Hero for the Holidays (Four Corners Ranch #9)

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

H OLY HELL . She felt like she had been dipped in flames.

Burning.

She remembered what she’d thought about her mother. Self-immolation.

Well, this was immolation by Landry King. And she didn’t think she had the fortitude to stop it.

She hadn’t been kissed in thirteen years. She hadn’t even wanted to kiss anybody. Because his lips were the only lips she wanted.

Because his mouth was home .

Because she could admit that now, even though it cost her. Even though it made her feel like she was insane. Even though she knew it was completely against everything that made any kind of sense. Against what they decided.

He kissed her like he was trying to make up for lost time. Like he was trying to add passion back to all those years that had been a desert. A wasteland.

He cradled her face, his tongue parting her lips, sliding against hers.

She needed this. She clung to his shirt. She felt how hard he was. How strong and muscular and everything .

Landry King. The boy who had lit her on fire. The man who continued to.

The father of her daughter.

The father of her daughter.

They couldn’t do this. They had to be a family. And they could not be trusted. Not with this. It was a box of matches, and they might have learned enough, and changed enough to try to be parents now, but she wasn’t sure if they were enough to try this, and they had to be sure. They were both so stunted in this way. They’d never tried it with anyone else.

Maybe because they’d broken something in each other all those years ago.

But he was still kissing her. And she was still letting him. Hell. She was still kissing him back. Even though she had already decided they had to stop.

She had decided that. She knew they had to.

But she couldn’t.

She couldn’t .

She couldn’t make her hands release their hold on his shirt. She couldn’t stop her lips from clinging to his.

This was everything, and so was he. A huge part of herself that she had covered up years ago. That she had imagined she might have cut out with a knife, but it had always been there.

Part of the grooves that Landry had worn into her soul that she could never quite be rid of.

This need. So bright and intense and shocking.

Need she hadn’t felt in so long she had thought that maybe it didn’t exist inside of her anymore.

She was wrong. She was so wrong.

But finally. Finally she did exactly what she had to do. Finally she managed to extricate herself from him. Not because he was holding her so tight. Because she couldn’t bring herself to let him go.

Her lips felt swollen, her heart pounding fast. She was slick between her thighs, and she could feel how hard he was. Pressed against her like an iron bar.

“Please don’t,” she whispered.

“I had to.”

“No. Because we have to be better than this. Because we have to be parents . And not... Not this. We can’t be human torches for each other. Because... It’s the same. That’s the worst part. It’s the same. It doesn’t feel any different. I just thought... I thought I wasn’t all desperate for sex because I was older. I thought I was over it. But apparently I’m not. You kiss me and it’s all the same. You say something dirty to me, and I can’t help it. The whole... The thing that happened on the porch swing. It’s just the same stuff. We can still get in each other’s heads. We can still hurt each other this way, and we have to be better than that.”

“What’s better than this?” he asked. “Seriously, Fia. What’s better? I haven’t felt like this... Not since you.”

“What’s better? Today was better. The zoo and the courthouse and Thai food. It was better. The movie that we’re watching. It’s better.”

“The movie really is only okay.”

“You know what I mean, dammit. You know what I mean. It’s better than us trying as hard as we can to burn each other out again. It’s better than us being fools over hormones. We make a really good team when we’re being reasonable and rational. When we’re talking. When we’re this... It’s all we are.”

“Are you, twenty-nine-year-old Fia Sullivan, going to look at thirty-year-old me and tell me that we are not different than when we were kids?”

“Yes,” she said. “With this. With just this. Because tell me... Does it feel different to you?”

“Yes,” he said. “It feels better.”

The words lit her up. And she really wanted to be done being lit up. She wanted to be over this. All of it. She wanted to somehow be past this moment. Back on stable ground. But maybe that was a lie. Maybe there was no stable ground with them. Maybe there never had been. Maybe it had always only ever been this. This shifting lava bed of hot endless need.

But no. They had been more these past few weeks. They had been co-parents. They had been sensible. Responsible.

