Thirteen
Branwen
The turmoil that had taken root inside me last night had kept me awake, staring at the chandelier above my bed. Stevie had asked thousands of questions, it seemed, when I lay down with her. She even fell asleep in the middle of one. The day had exhausted her, and I was glad she hadn’t struggled to sleep in her new room. I had needed some time alone.
The way she had just accepted the massive turn of events without issue was a relief. She had kept Linc busy by telling him everything he could ever want to know and asking him questions. As I sat there, witnessing them together, the blame grew heavier and sank slowly onto my shoulders. It came with regret that I’d been keeping this from her because it was something she obviously needed, and I hadn’t even realized it. She’d barely taken her eyes off Linc.
Twice, while we were in bed, she had beamed at me and said, “I have a weal daddy.” As if she was amazed.
The pang of remorse was sharp, and I had to live with it. This was my penance. Facing what had to be done today had only been more of what I deserved.
Dad used to tell me, “You made your bed, darlin’. Now, you got to lie in it.”
Although the sound of his deep, husky tone had long since faded from my memory, as his scent and laugh had, his words were still there. He’d have been ashamed of me. I’d stolen time that could never be taken back from not only Linc, but my daughter too.
While he might have deserved it, she hadn’t. She was innocent. My fear had ruled everything else. I thought I was giving her the best. The family that I thought would be complete with Hudson. Yet not once had she brought him up again. She hadn’t acted sad that he wouldn’t be her dad anymore. I couldn’t remember a time in her life that she’d been this giddy.
Standing in front of the mirror, I studied myself. The cotton-candy-pink sundress I had decided to wear made the sun I’d gotten yesterday by the pool stand out. The desire to look my best when I talked to Hudson no longer held any importance for me. My life would never be the same. The one I had been living when I kissed him last and got in my car to drive here was gone. It was time I accepted it.
Needless to say, extra time spent on under-eye concealer was a must this morning. I’d taken a shower, dried my hair, and finished my makeup, and Stevie was still sleeping. The king-size bed with a mattress from heaven, combined with her full day, had her sleeping late. It gave me time to get ready, and I knew she needed the rest for another full day. This one with several hours spent in a car.
Stevie’s happiness was number one priority, and having watched her with Linc, I knew I’d never be able to take her away from him. When the year was over, we would rent something in Madison. I’d find a job here or in Jackson. The fifteen hundred dollars in savings wasn’t going to be much help though. I couldn’t keep the car that Hudson had bought me. I’d need to leave that with him. That was another cost I would have to prepare for.
I could talk to Linc about my getting a job once he felt more secure about me not being with Stevie all the time. In Nashville, she’d had a sitter who came to our apartment and stayed with her two days a week, and the other three days, Hudson had childcare at the office. Three of the ten women who worked there used it for their younger children. He’d put it in place after he asked me to work full-time and I explained I didn’t have full-time childcare and couldn’t afford it.
Taking a deep breath, I tried not to think about all that he’d done for me. It would only add to the other heaviness I was carrying. I picked up my phone to check the time. It was almost eight, and Linc wanted to leave at eight thirty.
Slipping my phone into my purse, I made my way over to Stevie’s room. She needed to get dressed and have some breakfast before we left.
Her bedroom door was slightly cracked. I’d closed her door after checking on her over an hour ago. I hurried across the hallway and pushed it open to look inside. The bed was empty.
“Stevie!” I called her name, taking longer strides than normal to her en suite, but the lights were off in there too.
My heart started picking up pace as I swung my gaze around to see any signs as to where she might be. The slippers that I had left beside her bed were gone.
Where had she gone? Why hadn’t she come to my room?
Rushing out the door, I moved as fast as I could in my heels. This house was too big. She could have gotten lost. She could have gone outside, alone. When I reached the stairs, I slipped off my heels and broke into a run as I headed down them. I hadn’t told her not to go exploring here by herself, and I should have. Panic tightened my throat and stung my eyes as I scanned every area I passed.
Then, I heard her trill of laughter. I slowed and placed a hand over my heart as I sucked in a deep breath. She was okay. Closing my eyes, I took a second to calm down, then put my shoes back on before heading toward the sound of voices. I smelled the bacon before I got there.
