A Family for Good : A sweet, small town, second chance romance (Tall Dark and Driven Book 6)

by Barbara Deleo

  “Or maybe it’ll be sports and we’ll have to drag ourselves out of bed for 5 a.m. swim training, or soccer in the winter,” he said to break the spell her gaze had over him.

  She blew out a soft breath before looking down again. “Where they grow up will have a huge impact on them. On their sense of belonging, of being loved.”

  “We can give that to them in either country,” he said. “If you and I share their care, we can give them all those things, that stability, that soft place to fall, a real home they can come back to.”

  The words had left his mouth before he’d really thought them through.

  He hadn’t mentioned his marriage plan since the first night she was here, nor had she, but the more time he spent with her, the more he could see she was committed to the girls, the less claim he had on them. If she’d satisfactorily answered his question about how much she’d changed, then why couldn’t he bear the thought of her leaving with them?

  Because I love them.

  And the ice-cold reality that he couldn’t let those girls go—ever—pickaxed its way into his mind . . . and his heart.

  I can’t lose them.

  He couldn’t be denied someone he loved a second time. He’d cared for Phoebe and Zoë since the day they were born and nothing would break his bond with them, certainly not Liv taking them to the other side of the world. Maybe he really needed to consider going back to the States with them.

  Something passed across her eyes as she gazed at the baby in her arms. “You mean if we were to marry, and I was to stay in Cyprus?” she said in a hesitant voice.

  “Yes.” He held his breath, suddenly desperate for her to stay.

  “So, you’re planning to live here permanently? What about your parents and your brother back in Brentwood Bay?”

  “I miss my parents and my brother, of course. We all did it hard when we lost Andoni, but when I took over the business here, after my grandfather died, it gave me a new purpose in life. The business is expanding rapidly, and I have a great extended family and love being part of my Greek culture. My mom and dad visit a couple of times a year, and Alex and his fiancé Mara are coming next month.”

  “I don’t think being split between two homes, two parents, would be as good as being with just one parent who loved them completely,” she said, holding his gaze.

  “People do it all the time,” he said, trying to force raw emotion from his voice. “And imagine how rich the girls’ lives would be with two people who love them.”

  “They’ll have a whole lot of people to love them in Brentwood Bay,” she said softly. “All my old friends, my foster parents and my foster sister, Claudia, and her children, your mom and dad and Alex, too, if that’s what they wanted. They could have the love of an extended family and people who knew their gorgeous mother. Those are the things that I longed for when I went from a family of three to just me on my own when my parents died.”

  “I’d move to the States if that was the best thing for the girls,” he said. “No question. But that’s not the issue right now. First, we must have custody assigned and then we can work out where they, and we, will live.”

  Her mouth formed a perfect O, and she let out an enormous yawn. “You’re right, we don’t need to go over this now, Markus,” she said with a comforting smile. “We’re both exhausted. We’ll work this out in the clear light of day in the next few weeks.”

  He nodded. “Why don’t you get some sleep?” he said, as her eyelids seemed to droop. “I think it’ll be a rough night, and there’s no sense in both of us being exhausted. We have to be up early to get to the doctor tomorrow, and one of us will need to be fit to drive.”

  “I’m fine, truly I am.” She let out another yawn. “I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been when you were on your own with the girls, and I won’t let you go through that again. We can take turns to have a sleep during the day tomorrow.”

  They were silent for a moment, but both babies were still grizzling.

  “I’ve learned something since I’ve had the girls,” Markus said, wanting to connect with her before she went to bed. He held his index finger under Zoë’s hand, and she gripped it hard.

  “What’s that?”

  “How, for the first time in my life, I’m making decisions for someone else and the pressure of that is huge.”

  “I know,” said Liv. “I keep thinking that what we do now, the plans we make for the girls, could be very right or so very wrong.”

