Loving Her (Mitchell Family #9)(26)
Author: Jennifer Foor

Chapter 17

Tyler

I saw Izzy getting out of the car, but Miranda never got out. When she didn’t come in after a few more minutes, I knew something was wrong.

I made sure the boys were occupied before walking outside. She was crying so bad that she never noticed me standing outside the driver’s side door. I knocked on the window, causing her to jump. She opened the door and wiped away her tears. “Sorry, I just needed a minute.”

I crouched down to be eye level with her. “What happened?”

She shook her head and refused to say anything to me. The longer she went without talking, the more worried I became.

“Is it Izzy?”

She nodded.

“Is she okay?”

She nodded again, but my fears were being heightened by the second.

“Baby, please talk to me. What happened? You’re freaking me out.”

Miranda cried harder. “I’m so sorry, babe. I tried so hard to cover it up. I didn’t know it was out there for her to find. I swear, I never knew someone put it in the paper.”

“What are you talking about?” I was freaking out already.

She covered her face, wiped away her tears and looked straight ahead. “Bella went to the bathroom at the restaurant, and while she was gone something fell out of her purse. I guess I shouldn’t have opened it, but with all that’s been goin’ on, I felt like I needed to know.” She turned and looked right at me. “Ty, she had a copy of a birth announcement with me and Tucker at the hospital. She must have found it on the internet, in the newspaper archives or somethin’. She’s eleven years old. I had no idea she’d do somethin’ like that. We’ll fix this. I don’t know how yet, but we will.”

I plopped down on the hard ground, not able to keep my composure any longer. Just imagining my daughter seeing that paper and keeping it with her made me sick. No matter how much I wanted to believe that everything was going to be alright, I knew it wasn’t. “How the hell did she find that? She’s just a kid.”

“I don’t know. Kids are so smart now. They know how to use computers better than we do. I’m sure her and Noah stayed up lookin’ up Tucker’s name. God only knows what else she found.”

I didn’t mean to bring up someone else, but I thought about Colt, saying he didn’t want his son knowing what Van had to do. If they’d found this birth announcement, it was a good chance that they’d found a lot more, including the fact that Tucker had kidnapped Van and she’d killed him to get away. It had been all over the news and in every paper, especially considering how well known Colt was to the community. “Shit. What if they found out about Van, too? God, this is getting worse by the second.”

“I know.” She shook her head and bawled more. “It’s horrible. This is devastatin’. What are we goin’ to do, Ty? How are we goin’ to convince her that it’s not true?”

I thought about Izzy, me, Van, and everyone else that this lie was going to hurt. How much longer was I willing to wait to confront my daughter? Obviously, she was digging for answers. Did I really want her finding them from someone else, or was I ready to come clean and lay it all out on the line? The answer was obvious, although acknowledging it meant that I was also aware I could lose her love forever. “We’re not. We’re not going to tell any more lies. None of us deserve to live like this anymore. I’m not an idiot. Thinking I could just have her forever was a fantasy. I knew she’d find out.” I paused for a second and tried to compose myself enough to look at my wife. I wasn’t the only person that this was ripping apart. Miranda and I had talked a million times about how we wished Izzy was my real child. It never mattered to me, because in my heart, she was and would always be mine. It was easy for me to know that without doubt, but convincing someone that had been fed only lies was going to be harder. “It’s time to tell her the truth, Miranda.” I could feel the tears fighting their way out of my eyes. “I can’t keep telling myself that this is going to go away. After two days, it’s obvious she already knows more than we ever wanted her to. If I don’t talk to her it’s only going to be worse. We tried to get her to back off and she went behind our backs anyway. I don’t want her to be sneaky. I don’t want this to change her any more than it’s already going to. This has to stop now, before more people get hurt.”

“Ty, please. We promised that we’d take it to the grave. I won’t let you do this. She won’t understand. I can’t let you risk it. I can’t let you hurt each other.” Miranda was pleading with me and that hurt me even worse. She was afraid of how this was all going to turn out, and without her optimism, I knew that the chance of Izzy forgiving me was slim.

“We’re already hurting each other. You think I like knowing that she’s on this mission to prove I’m not her father? God damn it, Miranda. I feel like she’s stabbing me in the f**king heart. Every damn second since the other day, I haven’t been able to shake it. All I think about is her hating me. I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t be in this limbo, wondering if she secretly hates me. I can’t eat and I don’t want to sleep. I’m done with it.”

She sobbed, and I didn’t know how to comfort her, when I was sitting across from her falling apart. “This can’t be happenin’. We just got her out of the hospital. We’re supposed to be happy and celebrating her health. I don’t understand.”

I reached over and ran my hand through her hair. “I’ll talk to her tonight.” My throat was burning, and it was impossible to hold back my emotions. I didn’t care if my wife saw me getting emotional. She knew more than anyone what Izzy meant to me. “Baby, no matter what happens, I won’t give up on being her father, even if she doesn’t want me anymore.” It was crushing me from the inside. Imagining my life without my beautiful little girl. Picturing her hating me and never wanting to trust me again was undeniably the worst feeling I’d ever experienced. We hadn’t even spoken, and I knew that part of my life was never going to be the same. Sure, she’d always be mine, but not having her return that love, after all that we’d been through, was unbearable.

I just sat there with my wife, thinking about her sparkling eyes and the first time they’d looked up at me. I remember the first time she’d smiled and showed me her dimples. I thought about how she used to fall asleep on my chest and having her there made all of my problems disappear.