Page 107 of Hero for the Holidays

Though, the memory of their last time together, of kissing her, touching her, played out in his mind without his permission frequently. At all hours of the day, in fact.

“Moving is boring,” said Lila, hefting her own box into the house and setting it down on the ground before dramatically sinking into one of the bright turquoise chairs at the kitchen table.

Landry had to wonder if moving was more than boring for a girl who had been taken out of her home after losing her parents, and then shuffled around the system before having to make another big move out of the city she had grown up in.

Right at that moment, Fia appeared in the doorway and looked at him. He had a feeling they were thinking the exact same thing. They often were. As long as the topic was Lila.

It was refreshing to be on the same page as her at least.

“Let’s take a break,” said Fia.

“Really?” Lila asked.

“Yes. I think that we should pack up a picnic and go get a Christmas tree. Because this is going to be our first Christmas in the house together, and I want to get started with it as soon as possible.”

She shot Landry a questioning look. Holidays had been complicated so far. Birthday, Thanksgiving, because while Lila enjoyed them, they were also tangled around a lot of grief.

He moved over to where she sat in the chair and squeezed her on the shoulder. “I have an idea,” he said. “We can do things exactly the way your parents used to do them, or we can do something totally new. And that’s up to you. Whatever you want. Whatever feels right.”

“Something new,” Lila said. “Something different.”

“Okay,” said Landry.

“We can get a Christmas tree from our own property. Would you like that?”

“That sounds fun. We always used to go to a tree lot.”

With that decided, Landry and Lila helped Fia pack lunches. He made a note of where everything in the kitchen was so that he could be of help after he moved in. They might not be in a romantic relationship, but they were blending their lives together as a function of this new living arrangement. Roommates. They were roommates.

He felt his mouth flatten into a grim line.

But even if it was a strange way to find himself cohabitating with his ex-girlfriend, he intended to be a good...partner. They might not be partners in the romantic sense, but they were partners in parenting. And they would be partners in the day-to-day running of the household too.

He helped Lila get bundled up, and then they got into his truck and took a drive deep into the property. There were mountains on the back side of McCloud’s Landing, and he knew that they might find some snow there, which would make it both festive and fun.

“This is all still the ranch?” Lila asked, sounding dumbfounded.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s the size of a town. I mean, technically it’s four different ranches, but only technically.”

“How did you get started again?”

“Well,” said Landry, “Fia is the best to tell that story. I’m the youngest in the King family. I didn’t have anything to do with establishing all of this.”

“And I was the youngest to be part of forming the board,” said Fia. “And the only woman. I was eighteen. It all happened not long after you were born. My mom was still around, but my dad had left, and she didn’t have any interest in running the place. So I...”

“You were seventeen?”

“Yeah. Still in high school. Trying to figure everything out. But I had already been through so many big changes in my life...”

“You could never have done all that if you had me, I guess,” said Lila.

He watched Fia’s face crumple, then it went smooth. “I worried about that. I had no idea how profoundly I was going to have to show up to represent Sullivan’s Point at that stage. But I did know that I had to take care of my sisters. My mom got better after my dad left, but even then, she was struggling. The responsibility was daunting.”

He wanted to touch her. Wanted to comfort her.

“Gus McCloud and Sawyer Garrett had been running McCloud’s Landing and Garrett’s Watch for a while. Denver had taken control of King’s Crest right before then too. But really it was... It was my dad vacating that kind of opened everything up. For us to try to reimagine it. I think we realized at that point we couldn’t really do it alone. Our parents had left things in a bad state. We had to figure out how to make it better. We all got together in the barn that we needed now on Sullivan’s Point. Sawyer led the discussion—it’s why he leads all the meetings now. Our families always had agreements, we always had certain things that we shared, but not on the level that Sawyer wanted us to try. He wanted us to share our finances. To support each other. And that’s how the official collective was born. We all chose which strengths we wanted to focus on.”

“I hope I’m like you,” said Lila.

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