“I could work with you.”
Sloan nodded. “You could.” But he said nothing else.
“Well, what do you want me to do, Sloan? I have a kid. She comes first. I need to be there for her.”
“What about Beth?”
Cole stiffened.
“Is she going to give up university to move to Willow Creek? Are you going to let her go if she chooses not to?”
Anger pooled in the pit of his stomach. “You just want me to leave so you can have your family!”
It was cruel and he regretted saying it the moment it was out, but Sloan didn’t so much as bat an eyelash.
“You are my family, Cole,” he said evenly. “I love Calla, but I would never take your place in her life. Whether you stay or go, that will never change.”
Cole peered into the sweet face of his little girl and felt an overwhelming urge to cry all over again. Guilt twined with defeat and uncertainty and all he could think over and over again was, “I’m not ready.” He raised his tear filled eyes to Sloan. “I’m not … I can’t do this, Sloan. I can’t take care of her. I don’t know how.”
Sloan gave him the smallest of grins. “You think I do? This scares the shit out of me, but you just have to do it.”
Cole shook his head. “You don’t understand. I want a family, but not now. I can’t do this now.” He scrubbed ruthlessly at the tears running down his face. “I don’t even know how this happened. I used a condom!”
“Yes, well, next time, don’t use an expired one,” Sloan muttered. He sighed. “You need to decide what you’re going to do, Cole. I will support your decision. I will be there for you and her until the day I die. But I won’t let you jump in and out of her life whenever the mood suits you.”
Self-loathing sharpened his tone. “Unlike you, I didn’t have nine months to prepare for this!”
Sloan snorted. “Trust me, nine months or ten years, the doubts and fears don’t magically go away.”
Calla stirred. She whined and opened flawless blue eyes. Her little legs pumped as she demanded something he couldn’t offer her.
Cole looked to Sloan, panic tight in his chest.
“She awake?” Lily struggled upright. Her sleepy eyes lit up when she saw Cole. “Hey!”
Sick to the stomach, Cole looked away. He rose to his feet, gently passed Calla to Sloan and left the room without a word.
Chapter Fourteen ~ Lily
Calla Karen McClain slept in her mother’s arms without a care in the world. It hadn’t been like that only fifteen minutes before when the nurse had come into the room to show Lily how to give the baby a bath. Calla had nearly brought the hospital roof down. She had only stopped once she was bundled back up and fed.
Lily had never known it was possible to love someone you only just met. The tiny thing was a stranger and yet Lily would kill for her. It was remarkable how something so small could hold such a huge chunk of her heart.
“So you’re the little monster who kept kicking my bladder,” she said teasingly while stroking impossibly delicate cheeks with a single bent finger. “We meet at last.”
Calla kept on slumbering.
Baby still cradled to her chest, Lily lay her own head back and closed her eyes.
Sloan had gone to pick her mother up. Her father was at work, but promised to swing by on his way home. Her mother refused to wait. Cole hadn’t returned since leaving the night before and Lily had no idea where Beth was. No one else had come to see her since, and the room was lonely. She tried watching TV, but there were only three channels and none of them played anything worth watching. She stared out the window, but she was on the fifth floor and all she could make out were miles of white and the occasional bushel of treetops. She hoped Sloan would return soon, but more than that, she prayed Cole would come back. All her calls had gone to voicemail. She had left so many messages, she was practically stalking him. Finally, she had decided to give him space. He would come around when he was ready.
She hoped.
A soft knock jolted her awake. Her eyes popped open and she turned her head to the door. Beth smiled at her uncertainty over a bouquet of white lisianthus and pink bouvardia.
“Hey, did I wake you?”
Glad to see someone, Lily shook her head. “No, please come in.”
Beth almost crept into the room, her gaze dropping from Lily to the baby in her arms. “She is beautiful!” The flowers were set down on the nightstand next to the display of roses from Sloan. “What’s her name?”
“Calla,” Lily said, completely aware of the adoration her voice took every time she said her baby’s name.
Beth beamed. “Aw, I love it. It’s a type of lily, isn’t it?”
Lily shrugged. “Cole picked it. It was his mother’s name.”
Some of the other girl’s smile faded. “Cole was here?”
“He came to see the baby last night, but he left and I haven’t seen him since.” A cold feeling seeped through Lily. “I was hoping he was with you.”
Beth shook her head. “We … we had a fight and I left.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Lily said, meaning it. “I hope it wasn’t because…” she trailed off, rolled her eyes. “Of course it was.”
“No!” Beth said quickly. “I mean, a little, but—”
“I know how this must look, but it’s not exactly how it looks,” Lily tried to explain.
“I know. Cole told me.”
Not sure what else to say, both lapsed into silence, watching Calla sleep.
“Where’s Sloan?” Beth finally asked.
“He went to get my mom,” Lily said. “She’s excited to meet Calla.”
Beth smiled. “He’s a really great guy.”
Lily nodded.
“How long have you, you know, liked him?”
Lily shrugged. “It seems like forever. I guess I really realized it when I was about thirteen.”
