Page 110 of Callum

“Good. You shouldn’t. You should love our daughter with everything you have,” I lean into her space until our lips brush against one another. “And you should hate me for the rest of our lives, kitten.”

She melts into my chest when I kiss her, the tension finally leaving her shoulders. I breathe her in for a moment before pulling away, my eyes scanning her face. “Are you ready?”

“No.”

Her honest response makes me laugh as I lace our hands together, dragging her toward the door. “Here goes nothing.”

—

She has her mother’s hair, but her eyes are pure MacAlister. Her sharp blue gaze cuts right through my chest as her eyes bounce between Rosalind’s face and mine.

“Mama?” It’s clearly a question, and not one either of us was expecting.

Rosalind flounders for a moment, her mouth opening and closing without any words coming out. Her tongue seems to catch up to her brain after a moment, and she hesitantly mumbles, “Yeah”.

The little girl nods as if meeting your mother for the first time is a normal, everyday occurrence. A woman I hadn’t realized was behind my daughter stands from her chair, but I can’t bring myself to look at anyone but the little girl at her feet.

“You can come in, Rosalind.” The woman’s voice is kind, and she moves toward where we’re still standing in the doorway with gentle steps. I feel Rosalind shake her head beside me, but I ignore it, putting a hand on her back to push her into the room.

It’s an old kitchen with an open-fire oven on the far wall and stone countertops filling most of the space. Our daughter is sitting in front of a small table, coloring something on several sheets of paper. Her attention is still locked on us, though she seems more intrigued by Rosalind. I imagine it’s because she can see so much of her own face in her mother.

I can see it.

I can see Rosalind’s straight nose and high cheekbones: her arched brows and pointed chin. The only thing I see of myself in our daughter are my eyes, and I find some relief in that. Her mother is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I wouldn’t wish our daughter to miss out on even an ounce of that privilege.

We stop a few feet from her, not wanting to get too close, but our brave little girl doesn’t seem as concerned about us as we are about her.

“Look,” she points to the paper she’s drawing on, a giant blob of orange and purple taking up the entire center of the page. She continues to point at the mass of colorful marks, waiting for one of us to say something.

“What is it?” I try to get a better look at the drawing, but it doesn’t look like anything to me.

“Mama.” She points to Rosalind, then directs her finger to the orange and purple blob again. “Mama.”

My eyes cut to Rosalind, who is crying silently next to me. The woman standing behind our daughter hums softly in her throat to get my attention. “Violet has been looking at photos of Rosalind this afternoon.”

Rosalind makes a choked sound as tears stream down her cheeks. She’s crying so hard that I doubt she sees the succinct way our daughter nods her head. It reminds me so much of the way Grant always nods that I nearly laugh.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Violet.” I take a tentative step toward her, then decide it would be better to be on her level. Dropping to a crouch next to her chair, I hold my hand for her to shake. “I’m Callum. I’m your…dad.”

The words feel foreign against my tongue, but I try not to let it show. I’m not sure I’m successful because she doesn’t shake my hand in return. Her eyes trace the lines of my face, and I see the skin between her eyebrows bunch just like Miles’ does when she’s confused about something.

Violet suddenly moves, hopping out of her chair and coming to stand directly in front of me. She brings our faces close together, but I don’t dare move away. She studies me for a long time before reaching out one small hand to pat me on the cheek.

“Okay, daddy.”

What the fuck? My heart melts right out of my body, pooling on the floor at this little girl’s feet. She smiles politely at me as if she hasn’t just wrecked my entire life and put it back together in an entirely new way.

“Okay, Violet,” I whisper, placing my hand over hers, where it’s still pressed against my cheek.

“You can color with me?” Her question comes out of left field, but I agree before she’s even finished asking it. I’ll agree to anything, to everything. She can have the whole world if she wants it. I’ll crush it into nothing and place it at her feet right next to my melted heart.

“Of course I will. Can your Mama color with us?”

Violet looks up at Rosalind, who is now standing very close to my back. I hadn’t noticed her creeping up behind me, but I can feel her now. “You want to color, Mama?”

Rosalind must nod because Violet’s smile brightens even further. “I get Violet,” she declares before spinning back to her little table. The chairs are made for children, but sitting in a full-sized chair would make it impossible to color with her. I reach back, pulling Rosalind onto the floor beside me. We scoot up to the table, settling on either side of our daughter as she hands us each a piece of paper and two markers.

“Color your paper, but not the table or Grim will be angry.”

Rosalind and I share an amused look before uncapping our markers to color a picture with our daughter.

I know in my very soul that I will never let her out of my sight again—either of them. My eyes drift from my kitten to our cub and back again a hundred times while we sit at that table coloring. We’re a family. This is my family, mine and Rosalind’s.

Our family.