Chapter 3 #2
“Good.” It’s a simple enough word, but the tone he uses implies all the smug satisfaction of knowing he was right after all these years.
I slice a look in his direction.
“But did he know?”
“Of course he knows. Do you think I’d lie to my husband? Dupe him into thinking the baby was his?”
“I don’t know. Sounds like you rushed down that aisle pretty fast. How’d he react when he found out where you’d been drying your tears during your breakup?”
I’d gotten pregnant with Fallon when Ethan and I broke up my final year of college.
I’d taken that time to go home to the ranch, avoiding our mutual friends and moping in private.
I wasn’t expecting Bishop to be there, but he was, and old habits die hard.
Somewhere in there, old habits turned into what I thought was finally going to be something more for us, only to be met with an even bigger dose of heartbreak.
“He didn’t ask who it was. He didn’t care. I was going to be his wife, so she was going to be his daughter.”
“Is that what you told everyone else?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know Ethan’s not her biological father?”
“Of course. I wasn’t going to lie to her. When she was old enough, we told her.”
“Who’d you tell her it was?”
“I told her if she wanted to know his name she just had to ask when she was ready.”
“And?”
“She’s never asked.”
I watch his face break with that news. All the stoic questioning cast aside as his jaw sags and his eyes hit the floor. I can practically hear his thoughts. So I rush to stop them before he goes too deep. We can’t be salvaged, but I don’t want him to give up on her already.
“It’s not that. It’s… She loves Ethan. He’s been a great dad to her. If I had a dad like that, I wouldn’t ask either.”
“You had a dad like that.”
“And if my mom had told me he wasn’t really my dad, I would have told her to go to hell.”
“Is that what she did?” He smirks at the idea of our daughter sassing back at me with my own attitude.
I nod. “More or less.”
“Sounds like you.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes she sounds like you.”
He curses softly, scrubbing a hand over his face as his emotions overtake him. I can hear it in his voice, too, when he tries to speak. Raspy with effort, and rich with a longing to finally know the truth and the girl behind it.
“I want to… I want to know her. I don’t deserve her. I fucked up by leaving, and I hurt you. I can’t take that back. I can’t fix it. But I want a chance to try. I want to know my daughter.”
“I hoped you would feel that way.”
“You did?” He seems surprised.
“Yes. Whatever I feel about you or the hurt you caused, that’s all separate from her. If she wants to know you, I want you two to have a relationship. She deserves that.”
“I feel a but coming on…”
“But she needs time. This divorce has wrecked her. She’s furious with me.
She’s angry with Ethan. If we foist this on her too abruptly, I don’t know how she’ll feel about any of it.
I told her she could take her time when we first told her years ago.
I wanted the decision to be hers—for her to tell me when she was ready.
” I sigh, realizing how much has changed since then.
One dad gone and another back from the dead.
“That was when I didn’t think you were ever coming back.
And now you’re here. But I still want to be sensitive to her needs.
And frankly, you need to prove you’re going to stick around first. I need to know what kind of expectations we should be setting for her. ”
“I get that. Of course. You’re her mom. You lead on this. I’m not trying to cause trouble, Jones. But it’s been all I’ve been able to think about since that night. When I was lying in that hospital bed, I just wanted to get back here to talk to you. To know for sure.”
“You could have called.” I state the obvious.
“Didn’t feel like this was a conversation we should be having via a phone.”
He has a point there, but I’m still caught off guard by his approach. And his presence in my bedroom.
“I’m not sure the middle of the night is the right time either.”
“I knew you wouldn’t want to talk in front of your brothers or their fiancées; this was the best I could come up with on short notice when you didn’t answer my texts.”
“Who gave you my number anyway?”
“Levi.”
“What did you tell him you needed it for?”
“He didn’t ask.”
“So he knows.” The thought hits me hard, especially because he hasn’t said a word.
“Or he suspects,” Bishop counters. “And is waiting for one of us to confirm it.”
“I’ll tell them. My brothers, I mean. It’s long overdue.
Do you think you can keep this between us a little longer until I have the chance to pull them together?
I don’t want to hear Grant complain that we told Levi first or Ramsey ask if he’s chopped liver.
I’d rather rip the Band-Aid off wholesale.
Well, right before I swear them to secrecy again anyway. ”
“Like I said. I’ll follow your lead on this.”
“You never were very good at that,” I grumble. I shouldn’t. He’s being kind in this moment, but I remember the much younger, reckless version of him.
“I’m happy to prove I’m capable of doing it now.”
“I hope so.”
And I do truly hope for it. Whatever his faults might have been, however much he might have torn my heart out, at his core, Bishop is one of the best men I’ve ever known.
I’ve always hated that Fallon missed out on knowing him.
I hated even more that he never got to meet her and see that we made the most perfect daughter I could have ever asked for—we could have ever asked for.