Texas_Winter (4 page)

"Do I look okay?" He needed someone, anyone, to tell him.
"You look like a sensible businessman," Jack replied just as Eden and Donna chorused "fine".
"Which is it? Is it just fine? Is it too much? Should I change?"
"Riley. You look like a PTA daddy. Okay?" Trust Jack to say the thing that made Riley choke up. A daddy? Him?
The cab drew up in the dusty courtyard and parked between Jack's truck and his own 4x4. Two people climbed out. One an older woman, clearly the aunt, who stood and looked at the house, and a second, much smaller person. Riley held his breath and reached blindly for Jack's hand, interlacing their fingers and gripping tight. Hand in hand they exited the house and stood at the bottom of the stairs. The aunt took the few steps nearer. The child by her side was a small scrap of humanity with the biggest brown eyes Riley had ever seen, and she simply stared at him. Riley had never felt so tall in his life before, and using Jack's hand to balance, he hunkered down to kneel so he would be at her height.
"Riley Hayes? My name is Sophie McGuire," the aunt said, but Riley couldn't talk to her. He was so focused on the child, on Hayley, and he ignored her.
"Hi, Hayley," he said instead, and released his hold on Jack's hand. "How you doing?" he added with a smile. She hid momentarily behind Sophie who gently encouraged her to step forward. Riley had his first look at the beautiful child. She was the image of Eden at this age with brown eyes and blond locks that fell nearly to her waist, curled and shining in the bright sunlight. There was stubbornness to the lift of her chin, and while Riley could see that in his own features every time he looked in the mirror, she was very much her momma's child.
"Are you my daddy?" she finally asked.
"Yes, he is," Sophie interrupted. Her tone was daring Riley to deny Hayley's parentage.
That single question hovered between them despite what the aunt said, and there was no conscious thought in Riley as he answered.
"Yes, sweetheart, I am." Jack joined Riley by crouching low.
"So I can stay?" Hayley asked warily, looking from her aunt, then to Riley and Jack.
"Of course you can, baby. This is Jack, my husband."
"Hi, Hayley," Jack responded.
"She was right then?" The aunt snorted softly. "Could be worse I s'pose." She was close enough for Riley to hear, and he wondered why she was leaving her niece with them if she disapproved of him and Jack. Tension curled into Riley.
"Two daddies," he said instead. "And this is your Aunty Eden and Jack's mom, Donna."
"Uh huh," Hayley said carefully, and then looked between Eden and Donna.
"Hello, Hayley," Eden said quickly. "We met yesterday."
"I remember," Hayley replied. She was staring at Donna and looked as if she was going to add something, but Sophie talked over her.
"Mr Hayes," she began, "Lexie wanted me to look out for Hayley until I could pass her on to you."
"Campbell-Hayes," Jack commented quickly as he stood and stared pointedly at the woman. She inclined her head at the words, long white hair falling about her face and then passed Riley a folder she'd been gripping in her hand.
"These are papers from the lawyers dealing with Lexie's estate. Her details are inside the folder."
"Thank you," Riley said. Everyone stood quietly for what seemed like hours but was only probably a few seconds, no one quite knowing what to say, the pause pregnant with questions. Finally Donna managed to push the conversation along.
"I imagine Hayley would like to see inside her new house," she encouraged, and Riley snapped awake like he'd been in a daze.
"Of course. You want to see inside, Hayley?" Riley said quickly.
Donna offered her a hand, and trustingly, Hayley took it before looking back briefly at Sophie with a small smile. Riley saw affection on his daughter's face, but Hayley made no move to hug Sophie.
"Bye, Aunt Sophie," Hayley said, and allowed Donna to lead her up to the porch.
Jack placed himself between front door and the aunt, and at somewhat of an impasse, Riley didn't know what to say. As soon as the door shut, her mask of icy indifference fell and her true emotion showed on her face. Riley saw sadness and concern, and eyes wet with tears, she clasped her hands together.
"I didn't want to do this," she said quickly, "but Lexie said she would be safer with you, and I'm not getting any younger." This was possibly the oddest situation Riley had ever found himself in, and the most uncomfortable.
"Safer?" he said as he focused on that single word amongst the rest.
"When Lexie was ill, her sister, Sarah, took over a lot of Hayley's care. They are close,
were
close," she added, correcting herself immediately. "It was always intended for Hayley to be with her father after Lexie was told her cancer was too aggressive—too advanced." She closed her eyes briefly, and Riley could hear the grief in the words. There was a strange tightness in his chest at the thought he might never have known he was a daddy. "There wasn't time for her to… There's a letter in there which explains it all."
