My daddy always tried to fix my problems. But he hadn’t been able to mend my broken heart when Asher had turned away from me. And now, he would not be able to fix what I had to tell him, either. The problem was standing right before him. I was the unfixable mistake.

“I heard Asher Sutton was home. Is this about him?” Daddy asked, his voice laced with anger. “He’s a man now and I don’t have a problem beating the hell outta him.”

“Daddy,” I said, interrupting his angry tirade about Asher. “Did you know . . . did you . . . I . . .” How did I ask my father whether he knew his wife was unfaithful? I couldn’t do this. Could I do this? God, this was too much.

“Did I know what, baby? What’s bothering you?” he replied. His words were gentler as he pulled me closer to his chest like he was protecting me. And he didn’t even know from what.

“My . . . mother . . . did she . . .” I stopped, swallowed hard, because I felt sick. Hearing this was one thing, but repeating it was another thing altogether.

“You said this wasn’t about Mom,” he whispered with concern, gazing again at the house. He didn’t understand.

I shook my head. “No, the woman . . . my real mother,” I replied, his body immediately tensing. We never talked about her, ever, not once. I didn’t know why she had left. Had she left because of an affair? Did he not know that I was the product of that affair?

“Has someone contacted you?” he asked, his voice strained and quavering.

I shook my head. I’d once planned on finding her. Now, I never wanted to see her. She’d ruined my life, leaving lies behind that destroyed everything. “Did you know she had an affair with Vance Sutton?” I asked before I could stop myself. Closing my eyes tightly, I immediately wanted to take those words back. I did not want him to know this. I loved him. He was my daddy. I couldn’t lose that. Ever.

“Honey, mentally, she wasn’t well. But yes, I knew. How did you find out about this?” His words surprised me. I hadn’t expected him to know that much, if anything. “Do the Sutton boys know?”

I nodded. “Yes, Asher found letters that Millie wrote to Vance. They said some things . . .” tears were now spilling free down my face. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I’d faced this fear and now I had to wait, see what happened next.

Daddy stared down at me frowning with worry on his face and then slowly understanding lit his eyes. He closed them tightly, muttering a curse, before pulling me against him and squeezing. “Oh, no, baby, I know what Asher must have read. It’s not what you think, buttercup. You’re my princess. You hear me? You’re mine. I got proof of that. Those letters were from a mentally unstable woman. A woman who hurt others as if life was a game. Millie’s beauty was something she used as a weapon against people.”

I pulled away from him to search his face. “I’m not Vance Sutton’s daughter?” I repeated it, said it again, making sure I wasn’t hearing him wrong.

“No!” Daddy yelled angrily. “Hell no! You’re all mine! Although Millie tried to destroy me and Vance Sutton with her lie. I had a paternity test done when you were born because Vance demanded it. He wanted proof you weren’t his. But understand this, from the moment they handed you to me, minutes after you were born, you became mine, right then and there. You stole my heart, a heart I didn’t think could heal, but you healed it the moment I looked into your eyes and no piece of paper could have taken that away from me. I wouldn’t have cared what that paper said, you were my baby girl. I was willing to fight for you. I wanted you. Yes, Millie had broken me, but you, Dixie Monroe, you saved me from the darkness. You were my miracle. You lit my life.”

I let my Daddy hold me and cried.

My biggest fear was that, one day, Asher would grow to resent me. Years from now, when we were married with children, when I had to drive them to ballet, football practice or soccer, and sex was something we’d have to find time for, when the washing machine was broken, and the car needed new brakes, that Asher’s decision not to play football for Florida and have a chance to go pro one day would haunt him for the rest of his life. That being a husband and dad wouldn’t be enough for him. That he would wonder every day what his life could have been like and I would be the one he’d blame for taking his dream away from him. I’d only dreamed of one thing in my life and that was to have Asher Sutton’s love. I had that. My dream had come true. I was living it, but Asher was giving up his, for me, and that was scaring me. As much as I begged him not to withdraw from Florida, he swore he couldn’t be happ, without me close and in his life.

Momma said that it was his choice and I had to stop worrying about it. But I did. It kept me up at night. Asher was the reason the football team won state two years in a row. They even talked about him on the news—where he’d sign, whether he’d lead an undefeated college football team, just like he’d done in high school. He was important. And I would be the girl who kept him from achieving all this.

Selfishly, I wanted him close. I couldn’t imagine not seeing him daily. Distance wouldn’t make me love him less. I’d loved him since I was thirteen and that wasn’t going to change. We’d stopped going to Jack’s and now we did things without his brothers and friends. We went to the lake or sat out on the football field at night, instead, talking about high school. How it was almost over for him and how my time here seemed endless. Some nights he’d take me to dinner and a movie, normally on the days he got his paycheck. He gave half to his momma to pay the bills, all the boys did and the other half he spent on us. That made me feel guilty because I wanted to help out, but Asher never let me.

When his old blue truck pulled into the drive and his brothers weren’t in the back, I knew tonight we’d be discussing this again. We’d talked about it repeatedly, but now that his final decision needed be made next week, I had one last chance to convince him to go to Florida and play football.

The days were warmer now, but the nights were still cool, the heat of summer still two months off. My arms were bare, so I pulled the white sweater I was carrying over my shoulders and went out to his truck. He was grinning. “I got paid early. Want to see a movie?”

What I wanted was for him to save his money. “I’d rather do something where we can talk.”

He frowned. “That sounds like something serious.”

It was, so I replied, “I want to spend time with you. No movie. Just us. Alone.”

He gave me a crooked grin. “Okay. I can live with that. Then tell me what you’d like to do.”

“Can we ride out to Hillview Peak?” I asked.

Asher’s eyebrows shot up and I knew why. That was where people went to park. It was known for its dark, secluded location. On any given night, you could find sweaty couples having sex in cramped back seats. No one ever talked about it, but everyone knew what happened on Hillview Peak.

I watched as a million different thoughts flashed through his expressive eyes. “Dix, uh, baby, if you’re ready for that . . . I mean, if you want it . . . trust me, I want the very same thing. But I’m not having your first time be at Hillview Peak. Give me some notice and I can come up with a better place than my truck.”

His truck. He’d lost his virginity in his truck. There’d been a lot of girls in there. Now, there was just me. I knew that. I trusted him completely. I was ready and although I’d always imagined losing my virginity in Asher Sutton’s truck, I didn’t really want it to happen there. I wanted “us” to be different. I didn’t hold all the girls he’d been with, the ones that came before me, against him, because I wasn’t jealous. I just didn’t want our first time to be the same, or even similar, to anyone else he’d been with in the past.