Page 98 of Break the Barrier

Right then, right there.

Puke everywhere.

“Where the hell did you learn about that?”

At that question, both Thea and Lue gave me strange, questioning looks. “What?”

“Grandma gave me the talk, for one. I read Shakespeare for two, and I’m fifteen and in high school. I know what sex is.”

Her matter-of-fact speech did nothing for my pounding heartbeat.

Thea looks like she was on the verge of laughter, and Lue, knowing she just shocked her father into an early grave, was grinning at me.

“Okay, one, I’m talking to your grandmother, and two…hell, I don’t know. Go to bed or something.” I needed a minute to get my bearings about me. I had no idea what to do with the information she just dropped on me.

Thea covered her mouth with her hand, and Lue stepped around usto head to her room. “Still,” she starts, and I brace myself for whatever she was about to say. “You should share a room. Being in separate rooms is so weird.”

With that, my daughter skipped down the hallway to her room when something else occurred to me.

“And no more Shakespeare! That guy is bad news.”

“Whatever you say, Dad!” Lue replies, sounding so mature that I want to weep with the thought that in just three short years, she was going to be in college.

But one good thing had come from that night. Ever since Lue had basically okayed it, Thea had been in my bed, in my arms, every night since.

Everything had been going well, great even, but there was still something there, some little wall—or maybe a fence—that I had to climb to get Thea to open up to me about what was going on with her.

She wasn’t necessarily hiding something, but she acted like the shoe was about to drop.

Given her history, I know it’s important for her to be reassured.

After a long day of canoeing, hiking, and enjoying food and marshmallows under the stars, Lue had headed to her tent to read while Thea and I sat out by the fire a little longer.

She was quiet, her gaze stuck on the fire in front of us, and I almost don’t want to disrupt her when I can tell her thoughts are not really here with me.

“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” I ask, nudging her on the shoulder.

She sat with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and turns abruptly, startled out of her thoughts, and gives me a small smile. “Nothing, just thinking about how happy I am.”

I eye her warily. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” Her smile grows, and she shrugs. “I don’t know. Things have been so…chaotic. Not just in my life but in my brain. Coming out here.” She pauses to give our surroundings a glance. “Seeing everything, smelling nature, and breathing in the fresh air gives you perspective. Reminds me of what’s important.”

I take my own moment to look around, my gaze catching on the moon. “Yeah, it’s pretty great. I can’t wait to bring out more kids, to let Lue have some siblings someday and just go camping as a family. Maybe bring a few horses along for trail riding.”

I hope, pray, and plead that my words didn’t go too far, that Thea answers back with some sort of reassurance and some sort of reciprocation.

Finally, she smiles and nods her head, but that’s all I get.

“What’s going on?” I finally blurt out, my mouth unable to hold in the words I’ve been dying to say.

“Nothing,” she answers again, this time quieter. “I swear, everything is fine.”

“You don’t seem fine.” My words are gruff and important. Important because I need her to know that I’m here, that she can tell me anything, and that I will happily help her through whatever it is that’s bothering her.

Because I know something is.

“Logan, I love you, you know that, right?”