“The caseworker and the judge both said that they had never heard a story as amazing as ours. Angela said she was so proud of us for doing this. And we can only do it because we aren’t broken by each other anymore. We cannot let that happen. Not again, Landry.”

“Okay,” he said, taking a step back. “I’m going to listen to you this time. Because I didn’t before. I want you, Fia. Time and anger and distance and all of that hasn’t changed it. Common sense hasn’t changed it. So maybe you’re right. Maybe that means it’s something I shouldn’t want. Something I shouldn’t indulge in. I’m not going to argue. And I’m not going to punish you for not giving me what I want. I’m different. And so was this.”

“To what end, Landry?”

If he said marriage and more babies to love, she might be too weak to turn him away. But somehow, she knew he wouldn’t.

“Just being together for a while,” he said. “Just feeling alive like that again.”

She shook her head. “Not good enough for me. It’s not enough.”

“And I’ll give you what you think you want. But I still want popcorn.”

“Okay.”

She moved aside and let him get his bag out of the vending machine. Then she stood there, feeling hollow. And when he left, she finally picked up the ice bucket and filled it. She should stick her face in it. Try to get a handle on herself.

She had acted like an idiot. Worse, she had acted like her sixteen-year-old self. She didn’t know why she was like that with him. Well. It was that thing. That thing that had always been. But they had to be more to each other now. They had to be better. They had to be...

She had spent so many years without sex. She didn’t need it. Why did it always feel like such a big deal when Landry was involved? Why did it always feel essential?

She let out a breath. And she tried to visualize the room she had just left. The two beds. Landry sprawled on one, Lila sitting on the floor against the bed. And her bed. They were a family. A different sort of family. But functional.

So much more functional than her parents. And his.

What their parents had proved was that when there was conflict between the father and the mother he couldn’t continue to work together as a team. That when the romance between them ended they couldn’t continue to have a family.

That was why it was so important that she and Landry not...

It was important.

She picked an ice cube off the top of the bucket and crunched it, not caring that her dentist would yell at her because it was bad for her teeth.

A lot of things were bad for your teeth. And people did them anyway. She didn’t see why she couldn’t nervously crunch ice if necessary.

Then she walked down the hallway and went back into her room, and then to his by the connecting door.

He didn’t look at her when she came in, and she squinted.

He was doing that thing. That aloof thing that he did.

But at least it wasn’t filled with hatred and anger. It was just... The way that he put on a show, she supposed.

So she lay down on the bed, put ice in her glass and poured herself some more soda. And did her best to try and pay attention to the movie. Did her best to pretend that she wasn’t completely consumed by whatever had just happened.

It was a kiss. Deal with it. You’re a twenty-nine-year-old woman. And it is hardly the first time you’ve ever kissed him.

But she had trouble. And she had even more trouble sleeping. Landry was awakening needs in her that she just didn’t want him to awaken. It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t asked for this.

But maybe there was a lesson buried in there somewhere. They had Lila. She could hear Lila breathing in the bed next to hers. Deep and steady.

Maybe there were always difficult things mixed in with the good things.

Counterbalances.

She wasn’t entirely sure.

One thing she did know was that her life had all the external trappings of being together. That it hadn’t felt this deep, this resonant in a long time.

She loved her sisters. Loved her family. Her friends.

But this was something more. Something deeper.

And she realized that whatever was happening between her and Landry, she nearly welcomed the struggle. Because at least it felt honest.

Maybe that was actually what this was. Emotional honesty. All the difficult things being dragged to the surface and dealt with.

For them, attraction was part of it. Maybe it always would be. But maybe they could find a place for that too. A way to handle it that wouldn’t break them.

He had listened to her. Even though her body had very much not wanted him to.

It would be so easy to let him sweep her away. To almost demand that he didn’t listen to her when she said things like stop . Because part of her would love to be able to absolve herself of the responsibility of the kind of tangle they might get in. To claim that he had bypassed her objections and made her lose her head.

They were different now. She thought back to the way he had listened.

They were different now. The heat might be the same. But they weren’t.

