“Oh. My. Gosh.” Her little palms go to her cheeks. Emersyn’s mouth forms an “o” as she takes in all the sparkling jewelry. “Shaney, everything is so pretty.” Her head tips back, looking up at me. “Ain’t everything so pretty?”

“Isn’t everything so pretty,” I correct. Whitney is damn set on correcting her grammar. She’s three. I don’t see what the point is, but if her mother is going to do it then I need to stand behind her and help. Even if the woman hasn’t uttered one word to me since Saturday afternoon. Two days and she’s still putting up a hard front. “I guess.”

“There is no guessing about jewry.” She cocks her hip to the side giving me a serious look. “All jewry is pretty.”

“Jewelry,” I correct.

She turns, giving me her backside as she walks up to one of the clear cases in front of us. “Why are we here?”

“I have to pick something up. And remember, you promise not to say anything about where we’ve been to your mom or Everly. Right?”

I scoop her off the floor, placing her on the glass countertop above the jewelry cases. I think her eyes get even bigger as she looks down at everything.

“Surprise. I remember.” Her head pops up for all of two-seconds. “My lips sealed.”

“And why are your lips sealed?”

“Because we don’t want to spoil anybody’s surprises.” Her head shakes side to side, making her curls swing. “I like surprises. You like surprises?”

“Yep.”

I don’t, but there is no way I need her thinking about spilling the beans. I should have taken her to that Mommy’s Day Out thing Whitney drops her off at once a week, but I thought the two of us could use time alone together. She may not be my daughter biologically, but I still want to bond with her as if she were.

She was the first one I saw last year when I found Whitney on Facebook. I think I loved Emersyn even then. I didn’t know her. I knew she was another man’s daughter. But I also knew she was a part of Whitney. And there isn’t any part of that woman I don’t love. She can act all kinds of mad if she wants to. She can go a week without speaking to me if she wants, but I still love her. I know she loves me. In the end, that’s all that matters.

“Hi, can I help you?” a man greets us as he walks from a back room behind the jewelry counter. He’s shorter than I am and probably twice as old. He’s wearing a navy dress suit. His hair is solid white. He’s not the man I dealt with last week when I picked out the ring, so my guess he’s the dad of Bradford and Son Family Jewelry.

“We want everything.” Emersyn looks up, serious as a heart attack. I smile. The older man laughs.

“You’re in trouble with this one,” he tells me. I’m inclined to agree. “I’m Bradford Collins. The owner.” He sticks his hand out for me to shake.

“Shane Braden.” I grip his hand briefly.

“Ah.” My name must ring bells. “You have a ring order to pick up, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Give me one moment. It’s in the back. I need to make sure it has been cleaned. I’ll be right back.”

“Sure. Take your time. We’re in no rush.”

Mr. Collins heads back to where he must have been when we walked in. There’s no one else in the jewelry shop as I take in the rest of the small room. It’s an old establishment, or so Gavin, my boss, babbled on about when I told him my plans to ask Whitney to marry me. She’s not divorced yet, but that doesn’t mean she can’t wear my ring until it’s official. And once it is . . .

“Shaney,” Emersyn draws out my name, bringing my attention to her. Glancing down, I see she isn’t looking at me. Her head is still down, and she’s drawing circles on the glass with her fingers.

“Yeah, monk?” I ask, alarm setting in. The way she said my name isn’t her usual bubbly, happy self. She sounds sad.

“Why you want to be Evlee’s dad and not mine?”

Her question halts my breathing. I don’t know how to respond to that. Does she want to be my daughter? I already thought she was, even though officially I’ll be her stepdad when Whitney marries me. Does she want to call me dad like Everly just started doing?

I pick her up off the counter, bringing her to my front. She wraps her legs around me, but her face is still downcast, and her hair is hiding her eyes from me.

“Look at me.” She obeys immediately, her head snapping up. “What do you mean, Em?”

“You Evlee’s dad now. She calls you that, but you not mine. Do you not like me like you like her?”

“Baby girl.” I squeeze her. “I love you, Emersyn Rose.”

