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Sometimes, he couldn’t stop himself. Timothy knew living in Hughes Heights was a damned stupid thing for him to do. But he had lived there for more than eighteen years now. He wasn’t going to give up the home he had worked his entire life to have because of the neighbors he didn’t want. The neighborhood was plenty big enough for all of them.

And it allowed him to keep a better eye on them. They needed that, and it was his responsibility. He had never lost sight of that fact.

Especially after what had happened to them before.

Sometimes, he found himself compelled to drive by there. To catch a glimpse of them all. Occasionally, he did.

They broke his heart to see sometimes. How much they resembled their mother. She had been the only woman in the world he had ever loved. He had taken one look at her that first day and just fallen. They had grown up in the same small town, yes, but he had been nine years older. He had known her father, considered him a real mentor—losing him had hurt. But it had been the man’s daughter who had captured Timothy, heart and soul, back then. He had barely cared that she had existed at first. Until she had walked into the class he was helping teach that day and Timothy just fell.

So damned fast.

He still missed her to this day. No other woman had come close to replacing her in his heart. And never would.

She had definitely been an advantageous match for him too. But it hadn’t been like that for him—he had loved her.

And the three children they had created together.

When his wife had looked at him and smiled, he had felt like he could do no wrong.

Grief for her was still so strong. When he contemplated that he was getting older. That he felt so alone at times. He idled at the stop sign.

“Daddy, are we there yet?”

He’d thought Leena was asleep. He’d picked her up from the airport an hour ago, and she’d been so quiet he had been convinced she was just jetlagged. Or still fighting the virus and subsequent infections she had been battling for weeks.

“Not yet. A few more minutes. A few more streets over.”

He looked at his second-to-youngest daughter. He paid a pretty penny now to ensure she was well-educated and cared for while he worked, but the child had come down with first one virus and then another, leading to respiratory infections, and had been ill for the past three weeks—just for her three-week spring break to begin. And his plans had been ruined.

Now, he had her with him. It was a small setback, but she was his daughter, and he did love her. Adored her.

She definitely looked like her older sisters.

He was determined that he and the children he had left would form a family again. His eldest daughter Brianna, his son Trey, and Leena. They were a family. Whether his kids liked it or not. They squabbled, but all siblings did.

He had lost his family twenty years ago. He would never get over that pain. But he would build a new one now.

Timothy waved on the young woman and the little girl waiting to cross in front of him. They were intent on something apparently very important. The little girl reminded him of his third daughter. She’d had hair that same rich dark brown, but hers had curled everywhere. Like Leena’s did now. Like Timothy’s own. That woman was a stranger to him, no relation, but she reminded him of what he had lost.

But the daughter in the back seat, she was his second chance. He hadn’t forgotten that. And he never would.

“We’ll be there shortly. Just be patient,” he told her.

She just grinned at him. Her mother’s grin. And stole his heart once more.