Jodi pulled up to the big faded red building and turned off the engine of her CRV. Her gaze traveled up the height of the building to the hay loft with the old weather vane wobbling on its crest.

She remembered this building because she and Ty had sex in it when they were dating. Those had been good days—the days before they discovered the pregnancy. She’d been falling for him, if the truth were told. He was tall, dark, handsome, and so gentlemanly. One of the reasons his anger when she’d seen him the last two times had been so upsetting was it was out of character. Ty was the definition of a standup guy. He’d been getting over his parents’ deaths when they met, but he was never dark or angry. He had a subtle sadness that clung to him like a haze, but at his core, Ty was the kind of guy who exuded happiness and confidence.

For a girl searching so hard to find herself, that confidence of his was a real turn-on. When she was with Ty, she’d felt like everything in the world was settled. Ty never seemed to question where he was going or what he was doing. Even once she got pregnant, he never faltered in the conviction that he’d raise his child. Unlike most twenty-two-year-old men, he was clear from day one—he’d do whatever was necessary to care for the baby and its mother.

Only Jodi hadn’t been able to be the mother. And so she was here today, having to beg to see her own child.

She sighed, giving her face one last look in the mirror before getting out of the car and heading inside, where Ty and Nina waited for her.

She’d been surprised when Ty said he thought it would be best to have a third person there for their talk. But she understood too. Ty had every reason to be suspicious of her. She’d bailed on him and the baby after the birth. When she’d approached him last year, she’d been so emotional and desperate, she’d ruined the whole thing, showing up at a town social event with no warning like a ghost from the past. It was no wonder he’d quietly but harshly told her not to come back and had her escorted off the premises.

She’d spent thirty minutes on the phone with her therapist before coming to this meeting, practicing her approach, reminding herself she was a different person, and she might not have earned this chance yet, but she was worth it.

When she walked into the barn, his eyes tracked her every step. There was wariness there, but also something else, something that made her insides jiggle and slosh.

“Hi,” she offered when she reached him, her gaze shifting to Nina, who sat in a camp chair with a book a few feet behind Ty.

“Hi,” he answered, his gaze steady, his voice rough.

“Don’t mind me,” Nina said cheerfully from her chair. “I’m reading up on the ideal feeding schedule to help babies sleep six hours a night.”

Ty snorted and glanced at Nina over his shoulder. “Dream on, sweetheart,” he quipped.

“Did she wake up a lot?” Jodi asked quietly, suddenly desperate to hear about Katie as an infant.

Ty startled, staring at her for a moment before he gestured to some old bales of hay across the room.

He spoke as they walked. “Um, at first it was every two hours—day and night. I’d feed her, change her, put her down, she’d wake up, and we’d start it all over again. But at three weeks or so, she settled into a four-hour cycle.”

They each took a seat on a hay bale, facing each other. Jodi crossed her legs and Ty’s gaze was fixed to the movement. She tugged on the hem of her thigh-length dress self-consciously. Ty’s gaze shot back to hers.

“I’d love to hear more about her,” Jodi said, trying not to notice the muscles in his upper arms as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. Those biceps bulged with the movement, and her tummy fluttered in response.

“She’s spunky. Always doing something, always chattering. She, um, she takes dance lessons, and she’s started learning to surf. She rides a little pony we got her. We’ll get her on her own horse in a couple of years, but by then, she’ll be a pro. She really took to it.”

“She had a great example,” Jodi said, smiling, remembering how well Ty sat his big quarter horse.

His lips twitched but didn’t make it to a full smile.

“She has a real sense of right and wrong”—he laughed wryly—“which she usually exercises on my younger brother.”

Jodi had met Vaughn a few times but didn’t know him well. Five years ago, he’d been a surly, miserable college kid trying to survive his parents’ untimely deaths. Lynn told her he was married now, owned a gallery on the PCH, and still helped out at the ranch.

“What kind of dance?” Jodi asked. There’d never been money for dance lessons in her childhood, but she’d always dreamed of being a ballerina.

“Ballet,” Ty answered gruffly. “I, uh, remembered it was something you’d liked.”

Her heart fluttered as she tried to swallow the lump that lodged in her throat.

“Does she? Like it, I mean.”

