Short Rides (Rough Riders #14.5)(8)

He dressed, using his crutches, not bothered in the least that his stump hung out. It’d taken a while for him to feel comfortable letting his family see that broken part of him.


He came back from the war… broken… on the inside. Why didn’t you reach out to him?


Dammit. He was not going there today. He was not Jeff Wingate.


Cam swung into the kitchen as saw Liesl sitting alone at the breakfast bar. She beamed a sunny smile his way as soon as she saw him. “Daddy!”


“Mornin’, punkin’.”


Liesl crawled onto his lap immediately after he sat down. She hugged him tightly and sighed heavily. Then her gap-toothed smile faded.


“Something wrong?”


“Mommy said you were too tired last night for my Valentine’s Day surprise.”


“Yes, I was. Sorry, sweetheart. Sometimes my job makes me tired.”


“Does it make you sad? ’Cause you looked kinda sad last night.”


Cam tucked a flyaway strand of blond hair behind Liesl’s ear. “Yeah, I was sad, too.”


“Why?”


He struggled to put it in terms she could understand without putting a rainbows-and-butterflies spin on it. “Because I saw a bad thing.”


His normally animated daughter wore a somber look. “I was scared.”


“Scared of what?”


“Scared that someone hurted you and that’s why you were so sad.”


“Oh, no, Liesl, honey. I’m sorry you were scared. No one hurt me. Doing my job… sometimes I see stuff that hurts me inside.”


She nodded and her pigtails bounced. “Sometimes, when I’m sad, my heart hurts.” Then she bent forward and placed a kiss on his chest. “Did that make it feel better?”


Tears sprang to Cam’s eyes. He pulled his precious girl closer to the heart she owned. “Yes, sweetheart, it really did.”


Liesl squirmed away. “Now can I give you the surprise?”


He chuckled at the rapid reminder of her short attention span. “By all means. What is it?”


“First, you gotta wear this.” She grabbed a gold paper crown she’d embellished with pink glitter glue swirls and tiny hearts cut from construction paper. “You get to be the King of Hearts.”


Cam froze. That was the title given to the king and queen of the junior winter formal. The title that Jeff Wingate had worn.


A happy, humming Liesl tugged the crown over his head, repositioning it until it was exactly how she wanted it. Then she noticed his change in posture. “Daddy, what’s wrong? Is the crown too tight?”


“No. It’s just…”


She placed her hands on his cheeks and stared into his eyes. “Does your heart hurt again? ‘Cause I can give it another kiss. Sometimes, it takes a whole bunch.”


And sometimes in a single instant, it just took the sweetness of one little girl, the happy screaming laughter of his kids, and the loving indulgence of his wife to set everything in his world right again.


That’s when he really understood he was nothing like Jeff Wingate. When the darkness encroached, he didn’t hide in it for long. He let his wife and children be the forces of nature that pulled him back into the light where he belonged.


“Are you worried that Mommy might feel bad because you’re the king? Because every king needs a queen, Daddy, everyone knows that. So Mommy has a crown, too. She’s the Queen of Hearts. I put purple hearts on yours because Mommy said a purple heart is a sign of bravery.”


“What color are the hearts on Mommy’s crown?”


“Red. Because red means love.”


“Yes, indeed it does. Mommy is all full of love, isn’t she?” He cleared his throat. “So are you. Making us matching crowns is a good surprise, Liesl. Thank you.”


Liesl snorted. “Daddy, that’s not the surprise.”



“It’s not? There’s more?”


“Yes!” She clapped her hands. “We’re gonna put on a Valentine’s Day play for the King and Queen! All of us. Even the little kids. Even Gracie. It’s all set up in my bedroom. Everyone is waiting for me to bring the king so the show can start.”


His theatrical daughter loved to put on a show. That meant impromptu costumes and props from the barn and cardboard backdrops done in crayon, and live music—usually kazoos, a xylophone, maracas, drums and a harmonica—basically full out chaos, kids fighting and screaming and crying, popcorn on the carpet and spilled juice. A total mess that’d take three days to clean up.


He couldn’t wait to be a part of it.


Cam adjusted his crown, smiled at his daughter, and bowed formally, while holding onto his crutches. “Well, then, Princess Liesl, lead the way.”


She giggled. “Daddy, You’re silly.”


“That’s your highness to you, young lady. Come on. The King of Hearts can’t keep his subjects waiting, can he?”


ROUGH ROAD


Rough Road: Chapter One


“Mama, what’s a faggot?”