The Girl Worth Fighting for (The Girl #2)

by Julia Goda

  “Does he…um…have a woman?”

  “I’ve never seen him with one and he’s never talked about one. But that doesn’t have to mean anything.” Logan’s voice was careful.

  “So, you’re not sure?” This felt a little weird, asking my boyfriend things about my father.

  “He’s a very private man. But I think I’d know if he were serious about anyone.”

  “Okay. So you’d also know if he had a child, I mean, apart from me?” I was biting my lip. The thought of him with another son or daughter stabbed my heart and raised some of my securities about not being good enough for him. What if he did have another child he did love? What would that mean for me?

  “If you don’t want to go, I’ll take you home with me. I made it very clear I’m with you one hundred percent, that whatever you decide, you have my full support and understanding. This will happen only if you agree.”

  Logan tried to give me an out, and I loved him for it, even considered it for a split second, but my mind was made up. “I have to do this. If I don’t do it now, I might chicken out later. And I’ve been a coward for long enough.”

  He roamed my face for a few moments, reading me. I let him. Then he smiled at me. “That’s my girl.” He sounded and looked proud, making me proud of myself as well.

  “Let’s get this over with.” I pulled away from him, but he pulled me right back.

  “I want a hello kiss first.”

  “Do you now?”

  “Oh yeah. I’ve missed you.” He moved closer until our lips almost touched.

  “I’m at work.”

  “Your door is closed.”

  “It has a window.”

  His eyes moved to look over my shoulder to the window before they came back to mine. “The blinds are closed.”

  “Well, then, what are you waiting for?”

  He didn’t. He moved the last inch that separated us and pressed his lips to mine, opened his mouth, and found my tongue with his. He pulled my body into his and kissed me stupid. There was no other word for it, because my mind went blank. He went deep and he went strong, tangling his tongue with mine, taking my mouth with his until we were both breathing hard.

  “That’s some hello,” I breathed when he pulled back.

  “I’ll say,” he agreed through a grin. Then his eyes went serious again. “Whatever happens tonight, never forget I love you and I’m with you no matter what, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean that, Rainey. No doubts. No fear. I’m with you all the way.”

  I touched his lips with mine, where I whispered, “I got it. And I’m sorry I doubted you this morning. I should have let you explain instead of jumping to conclusions and shutting you out.” Relief crossed his face before it split into a wide grin.

  “Thank you for that, baby.”

  “You’re welcome.” I smiled, then we kissed once again, shorter and sweeter this time, before I said my good-byes and Logan drove us to my mom’s to face my own personal demon and slay him once and for all.

  Chapter 18

  Rainey

  DURING THE WHOLE DRIVE TO my mom’s, I gave myself an inner pep talk, psyching myself up, getting in the mood. I didn’t normally have conversations in my head before they happened. I was a quick thinker and didn’t stress about the things that came out of my mouth. But I did now. Not worry about what was going to happen. But play out the conversation in my head. I thought about everything I wanted to say, everything I needed to get off my chest. Different scenarios of how this could go ran through my head.

  “You can still back out.” Logan’s hand was interlaced with mine like usual when we were in the car, though this time he’d added a soothing brush of his thumb along the skin on the inside of my wrist.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You can, baby. No judgment. Just say the word and we’re out of there.”

  I shook my head. “No, Logan. I told you. I’m done being a coward.”

  “You’re not a coward, Rainey. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. It’s one of the things I love about you,” he said with a squeeze of my hand.

  “I’m not, Logan. Ashley is strong, Jesse is strong, Chloe is strong. Me, I’ve been running from this for over a decade. And from what? From my dad being an asshole? He didn’t hit me. He didn’t touch me. He drank too much, got loud, and said mean things to my mom. I should have gotten over it by now.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself. You forgot to mention he abandoned both of you without looking back. Made you take your mother’s maiden name, cut you both loose and erased you from his life. You told me you were close to your dad before. Baby, you were a teenager. You were confused and felt lonely, abandoned, not good enough for your own father to love you. It’s only natural you shielded yourself from those emotions to ever hurt you again. Did you cut yourself off from feeling the good emotions while you protected yourself from the bad ones? Yes, you did. But you didn’t see another way to cope with the situation, and I don’t blame you. Nobody does.”

