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Brooke stretched her legs out on the park bench and watched as Ashlyn played in the sandbox with another little girl. Her light blonde strawberry curls were pulled back into the two braids she was insistent that her daddy do for her. Brooke smiled and leaned into Neal. "Looks like your baby girl is making a new friend."
Neal smiled back at Brooke, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek before looking back at the two girls making lopsided castles in the sand. "Yup," he murmured back. "She's a little charmer, that girl..."
Brooke laughed softly. "Ah, just like her Daddy. I have to commend you on her braids... You are getting better at it."
"She makes sure I get lots of practice, that's for sure..." Neal replied with a grin, his gaze soft as he studied the back of Ashlyn's head. "Never ever thought I'd enjoy that."
Brooke stopped herself from getting up when Ashlyn put her hands on her hips and frowned at a little boy that had come over to play with them. "Never thought that you'd enjoy what?"
"Doin' up her hair," Neal replied, cocking his head slightly as Ashlyn's body language changed. "You know me, hon...wash and wear's the way to go. Hell, I even cut my own..."
Brooke laughed softly. "She's a daddy's girl, what can I say..." She turned back to the sandbox, watching their daughter, and raised her eyebrows at her posture. "She is getting a tad irritated with that little boy."
"Mmm..." Neal hummed noncommittally, his gaze immediately sharpening as his attention shifted to the boy. "Wonder what's up."
Brooke leaned up and watched as Ashlyn stood up on the side of the sandbox, her little mouth going a mile a minute. "I would say that she is putting that little boy in his place."
"That's my girl," Neal murmured with a smile, the pride and approval in his voice immediately evident. His eyes shifted quickly back and forth between his daughter and the strange boy, missing nothing.
Brooke watched as Neal's patented smirk bloomed across their daughter's face as the little boy turned around and left the sandbox. "Oh, you are in so much trouble... You see that look on her face? That is so you," she grinned.
"Mmm-hmmm," Neal agreed, nodding his head sharply. "That's my baby girl. She's gonna kick ass and take names, and that's the way I want it."
Brooke groaned and pinched Neal's arm teasingly. "Does this mean the next one we have is going to be like me?" she grinned.
"The next one?" Neal's eyebrows popped to the middle of his forehead. "Can we handle more than one of you, on top of one like me?"
Brooke laughed. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see, huh." She turned back to Ashlyn when she saw the little boy come back over to the sandbox with another little boy.
"Uh-oh..." Neal murmured, tensing immediately beside Brooke as the boy brought a reinforcement. "Looks like a hostile take-over might be in progress..."
Brooke bit her lip as Ashlyn's hands went back on her hips. She looked around for the other kids' parents and didn't see anyone. She could see the look of anger pass over the little boy's face just as he lashed out, pushing Ashlyn off the side of the sandbox, her elbow scraping down the wooden side. Brooke was up and headed for her before she hit the ground.
Neal wasn't far behind her, but he was headed for the boy, his face completely devoid of emotion, but the set of his jaw a warning sign for those that knew him well. He closed on the boy in the space of a few heartbeats, grabbing the child by his arm in a vise-like grip.
Brooke scooped Ashlyn up, checking her over for bumps and bruises the entire time that she was crying. She checked Ashlyn's elbow to see how injured it was, and winced when she saw that the nasty wound had started to bleed pretty badly. "Oh, sweetie..." Brooke murmured, reaching into her purse to grab the first-aid kit, opening up an alcohol wet wipe to quickly cleaned out the scrape.
She looked up at Neal in time to see a man in a business suit charging toward them.
"Get your hands off of my son!"
Neal turned around slowly, fixing the father with a stone-cold gaze, his voice deadly quiet. "Tell your fuckin' son t'keep his hands off my daughter."
Brooke glared at the man and turned back to Ashlyn, trying to calm her down so that she could put the Band-aid on her elbow.
The man bristled. "My son didn't do a damn thing to your daughter!"
"We were sitting. Right. There." Neal jerked his head toward the nearby bench. "Watching. He shoved her over the side." Neal's eyes narrowed as he bristled at the other father, his voice still low and deadly. "You tellin' your son that it's okay to hit little girls? You teachin' him that beatin' women is okay? What the fuck kind of man thinks that shit's okay?"
Brooke finally lifted Ashlyn into her arms, the little girl's head burrowing into Brooke's neck as her sobs shook her tiny little body. Brooke reached out a hand to help keep Neal calm...even though she would love to see him teach the guy a lesson.
The man bristled back and clenched his jaw. "I would never tell him it was okay to hit a girl. There was obviously more to it than just him pushing her. Did you ask her what she did to him?" he demanded.
"From what I could tell, she was tellin' him that she was in the sandbox first, but -- for the sake of argument -- Ashlyn, tell the 'fine gentleman' what happened," Neal murmured, his voice dripping sarcasm.
Brooke rubbed Ashlyn's back and whispered into her ear. "It's okay... Answer Daddy, baby."
Ashlyn turned her head and looked at her daddy with her thumb in her mouth. "He said I was a stupid meanie head... and I said that I was going to tell my daddy on him, and he said I didn't have a daddy, and I told him where you were and he saw you and said that you were a bad guy and a weirdo and that you aren't my daddy," she said, tears welling up in her eyes again, and she reached out to Neal, needing her daddy to keep the bad boys away.
"Really." Neal's voice was cold as he glanced down at the little boy, still in his grasp, studying the way the child's lip quivered in fear before he looked back up at the boy's father. "Once a bully, always a bully, unless someone steps in and stops it." He let go of the boy's arm, nudging him toward his father, turning his attention back to the suited man's face. "Be a real man for once, and teach your son t'respect women. There's other ways t'settle arguments besides bustin' people open."
Turning his back on the man, he took Ashlyn carefully into his arms, cradling her head gently against his shoulder and in the crook of his neck, glaring at the other father over her little quaking body. "Get out of here. Now."
Brooke brushed Ashlyn's hair off of her face and watched as the man and his son walked away with out another word. She looked at Neal. "I think that we might be all parked out now... She has a nasty scrape on her elbow... "
Neal bowed his head, kissing Ashlyn's hair softly. "Yeah, think we might..." He tightened his arms around his daughter's body, a faint smile finally cracking his mask as she burrowed against his neck with a hitched breath. "It's okay, baby girl..." Neal murmured, rubbing her back as her arms snaked around his neck. "You didn't do anything wrong, okay? We're not mad at you, It's not your fault..." Closing his eyes, he leaned his head against hers gently. "Love you so much, princess..."
Brooke smiled at both of them and picked up her purse. She leaned up and kissed Neal softly before kissing Ashlyn's forehead.
Ashlyn mumbled into her daddy's neck. "Love you too... Can I have an ice cream cone?"
"...I think that's a great idea, princess -- let's ask the queen what she thinks..." Neal glanced up at Brooke with a tender smile. "What do y'say, Mommy? Chocolate cures everything, y'know..."
Brooke smiled. "I hear that there is a really, really good ice cream place not too far from here, Ashlyn... And you know what is really special about it? It was the very first ice cream place that your daddy took me to, when we first met."
Ashlyn lifted her head from Neal's neck, staring at Brooke with wide, sky-blue eyes. "...Really? Wow..."
Neal's smile deepened, his eyes meeting Brooke's for a few moments over their daughter's head. "...Perfect."