Kara: I Will Protect You with All My Mind, Body, and Soul
Chapter 1
"Daddy! Daddy! Lookee!" A little 3 year old Kara had both little hands deep in the dirty bait bucket. She then pulled out two fistfuls of dirty red earthworms. While grinning from ear to ear, she confidently held up her wiggling prizes.
"I see Sweety." Peter Caine smiled at his precious 3 year old as he continued to hold on tight to his fly-fishing pole. "So, what do you plan to do with them?" He asked with a sly smile. Peter absolutely loved watching her young mind think.
Kara stood there thinking hard for a second with her tiny hands in the air. Then out of the blue, she quickly stuffed a whole fistful of the earthworms into her tiny mouth.
Stunned, Peter dropped his fly-fishing pole and rushed over to his devilishly smiling daughter. "Kara, Spit those out! Yucky! Yucky!"
He tenderly scooped Kara into his arms. "Here." He commanded as he held out his hand. "Spit those out."
With tears filling her brown eyes, she spit out her mouthful of earthworms into his waiting palm.
Peter quickly wiped the nasty mess against the sharp edge of his metal bait bucket. While carefully juggling his beautiful daughter, he pulled a terrycloth towel out of his fishing pack and proceeded to wipe her cute little face off. Peter then carefully coaxed her to drop the second handful of earthworms back into the aluminum bucket. Finally, after diligently wiping down her hands, he had her all cleaned up.
"I didn't think that you would try to eat them." He laughed. "If you were so hungry, why didn't you say so?" He added as her set her down and gathered up her tiny hand into his.
"Cookie!" Kara screamed as she tried skipping ahead while pulling hard on her Daddy's hand.
"Okay, we will break for lunch." He gave in as he let her tug him toward the waiting Dodge Stealth.
Once back at the waiting purple car, Peter pulled the silver lunch tote out of the trunk along with a red plaid blanket. He softly tossed the red plaid blanket into the air to spread it out but Kara insisted on sitting in the car. "Here Daddy! Here."
So instead, Peter opened up the large silver lunch tote and handed Kara her absolute favorite snack in the whole wide world, Animal Crackers.
"Thank You." Kara said dismissively as she snagged the colorful box from her Daddy. She struggled with determination but managed to get into the Stealth's driver's seat. Once inside, Kara crawled into the passenger's seat and began frantically tearing at the cardboard box of animal crackers.
Meanwhile, Peter had pulled out a Tupperware container of tuna salad and opened up a bag of Ritz crackers. He carefully scooped up some of the tuna salad with the brown cracker and offered it to his cute daughter.
Kara shook her head 'no' and offered up her beat up animal cracker box with tears in her eyes. "Daddy?"
Peter gently patted his leg and opened his strong and yet comfortable arms to invite Kara to sit on his warm lap.
Kara happily crawled onto his warm leg and contentedly leaned her dainty head against his strong chest. She then whimpered pitifully as she offered him then unopened animal cracker box.
As Peter easily opened the beat-up box, Kara ran her tiny fingers over his raised Shaolin Dragon brand. Daddy usually wore a long sleeve shirt. However, today he wore a comfy cotton T-shirt. For the first time ever, he showed his forearms to Kara.
Kara peered up into her dad's soft brown eyes with real concern. "Daddy, hurt?"
"No, not now Kara. It did when I got them but not now." He told her as he presented both brands side-by-side. "Your Granddad has them too, you know?"
As her Daddy stretched out his arms to show off his boo-boos, Kara reached out and snatched the cracker box. She then snuggled in close to her Daddy's strong chest. She could hear the soft thumping in his chest and she LOVED it. Kara happily snacked on the animal cookies as she listened to her Daddy tell a story about his boo-boos. Soon, she was sound asleep.