Hero for the Holidays (Four Corners Ranch #9)

Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I T WAS A whole week of living with Fia and sleeping in the bedroom down the hall. It was hard. Damned hard. Because he wanted that woman. With all of himself. With everything.

More than that. He loved her.

That Monday, they took Lila to the one-room schoolhouse for the first time. There were only three days until Christmas break, but still, she was ready to start. She already had a couple of friends there, plus Daniel. And they felt good about leaving her. But Fia was still emotional like it was Lila’s first day of kindergarten. And afterward he drove Fia to Becky’s diner and got her a hamburger.

“This is so silly,” said Fia, wiping her cheeks.

“No, it’s not,” he said.

They still made a spectacle about town, going around together. But everybody knew now. Everybody had seen their little family. He took pride in it, and he knew for a while it had embarrassed Fia a little bit. He also knew that it didn’t now.

That it was a little different. But things felt more...positive for now.

And he felt like he was getting close. To the right moment.

“How are you feeling? I mean, other than all this. You still liking living with me?”

“Yes,” she said, eating a french fry.

They breakfasted together every morning. Had dinner together every night. He really was never quite so happy as he was with her.

They were beginning to have more of a relationship independent of Lila. And independent of sex. They sat and talked about their days, just because they wanted to.

They were filling in all these gaps. They had done things so out of order. All sex. Then all parenting. And now it was like their connection was coming through. kneading them together into something stronger. He still wanted her, though. And he felt like it was getting close to the right moment to bring their romance back into play.

“I am... I’m happy.”

“Good. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To make you happy.”

It was true. She seemed like she didn’t know what to say to that, so she turned her head to the side. He didn’t push. They stayed busy, him working on the barn, and Fia back at the farm store until it was time for them to pick up Lila. And when they did, she was chatty and filled with stories about the day. They had Sunday in the car, and she was wildly excited to see her girl.

They drove back to the farmhouse, and he offered to make dinner.

That meant it would be steak and vegetables, but nobody complained. Lila and Fia sat together working on crocheted animals. They ate dinner, and Lila went up to her room.

Because she was a teenager. So as much as she enjoyed spending time with them, she of course enjoyed spending a good portion of her time by herself, in her own space. He often thought that her bedroom was perhaps the thing she appreciated the most that they’d given her.

Fia lingered downstairs for a bit while he did cleanup from dinner. And then she went upstairs too.

He looked around the house. It was a hell of a thing. To be living about three-quarters of what he wanted most. To have his daughter. To live with Fia. To love Fia.

But he didn’t really have her.

He sighed and headed up the stairs.

He turned and headed down the hall, and the door to Fia’s room opened.

He stood there. Looking down the dimly lit hall as she appeared. He found himself walking toward her. And he could see a kind of helpless expression on her face. Not sure whether she wanted to tell him to fall back or tell him to come near.

But he needed her. He really did. Because the truth was, he had everything else. And so he knew that if something was missing, it was her. In his arms. In his bed.

She was in his heart. Just like she had been from day one.

But that heart hadn’t been mature enough to hold her in the way it needed to. He hoped it was now. He hoped to God that it was now.

“Baby,” he said.

Because it was what he’d called her then. It wasn’t the most personal. It wasn’t the most special. But it had been the most passionate thing. From the depths of his soul. Just like it was now.

She moved away, making room for him to walk through the door.

She threw her arms around his neck, and she was trembling. And he just held her. And memorized the feel of her. The press of her breasts against his chest. Her smile. The way she was familiar. The way she was different.

The way she was his. He would’ve said that he wasn’t an emotional man. He would’ve said that prior to the last few months. And now it felt like they were always so close to the surface. It felt like they were all of him. Everything. And he didn’t even hate it.

The chance to hurt for these women who were everything to him, it felt like a gift.

It made him feel like he ought to be here. He wished that he could go back and tell that boy it would all be okay. Not the way he imagined it, but better. That love meant more when you gave it the right way, at the right time, when you had the right stuff to give.

He tilted her chin up to his and he kissed her.

It was slow and aching. Because he didn’t need a whirlwind. Because they weren’t racing anything. Their better judgment, their parents, the clock.

