Page 16 of Twisted Trails (Rogue Riders Duet #2)

CHAPTER NINE

Alaina

My body is heavy, weighed down in a way that tells me the crying must’ve worn me out completely.

A hand brushes across my forehead, and the motion is so tender it lifts some of that weight, just enough that for a moment, still half-tangled in sleep, I don’t question it.

Of course, it’s Luc.

My ridiculous, comforting, pink-hoodied chaos of a man. My emotional support himbo. The one who held me after I broke open like a dam, who didn’t flinch or look away when I cried like I was dying, all thanks to Finn Greer getting his face pummeled by my brother.

Fuck.

I push the thought away and smile at the touch, and lean into the hand without hesitation, like some part of me already knows it’s safe.

Except it isn’t, because when I finally blink my eyes open, it’s not Luc sitting on the edge of the bed.

It’s my father’s warmth I was leaning into. Something I have never felt before .

Everything inside me tenses, recoiling fast and instinctively as I push back until my back hits the headboard. I wince as pain shoots through my fingers and up my arm, making me hiss through my teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Dad says quickly, hands held up like I might bolt. His voice is soft, almost unsure. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Yeah. Definitely slept longer than I meant to, even if it was just a nap.

The pain medication has run its course, and reality is seeping back in, one sharp edge at a time.

I stare at him, my heart pounding for all the wrong reasons, and it takes a moment before I can force the words out. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes trace over my face, not with judgment for once, but with something harder to pin down. “You’re looking more and more like your mother.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing.

“Dane always looked like her, too, but you… you’re the spitting image of her. I forget, sometimes. Then I see you like this, and it hits me again, even with your short hair.”

“Yeah,” I say, managing to keep my voice neutral. “I’ve seen pictures.”

When I still had my long hair, you could have thought we were twins.

He smiles faintly, like the memory of her lives in the only warm place inside him, but then his words confirm it. “She was everything to me, you know.”

I frown at him, trying to find the trap. We never talk about Mom. Not ever. The scraps I know all came from Dane, who was ten when she died, her death leaving a much bigger mark on him than me.

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you that, but she was the love of my life.

” He looks down at his hands, turning them over like he’s still trying to find the right shape for what he’s feeling.

“She wasn’t just beautiful. She was light.

The kind that fills a room and makes you believe in things again.

She made people better just by being around. Me included.”

There’s a long pause, one I don’t interrupt.

“When she died…” he continues, “… it was like all the good in my life disappeared with her. Everything just dulled. Went gray. And it never came back.”

This is the part where I know I’m supposed to feel something—some wave of understanding or long-delayed empathy. I should feel sorry that he lost the love of his life, and that the woman who made him smile died young and left him with nothing but two kids and endless grief.

But I don’t because Dane and I were still there.

Still breathing.

Still needing a father.

What we got instead was silence, distance, and a man who lived like we were ghosts walking through his house, not children begging for scraps of affection.

So I cross my arms over my chest while he shares this version of his heart I’ve never seen before, even though I already know what kind of man he is.

I grew up knowing, and I believe him, that whatever part of him she made better died with her too.

“I never wanted children,” he says, almost absently.

I snort, a sharp sound that breaks the tension for a split second. “Yeah,” I mutter. “No kidding.”

He just nods. “Your mom did. She wanted a family, and I said okay, one child. I thought I could manage one. So we had Dane, and she was… she was radiant. I’ve never seen her so happy.

Seeing her like that, loving like that, made me happy too.

Then, ten years later, somehow, she got pregnant again. ”

I’ve known what that meant for a long time. You don’t plan to have a child ten years after your first. I was an accident.

A mistake from the first breath I ever took.

He looks at me then, almost smiling. “She said you were a gift. She used to call you her miracle. She loved you, Alaina. She loved you so much.”

My chest tightens at his words, and when I glance up at him, my vision blurs without warning.

“She used to say you and Dane were the best things that ever happened to her.” Then his hand drifts, landing carefully on my shin, and I’m too choked up to pull away. “Every second of your life, you were loved, Alaina.”

