Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
FORD
I stood on the front porch of Bree’s cottage, staring at the bright turquoise blue door. My hand hovered over the brushed nickel knocker, heart pounding like I’d just run ten miles at a sprint. The last twenty-four hours felt like a fever dream, reality bending and shifting around me with each new revelation. A daughter. I had a daughter. And Bree had finally broken her silence. The weight of both those things pressed down on my chest.
The door swung open before I could knock, making me jump slightly. Bree filled the frame, dressed in well-worn jeans and a faded OBX Brewhouse t-shirt that had seen better days, blonde hair pulled back into a tail that caught the morning light. Those gray eyes I remembered so well watched me with careful wariness, like she was trying to decide if letting me in was a mistake.
“You made it.” She stepped back, gesturing me inside, her bare feet silent on the weathered wooden floors.
I ducked through the doorway, too aware of how small the entry felt with both of us in it. The cottage smelled like coffee and something sweet. Maybe cinnamon. A quick glance told me the place was homey. Lived-in. There were books stacked on every surface and a mess of colorful throw pillows piled on a weathered leather couch. An array of dog toys were scattered across the floor, some bearing the battle scars of enthusiastic chewing. It was nothing like the stark military quarters I’d left behind, with their regulation corners and institutional feel.
“Yeah, finally. Had to call in every favor I had.” My voice came out rough from lack of sleep, and I could feel the fatigue settling deep in my bones. “The paperwork alone… I swear the Navy was easier to join than getting emergency leave approved.”
“You look exhausted.” There was no judgment in her tone, only casual observation, and something else—maybe concern—that she quickly masked.
“Haven’t slept.” I scrubbed a hand down my face, feeling the rasp of stubble against my palm. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this will all be some weird dream. Like maybe I imagined having a thirteen-year-old daughter show up out of nowhere.”
Bree crossed her arms, maintaining a careful distance between us. “It’s real. She’s real. She’s sleeping in my guest room right now.”
The weight of that hit me again, a sucker punch to the gut that drove most of the air from my lungs. A daughter. Here. Under this roof. Not some far-off concept anymore, but flesh and blood. “How is she?”
“Scared. Trying not to show it.” Bree’s expression softened slightly, the mask she usually wore around me cracking just a bit. “She’s got your eyes. Even does that thing where she narrows them when she’s thinking hard.”
That simple statement made my heart stutter in my chest. I sank onto the worn wooden bench by the door, legs suddenly unsteady beneath me. “I can’t believe Casey never told me. All these years… Christ, I missed everything.”
“Ford.” Bree’s voice was gentle in a way I hadn’t heard in a decade, since before everything fell apart between us. “Take a breath. We’ll figure this out.”
We, not me. The distinction wasn’t lost on me, even through my exhaustion.
It had been so damned long since Bree and I had been any kind of “we.” I lifted my gaze to hers, then couldn’t make myself look away. This was as close as we’d been in years, and I took the opportunity to just drink her in. The morning light streaming through her front windows caught the gold in her hair, and for a moment I was twenty again, watching her laugh on the beach. The air between us crackled with the tension of unspoken words, regrets, and possibilities that had died because I’d been careless and had taken her for granted. More than ten years of distance, of pretending the other didn’t exist, and now here we were, forced back into each other’s orbit by circumstances I never could have imagined.
A floorboard creaked down the hall.
My head jerked in that direction, and the world promptly tilted on its axis. The sudden movement sent a wave of dizziness through me, a reminder that I hadn’t slept since getting that first message about my daughter.
The girl standing there was unmistakably mine. It was like looking in a time machine. Those were my eyes staring back at me, wide and uncertain. My nose. My jaw. Even the way she held herself, shoulders slightly hunched as if trying to take up less space, mirrored my own teenage awkwardness, when I hadn’t quite learned how to navigate the world in a body with limbs that seemed to have grown a mile overnight. I remembered all too well what that felt like, the constant awareness of taking up too much space, of accidentally knocking things over in the school hallways.
