Page 63 of Rescuing Mary

“Thanks.”

“Mommy told me that being scared means you’re about to do something brave.”

Truck closed his eyes and tried to control his emotions. “She did, huh?”

“Yeah. And when the bad guys had us, I was really scared, but I was brave too. You were there, and you made sure we were safe.”

“Good.”

“Truck?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you gonna make Mary smile again?”

“Annie!” Fletch scolded from behind the couch. “We talked about this.”

Annie picked her head up from Truck’s shoulder and glared at her dad. “I wasn’t going to tell. I just miss Mary too! She hasn’t been over in forever. I want to see her and practice my sign language with her in person. It’s not the same over the Internet. And she was sad the last time we FaceTimed.”

Truck’s mind was spinning. The dull throb was back, but not as bad as it had been this morning. Holding Annie felt good. Right. Even listening to her talk was soothing. It wasn’t that he remembered the little spitfire, but it was as if his body remembered her. There was something about her little hand on his cheek that made him melt inside and felt very familiar.

“Annie Elizabeth,” Fletch warned.

The little girl’s eyes dropped. “Sorry, Daddy,” she said contritely.

Truck wanted to laugh. She had Fletch wrapped around her little finger, and she knew it.

“Damn, Fletch, I never thought I’d see the day,” Truck said.

“That’s five bucks!” Annie yelled, and held out her hand expectantly.

“Huh?”

“Five bucks. You said a bad word. Now that I have my tank, it goes toward my college fund. Daddy says that when he’s having an adult conversation with his friends that it doesn’t count, because sometimes the bad words just come out, but when someone’s talking to me, like this, then it totally counts. So…you owe me five dollars!”

Truck chuckled. “How much do you have so far?” he asked the little girl.

“Almost four thousand dollars,” she told him proudly.

Truck choked. “Seriously?”

Annie nodded. “Daddy’s friends say a lot of bad words,” she said nonchalantly, then wiggled her fingers impatiently.

Truck leaned over, pulled his wallet out of his pocket, took out a five-dollar bill, and put it in Annie’s hand. She beamed at him and climbed off his lap. She ran over to Fletch and waved the money in front of him. “Look, Daddy!”

“I see, squirt.”

Annie smiled happily and went back over to where Truck was sitting on the couch. “Does your head hurt?” she asked.

Truck immediately envisioned Mary asking him the same question. He should be sick of people asking him that by now, but for some reason, he didn’t mind if Annie or Mary asked. “A little.”

“Oh. Then you should rest some more. Mommy says when something hurts that there’s nothing like a good nap to fix it.”

“Your mom sounds smart.”

“She is. Her belly hurts all the time so she sleeps a lot right now. But that’s just my brother being impatient to come out and meet me.”

“Your brother, huh?” He looked up at Fletch. “You didn’t tell me you were having a son.”