Page 13 of Bartender Daddy’s Girl (Daddy’s Girl #11)

JUDGE

Five Years Later

C arrie’s laughter drifts through the yard and hits me right in the chest, the same way it did the first time I heard it. She’s running around the garden with Abigail, our daughter, following along and inspecting the various brightly colored flowers.

I’m on the porch holding our secondborn. Our cute-as-a-button baby son, Thomas.

But sitting here, I still can’t believe how my life turned out. Only a couple of years ago, I settled here in Sugarcreek with the intention of dying alone and in obscurity. Life had been and continued to be hard, and I wanted no more part of it.

Carrie opened my eyes to the beauty again. She gave me a new lease on it. Lifted a veil, so to speak. Made me want to live for something more than toiling away behind a bar and hanging out with an old boxer far past his prime.

“What’s this?” Abigail asks, snapping me out of my daze.

She’s holding her palm out to me, and a tiny red ladybug walks over the tip of her finger.

“That’s called a ladybug,” I say, half whispering not to stir Thomas from his slumber.

“Why’s it called that?” Abigail’s face twists in confusion. She knows what a lady is, she knows what a bug is, but the idea of them being put together is baffling to her four-year-old mind.

The actual explanation of the bug being named after the Virgin Mary would definitely make her go cross-eyed. So, instead of getting into the nitty-gritty, I do my fatherly duty and lie.

“Because they’re red and cute, just like a lady is,” I say. “Your momma’s a lady, and she’s cute as a button.”

Abigail smiles and nods, accepting my answer. “Am I gonna be a lady someday?”

Carrie joins us on the porch, leaning against one of the support beams with the brightest smile on her face. It still melts my heart to this day.

“Absolutely not,” I answer. “You’re cute as a button already, and Daddy’s gonna keep you this way forever.”

Our daughter giggles before running back to the garden to find more bugs.

“You’re so good with her,” Carrie says, joining in on the two-seater rocking chair. She slips one hand around my shoulder, letting the other gently fall on Thomas’s face.

“Guess you rubbed off on me,” I say, giving her a kiss on the cheek before nuzzling in closer.

And as I sit here, bathed in my family’s love, I smile up at the sky.

Someone up there must really like me.

Because they have given me everything.

The End

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