“Yeah, doll?”
“If Mom will buy me a bike, will you teach me how to ride so me and Rory can have a race?”
What my child didn’t know was, I wouldn’t have to buy her anything. I had a feeling by tomorrow morning there would be five bikes sitting outside.
“Absolutely,” Holden answered in a rough voice.
“Yay!” Faith did her signature jig and turned to Rory. “My dad’s gonna teach me to ride a bike. Then we can race.”
The girls’ chatter faded into the background. Dinner plans, house buying, engagement, company, all forgotten. Everyone except Holden ceased to exist for me. I never wanted to forget this moment, the look on his face, the happiness that radiated from him. So I took my time and memorized the moment. I committed every nuance to memory and I locked it away nice and tight in a secret place that was just for me.
It was then some of the hatred faded.
It was then I realized that with all of the people conspiring against us, we’d won. Sure, we lost some time, but we hadn’t lost it all.
There was a lot of life to live. There was more to our story. And we were finally going to live it.
35
“Dad?”
Holden forced his body to stay relaxed as he looked over at Faith. He wasn’t entirely successful in this endeavor, seeing as his neck muscles had stiffened and his heart pounded violently, but he didn’t think his daughter noticed.
This wasn’t the first time he’d heard Faith call him “Dad” and it wasn’t even the third. Over the last few hours, it seemed once she’d broken the seal she was using every available opportunity to call out to him even if he was right next to her. Case in point, they were side by side on the bed Faith and Charleigh shared and Holden had been reading her a bedtime story.
“Right here, doll.”
“I just like calling you that.”
Jesus, Jesus.
“That’s good, ‘cause I like hearing it.”
“Why was Paul my dad if you really were?”
Fuck.
How in the hell did he explain to an eight-year-old the mess he’d created?
With honesty. But how did he break it down in a way she could understand?
“When I was in the Navy, I got hurt and had to go see a doctor.” Okay, that was a good start. Now what? Holden studied his daughter and wondered how it was possible he’d had his head so twisted he’d missed really seeing her. It had been right in front of him the whole time, all he had to do was look. Faith wasn’t a carbon copy of him—most of her features came from her mom—but he was there, too. The shape of her eyes, her skin tone, her hair color, she even had his nose. Holden shook those thoughts from his mind and came back to her question. “The doctor had to give me a bunch of tests. And he told me I couldn’t have children.”
“But…you’re my dad, right?”
Goddammit. He was screwing this up. He needed Charleigh, she’d know what to say.
“Yes, Faith. You are my daughter. The doctor was wrong. But at the time I didn’t know that. I didn’t leave because I didn’t want you or your mom. I left because I wanted you so badly to be mine, but at the time, I believed the doctor. I didn’t ask the right questions and because of that I missed a lot of your life.”
“I asked Mom for a brother or sister and she told me no.”
Holden’s gut clenched at what was coming next.
“Now that you’re my dad and we’re gonna live together, can I have a brother or sister?”
Punch to the throat.
“I’d like that very much, but that’s something I have to talk to your mom about.”
“She’ll say yes.” Faith solemnly nodded.
He had no doubt. Charleigh had wanted kids—plural, as in as many as they could have and still live a life that was full of adventures and outings. The problem wouldn’t be talking her into more, it would be whether or not Holden was capable of producing them. Not that Holden would explain that to Faith. Nor would he tell her that for the time being she would be an only child. He wanted time to get to know her and build a solid relationship before they added to their family.
Then a thought hit him—he’d taken Charleigh bare. Not once had he used a condom. It hadn’t occurred to him he could get her pregnant and he hadn’t asked if she was on birth control.
She could be pregnant right now.
It was a whisper that fluttered over him. A fantasy, a wish that even in his darkest days without her had never gone away. Knowing Faith was his, and there was a possibility they could have more, revived his dream.
Maybe.
That was the best he could hope for until things settled down and he sought a second opinion.
“Time for bed. It’s been a busy weekend and you have school tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait to tell Andy I have a dad.”
Good Christ, that felt good.
“You do that. And make sure you tell him that your dad owns—”
“Holden,” Charleigh snapped and his gaze went to the door.
“What?”
“We talked about this.”
Had they? He didn’t think they did. They’d talked about when Faith could date, which he was holding firm on sixteen—eighteen if he could push it and get away with it. And they’d talked about him not being allowed to threaten a little boy. But they had not talked about Faith telling Andy and all the other little twits in her class that he owned guns and a lot of them. They hadn’t even touched on the fact that he knew a multitude of ways to inflict bodily harm. Nor had they discussed that he had zero issue kicking teenager ass if one of them tried to put his filthy hands on his girl. But if Charleigh frowned upon that, he would make sure Alec’s boy, Caleb, was up for the task. He smiled at his fiancée and
