Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bennett
I stumble back from having Delaney pressed against the frame of the greenhouse, her words on repeat in my head.
Leia… she’s yours.
Yours.
Mine.
I have another daughter.
“What…”
She moves to the side and walks a row over by the daffodils. “I’m sorry. I should have told you, but you had gone back to Willowbrook by the time I found out, living happily with Kristie, ready to welcome your new baby, and I was still in California.”
“You never reached out.” My mind is clogged with emotions, trying to sort through them and not be rash in my reaction, but all the years I’ve had with Wren, I’ve lost with Leia.
Sharp pain presses into the center of my chest. Even if I push aside all the time I’ve missed, the betrayal I feel…
that Delaney kept me from my own daughter and allowed her to be raised by a monster of a man.
My subconscious reminds me that Delaney knew nothing of the real man she married, but I push the thought aside, uninterested in understanding her viewpoint right now.
Wetness wells in her eyes. Usually, I’d crumble at seeing her upset and want to fix it somehow, but my anger only simmers hotter. How dare she cry when I’m the one who didn’t even know I had another daughter.
“I…” She shakes her head, then squares her shoulders. “I have no excuse. I’m sorry.”
I feel my eyes practically bulge out of my head.
“You’re sorry? Sorry? For what? Keeping the knowledge of her existence from me?
For never allowing me a relationship with my own daughter?
For letting another man raise her? There’s a lot to be sorry for.
” My voice is rising, and as much as I try to calm myself, the blaze burning inside me won’t go out.
She wipes her tears with the backs of her hands, and her gaze meets mine with a fire I’ve never seen.
“You left me. You picked her, so what was I supposed to do? Show up at your doorstep, ring your doorbell, and say guess what, you knocked us both up? Hope that you’d pick me and Leia over your original choice?
Only to allow my daughter to be inflicted with the pain you left me with when you changed your mind again?
I said I was sorry, and I truly am, but I made the best choice I could at that time with the information I had. ”
I inhale and stare at the ground, hands on my hips, trying like hell to stay calm because screaming and yelling at each other isn’t going to change this situation.
“I thought—”
I raise my hands to stop her. “I think I need some time before I can discuss this.”
The door to the greenhouse opens. “What are you guys doing?”
I weave around the row of Swiss chard and slide around Poppy at the door. Without waiting, I trudge back up to the shop and see Poppy’s UTV she drove down here. Fuck it, I slide in and drive off.
I drive around the ranch, unsure where to go, who to tell, or how to process the news that’s just been dumped in my lap.
I have another daughter.
With Delaney.
Why does what was always my dream now feel like a nightmare? This is all wrong. The way this is happening is all twisted.
My mind traces back to all the moments I’ve shared with Wren—the birthdays, the Christmases, the Halloweens. All of those with Leia are gone. She spent them with some other man she believed was her father. Where do we even go from here?
Somehow lost in my thoughts, I end up at the stables where I ditch the UTV for Cedar. Nash glances over, appraising me.
“He good?” I nod toward Cedar’s stall.
“Yeah.” Nash looks me up and down.
I point at him. “Don’t you dare call Poppy,” I warn him, not in the mood to talk to anyone. “If anyone asks, you didn’t see me.”
I saddle Cedar and walk him out of the stall.
Nash pretends not to be watching me, but as I climb up and move Cedar just outside the stables, he hollers, “He needed the exercise anyway.”
His laughter rings in the air as I get Cedar into a trot before unleashing both of our pent-up energy.
Cedar was restless the second I trotted him down the path, as though he felt all the wild emotions spiraling inside me. All the fury and hurt twisting me into a knot that I can’t pull apart.
Leia is mine.
We gallop past the south fence line, past the logic that tells me to slow down. I let him run. I let him get me as far away from the ranch as I can get.
I lean low into the rhythm, reins tight in my fists. The wind tears at my shirt and eyes, but I don’t stop. Not even when my thighs burn.
She kept her from me.
The words thud through my skull, over and over, thumping around with the thundering sound of hooves hitting earth.
Never would I have imagined Delaney betraying me, and certainly not to this extent. If her husband hadn’t gotten arrested, then what? Had she had somewhere else to disappear to, would I ever know the truth? Would she have always raised Leia without giving me the opportunity to know her?
Eventually, my mind and Cedar slow, both of us blowing hard, and I turn us back around. A while later, I drop the reins, my chest heaving, as I press my forehead to his damp neck, thanking him for giving me all he had.
“What am I supposed to do?” I whisper, my voice cracking. “How could she?”
Cedar leans into my touch as if he can understand and wants to soothe my pain.
I grip the saddle and stare at the creek, blinking back the sting of memories.
How many times did I come here over the years and wonder about my life choices or recall the moments I shared here with Delaney? Now I feel as if I don’t know her at all because the Delaney I knew would never have done this.
“I should hate her,” I say.
“You never will.” Emmett’s voice should startle me, but of course fucking Nash called him the minute he saw me take Cedar out.
“Go back.”
He trots over on Brutus, meeting me at the clearing by the creek. “You know I won’t.”
I watch the water moving over the rocks, not even sure how to confess it all. There’s more than just Delaney’s secret that’ll come out now. It’s possible that’s the reason for some of my anger.