They had time. They had this room. They had a bed.

In their house. Their house.

So he took his sweet-ass time undressing her. Revealing that glorious body to him.

He took his time, because she was worth all the time. All the years, all the waiting. All the wanting.

Because she was worth it. Because God knew that pain. But they deserved pleasure.

He couldn’t give her back all those years. But maybe he had needed to be away from her. Maybe he had needed to become a different man, a better man.

He wished to God he could go back and be better then. But in the absence of that he would take this. He laid her on the bed, and he worshipped her. His Aphrodite. His everything.

His woman. His woman whom he’d loved since she’d been his girl. And he’d never been anything as young and simple as a boyfriend.

Now he wanted to be her husband. Her protector. Her man. The father of her child. God, he wanted to have more children with her. That was a plea. A prayer.

And every kiss was a supplication. A request, not a demand.

And when he entered her, he felt that same rush. Like the first time. Like every time. Over and over again.

Because she was beautiful. And she was his. Fia Sullivan and that bastard Landry King. She clung to him. To his shoulders. Wrapped her legs around his waist. He wanted to be closer than inside her. He wanted to drown in her. In this.

He wanted to lie beside her. Every night. Forever. He wanted be with her always.

“I love you,” he whispered against her mouth. He’d said it to her before. It had been a long time ago. A lot of years. What they had meant then was: I love your body. I love to have sex with you. I love the pleasure that you give me.

And now it meant... What can I give you? How can I be there for you? How can I build my life around yours?

Because the same two people could have the same passion, and find something more. Because the same two people could say the same words, and mean something different. Because the same two people, who had once been too young, too immature, could make a family. They could. With time. And healing. With a willingness to look at where they had gone wrong, and to change.

“I love you so much, Fia. I love you.”

She cried out, her internal muscles convulsing around him. And he kissed her. On her nose, her cheeks. Her mouth.

“I love you,” he said again.

She shuddered and shook, and he held her after.

And it was okay that she didn’t say the words back. Because his feelings weren’t tied to them.

Finally, he knew that it was love. That he wanted to give it without expectation. Without a need for a response, because it wasn’t about tricking her into doing something or feeling something or being something. It was just about him loving her. And yes, he wanted to be in her bed.

Yes, he wanted.

But it wasn’t a trade.

He had been hoping for the baby to hold them together. And when that had been removed, it had knocked the wind out of him. Taken the power out of what he had professed as love.

He wasn’t looking for glue now. Love was enough as it was.

He fell asleep holding her. And when he woke in the gray light of dawn, Fia was gone.

F IA SAT AT the top of the hill, out by the cabin. Waiting for the sun to rise. Waiting for something to undo the oppressive darkness winding through her soul. Waiting to feel whole. He loved her.

Landry King loved her. She knew for a fact it was the last wall she couldn’t demolish, the last door she couldn’t beat down.

She knew for a fact that it was the thing she was afraid of.

And so she sat there, in that place where they had run underneath the stars holding hands, when they were sixteen, and thirty. When they were younger, and older. And she cried. For the girl she’d been and the woman she was, who still didn’t quite know how to have all this.

How to feel it all.

She knew what she wanted. It was clear.

It was right there. And yet she had felt safer these last few weeks with a portion. It felt manageable. It felt like something the world wouldn’t take away.

And just as the sun rose, there in the distance, she saw him walking up the hill. The bastard Landry King. His hat on his head, the gold lining his body. He looked like an angel. Except Landry had never been her angel.

“Hey, baby,” he said. “What are you doing up here?”

“Running away,” she said, wiping at tears on her cheeks.

“Why are you running from me?”

“Because it can’t be real. I can’t be. Because I gave you everything I had once. Just you. And if I give it all again, then what’s going to be left? I don’t know if I know how to love you and keep my sanity. I’m afraid. Because what’s going to happen if I do something that breaks us again? And this time I was in the middle of it. It’s not fair, because you’ve apologized to me. Over and over again, but I cannot forget what it felt like to look at you and see that you didn’t love me anymore. I will never forget that, Landry. And the worst thing is that not only did I see the love leave your eyes, I couldn’t even fight for it. Because I didn’t think I was worth it anymore. And I fixed that. I found better for myself. I trusted myself and I believed myself. But I just...”