She fell asleep with that repeating in her head over and over again.

L ANDRY COULDN ’ T LET go of the kiss. Which was sort of ridiculous when you were hanging out in the world’s most basic continental breakfast room watching your daughter get free hotel waffles out of one of those weird dispensers where you poured the batter into a Dixie cup and hoped for the best. Fia was across the way at the coffee dispenser, and he was already halfway through his second cup, sitting in front of a plate of bacon and eggs. Which had earned him more commentary on his potential cholesterol from Lila and Fia.

Fia was acting so normal. And he felt anything but. He felt scalded. Scorched. But he wanted to give her exactly what she needed. What she wanted.

He wanted to prove that he wasn’t a dumb kid anymore. Though hell, last night he’d felt like one.

Kissing wasn’t like that with anybody but her.

It couldn’t be. Not ever.

She was something else altogether, and their attraction was something new. Even though it was something old.

That didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but he found that sense wasn’t really in his wheelhouse when it came to Fia Sullivan.

Their eyes met when she turned around after filling up her cup of coffee, and he felt a streak of heat go through him.

She smiled, but it was a tense smile. One that became more natural when her path intersected with Lila, and they sat down with him at the table.

“You excited to head back home, kid?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Are you still feeling good about being stuck with us?” Fia asked.

“Yes,” said Lila. “And it wasn’t as bad coming back here as I thought it would be.”

“We can come back and visit,” said Fia. “Personally, I think Landry is a big fan of the zoo.”

“Oh, hell yeah,” said Landry. “Naked mole rats all the way.”

“Naked Mole Rats All the Way is my new punk rock band,” said Fia.

He laughed, but it wasn’t even just that. It was something deeper. Because there was something nice about connecting with her this way. Reminding himself that it wasn’t all sex and screaming back then. They had actually liked each other. Gotten along as friends in some ways. Ways like that.

“Excellent,” he said. “It can open for my band, Economical Basilisk.”

That was a deep cut from back in their teenage days. Someone had mentioned not being able to afford a dragon, because it wasn’t in the budget. And Fia had responded by saying they could maybe swing an economical basilisk. Which Landry had replied it was his new band.

It was strange that he could remember that now, when all those years, he hadn’t.

“Wow. Sounds like a lame show,” said Lila.

“I guess you’re not punk rock,” said Fia.

“Absolutely not,” said Lila. “I’m a Swiftie.”

“Who isn’t?” Landry asked.

“That’s a good question, Landry,” said Fia.

It was good to be on this kind of footing with her. They’d kissed, and they were fine.

They got in the car to drive back to Four Corners, and Fia put Taylor Swift on, as they had all established that they were fans, and some of the lyrics scraped a little bit too close to his bone. Because there were some deep, wrenching truths about breakups. And he knew that while he had been in a lot of pain as a result of theirs, he had caused a lot of it too.

But then thankfully they moved away from some of the breakup-era songs and gotten into something a little bit lighter.

His brother texted him to ask them an ETA, and he gave it when they were about an hour away.

About forty-five minutes later, his brother texted with instructions to meet them at the town hall meeting barn.

“They’re planning something,” said Landry, reading the text to Fia.

“That sounds ominous.”

“It’s probably not ominous . But it’s definitely going to be raucous.”

Lila looked bemused as they continued on toward Four Corners. And when they pulled up to the barn, there was a giant banner hanging on the outside, wreathed in greenery and Christmas lights.

Welcome home, Lila.

Lila’s eyes went wide and glassy. “What is this?”

“I don’t know,” said Fia.

And then, everyone was pouring out of the barn. The Sullivans, the Kings, the McClouds, the Garretts, and all of the ranch hand families.

There were tables filled with food, and the band was already playing on the stage outside. There were outdoor heaters blazing to combat the chill, and wreaths, ribbons and Christmas lights on the outside of the barn. The tables were laden with festive food and candles.

It was everything for the Christmas party, donated to this instead.

“‘Welcome home, Lila,’” Fia read out loud.

“Welcome home,” Lila repeated.