He nodded, then grinned, a little of the awkwardness falling away. “She’s so cute, you wouldn’t believe it. She has these long gawky legs like yours, and when she pirouettes, she gets them all wrapped around each other. At the last recital, she almost fell down, but she wasn’t embarrassed at all. She just finished the whole mess with a flourish of her arms that had the entire crowd applauding her.”

Jodi felt tears threaten, able to see the whole thing in her mind. “I’m so sorry I missed it,” she said softly.

Ty sobered, nodding but not speaking.

“I’m not here to take her from you. I know this is her home and her family. I just want to know her. It doesn’t have to be as her mother. I realize I gave up that right. If it has to be, I can be a family friend or something. I’ve been through a lot since she was born. I’ve figured out a lot of things. I’m in a really good place, and I want to help out any way I can. Any way you’ll let me.”

He cleared his throat. “You understand my concerns. If she were to get attached to you and you bailed again…”

Jodi nodded emphatically. “Yes. And I’m going to earn your trust. We should take it slow so we all have time to adjust and you learn how committed I am. I know that won’t happen overnight.”

He looked at her then, and she fell into his deep brown eyes. It took the air right out of her. Breath quickening, she looked away, trying to remember that this was about Katie, nothing else.

“If we introduce you to her as her mother—exactly how do you see it playing out?” he asked.

She’d thought on this so much. Discussed it with her therapist. Read books on the subject. It was going to be difficult no matter what, and there was no easy way to handle it, no foolproof method that would make it all okay for Katie. But in the long run, she truly believed it was to Katie’s benefit to know who her mother was.

“I’ve read up on it, and I’ve talked to a therapist about it—”

Ty blinked in surprise, and she gave him a small smile. Yes, she thought, I care that much.

“I’d like to be introduced to her, and then you and I together can tell her that I’m her mother. After that, though, we need to listen to her. That part will be hard for me, but since this is happening without her say, she needs to feel she has some control, that she gets to decide if she wants to know me and how much.”

She paused, not sure how to say the next part. But when she looked at Ty, at the concern etched on his face, she knew she couldn’t be anything but completely honest.

“That’s the point at which you can torpedo the whole thing. You know she takes whatever you say as gospel at this age. If you give a negative spin to me, or to the prospect of getting to know me, she’ll absorb it, and chances are she won’t want to pursue the relationship.”

Ty’s jaw hardened. “You think I’d do that?”

“No, but I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” she answered softly.

He relaxed a touch, then sighed. “It’s what a lot of parents do in divorces.”

“It is. But that’s not putting the child first. I’m not saying this to be selfish. But think about if you’d had a parent out there in the world that you could have known, and your other parent kept you from them. Wouldn’t you have wanted the chance to learn about the absent parent on your own? Form your own views?”

She watched him then, the lock of hair that fell over his eyes, the serious line of his lips. His big, strong hands. Something inside her grew warm and alive, and she dropped her gaze so he wouldn’t see it—the want still flowing through her when she looked at him.

“So we introduce you to her,” he said, “then we let her decide what comes next—like if she wants to meet up with you or something?”

Jodi nodded.

He ran a hand through all that thick, dark hair. “I have to put some boundaries on this.”

She held her breath, waiting, on the edge of more hope than she’d felt in years.

“No unsupervised visits. Someone from the family has to be there with her if she sees you.”

Her eyes stung, but she knew it was perfectly reasonable. She could be unstable for all Ty knew about her now. Trust was something they had very little of yet, and it would take time to build.

“If she says she’s not interested, you go back to San Luis.”

Jodi’s gaze shot straight to his, and her blood pumped hard through her veins.

He continued, his expression grim with determination. “I don’t want her to have to deal with seeing you around town all the time, making her uncomfortable—hell, making us all uncomfortable. If she doesn’t want this, then you need to respect that.”

“And I will, but I’m not leaving.”

She saw his hands clench and unclench a couple of times. “So even though you say she has a choice, what you really mean is you intend to wear her down? Be everywhere she is, stalk her until she gives in?”

Jodi heard Nina clear her throat from across the room, and Ty’s brow furrowed.

“No,” she answered firmly. “But I intend to be available to her should she ever decide she’s curious or has different wishes. She’s five, Ty. Kids change a lot between five and eighteen. At any point, she might decide she’d like to ask me something or tell me something. She might want me at some point, and I’m not going to be two hours away when—if—that day comes.”

“And how are you supporting yourself while you’re living in limbo, waiting for Katie to come around?”