  “But we’re already giving them what they need. Unconditional love,” Markus said. “And if we keep that at the forefront of everything, make all our decisions with that in our hearts, we can’t go wrong.”

  Zoë started to cry again, and he stood and moved to the kitchen. “I think I’ll give her the rest of that bottle and then put her down. How’s Phoebe?”

  When Liv didn’t answer, he pulled a warm bottle from the hot water and gave it to Zoë before snuggling her in the crook of his arm. He walked back over to Liv to find she’d dozed off, her head drooping and a ringlet across her face.

  The way she sat, nurturing and protecting the child in her arms, caused a powerful bolt of understanding to singe his mind. She loved these girls as much as he did. They deserved to have her in their lives.

  He thought back to his very first night in this house. The place he’d renovated after moving from Paris. Alone, and sleepless, he’d followed the path of the full moon down the cliffs to the bay, and then he’d sat on the beach, the full moon calling to him and teasing him with its rays of hope and promise.

  Back then, he’d wanted to raise his head and howl for his loss; he’d been aching for the part of his heart Liv had torn away when she’d left him. Instead, he’d stripped off his clothes, given in to the moon and waded into the welcoming waters of the Mediterranean. With aching arms and bursting lungs, he’d swum out to Aphrodite’s rock and then swum three times around it, all while thinking of the legend and the task he needed to complete to gain that great elusive thing—everlasting love. With Liv.

  It had seemed so possible—so simple and magical—that he could make an eternal connection with the one woman he wanted more than anything else in the world. The woman who’d said it was finished, the woman who then lived thousands of miles away.

  And when he’d completed the final lap, he’d stopped.

  For long, long minutes, he’d trod water in a shaft of moonlight, while the tears from his eyes had mixed with the salt of the sea. And on that hot summer’s night, he couldn’t have imagined she’d be here one day, in this house, with two babies he’d fallen in love with. Or that he would want to do this thing together with her—be a part of the girls’ lives forever—even if he could never win her heart.

  Liv dreamed she was reaching out to Markus as he moved off into the distance. As she called, I want you, I need you, his shape grew dimmer and dimmer, his black hair whipped by a building wind as he carried the girls away in his arms.

  Further and further, she stretched her arm toward him, all the while calling, I need you, I want you. The words that had been buried inside her so long they sounded like stone hitting glass. He couldn’t hear her, he wasn’t listening, and instead of bringing him closer, those words seemed to increase the distance between them.

  She kept trying to touch any part of him, willing him back to her, but he floated into the distance, the girls looking up at him and smiling. And then, as she made one last, supreme effort to reach him, her arm snapped and pain screamed through her.

  Something tickled under her chin, and she willed her eyes open. Her arm was pinned against her slumped body, still in the chair where she’d been holding Phoebe, but the front pack was empty and a woolen blanket lay across her torso. In a cold, sick panic, she leaped to her feet.

  Where was the baby? Had she dropped her, squashed her? Shaking her head in horror as she tried to lift the fog of sleep, she picked up a cushion while her heart hammered painfully against her hollow chest. Had she left her somewhere?
But as the blanket slid to the floor, reason and logic slowed her heart.

  She’d fallen asleep, and Markus had taken the baby from her.

  Disgust that she’d given in to her tiredness coursed through her. The bone-deep weariness was still there, but she should’ve resisted it, should’ve stayed awake to help Markus do everything with the girls as she’d said she would.

  Her ears strained. Were they still awake? Had he taken them out somewhere? Silence cloaked the house and her watch flashed two thirty. It was inky dark, except where a fat slice of moon threw rays of light onto the shiny floor.

  Warmth shrouded her as she thought of Markus watching her sleep and then covering her exhausted body. Even though he’d dealt with the girls on his own, he’d taken care of her, just as he’d always done in the past. An ache of tenderness stole into her heart.

  Tip-toeing across the marble floor, she jumped when she stood on a squeaky toy, and her heart raced as she held her breath.

