Page 104 of Hero for the Holidays

“It is,” she said softly.

And there was something, something expanding in his chest. Feelings, words. But he knew he couldn’t say them in an empty fashion. He was cautious about it. Because his father had used words of deep emotion to manipulate the people around him. He had never hesitated to say that he loved his wife. That he loved his kids. All while demonstrating something completely different, and that was the kind of boyfriend Landry had been back then.

He would never use empty words. Not again.

He would make sure that he showed them good and well first. He would make sure that he really knew what he wanted. Because he didn’t trust himself. That was the thing. How could he? How could he after the bullshit he pulled?

Fia snuggled against him, and he held her. Let himself doze for about twenty minutes. “I’ve got to get back,” he said.

“Yeah.”

It felt wrong. To part from each other. To have Fia sleeping in a different house than himself and Lila. It just felt wrong. But it was where they were at right now. And it was what they had.

So he walked back with her, holding hands, walked her to her car and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”

He turned and went in the house, and he felt a restless ache inside of him. Then he opened the computer that was sitting on the table and searched for the name of the shelter that Fia had mentioned the dog Sunday had gone to. There was a contact form. And he wrote in it, trying to explain the situation. That he knew it had been a year, but if they could trace the whereabouts of Sunday, and if they could give him the info, that Lila, the dog’s former owner, just wanted to know she was okay and happy. And that if she was still looking for a home, she would have one with them.

He sent it and closed the computer.

He heard footsteps on the stairs. “Hey, Landry,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Something wrong?”

“I just think... I think it’s weird to not live with both you and Fia.”

He gritted his teeth. “Yeah. It is.”

“Listen, I know that you aren’t a couple, but it seems to me like this house or her house are big enough for us to all be together.”

She had no idea how complicated that was. The truth was, she was thirteen. They were getting a limited experience of parenting. And there were plenty of divorced couples who actually continued to live together, he did know that. People who kept intact households for their kids. “Well, maybe that’s something we can talk about.”

There was little more important to the Kings than King’s Crest. But he knew that the first thing he would have to do was offer to move to Sullivan’s Point. Because family names and all that... They didn’t matter. Hell, it hadn’t even been a conversation, as far as changing Lila’s name. Unless she asked to have a different last name, it was important to both him and Fia that they honored her parents. If they could be a family while including that. He could still be a King somewhere else. And he might just have to be.

“We will definitely talk about that tomorrow.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

FIAFELTTENDERand weepy the next day. She knew that Landry was going to come by with Lila because he wanted to talk about something, and part of her wanted to tell him no. To stay away. To give her some time to convalesce.

But she knew she had to be more mature than that. Because this was a decision that she’d made. To revisit the attraction between them. To indulge it. It had been incredible. Everything that she could’ve possibly wanted. Everything. He was so sexy. And he was still absolutely it for her. He fit her body in exquisite fashion. The way that he moved his hands over her skin, the way that he had licked her, tasted her.

Nothing could ever compare.

But there was no way they could come together like that without feelings. The feelings had been very, very potent. A little bit over the top, in fact. But when Landry pulled up, she did her best to pull herself together.

And when he and Lila walked up the steps, she flung the door open and plastered a wide smile on her face. “Hi, there,” she said.

“Hey,” he said. “Good to see you.”

“You too.”

Lila went into the house. She had a favorite spot in the farmhouse, and had a crochet project going, so she was obviously ready to get down to that. It thrilled Fia that Lila was now as obsessed with crochet as she was. They worked on projects together while watching TV in the evenings sometimes.

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