“Me too. How about you read your letter to me?”
Her heart pounded. She couldn’t do that. For some unknown reason, she’d been honest with Santa. She’d assumed they would just seal it in an envelope and mail it to the North Pole or something. How could it never have occurred to her that he would read it?
“I can’t do that. It’s for Santa.”
There were things in that letter he couldn’t know.
“I don’t think Santa will care, babygirl. I want to hear it.”
“But… but if I tell you what I wished for, I won’t get it.”
“Nice try, Foxy, but those are birthday candles and shooting stars. They don’t apply to your letter to Santa. That's okay, though. If you really don’t want to read it to me, we can do something else. How about I make us a hot chocolate?”
Relief washed over her so quickly she thought she might faint. That letter was coming with her when she left. Her Daddy could never see it.
“I can draw you a picture while I wait for my chocolate. I mean, if you want. I don’t have to or anything. I just thought you might?—”
His strong fingers lifted her chin so she could meet his gaze. “I like it when you look at me, Kip. I want you to always look me in the eye when we talk, unless I tell you otherwise. Understand?”
Um… no. Making eye contact with him made her nervous. It was too easy to reveal something through her eyes. She opened her mouth to tell him she would look at whatever she wanted to, but instead, she blurted out, “Yes, Daddy.”
Sigh.
She was such a scaredy-cat sometimes.
“That’s my good girl,” he said. His voice soothed her more thanany hot chocolate ever could. “Now, you draw me a picture while I fix our drinks.”
Pulling out the sketchpad Tildi had said she could keep, Kip grabbed the large bag of coloring pencils. After searching through all the colors, she found the soft plastic pencil case filled with charcoal pencils. If this was the only thing she’d ever give Trace, she wanted it to be special.
Luckily, it took Trace long enough to make the drinks for her to finish. It wasn’t her best drawing, but she liked it. Her heart quickened as he headed back to the loveseat.
“Okay, this is Daddy’s hot chocolate,” he said, placing a steaming mug on the side table next to his seat. “And here’s your hot chocolate little fox. I hope you like it.”
She sipped from her mug and tried not to let her eyes roll back in her head. It was delicious. Cocoa, maple syrup and cinnamon made a fantastic hot chocolate.
Reaching for her sketchbook, she hesitated. What if he didn’t like it? He might think it was silly. Maybe he wouldn’t get the connection at all.
“Hey,” he called to her, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Whatever your brain is telling you right now, it’s lying. Your picture is going to be fine. I’m going to love it. Not because it’s good, although I’m sure it is. I’ll treasure it because it’s from you. Now let me see.”
Gah! He was such a good Daddy. Life was so unfair! Why would life give her an incredible man who didn’t want to be a Daddy? And then turn around and give her a Daddy who wanted her, but that she couldn’t have?
Taking a deep breath for courage, she turned her sketchbook around so he could see her drawing.
For a moment, he just stared. She began to pull it back. He hated it. It was a stupid thing to draw.
Trace grabbed her wrist without taking his eye off her drawing.His eyes shifted to her, and the wonder she saw in them calmed the voices in her head.
“My foxy little girl,” he said. “Kip, this drawing is amazing! I can’t believe you drew it in such a short amount of time. Tell me about your picture, babygirl.”
Before she could speak, he pulled her back onto his lap. It was already her favorite place to be. In that moment, she forgot how to be scared. She stared into his eyes and explained exactly what her picture meant.
“Well, I thought, since you call me little fox, I’d draw a fox for you. This fox has been running for a long time. That’s why her fur looks more like flames. But now, she thinks she’s found a safe place, so she’s considering jumping to it. The only problem is there’s a wolf just off the page that you can’t see. It might catch her before she leaps. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
But fear had teeth, just like the wolf, and it always found her. Always.
The fox was planning to run, and the wolf was going to catch her someday. All she could do was make sure she wasn’t around anyone else she cared about so the Wolf Rios wouldn't get them, too.
CHAPTER 7
