“I’ve decided to go ahead with the blood and DNA testing.”
Chapter Fourteen
Garrett paced the hall outside the ICU.
Hours had passed since Lanie’s confrontation with Walter. She was gone now, gone home to Deer Creek with Dalton. Walter was in recovery, awaiting transfer to a regular hospital room. He’d made it through the surgery with flying colors, according to his doctor.
The old man would be happy to hear the news that Lanie had decided to go through with the testing that would confirm Dalton was his grandson.
Walter had won.
But Garrett couldn’t shake from his heart the sense that Walter had really lost. And he wasn’t the only one. Garrett had lost, too.
You can’t do anything about the past, but you can change the future—if you want to. Lanie’s words echoed over and over in his mind.
He knew she hadn’t just meant those words for Walter. She’d meant them for him, too.
But wasn’t that what he’d been trying to do? He’d once given his love and trust freely, openly. Now he was proceeding with more prudence. What kind of fool would repeat the same mistake twice?
If he gave Lanie what she wanted, he could end up in exactly the same situation he’d been in with Vanessa. He could end up hurting and alone.
Garrett stopped short at the end of the hall. He was hurting and alone now, wasn’t he? He’d turned his back on Lanie, but that hadn’t made him hurt any less.
If he gave her what she wanted, he was taking a huge risk. But if he didn’t, he was dooming himself to the very future he was trying to avoid. And he would risk passing up a chance at true happiness. Just because it had been a mistake in the past didn’t have to mean it was a mistake now.
I’ve decided to go ahead with the blood and DNA testing.
Cold fingers wrapped around his heart, and he realized why he was so uncomfortable with her decision to have Dalton undergo the testing—because it took away his choice. He’d had a choice about offering his faith to her before, and now it was gone. She wasn’t asking for his faith anymore.
He was too late.
She’d given up on him.
Lanie walked the floors, back and forth, singing softly to Dalton. He was unusually fussy. It had been a tense day, with their unexpected trip into Austin and the confrontation in Walter’s hospital room. She hoped that was all that was bothering Dalton, and that he wasn’t flirting with colic.
She was feeling pretty disturbed herself. The calm that had fallen over her in Walter’s room had receded into a lingering melancholy. She was glad the encounter was behind her—it was something she’d known was coming, eventually. But her triumph in facing Walter was overpowered by the deep sense of loss that came with seeing Garrett.
She couldn’t kick the hope that it wasn’t too late for them, that Garrett could learn to love and trust again—if he wanted to.
She sniffled, reaching up to dash a traitorous tear before it spilled down her cheek. She was too romantic. It had gotten her in trouble before, and she was surely in deep water now. She wanted to turn Garrett into a knight in shining armor, riding up on a white charger to declare his undying devotion—just like in one of the fairy tales he had accused her of believing in. No doubt her grandmother had read her too many fanciful stories as a child.
Garrett wasn’t going to come riding up. She needed to get over it, she chastised herself sternly.
Dalton’s fussing turned to flat-out bawling just then.
“You’re not happy, either, are you, sweetie?” she murmured. She checked his diaper again, then tried to feed him again, but he wasn’t wet or hungry. He didn’t have a temperature. Why was he so cranky? He’d been increasingly out of sorts all evening.
Lame felt like crying herself. Patting and jiggling him, she went upstairs to rummage through her baby guidebook for a clue to her son’s behavior.
“Okay, you’re probably too old to be getting colicky now,” she decided, scanning the book. “Thank goodness.” Dalton was a lively baby, but not a regular crier. “Early teething. Hmm.”
She used his next howl to check his mouth and saw a speck of white erupting from his lower gum. It was barely visible, and she wasn’t surprised she hadn’t noticed it before.
“Aha.”
She studied the book for a few more minutes, deciding to follow the medicate-then-distract plan.
She could use some distraction herself. A few minutes later, after giving Dalton a dose of infant liquid acetaminophen and rubbing his gums with a teething gel, she congratulated herself on a well-stocked medicine cabinet and set off for a walk. It was a warm summer evening, still light out, and the baby book promised a stroll in fresh air was a surefire mood enhancer for fussy babies.
