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"How do you know?" she asks, worry flooding her expression.

The only thing I can do is look at my daughter and answer, "Because he's already shown he'll do what's best for Charlie."

"You don't know that."

"Mama, I don't want to discuss this anymore," I say, and take Charlie out to the living room, praying I'm not wrong about Jagger Cartwright.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jagger

Rage burns so hot, I barely remember walking away from Lainey and Charlie. One second, I'm standing on the porch with the door clicking shut behind me, and the next, I'm halfway across the frozen yard with no memory of the steps in between. I'm running on autopilot that clearly doesn't require my brain to be present for the job.

"I have a daughter," I mutter under my breath, testing the shape of it the same way I tested Lainey's name that first night at the bar.

Charlie.

Red hair. My eyes. My mother's stubborn chin. Lainey's freckles.

I run the entire scene, replaying the sound of Charlie's wails. I get to the part where I walked into the bedroom and nearly slam face-first into my best friend and sister's new husband, Wyatt.

His hands are shoved deep in his jacket pockets. His hat's pulled low against the wind. "Whoa." He whips his hands out, catches my shoulder before we collide outright, and steadies us both. His easy grin fades. "You alright? You look like you got thrown from a bull and landed on your head."

I stare at him, still in a daze.

"Jagger?" he questions, peering closer.

"I need to talk to you." The words come out rougher than I mean them to.

Wyatt's entire posture changes at the sound of it. Years of friendship are enough to tell him this isn't a conversation about bull riding competitions, football scores, or horse races. "Okay." He glances past me toward the guesthouses, then back at me, patient in a way most people on this ranch aren't lately.

I don't know where to start, so I start at the only place that makes any sense. "You remember New Year's. The redhead from the bar."

"The one you never shut up about for about four months straight before you finally started pretending you'd gotten over her?" Wyatt's mouth twitches despite the cold. "Yeah. I remember."

"She's here."

His eyebrows shoot up. "Here, here? On the ranch?"

I nod. "She's the equine tech. The one Roy sent. Lainey Cooper." I drag a hand down my face, still not fully believing any of the words coming out of my own mouth, then continue babbling, "I didn't know until this afternoon. Caught a glimpse of her, then found her full name on a website an hour before I walked up to say hello."

"Jesus, Jagger." Wyatt lets out a low whistle, the kind that carries on the wind. "That's⁠—"

"That's not even the big part," I interject.

He arches his eyebrows, studying me with the particular stillness he gets right before a bull chute opens. It's as if he already senses whatever's coming is going to require every ounce of steady he's got.

"She's got a baby." My voice cracks on it, same as it did standing in that hallway an hour ago with her mama ready to kill me. I don't even bother trying to hide it, not from Wyatt. "Six weeks old. Red hair, my eyes, my mother's chin. Lainey's freckles. Her name is Charlie."

Wyatt gapes but catches himself. "She's yours."

"She's mine."

"Holy shit, Jagger." He drags both hands over his face, the same gesture I probably made a dozen times in the last hour alone. "You're a father."

"I'm a father." Saying it out loud a second time doesn't make it any easier to believe while standing in a frozen yard with my best friend staring at me like I just told him the sky turned green. "Found out from a sentence Lainey didn't even mean to say. She never told me. Never got the chance to, not really, since I didn't have her last name and she thought I was engaged to Phoebe this whole time. Thanks to the rumor some dipshit in this town made up."

"Christ." Wyatt shakes his head slowly, processing it in real time. "That whole marrying Phoebe rumor. I always wondered how that started."