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She furrows her eyebrows.

Jagger stares at Charlie for a few more seconds, then repeats, "When I come back, I'm holding my daughter." He turns and leaves the room. The sound of the front door shutting echoes through the house.

I sink down into the chair, staring at Charlie.

She's still crying, but it's not as loud.

Eleven months of carefully planning how I'd raise her lie in pieces all around me.

Mama's beside me a second later, arms wrapping tight around my shoulders, and she doesn't say anything for a long moment, just holds on while I shake.

"I never read the note. Mama, he really did leave one. I found it, and I never even read it."

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"It fell under the bed. I just thought it was a stupid receipt and was upset he left me without saying goodbye and kicked it farther under the bed!"

"Well, you didn't know," she says in the exact same voice she's used to defend me my whole life. "You couldn't have known."

"I kept her from him for nothing."

"You kept her safe based on everything you knew at the time. That's not nothing." She pulls back enough to look at me, her own eyes wet now too, some of the fury from a few minutes ago finally cracking into something softer, sadder. "Baby, this is a mess. I won't pretend it isn't. But you didn't do anything wrong by protecting your daughter with the information you had."

I don't know if that's true. I don't know anything right now except that somewhere out past that door, a man who claims he spent eleven months searching for me just walked away from meeting his own daughter because he loved her enough to wait. That single fact terrifies me more than anything he could have screamed in this hallway.

A selfish man would've pushed past both of us the second he heard that cry. He would've picked her up regardless of who was watching, regardless of how it looked, because wanting always comes easier than waiting. Instead, he stood in my doorway, shaking, more scared than I think I've ever seen a grown man look, and chose to leave instead of grab at something he wanted so badly, he didn't just admit it out loud. It was written all over his face.

It should comfort me. Some of it does. But it also means this isn't over, not even close, and whatever he comes back demanding when he's had time to settle isn't going to be simple either.

He said she isn't leaving this ranch.

The words sit cold in my stomach. I know exactly what a family with that much money and that much land can do if they decide they want something badly enough. I've seen it in movies, read about it in books Carla used to devour by the dozen, and heard about custody battles that swallow up parents who don't have deep pockets or powerful last names behind them.

I have neither. I have a mobile practice built out of a horse trailer and a business degree. He has a ranch worth more than I'll make in my whole lifetime.

I press a hand flat against my chest, willing my heart to slow enough that I can think clearly, yet it doesn't work. Not with Mama still holding onto me like she's afraid I'll shatter the second she lets go.

Charlie's cry turns to barely audible, exhaustion winning over whatever woke her.

I force myself out of the chair, legs unsteady, heart cracked open in about six different directions at once. Whatever comes next, I don't think either one of us is walking away from this unscathed. And somewhere underneath the fear and the guilt of eleven months of a story I got completely wrong, there's a small, terrified, stubborn part of me that isn't ready to let go of him either. Not now that I know the truth and have seen how he chose Charlie's best interest and walked away instead of being selfish and staying.

God help me, I don't know what to do with any of this.

"We need to figure this out," Mama says, quieter, but with a hint of fear in her voice. And I know she's thinking all the things I am about Jagger's money and how we could never legally fight him.

I take a few deep breaths, trying to get my heart to slow to normal.

"Lainey—"

"No, Mama." I hold up my hand and shake my head. "This is for Jagger and me to work out."

"Lainey—"

"No," I say with more force. "He's right. We're Charlie's parents. This is for us to figure out."

"He could take away all your rights. They have money," she warns.

"He won't," I say, but her fear is mine.