Tears spill over without permission, and I hate how they fall before I can stop them. I wipe them with the side of my hand, but it’s no use. They just keep coming.

“Then she was gone,” he continues, his voice cracking around the edges now too.

“And I was left with a ten-year-old who didn’t understand what death was, and a baby who needed more than I knew how to give.

Your mother was the perfect mom, and because of her, it didn’t matter that I was a shitty dad.

I was a good husband, good to her, and she was a good enough parent for both of us. ”

He shakes his head. “But once she was gone, all you were left with was a bad dad who tried.”

I drop my hand and let out a shaky huff. “You think that excuses it?”

“I didn’t say I gave my best,” he replies.

“And I’m not saying it was good. I just said I tried.

I tried to give you a nanny who would love you when I didn’t know how.

I tried to make sure you had the education your mother would’ve wanted.

I tried to make your dreams possible. All of them.

I wanted you to have everything she would’ve given you. ”

I shake my head as the ache swells so big that it hurts to breathe. “The only thing I wanted from you, Dad, was you. Some fucking fatherly love.”

His mouth pulls tight at the corners.

“You had that too,” he says after a long moment.

“I just… I guess I’ve never been good at showing it.

” He reaches for my good hand, carefully wrapping his fingers around mine.

“I’m promising you, right now, from this second forward, I’m giving it my best. All of it.

I’m going to be the father you deserve.”

The words hover in the air between us, and they might’ve meant more if I were still that little girl who used to sit by the door waiting for him to come home.

But I’m not, so I pull my hand back and let those words drift away on a phantom breeze.

“I wanted that father twenty years ago.”

Something flickers in his expression, regret maybe, or understanding that’s come far too late, but he doesn’t argue and doesn’t try to defend himself.

“I will always be your father … ” he says instead, “… but I know now I have to earn what that means, and I’m giving it everything I’ve got to show you that I deserve that title.”

I look at him, then away again, because if I keep looking, I might cry even more, and I’m not sure if I’m crying for the little girl I used to be or the man in front of me trying, finally, to show up.

And why does he?

Why now?

He leans down slowly and presses a kiss to my temple.

“I’m proud of you, Alaina,” he whispers against my skin.

“And I just know your mother would be so proud of you too.” When he pulls back, I’m surprised to find his eyes are full of tears.

They don’t fall as he stands, clearing his throat.

“I’m heading back to DC to give you space to do what you came here to do, but know that I’m watching.

I’m going to watch you take that title. And I already gave Dane the money back. ”

That makes my eyebrows lift.

“I made sure you both have more than enough to get through the rest of this trip without worrying about a thing. You don’t need to stress about that. Just focus on finishing this.”

He takes a few steps toward the door, then pauses and turns back.

“If there’s anything you need, anything , I want you to call me, Alaina. You hear me? You call, and I will be there. I promise.”

“Why aren’t you telling me to come back home with you?” I ask, almost dazed from the sudden shifts in the conversation. Each time I thought I knew the line he was taking, he swerved. “Or to stop this?”

“Because you’re right,” he says simply. “You’re an adult now.

You don’t need someone telling you what to do.

What you need is support, and I know it took me too long, but you have mine.

Full stop.” He nods once, like it’s already decided, then turns again.

His hand is on the doorframe when he glances back one last time. “I love you, Alaina.”

Then he walks out, and the door closes softly behind him. I sit there, frozen because I don’t know what to do with that.

He’s never said that to me before.

Not once.

And now I don’t know whether to fall apart or hold tighter to the walls I built to survive without hearing it. So I just sit, trying to breathe through a chest that feels like it’s been cracked wide open.

It’s only seconds before I realize I can’t sit alone in this room anymore. My conflicted and confused feelings will swallow me whole. I push the covers off and swing my legs over the edge, biting down on a wince as my hand protests with a sharp sting.

Bathroom. Painkillers. Fresh air. Something.

I stumble through the motions, cold water on my face, toothpaste that tastes too minty, a fresh shirt, and a pair of jeans that tug weirdly over my still-stiff hip. It’s all a little too real, too normal after everything he just said.

After the I love you that landed twenty-four years too late.