With that, Evan took off, his chuckle easily heard as he left the barn. Roxie was furious at the way Kian had just behaved, and because of that, she sat right where she was for the next ten minutes, ignoring the man. She felt his gaze on the back of her neck the entire time.
“I’m hungry,” Lily said as she tugged on Roxie’s arm.
“Oh, I guess it’s past dinnertime, isn’t it?” she said, feeling again like a terrible guardian since she’d forgotten to feed the child.
“We’ll get pizza,” Kian said.
“Yeah, pizza,” Lily said before Roxie could correct him. Lily jumped up, startling a few of the piglets, who squealed and ran back toward their mama to hide. She ran to the fence and held her arms up for Kian to pick her up, then snuggled against his chest as they both looked over at Roxie, who was slowly rising.
“I’m just going to make some dinner at home,” she said to Lily, refusing to look at Kian.
“I want pizza,” Lily told her stubbornly.
Roxie had to take in several deep breaths. This kind of thing wasn’t going to work with her. Kian couldn’t paint her into a corner.
“It’s been a long day, and you haven’t even had a nap. We need to go home,” she firmly told Lily.
The little girl’s lip began to quiver, and a couple of big tears slipped down her cheeks, making Roxie feel about two inches tall and making her want to punch Kian square in the jaw. She probably would have if he hadn’t been holding Lily at that very moment.
“I’ll pick up pizza and bring it to your house,” Kian told Lily.
“Promise?” Lily said, her eyes still watery.
“Yep, I promise. You ride home with your mama, and I’ll get pizza.”
She wrapped her hands around his neck and gave him a wet kiss on his cheek in her gratitude. Roxie wanted to tell him he couldn’t just invite himself over, but he wasn’t asking her permission. She was beyond frustrated now.
Lily wouldn’t let her take her, so she stomped after both of them as Kian approached her car, once again grumbling about how unsafe it was. She was likely to punch him yet. Because she didn’t want Lily to see that happen, she quickly dived into the driver’s seat and locked the door. When the click went into place, Kian paused in buckling up Lily, and she felt his heated gaze on the back of her neck. She didn’t turn around, but she heard his sarcastic really as if it were louder than a gunshot.
“I’ll see you in about thirty minutes,” he said. The words certainly were a threat. Maybe Lily would be passed out and she could turn all the lights off and pretend they’d both gone to bed. Roxie was really hoping.
She got home and gave Lily the shortest bath the kid had ever had, then brushed her hair and offered her some toast with jam, one of her favorite treats, but her darling child refused. Though she was hungry, her mind was set on pizza, and almost to the minute, Kian showed up at the door with a hot box and a smile.
Begrudgingly, she let him in, not happy at all about the situation. He had a smirk on his lips she would absolutely love to wipe off. Roxie was pretty silent as Kian and Lily talked all about their days with each other. He told her about a little girl he’d seen as a patient, and she listened as if she could understand any of it. She told him about playing with the other kids and all the tiny animals.
Roxie felt as if she wasn’t needed in this conversation at all, and she didn’t appreciate the feeling. It was in that moment that she knew she truly was the one out of place. She hadn’t had a relationship with her niece until recently, and she’d wanted nothing to do with her sister. She was simply the aunt, nothing special. Sure, Lily was calling her Mama more and more, but she wasn’t her mama. And the reality was that Kian was her dad.
The weight of sadness that suddenly rested on her shoulders was almost too much for her to take. She had to get away from the table. Her appetite completely gone, she jumped up and went to the bathroom. Looking at herself in the mirror, she barely recognized the woman gazing back at her. Who was she? She had no idea. She felt as if she were living on the outside of reality, just a stranger who was the only one out of place in this perfect little world.
She knew she had to pull it together for Lily’s sake, but right in this moment, she couldn’t seem to do it. She felt so unwanted, so out of place. She felt as if she had nowhere to go and no one who’d miss her if she were gone. It was like the first time she’d left this town. No one had come after her. She’d been able to slip away without anyone truly caring.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she faced her own worthlessness. It wasn’t a feeling she would wish on anyone. There was no one she disliked so much she’d want them to face the emptiness she was feeling.
Lily needed to go to bed. She truly should pull it together enough to get her there, but she couldn’t face Kian right now; she couldn’t even face Lily, who was perfectly happy to be with her father. They might not have told the little girl yet that he was her daddy, but she was drawn to him, anyway. She seemed to instinctively know it.
Roxie cracked the bathroom door open and called out to Kian. “Do you think you could help Lily with her jammies and tuck her in? I have a terrible headache, and I’m going to take a bath. You can see yourself out after,” she said.
There was dead silence for a few seconds, and she wondered if he was going to refuse. He’d told her he wanted to know his daughter’s nighttime routine, and this was the perfect way to be immerged into it.
“Yes, I’ve got it,” he called back. She couldn’t tell from his tone what he thought about her request, but she was too emotionally wrecked to focus on it. She closed and locked the bathroom door, then turned on the night-light so it was dark, and then she filled the tub.
She sat there for well over an hour, adding hot water when it began to cool. When she heard no more sound coming from the house, she decided it was safe to come out. She knew she was going to have to face Kian again soon, but at least it wasn’t going to be tonight.
She deserved a small reprieve because she hadn’t allowed herself to let everything sink in over the past couple of months, and now it seemed to be doing so with the force of a perfect storm.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kian couldn’t help but smile as he stretched out on Roxie’s bed. If she seriously thought he was so easy to dismiss, then she truly had forgotten all about him in their years apart. That thought didn’t bode so well for him.
He hadn’t forgotten a single thing about her—not the way her body felt, not the sound of her laughter, or the way her cheeks would give her away every single time. He had been in love with her, and he was coming to the conclusion that no matter how hard he’d tried to forget her, he still was in love with her.
He truly had no idea how she felt about him, though. Kian didn’t like this uncertainty, but he had never been a person to run from his problems. When he’d found her and Lily all cozy in the barn with the vet, he’d wanted to punch Evan in the face, then put Roxie over his shoulder and smack her ass a few times before taking her home and proving to her over and over again who she belonged to.
The second he’d had Lily in his arms, he’d calmed down. Of course Evan wouldn’t try anything with his woman. That would never happen. But it was much easier to be rational when he wasn’t filled with jealousy. He’d waited at that damn bakery for a half hour before realizing she wasn’t showing up. It hadn’t taken much investigative work to figure out where she was.