by Louise, Tia
“There’s more to it than that. A lot more. Things I hope you never have to understand… or experience.” Sawyer’s voice is grave, but Leon makes a disgusted noise before turning and stomping down the hill.
Dropping my face, I rub my forehead with my fingers. “He’s right. I shouldn’t have come back here.”
“I’ll talk to him.” Sawyer steps over and takes my arm. “You okay?”
“I will be.”
“You were right to come here. You need to know your daughter. She needs to know her dad.”
“You don’t want to kick my ass, too?” I’m only partly joking.
The fury coming off Leon was powerful, confirming my worst fears. Everything I remember about that last night with Noel is true. I was so fucked up. I hurt her so badly.
“The demons we fought were strong. Almost too strong.” Our eyes meet, and he gives my shoulder a squeeze. “But you were tougher than them. You beat them, and you’re here.”
“I lost what matters most.”
“Maybe not.”
We slowly start down the hill for the house, the pain in my back beginning to ease, but I have a slight limp. “I’d give anything for you to be right.”
He pauses, looking up the road ahead. “Everybody deserves a second chance.”
Dove is still in the kitchen when I return to the house. She’s standing in a chair, leaning over the table coloring with a brown, stuffed mouse in a green dress beside her. For a minute I watch her so focused on her project.
Her brow is furrowed, and her nose turns up right at the end. I can’t get over her blonde hair. She’s perfect.
I step closer, and the floor creaks. She sits down in the chair and studies me.
“Mamma says if you see somebody who needs a smile, you should give ‘em one of yours.” She smiles at me, and a little dimple appears just below her mouth—just like her mother’s.
And just that fast, she steals my heart. “Do I need a smile?”
“You did.” She’s still grinning, her little-girl teeth showing. “What’s your name?”
“Taron.”
“That’s like my name.” She stands in the chair and starts coloring again. “Do you like to color?”
“Sure.” I sit beside her and pick up the blue crayon and start on the coat of a mouse wearing glasses. “What’s your name?”
“Tara Dove Noel LaGrange.” She says it like she’s reading a script, nodding her chin at every word.
“That’s a pretty name. I like Tara.”
“It’s for my daddy. Mamma said he’s a handsome prince. She said that’s why I have blue eyes when hers are brown.”
A flash of emotion tightens my chest. “Where’s your mamma now?”
“Down at her new store.” The little girl’s nose wrinkles. “It’s not really new. It’s really old, but Mamma says it’s going to be the best thing I’ve ever seen when she’s finished with it. I told her I’ve seen a lot.”
“Have you?” I want to laugh. I want to pull her to me and hug her. I want Noel to be here so I can hold them both in my arms. It’s a dream I don’t deserve to have, and I ache for it in my bones.
“Are you a prince?”
“No. I’ve never been a prince.” Despite what her mother used to say.
“I can’t wait to meet my daddy.”
A flash of emotion tightens my stomach, and I’m not sure what to do about this part. How do we tell this beautiful little girl the truth?
I watch her filling in a pink tutu on the page. “What if your mamma was just pretending and your daddy isn’t a prince?”
“Oh, he is.” Her eyebrows rise, and her expression is certain.
I put the blue crayon down and pick up a brown one, starting on the trunk of a tree. “What if he’s just a regular man—like your Uncle Sawyer?”
She stops coloring and presses her cute little mouth into a pout, thinking. “Is he a hero? Mamma says Uncle Sawyer’s a hero.”
My dream of earning Noel’s love, of being good enough to deserve her permeates my mind, tightening my throat. “He wanted to be a hero… but bad stuff happened. He went to a really dark place.”
“Like Prince Phillip?”
“I don’t know him.”
Her eyes grow serious. “He was trapped in a dark dungeon but Merryweather the fairy helped him to escape. Then he had to cut through big thorny bushes and fight a dragon before he could get to Sleeping Beauty and save her from the evil spell.”
“That’s pretty dark.” I consider the metaphorical aspects of her story and figure I can work with this. “He had to do something like that… but he’s still not a prince.”
Her head tilts to the side. “Is he a good man?”
I put the crayon down and pat her little back as I stand. I want to explain everything to her. I want to tell her even though we’ve just met, I’d cut through thorn bushes and fight a dragon for her. I want to tell her I’m her dad and I love her.
“He’s a better man.”
She nods, returning to her picture. “I think that’s okay.”
23
Noel
There should be a tornado siren before Taron Rhodes is allowed to appear in my kitchen that way.
Any kind of heads up would’ve been nice.
Instead he walked right through the door like some sexy version of the Ghost of Christmas Past and stopped my heart all over again.
And broke all the eggs.
My face flashed hot and cold, and for a moment, I thought I might follow the eggs to the floor. I did not faint. Somehow, I remained standing.
Then he took one look at our daughter… No need for a paternity test to know whose child Dove is. She has looked like a pinch off her daddy since the day she made her newborn appearance.
When he looked at me again, the question in his eyes wasn’t really a question. I silently answered, and his expression… At least two of us got the wind knocked out of us this morning.