By the time I reached the door that led into the kitchen, my heart rate had slowed, and I wasn’t about to burst into tears.
“Can I have thwee mowa, please?” Stevie asked as I stepped into the kitchen.
The windows went from the floor to the ceiling, facing the back of the house. The sunlight poured in and made the white and black kitchen appear even more spacious than it already was. The island sat between two sets of double ovens, and the gas range stovetop looked like something out of a commercial kitchen with at least ten different eyes. The circular bar, which had twelve barstools, was covered in food.
Stevie was on one of the barstools, sitting on her knees, with a glass of oat milk that had a curvy pink straw in it. Her gaze swung to mine, and her smile stretched across her face, causing the dimples I loved so much to pop out. “Good mownin’, Mommy! Jayda made bweakfast, and she gots lots and lots of bacon,” she called out to me.
“I see that,” I replied, making my way over to her. “I didn’t know you had woken up. I was scared when I couldn’t find you.”
Her face fell. “I’m sowwy. I thought you was asleep, and I was weally hungwy.”
Brushing her curls back from her face, I placed a kiss on her forehead. “I understand that. Just don’t go running off without telling me, okay? This house is big, and you could get lost.”
She shook her head. “But I didn’t get lost. I came wight hewah. And Jayda was making bweakfast. She got me some milk.”
I glanced over at Jayda. “Thank you. This looks amazing.”
She shrugged. “I like to cook. When I have people to cook for, I go a little overboard. When the guys have women over, they aren’t invited to stay for breakfast, so unless Linc’s son is visiting with his wife, I don’t get to do big breakfasts. Luther rarely eats until noon, and Linc is a four eggs, two pieces of toast, and a coffee guy. No room for creativity.”
I wasn’t a big breakfast eater either, but Stevie was.
“You might become her favorite person,” I told her. “Although we don’t require all this every morning. I would gain a hundred pounds. But Vivi Lu here loves her some breakfast food. She’d eat it for all three meals. We’ve done pancakes, cheese grits, and bacon for dinner many nights.”
Jayda smiled at Stevie. “I will remember that,” she told her and winked. “We might just have us some breakfast for dinner soon. Sounds like a fun way to mix it up.” She finished putting three pieces of bacon on a plate and placed it in front of Stevie.
“Thank you,” she said before snatching up a piece and taking a bite as if she hadn’t already had a plate of food.
“I can make you a plate, or you’re welcome to do it. I don’t know what all you like just yet, but I am a fast learner,” Jayda informed me.
I liked this girl. And if I wasn’t at least ten years older than her, we might just become good friends. She didn’t seem to have any claim on Linc or Luther. She wasn’t being territorial, which, honestly, was what I had expected to happen. The comment about the women they had over not being invited for breakfast was so blasé, as if it was no big deal to her. She didn’t sound catty or anything. Maybe I was wrong, and she didn’t screw around with the guys. It was just so hard to believe. She was gorgeous.
“No need to worry about me. I will feed myself,” I told her, not about to let someone wait on me. I might have to live here for a year, but I wasn’t going to turn into some diva who let other people wait on her.
I walked over to the island, and Jayda handed me a plate.
“Here you go. Are you a coffee drinker? Or maybe espresso? I make a killer caramel vanilla latte.”
I looked from the food back to her. “Really?” I asked, my voice giving away my excitement at the word latte .
Jayda grinned. “Before this job, I was a barista,” she replied. “Which one do you prefer?”
“That caramel vanilla latte sounds wonderful.”
“Cold or hot?”
I laughed. “I feel like I’m at Starbucks. Hot, please.”
“Tall, grande, or venti?”
My eyebrows shot up, and she smirked.
“That’s a joke.”
Another chuckle bubbled out of me as I turned back to the food and chose some berries, a pancake, and a slice of bacon.
“The bacon is weally good,” Stevie told me.
“Vivi Lu, I don’t think bacon can be anything but good.”
She giggled and stuck the end of the fancy straw into her mouth while she watched me.