"Thank you." It was all he could say. He didn't ask why the sister didn't have custody; he didn't question why Lexie wanted him to have Hayley. In fact, he was incapable of thinking past getting into the house to see his daughter. He just thanked whoever was listening for bringing Hayley to his door.
"There are bags in the cab," she said. "I wonder if someone could help me?" Jack stepped forward, then Riley, and in less than a minute, everything Riley knew of Hayley's entire life was sitting on the D's drive. "Would you see your way to covering the cost of the cab?" she asked, and Riley immediately pulled out his wallet and grabbed every single bill he had. He didn't bother counting. There was probably more than she needed. He would pay her everything for the single fact that she had cared enough to bring his daughter to him.
"How are you getting home?" he asked, concerned. "The cab is waiting," she said.
"I could organize a car."
"I have my arrangements made," she said simply. Squaring her shoulders, she looked Riley straight in the eyes. "Promise me that you will look after her."
"I will. I do."
"Lexie's sister… It isn't right for her to have Hayley, and Lexie knew that. Lexie always told me you were the one who should take the child."
"I'm her dad," Riley said unnecessarily.
"Lexie wasn't sure."
"Sure of what? Sure Riley was the dad?" Jack sounded confused.
"She wasn't sure it mattered if Riley was the dad or not. She didn't imagine Riley would want her—"
"What the hell?" Riley couldn't hold back the instant and visceral reaction. He might have been an idiot at twenty, but everyone grew up, so who the hell was Lexie to think something so plainly awful?
"Until…" Sophie waved a hand between Riley and Jack.
"Until?"
"It isn't my place to say Mr Hayes—"
"Campbell-Hayes," Riley interrupted, and Sophie inclined her head to acknowledge the mistake.
"She said you were settled in whatever you are settled in." She looked uncomfortable momentarily. "I don't know what's worse—Lexie's sister and her problems or you and your… unconventional… relationship." Riley narrowed his eyes and wondered how far Jack was going to let this go before he lost his temper. "Still," Sophie carried on, oblivious to what reaction she was engendering, "the lesser of two evils it remains."
* * * *
As the cab disappeared up the long drive, avoiding the potholes and cracks in the dry ground, Jack turned to Riley with a grim look on his face.
"What the fuck was
that
all about."
All Riley could do was shrug. He really had no idea at all.
The two men went into the house. Hayley was chatting about hair and playing with her own by twisting it around her tiny hands. Riley stopped dead. They looked so alike, his sister and his beautiful daughter. And they seemed to be connecting. Irrational jealousy spiked in him, and he shook himself free of it.
"How about your daddy shows you your room?" Eden said gently.
Hayley looked at him expectantly, and he dutifully took Hayley's extended hand. Donna and Eden were talking, but once the door shut between the kitchen and hall, it was just Riley and Hayley. He paused in the hallway. A bedroom wasn't what he had spent any time thinking about. His responsibility. The change in his life. His daughter losing her momma. Those are the things he had focused on, not on providing a little girl haven in among the rough and tough of the D. This was a working ranch. He and Jack shared Jack's two rooms. Donna's was upstairs, although she appeared to spend most nights from dusk until dawn at Neil's house. Still, it was her room, and this only really left Beth or Josh's old rooms at the back of the house. Out of Jack's two siblings, Riley guessed Beth's room was likely more girly than Josh's, and he knew for a fact the window faced the back paddocks. Decision made, he took a right and went down the short corridor to the end to the door marked with a carved name.
"This was Beth's old room; she's Jack's sister," he said, and crouched down again. "I've not seen inside it, and I don't know if it's pink or girly or anything. But, whatever it's like, we can fix it up, okay? You can have any kind of bedroom you want." Hayley nodded, and then standing tall, Riley pushed his way in.
Well, it wasn't pink. In fact, it wasn't really much of anything. A simple room with wooden floors and a large double bed with a carved headboard. A chest of drawers with a small mirror and a desk in the corner completed the look. Clearly, Donna had this room set up as some kind of guest room judging by the simple furnishings.
"It's big," Hayley said, her eyes wide as she circled to see the whole room. "Bigger than my momma's and mine together."
