Page 7 of Reuniting with the Rancher

Something flashed in the man’s face, but it was gone before she could figure it out. Maybe he was trying to figure out where to put her body. A man like him struck her as someone who had plenty of places to hide them.

“Ms. Fair, what about your daughter?”

Ivy.

No one ever talked about Ivy. Lily would’ve preferred if he’d just punched her in the face instead. She rubbed the spot on her chest where the pain sat, too deep to ever really soothe.

“No one ever asks me about her,” she whispered. “It makes sense…the number of people alive who know about Ivy can be counted on one hand. Mari and our mother are gone. The midwife who delivered Ivy retired and shit, Greyson and his mother made it clear they blamed me.”

She gave up on being brave and sank onto the edge of the fountain. If this man was going to do her harm, he would do it. She set the cane next to her and began spinning thering on her right ring finger around. “I grieved so hard those first few birthdays they thought about involuntarily admitting me… Eventually, I learned to hide the pain. Existing in this dance where the broken pieces of your heart are too painful for everyone else, so you brutalize yourself in silence to keep everyone else ok. Is that what you wanted to know? How I’ve suffered for ten years? How I’ll never be okay until the day I see her again? Is that enough for your employer?”

Greyson stormed out of the shadows, dark brown eyes made darker by his apparent rage. “So you do plan on being with her? Was this job your way of circumventing my rights?!”

Her head snapped back at his anger and odd question. “What fucking rights would you have over whether I see Ivy again? I know you’ve always thought you controlled the sun as it rose and set, but even you don’t have control over that, you fucking weirdo.”

“Grey, I told you to hang back and let me talk to her.”

“Intimidate me, you mean?” Lily shot back at Logan before turning back to Greyson. “I have as much right to Lily as you do! I did the best I COULD!”

“You gave up all rights ten years ago, LaLa,” he growled back.

“STOP BLAMING ME! I TRIED! I did everything I was supposed to do!”

“Everything but stick around, Lily! YOU DID EVERYTHING BUT BE WHAT SHE NEEDED! SHE NEEDED HER MOMMA ALL THOSE DAYS IN THE NICU, ALL THE DAYS SINCE, SHE NEEDED YOU TOO!”

Greyson stormed away along the road, back toward the main house.

She sat weeping on the side of the fountain for several moments as Greyson’s footsteps faded into the distance and the venom of his words coursed through her veins, killing her with each heartbeat.

“From now on, I’ll be your contact regarding this matter until Grey’s lawyers reach out,” Logan said.

“Idaho is an at will state and I quit. I’m taking Caleb as far away from here as I can get first thing tomorrow morning.”

“You’re giving up, just like that? What about all the suffering?”

“What is there to give up? I–” Greyson’s words, the actual words, not the venom of them, suddenly hit her. “Days. He said days in the NICU. How long was she in the NICU?”

“I don’t see why that–”

“TELL ME! How long did she survive? Mrs. Monroe said she died shortly after she was born, before I woke up, but Greyson said days. Why would he say days in the NICU?”

“He misspoke, Ms. Fair. I’m sorry. Let me walk you back to the cabin.”

Lily didn’t know what to feel. Grief, her steady companion, mixed with the guilt she had tried to exorcise from her life. Somewhere there was a moment of horror at the thought that she’d gotten the wrong information and missed the chance to say goodbye to her little girl when she left the hospital against medical advice. There was the moment of relief that wasn’t the case, then self-recrimination at feeling relief.

She had to get the hell out of this place. Like Greyson, it was deceptive. It looked like a place where you anchor your heart, but once you committed, it delivered blow after blow of pain.

“Grey,you’ve got a big fucking problem,” Logan said as he glanced at his watch.

“So what she has more money than I do. She signed away her rights ten years ago and did not establish contact with Ivy since.There is not a judge in the state that will side with her. Especially cutting out on a sick baby.”

“That’s the thing man, I don’t think she signed anything. At least not knowingly… You may want to sit down.”

“Cut the dramatics, man. What the fuck did she tell you?”

Logan scrubbed his hand down his face, looking all of his forty-plus years. His dark eyes were wary.

“She thinks Ivy died as an infant, because that’s what your mother told her.”

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