Fortune's Christmas Baby (Fortunes of Texas)

“I’m good,” he said, looking behind him to include Branham and Glenn in his comment. “Let’s get this thing started.”

So he could hit the sack and wake up ready to go in the morning.

In a completely new world. One that contained a tiny being who trusted him enough to lay securely in against his body. Who couldn’t lift a finger to help herself. Who couldn’t defend herself.

So tiny and fragile.

She had so much to learn, this beautiful child with Fortune blood in her veins. He had a lifetime of commitment and responsibility to plan for. A life to support and protect in ways that had nothing at all to do with finances. The Fortune money wasn’t going to take care of this one.

He was.

The second he’d held that weight against him he’d known the difference between a father and a daddy, and knew which one he wanted his daughter to have.

For the next several hours he lost himself in the music. On break he drank water, had a sandwich. And by the time he finally did get to bed, he was more like his old self.

He had his everyday life with his family in New Orleans. He had his “time out,” whether it was music or something else—something like Lizzie and Stella. He had it all under control.

Life was good.

He could do this.

* * *

On Thursday when Nolan texted and suggested that they spend the day at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, Lizzie couldn’t help the feeling of excitement that swept through her.

She’d talked to Carmela the night before about Nolan’s offer to buy her a place to live and while her friend didn’t love the idea, thinking the arrangement would add a complication she didn’t need to an eventual real relationship, she thought Lizzie deserved to have Nolan pay her expenses. Her friend had also been emphatic that if Lizzie took him up on his offer, she needed to be certain that her name was on the deed, and her name only. Otherwise she’d be living at his mercy—always needing to make certain that she pleased him so that he didn’t take her home from her.

Of course, even with her name on the deed, he could quit paying bills whenever he chose, but in that event, she could always sell the place if she had to.

It was going to work. Had to work. Stella would have her father in her life, she’d have the backing of any security he could provide and she and Lizzie could still have their lives. The little girl would be raised with love, not money.

Lizzie would always be a bit afraid that Nolan’s family could find out about them—that at any point they could wield their money and power to take Stella from her, at least part-time—but that fear was going to be a permanent part of her life now. It was something she was going to have to live with. Nolan was from an extremely wealthy family, and the fear that they might learn he had a daughter, that they might try to take control of their granddaughter, was something she’d learn to manage.

And if the whole thing left her woman’s heart a bit...bereft...then that was something she’d learn to manage, too.

Nolan had offered them a way to make this work, and she had to give everything she had to make that happen.

He’d wanted her rules, her guidelines, her conditions...whatever. She had a few days to come up with specifics.

In the meantime, she had to show him that they could do this.

With that thought in mind, she chose one of the Christmas outfits Nolan had purchased the day before and dressed the baby, complete with a red headband and red silk bow with green holly leaves, so that they could take pictures with Santa at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar.

Carmela was studying from home that day—working on her senior project during her holiday break from school—and she and Nolan managed civil hellos when he arrived.

He’d rented a luxurious SUV, Lizzie found as she followed him out to the parking lot.

“Do you mind if I keep it here?” he asked her as he helped her move the car seat base from her car to the rental. “We can stop in at the agency and give them your driver’s license to have you added as a driver,” he told her. And then added, “I just can’t have the band seeing it.”

Because they didn’t know who he was.

And if they knew, and knew she had a kid, his family could find out.

“Of course,” she told him.

Was he going to rent a car every time he came to town? Or buy one and keep it at her house?

So many things to figure out.