Daddy’s Law by K.C. Crowne
Chapter 26
Theo
“Thank you,” I said to Ava in the kitchen.
We were busy preparing dinner while Cory was upstairs, painting. Our last-minute exhibit seemed to have sparked his creativity, and he was eager to get to working on his own project.
Ava grinned as she helped me chop vegetables. She’d put my cooking apron on, which was much too big for her, so she had to double knot the strings behind her back to keep it from slipping. I thought she looked adorable.
“No need to thank me. Teaching’s what I do.”
“Have you always been this good with kids?”
“I guess. Must just come naturally to me or something.”
“Tell me your secrets.”
She giggled, light and bubbly. “There’s no secret. I treat them like mini-adults. I think they appreciate the respect. Makes them a lot more open with you. If you coddle them or suffocate them, they’ll want space between you to prove their independence. The opposite is true, too. Give them too much space, and they’ll come running to you seeking approval. It’s very psychological.”
“You’ve really got kids all figured out, huh?”
Ava shrugged. “They’re not so complicated. I think they’re a lot easier to get along with than people my age or older.”
“How so?”
She slid the diced onions into the massive pot of spaghetti sauce I’d been stirring to keep it from burning. “They’re easy to impress and they rarely have ulterior motives.”
“Teaching really is your calling.”
Ava smiled. “I know. I’m glad I chose it.”
“What did your parents want you to grow up to be?”
“Dad wanted me to be a lawyer. Follow in his footsteps into politics after that. He used to say he wanted to start his own political dynasty like the Kennedys or the Bushes.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Let’s just say I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea.”
“And your mother?”
“She wanted me to be the next Miss America.” She rolled her eyes. “Can you imagine? Me strutting down a runway in a gaudy gown, answering questions about how to achieve world peace in under sixty seconds.”
The idea was certainly amusing. I could easily picture Ava in a red evening gown, ridiculously large diamond tiara sparkling atop her pretty head. But it wouldn’t be her. Even though I knew she could pull it off if she wanted to, the woman I’d come to know was far too down-to-earth for that sort of thing.
“What about you?” she asked me. “Did you always want to join the Army?”
“No, I wanted to be an auctioneer.”
Ava laughed. “An auctioneer?”
“What’s so funny?”
“Sorry, sorry. Nothing’s funny. That’s just super random.”
“My uncle was an auctioneer,” I defended. “He used to hold pretend auctions on my front lawn, threatening to sell off my bike to the local kids for mere pennies when I misbehaved. I liked how fast he talked.”
“Then why didn’t you?” she asked. “Become an auctioneer.”
“Job security.”
“Ah, I should have known. Always so serious.”
I shrugged. “I came from a military family. My father served, so did my grandfather and my great-grandfather. It just made sense that I would, too. I got into West Point, and then I served a couple of tours once I graduated.”
Ava set her chopping knife down, nibbling on her bottom lip. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“How’d you meet your wife?”
I looked her in the eye. I rarely spoke about Cassandra anymore. It was too painful. But with Ava, I didn’t mind. I knew that with her, I was free from judgement. All she wanted was to get to know me better. I figured after all we’d been through, she deserved to see me with my walls down. I trusted her enough to do that much.
“High school sweethearts,” I said. “We got married the day before I left for my first tour. She was a travel agent. One of the perks of her job was that she was able to score us some pretty sweet trips. We’d take Cory to Disneyland every few years when I came home.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“It was.”
“I’d like to take my kids there one day. I feel like it’s every parent’s obligation to do it at least once.”
My ears perked up. “You want to have kids?”
The tips of her ears burned pink. “I might. One day. I like the idea of having a big family.”
My stomach flipped. “Oh?”
“I guess it has something to do with the fact that I was an only child. Kind of lonely around the house without someone to play with, you know?” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “What about you? Ever think about having another kid? Give Cory a sibling.”
I swallowed. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I see,” she murmured.
“It took Cory’s mother and me a long time to have him, and then we never were able to have another one. And now, it’s just… I’m a little too old to have another kid, you know?”
Ava slipped her apron —my apron— off and folded it neatly, placing it on the kitchen counter. Her face was pleasant, but her eyes were stony. “I get that.”
Something in the air shifted, dropping a couple of degrees. Even though we were really close, we couldn’t have been further apart.
“Ava—”
“I’ll go wash up and get Cory for dinner,” she said quickly before leaving me to finish cooking.
My feet carried me after her a few paces, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. I’d upset her, I knew that much, but I didn’t have a sweet clue how I was supposed to fix it. I was just about to call out her name when my phone rang.
“Hello?” I answered in a huff.
“I want her on the move at seven-hundred hours,” Jesse instructed. “Wilson will text you the address in the morning to limit the number of parties who know her location. She needs to be packed and ready to go first thing, understood? We’ll be moving her father to a different but equally secure location.”
I ignored the sticky lump lodged in the back of my throat. This was it. This time tomorrow, Ava would officially be out of my care. The voice in the back of my head wanted to find an excuse so I could keep her, just for a little while longer, but I knew I was walking a very thin line between doing what was right and doing what I wanted.
“She’ll be ready,” I told him, speaking past the numbness in my chest.