“I had no idea they were doing this,” said Landry.

“Me neither,” Fia said.

It was the damnedest thing, seeing the Kings and the Sullivans next to each other. They were the family that was always furthest apart. Because of Landry. And now, they were the family that was closely united. With a child between them. Because of Landry. A child they had just adopted. A child that the whole ranch was welcoming into the fold.

“I’m afraid you’re one of us,” said Landry.

Lila had tears streaming down her face. “Yeah,” she said.

“You okay?” Fia asked.

“Yeah,” said Lila. “It’s just hard to believe. I haven’t had a home for a year. I never expected that. To not have a home. So I know what it means for real. Knowing that I get to stay. That this is it. That this is where I get to be.”

“With us,” said Fia.

“And everybody,” said Landry.

They got out of the car, and they were rushed by the crew. The Sullivan sisters took turns hugging Lila, and Alaina even hugged Landry. Quinn and Rory declined. It didn’t really surprise him. Denver handed him a cup with an unknown alcoholic substance in it. “Congratulations,” he said. “It’s a girl.”

Landry looked at his daughter, feeling dumbstruck. “I guess it is.”

And that was when he realized. This was the baby shower they never got to have. As much as it was Lila’s welcome home.

This was that celebration they never could have had when they were nothing but dumb teenagers. When everybody would’ve judge them. And Fia most of all.

Landry wasn’t one for church, but he could recall a sermon some years before where the pastor had quoted a verse that said God would restore the years the locusts had eaten. He hadn’t understood what that meant.

But he did now. Because yeah. There’d been famine. There’d been things that were chewed up and spit out. Good things demolished and destroyed, like Lila’s family.

But there was restoration too. A kind of giving back. And he could accept that, while also realizing that this wouldn’t have been what he’d have if he had held on to Lila all those years before.

And it was an incredible gift to be able to see that restoration.

That renewal of all that was good and bright and beautiful.

“You know,” said Denver, separating him slightly from Lila and Fia. “I still can’t quite believe you went through all that when you were seventeen, and never said anything.”

“Probably because I knew that I was being a dumbass,” he said. “And if I shared it with you, you would probably just side with Fia. And I didn’t want you to. I didn’t want anyone to. I wanted to be angry. And I wanted it to be uncomplicated.”

“Hell. I get that. I do. But I just... I feel bad that I didn’t realize.”

“Back then what could anybody realize except what our dad wanted? We weren’t trained to pay attention to each other. Look at poor Arizona. She had a whole heartbreak we all missed. None of us knew how bad that accident affected her. In a lot of ways it was very similar to what was happening with me. I just kept it to myself. It was easiest. And I knew it would be easy to keep it to myself when we were all trained to just...view our lives as survival of the fittest.”

Denver nodded. “I mean I guess Fia had a whole pregnancy.”

He snorted. “Yeah. So whatever was going on in the Sullivan house was hardly better than ours. Different. But painful in its own way. Very painful.”

“I really didn’t think you’d ever had a thing with her.”

“You didn’t? Why did you think we had issues with each other?”

Denver shrugged. “Didn’t really think about it, to be honest.”

“You’re hilarious, Denver.”

Denver shrugged. “Listen, as a man who has his own life and his own resources, I get it. Sometimes living in a place like this, it feels better to keep a little bit to yourself.”

“We wouldn’t know how to do anything but keep things to ourselves,” said Landry.

“Well. True enough.”

“It’s weird,” said Landry. “Inside, I made a lot of my identity about what I lost. About what I couldn’t have. And now that isn’t the case. I have a family. I have my daughter. And there’s Fia...”

“You going to marry her?” Denver asked.

“No,” said Landry. “It hasn’t even...”

“Why?”

His brother asked that question like Landry was a dumbass. Like marrying her would be the clear and obvious choice.

“What the hell does marriage mean, Denver? It didn’t keep her parents together, it didn’t keep them here. Sure as hell didn’t help our mom and dad.”

“True. But there’s something to be said for... I don’t know. Bringing her into King’s Crest. Making her part of everything.”

