For the Right Reasons by Kara Lennox

Author:Kara Lennox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

MACKENZIE’S EYES WIDENED. “Hey, maybe she knows my mommy!”

“Maybe she does.” Bree seemed to be struggling to hold herself together, and Eric realized he shouldn’t be lurking here, watching and eavesdropping when neither party had noticed him.

He knocked briskly on the doorframe. “Knock knock, anybody home?”

“Daddy!” MacKenzie popped out of her chair and launched herself into Eric’s arms. “Dr. Bree and me is doing—”

“Dr. Bree and I are...” he corrected her gently.

“Bree and I is—are doing homework.”

Bree was hastily dashing her eyes with the back of one hand. “One of MacKenzie’s classmates dropped by with the day’s worksheets.”

“That was nice of Ms. Brown to make sure you didn’t miss anything important.”

“Uh-huh. Dr. Bree says big kids do homework after school.”

“Well, you’re getting to be a pretty big girl.”

Bree stood up. “I’ll just— Um, bathroom.” She made a hasty escape.

Eric let MacKenzie show him all the day’s “worksheets,” which consisted of coloring, connect-the-dots puzzles, spelling and math. She had done them all except for that last problem with the stick-figure family. He gently returned her attention to the family, and she gave the correct answer of four and wrote in the numeral with no extraneous emotion this time.

Meanwhile, Eric was absorbing the fact that not only had Bree given birth to a child, but that the child had died. Losing his mother had been heart-wrenching; losing his wife had been excruciating. How much worse to lose your child, your flesh and blood?

How did anyone survive it?

His respect for Bree and her strength of spirit rose another notch.

“Daddy, look, I colored a puppy.”

Eric looked at the paper his daughter so proudly showed him and was mildly surprised. The puppy was pink and purple. How ironic that the one thing she probably should have colored brown or black had turned into her breakout art project. “That’s beautiful, sweetheart. I love the colors.”

“Except puppies aren’t really purple,” she said with a giggle.

Again Eric was struck by how much he missed MacKenzie’s laughter. He remembered when she was a baby how she would laugh and laugh when he made funny faces at her. He didn’t know what Bree was doing, but MacKenzie was showing some definite improvement. Or maybe it was simply that time was healing her, and Bree’s presence was purely coincidental.

Still, obviously MacKenzie liked “Dr. Bree,” who seemed to have a natural affinity for kids. What a tragedy that she didn’t have her own. It must be hard to see other little girls and wonder what hers might have turned out like, if only.

“Since you’ve done such a good job finishing your homework, would you like to watch TV?”

MacKenzie nodded.

“You can watch in the living room. And maybe you can help Elena fold laundry.”

“Okay.” She slid off her chair and walked to her bookcase, where her toys were lined up with meticulous care. She checked to make sure they were all present and accounted for, then chose a hand puppet of a giraffe to take downstairs with her. She was still worried someone would take her toys away.

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