  It was nice of him to say those things. His words made me feel good. But to be honest, I was disappointed in myself, felt like a hypocrite. That didn’t change my attitude towards my father one bit; it just made me regret I had wasted so much time. But now was not the time to be angry with myself. Now was the time to face my father. And I was going to do it with my back straight, my chin up, and the angry heat in my blood directed at him and nobody else. Logan was right. He alone was responsible for his behavior, nobody else. He alone was responsible for how things turned out. He should have been stronger, should have worked harder to deal with his shit. It was his fault my mom and I had been alone; it was his fault I had felt lonely when Mom got sick. All that was on him. He should have been there for us. Instead, he had chosen the bottle and his anger over being the man I had thought him to be, the man we had needed him to be. And now was the time to tell him all this.

  When we pulled into my street and got out of the truck, I had hyped myself up to the point that I now couldn’t wait to get to him to give him a piece of my mind. I had never been so ready to do anything in my whole life.

  “He isn’t here yet, so you can slow down.”

  I turned around to see Logan walk five feet behind me. I hadn’t realized I’d been storming up the sidewalk, leaving him in the dust, so to speak. “How do you know?”

  “I don’t see his car.” There was a slight smirk playing around his lips.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing.” He shrugged. “I just like you all fired up. Turns me on.” His smirk turned into a heated grin.

  He was unbelievable. I rolled my eyes at him but let him take my hand and pull me into his side when he reached me. That’s how we walked up to my mom and Ben’s house, arm in arm, when the front door opened and Ben greeted us.

  “How you doin’, Princess?” I flinched slightly as I was reminded of my father calling me that only a few hours ago. But this was Ben, the man who had been my surrogate father when my own wasn’t there for me, and in true Ben-fashion, he was making sure I was doing okay. Judging by the expression on his face, he expected me to either kill someone or have a nervous breakdown. His eyes looked worried as they scrutinized my face, then they cleared and he gave me a quick nod before he said, “Good.” He glanced at Logan and repeated his nod though he was still addressing me. “I’m happy to see you took our advice.”

  It seemed like a lifetime ago when Ben had opened my eyes about what type of man he thought Logan to be, though in reality, it had only been a couple of days. Ben’s eyes softened when he took the two of us in, then he repeated in a tender voice, “Good.”

  I felt his approval and pride deep in my heart, where it spread and settled. I really loved Ben. “How’s Mom?”

  He lifted his chin in the direction of the kitchen as Logan and I walked through the door he was holding for us. “Go see for yourself,” he answered with a small smile playing around his lips, though I didn’t miss
the worry as well as trepidation he was trying to hide. He saw my look and squeezed my arm. “She’s good. She’s Sarah.” Which told me he had been given the mom lecture as well.

  “Hi, sweetheart. Hello again, Logan.” My mom was setting the table as she looked up to greet us in a cheery voice. “Did you have a good weekend?”

  “It’s good to see you again, Sarah. It smells delicious in here.” Mom beamed at him.

  “I’m making my famous Chicken Marsala. It’s light and heavenly delicious.”

  “Sounds great.”

  I shook my head in both annoyance and amusement at them. Here they were, talking as if it were just any normal day, seemingly without a care in the world. I was about to interrupt when I noticed what exactly my mom was doing.

  “Uh, did I miss something? Who else is coming to dinner?”

  Mom stopped in the middle of setting a plate down, her hand in mid-air, and gave Logan a confused look. “You didn’t tell her?”

  I made the connection, realizing what was going on before Logan could answer her.