“What is it?” he asked. “What is it that you need, and I will give it to you. I’m listening. It matters to me.”

“I know it does. I know.”

“What do you need from me? I will love you with no expectations, Fia. I will never leave you. You don’t have to love me back. You don’t have to agree to marry me. We don’t have to have sex. I just love you.”

“Why?” she asked. “I don’t understand why, and if I don’t understand why, how the hell am I ever gonna trust that you’re not going to take it away? Everyone has left me. My father left because he found another woman. My mother left because she had to go find herself. And you left me when I did the only thing that I knew to do. I have had to keep it together, to hold it together for everybody around me... But everybody leaves me.”

“I am sorry. I will never forgive myself for that. Because you deserved better.”

She breathed in deep, her chest feeling like there were shards of glass in it. And she knew it wasn’t fair. She knew it wasn’t fair. She was holding seventeen-year-old Landry to the same standards that she held her parents. The people who were supposed to parent her. And she knew what being a parent was. She knew that her parents bore the weight of this pain. Of the doubt. Because it wasn’t up to Landry to be an adult when he wasn’t one. They had both grown and they had both changed.

And she realized that it wasn’t anger. Not anymore. It wasn’t anger.

It was fear. It had always been fear. She had looked at Landry then and she had seen exactly what she wanted to see. Something unfixable. Because she had known that she was the one who had to make the break with him. That she was the one who had to break it off, so that he wouldn’t. That she couldn’t endure another loss. And that was all she was doing now.

She was protecting herself.

“I did what I had to. But I came back empty. In a baggy sweatshirt, with no baby and a broken heart. Because whether or not I thought it was the right thing, whether or not I knew it was the only choice, it broke something in me. And I have spent all these years working to fix it. To become whole. Knowing that a part of my heart was out there. I did a pretty good job. But I’m so scared of something breaking me again. And the minute I came back the first thing I did was break up with you. You made it so easy. Because you were cruel. And that was actually a blessing. Because then I could just hate you. For what you did to me. For what you promised me. And it let me not be heartbroken. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what would happen to me if I lost you. If I lost this.”

“I need you to trust me,” he said. “Trust my love. Because it is real. And it is deep. It is the sum total of who I am as a man. I realized weeks ago life would’ve brought me here even if Lila hadn’t come to us. She was a damned good catalyst, because damn, did it mean we had to get it together. We had to figure out how to talk to each other. How to be together. We had to. There was no other option. But I love you. If that wasn’t true, the house, the family, that would be enough. But I love you like a man loves a woman. Not just as the mother of my child. I have loved you this whole time. I just wouldn’t let myself. Because like you, I was freaked the fuck out. About what it would mean to want you and to not have you again.” He sat down next to her on the hill. “We loved each other too early. It was too big for us. We couldn’t catch up to it. It was never the love that was wrong, though. It was just the time. And maybe we would’ve been fine if the people around us had helped us. Had taught us anything. Had given us any support, but we were kind of just out there giving it to each other. And we didn’t know what we were doing.”

“The scary thing is that I still don’t. I don’t feel grown enough to handle all of this.”

“That’s why we have to go together. We’ve done a damn fine job of it. If you don’t love me, Fia, then I’ll drop this. I’ll let it go. But if you do...”

“Of course I do,” she said. “Landry, there’s not another person for me. Not in this whole world. I just tried to tell myself that being Lila’s mother was enough. That I didn’t need to be yours too. I can’t stay away from you. You asked what my dream was. And I didn’t want to say it. It was to marry Landry King. It was to be Fia King.”

“Does any part of you still want that?”

“Yes. Of course if I do that, then I’m not going to be able to pass on Sullivan’s Point. Because the name is going to end...”

“Names don’t matter. Be Fia Sullivan, or be Fia King. You know that’s not what it takes to be family. Look at us. Family with three different names. Honoring all the places that we come from.”

“The name is the least of my worries. Landry, I love you so much it could shatter me.”

