Come Back for Me (Arrowood Brothers #1)(67)

I’m glad he was so willing to give them away because I’m more than willing to keep them.

“Hadley,” I say with my heart in my throat, “I don’t want to confuse you or make you sad. You don’t have to call me dad or anything until you want to, and if you never do, I’ll always be Connor to you. If I had known you were mine, I would’ve found you right away, but I will be as much a part of your life as you want me to be, and nothing has to change for us until you’re ready for it.”

She looks up at me, her eyes filled with confusion. “You’re my dad?”

“I am, and I really am happy that you’re my daughter.”

Hadley drops Ellie’s hold and walks over to me. Her little hands frame my face, and she smiles. “I wanted you to be my daddy too.”

With that, my entire world shifts, and I swear that I could fucking cry.





“I’m not tired,” Hadley complains.

“If you don’t go to bed now, you’ll never get up for school.” Ellie doesn’t allow her any room to negotiate. “Go brush your teeth.”

There’s a part of me that wants to ask Ellie to let her stay home. After a day like we had, surely, we can pretend the world around us doesn’t exist for just a bit longer.

“Go on, Squirt,” I say, backing up Ellie because I may want to keep Hadley home, but I’m not a fool.

The look of appreciation on her face tells me I did well, and I want to do well. I want to be the partner who supports her, which means I can’t always be the good guy.

If Dempsey and Miller could see me now . . .

Here I am, Mr. Domestic and happy as fuck dealing with it. I never understood it before—how a kid could change your whole world. I watched Liam literally go from bachelor of the year to a family man in just a few months. I thought maybe Natalie had some kind of golden pussy or something, but I was a fucking tool. It was love.

It was finding that another human was so important that you were willing to forget all your stupid rules. Ellie is the piece of my heart I didn’t know was missing. She’s brought me to my knees, and I don’t care if I can’t ever stand again. For her, I’d stay here, at her feet as long as I have her here.

Hadley mopes to the bathroom, and a second later, I hear the water run as she starts her bedtime routine.

“What are you thinking?” Ellie asks as she comes up to me, wrapping her arms around my waist in a display of affection she usually only leaves for once Hadley is asleep.

“That I love you.”

She smiles at that, her eyes filling with love and a little bit of apprehension. I can’t wait for the day when I don’t see the second part. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

I say it without pause, and I’ll say it a million times over again until she believes it. She’ll never know what it means that she said it to me without prompt.

Ellie leans up on her toes and gives me a soft kiss. “I love you too, Connor, and today was . . . well, it was everything. She took it better than I could’ve ever imagined, and it feels as if the world is smiling down on us.”

“Because it is. We deserve to be happy, and I think we’ve both had enough shit to last us a lifetime.”

“I agree, and hopefully”—she kisses me again, and her eyes darken just a bit—“we have some more happy tonight.”

“How happy?”

Ellie shrugs. “We’ll see.”

God, this woman is trying to kill me. I would like to be very, very happy, but I’ll take whatever I can get with her. I may be patient, but I’m a man who is very much in love with the woman in my arms, and I’d like to show her.

She disentangles herself and tucks her hair behind her ear right as Hadley bursts into the living room.

“Can Connor read to me tonight?”

Ellie looks to me. That’s normally something she does for Hadley, so I wait for her to give me the go ahead.

“Of course,” Ellie says with a smile that I can’t read.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m one hundred percent sure.”

“Thank you, Mommy!” Hadley runs over to her, hugs her tight, and then rushes to me. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Then Hadley practically drags me into the bedroom that has become hers. The bed has been moved away from the window since she was afraid of something outside it, and the sheets are pink instead of the deep blue that used to be on Sean’s bed.

It was strange to me that my father hated us enough to beat us but hadn’t thrown away anything that would’ve reminded him of us after we left.

Everything was as it was when we lived here.

Like how my mother left it. Until we cleaned it out and got rid of the baggage.

Over the last few months, things have just . . . shown up. There’s a plant in the living room, flowers on the table, and those mats on the floor in the bathroom.

Day by day, Ellie has made this house into more. Now, we’re becoming a family.

And that makes me happy.

“So, how does your mom usually do this?”

Hadley sits on the bed and pats the blanket. “First you have to pick a book. I like those over there.”

“Okay, pick the book.” I feel like a total idiot. I should’ve known that much. I walk over to the stack and look for one that looks more worn. I’m assuming she has a favorite. “Any of them you like more?”