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Tara had turned her back on him without even telling him she was pregnant with his baby. He’d driven thirteen hours just for a chance to be a part of his little girl’s life. The moment he’d shut his engine in front of this dump, Owen knew he wouldn’t let his baby girl stay here for a second longer.
The urge to hurt Tara like she’d hurt him by taking his kid away lingered in his system. He already knew he could never do to her what she’d done to him. It vexed him he couldn’t, though. She still had one up on him, as her feelings clearly hadn’t run as deeply since she could walk out of his life without even a word of goodbye or a backward glance.
He almost missed it when she whispered, “Frankie…”
His knuckles turned white as his grip almost broke the picture frame. His hand trembled while setting the frame back down on the cabinet.
“Frankie? You named our daughter Frankie?”
She nodded. “Yes. I wanted her to have a piece of you—”
Hot rage flared through his veins as he barely controlled his temper. “She could have had every single part of me in these past six years! Not just my middle name that I was given after my father! I could have made my dad the luckiest granddad in the world by sharing this with him after her birth! But you took that from him. You took that from all of us when you snuck out of Winter Peaks like a thief in the night!”
“Mommy? Why is that man yelling at you?”
Owen turned on his heels and his heart got stuck in his throat. Frankie stood in the doorway of the one other room. Her tiny hand held a brown bear with a missing ear he instantly recognized as his Funny Ear he thought he’d lost years ago.
The sight of Funny Ear tore through his soul. Tara taking the bear with her, fed into his suspicion that she’d known all along she was pregnant and left him, regardless. The instant love he felt for this little girl with the wide blue eyes trumped the intense hate he felt for her mother. He would get his daughter out here and take her back where she belonged with him in Winter Peaks. If it meant he needed to put up with her lying mother, so be it.
CHAPTER TWO
Tara Houston pressed a hand against her breastbone while watching the apple of her eye meet the one other person who once had meant the world to her.
Nothing could have prepared her for the heartbreak tearing through her as she witnessed her little Frankie meet her father for the first time.
Tara had dreamt about this exact happening over thousands of times—minus the breaking down of her front door and the shouting.
Not that she could exactly blame Owen for showing up out of the blue, but a phone call in advance so she could prepare Frankie—and herself, would have made this night run a lot smoother than it was going now.
“Mommy?”
She totally forgot her five-year-old asking her a question. She snapped out of it and got down on one knee in front of Frankie.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Owen was a bit upset, but he’s fine now. Right?”
She realized her mistake the moment her girl heard his name and her eyes lit up like Christmas morning had just arrived. She’d given Frankie a picture they had taken at senior prom—right before she left Winter Peaks, and told her that the guy next to Mommy was her father, Owen Mills.
“Owen? My daddy?”
Owen’s brows disappeared into his golden brown hairline. A tear trickled down his cheek before he fell to the floor on both knees with his arms wide open.
Frankie didn’t waste a second to step around her mother and sling herself right into Owen’s strong arms.
Owen held their daughter tight, whispering against the top of her head, “I’m here. And I’m never letting you go, Fluff.”
She couldn’t believe he actually called her that. It made sense with Frankie’s big pile of fluffy golden brown hair on top of her head.
“Y-you’re not gonna leave me again?” Frankie asked.
Whatever was left of Tara’s heart could be dusted up in a dustpan and dumped out front with the rest of the junk spread all over the yard.
Owen narrowed his eyes at Tara over Frankie’s head. She didn’t have to be a mind reader to know how much he’d wanted to tell his daughter that he’d never left her in the first place. It was her fault that the two of them had missed out on each other for all these years.
“Never,” he solemnly said.
Frankie nodded against his chest. It suddenly hit Tara how she would be responsible for any issues her daughter would have later in life. Tara’s sole goal after finding out she was pregnant was to do better than her parents. It crushed her to realize that even after all the sacrifices, the loneliness and heartbreak, she still hadn’t been the best parent for Frankie.
Shame washed over her, making it hard for her to breathe. Tara cried for her daughter. She cried for the eighteen-year-old Tara who had been confused, scared and all alone in the world.