“But I’ll never shatter you. Because love means something different to me now. Because all these years taught me something better. Because I looked at myself and I didn’t like what I saw, and I decided to change it. I loved you from the beginning. But I couldn’t say it to you until I was confident that I could without demanding a thing in return. Because of the way that my dad used those words to manipulate, and I...I don’t want to do that. My love back then was selfish. I’m not saying that on a given day my love’s not going to be a little selfish. But I hope that it’s better. I hope that mostly it’s about what I can give you.”

“These last thirteen years were nothing,” she whispered. “They were just us learning how to love each other. Better. Different.”

“It was probably a good thing. To take the sex away for a while. Because we’re so good at that.”

She felt herself blushing. “Yes. We are very good at that.”

“You had to get to know me. As the man that I am. This wasn’t something we just fell into. Not like the first time. We are making choices. I choose you. The woman that you are now. The mother that you are now.”

“I choose you,” she whispered. “The man that you are.”

“We might fight sometimes,” he said. “That won’t make us toxic. We might hurt each other sometimes. But that won’t mean we should quit. Anytime you feel yourself on the edge with me, I want you to look at me and tell me where I’m failing you, and I’m gonna listen.”

She realized then that there were other true things that she still needed to learn. That yes, love didn’t cover everything. That sometimes distance and time and growth were necessary. But also that not only could she not know for sure how things would have gone if they’d made a different choice, she also could never know for sure what the future would hold.

And all of it required trust. In who they were, and who they’d become. And in their love. To make better choices. To make the right choices, because they were loving from a place that was different than the one they’d had before.

“I love you,” she said. “And I trust you. With all my past hurt. And my insecurities. And the things that still scare me. I love you. And maybe...maybe it’s easy now, because we both know we’re never gonna leave each other for anybody else. There’s no one else. We’ve proven that.”

He chuckled. “Well. That is true. But you know, the last thirteen years have been the making of us. We went our separate ways and we discovered something.”

“What’s that?”

“We can live without each other. But it’s just not as good.”

“No. And I would never choose to.”

“Me neither.” He leaned in and kissed her. “I can’t love anyone but you. I just can’t. It’s you. And there were a lot of things about that love back then that weren’t right. But it was real. And it was only you.”

“Only you.”

He picked her up off the hillside, and they stood in front of the cabin, where they’d built their family, for better or worse. The foundation of them, right there.

And she had so much compassion for those kids that they were. Who had wanted this, but couldn’t get there.

And so much gratitude for the adults they were now. Adults who could make this life together.

Because the clearest thing right then was that they lived through that so they could arrive here. And she did agree. Even without Lila, even if it had been ten years from now. Eventually, they would reach this place. She wasn’t sure about the particulars of fate. What all was meant to be, and what all was random. She knew for a fact that choices mattered. But one thing she knew for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was that it wasn’t so much that Landry King had worn grooves into her heart as it was that she’d been created with a heart that loved him. And nothing, not time, not pain, not separation, had ever done anything to change that. He was her one and only. She was his.

The love had always been there.

They just had to grow enough to be able to hold it.

And now that she did, she finally felt whole.

When they walked back to the farmhouse and opened up the front door, it felt like that last door had finally been beaten down.

Like there was nothing inside her separate or distant.

It had been loving Landry all along.

The final thing. The only thing.

Lila came down the stairs then. She looked at them, and at their hands.

“What’s going on, guys?”

“I feel like we had a lot of parties lately,” said Landry. “But what do you think about a wedding?”

Lila ran toward them both and wrapped her arms around their necks. And she felt the three of them, held together. By love. And she knew right then that everything was going to be okay. She let out a breath that she’d been holding for thirteen years.

She’d been home the whole time. But somehow, this was the first time she’d really felt it. She looked around the living room. At this house she’d painted in bright colors when her mother had left. Now Landry’s boots were by the door. Lila’s crocheted animals were everywhere. Sunday was chewing the stuffing out of a pillow.

They had a Christmas tree, with presents for all of them.

This was the home she’d always dreamed of. Finally, it was time. Finally, they could have it. Finally, they could have each other.

She looked at the stars they’d put there. Those stars that marked traditions in Lila’s life before them, and showed their family now. The traditions they would build. The life they would have.

Fia. Lila. Landry.

“I love us,” whispered Fia.

“Me too.”