Page 12 of Hero for the Holidays

Lila was going to need...so much. He wanted to be able to buy her clothes, to give her all the things that she needed and wanted. He wanted to be able to buy her first car, and send her to college.

He wanted to be successful so that he couldgiveher something. He wanted there to be jobs at the ranch that she could take if she wanted, and money to take with her if she didn’t.

The unbearable weight of responsibility, of caring for another human being was really...something.

But it was what he wanted to do.

So it meant he had to go after this with single-mindedness. It was like all the energy that had been stored up inside him all this time, all this need to be a father, was rushing through him now like a storm.

He wanted to get it right. And some days he didn’t know what that looked like. Emotions were hard. He’d certainly never seen them displayed in a healthy way. He knew how people hurt and manipulated the ones they professed to love.

He didn’t actually know how love was meant to look.

But he knew hard work. So he was starting there. With work. With endless stuffed animals, a gecko and a new barn.

“How was your meeting, Landry?” she asked, sitting at the table with a bowl of chicken noodle soup. She had told him that she didn’t need him to make her anything. He’d put a lot of ready-made meals in the place so she could help herself when she needed to or just wanted to. Even though most nights they ate at the main house with the whole King crew.

Right now she was homeschooling. She wasn’t going to the one-room schoolhouse on the property. She was doing an online course with the middle school she’d been at before.

It was going all right, from what he could see. But he was a little bit worried about her not being around other kids. Eventually it would change. Eventually.

But she and Daniel had grown to have a pretty good rapport, and he enjoyed seeing that.

She also got along well with his family.

Hell, they got along a little better than he’d anticipated. She was a tough nut, kind of an angry little thing sometimes, but that was fair, considering everything she’d been through. And hell, it was fair considering her genetics. The Kings were kind of a sullen group, all-up.

“It was fine. I got backing for my plans with the barn.”

“That’s good. It’s a good idea, TBH,” she said.

He felt like that was pretty damned high praise. Coming from a kid who mostly thought he was an idiot. He didn’t know whatTBHmeant, but he’d learned not to ask because it always earned him a look that made him feel old and uncool.

He wasthirty, for heaven’s sake.

“Well, thanks for not running away or anything while I was gone.”

“That’s the worst part about this place,” she said. “In the city there’s actually some places to run to. Out here? I’m just going to get eaten by a bobcat.”

“A bobcat’s not going to eat you,” he said.

“It won’t?”

“No. It’ll just maul you and chew on your knucklebones a little bit. Then a bear will probably come and eat you.”

She grimaced. “Thanks for that. Next time the social worker asks me how it’s going, I’m going to tell them I have nightmares because you told me that I was going to get eaten by wild animals.”

“Good. Make sure you get me in trouble.”

She wrinkled her nose.

He looked at her, and his heart felt two sizes too big. He liked it when she made this particular sort of stubborn face, and it reminded him of his sister, Arizona, which probably meant it was a King face.

She definitely continued to take advantage of the fact that all he wanted to do was make her happy. Bribed him into ordering her all kinds of shit online. He doubted anyone had ever seen a delivery truck go up the road this many times in a month.

Hell, probably not in ayear.

But he basically bought the kid whatever she asked for. Her bedroom was packed to the gills with stuffed animals. He wasn’t above buying her affection. He didn’t really know how else to do it.

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