42. Emmett
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Emmett
Tori pushes the signed agreement across the conference table before the lawyer, Linda, finishes explaining the final page.
The pen rolls toward the center of the scarred wood, and Tori reaches for her purse as though the only thing keeping her in the courthouse is the paperwork beneath Linda’s hand.
Linda checks the signature before looking up. “Once the judge approves this agreement, Emmett will have sole legal and physical custody. You’ll give up visitation, decision-making authority, and the right to receive information about Sadie’s schooling, medical care, or residence.”
Tori pulls the purse strap over her shoulder. “That’s what I agreed to.”
Her attorney shifts beside her, though he makes no attempt to interrupt. He spent most of the morning reviewing the documents with her while Linda went through every clause with me, making certain there was no opening for Tori to return whenever guilt or curiosity pushed her toward Colter Creek.
I came prepared for demands and delays.
But Tori arrived twenty minutes late, asked where to sign, and has spent less time ending her rights as Sadie’s mother than most people spend choosing what to order for lunch.
“You can still request supervised visitation,” I tell her.
Linda glances at me before returning her attention to the papers.
I don’t want Sadie pulled through another stretch of missed calls and broken promises, but I need to know Tori understands the finality of what she’s doing.
Tori doesn’t hesitate. “I’m moving to California.” She reaches for her dark glasses and places them on top of her head. “Kyle has work near Sacramento, and we’re leaving before the end of the month.”
She lets out a slow breath.
“But that’s not really why I’m here.” Her eyes finally meet mine.
“Every time I come back, I promise Sadie I’ll do better, and every time I leave, I disappoint her again.
I keep telling myself next time will be different, but it never is.
” She swallows hard. “Keeping this open just gives me another chance to let her down.”
I came here expecting excuses, another reason why walking away made sense, but Tori gives me the truth instead.
It doesn’t make any of this hurt less, because Sadie still loses her mother, yet hearing her admit she’s been breaking her daughter’s heart every time she comes back changes something.
This isn’t another promise she’ll break. It’s the first time she’s stopped making one.
Tori looks at me again, and the defensiveness in her face eases enough to remind me of who she was before we had Sadie.
We were too young to understand the difference between wanting each other and knowing how to build a life. When Tori got pregnant, I believed loving her would carry us through everything that followed, but Sadie’s arrival exposed every weakness between us.
I learned how to warm bottles while half asleep, how to recognize every cry, and how to function after forty minutes of rest because our daughter needed me to.
Tori started staying out later, missing appointments, and asking fewer questions until she packed two bags one morning while Sadie sat on the kitchen floor with a stack of wooden blocks.
She told me motherhood made her feel as though she had disappeared.
I wanted to tell her I had disappeared too, but Sadie still needed one of us to find a way back.
Tori picks up the pen and turns it between her fingers. “You’re good at being her father.”
The compliment feels wrong coming from her, as though she expects gratitude for recognizing that I took responsibility after she left.
“I’m her father whether I’m good at it or not.”
“Every birthday I missed… every visit I canceled… every time I promised I’d call and didn’t…
” She shakes her head. “I watched her stop believing me a little more every time.” She rubs at her eyes before looking back at me.
“I’m not signing this because I don’t love her.
” She laughs bitterly. “I’m signing it because loving her hasn’t made me into the mother she deserves. ”
Her attorney collects his folder and stands beside her while Linda remains seated. Her hand tightens around the purse strap.
The guilt that usually follows whenever I tell Tori the truth tries to return, but protecting her from the damage she causes has never helped Sadie.
Tori reaches the door and grips the handle. “Don’t make her hate me.”
“I won’t.” She looks over her shoulder as I continue. “I’ll tell her the truth in whatever way she’s old enough to understand, and I’ll let her decide how she feels.”
Tori nods before leaving with her attorney.
The door closes behind them, and I keep my attention on the empty chair until Linda covers the signed agreement with one hand. “You gave Tori every chance to remain involved.”
The sentence joins all the others people have offered over the years.
I did everything I could to keep Tori in Sadie’s life, gave our daughter stability, and made the ranch into a home she could trust.
None of it has stopped me from wondering whether I’ll eventually fail her in another way.
“How long until the judge signs?” I ask.
“Probably a week or two. Both parties agreed, and Tori waived the waiting period, so I don’t expect complications.”
“She can still change her mind?”
“She can attempt to withdraw, though the court would consider the agreement, her history, and Sadie’s best interests.” Linda closes the folder before sliding a copy toward me. “I don’t believe she’ll come back.”
I don’t either.
I tuck the folder beneath my arm and leave the courthouse.
Heat rises from the pavement as I cross the square, while people move between the diner, pharmacy, and hardware store as though my daughter’s life didn’t change inside the building behind me.
My phone rings before I reach the truck. Red’s name appears on the screen.
“It’s done,” I tell him.
“She signed?”
“Every page.”
He waits before asking, “How are you handling it?”
“I don’t know yet.” I unlock the truck and place the folder on the passenger seat. “She looked relieved, in a way.”
“That belongs to her.”
“I offered supervised visitation.”
He sighs. “Did she take it?”
“No.”
“Then she made her decision.”
Red’s answer would sound harsh from anyone else, but he knows how much life a man can lose by carrying another person’s choices.
“I’ll be home before dinner,” I tell him.
