Page 11 of Reuniting with the Rancher

“You get your fill Lily?”

“I don’t mean to…um…thank you–”

“Don’t…Jesus, don’t fucking thank me for my service. Just tell me what you need.” He shrugged on his snug, long-sleeved shirt over his hard body and sat on the edge of the couch.

She shook herself out of her rudeness and focused on why she was there. “I need to know everything about Ivy. Everything. I’m not leaving until you tell me, so cancel whatever you’ve got planned today,” she demanded, her voice hoarse.

Greyson nodded, his face softening. “I’ll clear my schedule,” he said quietly, grabbing his phone from his pocket. After a brief conversation with someone on the other end, he hung up and turned to her. “Come with me.”

Lily followed him in silence, her heart pounding in her chest as they walked further into his house. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the enormity of it all—the daughter she thought had died, the lies Greyson’s mother had spun, and the years of lost time. Through it all, her brain just kept whispering, “Ivy’s alive.”

Eagerly, she looked around the walls for a glimpse of her baby and was disappointed and worried when she didn’t find a single photo.

“Ivy likes to do the decorating whenever we move. She sends the sketches and I follow them to a tee or there’s hell to pay,” a small smile played on his lips. “She hangs the photos when she comes home. Says she needs to be in person to get the ‘vibe’ of the place.”

Lily’s throat felt like it would swell shut. She felt the same way. She never hung photos until she had lived in the space for a while and felt its vibe.

Greyson pushed open the door to his study and led her inside. It was quiet, dark and manly with heavy wood furniture and built-ins. The thick rug cushioned their footfalls, and in the quiet, it held a certain reverence.

“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a large leather sofa situated close to the door.

Lily sat down on the edge of the sofa, her hands trembling as she waited. The quiet gurgle of a fountain in the corner was the only sound in the room, each second dragging out longer than the last.

Greyson pulled several volumes of books off the shelf to her left and when his arms were full, he set them down gently on the coffee table and sat across from her, the weight of the past heavy between them.

“These are everything,” he said, his voice low. “Every year of her life.”

Lily stared at the photo albums, her eyes prickling as the reality of what was in front of her sank in.

Ivy’s life, the life she should have known, documented year by year—photographs, milestones, moments she had missed. That spot in her chest ached deeply.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she whispered, her voice cracking.

Greyson’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t know how. I didn’t even know the full extent of what my mother had done until you asked Logan about the NICU. I still don’t know if I understand everything. Logan’s looking into it now.” He rubbed his hands over his bald head in frustration and his eyes pleaded with her to believe him.

“All mom told me was that you said you couldn’t deal with a sick baby and your singing career. She said you’d signed over your parental rights and checked out of the hospital room against doctor’s orders. By the time I got toyourhospital, you were gone and Ivy was so sick… I couldn’t be by her side and search for you at the same time. I didn’t have the resources I have now.”

Lily shot him a look, eyes wet with unshed tears. “You didn’t know? I called you and you screamed at me. ‘How could I be so irresponsible?’ ‘The time to do the right thing was before this all happened—” She stopped, the memories of his coldness and anger cutting into her like shards of glass.

“I was wrong,” Greyson said quietly, his voice thick with regret. “I thought you didn’t care. That you just signed her away because you didn’t want the responsibility. My mother fed me lies, and I believed them. I was grieving, scared, confused... angry. One moment I have a fiancé and a new baby and the next moment you both almost died and then you were gone. I had no reason not to believe her.”

Lily’s eyes filled with tears, her heart aching. She remembered her time in the hospital after she woke up—the exhaustion, the numbness after Mrs. Monroe told her Ivy hadn’t made it, and the papers she’d signed in a haze, too broken to even read what they were.

“I thought she was gone,” Lily whispered, wiping her eyes roughly. “I thought I lost her that day. She was… your mother was so kind to me. For the first time, she was really actually warm to me. Shecriedwith me, said that your behavior horrified her, that you blamed me because I wanted Ivy to be born at home. She said she wanted to be there because mother-to-mother she understood how I felt.”

Lily shook her head. “Who just has parental rights waivers on their person? I knew she didn’t agree with us having a baby so soon and my wishes, but…to tell me Ivy was dead…”

Greyson’s hand twitched, as if he wanted to reach for her, but he stopped himself and hung his head. “She’s alive, Lily. And she’s been asking about you. For years, she’s asked about her mother. I sent Logan to find you. As fate would have it, you were already on your way back to her.”

Lily’s breath hitched at the words. Ivy had been asking about her? Her heart ached at the thought of her daughter, a stranger to her now, wanting to know who she was. The gravity of what she’d missed, what they’d both missed, weighed heavily on her chest.

Greyson nodded, pushing the first album toward her. “This is from the first year,” he said, his voice soft. “She’s strong like you are. She fought so hard those first weeks.”

Lily’s hands trembled as she opened the album. The first page showed a picture of a tiny baby girl with a head full of ebony curls, tubes attached to every part of her. Her tiny fingers curled around a finger, Grey’s finger tight.

“She was beautiful,” she whispered, tracing the outline of her daughter’s face with her fingertip.

“She still is,” Greyson said, his voice thick with emotion. “She’s always had your eyes and round little nose.”

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