“Why is Daddy coming with us? Is he scared to stay by himself?”
Oh, Lord, he knew this game. This was the make your father feel incredibly guilty for all of his mistakes game.
He hated this game, and she played it a lot; she was really good at it.
By the time she was a teenager he was going to have to kill her.
Or at least frown deeply at her a lot. “I don’t think that he’s scared to stay by himself. I think he wanted to go to the zoo.”
“So why doesn’t he drive his own truck?”
“Because we wanted to go as a family.”
That frown got deeper. Hers not his. “But I have two families, your family and Daddy’s family. Lissa is in Daddy’s family, not yours. Granny and Grandpa are in your family, not Daddy’s.”
He nodded even if she was pedantic. “This is true. Do you want to go to the zoo or not?”
“Do we have to be in the car a long time?”
“We do. We’re going to be in the car a long time, but we’re going to stop and have lunch at a restaurant and play, and then we’re going to go and stay in a hotel room and go swimming.
And tomorrow we go to the zoo and then come back and go swimming and stay in the hotel room another night before we drive home. ”
“Two nights in the hotel.” She beamed at him. “Ve-venture!”
“It is an adventure. It’s our very own road trip. You’re going to get to watch movies, play on your tablets. We can sing, and the four of us are going to have fun and we’re going to go to the zoo and we’re going to see bears.”
She gasped. “I like bears. Sister likes elephants though.”
“There will be elephants and bears. And big-horned sheep and tigers and lions.” He was pretty sure, anyway. He hoped none of the exhibits were closed, but he’d checked the website.
“Daddy likes tigers and lions. And mountain lions. Which are not house kitties. Not like their tummies rubbed kitties. Daddy says mountain lions do not like scritches.”
Well, now, that sounded serious. He had to hear about this. “No, you don’t think so?”
“No, Daddy says so, and Daddy says bears are not toys. Bears are aminals, and they’re very big and a little stinky.”
“They are animals. And they are super big animals. We have to respect big animals and their ability to be stronger than us.”
“Uh-huh.”
Dalton walked out with Effie in his arms. “What are we talking about so hard? I got to go back and get the bag as soon as I get her settled. Or do you wanna put her in her car seat?” Dalton offered Effie over.
“We’re talking about bears and adventures and how mountain lions don’t like belly rubs.” He winked.
“No scritches!”
“No, ma’am. Wild animals are wild animals. They are not pets.”
Effie squealed and threw her arms up in the air. “I like giving pets.”
“I know you do. I worry.” Dalton handed Effie over when he grabbed her, nodding to him. “I’ll go get my bags and their stuff. I’m looking forward to it.”
“I got some road trip snacks. I remember what you like.”
Dalton gave him an ironic look. “Hey, I should hope you do. It hasn’t been that long, and we used to do a lot of road trips together.” He winked as though to ease the sting of it, and it made Jack’s heart happy.
“Yeah yeah yeah, I got pistachios and Slim Jims and some Ho Hos.”
“Ooooh hos.” Lena twirled in a little circle.
“Nope. None for you, little bit, not until we stop someplace where you can run off some of that energy. You will get Go-Gurts.”
“I like those too.” She stared at Dalton. “Papa says we’re gonna go do this as a family.”
It was like she was trying to catch one of them in a lie.
Dalton nodded, smiled at her. “We are. Are you excited?”
“Uh-huh. Papa says we’re gonna swim.”
“You are. I made sure that we got your swimsuit packed. Let me go get the bags, girlie girl, so we can get on the road.”
“Yay. Okay, put me in the car, Papa.”
Jack grinned at Dalton over the kids’ heads. “Looks like maybe they’re ready to go.”
Dalton nodded. “Yeah, so am I.” And he got a slow once-over that sort of set his blood on fire. “Looking pretty good, cowboy.”
“You look amazing.” Dalton was too skinny, and he still looked tired, but compared to the way he’d appeared the other day at the truck stop, he was infinitely better.
Jack was damn pleased because that had to mean that Dalton was more settled about things, right?
And maybe Jack had a lot to do with that?
Naturally, as a guy who was used to just taking charge and getting his own way, he wanted to just move Dalton right back in with him and get rid of this crappy apartment, but he knew that that wasn’t the way to go. He had really hurt his man’s feelings.
No, that was too shallow.
He had damaged this man on a soul-deep level. Dalton had thought his hopes and his dreams weren’t important to Jack. He’d thought Jack had completely dismissed everything he was as a person, and that sucked so hard.