  Hearing nothing, she carried on down the hallway, breathing in the soothing smell of vanilla that grew stronger every day.

  Light washed out from the open doorway of the girls’ room onto the rug running the length of the hallway. She crept forward until she could peek into the room, expecting to see Markus with a baby in his arms.

  Instead, the vision in front of her stole her breath and sent ribbons of love unfurling throughout her, and she fought the tears that surged from the deepest part of her.

  Markus sat on the floor between the two cribs with a baby wrap draped over his shoulder and a streak of something white down the front of his shirt.

  His head was thrown back, resting on the wall, and his eyes were closed, the inky frill of lashes on his cheeks a contrast to the tan of his face.

  Now and then a deep breath came from between his slightly parted lips. Despite the fact he must’ve been exhausted, his face was relaxed—smooth except for the dark stubble across his chin.

  The beauty of him asleep would’ve been enough to cause the rip deep within her chest, but when Liv moved closer and saw the rest of his body, she hitched a burning breath.

  Each of his arms was extended through the bars of the cribs on either side of him, and the fingers on each hand were outstretched and covering the bodies of Phoebe and Zoë.

  Like identical angels, the babies lay soft in sleep under the unfailing protection of this wonderful man. They were both turned toward him as if trying to get closer, their blankets tucked so carefully around their small, resting bodies. Liv could feel the love between the three of them beating and pulsing within the room.

  She let her tears fall. Tears for what the girls had been through, what Markus had so selflessly done for them, and for what she—Liv—had lost with him.

  How could she not have known this part of him back then? How could it be that the very parts of him she’d thought were missing—the selflessness, the responsibility, those things she thought she’d never see—be now directly in her face? Had she got it so very wrong?

  Regret and confusion webbed tightly around her heart.

  She reached out a hand, left it hovering just above his body, and willed the feeling of him back—for the sensations that had haunted her for the last two years to jump the void and settle softly on her skin. The warmth and strength of him, the way his muscles used to move beneath the pads of her fingers.

  She closed her eyes and imagined she could touch him and be a part of him as she’d been before. If she knelt by his side, she could so easily lean forward and press a kiss to the lips she’d tasted a thousand times— the sweet taste of him part of her DNA.

  Memories weren’t enough, and the inches that now lay between her fingers and his body may as well have been the thousands of miles they’d been apart until now. The difference this time was that Liv could feel the possibility of that connection, the sweet threat of allowing herself to touch him, to fall into his arms again, and she wasn’t sure for how long she could pretend otherwise.

  But she couldn’t let it happen. Not just because the stakes were so much higher now the girls were involved, but also because she couldn’t hurt Markus again. He’d been hurt deeply once, and although it had been her only option at the time, she wouldn’t do that to him again. By leaving him, she’d believed she was saving herself from a heartbreak she’d barely survived when her parents had been killed. She hadn’t been able to face losing Markus the same way after she’d begged him to give up all the risky things that could get him killed. But she hadn’t been able to face living in that constant state of fear—anticipating a phone call from an unknown number telling her he’d died—either.

  This desire for him that was filling her body like a downpour on drought-stricken land had to be suppressed. He’d asked her to marry him so she could stay, so Phoebe and Zoë could have a mother. Not for any other reason.

  He’d grown up, moved on—he’d even given up the thrill seeking that had been so much a part of him before. He didn’t see her as a lover, or even a friend, and she had to remember that for the safety of her heart and for the girls who’d already lost one parent. If she and Markus started a relationship that disintegrated again, then the girls would lose another. She wouldn’t let it happen.

  She knelt down by his feet and bathed in the joy of watching him—watching him with his girls—and how it all looked so natural, so predestined. And a fresh thought unraveled before tightening around her heart. This was a bond that should never be tested, a bond that must never be undone. A father-daughter connection had been established and it mustn’t be compromised.

