My hand dropped to his knee and curled around it lightly. He didn’t flinch from my touch. He didn’t slink away from it like he had last week when I’d told him about Charlie.
“That’s not your fault, Grant. That’s mine. All mine.” I felt him start to relax. A little. One muscle at a time unwound until he didn’t feel like a steel wall hovering beside me, but instead the man I remembered. “I know you would have been there for us. I know that.”
His head lifted, his eyes roaming the mess of toys in the bed of his truck. “But does she?”
One-half of my mouth curled up. “She will.” Patting his knee, I stood. “Come on. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
His head tipped back at me, a flash of panic racing through his eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Lucky for you, our daughter doesn’t have any trouble saying everything and anything. All you have to do is lend a listening ear and she’s happy.”
“Ryan—”
“Grant, she’s your daughter. You’ll figure it out.” I held my hand out for him and waited. “I know you will.”
I need you to.
Looking over his shoulder, his eyes fell on the closed door. For a moment, he looked scared. Terrified. Then he inhaled and took my hand. He tipped his chin toward his truck bed, half of his face creasing as he inspected the cyclone of toys. “So? Which one?”
Giving his hand a tug, I led him to the door. “You’re all the present she’ll want. Believe me.” Then I saw something barely poking out from the bottom of the toy pile. Wrestling it free, I lifted it in front of him. “But maybe this with the New York Storm’s Grant Turner’s signature on it?”
His brows pulled together like he was trying to gauge if I was serious. When I waved the football at him, he rolled his eyes and pulled a Sharpie from his back pocket.
“So as a kid in The Clink, you never left home without your brass knuckles, and now as a man in New York City, you never leave home without your black Sharpie?” I teased as he signed his name with a measured meticulousness I doubted he signed the bulk of his autographs with.
He gave me a look and finished signing his name. “I can’t believe the first gift I’m about to give my little girl is an autographed football.”
Setting my hand on the doorknob, I started to open the door. “She loves football. Just like her dad.”
When I opened the door and stepped inside, I heard Grant suck in a heavy breath. His hand in mine tensed, but he followed me into the living room, closing the door behind him.
“Mom! Have you seen my solar system jammies?” Charlie’s voice rolled down the hall right before she emerged from it. She had a ring of spaghetti sauce dried around her mouth and a streak of it down her overalls. Probably from the giant meatball falling off her fork.
It took her all of a half second to realize someone was lingering behind me, but when she did, her little mouth fell open and she came to a standstill. Grant’s hand gripped mine so tightly, I was confident he was cutting off the blood flow to it.
“Oh my gosh.” Charlie blinked a few times like she was making sure what she was seeing was real. “Oh my gosh . . .” She repeated that a few times before she managed one small shuffle forward. “You’re . . . you’re . . .” Another shuffle forward, her eyes getting bigger with every second.
Coming around beside me, Grant slowly crouched, so he was almost at Charlie’s eye level. I had to bite my cheek to keep a sob from sneaking out because I’d been imagining this moment for years, not sure if it would ever happen.
“You’re . . .” Charlie lifted her arm, pointing at Grant.
He nodded, a smile moving into place. “Grant Turner.”
Charlie whipped her head back and forth, sending her ponytail flying. Grant’s head tipped, waiting as Charlie scooted a few feet closer.
When she was right in front of him, she took a minute to study his face. Then she smiled. “You’re my dad.”
Charlie didn’t see it—she didn’t know him the way I did—but those three words broke the Midas of a man crouching before her. I saw it in his eyes. I saw it in the resolve that settled into his brow. I saw it when his throat moved as he swallowed back emotion. This little girl had just become a permanent part of his life. He’d just learned he was a father, but right there, broken in half the way he was, I knew he loved her as much as I did. Would do anything to keep her safe. Give anything to make her happy. Would be there for whatever came.
That was when I cried. Not a stray tear or two, but an entire river of them. Charlie would be okay. Grant would be okay. The two people I loved most in the world would have each other for the rest of their lives.