Chapter 25

Standing up on the chair she hugged him and kissed his cheek. Then sat down and looked up and said, "lease."

"Thank you, Princess," he said and filled her bowl once again.

"AJ, her words are getting clearer. I hope it won't be long until she can talk normal."

"I hope so too. Now if you ladies are done there is a surprise for the princess in the living room..." he hinted with a smile.

"A surprise? What have you done, AJ?" asked Lili, taking Annie's hand and going into the living room and sitting on the couch with her.

He grinned and handed Annie a small package that was wrapped in pretty pink paper. "Here you go, Princess. What do you say when someone gives you a gift?"

Annie's eyes lit up and she reached for the present, looking at AJ, she smiled and said, "Take u." Then she tore open the present to find inside the movie 'Sleeping Beauty'. She jumped up and down, hugging the movie to her, and ran and kissed AJ.

"You'd better be careful or you'll spoil her, AJ, then what will I do?" said Lili watching her very happy daughter.

"You can't spoil a princess, they just deserve all the wonderful things in the world!" he assured her, watching Annie as she ran around the room hugging the movie and then even took it over to show it to Dammit, who didn't seem to care much about it.

"It's so nice out here in the country, I wish we could afford to live out here. It would be so good for Annie to have so much room to play and she could have a puppy or a kitty," sighed Lili. "But I don't see that happening in the near future."

"Well, I just found out that I am going to be a grandfather soon," he frowned at the dog when he said that.

"Your daughter is going to have a baby? When is it due?" she asked. "Are you going to be there when it's born?"

"No, Dammit is going to bless me with puppies! She has been out catting around, and now there will be tiny bundles running all over the house. The reason I brought it up was that if you wanted a puppy for Annie, I am going to have to give them away anyway, she might as well have one of them."

Annie started jumping up and down and screaming, "upes, upes."

"Now see what you have started? We live in an apartment building and there is a no pet policy. Now what do I do?" frowned Lili.

"Well, you could let her pick one out and I guess I could live with two dogs in the house. She could keep it here and come and visit a lot," he offered.

"You'd do that for her?" Lili asked, watching her daughter jumping up and down with excitement.

"Of course I would. Princess, if you had a puppy, what would you want to name it?"

Stopping jumping up and down, she thought really hard and then looked at her mother and AJ and said, "Jo."

Lili gasped and tears filled her eyes at the thought of her daughter naming a puppy after her father. Did she still miss him so? How could she stand to hear her call that puppy Joe, every time she talked to him?

"Lillian, what's wrong?" AJ asked in concern. He had no idea why what Annie had said affected her mother so strongly.

"She is naming the puppy after her father. I didn't know she missed him so badly. I should have realized. Not much of a mother when you can't read your own child," replied Lili shaking her head.

"Of course she misses him! Lillian, don't berate yourself. You lost him too, and in your grief it is easy to miss that others are feeling the same. In time, the pain will lessen and you will only remember the good times," he told her, drawing her into his arms for a comforting hug.

"You're such a wonderful man, AJ, why aren't you married? The women around here must be fools," she said with her head on his chest. "Handsome, caring, and yes, sexy. There, now, I've said it, and now I'm not moving my head up until the red goes away. But for the record, it's all the truth."

To be continued…