Birthright

her.
    “How come?” Doug gave the butt in question a light pat.
    “Doug.” Lana resisted just pulling out her own hair.
    “I don’t know. She’s mean. Can I go home with you?”
    “No, you may not go anywhere, young man, but to your room.” Livid, Lana reached out to tug Tyler away, but the boy clung to Doug like a wiry monkey to a branch.
    “Why don’t you go answer the phone?” Doug suggested, jerking his head toward the shrilling phone. “Give this a minute.”
    “I don’t want you to . . .” Be here. See this. See me. “Fine.” She snapped it out, stalked away to answer the phone.
    He switched off the television and, still carrying Ty, opened the door, whistled for the dog. “Had a rough morning, haven’t you, slugger?”
    “Mommy spanked my butt. She hit it with her hand. Three times.”
    “My mom used to spank me sometimes. It didn’t really hurt my butt. It hurt my feelings. I guess you wanted to hurt hers back when you said you didn’t like her anymore.”
    “I don’t like her when she’s mean.”
    “She get mean a lot?”
    “Nuh-uh. But she is today.” He lifted his head, aimed a look that managed to be woeful, hopeful and innocent all at once. “Can I come live with you today?”
    Jeez, Doug thought, just look at him. A guy would have to be a hell of a lot tougher than Douglas Edward Cullen not to fall for him. “If you did, your mom would be awfully lonely.”
    “She doesn’t like me anymore because the bad guys stuffed up the toilet and it flushed over, and we got the peanut butter and the shoe.” Tears plopped out. “But we didn’t mean it.”
    “Busy day.” Impossible to hold back, Doug admitted, and kissed the hot, wet cheeks. “If you didn’t mean it, you must be sorry. Maybe you should tell her you’re sorry.”
    “She won’t care, ’cause she said we were a couple of heathens.” Ty’s eyes were wide now, and earnest. “What’s that?”
    “Oh boy.” How did a man resist a package like this? He’d gone all his life walking down his own path, alone and satisfied to be alone. Now there was this woman, this boy, this idiot dog. And they all had hooks in his heart.
    “It’s somebody who doesn’t behave. Doesn’t sound like you and Elmer were behaving. Your mom was trying to work.”
    “Brock’s mom doesn’t work.”
    His own voice echoed back to him. His own childhood thoughts as he’d complained or sulked because his mother had been too busy to give him her undivided attention.
    Too busy for me, are you? Well, I’m going to be too busy for you.
    And how stupid was that?
    Hell of a note, he thought, when a four-year-old’s tantrum causes an epiphany in a man past thirty.
    “Brock’s mom isn’t your mom. Nobody’s more special than your own mom. Nobody in the world.” He held Ty close, stroking his hair while Elmer pranced over with a stick, obviously ready for a game.
    “When you do something wrong, you have to make upfor it.” He set Ty down, obliged Elmer by tossing the stick. “I bet that’s what your dad would say.”
    “I don’t have a dad. He went away to heaven and he can’t ever come back.”
    “That’s hard.” Doug crouched down. “That’s about the hardest thing there is. But you’ve got a really great mom. It said so on her shirt.”
    “She’s mad at me. Grandma helped me buy the shirt for Mommy’s birthday, and Elmer jumped and made her spill coffee all over it. And when he did, she said a bad word. She said the S word.” Remembering it had his lips curving again. “She said it two times. Really loud.”
    “Wow. She must’ve been pretty mad. But we can fix that. Want to fix it?”
    Ty sniffed, wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “Okay.”
    Lana finished the call and was on the point of laying her head down on her desk for a minute, for one blissful minute, when she heard the door open.
    She rose, tried to smooth down her hair, to draw some layer of composure around her.
    Then Tyler came in, clutching a ragged bouquet of black-eyed Susans. “I’m sorry I did the bad stuff and said the mean things. Don’t be mad anymore.”
    “Oh, Ty.” Weepy, she dropped to her knees to drag him close. “I’m not mad anymore. I’m sorry I spanked you. I’m sorry I yelled at you. I love you so much. I love you more than anything in the world.”
    “I picked you flowers because you like them.”
    “I do. I like them a lot.” She drew back. “I’m going to put them on my desk so I’ll see them when