  She loved Phoebe and Zoë so deeply and could feel their personalities becoming a part of her. But how could she keep fighting to take them from Markus when the love he shared with the girls was so palpable, so beautifully in her face every day?

  How could she even contemplate asking him to give these angel girls up?

  7

  When Liv dragged herself dripping from the shower the next morning, the shrill cries of both babies kick-started her faster than an espresso coffee. Petro’s singsong voice traveled through the hall way as he tried to calm them. She wiped the water out of her eyes and reached for a robe, determined to get to the girls before Markus woke.

  She hadn’t woken him when the girls cried for a bottle at five thirty. He’d have been exhausted after last night, and she’d wanted to let him sleep as long as he could. He must’ve hauled himself off to bed at some point because the blanket she’d covered him with had been discarded in the girls’ room.

  When she made it into the living room with straggly hair soaking her back, Petro was holding Zoë and rocking Phoebe in the cradle swing. Both girls were wailing at the top of their lungs.

  “I don’t know if they need more food or to be changed,” Petro said helplessly, his face drawn, eyes wide.

  “It’s okay, Petro.” She took Zoë from him and cuddled the little girl’s damp, pink cheek against her own. “I should’ve had my shower when they were asleep, but I thought they were settled.” She threw him a wobbly smile. “Sometimes it’s hard to know what they need.”

  “Ah, moro mou,” he soothed as he bent down and picked up Phoebe from the swing. “I think they were looking for you or Markus.”

  Liv paced up and down, whispering quiet words to Zoë, but the girls crying out of control always made her tense. Sometimes they seemed to work each other up and it was so hard to get them settled. Hopefully the nightmare of last night wouldn’t continue today. Her head throbbed simply imagining it.

  Through her splintered thoughts she managed to remember what worked for her when she was stressed or frightened. The same thing that had set her on her path to becoming a parfumier. Breathing in a calming scent, something that reminded her of a quiet, stress-free time, slowed her heart rate and encouraged her to take deeper breaths. Maybe it would work for the girls too? She could work on some fragrances, or essential oils later, but what could she use now?

  Looking around, she saw one of Markus
’s jackets discarded over a chair. Briefly, she remembered the orderliness of this place when she’d arrived, the austere precision of everything. Now it felt like a home, with toys in piles in the corner, shoes in a heap by the door, the scent of flowers and coffee in the air.

  Something she and Markus had created.

  A tremble touched her lips and tears danced across her eyes as she picked up the jacket and immediately smelled his essence—a scent that was indescribable, but a scent that was all Markus and still had the capacity to calm her. Carefully, she wrapped the jacket around the fussing Zoë’s tiny body.

  As if by magic, the little girl started to quieten, her grizzles turning to gurgles as a feisty little fist opened and closed on the fabric.

  “That’s a miracle!” Petro said, wide-eyed. “You are a genius, Liv!”

  If it worked for one, would it work for two?

  “Here, Petro,” she called above Phoebe’s wail. “Let’s swap.” She passed the quiet Zoë back to Petro then picked up one of Markus’s shirts from a laundry basket nearby. Would it still smell of him? She laid the shirt over the wide expanse of the couch, placed Phoebe on it, and then wrapped her up. And just as miraculously, as soon as she was cocooned in the soft cotton shirt, Phoebe’s cries became quiet and she turned her face as if to get closer to the fabric.

  Bald reality gripped Liv’s heart.

  The bonding in the first few days that Markus had talked about had happened in such a basic and primal way. These girls felt safe and protected by him. It was evident right here that Phoebe and Zoë knew who had spent every day with them in the last few weeks, cared for them . . . loved them.

  How could she take them away from him when the deep connection they had was so obvious?

  They were still and quiet, wrapped in the clothes of a man who had put everything in his life aside for them, and she couldn’t take them away from that. Ever.

  The same thought still swirled in her mind two hours later as she clutched a breakfast tray in one hand and knocked on Markus’s bedroom door with the other.