Next Door Daddy Read Online Free PDF Page B

for Gil, she needed to feel in control of something in her life again. Each thing she marked off her list helped.
    She and Marc had had some savings, but they’d also had a good life-insurance policy. Marc hadn’t taken his responsibility lightly, especially with his love of extreme sports. However, Polly wanted to stand on her own two feet. She’d invested Marc’s money and kept enough back to use as seed money for the business, and she was trying to live off of their other savings until she had an income from the bed-and-breakfast.
    Marc’s insurance money was funding their dream and, invested wisely, it would always give her and Gil a cushion to fall back on. The bed-and-breakfast showed great promise. Of course, being a worrier, she still feared it could fail. But as far as she could tell it was a healthy fear that kept her aggressive.
    Coming around the corner, she spotted Bogie in his usual morning pose, sitting on the back of the couch, looking regally funny in his collar. She was convinced the dog thought he was a cat. Of course, his oddities weren’t exclusive to him. The shar-pei breed wasn’t fond of water, they batted balls around on the floor with paws cupped like a cat’s, and because of their huge protector instinct, they loved to climb to a high spot. It gave them a lookout advantage, she assumed. Bogie preferred the couch but climbed up on anything available. If chairs were left pulled away from anything he climbed onto it—the table, vanity or desk—and proudly kept watch. But climbing wasn’t his only extracurricular activity. Sometimes he took things. Before she caught him on top of her desk, she’d thought she was going crazy when things would go missing and turn up in weird places. Like her pocketbook behind the corner chair, or her hairbrush behind the toilet!
    The breed also had a natural instinct to bond with a family unit. It was this reason her parents had given them the wrinkled pup. They knew she worried about Gil’s emotional state since losing his daddy and they wanted to relieve her a little by giving him something with a huge capacity to love and protect.
    What they hadn’t realized was that shar-peis didn’t have tremendous life expectancies…eight, ten years maybe. Polly hated the thought of Gil bonding with something so strongly only to lose it. She knew the fear was also for herself.
    And yet with Bogie, Pepper and Gil’s two turtles they were on their way to raising a farm. Add in the goat Gil wanted and the cow she wanted, and she seriously was going to have more to worry about. If any one of those animals died, she was going to have to watch Gil suffer again.
    Death cut deeper than she could bear. Fear of it could be paralyzing…even for a woman with a strong faith in the Lord. If she could, she would protect Gil from ever having to experience it again.
    A flash of color caught her eye and she looked up just in time to see Gil whizzing down the banister. He let out a whoop and landed on his feet with a thud. Just the luck of a worrywart like her, her son was part mountain goat. And fearless like his father.
    â€œGil, you keep sliding down that banister and you’re going to hurt yourself. You’ve got to stop that,” she admonished. Her heart was thudding.
    â€œMom, it’s fun.”
    Fun. That was the name of the game when it came to Gil. Again, just like it had been for his father. Polly smiled despite herself, her heart swelling with love and fear at the same time. Marc would have slid down the banister with him…while she was telling him to stop. “We’ll talk about it later. You ready for breakfast before Rose picks you up for school?”
    â€œOh, yeah, I’m starrr-vin’Marrr-vin, ” Gil drawled, using one of Marc’s favorite sayings. Hearing Gil, or Pepper, come out with one of Marc’s lines always made her smile. She took a deep breath and fought off the