“Good,” Emmy snarked, “because that confused the fuck outta me.”
We all laughed over that.
“Would you like a hug?” I asked Lilah. We already hugged, as friends, as family, but this hug as she stepped into my arms felt desperate, drowning, and I tipped my head to bring Emmy in so we could hold Lilah as she broke down crying.
I felt a mix of honored and terrified that Lilah had this trust in me. And like hell would I do anything to break that trust.
But, maybe, this was the first step she needed to start her own healing now that Emmy had finally started hers.
“Since we’re all here,” Emmy said from the other side of Lilah, “I might as well say this now—I’m ready, Sir.”
It took me a second to process what she meant, that she wasn’t talking about the meatloaf coming out of the oven. She steadily held my gaze while my pulse raced. “Okay, baby.”
She smiled.
Between us, Lilah sniffled. “‘Bout fuckin’ time.”
Chapter Sixteen
Six Months Later
Emmy
“You ready?” Lilah asked as she fussed over my hair.
I nervously nodded. “I wish Mort and Sara were here.”
She sadly smiled. “Me, too. But we did okay for ourselves, right?”
I nodded again. “Right. Now we need to find a guy for you.”
She barked a laugh. “Girl, watching you and Daddy together taught me a valuable lesson in just letting life happen and enjoying the journey, okay? I’m never going to find what I need if I waste time and energy looking for what I think I want. Just like you didn’t know you wanted Jack, but you needed him.”
“I sure do.” I glanced in the mirror again. “Am I doing the right thing?”
She squeezed my hands. “If you weren’t we wouldn’t be here, because Daddy’s body would already be bear chow.”
I snorted. Lilah would likely confuse anyone else but me and Jack. In private, she’d conversationally bounce back and forth, effortlessly, between Sis, Officer McGuire, Daddy’s other girl, and the snarky friend who still relentlessly teased Jack about his inability to make a proper soufflé.
There really wasn’t much difference in her relationship with Jack now except she sometimes sought him out for long hugs when she’d had a particularly bad day, and that she felt freer now to be a big kid the way I did when that mood struck her. And she’d call him Daddy or Sir, but he rarely reined her in except in a playful way, usually prompting her to stick her tongue out at him.
Where it did make a difference was during our trips to the Ranch. She always roomed separately from us there, but we’d take classes together in various topics, and then don our “big kids” clothes to romp in the playground, or attend an arts and crafts class, or other diversions. Interestingly enough, she’d developed an interest in jewelry making as a hobby as a result, from chainmail to beaded friendship bracelets, giving most of them away right now, including donating them to the children’s ward at the hospital. I told her she should set up a website because they were gorgeous, and she’d even sold a couple of chainmail necklaces to people at the Ranch when they saw the quality of her work and commissioned her to make them day collars.
She still didn’t play with people, though, but she’d gone from dipping her toes in the kinky waters to sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in it and watching the rest of us while she learned.
And we were closing on a house in three weeks. Not on Rawhide Ridge, but closer to Porter’s Corner and an easy drive for all three of us for work but allowing us to go to the Ranch more frequently. Large and rambling, the master suite was at the far opposite end of where Lilah’s rooms were, giving us all privacy. Plus it was twenty acres, meaning more room for our four horses. But we hadn’t put the old house on the market just yet because we wanted to make sure nothing fell through on our sale first.
Lilah declared she’d remain at the old house for a couple of weeks past when Jack and I moved out, which filled me with vague terror. The last time we’d been separated for any length of time, she’d nearly died.
“You’re still living with us,” I said. “The new house is plenty big enough, and you’ll have the whole other end to yourself. No backing out.”
“Sweetie, yes, we’ve been through this,” she said. “But I want to give you two lovebirds a couple of weeks alone. I think I need time alone, too. It’ll only be until we sell the old house. I promise.”
I threw my arms around her and hugged her. “I can’t lose you, Sis!”
“For fuck’s sake, you’re not losing me! You’re gaining a Sir. Or Master. Or Daddy. Or whatever the fuck you two are. And I’m not the slightest bit physically attracted to Daddy, you know that. I don’t mind the whole protection thing, and goofing around to blow off steam, but I’m not anywhere close to what y’all are doing at the Ranch. I’m grateful to Master Derek and his staff, believe me. But I’d probably clock a guy who tried to take me in hand the way you let Jack do.”
I giggled. “True story.”
