"I can reach Donna's cookie shelf," he confided with a smile and a wink. Hayley's eyes widened and he thought maybe he had scored a point in his favor.
"I could get a chair," she said thoughtfully. "If the cookies were good enough."
Riley was alternating between pride and horror. Hayley, his daughter, was so direct. She was talking to him almost like she was in an adventure. He wondered how much of it was bravado and how much damage had been done by her mom dying.
"I'm sorry. You know…" he began, and then didn't really know where he was going. What level should he pitch this at? She was eight, but she seemed so grown up. Best he was direct, he thought. "Sorry about your mom," he finally said as simply as he could.
Hayley pulled her lower lip with her teeth, and Riley saw a couple of gaps. He wondered quickly if Hayley was going to cry and then wondered how the hell he was going to manage to handle the tears of a little girl.
"She was ill for a long time, but she was mostly happy." This seemed a contradiction in terms to Riley, but it must have made sense to Hayley.
"I'm so sorry about your mom. She was a very good person." He vocalized these thoughts but didn't mention the overwhelming anger that Lexie hadn't called him. "Mostly I'm sorry I didn't know about you."
"Why do you think mom didn't tell you about me?" Jeez, a leading question if there ever was one. What should he say? He didn't have a freaking clue why Lexie had chosen to have Hayley on her own. Was he angry? Or was he sad? Maybe he should explain he had been more than eighty percent selfish idiot when he was twenty and he was surprised the whole relationship with Lexie had lasted even three months.
Suddenly, it was very important to him, vital even, she was told her mom must have had reasons. He had to push his own anger and disappointment to one side where his baby girl was concerned. He was determined nothing would tarnish the memory of her momma, and he was ready to accept every ounce of responsibility. Lexie must have had her reasons to keep Hayley away from him, and he wasn't naive enough to believe his own lack of maturity was the biggest one.
"Your mom and I were both so young, and I wasn't the best person to know. I wasn't exactly the best boyfriend ever."
"'Cause you wanted to marry a man?" she asked.
"I wasn't… I hadn't…"
"Mom always said I asked difficult questions," Hayley interrupted with a grin. A grin big enough to worm its way into Riley's heart. His daughter was intelligent apparently, and God, did he love that fact.
He laughed. "Are you sure you're only eight?"
"Nearly nine." So serious.
"When is your birthday?" Jeez, he didn't even know that. Grief gripped him. He had missed so much, but he ruthlessly pushed those negative feelings down.
"September sixth," she said, "so I'm nearly nine." This talking-to-his-daughter business was easy. She was a precocious eight—nearly nine—year-old who made him smile. In a tone Riley remembered Eden using when she was little, Hayley said, "I saw horses out there yesterday, and Momma said you would get me a pony for my birthday. So can I have one?"
C
HAPTER
6
When the two of them made it back out to the kitchen, there was a pile of paperwork on the table and a jumble of cases at the door. Jack was thumbing through the papers reading, Donna was making new coffee, and Eden was pacing. All movement stopped when Riley pushed open the kitchen door. Everyone looked at Riley expectantly.
"I put Hayley in Beth's old room, but it isn't very…" He circled his finger to indicate everything he didn't know about little girls and what they wanted in their bedrooms.
"Okay," Eden responded quickly. "Well, we can go girly shopping. Would you like that?" Hayley nodded, but Riley saw a hint of sadness in her that just broke his heart.
"You can have anything you want," Riley offered quickly. Then seeing Eden's look of warning, he added, "Within reason of course. Um, to make it your own room."
"Dad said I can have a pony," she announced quickly, and Riley cringed as he caught Jack's questioning expression.
"It's her birthday in a few weeks," Riley said in his defense. Jack grinned and shook his head.
"We can get a pony. Do you ride, Hayley?" Jack asked quickly.
"I tried once at a fair."
"So riding lessons as well," Eden said seriously.
"I can do that," Jack offered, and Riley smiled with relief. He could ride, but Jack could ride.
"Shall we get your stuff put away, sweetie?" Donna asked.
"Do you want me to help?" Riley asked immediately, even though what he really wanted was to take a breath and think.
"Nah, we'll do it." Eden laughed, hooking her hand with Hayley and winking conspiratorially. "Girls' stuff. Though, if you two guys could bring in the bags…"
* * * *
As soon as the bags were in Hayley's room, Riley slumped in his chair in the kitchen and buried his head in his hands on the table. He couldn't do this.
"You can do this," Jack said. Riley cursed his husband for knowing exactly what was going through his head. "There are just a few things you need to do. The lawyers say they need a DNA test on record."
Irritation bloomed inside Riley. "She's mine, Jack, even a complete stranger can see that."
"It's an official thing. Stops anyone from trying to put a claim on Hayley."
"Lexie's sister, Sarah, you mean."
Jack sighed and shuffled through the papers in front of him, pulling out the relevant page. "This is kind of sad reading. No parents, just a sister, Sarah. Sarah's married but has no kids. Couple of cousins and this great aunt, Sophie McGuire from Abilene, but as far as I can make out, it was Lexie and Hayley mostly on their own."
"Shit, Jack." Riley couldn't believe Lexie had chosen to isolate them away from him. Had she really hated him that much? Grief welled inside him at how much he had missed with Hayley. He was determined to fix it all. She had him and Jack and Eden, and God, all of Jack's extended family, and Sandra and Jim.
"Hayley has some money in an account," Jack continued, "her mom's account balances put into one. There's just over seven thousand dollars with some kind of deduction for lawyer fees and a burial."
"Those lawyers used Hayley's inheritance to bury her own momma?" Riley sat up, horrified, and Jack nodded.
"We can replace it for her," he said gently.
"Fucking leeches."
"I called Josh," Jack started, and Riley could have smacked himself. He'd forgotten Josh was a lawyer and therefore tacitly included in the leech analogy.