Both of Beth’s fine eyebrows lifted. “That’s a long time.” She averted her eyes and moved towards the window, becoming a dark shape against the brightness. “And you never thought to tell him you loved him in all that time?”
“I thought about it,” she murmured, watching the girl curiously. “But it was Calla who actually brought us together. I don’t think I would ever have had the courage otherwise.”
“So you slept with his brother instead?”
Lily stiffened, not at the question, but because of the way it was said. There was no anger, or disgust. It was simply matter of fact.
“Cole and I have been friends our entire lives,” Lily said at long last. “Besides him, the only people I trust so completely are Sloan and my parents. I never had any delusion that Sloan and I would ever be together and I wanted my first time to be with someone I knew I wouldn’t regret in the morning.”
Beth turned away from the window, her expression unreadable. “You don’t regret what you did?”
A wiry smile pulled the corners of Lily’s mouth. “No, it was because of what happened that Sloan and I are together. It’s because of that night I have Calla. I do regret not telling Cole when I had the chance and finding a different way to keep him in school. But nothing else.”
Her long mane of brown hair shimmered when Beth cocked her head to the side. “I hate that I respect that.” She sighed and moved away from the window to stand at the foot of the bed. “I went to a motel last night, hoping to clear my thoughts and decide what to do next. I don’t hate the thought that Cole has a child with another woman. What I hate is that it’s you. I really liked you, right from the beginning. I liked that you were so sweet and clearly so not interested in Cole. I guess I felt safe and that was stupid.”
“Beth—”
“I asked you if there was anyone back home and you said no, and that whole time, you were pregnant with Cole’s baby.”
“There is no one back home for Cole, especially not me,” Lily tried to explain. “It was one night and that was all it would ever be because it was the weirdest exp
erience either of us had ever experienced. We used a condom, for crying out loud. This,” she held up Calla, “was an accident.” She took a small breath. “I love Sloan, Beth. Cole loves you.”
“I just don’t know what to think right now.” She flicked hair off her shoulders and adjusted the strap on her purse. “I’m going back today. I just came to see the baby and congratulate you.” She hesitated before adding, “Take care, Lily.”
“Beth, wait!” she called after the girl. “I meant what I said, Cole loves you. I’ve never seen him like this with anyone. I hope you’ll at least think about giving him a chance to make things right between you.”
Beth, standing in the doorway, said nothing. She never so much as glanced back. But Lily saw her shoulders tense. Then she was gone.
Lily peered down at the tiny face in her arms. “What a mess,” she mumbled.
Her mother and Sloan arrived ten minutes after Beth’s departure. He pushed the wheelchair as close to the bed as possible, then took Calla from Lily and placed her gently in the woman’s waiting arms.
“Oh, Lily, she is beautiful!” Her mother was crying even before Calla was in her grasps, but now she was weeping so hard, Sloan had to pass her a tissue. “She has your nose.”
Lily snorted. “That seems to be the only thing. She’s all McClain.”
Sloan perched a hip on the edge of her bed and grinned. “She’s a girl,” he reminded her. “You have that in common.”
Lily nudged him gently in the hip with her foot. “Quiet.”
“What color are her eyes?” her mom asked.
“Blue,” Lily answered.
Her mom nodded. “Yours were brown right from the start, like mine.”
“Like I said, all McClain.”
Lily watched as her mom stroked Calla’s head, touched her cheeks, traced the length of her tiny nose and counted her fingers, the ones she’d wiggled free from the swaddle with a dull sense of dread.
“Mom?”
It took the other woman a few minutes to bring herself to pry her gaze away from the baby, and not for very long.
“Hmm?”
“There’s something we need to tell you.”
It might have been Lily’s tone, but her mother’s head came up and she was all focus now.
“What’s wrong? Is there something wrong with—?”
“No!” Lily said quickly. “Calla’s perfect.”
Her mom relaxed, but only a fraction. “Okay.”
Lily looked to Sloan, needing the confidence to continue. He took her foot and gave it a gentle squeeze.
It had been something that had plagued Lily the entire night, whether or not to tell people Cole was the father. While the rest of the town and their opinions meant nothing to her, she wanted her parents to know before they heard it down the grape vine. But it was that same uncertainty that stopped her. What if Cole didn’t want to be the father? She would change everyone’s life for nothing. Yet, deep down, she knew she should tell her parents. She knew they wouldn’t care. They would just be happy that Calla was there.
“What is it?” her mother demanded.
“It’s about Cole.”
“What about me?” And there he was, a hesitant figure in the doorway, clutching a custard yellow teddy bear. He looked from Lily to Sloan as though waiting for someone to yell at him. “Hey.”
“You came!” Lily struggled to sit higher on the pillows.
With one hand holding Calla, her mother used the other to turn her chair ever so slightly so she could see Cole.
“Would you like to hold her?”
Everything on Cole’s face said he wanted nothing more. He looked like a man offered something so incredibly precious it hurt to look directly at it. Seeing him so torn pierced Lily through the heart.
“I—I can wait.”
Her mother didn’t push him as she went back to running loving strokes over Calla’s cheeks.
“Are you going to come in?” Lily teased him.
