Page 21 of Never Too Late

For the first time, I actually considered giving in to Cindy’s demand of meeting Zara and taking part in her life. But then Zara would get worse and all that bitterness and resentment of her deciding that she didn’t want a husband and a daughter after all, would swarm back in. I couldn’t understand how she could leave her only child behind and just go. While wiping Zara’s sweat off her forehead, all I wanted to do was hold her and somehow make it go away. And Cindy did the opposite. She left her child and never even asked about her until recently.

Usually, I didn’t think about it. Her actions were her own, and I knew there would come a day when she would regret her decision. I just didn’t think it would come that soon. I always thought it would be Zara’s decision if she would have her in her life.

But watching my baby girl struggle and in need of help, I was torn. And I was almost at the door to hunt her down and bring her back after all those years, just so Zara would feel her mother’s arms around her while she was sick.

It was almost funny, one phone call and I was ready to drag the woman back for my girl.

It wasn’t like Zara was never sick before.

It was just something in me that was hurting more than usual while I was forced to watch her going through all the miserable phases and she only had me to help her.

Only the fact that Zara never once mentioned her mom stopped me from reaching out to Cindy.

Or Sophie.

All she wanted was to cuddle with her dad, which I was more than happy to oblige. And once she had her strength, talk Mrs. McConnell’s ear off over the phone.

I did, however, relent and called asking her to come and spend Christmas with our girl. I made it painfully clear I would be with them the whole time. There was no way I would leave Zara alone with her. I wanted everything to be perfect for Zara. I needed to make up for my bad mood lately.

“Um… I can’t. Not this year,” was what she said. “I have something planned already.” I knew the invitation came out of the blue, but after weeks of hounding me to see Zara, I couldn’t believe she would say no to spending Christmas with her.

To say I was enraged would be an understatement.

“You need to reconsider your choice.” Mercifully, that was all I said. I didn’t know where I found the strength to shove the words that were swirling up my throat to get out, down.

As was my fucking luck, it was right then I bumped into Sophie and it was impossible to swallow everything down. Most of all, the bitterness of my choices in women, the one that stood in front of me right then, in particular.

And I let loose on her.

It wasn’t pretty.

It was downright ugly.

And I regretted it as it was even happening, but there was no going back.

Still, I had to suck it all up and pretended everything was great. For my girl. And on some level, for me. I needed to or I would lose my sanity.

“Yeah, baby girl,” I said softly, trying really hard to teach Zara not to be so loud by example. To my despair, she still hadn’t picked up on my hints. She just gave me her signature toothy smile that was one tooth less than usual since we had our first visit from the Tooth Fairy a month ago.

“Thank you, Daddy,” Zara shrieked, right as my phone started ringing, and turned to examine the rest of the ornaments hanging around. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, gave it a look, and felt my own lips stretch in a smile when I saw the caller ID.

I touched the screen, put the phone to my ear while paying for the ornament Zara chose, and said into the phone, “Please, tell me you’re not calling to cancel on me.”

“Not on your life. You know I’m dying to see your hometown during Christmas time,” Vivian said through her throaty chuckle.

In another life, I could see myself going for a woman like Vivian.

Not only was she insanely beautiful. She had a deep, velvet, hot voice, the kind every man wanted to hear first thing in the morning or deep into the night when she used that voice to moan his name into his ear. She was also wickedly smart and scarily brave.

Unfortunately, I lived this life and not only I never felt not even a trace of attraction to Viv. The thought of anything happening between us never crossed my min. She was like a sister to me. She was also not only a wife of an ex-team member from when I left the town to join the Denver force, she was also his widow. And one thing you never did if you were any man at all. You never, ever touched your partner’s wife or a widow.

I stayed in touch over the years with most of the guys, but the bond Viv and I formed meant she was standing next to me while I married my ex-wife and was a godmother to my daughter.

Cindy was crazy jealous of her and no matter how much I tried to explain things, she wouldn’t listen. That should have been the red flag. It wasn’t.

It was funny. When things fell apart with Sophie, all I wanted to do was to leave Hopeful and never come back. But once I settled in Denver, all I dreamt about was coming back home.

“I take it that means you’re still coming tomorrow?” I asked, just to be sure. It wouldn’t be the first time Viv canceled on me. I understood why. I was her dead husband’s partner. I knew him almost as much as she did. And missed him all the same. And the holidays were especially brutal when it came to missing a loved one.