Page 29 of Hero for the Holidays

“It’s...it’snot. I didn’t want to hurt you, I didn’t want to hurt her.”

The look that Fia gave him was sharp. Because the truth was, there was part of him that hadn’t minded hurting Fia. At least a little bit.

Landry sighed. “I’m glad Fia got to tell her story. I’m glad I didn’t try. Because the bottom line is, I haven’t been... We have trouble communicating.”

“Ohdowe?” Fia asked.

Lila looked between them.

“We’re not exactlyfriends,” said Landry.

Fia lifted a brow. “Wow. Way to sell the arrangement, bud.”

“Fia...”

Fia turned to Lila and smiled. “Landry made a mistake. But Landry is human. And this is a situation I don’t think either of us ever thought we would find ourselves in. But neither of us is unhappy to be in the situation. We’re just sad that you had to go through what you did to get here.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about anything,” said Lila. “Because this wouldn’t have happened if...”

“You don’t have to know how you feel about it,” said Landry. “You’re thirteen. You’re not supposed to know what you think about anything yet. You’re supposed to have a lot of strong opinions and then change them. Get irrationally mad at things and then feel bad about it. And then figure out how to handle it differently next time. Fia and I are the ones who figure out how to be mature. You don’t.”

And for once, Fia looked marginally happy with him.

So there. He supposed he’d said the right thing.

“Would you be all right... Tomorrow, it would be great if you could come over to my farmhouse at Sullivan’s Point. I can show you the ranch, and the operation. The farm store.”

“You have a store?” Lila looked interested in that.

“Yes. That’s one of the primary things I do. I bake, I garden and I run a store that sells all the products that we make on the different ranches.”

“That’s cool,” she said.

“It is. And now that Landry doesn’t have to keep hiding you...”

“I wasn’t hiding her,” said Landry. “I was taking things slow.”

“Sure. I...”

He could see Fia struggling with the same thing he did. The desire to hug when it might not be welcome. The desire to saylove, when you didn’t want to put too much on the kid.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You too, Landry.”

And then Fia walked out, leaving him there with Lila, who fixed him with those green eyes. And it might’ve been Fia pinning him to the spot.

“Were you just not going to tell her about me? Were you not going to tell me about her?”

He’d considered that when he’d first found out about Lila. When he hadn’t been thinking. When he’d been all feelings. But he’d known once the rush of it all had passed, he couldn’t do that.

“No. I just didn’t know how to do it. Or... I wanted you to feel a little bit more settled. The whole thing was different for her than it was for me. Okay? We had a disagreement. About the whole thing. And we had hard feelings about it.”

“Why?” Lila pressed.

“I... I didn’t want to give you up. She thought it would be better if we did. And...” To his great shock he wanted to defend Fia. Because it would hurt both Fia and Lila to cast Fia’s decision in a negative light. But it forced him to take it and turn it over. To look at it for what it was. It forced him to stop oversimplifying this thing that he let drive him, keep him angry, sustain him all this time.

He let out a breath. “It was out of love. Both of us. You have to understand that. But we were kids. And so it was dramatic and messy and immature. So the more persistent I was the less she wanted to deal with me. And I was listening. She told me very clearly that she just couldn’t imagine us trying to raise a baby. I thought...fine then you don’t have to. I will. But she didn’t want that for you either. She wanted you to have a mom and a dad and a real house. She wanted you to get away from here. Today she reminded me that the ranch wasn’t always what it is now. My dad... Listen, I have a pretty crappy dad. Okay? He made living here miserable. Fia’s family was kind of a mess at the time, there wasn’t a lot of money. Not a lot of resources. We were kids trapped in the middle of it. I thought that if I wanted you badly enough that I could just make it fine. That I could make it work. Fia didn’t believe that. Or rather, she didn’t think...” He looked at the wall, a bleak kind of understanding expanding inside of him. “She didn’t think you should have to be an experiment. To see if we sank or swam. Because it could’ve gone either way.”

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