Chapter 26

TWENTY-SIX

DEV

It took less than two days after Tully’s departure for me to realize my new little family would never be complete without him in it.

I was down in the barn, checking on one of the new foals with Lellie safe in her new favorite carrier on my back, when I saw Indigo stroking Trigger’s nose over the stall door.

“He likes you,” I said, tilting my chin up at him in acknowledgment.

The poor kid had obviously been scared of me ever since the incident with Trigger. Despite everything going on in my life, I owed him an apology.

“Nah. He’s just, like, obsessed with peppermints.” His eyes widened. “But don’t stress, dude. I swear, I only give him one in the morning and one at night. Gotta keep it balanced. Gotta keep his energy aligned.”

Surprisingly, I found this almost intelligible. “I appreciate you, ah… looking out for his energy,” I said soberly.

Lellie squawked in my ear when she saw Trigger, so I headed over that way and let her pet him. Indigo’s face lit up when he saw how happy it made her. “Dudette’s a natural. Got the horse bug for sure. Gonna be a big rider, just like her dad. No doubt.”

“Hope so. But then again, I’ll go gray early. Riding can be dangerous.”

“Dude, say less.” Indigo rolled his eyes. “I was flexing in a polo match once ’cause I had a girl watching, you know? So when I hit a tail shot—epic shot, killed it—you know I had to turn around to see if my girl’d seen it. Ended up twisting myself right off the pony. Total wipeout, bro. Bruised all to h-heck and took a mallet to the face by their number two just for some extra humiliation. Almost got trampled. Polo’s no joke.”

“And yet you got back on the horse.”

“’Course I did,” he said. He added in a fake-snooty accent, “‘A polo handicap is a person’s ticket to the world.’”

I grinned at him. It had been a long time since I’d met a fellow polo-phile. “Winston Churchill.”

“Uh-huh. My first coach called polo the great equalizer,” he said. “No matter your size, you’re all the same on the back of a pony.”

Indigo was not only friendly and approachable, great with horses, and even better with my daughter, but he was smarter than I gave him credit for. I’d misjudged him almost as badly as I had Tully. “I owe you an apology,” I began.

He looked surprised.

“I made assumptions about you from the very beginning,” I admitted. “Which is unfair. It’s something that happened to me when I was growing up and made me angry as hell. You deserved better. I would never want anyone to treat Lellie the way I treated you, and I’m sorry.”

Indigo’s eyes widened as I spoke. “Whoa, dude. That’s, like, totes unnecessary. But thanks. And no worries about the Lellinator. With all these bros around her… pfft . No doubt she’s gonna shine.”

He shook her little socked foot that stuck out of the carrier on my back. “Studies show that positive guidance—like nurturing your kid’s potential through consistently positive interactions—in early childhood helps them feel safe and secure. Doesn’t have to be overly permissive. But positive. Love and encourage her like crazy, dude. She’ll do okay.”

I stared at him until he started laughing. It set Lellie off with a case of the giggles until Trigger snorted in my face, which only made the two of them laugh harder.

When they finally caught their breath, I met Indigo’s eyes. “Will you stick around after this summer and help me with Lellie?”

His smile faded. “You serious? Like, a job -job?”

I nodded. “I know you wanted to work with horses, so you can still?—”

“No, dude! I want to work with kids . I took the horse thing because no one was hiring for preschools or daycares around here.”

Way and Silas, and even Tully, had tried to tell me, but I hadn’t listened. Now, it was time to trust the people in my life. Trust that I had a family who cared about me.

Who cared about Lellie.

“Then I’d like you to consider coming to work for me as Lellie’s nanny on a trial basis. The trial period is as much for you as for me,” I warned, “because I will probably be an unbearable person to work for. I’m a new parent who doesn’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

Indigo’s lips had curved up in a pleasantly surprised grin. “Well, if my new boss isn’t opposed to some gentle and positive guidance… might I suggest finding age-appropriate language to use around her? Language development is fascinating at this age. She’s likely to start to mimic the words she hears most often. We should focus on those being words like Dada, right? Maybe not so much with the uk-fay.”

Heat bloomed in my cheeks. “It’s a hard f-freaking lesson to learn, Indigo.”

“No shi p , bro. Nooooo ship.”

I reached out my hand. When he took it, I felt the promise of a new beginning, one in which Lellie had yet another guardian angel of sorts. Someone who would look out for her and help her grow and thrive.

“Thank you,” I said.

I let Indigo help Lellie feed Trigger a peppermint. Thankfully, Trigger remained unaffected by her exuberant noises. My ears were not so unaffected.

“You know another word we should keep working on with her…” Indigo said after a few minutes.

“What?”

“ Tully .”