“Who would that leave at Sullivan’s Point? The place is Fia’s. Alaina is with the McClouds. Quinn and Rory moved off campus. They have their own homes. Fia has always had a tough situation. She is the matriarch of Sullivan’s Point. If she’s not there, it’s nothing.”

“All the better,” said Denver. “We could absorb it.”

He wanted to punch his brother for that.

“You know that can’t happen. Anyway. Even if she did consent to marrying me...” He shook his head. “No. Look, there’s no reason to do that. No reason to put marriage on the table. She and I aren’t even in a relationship. We sure as hell don’t even know how to have a functional one.”

“But isn’t it tempting? To simplify things?”

“Let me ask you something, Denver.”

“Shoot.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

He didn’t even pause. “No.”

“There you have it. You’ve never been in love. You ever thought about getting married?”

“Also no. I made a little something of myself, but I fail to see how that could be complemented by marriage. Which frankly just sounds kind of torturous to me. But then, I also don’t have a kid.”

“That you know of,” said Landry.

Denver scowled. “Fuck you.”

He clapped his brother on the shoulder and separated from him.

Marriage. That was rich coming from Denver.

They had never seen a traditional family work.

As far as he was concerned, the traditional family was a bullshit lie. Something designed to keep men and women at odds. And hell, he’d done a much better job just in the last few weeks than he’d managed to do as a teenager, than his parents had managed to do for the entirety of their marriage, balancing being a father, and... All right, so he and Fia didn’t have joined lives, really. But she felt like a partner. Felt like someone who was part of his family now. Linked to him.

He thought about that kiss. Damn, that had been hot.

But she’d said no. Unequivocally. And he couldn’t argue with that. Nor would he.

Because he’d screwed things up enough between them without pressing the attraction that was still there now.

Yeah. He felt some kind of way about her. But that was messy.

They had the friendship part now. That was what was important. He would never have guessed that they could get to this point.

He wanted to do everything in his power to preserve it now.

He wanted it more than he wanted to kiss her.

He was almost entirely certain of that.

The bonfire was going strong, and people had gathered to dance. He looked over at Fia. He had always wanted to dance with her at a bonfire. Not in recent years. When he had spent most of that time glaring across the expanse at her, letting his anger burn hotter than the flames.

But when he was younger, and they’d been engaging in a torrid, secret affair, he definitely had. And now?

Now they were family.

He held his hand out and looked at her. “Come on, Fia. I think it’s about time we had this dance.”

F IA DIDN ’ T KNOW how to respond to that. Except she was drawn to him before she could formulate an answer.

Part of her had always dreamed of that. Of dancing with him at the bonfire, like they were one of the couples.

Well, a long-ago version of herself had.

And it had always felt tricky and sharp and sparky in the years since.

Because no matter how much she hated him, she wanted him too. That had been, and always would be, the most difficult part of Landry King.

But right now... This was a celebration. So maybe it was the perfect time. The perfect time to cross the space and take his hand. Except even as she did, she knew it wasn’t just about making a show of being united. It wasn’t just about Lila or the adoption or the joy of the party.

It was about the fact that she was drawn to him like a moth to the flame. That she was inexorably tied to him. No matter how much you might want to pretend otherwise. His hand against hers set off a chain reaction inside of her. The whole landscape shifted that left her rearranged. That left her undone.

She tried not to show it, of course. Tried to breathe through it. Even as he drew her up against his body for a moment, before sending her away, and pulling her back. It was a light-footed dance. And the air around them shouldn’t feel sick. It should just be fun. But as they were spinning, she felt herself getting busier and busier. She felt the world shrinking down to just them.

And when he spun her, all she could see was the stars, the fire and Landry.

Everything was so clear.

She wanted him.

It was as simple and complicated as that.

They would never have been here. They would never have been dancing, if not for Lila. And yet their connection wasn’t only about Lila.

It never had been. They’d needed something no less than their daughter to bring them back to this point.

Or maybe there was no back about it. Maybe it was something wholly new. Wholly different and wonderful.

