The CEO and Her Daughter's Secret Father novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Four

On Saturday my daughter turned four, and she spent the first hour of it hitting a paper donkey with a broom handle.

My mother's backyard was wall to wall with children in party hats.

There were drivers' kids and cousins and the neighbors' twins, and the grown-ups stood along the fence with plates of rice and carne asada.

Streamers hung from the pecan tree, and a bounce house shook in the corner.

Luz stood in the middle of it all in her yellow rain boots and a tulle skirt.

She was the happiest person I have ever seen.

She had demanded one thing for her birthday.

"The new man has to come."

So he had come.

He stood at the edge of the patio in a clean shirt, a gift bag in each hand.

He looked like a man who had walked into the wrong church.

"I didn't know what four-year-olds want," he told me.

"What's in the bag?"

"A truck."

"And the other bag?"

"A bigger truck."

I almost laughed.

Then Luz shrieked his name and flung herself at his legs, and he lifted her before the sound was done.

He had never done it before, and his arms knew anyway.

By the time the piñata came down, she was riding on his shoulders with both fists in his hair.

"Left!" she screamed. "Left, Dell! The donkey's left!"

He turned in a slow circle, and the kids hit the donkey, and the candy burst across the grass.

My mother stood beside the grill with a spatula and watched him through narrowed eyes.

At some point she handed me the spatula, said "Watch the meat," and crossed the lawn.

I watched her walk straight to him and say something into his ear.

He went still.

I could not hear a word of it, so I walked after them with the spatula still in my hand.

I got there in time for the last half.

"...count back nine months from today," my mother was saying, in the tone she used for the price of tomatoes. "Then count back four years. You're an educated man, Haverford."

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