Sarah and the Single Dad

by Deanne Anders

  He couldn’t understand what was going on. He thought he had made it clear to Sarah that he couldn’t allow himself to make another mistake like he had the night before, but here she was offering to help him once more.

  “We’ll talk when I get back,” she said.

  Moving to where Davey slept, David ran his hand through the boy’s curls.

  He knew he needed to go change into his hospital scrubs, but he couldn’t seem to pull himself away from his son. He’d been so scared when Davey had been lost. He had almost lost the boy twice before he had received a transplant and the helplessness he had felt then had been paralyzing. The possibility that he could have to face that again was very real and he had no control over that, but to lose his son because he hadn’t been there when his son had needed him was unforgiveable and he wouldn’t let that happen again.

  “If he wakes up, tell him I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, then left the room.

  * * *

  Sarah sank into the chair David had occupied earlier. This had sounded much easier while she had been talking to Jack, but coming here and putting her heart back on the line again while she waited for David, while she acted like everything was fine, was the scariest thing she had ever done.

  “Sarah,” Davey called from the bed. “Where’s my daddy?”

  Sarah leaned over the bed and smiled down at Davey. David wasn’t the only one who had been scared the night the little boy had wandered off and gotten lost. “He had to go help a sick little girl. But he told me to tell you that he would be back as soon as he could. Until then you’re stuck with me.”

  “That’s okay. Is my daddy helping the little girl get a new heart like the doctor helped me?” he asked as he sat up in bed. “He says it’s very important that you get exactly the right heart.”

  “It is important and that’s exactly what he’s doing. Now what do you feel like eating this morning? I have it on good authority that the pancakes are the best thing on the menu,” she said as she hit the nurse call button so that she could let the nurse know that Davey was awake.

  “Pancakes are my favorite,” he said.

  “They’re my favorite too,” she said. “Now the two of us are going to have a long talk about taking horses without permission.”

  “Am I in big trouble?” he asked. She wanted to tell him no. She had been so happy when she found him that she would have forgiven him for anything, but things could have turned out differently. Davey had to learn that wandering off at any time without letting an adult know where he was going was not acceptable.

  “It’s not that you’re in trouble, it’s that you put yourself in danger and you scared me and your daddy.”

  By the time his pancakes had arrived, they had gone over all the rules of not taking off without telling an adult and not taking an animal that he didn’t have permission to take. And he had told her all about his adventure with Humphrey when he’d gone out to find his daddy. An adventure that had caused him to tire.

  “And then I saw this big house, but there wasn’t anybody there,” Davey said, then yawned. “I don’t know where all the people were. Do you?”

  “I’m afraid there hasn’t been anyone living in that house for a long time,” she said.

  “Why not?” he asked. Sarah watched as his eyes began to close.

  “Let’s leave that story for another day,” she said, and wondered if after the way she and David had left things if there would be another day?

  The door opened and she recognized one of the case managers with the organ procurement program as she slipped into the room.

  “I don’t want to disturb you, but the unit coordinator on the floor told me I could find you here,” she said as she looked over at Davey with more than a little curiosity.

  “Did you hear that they received a heart for Lindsey?” Sarah asked her.

  “I did and I checked on her mother. She’s holding up,” the woman said.

  “The secretary at the office heard I was coming by and asked me to drop this off,” she said as she held out a small envelope.

  Sarah stared at the envelope. Except for her discussion with Jack, she hadn’t thought about the notes she had mailed out to Cody’s organ recipients in days.

  She took the envelope and thanked the woman then stared at it after the door shut. She didn’t recognize the writing on the outside, but that didn’t mean anything. She’d decided to mail notes to all the recipients so that didn’t mean that this one came from Cody’s heart recipient. It could have come from any of the other recipients. There was only one way to find out.

  * * *

  David walked through the waiting room door with Dr. Benton at his side, exhausted but happy. It had been a difficult operation but successful and he was glad that he had been there.

  Looking around the waiting room at the families grouped together throughout the room, it took only a minute to pick out Lindsey’s mom sitting by herself. He knew that Sarah would usually have made time to sit with her if she hadn’t offered to sit with Davey.

  “Lindsey?” Hannah said as she walked toward them.

  “She’s fine,” Dr. Benton said, then went on to tell the child’s joyful mother what she could expect over the next few hours.

  Leaving them to talk, David excused himself and headed to check on his own son.

  Sarah stood as soon as he opened the door. He saw the empty breakfast tray across the room and then his son sleeping soundly and he relaxed. Davey was a picky eater when he was sick, but by the empty tray it looked like he was feeling better.

  “Lindsey?” Sarah asked.

  “She’s in recovery,” he said, then looked down at the paper she was clutching in her hand. Were those tears in her eyes?

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he moved closer, then stopped when she moved back from him. “What’s wrong?”

