Free Instant Daddy by Carol Voss

picture.
    Peter twisted the swing and let Jake spin.
    Jake squealed with laughter.
    Jessie cringed. A little too rough for her taste, even if her dad did remind her Jake was a sturdy boy every time they roughhoused. She raised the camera and snapped a picture.
    Peter lifted the swing above his head, his long, lean body stretching to the sky, his muscular legs planted firmly on the ground.
    Jessie took a quick breath, her fingers taking a couple extra seconds to find the button on the camera.
    “Want an underduck, Jake?” Peter asked.
    “Undaduck!” Jake shouted.
    All muscles and action, Peter ran under the swing and let it go.
    Jake screeched with laughter, the swing flying far too high.
    Jessie clicked the lens. “That’s too high for him, Peter.”
    “He loves going high.”
    “But if his head jerks back, he could injure his neck.”
    Peter frowned.
    “Pedo! More undaduck!” Jake swung more slowly now.
    Peter glanced at Jessie.
    She shook her head. “He doesn’t know what’s safe and what isn’t. That’s our job.” Our job? She sounded as if they were a real family. A real family just having everyday fun together. What must that be like?
    “Pedo! Undaduck!”
    Peter stepped close to Jake and gave him a modified underduck. “Better?”
    Jessie nodded, relieved he’d deferred to her with Jake’s safety.
    “Pedo! Big undaduck!”
    Peter chuckled. “Can’t do, fella. You have to get bigger for that.”
    Jake pulled his pout.
    Time for distraction. “You want to go on the slide?” Jessie asked.
    “Slide.” Jake drew his legs up and tried to stand in the swing.
    Jessie tensed.
    Thankfully, Peter grabbed him before he could fall. “You’re a little daredevil.”
    “Pedo divil?” Jake patted Peter’s face.
    Peter laughed.
    Jessie snapped a picture. “Don’t forget, words you teach him will come back to bite you.”
    “No doubt.” Peter lifted Jake over his head to straddle his shoulders.
    Fully appreciating the view in her lens, she snapped a great picture.
    “Is it my imagination or are little kids a breath away from disaster at any given moment?” Peter asked.
    Jessie narrowed her eyes. “Do you think I worry too much about him?”
    “In a good way.”
    She met his smiling eyes, her stomach doing a little flip. He looked so much happier than he had yesterday. “Dad says I’ll make a hothouse flower out of him.”
    Jake began bouncing on Peter’s shoulders.
    Peter grasped his legs more firmly. “I doubt there’s much danger of Jake becoming a hothouse flower.”
    She laughed, glad to hear another male’s opinion on Jake. “I’ll tell my father you said that the next time he teases me.”
    Peter ran his gaze over her face. “You have a nice laugh.”
    “Thank you.” She inwardly cringed at the breathiness in her voice. Might as well flash a neon sign announcing “Aware and Interested Female Here.” Which wasn’t true. She’d given up that dream when Neil broke off their engagement.
    Her dream of a husband and family wasn’t all the accident stole from her. After her broken engagement and Clarissa’s death, everybody looked at her in a whole new way than they had when she was the cheerleader dating the town’s prize athlete, the prom-and home-coming queen, the girl voted most likely to succeed in whatever she did. Now, they saw her as a victim who needed help. She hated it.
    Somehow, Peter made her feel like that whole person again. It was nice to be around someone besides Jake who didn’t feel sorry for her. She sighed. But who knew what the man was planning behind those rich brown eyes?
    Reaching for a new train of thought, she pointed to the slide. “I’ll take your picture with Jake on the ladder. But the slide’s too high for him to go down alone.”
    “I can’t remember the last time I was on one of those things.” Peter headed for the ladder, posed at the top with Jake, then stretched his long legs in front of him and zipped down the slide with Jake in his lap.