Page 17 of Hero for the Holidays

She watched his expression, watched as he tried to sort through what she was saying. “You know them?”

“Yes, I...knewthem. I met them.”

He put his hands on his head, like he was trying to hold himself to the earth. Then he put them down, dragging them along his face as he went. “Well, that’s something I didn’t know. Why would I fucking have known? You just came back with no baby. After disappearing fortwo fucking months.”

“Stop,” she said. It was too much. She couldn’t process the pain that was coursing through her body. She couldn’t rehash her and Landry’s baggage while knowing that their daughter was outside.

She was trying to process this. She had to disappear into herself. Into a bubble inside her chest that didn’t feel anything, not anger or pain or hope.

Her parents were dead. She was here. She didn’t know Fia was here too.

“You haven’t told her about me?” she asked.

“The truth of the matter is, Fia, you gave her up. At some point I have to have that conversation with her. And then I was going to ask her if she wanted to meet you, try to have a relationship with you. AndthenI was going to talk to you.”

“Why not come to me first? Why not come to me with all of this?”

“Because it wasn’t your choice to make. It was mine. If you had given your information to the adoption agency, they would’ve contacted you the same way they did me. But I had already given out my information. I made it known that I wanted the kid, and so I have the kid.”

“I’m not sixteen,” she said. “I’m not in the middle of trying to hold my family together, I’m not...raising my sisters still. The idea that you wouldn’t come to me about taking care ofourdaughter... I can’t believe you, Landry. You wonder why I didn’t want to raise a child with you? This is the most immature—”

“I’m doing my best,” he said. “It’s an unwinnable situation. I didn’t expect to ever get contacted while she was still a child. I thought maybe she would get in touch with me when she turned eighteen. We would go have dinner or something, and I’d keep all my anger and regret to myself and consider it a blessing I ever got to see her. I didn’t expect to end up raising her. When they called me, all I had time to do was get the place ready.”

“You didn’t have a minute to come and have a conversation with me?”

“No. I didn’t. I was thinking about her.”

She let out a hard breath. “Were you?”

“There’s a reason I was keeping her here. There’s a reason she hasn’t been introduced to the broader ranching family. My intent was never to ambush you with her.”

She didn’t believe that. He was being honest about his feelings for Lila, she could see that. She could see he genuinely wanted to do the right thing for their daughter.

Fia could also see that he was still very, very angry about the decision she’d made back then. And whatever he was trying to convince himself of now, he hadn’t cared if he hurt Fia. If anything, he wanted to.

“It wasn’t?” she asked. “Really?”

She looked out at this moment from the safety of the bubble she’d found. She didn’t know how to process this, and she was fairly certain she might be in shock.

But maybe the shock was protecting her. From crumpling to the ground right now. From breaking into pieces.

“Now she’s seen you,” said Landry. “And we’re going to have questions to answer. We need to work this out really quick. You don’t get to be half in and half out.”

He was acting like this was her mistake. Like she had created this situation when he was the one who had brought their daughter here, and hadn’t warned her or Lila.

Anger popped the bubble.

“Don’t talk to me like that. Don’tlecture me. Don’t you dare tell me what I can be when you didn’t give me a chance. You let your bitterness drive this choice, not your love.”

His face was hard, and not even that accusation broke him. “In or out, Fia?”

There was no question. She’d held that baby in her arms for only a moment, thirteen years ago, and she’d loved her. She’d known she had to give her away. She’d known she’d never see her again.

Now she was here.

She’d survived that once. Living through looking at that beautiful, perfect child and knowing it would be the only time. She couldn’t do it again.

Lila was here.

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