Logan didn’t keep her waiting. “It means that between this and the birth certificate, I have legal rights as your father. I’m going to enforce those rights. I’m going to your mum’s today to tell her you’re moving in with me. If she wants to discuss it, we will. If she wants to fight it, she can, but she will have a fight on her hands.”
“Really?” Maia whispered, almost as if she didn’t quite believe it.
“Maia, she kept you from me for fifteen years.” His eyes were hard with determination. “And as far as I can see, she’s not done right by you. It’s my turn to look after you. I can’t promise you I’ll be very good at it, but I can promise I’ll try my very best to make the next fifteen, thirty, fifty years better than the last fifteen.”
As I tried to blink back my tears at his speech, Maia launched herself out of her chair and straight at Logan. He stood stunned for a moment as she wrapped her arms around his waist and burrowed her face against his chest. Seconds later he slid his arms around her and held her tight.
I had to look away so I wouldn’t turn into a blubbering mess.
“Grace.”
I glanced up at them again to find Maia had stepped away from her dad, looking almost embarrassed by her outburst of affection. Logan noticed and put his arm around her shoulders and drew her in to his side. She smiled shyly up at him, but he’d turned to me so he didn’t notice the adoration he was receiving. “Are you okay to let Maia stay with you while I turn the second room into Maia’s room?”
“Of course,” I answered easily.
“Okay.” He blew out air between his lips and looked down at Maia. “I’ll need the details of your last school, sweetheart, so I can arrange a transfer to a school here.”
She nodded eagerly.
“You’ll need more clothes. If Grace can’t take you, I’ll get Shannon to. She’s dying to meet you.”
He reached out with his other hand and stroked her cheek with his thumb. There was this dazed, tender light in his eyes, and I think it was just finally hitting him that Maia was his. She was his daughter. His voice was gruff with emotion when he spoke again. “I’d better go see your mum.”
“I’ll come with you,” I blurted out. I didn’t want him to go back out there alone. I didn’t want him to have to face it on his own after everything he’d already gone through.
“What about Maia?”
“I’m fifteen,” she piped up. “I can look after myself for a few hours. Believe me.”
Logan frowned. “How would you feel about spending a few hours with Shannon?”
I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, considering Maia had never met her aunt. However, she spoke up before I could say anything. “Okay. I want to meet her.” I scrutinized her to make sure she was telling the truth, and as far as I could see, she was. In fact, she was positively giddy. Jittery. Like a kid on Christmas morning.
I guess, in a way, this was a bit like that for her. Instead of presents, she was getting a family.
“Here? Or at Shannon and Cole’s?” Logan said.
“Um…” She bit her lip. “Here, please.”
Excited she might have been, but she was also still nervous. Logan seemed to understand she’d be more comfortable meeting his sister somewhere that felt familiar and safe to her. “Okay. Let me give her a call.”
He did it right away, and we heard him telling her it was to be just her. In other words, Cole wasn’t invited this time. She must have agreed, because he got off the phone and nodded at Maia. “She doesn’t have a class today, so she’ll be right over.”
Not too long later my doorbell rang and Logan disappeared to let Shannon in. He led her into the sitting room, her violet eyes shining, her cheeks flushed, and her bright red hair falling around her shoulders in a mass of gorgeous waves and ringlets. She scanned the room, and as soon as she spotted Maia, she strode over to her.
Without a word, Shannon tugged Maia into her arms and held on tight. I looked at Logan to see how he was reacting to the heartwarming scene. Just like this morning, his expression was carefully blank.
I was starting to worry about that.
Shannon eventually let go of Maia long enough to step back and then cup her face between her hands. Maia looked at Shannon as if she were some beautiful, magical fairy. Shannon was looking at Maia in much the same way. “Just look at you. You’re so grown-up and so beautiful. Isn’t she beautiful?” Shannon grinned at us.
I nodded, and Logan murmured, “Yeah. She looks just like you, Shannon.”
Maia’s eyes grew round at the compliment.
“Except for the hair.” He smirked.
They both giggled, the sound exactly the same, and I burst out laughing at their twin expressions of amazement and excitement. I had a feeling they were going to be fine, and I started to relax about leaving Maia alone with Shannon.
“Well, you two better hit the road.” Logan’s sister gestured toward the door.
Logan nodded and walked over to give both Shannon and Maia a kiss on the cheek. I followed suit, squeezing Maia’s hand and giving Shannon a grateful smile before hurrying after Logan as he started his determined journey back to Glasgow.
Like the last time I was in Logan’s car with him, there was total silence. Unlike last time, however, I wanted to give him the quiet. He needed it to process everything that had happened. So I gave him quiet. And he took it. For the entire ninety minutes.
When we eventually pulled up to the familiar block of flats, Logan parked and switched the car off. He looked at me.
I gave him a small, wobbly smile. “Are you ready?”
“I want her to fight me.”
He didn’t have to clarify his statement. I knew exactly what he meant, because I wanted Maryanne to fight him too. For Maia’s sake. It wasn’t about him not wanting to take care of Maia. No matter what happened, he was going to do that. But we both wanted Maryanne to give some indication that Maia meant something to her. My mother had never fought for me. It was a special kind of agony knowing your own mother didn’t love you. It was always with me. A ghost haunting me, a demon taunting, “If your mother can’t love you, who can?”
I fought that demon, or whatever you wanted to call it, every day. Most days I won. Still… I didn’t want Maia to have that fight.
Logan gave me a militant nod. “Let’s do this.”
By the time we reached the door, I had butterflies in my stomach and not the good kind. It didn’t help that Logan banged on the door like he meant business. I stared up at his stern expression and reminded myself that I didn’t actually know him that well, and I had no idea what his reaction to this situation was going to be without Maia around as a buffer.
Oh shit.
I guess that made me the buffer this time.
Not even a few seconds passed before the lock turned and the door swung inward to reveal a tall, skinny fellow, wearing nothing but a pair of ratty gray jogging bottoms.
His thinning dark hair was unwashed, his face unshaved, and there was a strong odor of stale sweat reeking from him.
“Aye?” he grunted, scratching his bare belly. Not that he had much of one.
“Is Maryanne home?” Logan said, politely enough.
The skinny man’s answer was to leave the door open, turn around, and walk away.
Logan took that to mean we could enter, and I followed him inside the flat. I was instantly hit with that stench we’d smelled last time we were there. I instinctively huddled closer to Logan as we walked down the narrow hall and into the living room. The skinny man flopped down on an armchair across from us. Maryanne was lying on the couch watching television.
She looked up, her expression giving nothing away.
“Remember us?” Logan scowled at her.
Her eyes narrowed. “What the fuck do you want now?”
I eyed her carefully. She seemed less jittery than last time. I didn’t know enough about substance abuse to understand what that meant. Was she high? Was she not high? Who knew?
Logan forged ahead. “I got a paternity test. Maia is mine.”
“Good detective work.” She snorted, and the skinny man laughed.