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within her to succeed at whatever path she took in life. Right now she was leaning toward nutritionist and fitness guru she had said. She would be good at it. Her backup plan wasn’t so much a backup. “I can do my dad’s job and yours too, Bambi.” She was going to go for the gusto and do everything she wanted to do. Given her ability to soak up her father’s knowledge Bambi didn’t doubt her plan would be successful.
     
    “You’re going to college,” Sterling shook his finger at her with a smile on his face.
     
    “Why bother? I can learn everything I need to know working for the two of you.”
     
    Sterling shook his head.
     
    Bambi laughed. “I hate to break it to you, but if you want to follow through with the nutritionist thing you’re going to have to go to school and get all of those boring certifications before you can practice.”
     
    “Hmm…is there a way around that?”
     
    “Not a legal way,” she shook her head. “Go, meet people, take advantage of some of the internship and work-study opportunities and you’ll find that the time will fly by and before you know it, you’ll have so much knowledge to take into practice with you. Besides, each year I have to go to conferences and see what’s new in the field too. You’ll always be learning no matter which one of our professions pull you the most.”
     
    “She’s right,” Sterling admitted.
     
    “Fine. But only because I trust you both. I’m going to live with Bambi while I do college for sure.”
     
    “Oh, news to me, but okay,” Bambi laughed. “If it’s okay with you, Sterling.”
     
    “I think I have other plans for both of you, but we’ll talk about that later.”
     
    “Oh, Dad don’t rain on my fun. Bambi is like the best.” She turned to Chloe. “I wish she were my mom.” She looked at her empty bowl. “Oh well, we’re done and we are going to go make our hair look fabulous before we go explore Tahiti.” She giggled as she and Chloe cleared their dishes from the table and skipped off down the hall toward their rooms where they planned to do a lot of work on hair and makeup.
     
    “You should be her mother,” he said.
     
    “What?”
     
    “You’re good with her. She loves you. You love her. You should be her mother.”
     
    “Not possible. She has a mother.”
     
    He snorted. “Fine, call it step-mother, but you’ll still be more of a mother to her than Jordana is.”
     
    She couldn’t disagree with him there, but wait…what was he saying? Her spoon froze half way to her mouth as she raised her eyes to look at Sterling.
     
    “Marry me; please?”
     
    “Yes,” she said swiftly on a laugh before settling her excitement. “You meant to ask me that; right?”
     
    He laughed. “Absolutely. I planned to ask in a more romantic spot than the kitchen table, but when the courage hits me I feel it best I act.”
     
    She smiled widely before getting up from her seat and going to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “Yes, a thousand times yes.”   One small kiss turned into something bigger when Sterling cupped the back of her head in his big hand, tangled his fingers in her soft curls, and held her firmly in place. The sound of giggling teenagers pulled them out of their moment. Bambi blushed wildly, suddenly feeling bashful in light of their discovered secret—recent secret seeing as though they had just both let their affection for each other be made known to each other.
     
    “It’s about time, Dad.” Jocelyn had a huge smile on her face. Bambi wondered what she would think if she knew her father had asked her to marry him.
     
    “Well I hope you’ll still feel that way at the wedding,” Sterling blurted the words out, but Bambi could tell from the smoothness of his voice that he very much meant to say it. There was no easing into the transitional news, but that’s the way Sterling was. He wasn’t the type of man to ease into anything. He just went for it, spoke his mind and did what he