Maybe this was the first time they had ever been quite like this.

She looked up at him, at his sculpted face half illuminated by the firelight. They couldn’t move toward each other, not now.

But she could feel the pull to him.

And could feel him being drawn to her in return.

Lord, that man was everything. He just was.

He can’t be everything. He’s Landry. You already know how it goes.

Maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe this was their chance to heal as many things as they wanted. Maybe this was their chance to renew and reclaim. They had both admitted that other relationships hadn’t been able to happen for them. And she wondered how much of it was because they had both been trapped in the most difficult, traumatic time of their lives.

But now they had moved past it. They had made something new.

They had their daughter at the right time.

Maybe there would be a chance for them to...

She wasn’t silly enough to believe that they could do love and marriage. The simple truth was, she had never actually seen that work out. She knew he hadn’t either.

And she would never risk what they were building with Lila over dreams spun from fantasy and well-placed lies. You couldn’t count on having a double miracle. They were being given a second chance. In a deep and profound way few people could have ever expected. You couldn’t test the limits of something like that. You couldn’t test the limits of hope and faith and love when you had been gifted with more than any one person could expect.

But there was heat between them. And she did want to test the limits of that.

She had fantasized only last night about him pushing past her barriers.

About him pushing them both past the brink. Past sanity. And she knew that was childish. The behavior of somebody who couldn’t stand by their own decisions. She could.

In many ways she had always been able to trust herself. And only herself.

She knew what she had to do when it came to Lila. Even though she had wanted more. Even though she had wished that she could run away with Landry. She had known the right thing to do. And she had doubled down, turned inward, handled it all without ever including another person in those moves she’d made. Not after it had been clear Landry was going to oppose her.

She had known she could count on herself. So perhaps she needed to trust herself now. That was a tangled thing. A sharp thing. Because she had also always blamed herself for getting into the situation in the first place. And maybe that was where she needed to have more kindness for her past self. Because even her present self couldn’t reject this. Couldn’t say no to this. Even her present self felt swept off her feet.

Was it so wrong to miss that feeling?

She looked at the bonfire, just for a moment. And then back at him. A wildfire was deadly. Sweeping through the trees. But the bonfire was simply a good time. When they were teenagers, their desire had been a wildfire. Because it had no parameters. No boundaries. It had been only and ever a raging inferno. But they were older now.

The bonfire could stay put. Exactly where it was supposed to.

She swallowed hard and put her hand on his chest.

She watched his jaw firm. To anyone else, it only looked like they were dancing still. But she could tell that he felt the shift.

“Fia...”

“Landry,” she said. “Look at me.”

He did. His blue gaze hot and hooded. Filled with their own flame.

“My twenty-nine-year-old self thinks maybe we should try to approach this differently,” she whispered.

“My thirty-year-old self is wondering what you mean by that?” he asked huskily.

“This exists between us. Whether we do something about it or not, right?”

“Seems to be.”

“And there’s no point denying it. We’ve already slipped up. We are not hiding it. But then, we never were. Half the ranch thought we’d already slept together. The other half thought we were going to.”

“Apparently not my brother. He says he didn’t wonder about us at all.”

Fia huffed. “Well, how nice for him.”

“Truly.”

“This thing between us,” she continued. “It’s real, whether we explore it or not. And we know it’s there. There’s no way of denying it.”

“Say what you want,” he said, his voice hard.

“You,” she answered.

“When.”

“Tonight. After the bonfire.”

“Where do you want to meet?”

“You already know.”

“I want you,” he said. “I have. Every damned day since we broke up.” No one around them could hear them talking. Landry’s voice was a low growl, intimate, only for her to hear. The talking, laughing and music rose above them. Swirled around them. Created an intimate cocoon. “I tried to get you off of my mind by sleeping with someone else. It didn’t work. Made me feel sick. Later, when time had passed, I decided to do it just because it seemed like the thing to do. But it was never you. It was never this. Nothing ever could be, Fia.”