  “I received a note from Davey’s heart recipient,” she said, then wiped at her eyes.

  “It wasn’t the one I sent?” he said. Knowing that a part of her had been hoping that it had been.

  “No, his name is Joshua and he has blue eyes,” Sarah said, then sobbed again. Looking around for the standard cardboard box of tissues that was expected in a hospital room, he found one sitting beside Davey’s bed.

  “Why are you crying?” asked Davey from the bed. “Did Daddy hurt your feelings?”

  “No, your daddy didn’t do anything, sweetheart. I just got some news is all,” Sarah said as she walked over to where his son lay. He was hit by the perfect picture they made together. With their dark heads bent together the two of them could pass as mother and son.

  “I’m sorry you got some sad news,” Davey said, as he looked up at her.

  “It’s not sad news,” Sarah told him, “It’s just not what I was expecting. It was actually a nice note from a very nice lady. And now that your daddy is back I’m going to run and check on some of the other patients on the floor while you tell your daddy about all the rules of taking a horse we discussed earlier.”

  David watched as Sarah slipped out of the door before he could think of anything to say to get her to stay.

  “Are you sure you didn’t do anything to make Sarah cry?” his son asked.

  He started to deny that he had said anything that could have hurt her feelings, but he couldn’t. He’d told her in the most painful way that he didn’t have a place in his life for her because he had to put Davey first. He’d expected her to accept that things were just too complicated in his life for her. To understand that life with him and Davey would always be complicated. He’d thought she’d leave and not look back, but instead she’d shown up here today and entertained his son so that he could attend a surgery that she knew he’d want to be part of. Sarah was like no other woman he had met and yet he had sent her away. What kind of fool did that make him?

  “I don’t know, Davey
, but if I did I promise I’ll apologize,” he told his son, then decided it would be best to change the subject. “Tell me what you were doing while I was gone.”

  “Sarah told me that what I did when I took Humphrey and left without telling Mr. Jack was wrong and that if I ever do anything like that again I won’t get to ride any of the horses,” Davey said.

  “She’s right. What you did was wrong,” David said as he took a seat beside his son’s bed. “You had a lot of people worried about you.”

  “I think Sarah would be a very good mother. She used to have a little boy, Mr. Jack said, but he had to go to heaven.”

  “I’m sure Sarah would be a good mother,” David said.

  “Good, ’cause I think it would be a good thing if you got me a mother,” Davey said, then reached for the remote that operated the television.

  David didn’t know what to say to Davey’s announcement. Davey had never said anything before about a mother and he had always assumed that he had accepted that it would always be just him and his father, but apparently he had been wrong. He had more than just himself to think about. Even right then he was being torn between wanting to go check on Sarah and wanting to stay with Davey.

  He’d promised his son that he would always take care of him.

  And you also promised your son that the two of you would live every day you were given to the fullest. But instead of going out there and doing what you want, you’re sitting here, hiding behind your son and living a life of solitude.

  Was that what he was doing? Using the excuse of his son needing him to keep himself from getting hurt again like he had been hurt by Lisa? Sarah had been right about living a life alone. That wasn’t what he really wanted. He’d been so set on taking care of Davey that he’d isolated the two of them. It wasn’t until he had come here and met Sarah that he had opened himself up to anyone else. He had to decide whether he wanted to isolate him and Davey for the rest of their lives or if he wanted to take that leap of faith and learn to trust others. One thing for sure, he wanted Sarah. His heart hadn’t been the same since she had walked away from him the day before and he needed to put away his pride and admit that he needed her.

  Picking up the phone, he reached out and asked for help, something that earlier that day he’d have sworn he would never do.

  * * *

  David had looked everywhere for Sarah. He’d checked Lindsey’s room, but saw only Hannah at her daughter’s bedside. Next he’d checked with the other nurses but no one seemed to have seen her. Then it hit him. He remembered when she had told him about the night she’d received the news that her son wasn’t going to survive his injuries she’d hid in the pediatric waiting room.

  He saw her sitting in a small hidden corner. The sun had set and most of the hospital visitors had left for the day. He tried to remember the night he had sat here, where one of the case managers had found him and given him the news that there was hope for his son. He looked around the room till he found a chair just a few feet from where Sarah sat. Had it been that one?

  She didn’t look up when he came to sit next to her. He tried to think of what to say, but he couldn’t find the words. And then he saw the note that she had held earlier, she still had it in her hands.

  “This is the note you should have received,” he said as he took the chair beside her. He held out a piece of paper of his own, a note that he’d written her.

  “I’ve already received a note. It’s from a nice family. They sent a picture. He’s a beautiful little boy. He has blue eyes like Cody’s,” Sarah said as she stared down at the paper in his hand.

  “But this is the one I should have sent you,” he said as he tried to get her to take the note from him.

  “It’s okay, David. I was mistaken about Davey and even though you might not believe it, it doesn’t matter. I still love Davey just as much as I did before I received this note,” she said.