  “Oh no. Oh hell, no. Not gonna happen. That man is not going to sit at this table and eat dinner with us. No way. He’s not a friend, and he is certainly not family.”

  “Rainey—”

  “No, Mom.”

  We went into stare down. Never before had I won one of these, not even, or maybe especially, when I was a moody and emotional teenager with an attitude. I hated arguing with my mom any day, but especially today, though I was not going to give in on this. No way in hell was I sitting down to have dinner with him. And neither was she. Logan was smart and remained quiet; so was Ben. This was between the two of us.

  “No,” I repeated, holding her stare. “No way.” Then, for the first time ever, my mom looked away first. But it didn’t mean what I thought it did. I realized this when I heard Ben mumble through what sounded like a smile. “You scare me, love. You don’t play fair tonight.”

  She grinned. “I warned you I wouldn’t.”

  My head whipped back and forth between the two as I tried to figure out what the hell they were talking about. Then Ben sighed and locked his eyes on mine.

  “Your mom and I are getting married.”

  My body jerked. “What?”

  “I asked your mom to marry me, and she said yes this time. We’re getting married.”

  Tears were forming in my eyes as I looked from Ben to my mom. “You’re getting married?” I whispered.

  She nodded and raised her hand to show off the diamond that was sitting on her ring finger. I took the two steps that were separating us and pulled her hand to my face, inspecting the ring, before I met her eyes. Hers were just as misty as mine when we both threw our arms around each other, hugging as tightly as we could. “It’s about time,” I whispered into her ear. She squeezed me tighter before she let me go and cupped my face.

  “I know.”

  We both grinned huge.

  “Congratulations, man,” I heard Logan say.

  “Thanks. I knew I wanted to marry her the first time we met.” Ben’s voice was soft and loving before it turned to teasing. “Word of advice, start wearing Rainey down now. It took me years to get Sarah to say yes to me.”

  Mom giggled. I didn’t.

  “I’m not that patient.” At those words coming out of Logan’s mouth, my head whipped toward him.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. Logan stood next to Ben a few feet away from me, his arms crossed over his chest and his face serious, his eyes on me.

  “It means that I expect you to say yes when I ask you to marry me. Which will happen sooner than in a few years. A lot sooner.”

  My eyes went big. He wasn’t done.

  “In fact, if I have it my way,” he tipped his head down, his gaze pointedly going to my stomach before it locked with mine again, “it will happen in less than nine months.” My body locked in shock. He did not just say that. He did not just tell my mom and Ben I could be pregnant. And that he wanted me to be. He was a crazy man. Completely off the rocker. Nuts.

  “What?” My mom gasped before I could form words, before I could even decide what to think or how to react to his audacity. “You’re pregnant?”

  “No,” I answered at the same time Logan said, “She might be.”

  My eyes went to the ceiling. This was not happening.

  “You knocked my daughter up?”

  My head snapped to the doorway, in the direction that roar had come from. So did everyone else’s. There he stood, my father, the man who had no business sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. I had no idea how he walked in here without anyone noticing, but right then, I didn’t care. I had no room to think about it as my annoyance with Logan shifted and turned into instant fury that was directed solely on the man glaring at my man.

  “It’s none of your fucking business, Jay.” My hiss was lethal. So was the expression on my face. I could tell by the flinch that went through him when his eyes came to me. I took three steps forward until I was almost nose-to-nose with him. “Nothing that happens in my life is any of your business, nor will it ever be.”

  We stood like that for long moments, me glaring at him, fuming, while he stared back at me with an expression I didn’t care to interpret. He had no right.

  “I—”

  “No,” I interrupted him. “You don’t get to talk. You said all you needed to say when you threw us away, when you pretended we didn’t exist. You lost the right to talk or act like the concerned father the day you signed those papers.”

  He swallowed as he held my eyes. But he didn’t argue, didn’t say anything.

  Good.

  I could feel Logan at my back, though he didn’t touch me. But it felt good to know he had my back, that he was there if I needed him.