He staggered out the door with my little brother hot on his heels. Leon took off like a house on fire, but Sawyer hesitated, watching them through the window.
“You knew he was coming?” My hands shook, but I kept my voice steady.
“Who is he?” Dove studied me, but I managed to smile.
“He’s… an old friend of Uncle Sawyer’s.” How could I tell her about her daddy just like that?
She was temporarily satisfied and returned to coloring Angelina Ballerina.
I returned to my brother. “You didn’t think this was something you should’ve told me?”
“He got here earlier than I expected.” Sawyer stood and went to the door. “I’d better check on them.”
I put a biscuit on a plate and ladled grits into a bowl for Dove. “Here, baby. Eat your breakfast now. I’m going to work on my store.”
“Aren’t you eating breakfast?” Her brow furrowed.
“I’ll eat in a few minutes. You stay at the house.”
Grabbing a few items of food out the fridge, I took off—needing to get away, to decide what to do about this.
More than an hour later I’ve swept the floor, the walls, the mantle over the small fireplace… Cobwebs are everywhere, and it’s almost symbolic.
I sweep and sweep and sweep. My insides are trembling and fragile. I thought I’d moved past this, but tears stream down my cheeks, coating my face in saltwater. I use my shirtsleeve to wipe them away. I’ve probably got dirt all over my face as a result.
Akela is right with me, sitting at the door and watching my every move.
I half expected her to run after him. She always loved Taron, but no, my faithful dog remains at my side, standing guard just like always.
“Figures he’d just show up without a word or a warning.” My voice shakes as I talk. I don’t know if it’s from how vigorously I’m cleaning or from how hard I’m shaking inside… or both. “What do you think he wants?”
Akela’s head tilts to the side, and I wonder what she would say.
My broom hits something loud and metal. Another dead rat in a trap.
I look at the brown, limp carcass. “I know the feeling, bud.”
Using the broom, I scoot him out the back door onto the small pile in the grass. Akela watches, not going near the mouse mass grave. I should get a cat.
With a shiver, I go back inside to where a bucket of wood soap and a mop, sponges, sanders, and knee pads are waiting for me. I plan to spend the whole day scrubbing this place top to bottom.
I’m just stepping into my knee pads when the hollow thump of boots on the wood floors draws my attention. Sawyer enters the room, his brows pulled together. “What the hell, Noel?”
His tone takes me aback. I straighten, putting my hands on my hips. “What the hell yourself.”
“I thought he knew about Dove.”
My shoulders drop. “Are you kidding me right now? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“You said you told him.”
“I said I was going to tell him.”
“So what happened?”
I exhale a frustrated breath. “Life? You act like I was just sitting around intentionally not telling him. I had to drop out of school because of him… Then Dove came, and I had to take care of her. Then I had to get back in school so I could take care of her, and the whole time my store was blowing up. I had to keep up with all the orders… Hell, it’s still a challenge sometimes…”
He shakes his dark head. “If that were me—”
“If it were me, I would’ve told my sister the father of her child was about to show up!”
“I was about to tell you last night. I told you, he got here early. Anyway, I thought you were in contact with him.”
“I haven’t spoken to him since…” Shaking my head, I fight the mist filling my eyes again. “He kicked me out, Sawyer. He told me to leave and never come back. His exact words were ‘Find somebody else.’”
“He was messed up. You of all people should have seen that.”
“No.” I will not let him cast me this way. “I went to him. I would’ve done anything to help him. I begged… and he kicked me out. Strike that. He didn’t kick me out, he screamed in my face to get out.”
My brother’s jaw clenches. I see the muscle move back and forth… then just as fast, his shoulders fall. His eyes meet mine, and he closes the space between us, pulling me into a tight hug. It takes half a second for me to relax and wrap my arms around his waist, hugging him back.
“I’m sorry, sis.” The crack in his voice tightens my chest. “I know what you went through. I also know what he went through… what we all went through. You need to come together and deal with your past. For Dove.”
We hold each other a few beats longer before stepping apart. He clears his throat, and I wipe my sleeve across my damp eyes again.
This man never left my side as I grieved, then he stepped right up to help raise my daughter. He has never let me down.
“So about those rats…” I point to the back door.
“Where are they?”
It’s late when I finally decide to call it a day.
I only took a break to eat the food I’d grabbed on my way out the door, and I texted the guys—lunch is on your own.
Dove ran up the hill a few times with Akela to watch me on my hands and knees scrubbing “like Cinderella with the singing bubbles”—her words.
She pretended to sweep while actually dancing with the broom to her version of the Angelina Ballerina opening theme, and when she got bored, Akela ran with her back down the hill to the house.
Sawyer had disposed of the rodent carcasses before my little princess had a chance to see them. Then, when it finally got too dark to see, I dragged my exhausted body the quarter-mile back to the house, weary from a full day of cleaning.
A full day of avoiding the giant elephant in the orchard.
The shed actually looks pretty good since I removed the decades of dirt. The floors are a pretty yellow pine with dark lines of character in them. The walls need a coat of paint, and that huge box needs to be sorted. It seems to be mostly old letters and family things, and I need to take it to Miss Jessica.
