While he’d been shaking inside like a leaf for the entire evening, he’d done his best not to scare a little girl who had done nothing wrong except being the same age that his daughter should have been. After Blake had finished the introductions for everyone, she explained some of the situation to his brothers and Mrs. Gonzales with Rowan in the room; though he figured she kept some details vague for her daughter’s sake. Owen and Mrs. Gonzales had scrounged in his kitchen and had ended up making them all dinner. They ate while discussing an uncomfortable set of conversations that didn’t go too deep. Afterward, Blake had told him she needed to make sure Rowan slept in her own bed that night. For that, he was grateful. Even though he would have let Rowan sleep over, he wasn’t sure he was ready to have another little girl sleep under his roof. Yeah, he was a selfish jerk, but he was working on fixing that. They’d all decided that things should be safe since it had been a formal petition and not something shady, but Blake would be locking the doors tightly.
