Rescuing Harlow by Aubree Valentine

Chapter 15

Finn Keller had a decision to make, and he needed to make it quickly.

Time was running out on his marriage and the relationship with a child he once called his own.

From the moment he split from Mila after Scarlett was born, Finn lived with regret. Back then, he wasn’t a good man. Sure, he went to work every day. He provided for his family, and he spent time with his newborn daughter. But he enjoyed the fruits of his labor a little too much and walked around in a constant state of intoxication. It was Mila who put her foot down back then and told him she refused to stay. Demanded that he needed to get clean and sober.

With no ring on her finger, there was nothing at all to make her think twice.

She left.

He drank twice as much trying to ease the pain of losing the woman he cared about and his daughter.

Everyone always wondered why he had such a disdain for Zane Clark. It was simple. He saw himself in the young boy even though Finn was ten years older when his first daughter came into the world.

Mila’s parents hated him too.

All the years they dated, they begged Mila to leave him. Claimed he wasn’t good enough for their daughter. And then, they found out they were having a baby together. Finn wasn’t ready to settle down, no matter how many times his own parents tried to convince him to do the right thing.

He drank even more.

And then, one day Scarlett called him Dada for the first time.

That was the day he quit drinking. For a while.

He stayed clean and sober. Co-parented with Mila. Taking Scarlett every other weekend. Showing up for every doctor’s appointment. Making sure Scarlett’s needs were taken care of.

He thought he was on his way to winning Mila’s heart back.

Until they met one Friday so he could pick up Scarlett and another man was in the driver’s seat of Mila’s car.

Finn knew then that he’d lost her. The look on her face every time she glanced the other man’s way, was a look of a woman in love. She was happy. Something he couldn’t ever recall seeing when he was with her.

So, he went back to drinking. This time he hid it from Mila and stayed sober on the weekends because he couldn’t lose Scarlett too.

Mila got married and it didn’t take long for her to break the news that she was expecting a child with her husband, Landry.

He tried to be happy for her back then, God did he try. It’s a hard thing to do when you’re madly in love with a woman but fucked it all up because you were too stubborn.

Harlow came into the world and Landry and Mila seemed happier than ever.

Finn still remembered the call, Mila sobbing on the other end of the phone and asking if he could take Scarlett for a few hours. He could barely understand what she was saying but when he pieced together what she was saying - it nearly destroyed him too. Because the woman he loved was hurting.

The day Landry died was the day that Finn quit drinking for good. Yes, he’d have a glass of wine on special occasions, but alcohol was no longer a vice or a crutch for him.

Almost twenty-one years ago he got a second chance. He liked to think that over the last twenty-some years, he healed Mila’s heart. Now he was breaking it and he knew it. Here he was, turning his back on a child he vowed to love as his own and willing to risk losing Mila all over again.

Lost in his thoughts, he pulled out a box that he kept in the top of his closet. What he was hoping to find, he wasn’t sure. But when he opened it, the contents rocked him to the core.

Cards from every Father’s Day laid on top. One from each of his girls, including a few that touted something along the lines of anyone being able to be a father, but it took a real man to be a dad. Hand drawn pictures from preschool. Photographs that Mila had snapped of him with Scarlett and Harlow over the years.

The folded piece of paper at the bottom was his undoing. There on well-worn construction paper was the first drawing Harlow ever made for him. A stick figure family where she was holding his hand. The word Daddy scribbled in her own handwriting.

He looked at the very first picture of the two of them together, a photo that hung proudly over his nightstand. Right next to a similar photo of him and Scarlett.

Tears of shame rolled down his cheeks.

Who the fuck cared if someone else’s DNA ran through her veins?

Who cared that Landry left behind a small part of himself for his child?

Wouldn’t Finn do the very same?

Hell, he planned to do just that with the vineyard and all the property that had been in his family for years. BOTH of his daughters would have a piece of their family's legacy. It was something the girls talked about often, too. They already had grand ideas for how they would grow and expand.

Mila found him not much later, still clutching that hand drawn photo and tears running down his face.

“Finn,” she whispered.

“I need to talk to my baby girl,” he sobbed. “Oh, Mila. I’ve been such an asshole to her. To Zane. Even to you, meine Liebe.”

His wife nodded.

“I got so caught up in my own faults that I couldn’t see clearly and now, I’ve hurt everyone in the process,” he confessed.

“A wise man recognizes his mistakes. And does something about them,” Mila reminded him. “Call her. Talk to her and make things right.”