It hadn’t been what he meant, either, but just because he hadn’t had that intention didn’t mean it wasn’t what happened. So, he needed to make it up to Dalton in a bad way.
Dalton’s cheeks flushed a delicious pink. “Thanks. I put some effort into it today.”
He took in Dalton’s perfectly creased jeans and his starched shirt and his nice, clean, good hat. “I can tell. Looks like you even polished your boots, baby.”
“More like dusting them off. The good boots have just been sitting in the closet. Now, the ones I brought for the zoo tomorrow are kind of crappy, but I figured they’re my most comfortable pair so I’d be better off walking in them.”
Dal went back for the bags, and then they loaded the kids in the car, lapsing into a silence, but it wasn’t awkward for the first time in a long time. It was way more companionable.
They had a good long drive ahead of them, but they would stop to eat lunch and to let the girls pee a dozen times, and it was turning out to be perfect. He found himself tickled to death to get this many hours in the car with Dalton. They could talk. They could just sing along to the radio.
Of course, first they had to deal with their girls.
“Papa, I swim-swim.”
“Daddy, did you remember the floaties?”
“Daddy, I like zoos?”
“Sister, there are going to be elephants. And bears. And tigers and lions. And they might eat you.”
“Papa! Don’t let them. No want them eat me.”
“Nobody’s going to eat you, Effie. Lena, stop it,” Dalton ordered.
“What? Lions eat people. Aunt Lissa said! Just like chomp.”
“I’m going to chomp your Aunt Lissa.” Dalton glanced over him and just grinned. “Why was this a good idea? We should have done this with one of them at a time.”
“No, they need to learn how to do this. Be in the car for long periods of time in the back seat without killing one another.” They were sisters. Jack figured it was a thing.
And this wasn’t even really fighting; this was just teasing. God knew by the time little bit got old enough, she’d be giving her sister as good as she got. No question.
“How about you and Lissa? I bet you drove each other nuts in the car.”
“Oh, you know Lissa. She’s mean. She used to just tear me up. She’s way smarter than I am.”
“Aunt Lissa is not mean, right, Effie?”
“No, Aunt Lissa is nice.”
Dalton rolled his eyes. “Trust me, your Aunt Lissa is a harridan, and I love her. What about you, babe? It’s not like you don’t have seventeen brothers.”
Jack snorted. “Oh, I don’t have quite seventeen.”
He had four.
Which, okay, felt a lot like seventeen…
“Why you don’t have any sisters, Papa?” Effie piped up.
“Because I didn’t. My parents didn’t have little girls; they had little boys.”
“Are we going to have little boys?” That was Lena.
“No.” He and Dal both spoke together. Sure and firm as all get out.
“No, there will be no more babies.”
“Why not?”
Dalton met his eyes, smiled, wicked as all get out. “Because you two girls are perfect, of course. And now we don’t have to have any more, because we’ve exactly as many babies as we need.”
“Oh.” Lena blinked at him in the rearview, but obviously that was going to work because she didn’t argue. “We don’t need any brothers anyway,” she announced. “We have dogs.”
“See, you two are brilliant, my brilliant girls. We don’t need any more babies.” Dal was altogether too proud of himself for that one. Little shit.
Jack couldn’t be more smitten.
“Besides, you have to be in love to have babies, and you’re not in love, so you can’t have any more.”
Jack’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and he forced himself to keep most of his brain on the road. He wasn’t sure if he was horrified or fascinated to try to understand what exactly his little girl’s thought process was there. “We do, huh?”
“Yuh-huh. Aunt Lissa told us all about it.”
“About what?” Dalton actually sounded a little worried.
“About how babies come,” she said. “When two people fall in love, and they want to make a family, they make a seed and put it in a momma. Then the momma has a baby. But if you’re divorced, you’re not in love, because you have to live not together.
And everybody knows that if you’re in love, you live together. ”
“Everybody knows that, do they?” He thought Dalton might choke on his own spit.
“Uh-huh. Everybody knows, Daddy. And also with lovings, there are kisses. And flowdies. And candles on the dinner table.”
“Wow, that’s pretty impressive.” Jack winked at Dal.
“I know.”
“Oh. Oh, and you have to give dinamends.”
Jack tried to work that one out. Dine—Dinemens.
“Diamonds,” Dalton whispered.
Ah. “I don’t think boys give each other diamonds.”
“Yes, they do, Aunt Lissa said in loves means roses and candles on the table and dinamends.”