like you're stuck with me."
Her lower lip jutted forward ominously.
"Hey, none of that." He grabbed her by the waist. She was so tiny, her bones so small and delicate--
"Not that way!" She wriggled out of his grasp, giggling. He'd never heard a sound quite like that before. Not in the house where he grew up. "That tickles."
"What tickles?" he asked, taking her by the waist again. "This?"
Her giggles grew louder. "You're doing it wrong!" He let her slip out of his grasp again. Her golden eyes twinkled with merriment.
"So how do I do it right?"
"Here," she said, pointing under her arms. "That's how my mommy does it."
"How do you know your mommy does it the right way?"
"Because my mommy knows how to do everything."
A lump the size of Gibraltar formed in his throat and he swallowed hard, trying to dislodge it. Out of all their fire and all the pain, he and Megan had created this perfect little girl.
He put his hands under her arms and swung her up onto the painted palomino. "Your mommy is a very good mommy, isn't she?"
Her eyes were on a level with his. "My mommy is the best in the world." She peered at him curiously. "Your eyes are wet."
"No, they're not."
She leaned forward and touched his cheek with the tip of her finger. "Yes, they are."
"I have a cold."
"You haven't sneezed once."
"I have a sneezeless cold."
She giggled again. "You're silly."
"Yeah," he said, smiling at her. "Sometimes I am."
The carousel lurched forward and he made to jump off.
"No!" Jenny grabbed for his shoulder. "You have to stay, too. I'm just a kid. I could fall off."
"We wouldn't want that to happen." He glanced around, surprised to see that for every young rider there was an adult.
"You have to stand real close," Jenny ordered. "Mommy always holds the horse's leash."
"Reins," he corrected. "The horse's reins."
A big dimple appeared in her left cheek. Bloody hell, he thought. My mother had a dimple in her left cheek. He hadn't really thought about his mother in years and now he could see her standing in front of him.
"You didn't laugh," she said, brows slanting into a frown. "I told a joke."
"Sorry, Jennifer. I was thinking of something else." He focused his attentions on her. "Tell me your joke."
"Horses don't have reins," she said, "clouds have rains."
He stared at her, dumbstruck.
"You're not laughing," she said, looking disappointed. "Don't you get it?"
"I get it," he said, as a laugh, a real one, erupted. The kid understood homonyms. His chest felt swollen with something suspiciously like pride.
"Really?" asked Jennifer, her eyes sparkling with delight.
"Really," he said, patting her awkwardly on the head.
He couldn't bring himself to look over at Megan. He felt naked, his emotions exposed. It was like a different man had crawled inside his skin, a man who wanted things he couldn't have. Things he wouldn't know how to handle if he did have them.
"Why do you call me Jennifer?" she asked as the carousel slowed down.
"That's your name, isn't it?"
"Only teachers call me Jennifer." She made a funny face. "You should call me Jenny."
"Jenny." He swung her from the horse, aware of the way her hair smelled of shampoo, of the delicate framework of bone and muscle, of how she was everything good and right about the time he and Megan had spent together.
"Do you have a little girl of your own?"
"Uh--" He hesitated. Talk about a loaded question. "Yeah," he said after a long moment. "I do."
"I don't have a daddy," she confided. "He and my mommy got di--" She paused, searching for the right word. "Di-vorced a long time ago. We haven't seen him since I was in mommy's tummy."
"Your mom does a good job taking care of you, doesn't she?"
Jenny nodded vigorously. "But I still wish I had a daddy. Daddies take you lots of places." She looked at him. "Besides mommy says she won't have a new baby unless we have a daddy."
There was no safe response so he let her comment pass. He started toward the ticket booth where Megan and Stace were waiting.
"You have to hold my hand," Jenny said, looking up at him. "Don't you hold your little girl's hand? Kids can get lost in malls."
"We wouldn't want that to happen, would we?"
Her hand disappeared within his. A feeling of such tenderness, such painful towering joy washed over him that for a second he couldn't draw a breath. He had to remind himself that it was only for one day.
#
"Are you