A once-around-the-block had a miraculous effect. Strapped in his stroller, Dalton quieted, seemingly entranced by the chirping of birds in the trees and the hum of the occasional car passing by. On the second trip around the block, even Lanie stared to feel a little better. She’d needed the fresh air, too. Sunset deepened into dusk, and the soft light soothed her frazzled nerves. Dalton had been lulled into sleep by the time she rounded the corner of her street.
Her stomach quivered when she saw a luxury vehicle parked in front of her house. It looked exactly like Garrett’s car.
But it couldn’t be.
She pushed the stroller a little faster, her heart pounding.
Garrett spotted her in his rearview mirror. He opened the car door and stood.
She stopped, staring at him from the sidewalk. Her lips parted slightly and her eyes widened in an expression of utter astonishment. Her gold hair hung free around her shoulders, bared by the sleeveless white top she wore over jean shorts.
“What are you doing here?” she asked after a long, silent beat. Then concern flashed across her face. “Is it Walter? Did something happen? Did he—?”
“No,” he rushed to assure her. “Walter’s fine. He sailed through the surgery and is expected to make a full recovery.” He walked around the car to join her on the sidewalk. He noticed Dalton sleeping in his stroller. “That’s not why I’m here.” He hesitated, not sure how to go on, only knowing he had to find the words. His future depended on it. “I got here a few minutes ago, but you weren’t home, so I decided to wait.”
“I took Dalton out for a walk,” Lanie said, still looking at him blankly. “He’s cutting his first tooth and he was really grouchy. Luckily the walk seems to have done the thick.”
“Can you get him out of the stroller without waking him up?” Garrett asked.
She blinked. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”
“How would you feel about a fresh pair of arms to rock him to sleep if he wakes up when you get him inside?” he asked.
Lanie tilted her head, stared at him suspiciously. “You didn’t come all the way out here to find out if I needed help getting Dalton to sleep,” she commented sensibly.
“You’re right.”
“Do you mind if we walk?” he suggested, “I have something to tell you.”
She nodded. “Okay.” Dalton started moving in his seat, his little mouth curving into a big yawn, his eyelids fluttering. “Looks like Dalton could use another trip around the block, anyway.”
They moved forward together, Lanie pushing the stroller. Garrett keeping pace beside her. Dalton fell asleep again.
Garrett didn’t say anything for the first few minutes, and she sneaked a peek at his profile. He looked lost in thought, his features hard. shuttered. Then he looked at her, and she saw his eyes weren’t hard and shuttered at all. They were filled with an emotion she couldn’t begin to decipher.
She wished he would speak. Not knowing why he’d come was almost unbearable. She was hoping... And she didn’t want to hope.
It was too painful.
“Imagine you’re in a relationship,” he began slowly, his voice low, serious. He was staring straight ahead as he walked. “You’re in love, or at least you
think you are. And you think she’s in love with you, too. Everything seems perfect—until one day you come home, walk into your bedroom and your heart is ripped out of your chest.”
“Oh, Garrett.” She stopped the stroller, not sure what to say, how to respond to the pain in his voice. She already knew what had happened in his marriage, and hearing it again wouldn’t change anything. “You don’t have to explain—”
“Yes, I do.” He kept walking, and she caught up with him. “Imagine you withdraw. You keep your feelings inside, locked up, safe. And you do it for so long that it’s not even a conscious thing anymore. It’s just a way of life. Or more accurately, a way of not living.”
Garrett stopped and stared at Lanie. She was watching silently, so he took a deep breath and kept going.
“Then one day you meet someone who starts picking at those locks,” he continued. “They make you feel, and it’s scary and painful. But you want to feel, because when it’s not scary and painful, it’s bright and wonderful, alive and real.”
“Garrett—” A tear slid down Lanie’s cheek.
“Let me finish.” He reached out, captured the tear with his thumb. “You asked me if I wanted to end up like Walter. I don’t. I really don’t.” He cupped her face in his hands, stared straight into her shimmering eyes. “I love you, Lanie,” he whispered roughly. “I love you, and I trust you. I want to feel everything you make me feel. Tell me it’s not too late for me to tell you that. Tell me it still matters.”
“Of course it matters,” she exclaimed, her voice thick with emotion. “It’s all that matters.”
