She was like that. Jake was impressed with his daughter, and while it might be because she was his, he felt he could see a deep intelligence sitting behind those bright blue eyes of hers.
“Better than we could have hoped,” Jake agreed. “I think Brenda is going to be pushing Nate for one of their own.”
“You sensed that too,” Karin replied. “She was really taken with Janna. She wanted to take care of her whenever she could.”
Jake signaled a lane change and shifted to the right, falling in behind a pair of cars that were already in the far right-hand lane. Both he and Karin shed a certain tenseness as the car slipped into the turnoff exit they had taken so many hundreds of times before. Less than a mile and they would be home.
The last two years had been good to them, despite Jake’s misgivings about moving into California with its many restrictions and crazy politics. Karin’s career had sky-rocketed, and Jake had been able to distance himself from the frequent need to correct the twisted actions of those anti-social individuals that felt the need to express themselves violently. Sometimes a situation would arise that he could handle without resorting to violence. Those were usually local. For the major events, he simply gathered the information from the news and then called Susan Carlson back in Washington. She would take his input and deal with the problem. Only a couple of times had situations developed where she had asked him to become personally involved. Most of the time he worked on his computer projects, although since Janna had come along he had moved into a mister mom role. Karin had offered to quit and stay at home with him. They didn’t need the money her now hefty salary brought in, but Jake knew she loved her work, and he didn’t mind the situation.
It was now fully dark outside, the streets lit by the occasional street lamp and the lights from the windows of the houses on either side. Jake noted that the drizzle had let up, as if realizing they were home and it could no longer be a bother anyway. He turned off the windshield wipers as he turned into the cul-de-sac where they lived. Theirs was the house all the way at the end, and he could see its shadowy outline offset by the tall trees on either side. The house was dark other than the single light in the upstairs window they left on when they were away. He pressed the button on the dash that opened the garage door and saw the light appear under it as it raised. By the time he reached the driveway, the door was all the way open, and he pulled smoothly into the garage alongside the Toyota Highlander that waited patiently in the right hand spot.
The door closed behind them. Karin slid out and opened the back door to extract Janna from her car seat, while Jake opened the door into the house and walked inside turning on lights and making a quick check for anything out of place. All looked exactly as they had left it. He walked over to the temperature control, and selected the normal program that they used when home. He heard the heater come on to bring the temperature up another ten degrees. Then he went out to unload their bags.
Karin stretched and yawned. She had never been a morning person, and she looked at him hopefully, one eye peering from under a pillow.
“We’re going to need some things,” she said.
“I’ll make a run to the store,” Jake volunteered. He’d already decided that he’d need to go this morning anyway.
That earned him a passionate kiss and a promise for later. He climbed out of bed and dressed in jeans and a casual shirt. He’d just grabbed his keys off the dresser when they heard Janna moving around and complaining from the other room. The small audio monitor placed next to her crib alerted them to any discomfort she was having.
“Go on,” Karin said, as she slipped out of bed and grabbed her robe. “Diaper time. I’ll see to her.”
Jake smiled and headed off. He walked through the great room and headed toward the garage, where he climbed into the Highlander. Moments later he was on his way, noting the gray skies foretold of more rain today. It was early enough that few of his neighbors were up, although he saw a couple of lights in