"We can change anything you want," Riley offered quickly, and then watched bemused as Hayley clambered onto the bed and lay back to stare at the ceiling.
"It's kind of cool," she offered in the simple manner a child has. Riley sat on the edge of the bed, the weight of him causing Hayley to roll slightly. She giggled and leaned on one arm to look at him. "You're really heavy," she said with a laugh.
"Guess I am," Riley agreed.
"Way tall. Momma said my daddy was really tall." Riley could have sat there and cried. Lexie had spoken about him? Lexie had known he was Hayley's biological dad but had never thought to contact him? Why had she done that? Instead, he pushed past the hurt and confusion with a smile.
"You may get way tall as well," he said.
"I don't wanna be
that
tall." Her eyes widened again, and a look of horror settled on her face. Riley laughed.
"I get to see over everyone."
"So not a good thing."
"I can reach Donna's cookie shelf," he confided with a smile and a wink. Hayley's eyes widened and he thought maybe he had scored a point in his favor.
"I could get a chair," she said thoughtfully. "If the cookies were good enough."
Riley was alternating between pride and horror. Hayley,
his daughter
, was so direct. She was talking to him almost like she was in an adventure. He wondered how much of it was bravado and how much damage had been done by her mom dying.
"I'm sorry. You know…" he began, and then didn't really know where he was going. What level should he pitch this at? She was eight, but she seemed so grown up. Best he was direct, he thought. "Sorry about your mom," he finally said as simply as he could.
Hayley pulled her lower lip with her teeth, and Riley saw a couple of gaps. He wondered quickly if Hayley was going to cry and then wondered how the hell he was going to manage to handle the tears of a little girl.
"She was ill for a long time, but she was mostly happy." This seemed a contradiction in terms to Riley, but it must have made sense to Hayley.
"I'm so sorry about your mom. She was a very good person." He vocalized these thoughts but didn't mention the overwhelming anger that Lexie hadn't called him. "Mostly I'm sorry I didn't know about you."
"Why do you think mom didn't tell you about me?" Jeez, a leading question if there ever was one. What should he say? He didn't have a freaking clue why Lexie had chosen to have Hayley on her own. Was he angry? Or was he sad? Maybe he should explain he had been more than eighty percent selfish idiot when he was twenty and he was surprised the whole relationship with Lexie had lasted even three months.
Suddenly, it was very important to him, vital even, she was told her mom must have had reasons. He had to push his own anger and disappointment to one side where his baby girl was concerned. He was determined nothing would tarnish the memory of her momma, and he was ready to accept every ounce of responsibility. Lexie must have had her reasons to keep Hayley away from him, and he wasn't naive enough to believe his own lack of maturity was the biggest one.
"Your mom and I were both so young, and I wasn't the best person to know. I wasn't exactly the best boyfriend ever."
"'Cause you wanted to marry a man?" she asked.
"I wasn't… I hadn't…"
"Mom always said I asked difficult questions," Hayley interrupted with a grin. A grin big enough to worm its way into Riley's heart. His daughter was intelligent apparently, and God, did he love that fact.
He laughed. "Are you sure you're only eight?"
"Nearly nine." So serious.
"When is your birthday?" Jeez, he didn't even know that. Grief gripped him. He had missed so much, but he ruthlessly pushed those negative feelings down.
"September sixth," she said, "so I'm nearly nine." This talking-to-his-daughter business was easy. She was a precocious eight—nearly nine—year-old who made him smile. In a tone Riley remembered Eden using when she was little, Hayley said, "I saw horses out there yesterday, and Momma said you would get me a pony for my birthday. So can I have one?"

When the two of them made it back out to the kitchen, there was a pile of paperwork on the table and a jumble of cases at the door. Jack was thumbing through the papers reading, Donna was making new coffee, and Eden was pacing. All movement stopped when Riley pushed open the kitchen door. Everyone looked at Riley expectantly.

"I put Hayley in Beth's old room, but it isn't very…" He circled his finger to indicate everything he didn't know about little girls and what they wanted in their bedrooms.

"Okay," Eden responded quickly. "Well, we can go girly shopping. Would you like that?" Hayley nodded, but Riley saw a hint of sadness in her that just broke his heart.

"You can have anything you want," Riley offered quickly. Then seeing Eden's look of warning, he added, "Within reason of course. Um, to make it your own room."