"I will. I do."

"Lexie's sister… It isn't right for her to have Hayley, and Lexie knew that. Lexie always told me you were the one who should take the child."

"I'm her dad," Riley said unnecessarily.

"Lexie wasn't sure."

"Sure of what? Sure Riley was the dad?" Jack sounded confused.

"She wasn't sure it mattered if Riley was the dad or not. She didn't imagine Riley would want her—"

"What the hell?" Riley couldn't hold back the instant and visceral reaction. He might have been an idiot at twenty, but everyone grew up, so who the hell was Lexie to think something so plainly awful?

"Until…" Sophie waved a hand between Riley and Jack.

"Until?"

"It isn't my place to say Mr Hayes—"

"Campbell-Hayes," Riley interrupted, and Sophie inclined her head to acknowledge the mistake.

"She said you were settled in whatever you are settled in." She looked uncomfortable momentarily. "I don't know what's worse—Lexie's sister and her problems or you and your… unconventional… relationship." Riley narrowed his eyes and wondered how far Jack was going to let this go before he lost his temper. "Still," Sophie carried on, oblivious to what reaction she was engendering, "the lesser of two evils it remains."

* * * *

As the cab disappeared up the long drive, avoiding the potholes and cracks in the dry ground, Jack turned to Riley with a grim look on his face.

"What the fuck was that all about."

All Riley could do was shrug. He really had no idea at all.

The two men went into the house. Hayley was chatting about hair and playing with her own by twisting it around her tiny hands. Riley stopped dead. They looked so alike, his sister and his beautiful daughter. And they seemed to be connecting. Irrational jealousy spiked in him, and he shook himself free of it.

"How about your daddy shows you your room?" Eden said gently.

Hayley looked at him expectantly, and he dutifully took Hayley's extended hand. Donna and Eden were talking, but once the door shut between the kitchen and hall, it was just Riley and Hayley. He paused in the hallway. A bedroom wasn't what he had spent any time thinking about. His responsibility. The change in his life. His daughter losing her momma. Those are the things he had focused on, not on providing a little girl haven in among the rough and tough of the D. This was a working ranch. He and Jack shared Jack's two rooms. Donna's was upstairs, although she appeared to spend most nights from dusk until dawn at Neil's house. Still, it was her room, and this only really left Beth or Josh's old rooms at the back of the house. Out of Jack's two siblings, Riley guessed Beth's room was likely more girly than Josh's, and he knew for a fact the window faced the back paddocks. Decision made, he took a right and went down the short corridor to the end to the door marked with a carved name.

"This was Beth's old room; she's Jack's sister," he said, and crouched down again. "I've not seen inside it, and I don't know if it's pink or girly or anything. But, whatever it's like, we can fix it up, okay? You can have any kind of bedroom you want." Hayley nodded, and then standing tall, Riley pushed his way in.

Well, it wasn't pink. In fact, it wasn't really much of anything. A simple room with wooden floors and a large double bed with a carved headboard. A chest of drawers with a small mirror and a desk in the corner completed the look. Clearly, Donna had this room set up as some kind of guest room judging by the simple furnishings.

"It's big," Hayley said, her eyes wide as she circled to see the whole room. "Bigger than my momma's and mine together."

"We can change anything you want," Riley offered quickly, and then watched bemused as Hayley clambered onto the bed and lay back to stare at the ceiling.

"It's kind of cool," she offered in the simple manner a child has. Riley sat on the edge of the bed, the weight of him causing Hayley to roll slightly. She giggled and leaned on one arm to look at him. "You're really heavy," she said with a laugh.

"Guess I am," Riley agreed.

"Way tall. Momma said my daddy was really tall." Riley could have sat there and cried. Lexie had spoken about him? Lexie had known he was Hayley's biological dad but had never thought to contact him? Why had she done that? Instead, he pushed past the hurt and confusion with a smile.

"You may get way tall as well," he said.

"I don't wanna be that tall." Her eyes widened again, and a look of horror settled on her face. Riley laughed.

"I get to see over everyone."

"So not a good thing."

"I can reach Donna's cookie shelf," he confided with a smile and a wink. Hayley's eyes widened and he thought maybe he had scored a point in his favor.

"I could get a chair," she said thoughtfully. "If the cookies were good enough."

Riley was alternating between pride and horror. Hayley, his daughter, was so direct. She was talking to him almost like she was in an adventure. He wondered how much of it was bravado and how much damage had been done by her mom dying.

"I'm sorry. You know…" he began, and then didn't really know where he was going. What level should he pitch this at? She was eight, but she seemed so grown up. Best he was direct, he thought. "Sorry about your mom," he finally said as simply as he could.

Hayley pulled her lower lip with her teeth, and Riley saw a couple of gaps. He wondered quickly if Hayley was going to cry and then wondered how the hell he was going to manage to handle the tears of a little girl.

"She was ill for a long time, but she was mostly happy." This seemed a contradiction in terms to Riley, but it must have made sense to Hayley.

"I'm so sorry about your mom. She was a very good person." He vocalized these thoughts but didn't mention the overwhelming anger that Lexie hadn't called him. "Mostly I'm sorry I didn't know about you."

"Why do you think mom didn't tell you about me?" Jeez, a leading question if there ever was one. What should he say? He didn't have a freaking clue why Lexie had chosen to have Hayley on her own. Was he angry? Or was he sad? Maybe he should explain he had been more than eighty percent selfish idiot when he was twenty and he was surprised the whole relationship with Lexie had lasted even three months.