“But why you not my daddy? My other daddy not as nice as you.”

Air rushes out of my lungs, making me feel as though I’ve been punched in the gut. What the hell?

“Emersyn.” My voice comes out too harsh, making her jump in my arms. I’ve never spoken to a child like that. I’ve always had a soft, patient voice with kids, but then my patients aren’t exactly my own. “Sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What I do wrong?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Here you go.” I look up as the jeweler walks back up.

Taking the box, I slide Emersyn to my side. “Thanks.” I nod in his direction.

I’d say more, but I’m more worried about the little angel in my arms than being polite to a man I just spent a good chunk of my savings with. Worth every penny, though.

Exiting the shop, I walk down the sidewalk to the end of the block. There’s a street vendor with a couple of tables and chairs. After buying her a cone of chocolate ice cream, I plop her onto the top of the wrought iron table, and then I sit in the chair opposite her.

I pop the top on the ring box. “What do you think?” I ask, flipping it around to show her.

She swallows her ice cream, some already dripping down her chin, but I didn’t grab any napkins so there isn’t much I can do to clean it off.

“That for Momma?” She gives me a wide, teeth covered in chocolate, grin.

“Yes, and you cannot tell her. Okay?”

“I not. It’s real pretty.”

“Em,” I prompt, waiting for her to look at me. When she doesn’t stop staring at the ring like it’s candy, I close the box and pocket it. She looks up then. “I do want to be your daddy. And with that ring, I’m going to ask your mom to marry me. Is that okay with you?”

“Then I can call you dad like Evlee?”

“Monkey, you can call me anything you want, whenever you want. You can call me dad, or keep calling me Shaney. That’s up to you. But I’d be honored if you decide you want me to be your dad.”

“Then I want you to be my dad, and I don’t want to go back to my daddy’s house ever again.” She shakes her head profusely.

“Earlier, when we were in the shop with all the pretty jewelry you said your daddy wasn’t very nice. Why isn’t he nice, monkey?” The doctor in me can’t help but probe, questioning everything this child is saying and trying to decipher it.

“He yells. A lot. And I don’t like it when he says bad things about Momma or Evlee or you.” I’m about to try to explain things when her eyebrows turn in, and she gets a mean look on her face. “And I don’t like when hurts my arms. He’s a meanie, and I don’t want to go back.”

Alarm bells sound in my head as goose bumps ripple up my spine.

“Hurts your arms how?”

She sits her cone on the table. It falls over, the ice cream dripping out and onto the table. She doesn’t seem to notice or even care. Leaning forward, she grabs onto my biceps and tries her hardest to shake me.

More alarms go off and anger spikes.

“He does that when I tell him to stop saying bad things.”

As much as I’d love to find something—anything—to get all of Blake’s rights stripped from him; to get him out of Whitney and the girls lives forever, I don’t want it to be because of this. I don’t want this little angel to have been abused physically or mentally in any way.

The distinct text tone I set for work sounds off, stopping my thoughts and telling me the Chief Resident on call in the Emergency Department has sent me a text message. That typically only means one thing: I have to go into work on my day off.

ED Phone: Can you run up here for a sec?

Me: Sure. Be there in twenty.

Odd. Usually, Roderick gives me some form of a heads up or tells me why I’m needed.

“Kiddo, you want to come to work with me for a bit?”

Her eyes light up, and her mouth falls open, but no sound comes out, then she starts clapping her hands and bobbing her head.

Her excitement makes me chuckle, but I’m looking forward to this time next month when I’ll be rotating back in the children’s clinic instead of the ER. That place will wear on a person’s soul. And at least in the clinic, I’ll have better hours—all daytime hours—and weekends off, meaning I’ll get more time with my family. Maybe my parents are right. Maybe I need to try general pediatrics for a couple of years. I’ve already missed too much time. At least that way I’d be home for dinner every night and my weekends spent making memories with the three most important people in my life.

I grab her off the table, bringing her to my hip, then I tap my pocket making sure the little black ring box is secured. That ring is going to set our family on course to a solid future.