A Daughter's Trust

RICK TOLD HIMSELF to forget the woman pedaling beside him. After the way he’d been raised, he’d always wanted to have a family. A close family. That did everything together.

Sue’s goa

l was to remain single, detached. Alone.

Or so she’d said in more than one of their conversations.

And he knew with every fiber of his being that Carrie belonged with him. Whether Sue Bookman helped him get her or not.

If he got the baby, where would Sue fit into his life?

Where did he want her to fit?

She said something about turning back, and his thoughts skidded to a stop. What was he doing, thinking of this woman in terms of his future? He’d known her little more than a week.

“I will be a good father to Carrie,” he said aloud, as much to get himself back on track as anything.

“Rick, you don’t even know if you’ll get a chance. The court might go through with your mother’s adoption of her, regardless.”

He had to get the chance. That baby was not going to go to his mother by default. Fate wouldn’t be that cruel.

“Being a parent is so much more than changing diapers and giving baths,” she said. “It’s more than looking after younger kids in a foster home. It’s a lifetime commitment.”

They’d wheeled past a familiar road about a quarter of a mile back. He’d given it a brief mental acknowledgment and moved past. Now Rick turned back.

Sue followed without another word. Until he signaled the turnoff.

“Where are we going?”

He tried to tell her, but ended up saying, “Humor me.”

“Okay.”

He slowed, and she matched her pace to his. The road was quiet. And short.

“A cemetery?” she asked. “Are you sure we can ride in here?”

“Positive.”

He pedaled slower and slower until he pulled up in front of a headstone and stopped.

“Kraynick,” Sue said, reading the stone.

He nodded. Sort of. As always when he came here, he could barely move.

“Christy?” Sue asked softly. And then answered her own question. “It can’t be. The ground is too settled.”

But the grave site was still new enough that the edges were clearly delineated, the mound of dirt only partially covered with the spindly beginnings of grass.

There was a stone embedded in the ground at the grave’s head, and Rick expected her to get off her bike to read it, but she didn’t. She stayed with him.

And right now, Rick needed her. Needed her like he’d never needed anyone.

She stood between him and what he had to have. And yet, at the same time, she was part of what he had to have.

“I know exactly what it takes to be a father.”

Sue didn’t move, her gaze steady on the stone in front of them.