Unconditional (Masters and Mercenaries #5.5)(50)

Emily was sitting up, her little face red from her cries. She was dressed in footie pajamas with pink and yellow fairies on them. She turned the minute the door opened, her blonde and brown curls reaching her ears. Her round little face was streaked with tears, and they stared at each other for a moment.

It was an odd standoff. He looked down at the baby and Emily looked up at him, her blue eyes wide.

Were babies like snakes? His dad always told him that snakes were more afraid of him than he was of them. Maybe babies were the same way.

And then she sniffled again and those little arms came up, reaching for him, her fists opening and clenching as though to tell him to hurry it up.

She cried, a loud, impatient sound that promised so much more if he didn’t meet her needs and very quickly.

She wasn’t going to be a sub. Not that one. She was a full-on Domme in footie PJs.

He put his hands under her arms and lifted her. It was natural from there to carry her up to his chest and cradle her against him, his forearm under her highly padded backside.

He sniffed. She didn’t smell awful and her butt wasn’t squishy, so she didn’t need a change.

“Okay, what do you need so we can both get back to sleep?” He tried to look down at her, but both her arms had gone around his neck and she laid her head down on his shoulder. Her tiny hand came out from around his neck and started to pat his chest while she babbled on.

They weren’t going to get anywhere with verbal communication. He’d watched Ashley walk her sometimes, bouncing her while she sang. He didn’t sing. Mostly.

She began to cry again so he started up. His mother had sung to him. One of his earliest memories was her singing the Beatles’ “Blackbird” in the middle of the night when he was sick.

He patted her back and started in on the song feeling like the biggest idiot in the world.

What did she need? He sang the song because he had it memorized, but his mind was working as he walked back and forth with her.

He’d spent nine months waiting on John Michael, waiting to be a dad because he’d had such good parents, parents who loved him, who supported him. They were his blood, but the very blood they had given him had cost him his child. His very DNA was damaged. Didn’t that mean something? Didn’t that mean he was damaged in some fundamental way?

He’d wanted that kid so badly. Unlike his friends at the time, he hadn’t wanted to go to clubs and party. He’d wanted to build a business and a family. He’d wanted what his parents had, to give his kid what his parents had given him.

A good childhood. A sense of morality and honor. To teach his kid how to live a life.

None of that had a damn thing to do with DNA. None of that had anything to do with blood or biology.

He wouldn’t have loved John Michael because he looked like him. He would have loved John Michael for what he was, and his father would have had everything to do with that.

Emily’s hands came up, brushing across his face. He stared at her. She was so serious. She touched his cheek and wiped away the tears he hadn’t known he was shedding. Emotion welled up in him as she leaned forward and put her mouth on his cheek in a messy baby kiss.

Like her mother had taught her. Ashley would kiss her boo-boos to make them better.

Something broke inside him, and the tears that had been bottled up came out in a rush of pain and ache and something that felt fresh and new.

This sweet little girl had lost her father before she’d even been born. He’d walked away and then he’d died and there was no chance for her to know him.

He’d lost his son a short time after birth, with no chance to teach him, to learn from him.

But he could teach Emily. She would never have his eyes or his smile, but she could have his ambition, his drive, his willingness to help a friend. And she could make him see the world in a whole new way. She could give him a second chance—to be a father, a husband, a better man than he’d been before.

He held her tighter and realized that if he deserved a second chance, everyone did.

He bounced her as he walked down the hall to the living room where his phone was. There was a call he had to make, and he wasn’t sure of the reception he’d get. “Will you help me, baby girl? If they give me hell, you just start crying and then I’ll have an excuse to get off the phone.”

He dialed the number. It was late in California, but the woman he was calling had always been a night owl.

Of course, she might take one look at the number and refuse to answer.

She picked up on the first ring. “Keith? Is something wrong?”

He wiped his tears away. Damn, she sounded good. “Hey, Mom. I have a problem.”

Now she would give him hell for not calling, a lecture on how he couldn’t just call out of nowhere. “What’s wrong, honey?”

Something eased inside him because he finally understood. She was his mom. She would always answer his calls not because they shared some mystical DNA. They shared something far more important. They shared a lifetime of memories and while he thought they’d been wrong, he couldn’t live his life in judgment and anger anymore.

He had a daughter after all, and teaching her forgiveness was important.

A daughter who looked at him and then threw up all over him.

“Uhm, what do I do with a sick baby?”

There was only the briefest of pauses before his mother started to teach him again, this time about how to care for his own child.