I was almost to the stool beside her when Linc walked into the kitchen. If I had been eating, I would have choked on my food.
Good Lord. That man.
His eyes met mine, and I had some difficulty swallowing. I’d thought Hudson was handsome. But he seemed ordinary when compared to Linc. Self-preservation had perhaps dulled my memory of his perfection. Right now, it was here, slapping me in the face.
Broad shoulders with muscular arms stretched the blue pearl-snap shirt he was wearing. The faded jeans it was tucked into looked as if they had been tailor-made for him. Complete with dark brown cowboy hat and boots, the man was breathtaking. Literally. I wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
Linc’s gaze didn’t have any trouble looking right past me to Jayda, who was busy at a complicated-looking coffee machine, then to Stevie.
“Good morning,” he said, causing her little head to snap around to look at him.
“Hey! It’s my weal dad!” she exclaimed happily, pointing as if I hadn’t seen him the instant he stepped into the room.
The corner of his mouth tugged up, and the way it made his eyes crinkle reminded me of the Linc I used to know. My outlaw. I tore my gaze off him and pulled the stool out to sit down. He wasn’t smiling at me. He was smiling at our daughter, who was impossible not to smile at.
“Morning, Mr. Shephard,” Jayda called out. “I’ll have your plate to you in just a minute. I finally have someone to make a latte for.”
Linc walked into my line of vision again, and like moths to a flame, my eyes were right back on him.
He studied the array of food, then cut his eyes over to Stevie. “Was there something here to your liking?” he asked her.
Blonde curls bounced as she nodded her head vigorously. “The pancakes was weally good. You need to twy them. Jayda puts whipped cweam and bewwies on them. And the bacon was my favowite,” she said, holding up the half-eaten piece in her hand to show him what bacon looked like, I guessed.
“I normally just have eggs and toast, but if you say I need to try the pancakes, then pancakes it is,” he replied, his expression serious, as if her words had changed his mind.
Again, she nodded and bounced on her knees. “You can sit by me. Thewah is a seat wight hewah.” She patted the spot on her other side.
“That’s the best offer I’ve had all week,” he told her, then glanced back at Jayda. “I’ll take the pancakes the way Stevie had them with the bacon, please.”
Jayda looked up at him, her expression a mixture of surprise and amusement. “Got it,” she replied, then placed the latte in front of me.
“Thank you,” I told her again before she turned to start making his plate.
“We awah going to pack up my things and bwing them hewah to youah house,” Stevie told Linc.
He leaned in closer to her. “I’m looking forward to you showing me your favorite toys.”
“That’s my Bluey house!” she exclaimed. “We can bwing that, can’t we, Mommy?” she asked, turning to look at me.
“Yes, of course.”
“Hudson gave it to me.”
And there it was. What I had hoped my oversharing daughter would not mention. I didn’t look at Linc, but I could literally feel the air around us get thick.
“Is there by chance a larger Bluey house that you might want?” Linc asked her.
This time, my eyes swung to him. Was he serious? He couldn’t do this with everything in her life. She’d be spoiled.
“Yes!” she said, bouncing again. “And thewah is a beach house and a campah and a school! Mommy said I can get them fowah my buffday.”
I watched as the smug expression came over his face. Like he had just been given the information he needed to win the game. Although this wasn’t a game. It was a little girl who did not need to be bought with toys. He was going to win. He’d already won. He would be the most important man in her life until the day came that she fell in love.
“I believe we can make a stop on our trip today and go ahead and get those items. I would hate for you to have to wait months for them.”
I held in a groan as Stevie let out a squeal.
Jayda handed Linc a cup of coffee, then slid his plate in front of him.
He didn’t even glance her way. The sight of Stevie celebrating her upcoming trip to buy all the items on her wish list had his complete attention.
His eyes finally shifted toward me, and I gave him a pointed look that said I wasn’t happy about this. The confused frown that drew his brows together made it clear he had no idea what was wrong with his decision. We would talk about this, but not while Stevie could hear it. I finished my breakfast in silence while listening to Stevie tell Linc about the dog she wanted. He seemed to be determined to make all her wishes come true in the span of twenty-four hours.