Chapter 1

“Delia, Delia ... please come down, we need to get going!” I said, yelling up the stairs.

We were taking a five-day driving trip to my brother’s place. It was myself, Jim, 44 ... Delia, my oldest at 21 ... Sarah, 19 and my youngest, Annie, who is 16.

I am a widower. My wife was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was killed by the stray bullet of a turf war. We moved 600 miles away. That was two years ago.

Being the father of three girls has its peculiarities, so I asked Delia to be available when the discussion would be better suited between two girls. She was very smart. She got through college in three and a half years, and then moved back to help me recover from the loss of Pamela, my wife.

I work from home for Accenture, so anywhere I lived I can work. With Delia and her two suitcases and a backpack, and my other girls having just as much, it ended up with Annie and Sarah in the very back, and Delia and me up front. We flipped a coin and I started the driving. No big deal.

“Everybody settled in?” I yelled.

‘Yep’ ‘Yes’ and a ‘Hell Yes’ from Delia told me to get started. As I was driving down the road looking to get on the freeway, I heard from the back of the car, “Are we there yet?” followed by giggles from my youngest daughters. That has been a running gag in our family for a very long time.

Delia looks the most like her mother, with the luxurious long black hair, opal colored eyes and a figure that could grace any magazine cover in the world.

Annie and Sarah are also pretty, but took more of my characteristics, including light brown hair and blue eyes. They also seem to be getting the same nice round breasts as their mother had.

“Daddy,” Delia asked me, “Do you think I’m pretty?”

What a loaded question. “What makes you ask that, sweetheart?”

“The last few boyfriends I’ve had seemed skittish after a few dates,” she answered.

Our conversations often were about men and women these days.

“What exactly do you mean, Delia?”

“Well, since I live at home, they all seem to get nervous around the time I suggest they meet you.”

That made me feel better about my ‘dad-ishness, ‘ I am 6ft3, Delia is 5ft8. I do have a gun case with seven separate revolvers and three rifles on display.

My favorite is my refurbished working Winchester Model 70. I remember how one of her beaus came in to meet me, and I had pulled out my favorite rifle asking him, ‘Have you ever gone hunting, Richard?”

“No, Sir, I haven’t!”

“Hunting is really cathartic. Maybe some time, we all can go hunting together. Delia is a crack shot, like Annie Oakley,” I said.

Delia was in the room, rolling her eyes at my dissertation, and Richard seemed intimidated. I don’t understand why. After he left, she said, “Daddy, that was rude of you.”

“Did I say anything that wasn’t true, D?”

“No, but it was still over the top.”

“Whoever you end up with, needs to understand my position on gun’s and my daughters.”

“I remember the first time meeting your mother’s father,” I said to her. “I was taller and more muscular than he was. We hit it off and he allowed me to date your mother.”

“Allowed?”

“That was a different time back then, Sweetie, there were standards and expectations from both parents and their children. Girls brought boys home to meet the parents. The father had to give his approval if the boy wanted to marry his daughter.”

“Lots of things like that. Times have changed. These days’ guys and gals ‘hook up’ for a while to see how things work, and then maybe she brings him home to dad. Much of the time, the girl finds herself pregnant, and never comes home again thinking she might be ostracized and/or expected to have an abortion.”