Hero for the Holidays (Four Corners Ranch #9)

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

S HE DID THINK , as she waited for Landry to come again the next day for them to make the exchange so that she could bring Lila to the farm store, that it was hilarious they were having dinner with each other’s families two nights in a row.

If she could find much of anything super hilarious right now. Especially concerning Landry.

He had apologized. It had been tantamount to him saying she was right. He had essentially said that. It was very strange. And not expected at all.

She was excited to bring Lila to the farm store. Because Rory, Quinn and Alaina would all be there.

So as soon as she and Landry pulled into the driveway, Fia was out the door.

She waved and then felt silly. She practically ran up to the car, like a favorite surprise she’d been waiting for had just gotten there. But that was how she felt.

Lila brightened when she saw Fia and jumped out of the car.

She felt like Lila maybe even wanted to hug her, but didn’t.

“Are you ready to see the farm store?”

“Yes,” she said. She turned quickly. “Bye, Landry.”

“Yeah,” said Landry, looking vaguely stormy. “Bye.”

“What’s with him?” Fia asked.

“I dunno. He woke up grumpy today. He had another glass of that apple pie stuff after you left. He was sooooo drunk. Denver had to drive us back.”

Fia frowned. “Well, that’s not good.”

“Don’t be upset about it. He was just... He’s fine.”

She disapproved so, so hard. But she was trying to be careful.

“You like living with him,” she said.

“He’s great. He tries really hard.”

Fia sighed. “Yeah. He’s definitely trying really hard.” That was undeniable. She couldn’t even be petty about that. And she really would be if she could be. Because a little bit of pettiness in that space would be kind of nice.

“He’s funny too,” Lila continued. “And he let me get a gecko. He can build anything. I’ve been watching him out in the barn. And he’s great with animals. I think that’s where I get it from.”

She was chattering about Landry, all stream of consciousness like he was the greatest thing ever. Like she hero-worshipped him a little.

If she detached herself from her post-Landry trauma, she could see why a teenage girl would hero-worship him as a dad. He was tall and strong and handsome.

But drunk, apparently, which was concerning. And out of that concern she could not have him drinking.

She and Landry were on texting terms now, which they never had been while they were together, because texting just wasn’t as much of a thing all the way back then, especially not with the kind of service they had at Four Corners. But as soon as she got to the store, and got Lila shown around and settled, she pulled out her phone.

Really? You got drunk last night?

Barely , he replied. I wasn’t drunk, I had Denver drive us home out of an abundance of absolute caution.

Lila said that you were sooooo drunk. Many oooos.

I wasn’t.

That was her perception. Maybe you need to be a little bit more responsible.

She fired the message off, and stood by it.

We’ll talk about it later.

What if I want to talk about it now?

Because this is texting, not talking.

It’s the same thing.

It isn’t.

She was about to pick up the phone and call him when her sisters walked in. All three of them, redheaded and different, stopped in the doorway, and Lila looked at them. “Oh my God. We all have the same hair.”

Alaina made a noise and then rushed forward, pulling Lila into her arms. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that’s very not cool. But wow. It is amazing to meet you.”

“Thanks,” said Lila, looked bemused. “It’s kind of amazing to meet you too.”

“We’re your aunts,” said Quinn. “I’m Quinn. That’s Rory. That’s Alaina.”

“That’s going to take me a minute,” Lila said.

“It’s okay. Just say hey you . We all respond okay to that.”

“ Hey Ginger also works,” Rory said.

“Not on me,” said Quinn.

Quinn always had been the one who wanted to pick a fight.

“How much of the business has Fia shown you?”

“A lot. It’s really amazing.”

“Agreed,” said Quinn. “My husband, Levi, has the ranch that goes just beyond this road.”

“She hooked up with him because of the road,” said Fia.

“Hey,” said Quinn. “Don’t make me sound like a road ho.”

Lila seemed delighted by the exchange, which was the only thing that stopped Fia from scolding her sister for saying road ho in front of the teenager.

Lila seemed to notice Fia’s distress. She put her hand on her forearm. “Relax, Fia. I’m on the internet.”

“You say that like it explains something,” said Fia.

Lila just laughed.

They got her set up on the register and let her ring up a couple of customers, and then they took her to the back where they had extra preserves, baked goods and other delicious things.

At closing time, they went to the root cellar at the house and got out some supplies from there, then brought her inside and started to prepare dinner.

Lila sat at the table watching them all. Her focus was added.

“Why don’t you help?” said Quinn, tossing Lila a dish towel.

“I don’t know how to cook,” she said.

“This is easy. We’re making a chicken galette. We already have the dough made. It just needs to be rolled out. We’re going to cut up some vegetables, brown some chicken and add some seasonings. Then we’re going to bake it in a skillet.”

Lila looked skeptical, but eventually joined them, and the pride that Fia felt watching her daughter cook just like they did was...

Maybe this was it. The moment it felt real. Did she feel real now? She felt like crying. Her chest was tight and her eyes hurt, and she felt afraid and hopeful and like it was all too big.