I could feel the heat of his stare on the side of my face while the beloved name swirled through the air and came to rest on my heart.

Then I turned to him and smiled. “I imagine you’re right.”

He nodded. “Nice.”

“Does that mean you’d be okay with a little travel until I can figure out where the three of us are going to settle down?”

He pretended to consider it before pumping his fist in victory. “Private jet, here I come. Hey, you got leather seats on that thing, my dude? I might have to snap a few selfies for the ’gram.”

As usual, once he got started talking, Indigo didn’t stop. And Lellie loved every minute of it. Tully had been right when he’d said I was surrounded by support, and for once, I was going to take advantage of it to get my life back on track and create the family I not only wanted but deserved.

But first, I had to figure out how Tully and I were going to keep our daughter.

“Indigo, would you mind watching Lellie for me right now? I need to ask the guys for some help.”

“Whatever you need, Dev, we’re in,” Landry said before I’d even finished sketching out the situation.

Kenji didn’t look up from his laptop at the kitchen table. “ You’re not. You’re due in Milan tomorrow for the Valente runway event. And Zane already left for his show in Milwaukee.”

“Fuck,” Landry muttered. “I’m in for moral support. What’s the plan?”

He sat on one of the stools at the kitchen island, popping grapes in his mouth while Way finished drying a few dishes and Silas poured himself a fresh cup of coffee.

“I’m not running away from this,” I said. “I can’t just take off with Lellie?—”

“You could .” Silas lifted an eyebrow. “It’s not like you don’t have enough money to go someplace no one will ever find you.”

I ignored him. “—so I need to prove she’s my daughter. I told you Susanna wants me to find a lab near here and get a new paternity test done. I also talked to Tully yesterday, and he agreed. But I don’t know if the results from one lab near my new hometown would sway the judge. I think maybe we should find two or three places, just to be safe?—”

“Oh, I think we can do better than that,” Kenji said. He lifted his head and pierced me with his dark eyes. “I’m just putting the final touches on your paternity lab tour of America.”

“What does that mean?” Silas asked. Way patted his leg and softly reminded him to shut the hell up and let Kenji speak.

“It means you have plenty of money, so why not overwhelm them with results from reputable labs all over the country? A Texas judge can’t possibly discount positive results from well-known labs in Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, and LA. I’ve also thrown in Houston for good measure. All different lab owners. By the time we get to Dallas, we should have results from at least the first two or three labs.”

“Won’t they say we cheated it? That maybe the sample didn’t come from Lellie?”

Kenji tilted his head at something behind me. I glanced at the door as Foster strode in and tossed his empty travel mug at Silas. “Fill ’er up. I’ve been awake since four.”

“You say that like it’s special,” Way scoffed. “Try being a rancher.”

Foster shot him a look. “Try searching for AdventureSmash wannabes getting lost halfway up Maude Peak Friday night, responding to a DUI crash at three in the morning on Sunday, and then getting a text from your Girl Friday before dawn today that I need to pack a bag and get out to the ranch because Dev needs my help on my day off.”

I glanced back at Kenji, who smirked. “Foster’s coming along on the paternity tour. No one would dare question the integrity of those lab samples if they were video recorded and witnessed by a sheriff.”

I blinked at Foster, overwhelmed. “You’d do that?”

His smile was soft and affectionate. He really was a true friend. “Of course I would. I know how much family means to you, Dev. And you need to know that we’re part of yours. And family supports family.”

“Your mother is making you do this, isn’t she?” I teased.

“Jolene gets what Jolene wants,” he drawled. “And the rest of us fall in line. She doesn’t know about this yet because she’s been busy at the cafe, but you know she’d be completely on board with whatever it takes to keep that girl.”

I sucked in a big breath and let it out. “Okay then. I guess we’re doing this. Is the plane ready?”

Landry cursed under his breath. “If you’re using the jet, I guess this means I’m flying commercial. Motherfucker .”

“ Whatever you need, Dev ,” Kenji teased, repeating Landry’s earlier words in a credible impression of Landry’s deep voice. He went on in the same tone, “For you, I will make the noble sacrifice of flying first class on a commercial flight, even if it means the caviar served at my whim is… gasp… domestic. ”

Landry pouted. “Hey! I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. It just means I’m going to have to head out even earlier. Like, tonight . Which means you and… um…” He cleared his throat. “Uh. Nothing. It means nothing,” he added quickly when Kenji gave him a narrow-eyed, warning look I couldn’t interpret.

Kenji turned back to his laptop with a satisfied smile. “Mmhmm. Careful, Landry, or you’ll also be flying coach.”

Landry gasped and clutched his chest. “You wouldn’t dare .”

Judging by the tiniest uptick of the edge of Kenji’s mouth, I thought he very much probably would.