The Bachelor

Epilogue

The little boy ran around the large lawn in front of the ranch house, his white shirt full of mud, almost covering his body. His dark hair was almost white from the rays of light offered by the sun as he came toward the little girl standing outside the stable. She was wearing her riding clothes, her hand clamped on her pink helmet.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Riding," she said in a bragging tone, her chin lifted high. "I bet you can't ride."

The boy frowned. "I can ride a bicycle."

"That's not what I meant!" she shouted. "I meant horses," she pointed at the row of horses behind her.

The boy scoffed, "You can't ride those, Anya," he stepped away from her, afraid she might jump on him because that's what she always did. But she didn't. Instead, she sighed and brushed her black hair away from her face.

"Watch me," she uttered proudly.

"You can't ride without an adult," he countered.

"I'm already big!"

"No, you're not, sweetheart, you're still my little princess," said her dad behind her with a smile. He emerged from the stable with his own riding hat.

Anya stomped her foot on the ground. "I am! And I'll be married soon!" she said so as she whirled around to face Zach.

Zach was almost thrown back by the statement of his little girl. "Married? To whom?"

"Philip!" she shouted.

The little boy almost paled. "No."

Anya whirled around, her eyes in slits. "What do you mean no?"

"No, I will not marry you!"

"Why?"

"Because...you're small and I'm big!"

"No, you're not! You're six! And I'm six!"

Zach noted the tears in his daughter's eyes. He almost wanted to laugh, but this situation was serious. She couldn't very well think that she was going to marry at this age, right? No, she wouldn't marry. Not while he was still alive. She was his little princess and it would remain that way.

"I don't care! I won't marry you!" Jean Philip turned around and ran up back to the house.

"Daddy!" Anya was really crying when she faced him.

"Sweetheart, you can't force anyone to marry you just because you want to," he said gently, leaning his hands on his knees to level his eyes with his daughter.

She blinked. "But mommy said you forced her to marry you."

His smile faded. "She said that?"

"She said she wanted to wait for me to grow up but you said you wanted to get married soon."

Zach chuckled. "She wanted to marry me too."

Confusion was on Anya's face now.

"She said yes when I almost cried begging her to," he joked.

"But I cried and Philip still doesn't want to marry me."

Zach sighed. If he was facing a boy, he would have told him to never give up. But this was different. Anya is a girl and he couldn't just tell her to continue with her fantasies. Really, having a girl was not all bad, but there were just moments like this that Zach wished he had a boy. "Come here," he pulled his daughter into his arms. "Why don't we cancel riding for today? Our friends are waiting inside having breakfast."

She thought for a while. "Okay."

 *****

Julianne could sense something happened when Zach came inside with Anya.