Hero for the Holidays (Four Corners Ranch #9)

Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T HE NEXT MORNING they ordered room service—or what passed for room service at that particular hotel, which was basically a bundled-up version of the continental breakfast—and ate in bed together.

It was a luxury. Being together like this.

Landry had never spent the whole night with a woman. He had never wanted to—other than Fia, that was. He had dreamed of it when they were younger. When he’d held her after they’d made love, and he’d stroked her hair, he’d imagine waking up in the morning with her, the sunlight streaming in and making that red gold hair light up.

And this morning he had it. And her. She was naked, with the sheets around her waist, clutching the cup of coffee in her hand.

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“The shelter opens at nine,” she said sleepily.

They hadn’t slept very much. He didn’t regret it. Not a single hour they’d spent clinging to each other.

“So we have a little time.” He leaned in and kissed her. She put her coffee down, and he proceeded to push the limit of the time they had left before they had to leave.

They both dressed slowly. He got them both some coffee to go from the little dining room before they headed out to the shelter.

When they got there, they walked through the front door. “I’m Fia,” she said to the person sitting at the front desk. “I called yesterday.”

“We spoke on the phone,” said the girl with piercings sitting at the front desk. “You’re the ones who are here for Sunday.”

“Yes,” said Fia. “We’re here for Sunday.”

Sunday was the most beautiful dog he’d ever seen. She was big and happy, her tail wagging wildly the minute she saw Fia.

“I think you look like someone she knows,” he said.

“Stop,” she said. When she looked up at him, her eyes were full of tears. And he was pretty sure that he loved her.

Yeah. He was pretty sure he had. All this time.

They took Sunday out to the car after they filled out all of the paperwork, and hit the road.

There was a celebratory feel to the drive back, and yet, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they were leaving something else behind, even as they brought the dog back.

He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they were supposed to leave all of their need for each other back in that hotel.

And it just wasn’t going to work that way. Not for him.

But he sensed a whole lot of hesitance in Fia. Deep, intense walls that she still had up around her heart.

He had earned those. He knew that. He was trying to figure out all the ways that he could atone. It wasn’t, apparently, agreeing to move in with her. It wasn’t, apparently, being a decent enough dad. It wasn’t multiple orgasms, either.

He would keep apologizing until his throat was sore. He could never stop being sorry for the way that he’d failed her.

But he didn’t especially know what else to do.

He would let it sit for now. Because if there was one thing he’d learned over thirteen years of not having the woman he loved in his bed, in his arms, it was that he could endure a whole hell of a lot.

So he could wait. He could wait until he could figure it all out.

And in the meantime, he would try. He would try to keep challenging himself. He would try to keep changing. And most of all, he needed to keep on listening to her.

Because that was what she’d said he hadn’t done. And he knew it to be true. He hadn’t been able to listen because he’d been so caught up in his own bullshit. In his own issues.

And he didn’t want it to be about him. It needed to be about her. What she wanted too.

And it needed to be about him being able to give her what she needed.

And maybe that was the thing. He wasn’t quite sure what all she needed yet. So until then did, he needed to move slowly. He needed to not spook her.

That was the main thing.

They finally arrived back at Four Corners, and they decided to go straight to the King residence.

“We’re going to have to give her a little heads-up,” Fia said.

“I’ll wait out here with Sunday,” he said. “You go in.”

“Really?”

“You’re the one who found her.”

Fia got out of the car, and he watched her the whole way.

He looked down at the dog. “You have no idea,” he said to her. “But that woman over there just made your life. She really did.”

A minute later the door opened, and Fia came out with a stunned-looking Lila.

And that was when he chose to open the door.

“Sunday!”

The dog raced across the grass. Right toward Lila.

And he had never seen a single thing that matched the joy on his daughter’s face right then.

They couldn’t work miracles. They couldn’t bring back the parents who had loved her and raised her from the time she was a baby. But if Sunday could be one thing, it was evidence that they would move mountains to give her what they could.

That they would always listen, and always care.

And right there, something shifted within him. And he realized he could love Fia independently of Lila. He couldn’t want her independently of wanting to make a family for Lila. Yes, that would be great. But it wasn’t why he wanted Fia. He always had.

Because she was everything to him. And she had been for a long damned time. Thoughtful and beautiful and funny, and his whole soul.

This utterly beautiful person who had bewitched him from way back when.

He loved them both separately. He loved them both together. He loved Fia as Lila’s mother. But he loved her as a woman.

And there was something about this that just secured it all. Cemented it in his head, and his heart.

And it made him not so afraid. Not so afraid to trust his love.

Not so afraid he was his dad. Because he would go through hell and back for those women. They were his.

But not his to manipulate. His to care for. His to love.

Lila was crying, holding on to Sunday. And the dog was whimpering too. Her own version of crying, he thought. In pure joy. Happiness. He knew there was something bittersweet in it too.

But life, in his experience, was like that. Where there was love, there was always loss. And where there was restoration, there were always cracks.

Right now, though, he could say with confidence that they made love all the sweeter.

That maybe the bitter had to be there for the sweet to matter.

“Fia... Landry. You found her.”

“We both contacted the shelter trying to find out what became of her. It just so happened that the family who had been taking care of her for the last year had to move. And they couldn’t bring her with them. So she was there. Waiting for you.”

“She was just like me,” said Lila. “Waiting for the two of you to find her.”

“I think it’s about time we headed home,” said Landry. “All of us. Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Lila. “Let’s go home.”

So they all loaded up in the car. Father, mother, dog and girl. And they headed back toward Sullivan’s Point.

Because that was their home now. And they were family.

And Landry knew that he wouldn’t let anything shake that.

Not a damn thing.