  “I do believe you, Sarah. Look, how about I read this to you?” he said. What if she thought that what he had written was stupid? Why couldn’t he find the right words to tell her how he felt?

  “Okay,” she said as she moved back away from him.

  He cleared his throat. “Dear Sarah, I wanted to tell you thank you for the gift of love that you’ve shared with me and Davey...”

  “But I didn’t, David...” she started to say.

  “Just wait and hear me out, okay?” he said, then started to read again. “You’ve shown me a future that I’ve been too afraid to dream of until now. I hope you’ll accept my love in return for yours and agree to a future together with me and Davey. Love, David.”

  He turned toward her and looked Sarah in the face. He had to face his fear of rejection head on now. But it wasn’t rejection he saw in Sarah’s eyes before she threw her arms around him and burst out in tears. He knew there were years ahead for them where there would be more tears, some of joy and some from pain, but as long they shared them with each other he knew they would be okay.

  EPILOGUE

  “PUT HER IN HERE,” Davey said as he led the way through the house to his new little sister’s room.

  Secretly, Sarah had been afraid that bringing Kaitlyn into the same house that she had brought Cody almost seven years earlier would be painful, but instead it had felt right to bring his sister into the same room that had once been her brother’s nursery.

  After David had accepted a permanent position at the hospital, there had been the decision of where the three of them should live. While she knew they couldn’t all move in with Jack, she couldn’t bring herself to leave her father-in-law by himself. Her old house had been left empty for so long that there had been a lot of work necessary to get it livable and then there had been changes that both she and David had wanted to make, but when the renovations had been finished and Davey had moved Humphrey to the small stable behind the house they’d all agreed that they had made the right decision to keep the house.

  She’d let her memories of Kolton and Cody be clouded by the pain that she had felt when she had lost them, instead of enjoying all the memories they had made together before that tragic day. Since moving back into the house, she had learned to share those good memories with David and Davey, which made her feel even closer to the family that she had lost.

  Laying their new daughter in her crib, Sarah and David watched as Davey made faces at his little sister.

  “Are you sure she’s okay? Her face doesn’t look right,” Davey said.

  He had worried about his sister since the moment they had told him that they were expecting, asking questions about whether she would have to get a new heart like he had. David had been very patient with him and they’d taken him to every obstetric appointment when they were planning to do ultrasounds so that he could see the pictures of his sister as she grew. Sarah herself hadn’t worried about the baby as she figured Davey and his daddy were worrying enough for all three of them.

  “She’s perfect,” David said as he stared down at his daughter.

  And, surrounded by her new family, Sarah knew things really were perfect.

  * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Deanne Anders

  Stolen Kiss with the Single Mom

  The Surgeon’s Baby Bombshell

  From Midwife to Mommy

  All available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Tempted by the Brooding Vet by Shelley Rivers.

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  Tempted by the Brooding Vet

  by Shelley Rivers

  CHAPTER ONE

  LOST.

  Kiki Brown’s optimism hurtled to her
toes as she searched the lush green Dorset landscape. Was it too much to ask for the planets to line up, or whatever they were supposed to do, so one small thing in her life went right?

  She had no desire to win the lottery, or spend her life encased in jewels and diamonds, but just once it would be nice if the fates stopped with their constant disasters and sly kicks.

  She either kept on walking in the hope that the elusive Fingle Lodge appeared like a rose-covered oasis from nowhere, or headed back to the car in defeat.

  She should never have trusted a ninety-eight-year-old’s vague pencilled directions. Her godmother struggled to recall her own name sometimes, never mind remembering how to travel to the old lodge house she’d long ago abandoned to weather and time after her beloved husband died.

  But the place sounded so romantic, set amongst sloping fields and miles from town. The sole surviving remnant of the vast Georgian estate of a family that had once retained the land and considered it home.

  And Kiki’s choices were limited after a year living and working in Alaska. A suitcase full of clothes and a redundant engagement ring relegated to the dark depths of her handbag, along with her crumpled tissues and faded hopes, didn’t give a girl a lot of choices.

  If she didn’t find Fingle Lodge soon she would remain homeless and jobless. Something she didn’t want and couldn’t afford to be. Her savings were small and her options unfortunately not much bigger.

  ‘Okay, Kiki,’ she said, in an attempt to boost her flagging spirits. ‘Let’s find this property. You’re not a quitter, no matter what a certain stupid male insisted seconds before you dumped him. You are an intelligent woman and you need no one—especially not a lying cheat.’

  Oh, good—now she was talking to herself. Give her a woolly hat, a couple of pretty cats and she’d morph into the stereotypical singleton, living a life filled with nothing but sad memories, bed socks and crocheted blankets to keep her warm throughout the night. Though she did rather like crochet blankets. They reminded her of her godmother.