Unexpected Love (Timid Souls Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the receiver and I could just picture her signature scowl on her face. It was astounding how such a beautiful woman could be so incredibly ugly. It made me wonder what I ever saw in her. “I don’t want her getting fat, Gabe.”
    I choked out an incredulous laugh. “Are you kidding me? She’s a kid. An active one with a fast metabolism. She burned off those calories in five minutes. She’s going to have body image issues if you don’t quit feeding her that psychobabble bullshit.”
    “I’m trying to protect her from obesity!” she shouted over the line. Another fight, same as always. What a surprise. “Maybe you should be more concerned about your daughter’s health.”
    That’s it. I didn’t even try to contain the volume of my voice this time. “Really, Vanessa? Maybe you should be more concerned about your daughter’s happiness. Or maybe you forgot the time I picked her up crying because her mommy wouldn’t play dolls with her. Or the time she accidentally spilled her Kool-Aid on your new carpet and you went ballistic on her. You’ve got a knack for making her cry, I’ll give you that.”
    “Fuck you,” she spat. “You give her whatever she wants, let her do whatever she wants so she’ll want to stay with you. I’m the one who has to set boundaries and rules. I’m the one who looks like the bad guy because I tell her ‘no.’”
    I shook my head. The woman was so delusional. “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe one day you could even convince yourself that you’re a good mother. What’s one more lie to tell, right?”
    She hung up.
    I sighed and leaned back in my chair. Every conversation with her drained me of energy. Every one of them was vicious and unapologetic.
    That was my ex-wife.
     
    ##
     
    At three-thirty that afternoon, I pulled up in front of my daughter’s school to pick her up and felt a lot of the stress and heaviness melt off of me as soon as I got a glimpse of that little head of raven hair, standing on the sidewalk next to her teacher. She was getting ready to finish her kindergarten school year, and I couldn’t believe the time had gone by so fast.
    I got out of my car and practically ran over to her. She never failed to make my day better, no matter what kind of shit storm I was dealing with. “Daddy!” she squealed when I finally had her scooped up in my arms.
    “Hey, Peanut!” I said as I kissed the top of her head. “What did you do in school today?”
    She held up a picture with a lot of different squiggly lines on it, but a few shapes looked distinctly like stick figures. “I drew you a pitcher,” she replied, showing me her artwork.
    She could have blown her nose and saved it just to show me she knew how to use a tissue and my heart still would have cracked open. I couldn’t be more proud of my little girl.
    “See, here’s me and here’s you and here’s Gingerbread,” she said, pointing to a brown blob that definitely had something akin to a tail coming out of it.
    “Who’s Gingerbread?” I asked but I already had an idea.
    Her head whipped up to flash me a bright smile that was missing one of her front teeth. She lost it last week and had been amazed when the Tooth Fairy visited her overnight. “It’s my horsie! She’s real pretty and has a long black tail and is big enough that I can ride her.”
    Penny and her horses.
    It didn’t escape my notice that Vanessa was not in the picture.
    I looked over at her teacher, Ms. Henderson, and smiled. She was probably in her early thirties and constantly flashed her bare ring finger at me, like after this whole year of conversations with her I wouldn’t have noticed it by now. She was pretty and I got along with her, but I had no interest whatsoever.
    All of my attentions lately had been devoted to a short blonde and only her.
    Ms. Henderson extended the rest of Penny’s school papers to me, which I quickly took before her hand could linger on my arm. She often did that. “Any problems today?” I asked