  “The only person besides Mom who has any right to treat me like a daughter is Ben. The man who has been there for us. The man who stood strong when we needed him. Who loves us. Who takes care of us. Not the weak man I’m looking at right now, the man who isn’t a man, who chose his drink over his wife and daughter. That man has no right whatsoever to comment on my life.”

  “Rainey—” my mom’s voice came from right next to me. She was going to try and calm me down, but there was no way I would let her. He wanted this confrontation, had asked Logan to talk me into it, so now he was going to take what I had to dish out before he left again. I didn’t give one single thought to the very complicated situation I found myself in, what with my father being my boyfriend’s trainer. All I could think of, all that consumed me, was to get that weight off my chest.

  “You know I’m right, Mom,” I cut her off without taking my eyes off him. “You know he doesn’t deserve to be a part of our lives. You know it better than anyone else.”

  “That might be so, baby, but—”

  “No,” I shook my head without taking my eyes off my father’s. “No, there is no but. He came here to talk, I’ll talk.” My voice was low now, and hard, almost dangerous. My body was strung tight, my hands balled into fists, my heart beating in my throat.

  “She’s right, Sarah.” My father’s eyes didn’t leave mine either as he addressed my mother. His voice had gentled with understanding, with remorse. But I didn’t let that penetrate. It didn’t matter. His feelings didn’t matter. “I deserve everything she said. Every single word and more. Let her do what she’s gotta do.”

  I didn’t let those words sink in either before I kept laying it out for him. “You threw us away. We loved you, we adored you, we were your girls. And you threw us away. Without looking back, without a word. You cut us out of your life. Threw money at us and never contacted us again. No birthday cards, no Christmas cards, no calls, no nothing. You didn’t want Mom to be your wife anymore and you made sure I wasn’t your daughter anymore. That was your choice. Yours alone. So don’t you dare waltz in here and think you have the right to do what you’re doing. I don’t even know what the fuck it is you think you’re doing, but it doesn’
t matter, since you don’t matter.”

  I saw the flinch in his eyes he couldn’t hide and felt Logan’s hand touch the small of my back, but I kept going. “It hurt. It broke us. But we moved on. We’re happy now. Mom and Ben are getting married.” This flinch he could hide even less and it showed not just in his eyes but on his face. It might make me catty, but I felt something close to triumph at seeing the pain that information caused him. Good. “That’s right,” I whispered. “And I have Logan. We’re happy. We don’t need you. There was a time when I wished you’d come back, when I lay in bed at night and prayed you’d be there in the morning to make me pancakes before you took me to school or to the gym. But you never did. Then I realized you never would and I started to hate you.” At this, his eyes closed and his face turned into a grimace. That should make me feel good, but instead, it stabbed my heart. When he opened them again, I could see tears brimming in them, causing my gut to clench. But I powered through that feeling and gave him the rest. “I’ve let that hate control me for long enough. Now, I don’t care. Now, you don’t matter.”

  The silence in the room was heavy when I finished. Nobody said a word, nobody moved, as my father held my eyes, his pained but gentle on me. It went on until my father broke it on a tortured whisper. “I saw you.”

  My brows knitted at those unexpected and confusing words. But before I could ask what he meant or decide if I even wanted to know, he kept talking. “Not long after you moved into your house, I saw you with your mom. I…I missed you. So much. I…I wanted you back.” My body rocked back at hearing those words. Logan was there and moved his hand from my back to around my waist and pulled me to his chest. My father watched this and a small, proud smile played at his lips for a moment before he focused on me again and continued. “I knew I’d fucked up huge, but I wanted you back. I hated myself for what I had done. Every single second of every single fucking day, I hated myself for hurting the two most precious things in my life.” My body rocked back once more, but this time it had nowhere to go. Logan’s arms tightened around my waist and stayed tight, anchoring me to him. “It took me a while, too long, but I did come back, Rainey.”