Page 21 of Trusting You

Am I doing the right thing? Just because Paige wanted it, should I have found Locke myself, confronted him, somehow convinced him to take Lily? Was she better off with a happy, full family and not her single father? Was she going to be okay in this city, a place she’s never known, a home with no grass, only a concrete jungle to play in?

Oh, God. My steps halt.

“Carter?” Eden asks in front of me.

Other flyers are having to traverse around me, making their annoyance clear, but I can’t move.

Eden, sensing and likely well-used to this kind of hesitation, hurries to my side. “It’s okay. Lily will be safe here.”

“You can’t know that,” I say with terror.

“I can, and I do,” she assures. “She deserves to be with her family. Don’t you agree?”

“I’m her family.”

I can’t fight it anymore. I break.

“And you’re doing what’s best for her. Come,” Eden says softly, ushering me along. “Come.”

Lily whimpers in my neck, and for a thousand reasons, that sound breaks my heart.

But I follow Eden because there is nowhere else to go. What can I do? Run back onto the plane and hide under the seats? Get trampled by TSA security? Have Lily torn from me that way?

“I have his number,” I say to myself as we trod along. “I can call him any time.”

Whether or not Locke likes it.

We pass the security checkpoint and enter into the public domain, where families with signs await, some with balloons, most hopping up and down on impatient feet, awaiting their loved one.

I find Locke immediately, as he’s the only one on his own, hands in his jeans, hair askew, his lips flat-lined as he searches the crowd.

Too heartbreakingly fast, he lands on me.

And breaks into a grin.

“Hey!” he says when I approach, half my face still buried against Lily. Then, softer, kinder, he looks down at Lily and says, “Hey, there.”

I halt in front of him, aware of Eden, but my attention is solely on the man in front of me, and when he’ll decide to take Lily out of my arms.

He looks up at me with Lily’s blue eyes and asks, “Can I…?”

I tense, but he only puts his wide palm on Lily’s back and rubs. “Hi, honey.”

He’s speaking in a voice I’ve never heard, so awed and tentative.

“Wanna look my way?” he asks her.

At some point on our walk, Lily crammed her thumb in her mouth, but I can picture her peeking out at him suspiciously, the rest of her fist curled against her chin.

“Hey. Hi,” he says, bending closer. I can count the pieces of scruff on his cheek. He lifts his hand from her back into a wave. “I’m…” His voice catches, and it makes me peer at him closer. “I’m Dad.”

The sight is so endearing that I loosen my hold. Just a fraction.

“Well, how about we have lunch somewhere?” Eden asks, and it’s as if she’s burst a bubble.

“Sure, ma’am.” Locke straightens, but it’s tough for him to tear his attention away from Lily. “I rented a car, but I bought a car seat. It’s installed. Ready.”

My brows quirk. I could never picture Locke nervous, but at this moment it looks like he’s about to eat a lemon.

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