Dove is in my bed with Alice the mouse cuddled at her side when I emerge from the shower. My hair is damp and wrapped in a towel, and I’m in sweatpants and an oversized shirt that falls off one shoulder.
Going to where she sleeps, I trace my finger along her little hand curled into a loose fist at her cheek. Sawyer’s accusation this morning is heavy in my chest. Why didn’t I just tell him? How do I tell her now?
A solid day of cleaning and avoidance didn’t clear my head. I still have no idea what to do about this, the man or the perfect gift we’ve been given.
One thing I know for certain: I will not fall in love with Taron Rhodes again.
I will not let him destroy me like he almost did…
I’m rubbing the towel in the length of my hair when a tap on my window makes me jump. Akela lifts her head off her paws, where she’s lying at Dove’s feet, and when she sees him outside the glass, her ears lie back and she seems to smile.
My silly heart tries to beat faster—the same heart he ripped out of my chest.
Stop being a sadist, heart. He killed you once, remember?
I buried those feelings and paved a road on top of them, but clearly they had tree roots, so deep you can never get the last one. His blue-green eyes hold mine through the glass and everything inside me heats right up. Old feelings break through my defenses like baby trees growing in concrete.
I go slowly to where he waits, lifting the glass so he can swing his legs into the room. I almost expect him to catch me by the waist and pull me to him, cover my mouth with his and kiss me senseless.
“Hey.” His voice is low, warm, sexy. His hair’s longer, and a piece has fallen over one eye, daring me to thread my fingers in it… Crossing my arms over my chest, I feel very exposed in only my sweats, fresh out of the shower, with my hair wet.
“Sorry to bother you. I thought we needed to talk.”
“Okay.” I’m cautious, guarded. He might still have the power to shake me, but I stopped being impulsive a long time ago. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Seriously?” His sexy grin lights his hypnotic eyes, and my stomach tightens. His eyes never change, even if he does.
When I went to Nashville, he was thin, weak, and wounded. He was haunted, and darkness hovered around him like a cloud.
Not anymore.
Now he’s his old self again—but more. His forearms are lined, and his shoulders stretch out his shirt. I’m sure under his clothes he’s the same physically, and I can tell inside he’s more confident, more relaxed, surer than he’s ever been before.
“I heard you made a lot of money in Nashville.” Is being rich the difference?
He looks down, almost as if he’s embarrassed. “Patton had this idea for his dad’s company. He wanted to make it the Air BnB of commercial real estate. It was actually pretty brilliant.”
“I guess that’s why I never heard from you again?” Yeah, it’s a jab. It jumped right out of my mouth.
He scratches the side of his beard with his thumb and cuts those eyes up at me from under his brow. I wonder if he knows how fucking hot he is—especially when he looks at me that way. “I didn’t trust myself with you.”
My eyes narrow. Whatever that means.
He stands, taking a step into my room, and at six-foot-two, muscular and healthy, he completely fills my space. “We have a daughter.”
That old magnetic energy between us is in his eyes when he looks at me, and I feel it in my core, in my hardening nipples. Even if I try to fight, my body remembers everything.
His voice is tender as he steps over to watch Dove sleeping in my bed. “She’s so beautiful.”
“She looks like her daddy.”
He winces, then cuts his eyes at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
My heart beats faster, and I do my best to fight my tears, to s
ummon the strength he’s always taken so easily. “We are not doing this right now.”
“I had a right to know.”
“And I was going to tell you…” My hands tremble, and all the emotions I struggled with so long ago are right at the surface, like they never left. “I started a letter a hundred different times… I-I guess I didn’t know what to say after what happened.” After you screamed in my face and threw me out.
“You could’ve called me.”
“No.” It’s a barely controlled snap. “Not after the way you left it.”
Going to my closet, I climb inside to where a box sits in the very back… A box filled with one letter wishing me happy birthday, a wooden Día de los Muertos mask, a pillowcase I slept with every night, and a box holding a turquoise ring I promised I’d never take off.
Moving these mementos aside, I dig out the crumpled sheets of paper.
I don’t even read them.
I don’t have to.
Climbing out of the closet, I return to where he stands and push the sheets of paper against his chest. “Here.”
Tears threaten, but I will not cry in front of him. “I wasn’t trying to hide her from you. I really didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to trap you with a baby.”
His large hands close over mine, taking the sheets of loose-leaf paper from me.
“That’s not what I meant.” His voice is quiet. “I never thought that.”
“What did you think?”
“My dad was never there when I was a kid… I’m not sure if he even knew I existed. I never wanted to be that guy.”
Pain like shards of glass slices through my insides. I lift my watery eyes to his and tell him the truth. “You hurt me, Taron. You hurt me more than I’ve ever been hurt in my life… You made me stop believing in love. You almost made me stop believing in anything.” A wobbly inhale helps me to finish. “Then she was born. She brought me back… She gave me hope. She gave me peace. It’s why I named her Dove.”
“Noel, I—”
“Mama?” Our daughter’s sleepy voice makes us both take a step back.
She tucks her little chin, and her fist clenches, sliding around the bed where I should be lying beside her. “Mamma? What’s happening?”