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“You’re going to get hungry at some point.”
“It doesn’t feel like I’ll ever be hungry again, but I suppose you might be right.”
She dropped her hands and turned back toward the lake. She seemed to forget he was there, and he watched as the wind lifted her hair, similar to the graceful life of the manes and tails of the horses she loved. She’d always been so driven and determined, and yet she never allowed her ambition to get in the way of her treating people right. And despite her ambition, her drive, her desire to do everything right, she’d been willing to sacrifice in order for him to achieve his dreams.
He had never had anyone make a sacrifice of that magnitude for him. And she’d never told him, never expected him to do anything for her in return, never even breathed a word of it. If her grandma hadn’t died, if she hadn’t decided to open the souvenir shop, if his mother hadn’t paved the way for her to be able to do that, Ryan might never have found out. Found out about Dakota’s sacrifice, and the fact that he had a daughter.
A daughter.
He wanted to know her, wanted to meet her, but she didn’t even know that he existed, let alone that he was her father. And he wasn’t sure how to approach Dakota about that. He didn’t want her to think that he only wanted to be around her because of their child. But he wanted her to know that he wanted to be in his daughter’s life.
Realizing that she might take everything all wrong, he decided that he needed to say something anyway.
“I understand that our daughter doesn’t know about me. Can we change that? I’d really like to get to know her. To...support her.” He wasn’t sure about that last part. He didn’t want to drive a wedge between the sisters with one who had a dad who cared about her and one who didn’t. “Actually, if you allow it, I’d like to get to know both of your daughters.”
She wasn’t looking at him, and he closed his eyes. He had never been interested in children at all. Not even a little. Something had definitely shifted within him in the last hour. Something huge, something that had an awful lot to do with the fact that Dakota had been so selfless.
“Yeah.”
Her word was soft, almost carried away by the wind. She closed her eyes for a moment, as though drawing strength from something, and then she turned to him.
“I hope it’s okay if we don’t do it right away? I know, I would be angry right now if I were you. Furious that you had kept the fact that I had a child away from me. And I appreciate you not holding that against me.”
He opened his mouth, opened it to tell her that he understood why she had done it. That she thought it was what he wanted, that she had done it at great sacrifice to herself, but also at a sacrifice to their child. Unintentional, but still a sacrifice, since the father that she had had not been kind or concerned.
“I would just like for her to be able to adjust to the move first. It’s been a lot of changes in our lives. I swore after my grandma mostly raised me that I wouldn’t dump my children off on anyone else to raise. That I would do it myself if I could. Of course, I’ve had to have a job, but beyond that, I was there for them. But my grandma was still a huge part of their lives. They lost her, they lost the house that we were living in, I... She’s just lost a lot.”
He wondered if she was going to mention Goldie and wondered if he’d say anything, but she didn’t. He wanted to ask about her, but it seemed like they already had so much between them, he didn’t want to complicate things with the horse. He hadn’t realized that their conversation was going to go in this direction. He wanted her to know about Goldie, but they had a lot of other things to wade through first. The horse could wait.
“But I can still come and keep fixing up the shop?” he asked again, feeling humble. He had the championships behind him, money from endorsements, and the ability to buy her horse, because of the sacrifice that she had made. It seemed like he shouldn’t be asking for more.
“Yeah. I was hoping you would.”
“I might see the girls.”
“That’s fine. It’s not that I don’t want you to see them. Please. I mean, you can start building a relationship without her realizing who you are, can’t you?” Her face scrunched up, and she looked worried. “I’m not trying to keep her from you or anything.” She bit her lip.
“No. I didn’t think that. I... I get it. As an adult, I can only handle so much change, and as a child, I can’t even imagine what she’s gone through. Both of your girls.” He added that, because he didn’t want to just pick one of her girls and favor them, even if that one was his biological child.
He couldn’t imagine someone coming in and picking one or two of his siblings and showering love on them but not him. It would feel so...divisive. Unfair. Hurtful.
“I don’t want to make your other daughter feel unwelcome or unloved.”
“Thank you. I do appreciate that. But I don’t expect you to treat both of my children like they’re yours. I...have to figure out how to tell them, and then they’ll just have to accept the fact that one of them has a dad who wants to be involved in her life.”
“I’m telling you, I want to be involved with both of them. I couldn’t imagine someone coming into my family and only picking one or two of us to give attention to. I wouldn’t want that done to me, how could I do that to your girls?”
She blinked, and then her eyes met his and they were wide. Like she couldn’t understand why someone would talk like that. But he couldn’t understand how someone wouldn’t.
Of course, he’d never been faced with the situation before, and he hadn’t known how he would react. He hadn’t even really talked to the girls. Maybe that would change things, but he doubted it. He already loved his daughter, and he didn’t know anything about her, other than she was his. How could he not love her sister the same way?
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like that before,” she finally said softly, a little bit of wonder in her voice.
“Yeah. Well, don’t give me too much credit. I’m sure there’s lots of places where I’m going to screw up. I might even screw this up. But I’m going to try hard not to.”
She snorted. “Isn’t that what life is? We screw up, and then we just have to try to do better. But there’s no such thing as a perfect life. Whatever we do, we’re going to mess it up.”
“We can accept it but not allow it to make us less vigilant about doing the best that we can.”
