“No, why do you want us to be miserable forever?” She tossed her hands up with a hefty dose of drama.
Drama that didn’t work on him. He was immune to her drama. That was his superpower.
Still, the miserable part? That stung quite a bit. But that was being a parent, he’d learned, wasn’t it?
“I’m that bad?” he asked.
“Dad.” She frowned.
“Annie, love, my hands are full. Two restaurants, one house, one daughter, and a try again for a show on the telly?Youget my attention. There’s no time for funny business with a girlfriend.”
“You’re not even trying.” Annie slid from her chair, stood, and marched to her dresser.
She pulled open the top drawer with the wrath of a ten-year-old who lost her mobile. She nearly slammed it closed, but glanced up at him at the last moment and pushed it quietly shut with one finger.
For whatever reason, that seemed to make her point more than if she’d slammed the bloody thing.
“Annie?” he asked.
She turned, but it was clearly not because she wanted to, but because she understood she had to.
“There’s a new girl from up the street. If you see her at school, be kind to her, all right?” he asked.
She nodded before she pulled a pink sweatshirt with little hearts over her head.
His daughter may look for a mum in all the wrong ways, but she had a heart the size of the whole outback. That washersuperpower. It’s what made being her dad worth every second.
“Fine.” Annie slunk out the door to the hallway. “Fine. Fine. Fine.”
Maybe not this particular second. She may have saidfinefour bloody times, but it still didn’t sound fine. Not at all.
Chapter Four
EMMALINE
Emmaline stifled her building yawn,stopped sketching—she’d been playing with a cartoon drawing of a chef that looked a little like Ethan Greene—and refocused on the computer monitor.
She now used her art degree to design insurance billboards. Uh-huh, say hello to the newest head of graphic design for National Country Insurance based in Denver. This post-divorce gig sort of used her skill set.
Unfortunately, this job would kill every creative neuron in her brain, numb as they were from the drag-and-drop process she’d gone through so far for insurance agents all over the country. After a while, all of their faces started to look the same as she plugged in their photos and updated their names, addresses, and phone numbers.
Of course, that meant the branding was cohesive. But it also meant the branding was dull as all hell.
She heaved a sigh and stared at the computer screen.
Persistence itself was attached to the sudden knocking on her door, jolting her from the drag-and-drop hellscape.
“Yoo hoo, hello,” a female voice called. “I know you’re in there, Em!”
Emmaline grinned harder than she had in months.
Barbie peeked through the long, thin window beside the door. She waved. The feathers she’d pinned in her hair bobbed with the motion.
Emmaline wished she had some feathers for her hair. Feathers were fun and adventurous. Sort of like she used to be.
She made a mental note to buy hair feathers. Then she squeed internally because, just like that, the morning did not suck. Yep, Barbie was her best friend in all of Denver.
All the world, really.