“Maybe we just need this. Maybe we need to do it. At least one time. Maybe we need to finish it. In a way that’s not all broken and shattered.”

It felt silly to think that sex could shatter them now. They were parents. To a thirteen-year-old girl who needed them. They were bonded. In a way that was so deep, so profound, she knew she could never go back to living on the same ranch as him and ignoring him no matter what passed between them.

They were different now.

Whatever happened, even if it went badly, they would take the time to untangle it. Whatever happened, they would find a way. It was about the safest form of throwing caution to the wind that she could even think of. Even as Landry looked at her, all sultry and dangerous, she felt that.

And she was at a loss for words. She wanted to kiss him, but not here. Not in front of everyone. She wanted to kiss him, but that needed to stay between them. She wanted to kiss him, but she couldn’t risk doing that in front of Lila. Because this wasn’t some easy version of The Parent Trap.

This was life, real life, with dangerous, delicate emotions, and they needed to guard them.

But there was also real need. Real history between herself and Landry, and she wanted to unravel it all. While he unraveled her.

She wanted him. She wanted to bring all that they’d ever been. In all that they were now, and let them both get burned alive by it.

A time and a place to fling themselves into the fire. Knowing and experienced. They finished out the dance, and her heart was beating hard. She was breathless, and it wasn’t just from spinning.

He went over to his brothers, and she stood on the outskirts for a moment. Lila was actually sitting and talking to one of the other kids, and it made Fia’s heart feel two sizes bigger.

Alaina edged over to where Fia was and sat. “Is something going on between you and Landry?”

“Did you just get tired of not being able to say your very favorite refrain?” Fia asked.

“No. It’s only that it looks like there’s something going on between the two of you.”

Fia sighed. “I never stopped being attracted to him.”

“That’s some high-stakes poker, Fia,” said Alaina.

“Oh, I’m aware,” she said. “But we’ve been through...everything.”

“Yeah. You have.” Her sister looked at her carefully. “Should you have to go through any more?”

“I thought you were a big proponent of my hooking up with Landry.”

“Well, that was kind of before I knew how difficult what you went through was.”

“Yeah, what I went through was difficult. So trust that I can handle just about anything now.”

“Listen,” said Alaina. “You do not have to tell me about the allure of the cowboy. Or the trouble they can get you into.”

She frowned. “Do you mean Travis?”

Travis was the biological father of Alaina’s baby. But Gus had married Alaina. Gus had truly become Cameron’s father. And the love of Alaina’s life.

“I do not,” said Alaina. “That wasn’t sex appeal. That was stubbornness on my part. No. Gus was undeniable. When I needed to have a cool head. When I needed to be measured. Reasonable. And instead I fell madly in love with him, and took all my clothes off for him.”

“Well, I am not madly in love with Landry. I’m realistic about Landry.”

“Actually, Fia, I think maybe don’t be realistic for once. How long has it been since you’ve had a good time?”

She looked around, at the barn, at the party. Lila.

“Actually, I’ve been having the time of my life for the last few weeks.”

“Well. Might as well keep it going with a bang.”

“Very nice.”

“Just be careful,” said Alaina.

“Neither of us is in any position to give the other safe sex lectures.”

Alaina laughed, doubling over. “True.”

She got up and crossed to Gus and their baby, kissing him on the cheek and taking her daughter into her arms. She loved watching them together. Really, she loved watching all of her sisters with their partners. And she ignored the tug in her chest that tempted her to think that she could have the same thing.

It was different. She and Landry were different. But tonight, they were going to have something even better than love. She had yet to see evidence that love could be permanent. But this? This was about the most long-lasting thing she’d ever experienced. This need for him.

Why not indulge it?

Who was she kidding, pretending to rationalize. There was no rationalizing this. There was nothing but need.

For the first time in a long time, there was nothing but need.

It made her feel like she’d slipped into an old pair of jeans that somehow still fit. That she loved even more for that reason.

Tonight, she would have Landry King. Tonight, everything really would go full circle. And then, she would be able to move on. And they would be able to make their family.

And everything would be fine.