Page 51 of Hero for the Holidays

She’dscreamedat her mom in this kitchen, and her mom had screamed back.

Lila was making a galette.

Maybe this was the honeymoon phase. Maybe this was unrealistic. Maybe Lila was still on her best behavior because she was afraid of being sent back.

She wanted to be here, Fia knew that. But would she want to be when she and Landry had to be strict parents? When they had to put their foot down about things? It was difficult to say. Right now everybody was on very careful behavior.

She couldn’t see the future. But she could see right now. Right now, everything was good.

A half hour later, Landry showed up.

When he knocked, she held up a finger.

“Just a second,” she said to Lila and her sisters.

Then she took off her apron and bustled to the door, slipping outside and closing the door behind her. She felt suddenly like she’d made a miscalculation, because he was standing very close. So close that her breasts tingled, a bit closer to the hard wall of his chest than she had intended for them to be. She didn’t think he had grown much since he was sixteen. But he seemed taller. Maybe that was the strength in his shoulders. The depth in his chest. He also smelled delicious. Not like the cheap body spray he’d had when he was sixteen. But like soap and skin and man.

A man she had known once upon a time, and who her body yearned for in that moment.

It was like a pure hit of nostalgia. Of adrenaline and need. A degree to which she hadn’t let herself feel in forever.

“Yes?” he asked. His tone jolted her out of her reverie.

“The drinking.”

“I had one more little drag of the apple pie. I was a tiny bit tipsy. If I’d been alone, I would have been fine to drive myself back to the house, and even Daughtry would have been fine with it. That’s hownotdrunk I was. But because I had Lila with me I decided not to. If she thought I wassoooo drunkit’s because I was messing around with my brothers, and I woke up in a mood, so I think she thought I had a hangover. I didn’t.”

“Okay,” she said. “You’re sure?”

“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “First of all because I’ve never been performing for you. Not one day in the last thirteen years, have I?”

Grudgingly, she had to concede that point. “I guess not.”

“Second of all, because I have been taking care of her for three weeks. And she’s doing good. So trust me.”

“Okay.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What did child services say?”

“The easiest thing would just be to have you adopt her after I do. Because I can just let you do it. We don’t have to have a whole state involved, inspections, none of that. I just have to sign off on it, as her father.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure that I like that. You being legally recognized as her parent before I am.”

“I get it. If you want to involve the state, feel free. But it’s a whole rigmarole. And I already did that part.”

“I want to be able to adopt her the day that you do.” It was important to her. It felt like an obvious thing from her perspective. They’d created Lila together. She’d come into this world theirs. She didn’t want Lila to belong to Landry and not to her, even if it was on paper, a formality. It still mattered.

He sighed. “Okay. We’ll start that then.”

“Thank you.” She felt like maybe they’d made some progress. Because he wasn’t telling her that she was silly, even if he thought it was silly. He seemed to actually be listening.

“Smells good, whatever you’re cooking.”

“Oh. Galette.”

“No idea what that is.”

“I guess you’ll just have to see.”

She opened up the door again and let him inside. Her sisters all stopped talking and turned to face the doorway. They were wide-eyed, and looked shocked. As if the specter of Landry King passing into the farmhouse was one shock too many.

---