His fingers trembled anxiously around the bear, but he gingerly took a step forward, then another. He stopped when he was standing next to her mother’s chair.
There was a forced sort of tension in the air the rest of the day. Her mom stayed with Lily until her father came. Her mother held Calla every chance she got, relinquishing her hold only long enough for Calla to be fed. Lily didn’t mind. Seeing the unimaginable joy and delight flicker across her mother’s face every time Calla so much as yawned made the separation worth it.
Her father, a big bear of a man, took the baby from his wife and held her with such tenderness in those giant hands that it didn’t quite seem possible. The blinding glow of love that shone over his face brought tears to Lily’s eyes. He fussed over every sound she made, demanding to know if they should get a nurse. It was harder to get Calla back from him then it had been from her mother. He was like a child not wanting to give a toy up at the store. But he did, reluctantly. Then he and her mother said goodbye, kissed Lily and Calla on the cheeks, shook hands with Sloan and left, leaving her alone with the two sitting at the foot of her bed.
While Sloan had made the effort of making conversation with her parents, Cole had spent the entire day mute, his eyes trained on Calla, the yellow teddy bear still in his lap. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts and Lily was afraid to ask what those were.
“Are you tired?” Sloan asked her.
She was, but she wanted this over with at the same time. “No.” She looked past Sloan to Cole. “Would you like to hold her?”
Cole rose without a word and moved to the bed. He set the bear down next to Lily on the cot before reaching for Calla.
He held her as though she were made of fine glass and even the slightest pressure could shatter her. The lines that had dug groves across his brow and around his mouth faded and for the first time since his arrival, he looked at peace.
“I’m staying.”
It was only two small words and yet the power behind them sent Sloan out of his chair and Lily’s jaw dropping.
“What?” Sloan roared.
While at the same time, Lily shouted, “No!”
Cole looked up, all calm. “I’ve already decided,” he said evenly. “I’m going to finish school, because you were right,” he turned to Sloan. “I can’t take care of her the way she deserves without a really good education. But I declined Mr. Boyd’s offer for the junior position.”
“Cole!” Lily felt her heart sink. “No.”
He shook his head. “All my life, I watched you sacrifice for me. I watched you take every beating so I wouldn’t. I watched you always give me the bigger portion of everything, sometimes even going without so I would eat. You might not think I noticed, but I did.” He continued even when Sloan ran a hand over his face and turned towards the window. “I got as far as I am, because I was so scared I would disappoint you.”
“Jesus, Cole.” Sloan’s voice was low, but thick. The hand he’d braced on the window frame tightened. “You could never…”
“I know why you never told me about Calla,” Cole went on as though they hadn’t just heard Sloan’s voice break. “You were just doing what you always do, protecting me. But I can’t let you do that, not with this. Calla’s my responsibility. I’m going to do my best with her and if that means finishing school and getting a job somewhere close by, then that is what I’m going to do, because someone once told me that a man always takes care of what’s his.”
Sloan lowered his head as though in prayer.
“But this junior position was such a big deal,” Lily whispered.
Cole nodded. “Yeah, it was, but it would also mean moving almost eleven hours away and I won’t do that. Not now. I’m already going to miss a lot of her first two years being at school, I won’t miss more than that.” He pulled in a breath. “I left the swim team this morning. I called my coach and told him. I must not have been very good, because he didn’t sound disappointed.” He forced a smile that just as quickly slipped. “I’ll work har
der to make more trips home. I’ll call and Skype every day. I will be in her life … If you’ll let me.”
Lily’s face crumpled and she broke into tears. “Oh Cole, this isn’t what we wanted,” she cried. “We didn’t want you to give everything up.”
His smile was gentle, a little crooked. “When I left here last night, I started thinking about everything I would have to give up, the swim team, Barkley and Boyd, a future driving fast cars and even faster women…” His grin widened when she snorted a wet chuckle. “And you know what I realized? It didn’t feel like I was giving anything up. But when I thought of Calla and not being with her … I couldn’t. I didn’t want to imagine that future. I only met her and I already love her more than my own life. It’s not even a want, but this … this need. I need to be with her.”
Sloan moved away from the window and placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. His eyes were clear and focused.
“I told you last night, I will support whatever decision you make, and if you’re sure this is the path you want to take then I will support that as well.”
Cole swallowed audibly and the confidence he had wielded so boldly only moments ago wavered. “You’re not upset?”
Sloan offered his brother a small smile. “Because you’re doing the right thing, taking responsibility, and proving what an incredible man you’ve become? No. I’m proud of you, Cole.”
“I’m going to need your help,” Cole went on struggling visibly to control his voice. “I still have no idea what I’m doing.”
Sloan squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out together.” He looked past his brother to Lily. “All of us.”
Epilogue ~ Lily
Two Years Later…
Pocketing the keys to Sloan’s Mustang, Lily jogged up the steps to the front door, her mind a dizzying mess of a million things that needed to be done and still weren’t. She was vaguely aware of leaving the front door open as she jogged to the office, ticking items off in her head as she went, praying she didn’t forget any of them.
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