Page 86 of Hero for the Holidays

“Really?”

“I can’t be happy without you, kid. You’re my family. You’re mine. I love you like hell. But yeah, if you hated me, I would want you to find another family.”

She seemed to consider that.

“I know you’re right. Because my mom and dad were the best. And I know that they wanted me. And that they wanted me to have a happy life and to have all of my dreams. I do know that.” She sounded too old then, and entirely too weary.

He hated fate for making her that way.

He hated that he didn’t see a way this could have turned out better. Because at seventeen he really couldn’t have done this.

So that brought them back here.

“I was too immature to want that for you back then,” he said. “I clung to this dream that I had, and it wasn’t about you. It was about me. I can see now that sometimes loving somebody with everything means being willing to let them go.”

He looked up and saw Fia standing in the doorway. She had tears on her cheeks.

“Wow, that’s...wow, Landry,” she said.

He stood, his stomach pitching when he saw her. When he looked at her beauty. He didn’t think there would be a time when Fia Sullivan didn’t affect the landscape of his soul. “It’s true. I was too idiotic to realize it before. But I get it now.”

“You really do.”

“Come on,” said Landry. “We’ve got an adoption to get to. We’re about to be a family.”

His eyes met Fia’s. It was weird. They were about to be a family. Kind of. They were each adopting Lila. But they weren’t a couple.

It was for the best.

They would always be bonded together by Lila, though. That had been something painful and sad in the past, and now it meant something joyful.

It couldn’t quite mean what he’d wanted it to when he was a teenage boy.

Maybe he had to let that go to. Maybe they both would.

Maybe they finally would be able to.

Finally.

They booked a hotel with an indoor swimming pool, and got connecting rooms. Lila would be in Fia’s room, and Landry would have one to himself. They went to an IMAX movie and to the Old Spaghetti Factory, and then Lila spent the evening swimming in the pool.

Fia, much to his chagrin, didn’t even seem to be driven to put on her swimsuit to get in the hot tub. He decided that he would, though.

He noticed that she was staring at him, almost a scowl, from the plastic chair by the pool.

“Don’t be a hater,” he said. “You could join me.”

He pretended it was about her wishing she was in the hot tub and not her being mad that he was shirtless. Though he had a feeling she was mad about the shirtless thing. Because he had a feeling that she was mad at him too.

“I’m good,” she said, testy, pulling up the mystery book that she was reading so that it covered her face.

He chuckled, and lay back in his chair.

Then they all walked together to the elevator and up to their rooms.

He put the key card in the door and met her gaze as she did the same. There was something vaguely erotic about it. “Good night,” he said.

She pulled her card out ferociously, and the door light turned green. “Good night.”

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