Jodi gritted her teeth and reminded herself she’d thought he was sexy a few minutes ago. “I’m starting a holistic health practice. I’ve rented a house that has space for the business and living. I’ve been saving and training for this for a very long time. Big Sur is the perfect demographic for what I want to do.”

“Have you ever owned a business before?” he asked.

“No, but I did my research—”

“What if it fails? Will you have to leave then? After she’s gotten attached to you?”

“No. I have a contingency plan. There’s an in-home, on-call nursing service for the county. I can get a job there easily. It’s not my favorite kind of work, but it pays well, and it will enable me to continue living here, even have hours I can flex around Katie’s needs.”

“If she decides she wants a relationship,” he was quick to correct.

“Yes,” she replied with a little more snap than was technically needed.

“Is your ultimate goal here to get joint custody?” he asked, his voice dropping along with his gaze. She heard it, the thread of resignation, the tremor of fear. She reminded herself of what the therapist had said: “Put yourself in his place. Don’t ever forget he’s devoted his life to this child, and now you threaten that very life.”

Reaching across the space between their knees and putting her hand on his arm, she heard his sharp intake of breath and felt the muscles flex beneath her hand.

“I don’t have an ultimate goal. If the three of us ever reached a point where I could be a regular part of her life—have her spend the night at my house sometimes, go to her dance recitals—I would love that more than you can imagine. But my only goal here is to know the wonderful child you’ve raised. And I’ll be honored to get that chance, whether it’s ice cream once a month in the park with Lynn watching, or answering some questions for a school project years from now. I’ll take whatever she’s willing to give and you’re comfortable with.”

His free hand slid over the top of hers, and her entire body sparked to life. It was as if a small electrical current traveled through her from head to toe.

“I’m sorry if I’m ever unpleasant about this. You’re saying all the right things, and I want to believe you’ve come to a place where you can be in her life.”

She nodded, afraid to say or do anything that might make him remove that hand. But to her delight, he didn’t, and in fact, his thumb began to draw little circles on her skin as he talked.

“This is scary as hell, and a certain part of me—the protective-dad part—is warning me I need to be very careful here, that I need to shelter her and be ready to do battle. You have to understand…” He paused, his teeth catching on his lower lip for just a moment, drawing her eyes to that full mouth and the perfect amount of stubble that surrounded it. “The instinct to fight anyone or anything you think might be threatening your child? It’s hard to rein in. Especially when you’ve been the only thing between her and the world for five years.”

A tear crept out of Jodi’s eye, because that was on her. He’d been alone in this all these years because of her. Her inability to see past her own pain and step up. Her fears had controlled every decision she’d made for so long.

“But there’s another part of me.” His voice was low and rough. “It’s the other half of being a dad, and it’s saying Katie deserves a mother. The older she gets, the more she’ll need that presence in her life, and it would make her so happy to have someone else to share herself with. The other part of me feels like she deserves to have a mother who loves her, because she’s the best kid you’ll ever meet, Jodi.”

Jodi nodded, eyes fixed on the floor as Ty held on to her hand.

They sat like that for a moment, both of them gathering themselves emotionally, regaining control of the feelings swirling and tossing like a tsunami.

Ty finally released her hand and she released his arm and sat back a touch, putting space between them that made her sad but also allowed her to breathe.

“So, when do you want to do this?” he finally asked.

She couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face as her heart raced in anticipation.

“You know her schedule. When there’s a day where we have plenty of time, and she can process for a day or so afterward without any big expectations like a class trip or a dance event.”

He nodded, thinking for a moment. “Saturday, then, after her ballet class. Where?”

“Someplace she feels comfortable, but maybe not a favorite place in case it goes poorly. I don’t want to taint some favorite hangout of hers.”

He chuckled as he shook his head. “You really did think this all out beforehand.”

“I’ve been planning for it for a year and a half, Ty. I’m not doing this lightly.”

“Okay, then. Saturday at noon, the boardwalk ice-cream stand. We’ll prime her with some sugar and then take a walk on the beach.”

“Thank you. I can’t—” She caught a sob as it struggled to fly out, then cleared her throat before looking at him again. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

His eyes were warm again, and his mouth curved in a soft smile. “I think I have some idea.”

They walked back to Nina in silence, and then Jodi said goodbye and turned to walk out of the old barn. She was going to have her chance. It was all she could ask for. And now the real work began.