As I held her so tight in my arms, my body started to shake. The idea that I wouldn’t wake up to her sounds every day was weighing on my soul. The idea that the past year with Talon and Graham would be the last year we all spent together was soul-crushing.

Yes, Talon wasn’t mine, but I was hers. All of me loved that child. All of me would give my world for her and her father.

I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t fight the tears that started flooding my eyes. I couldn’t change the person I’d always been.

I was the girl who felt everything, and in that moment, my whole world began to crumble.

I held Talon against me and cried into her shirt as she kept speaking her random words. My eyes shut tight as I sobbed against the beautiful soul.

This was where I had felt it for the first time.

What it felt like to be happy.

What it felt like to be loved.

What it felt like to be part of something bigger than myself.

And now, I was being forced to leave.

A hand fell against my lower back, and I curved into Graham’s touch. He stood behind me, tall like the oak trees in the forest, and lowered his lips against my ear. As the words danced from his mouth and into my spirit, I remembered exactly why he was the man I chose to love fully. When he spoke, his words forever marked my soul as his. “If you need to fall, fall into me.”

Jane came back the following day, as if she had a right to stop by whenever she pleased. I hated the fact that I didn’t know what she had up her sleeve. I hated the unease I felt about the idea of her being back in town.

I knew she was capable of anything, but my biggest fear was that she’d try to take Talon away from me. If I knew anything about Jane, it was that she was intelligent—and sneaky. One never really knew what she was up to, and that made my skin crawl.

“Is she here?” Jane asked, stepping into the foyer of the house. Her eyes darted around the space, and I rolled my eyes in response.

“She’s not.”

“Good.” She nodded.

“She’s taking Talon for a walk.”

“What?!” Jane exclaimed, shocked. “I told you I didn’t want her around my child.”

“And I told you that you didn’t have a say in the matter. What exactly are you doing back here, Jane? What do you want?”

There was a moment where her eyes locked with mine. She looked nothing like her sister. There was no light in her eyes, only her dark irises that didn’t contain much heart within them, but her voice contained more gentleness than I’d ever witnessed before. “I want my family back,” she whispered. “I want you and Talon in my life.”

I couldn’t believe the nerve of her—to think she could just walk back into our lives as if she hadn’t taken a year-long vacation.

“That’s not happening,” I told her.

She tightened her fists. “Yes, it is. I know I made a mistake leaving, but I want to make it right. I want to be here for the rest of her years. I deserve that right.”

“You deserve nothing. Nothing. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go to court, but if that’s the way it’s going to be, that’s the way it’s going to be. I’m not afraid to fight for my daughter.”

“Don’t do this, Graham. You really don’t want to,” she warned, but I didn’t care. “I’m a lawyer.”

“I’ll fight you.”

“I’ll win,” she told me. “And I’ll take her from you. I’ll take her away from this place if it means Lucy won’t be anywhere near her.”

“Why do you hate her so much?” I blurted out. “She’s the best person I’ve ever met.”

“Then you need to meet more people.”

My chest was on fire at the idea of this monster taking my child from me. “You cannot come back and just decide you’re ready to be a mother. That’s not how it works, and I would never in my life let you do that. You have no right to her, Jane. You are nothing to that child. You mean nothing to her. You’re merely a human who abandoned a child because of your own selfish needs. You are not equipped to take my child away from me, even if you are a lawyer.”

“I can do it,” she said confidently, but I noticed the vein popping out of her head from her anger building. “I won’t stand around and see my daughter be transformed into the person Lucy is.” Her words made my skin crawl. I hated the way she spoke as if Lucy was the monster in our lives. As if Lucy hadn’t saved me from myself. As if Lucy was anything less than a miracle.

“And who are you to say who Talon can and cannot be around?” I asked, my chest aching as my heart beat rapidly.

“I’m her mother!”

“And I’m her father!”

“No, you’re not!” she screamed, the back of her throat burning from anger as her words bounced off the walls and slammed into my soul.

It was as if a bomb went off in the living room and shook the entire foundation of my life. “What?” I asked, my eyes narrow and low. “What did you just say to me?”

“What?” a voice questioned from behind us. Lucy stood there with Talon in the stroller, stunned.

Jane’s body was still, except for her shaky hands. When her eyes met Talon’s, her shoulders rounded, and I saw it happen—her heart started to break, but I didn’t care. Not for a moment did I care about her pained expression. All I cared about was the fact that she was trying to tear my family away from me.

“I said, you’re…” She swallowed hard, looking at the floor.

“Look at me,” I ordered, my voice stern and loud. Her head rose and she blinked once before releasing a heavy sigh. “Now repeat yourself.”

“You’re not her father.”

She was lying.

She was evil.

She was dirty.

She was the monster I always thought I would be.

“How dare you walk in here with your lies to try to take her,” I whispered low, trying my best not to let them overtake me—my shadows, my ghosts, my fears.

“It’s not…” She grimaced and shook her head back. “I, um…”

“It’s time for you to leave,” I said, sounding strong, hiding my fear. A part of me believed her. A part of me felt as if there was always that feeling somewhere deep in the back of my mind and I just did my best to hide it, but a bigger part of me looked at Talon and saw pieces of me in her stare. I saw myself in her smile. I saw the best parts of me in her soul. She was mine, and I was hers.

“You were on a book tour,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “I, um, I was sick for weeks around that time, and I remember being annoyed that you went a week without even checking on me while you were on the road.”

My mind started racing back to that time period, trying to grasp any memories, trying to pick up any kind of clues. Talon had been early. When I’d thought she was thirty-one weeks, she was twenty-eight, but I hadn’t let that idea simmer. Talon was my daughter. My baby. My heart. I couldn’t imagine that being anything less than true. “You had the flu, and you kept calling me.”

“I just wanted…” She paused, unsure what else to say. “He stopped by to check on me.”