Page 13 of Their Forever Daddy

Gravel crunched beneath Jesse’s feet as she stalked after them into the barn. “You can’t ignore me forever, Edie McDowell.”

“Not forever. Just the next ten years,” Edie said over her shoulder as she led the llama out to the pasture where Luna was lazily grazing. Another little barb she hadn’t actually meant to fire but couldn’t seem to keep to herself no matter how hard she tried.

“I wanted to talk to you. I just didn’t know what to say.”

“Not much to say, was there?”

“Come on, Edie. I’m trying here.” A bit of a whine wove through Jesse’s voice, a familiar pleading tone that might have made Edie smile under different circumstances. “Why won’t you just give me a chance to make it right?”

“Because some things are too broken to fix.” God, she was tired. So fucking tired, right down to her bones, and constantly arguing with Jesse wasn’t helping one little bit.

“Like my heart?”

Something inside Edie snapped, not just at the words but the hurt echoing in them. “Your heart?” Whipping around, she pinned Jesse with a glare, but the other woman stood her ground with a stubborn stare of her own. “You left me, and you wasted no time jumping in bed with the first A-Lister who smiled at you. Your heart seemed just fine to me.”

Red flooded Jesse’s cheeks. “Fuck you, Edie.”

“Watch your language, little girl.”

The familiar admonition slipped out so easily, she almost didn’t notice what she’d said until the color drained from Jesse’s face. Hurt, and what looked almost like longing filled the pale brown of her eyes. “Don’t. I can’t—Don’t do that.”

Guilt, anger, need. The storm inside her had reached a fever pitch and Edie could no longer tell one emotion from another as she turned back to the llama. “You should go.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy with a lifetime of regrets. “I’ll go back inside,” Jesse finally said, her voice calmer now but still tight with emotion. “Because we both need some space before we say or do something we can’t take back. But I’m not leaving Lost River until we actually talk this out, Edie.”

Jesse’s boots crunched over the straw littering the floor of the barn as she retreated, then paused. “Oh, and by the way? Your ‘llama’ is an alpaca. Which means she’s going to need a gentle hand. Better find someone who can give her that before you break her, too.”

Edie waited for the sound of Jesse’s footsteps to fade completely before she let the tears come. And even then, she only allowed herself a minute to wallow in the grief and the anger before dragging in a deep breath and wiping all evidence of her sobfest from her face.

Straightening her shoulders, she worked up a smile for the not-a-llama and gave the rope a gentle tug. “Come on, sweet girl. Let’s go introduce you to Luna.”

Jesse

* * *

Of all the stubborn, pig-headed, infuriating women in the world, Jesse had to fall in love with the worst of them all.

Letting the storm door slam shut behind her, she stomped into the kitchen—and froze at the sight of flames licking the cabinets on either side of the stove.

“Shit!”

Panic skittered up her spine, and for a moment she couldn’t think. But then she was moving, flipping on the tap at the sink and yanking her shirt off to shove it under the running water.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she chanted under her breath as heat blasted her face. If she burned down Edie’s kitchen, no way would she be able to convince her it was an accident.

With the shirt soaked, she squeezed her eyes shut against the heat from the flames and tossed her shirt in the general direction of the pot that had caught fire. Almost instantly, the heat faded and she peeled open one eyelid to peek at the stove.

No more flames. Thank god.

There was, however, plenty of smoke.

Shit.

Leaning over the sink, she shoved the window up, breathing in the cool evening air. And as the panic finally faded, she stepped back to survey the damage. Luckily, it didn’t seem like anything was actually burned, just smoky, so maybe she could get it all cleaned up before Edie came back up to the house. Grabbing what she needed from under the sink, she went to work scrubbing the cabinets clean.

But she’d only gotten about halfway done when a shocked, furious voice had her freezing in place.

“What the hell did you do to my kitchen?”

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