He closed his eyes briefly in relief, in silent thanks. Then opened them to gaze on her dear face.
“I love you,” he repeated. “I want to tell you that every day, until you’re so sick of it that you beg me to stop.”
“I’d never do that,” she promised, tears tracking down both cheeks.
He slid his arms down to her waist. She let go of the push bar of the stroller and buried herself in his embrace—holding him, just holding him, and loving him as he held her back. She could hear the frantic pounding of his heart, keeping time with her own.
“I love you!” he shouted out for all the world to hear when he pulled back, shaking off the shackles of his fear once and for all.
She laughed through her tears. “I love you, too, but you’re going to wake up Dalton,” she pointed out.
Dalton made a little mewl then, stretching and opening his eyes. His face brightened when he spotted Garrett, and he reached his chubby arms up.
“He wants you,” Lanie said.
Garrett unbuckled the baby from the stroller and lifted him up. “I love your mommy,” he told Dalton.
Then he shot a quick glance at Lanie.
“Excuse me,” Garrett said. “I have to ask Dalton something.”
Lanie lifted a brow.
“Dalton, seeing as how you’re the closest male relative, and I want to do it all up proper, I’d like to request your mother’s hand in marriage. Is that all right with you, bud?”
Dalton gurgled.
Garrett’s soft, tender gaze moved to Lanie. Happiness danced up and down her spine.
“I think it’s okay with the little guy,” Garrett said. With the baby braced in the crook of one arm, he knelt down right there on the sidewalk. “Lanie, will you many me?”
“Yes,” she breathed, her eyes alight with the kind of joy that lasted forever.
Garrett rose and pulled her into his arms again, baby and all. He found her mouth, claiming it and her with all the passion of true love.
And they would have stayed that way a lot longer if Dalton hadn’t put up a squealing protest.
“Timing, boy,” Garrett scolded him lightly. “I’ve got to teach you about timing....”
Epilogue
Lanie stared at her reflection in the gilded mirror of the dressing room. The white lace gown she wore was nothing short of magical—as was everything else in her life.
She looked—and felt—like a princess, and not because she was getting married in the most majestic cathedral in Austin. Not even because Garrett had arranged for them to be whisked away in a horse-drawn carriage afterward. She felt like a princess because she was in love, and this time she was truly loved in return.
It had been two months since Garrett’s proposal. He’d been in a rush to marry, but he’d insisted on taking the time to design the fairy-tale wedding he insisted she deserved. She knew he’d hired a fleet of wedding planners to pull it off, and she loved him all the more for it. But she looked forward to the simple life they intended to lead in Deer Creek following the ceremony—with her bed-and-breakfast, her baby and her new husband. Garrett was already planning and adjusting his work schedule to fit the new life they would build together.
“Lanie! It’s time!” She heard Patty calling from outside the door of her dressing room. Lanie pulled Dalton away from her breast. He gave her a milky smile. Adjusting her gown into place after the last-minute feeding, she rose, smoothing the ornate dress as she gave it one last check in the mirror, and walked to the door. Butterflies skipped inside her when she thought of all the people waiting in the church sanctuary, all the eyes that would soon be upon her.
Walter stood in the hall, his face hard as ever but his eyes soft as they landed on his grandson. The test results had provided the evidence he’d required, but he hadn’t ever said another word to Lanie about his money. She wondered if her words to him that day in his hospital room had found a home in his heart, but she didn’t expect him to ever say so. It was enough that he’d come to the wedding. It was enough that he wanted to hold his grandson through the ceremony. Lanie knew that love took its own time, found its own way.
Walter sat down in the back of the church and, after a quick flurry of activity and organizing, Patty marched up the aisle as matron of honor. Hayden took Lanie’s arm, and she looked toward the altar, the sea of guests blurring on the periphery of her vision. Her very own Prince Charming awaited her—his face aglow with pure love, complete trust and undiluted happiness. Her nervousness dissolved. She felt sure, steady.
She saw the future in his eyes, and she stepped toward it with wonder and awe.
ISBN: 9781472070463
THE BILLIONAIRE AND THE BASSINET
© Suzanne McMinn 2013
First Published in Great Britain in 2013
Harlequin (UK) Limited
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
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The Billionaire and the Bassinet Page 13