Bree moved toward her with an easy grace, as if the kid wasn’t staring at me like she’d seen a ghost. “Morning. There’s breakfast, if you want.”
But Peyton’s attention was locked on me, her fingers twisting in the hem of her oversized sweater as Keeley pressed against her legs with a quiet whine. The silence stretched between us like a living thing, heavy with thirteen years of missed moments and conversations we should have had. My heart hammered thumped heavily in my chest, as if it wasn’t quite sure how to keep doing its job. I fought the urge to look away from that penetrating gaze that was so like my own.
“Peyton, this is Ford Donoghue,” Bree said softly. “Ford, this is Peyton.”
Every drop of moisture in my mouth had evaporated, and I swallowed as I stood, trying to get past the sensation of cotton to speak. “Hi.” The word came out rough, inadequate for the weight of this moment, for all the things I needed to say to this child I hadn’t known existed until yesterday.
Peyton still didn’t speak, her shoulders tense as she stared at me.
Bree’s gaze bounced between us, her expression a mix of concern and understanding. “Does anybody want coffee?”
“Yes.” We spoke at once, and I tried a hesitant smile because apparently we had at least one thing in common. Though, wasn’t thirteen young to be drinking coffee? How would I know? I had a decade of parenting experience to catch up on, and the weight of that knowledge pressed against my chest like a physical weight.
With one last look at me, Peyton trailed Bree into the kitchen. After a moment’s hesitation, I followed, giving both of them plenty of space, not wanting to spook my daughter any more than she already was. Bree pulled two mugs from the cabinet, then glanced at the kid. “How do you take yours?”
“Half milk, half coffee, two sugars.” Peyton’s voice was quiet but sure, like she’d ordered this drink plenty of times before.
With the ease of long practice, Bree filled the mugs from the carafe on the counter. She prepped Peyton’s mug as asked, and added a spoonful of sugar and a splash of milk to the other, her movements quick and efficient.
She still remembered how I took my coffee after all these years? It was a reminder of everything we’d once been to each other, everything I’d walked away from that summer so long ago. Or maybe it was simply one of those details that stuck in her mind because of all her years in the food service industry.
“Thanks.” But her eyes slid away from mine after she handed over the mug.
“Right. You two probably want some privacy to talk. I’ll just head on to the Brewhouse.” She paused to glance back at Peyton. “Unless you want me to stay? I will, if that will make you more comfortable.”
I appreciated her looking out for Peyton, even if it was against me. For all that we apparently shared blood, this child didn’t know me. I couldn’t even imagine what she’d been through just to get here. The thought of her traveling alone, seeking out a stranger she’d only known about from whatever her mother had told her, made my chest tight with a mix of guilt and concern.
“I’m okay.” Peyton managed a small smile. “Thanks.”
“Right. I’ll be at work. Just… lock up behind yourselves if you leave. Keeley will be okay inside.” Bree lingered a moment longer, her hand on the doorframe, before she moved on into the hall.
The front door clicked shut behind her, leaving a heavy silence in her wake. I gripped my coffee mug like a lifeline, watching Peyton trace circles on the kitchen table with her finger.
“Should we sit?” I gestured at the chairs, fighting the urge to pace the kitchen like a caged animal. My palms were sweating, and I wiped them against my jeans.
She nodded, sliding into the seat across from me. Keeley flopped at her feet with a sigh. The dog’s presence seemed to provide more comfort than I could manage right now.
My mind raced with a thousand questions, each one competing to burst out first, but I forced myself to start with the obvious. “Your mom is Casey Walsh.” The name felt strange on my tongue, dredging up hazy memories of a brief relationship that now held life-altering consequences.
“Was.” The word fell like a stone between us, and pain flashed across her face, making her look even younger and more vulnerable.