He doesn’t say anything else but sits silently, running his hand over Brutus’s neck. It’s rare for Emmett not to call people out on their shit or feel comfortable in silence, but I’m thankful he’s not rushing me.
“Seven years ago, Kristie and I separated.” To my surprise, he doesn’t gasp and ask for more details. It should be the surprise of his life. “I found her in bed with Jon.”
“Bastard,” he whispers.
He only met Jon a few times when he’d come out to visit me at Berkeley, and they never liked one another. I think it might’ve been like a competition between them. Emmett felt left out when I went to college, and Jon would throw digs about how much fun we were having. He always was kind of a dick.
“She did it, but honestly, we just kind of grew apart. I think it started before we even got married. That year after I graduated, and she still had her senior year, I stayed back in California because she told me we’d come back here after graduation.
Then she got that grant. I was young and pissed off and probably resented her for that.
I started working, and she’d disappear when her muse spoke to her, and over time, the planned date nights turned into takeout.
When I found her with Jon, I packed up and moved into a condo on the water, started the divorce proceedings. ”
Still, Emmett doesn’t say anything. Not even to crack a joke.
“Then Delaney started at my company.”
His head whips toward me, and I feel his stare on the side of my face.
I nod to answer his unasked question. “We were put on a project together.”
A whooshing sound floats out of him.
“Yeah, then one thing led to another.”
He chuckles, and I finally face him, silently questioning why he’s laughing.
“My lovely wife would have told you it was destiny.”
I thought the same for a while. “We started seeing one another, dating in secret. I hadn’t told anyone about the separation. I was still wearing my wedding ring and would answer questions about Kristie as if we were still happily married.” I shake my head. “I don’t even know why now.”
“Yeah, you do,” he says.
“No, I don’t.”
“Come on, B, you don’t like failure.”
I rock my head back. “Okay, first of all, I’m anal and have attention to detail and have to keep a strict schedule because I’m a dad. A single dad who needs to be certain everything is organized, otherwise things go to hell.”
He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “You were that way before Wren.”
I think back to before I became a father, barely remembering who I was. Whatever version of me existed, I don’t have much of a recollection of him. “No.”
“Yes,” he drawls. “Remember that time I borrowed your notes for biology, and you got all upset because I mixed up the papers?”
“That’s what you’re using to prove your point?”
He shrugs. “Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll make a list, but seriously, ask anyone.
Kristie cheating on you was a failure in your eyes, when let’s face it, it was really her decision.
” I open my mouth, but he holds up his hand.
“I get what you’re saying about you not being there and working too much, but she actively cheated, B.
It was her choice. Pretty hard to come back from that.
” He waves. “And since she passed seven years ago, you’ll need to explain to me why you stole Poppy’s UTV, drove to the stables, and decided to exercise Cedar yourself today. ”
It’s just like him to not want more information about that time in my life, only concerned about the present.
How many times did I wish I could be Emmett with that carefree attitude, always going after what he wants and never regretting a thing.
I feel as if I’ve been living in the past for my entire adult life.
“Leia, Delaney’s daughter…”
“I know who she is. I’m the one who told you about her.”
I get back up on Cedar and grab the reins, veering away from the creek, unable to be in a place that only ever reminds me of Delaney. He leads Brutus next to me, and we head to the open field on the west side of our property.
“She’s mine,” I whisper. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, and I’m just as confused on what to feel as I was when I stormed out of the greenhouse.
There’s another whooshing sound. With Emmett, his sounds that aren’t actual words always convey more than had he spoken a full sentence.
“Yeah.”
“Shit, man.”
I nod instead of answering.
“Well, I mean, they love one another like sisters. Her and Wren.”
“Fuck, Emmett.” I nudge Cedar to move away from Brutus, but Emmett only trots Brutus closer.
“Sorry, that’s some serious shit.”
“You think?”
“What are you going to do?” He stares at the horizon, as if there are answers to be found there.
“Can I give you some advice?” I crinkle my brow, and he puts his hands up in a placating motion.
“You’re going to sit and stew over this for I have no idea how long.
You’ll continue to live in the past and rehash every decision that led you here, but what does that accomplish? ”
“Me figuring out how to fix it.”
He presses his lips together and shakes his head.
“No, it doesn’t. You’re upset that Delaney kept her from you.
You’re upset another man raised her. Which really just spirals back to you not having time with your daughter.
So, stewing over this whole thing is just going to prevent you from getting to know Leia now. ”
I halt the reins, and Cedar stops. God, is he right? He has a point.
“Say ‘thank you, Emmett,’” he says, slowing Brutus.
“For what?”
“Don’t deny that I just helped you. I get that you’re mad at Delaney, and you have every right to be, but Leia didn’t do anything wrong. You and Delaney need to figure out how you’re going to get to know your daughter, then decide what the hell to do about the two of you separately.”
“I’m not sure there’s a chance we could be together now.”
He laughs. “Yeah, okay, B.” He trots ahead of me. “Now I’ll leave you to stew…” He circles Brutus around to head back to the stables. “If you need me to straighten your head out, just call 1-800-Emmett-knows-all.”
He leaves me with my thoughts, but he’s right. My issues are two separate things. As Wren always is, Leia needs to be the priority. If I only knew where to start.