“Sadie’s asked about you all afternoon.”
“Does she know where I am?”
“She knows you had an appointment.”
I glance through the courthouse windows even though Tori has already left. “Keep it that way until I figure out what to tell her.”
“I will.” Red pauses before adding, “Arizona’s with her.”
The tightness beneath my ribs eases.
Red tells me to drive safely before ending the call.
The folder remains on the passenger seat during the trip to Dusty Spur, and I keep seeing Tori’s signature whenever I glance toward it.
The ranch looks the same when I turn beneath the wooden sign. Cattle move across the far pasture, Willy’s truck sits crooked beside the equipment shed, and Arizona’s truck remains parked beyond the cottonwoods.
She has spent nearly every night here since the rodeo.
Sadie races through the front door before I shut off the engine. “Daddy!” I catch her when she reaches me, and she wraps both arms around my waist. “You were gone forever.”
“I was gone four hours.”
“That’s almost forever.”
I brush loose hair away from her face. One braid has disappeared while the other hangs near her shoulder. “What happened to your hair?”
She touches the side of her head and looks surprised. “Arizona said it had opinions.”
“She said your hair was winning an argument,” Arizona calls from the porch.
She stands barefoot beside the steps in one of my work shirts and a pair of denim shorts, watching me over the glass of lemonade in her hand. The cut near her temple has nearly healed, though I still find it every time I look at her.
I lift Sadie onto my hip and carry her toward the house.
“How did it go?” Arizona asks as I reach the porch.
“She signed everything.”
Her expression shifts before she glances toward Sadie. “It’s finished?”
“The judge still has to approve it.”
Sadie leans away from me. “What did she sign?”
“Papers about grown-up problems.”
“Were they boring?”
“Very.”
That answer satisfies her, and she points toward the kitchen. “I made you something.”
“I heard you needed a purple crayon.”
“Uncle Willy stole it.”
Willy appears behind Arizona with a dish towel over one shoulder. “I borrowed it.”
“You hid it in your boot,” Sadie says.
“I needed a safe place.”
Red passes him with a plate of steaks. “Nobody was going near it after that.”
Sadie squirms until I put her down, then grabs my hand and pulls me into the kitchen before Willy can defend himself.
Crayons and paper cover one end of the table, and a red plastic cup holds down a sheet of white construction paper.
“Close your eyes,” Sadie orders. I obey while she moves the cup and adjusts the paper. “You can look.”
I open my eyes and find five figures beneath a rodeo sign that fills half the page.
Red stands at one end in a black hat with his arms folded. Willy wears purple pants and carries what might be a pie. Arizona’s red hair reaches her boots, and a blue guitar covers most of her body.
I stand beside Arizona with Sadie’s hand in mine.
Sadie has drawn herself in a yellow dress with mismatched boots, while a crooked heart stretches above the group.
She taps my green shirt. “That’s you. I used green because brown is boring.”
“It looks good.”
“You’re holding my hand, and Arizona’s holding yours.”
A thick purple line connects my hand to Arizona’s, while she reaches toward Red with the other. Willy stands on her opposite side, leaving no gap between any of us.
Sadie has drawn the family she already believes we are.
I brace one hand against the table as the picture brings the courthouse back to me. Tori spent the morning cutting herself out of Sadie’s life, while our daughter spent the afternoon drawing four people who stayed.
Arizona steps beside me. “Are you okay?”
Sadie studies my face. “Don’t you like it?”
“I love it.”
“Then why do you look sad?”
I crouch beside her and pull her into my arms. “Sometimes being happy hurts a little when you weren’t expecting it.”
“That sounds strange.”
“It feels strange too.”
She hugs my neck. “You can keep it in your room.”
“I want everyone to see it.”
“Even Uncle Willy?”
“He’s in the picture, too.”
Willy moves toward the table and studies his purple pants. “My inclusion raises the artistic value.”
Red sets down the steaks. “You look like you’re carrying a ham.”
“It’s pie.”
Sadie laughs as I stand beside her.
Arizona lifts the drawing and carries it to the refrigerator. “This belongs where everyone can see it.”
“The Texas magnet is strongest,” Sadie says.
Arizona fastens the drawing beneath the Texas magnet, and I step back with the rest of them.
My figure stands where Sadie believes I belong, beside her and Arizona, with Red and Willy close enough to share the same crooked heart.
I spent years measuring the future through the next responsibility. I needed to keep Sadie safe, keep the ranch running, and make certain every promise to my daughter was one I could keep.
Hope felt dangerous because trusting it left too much room for disappointment.
Sadie has drawn it in purple crayon and pinned it to our refrigerator.
For months I’ve been telling myself not to get attached. Arizona’s a woman who chases the next town, the next song, the next stretch of open road.
I figured the best we could hope for was a few good memories before she packed her guitar and disappeared over the next horizon.
Somewhere along the way, that stopped feeling true.
She isn’t living out of her truck anymore. Her boots are lined up beside ours by the back door. Her guitar leans against the living room wall instead of waiting behind the driver’s seat.
Sadie asks for her before breakfast, Red reaches for her without thinking, and Willy smiles differently whenever she’s in the room.
Nobody talks about when she’s leaving anymore, because she isn’t.
Arizona McCay came to Colter Creek looking for another song.
Somehow, she found a home instead.
And so did we.