My chest tightened with a surge of grief—not just for Casey, but for this girl who’d lost her mother, for all the years I hadn’t known about her. “I’m so, so sorry. Can you tell me what happened?” I leaned forward, trying to project a calmness I didn’t feel.
“Brain aneurysm.” Her voice cracked, and she stared down at her hands. “She was fine one minute, then…” She shrugged, but I saw the tremor in her shoulders, the way she curled in on herself. “The doctors said it was quick. That she didn’t suffer.” Her words carried the hollow tone of someone who’d heard that reassurance too many times to find comfort in it anymore.
I wanted to reach across the table, to offer some comfort, but I didn’t know if I had that right yet. My fingers twitched against my mug, every new parental instinct screaming to do something, anything, to ease her pain. “And your grandparents?”
Her eyes narrowed, a flash of defiance burning through the grief. “Already looking for someone to pawn me off on?”
The defensive tone, the way her chin lifted—I’d seen that exact look on Bree’s face so many times as a kid. So determined not to show weakness. Not to need anyone. It was like looking at a ghost from my past.
“No. Just trying to put together a picture here. Were you staying with them after your mom passed?” I kept my voice steady, gentle, trying to project the same calm Bree had shown earlier.
“My grandparents died before I was born.” She took a sip of coffee, avoiding my eyes. “It was always just Mom and me. Until it wasn’t.”
My exhausted brain tried to work through the implications of that. If they’d died before Peyton was born, that meant somehow Casey had lost both her parents less than a year after leaving Hatterwick. She’d been on her own in the world with a baby at eighteen. That had to have been incredibly difficult. So why the hell hadn’t she reached out? I would’ve been there. I would have done the right thing.
But I said none of that to this child who had no reason to believe me.
“When did she die?” I fought to keep my voice steady despite the storm of emotions churning inside me.
“Three months ago.”
“And since then? Who have you been living with? Who’s been responsible for you?” The questions tumbled out before I could stop them, each one weighted with the guilt of not having been there.
Those green eyes shuttered, and her fingers tightened on the mug until her knuckles went white. “A foster family.”
I bit back the eleven thousand questions I wanted to ask about that. If something had been going on there that had prompted her to run away to find me, she sure as fuck wouldn’t be going back. The protective instinct that had slammed into me the moment I’d learned she was mine roared to life. We’d have time to address… whatever might have happened. Right now, she needed to know she was safe, that she wouldn’t have to run again.
I drew a steadying breath. Time to be practical about this situation. If she’d been in foster care, then she’d have a caseworker at social services. No doubt they’d be looking for her. We’d need to notify them she was safe while we started the process of testing to prove paternity.
“Peyton, we need to contact your case worker. Let them know you’re safe while we sort out?—”
She shot up from the table so fast her chair clattered to the floor. Before I could blink, she’d yanked open the back door and bolted. The flash of her dark blonde hair whipping around the door frame sent my heart into overdrive.
“Shit!” I jumped up to follow, but Keeley had the same idea. The dog’s scrambling paws tangled with my feet, and I stumbled, catching myself on the kitchen counter. The edge bit into my palm as I pushed off, losing precious seconds. By the time I righted myself and made it to the door, Peyton had vanished into the crisp morning air.
“Peyton!” My shout echoed off the neighboring houses, desperation clawing at my throat.
The late morning sun beat down on a maze of backyard fences and garden plots. No sign of which direction she’d gone. Bree’s cottage sat in the middle of the village, surrounded by other homes, making it impossible to guess which route she might have taken. My mind raced with possibilities. She could have ducked between any of the houses, taken one of the footpaths to the beach, or headed toward the commercial district. Ten years of military training, and I couldn’t even keep track of one scared teenager.
The dull thud of my heart turned into a desperate pounding. Less than twenty minutes. I’d had my daughter in front of me for less than twenty minutes, and I’d already screwed up. Made her run. Just like her mother had apparently run all those years ago, taking any chance of me knowing Peyton with her.