She wasn’t bad at this.

Her only experience with a mother-daughter relationship had been bad. As the oldest, Fia had taken the brunt of her mother’s frustrations. She’d been the biggest help, and the biggest target. And once her parents had started having real issues in their marriage, Fia had been the one her mother had exploded all over. To the point where she’d sometimes been cruel.

She’d told Fia she couldn’t do anything right.

In hindsight, and with age, Fia knew her mom had been putting way too much on her, but at the time Fia had taken it really seriously. She’d let it hit her too deeply.

She’d felt so protective of her sisters, afraid their mother would be mean to them too. She never was. It was just Fia who drew fire. But Quinn, Rory and Alaina had suffered from their mom being distracted by what was happening with their father and Fia had picked up the slack.

She’d gotten to a better place with her mother in the years after her dad had actually left. It was the in between place that had been so awful for all of them. Like watching someone die slowly. When he’d finally gone, it had been a relief.

She had never managed to have a companionable time in the kitchen with her mom when she’d been a teenager.

She’d screamed at 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 how not drunk I was. But because I had Lila with me I decided not to. If she thought I was soooo drunk it’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.

Which she could understand. After all the years of Fia and Landry being generally heinous to each other, him being here was akin to Satan appearing at the pearly gates.

“Landry King, everybody,” she said dryly. “He’s joining us for dinner.”

“Wow,” said Rory.

Quinn raced to the window and looked out through the lace curtain. “I’m sure if I stand here long enough I’m going to see a pig fly by.”

“Adorable,” Fia shouted, clapping. “Just adorable. Congrats to you.”

“Thank you,” said Quinn. “ I thought that it was adorable. But then, I’m invariably adorable.”

Rory grabbed her oven mitts and retrieved the pie. Landry looked at it and then back at Fia.

“Why didn’t you just say a galette was a topless pie?” said Landry.

“Because I thought it was more fun to keep you in suspense.”

Their eyes caught and held, and maybe it was the inbuilt innuendo that made the eye contact feel heavy. Or maybe it was just the two of them.

Because more of that angry debris had been cleared away, and every time there was another sweep of it, she felt old feelings bubbling up beneath.

Old attractions.

She really did not need that. Because they were just now managing civility. She still felt on edge.

They didn’t need to introduce that drama. It shouldn’t really be surprising that being in proximity to him reminded her of all that chemistry. It shouldn’t be surprising the chemistry hadn’t gone away. They were hot together. They had been multiorgasmic together even as fumbling kids.

Really, they’d never been fumbling.

Landry had always been a master of her body in ways that she still couldn’t quite understand.

But they were toxic. Through and through. And the last thing they needed was to introduce any toxicity into this environment. Not now. Not when they were doing this well.

“Well. Let’s eat,” she said.

They had a big bottle of sparkling water at the center of the table, which Alaina wrinkled her nose at and went to the fridge and got a can of diet soda.

Then they all served themselves generous helpings of galette. Followed by extra pie and cake for dessert. Because they were always more interested in dessert.

“This is amazing,” said Lila.

“Yes, it is,” said Landry, his eyes settling a little bit too heavy on Fia.

“Well, I never thought we would have a King at our table,” said Alaina.

“That makes it sound like he’s royalty,” said Lila.

“Oh, we know he’s not,” said Rory, sounding sharp.

Fia grinned, and so did Quinn. Toothy, and a bit threatening. It made her love them even more than she already did. Part of the reason she’d decided to place Lila with another family had been her need to take care of her sisters.

It warmed her to have them take care of her now.

Even if she knew she had to call them off. Because Landry was Lila’s father and they were being nice .

“Damn,” said Landry. “I didn’t realize I was in trouble here.”

“Just on the naughty step,” said Quinn. “Until you prove that you ought to be off of it.”

“I can respect that.”

The evening slowed after that, and when it got late, she walked out to the porch with Lila and Landry. Lila went straight down the steps and headed to the truck. Landry paused, and Fia took that opportunity to try to introduce the idea of Lila staying with her.

“She could spend the night next time,” said Fia.

“Let’s just wait.”

She knew a moment of absolute annoyance.

But she let it go, and instead she tapped her foot on the porch.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

But she wished it was nothing. Because right then the porch light caught the hollows of his face, and she had a strange moment where she seemed to exist in two realities.

It was like she was back then and firmly now.

Looking at the boy and the man all at once.

Yes, they’d had chemistry. That had never been their problem.

But this strange feeling she had now wasn’t a memory. Landry King had never stood on this porch, like a date waiting to kiss her good night. They had skipped all that.

They had never really been boyfriend and girlfriend in that way.

But she could easily imagine it. What could’ve been. Far too easily.

“Good night,” she said quickly, and she turned and raced inside before she could do something extremely dumb. Something she would only regret.

Because if there was one thing about Landry King that she knew, it was that he was a mountain rife with her potential regret. And very little else.