Christine Flynn - Father and Child Reunion Part 2

That’s what they were trying to decide now.

Molly sat on the edge of the bed, hugging Ted and contemplating the underside of the white eyelet canopy. Rio was stretched at an angle as he reached across the bed to secure his gift in the corner of the canopy frame, looking totally out of place in the overtly feminine room. Corded muscle shifted beneath his black shirt when he pulled back, his dark head reappearing from under the filmy white fabric.

“How’s that?” he asked the child.

Molly looked to her mom.

“How about there, Mommy?”

“It’s up to you, honey. If you like it there, it’s fine.”

“But I want you to see.”

Eve couldn’t see where “there” was from the doorway. Forcing back her reluctance, she stepped into the room, picked up a coloring book from the floor on her way and dropped it on the French provincial dresser by the old rocking chair.

“You know, Molly,” Rio said when Eve stopped next to the child. “Even without the dream catcher, you don’t need to be afraid when you sleep. I don’t imagine your mom is very far away.”

“She sleeps in there.” A small index finger pointed to a door kitty-corner across the hall. “It’s where she used to study. This is where she slept when she was little.”

The room, like its former occupant, had grown up over the years. But other than the bright art prints on the wall, there was nothing to reveal much about the woman herself. The storybooks and dolls all belonged to her daughter.

Rio seemed to sense that there was little here of the girl he’d once known. And all that was visible in the room across the hall was the corner of the rose-print coverlet on the daybed. So he didn’t bother to look around as he might have, searching for clues as to who Eve had become. He simply held her glance, watching her as if her eyes told him all he needed to know—that his presence here wasn’t as welcome as she let it seem.

He didn’t know quite what to make of her. For reasons he didn’t care to explore, it made him feel better to know she felt that way about him, too.

“She keeps the door open,” Molly added, ever so helpfully. “`Cept sometimes when I wake up at night, she’s not there. That’s when I get scared.”

Eve saw Rio’s wide brow lower just before she smoothed her hand over the little girl’s shoulder. “I always leave the light on for you,” she reminded Molly, more concerned with what the child had just revealed than with what Rio might think of it. “And you know I’m never far away. I’m usually right downstairs.”

Molly’s little mouth screwed up in one corner. “I know. But how come you always get up after you go to bed?”

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