Emergency: single dad, mother needed

by Laura Iding

  Once the Yang girls had been admitted to the general floor he hadn’t seen Holly at all. He’d missed working with her.

  He enjoyed being with Holly, no matter what they were doing. He’d felt that way years earlier, before she’d married Tom, and somehow the passing of time hadn’t changed a thing. If anything, the desire to be with her only seemed to have grown stronger. Especially since their kiss.

  Because she was free, no longer engaged to his friend.

  But now he was the one with responsibilities. An emotional young boy, suffering from nightmares and reeling from the recent loss of his mother. A boy who desperately needed a parent to hold on to.

  Painting JT’s room didn’t take long, and as he cleaned off the bright blue paint rollers, he inwardly debated whether he should call Holly or not. Was he being selfish if he stole a little time for himself?

  He called Holly’s cellphone and was disappointed when she didn’t pick up, the call going directly to her voice mail. He left a brief message before hanging up, trying to be relieved to know the decision had been taken out of his hands.

  Then he remembered how Holly had mentioned her sick mother, suffering from diabetes and renal failure. Knowing Holly, she was likely over there now, taking care of things.

  Her mother didn’t live far away—he remembered being there prior to Holly’s wedding—so he drove past, just to see if his suspicions were correct.

  They were. Holly was outside, wearing a bright red jacket, her dark hair falling freely to her shoulders, her cheeks pink from the wind as she raked leaves around the base of a large maple tree. He pulled up in front of the house, thinking she was fighting a losing battle because the wind kept blowing the leaves away from her pile. He climbed out of his car, intending to help.

  “Hi, Gabe.” She seemed surprised to see him, but leaned on her rake as if glad for the break. “How are you? Is everything all right with JT?”

  “Yes, he’s fine.” He gently tugged the rake from her hands and picked up the chore where she’d left off, sweeping all the leaves into a large pile. “JT’s on a Cub Scout trip to the dairy farm.”

  “Great. That must mean he’s feeling better.”

  “He is.” Gabe tried to block the wind with his body, but dozens of leaves danced along the yard regardless. He grimaced, reaching out with the rake again. “I don’t think we’re going to get them all.”

  “No, probably not.” Holly glanced around, propping her hands on her slim hips. She was so beautiful, with her eyes sparkling in the crisp fall air, she took his breath away. “Guess this means we have no choice.”

  “No choice?” He didn’t understand.

  “No choice but to jump.” She let out a laugh and in a carefree movement that reminded him of JT plopped into the large pile of leaves. Still giggling, she picked up a pile of leaves and threw them at him.

  The smell of the earth, intermingled with the crunching of the dried leaves, took him back to his own childhood. When he and his sister, Claire, had spent hours playing in the leaves in their front yard beneath twin oak trees.

  “Hey,” he protested lightly, grinning at her antics. Unwilling to be left out of the fun, he tossed the rake aside and jumped in beside her.

  When she let out a startled cry and rolled into him, he put his arms out to help protect her. Laughing when their limbs became tangled, her efforts to get free only brought them closer. When she ended up in his arms, practically on top of him, he realized his mistake. Or his good fortune.

  Her laughter faded as she gazed down at him, unaware or uncaring how leaf fragments clung to her hair. His chest tightened and he knew this was exactly what he’d wanted. Why he’d come to find her.

  “Holly,” he murmured, reaching up to thread his fingers through her hair and slowly easing her head down until her lips met his.

  This time their kiss was even more explosive, his senses reeling as Holly’s breasts pressed against his chest. Gabe growled low in his throat and deepened the kiss, exploring her sweet depths the way he’d wanted to before. Unlike the last time, Holly didn’t resist.

  Closer. He wanted more, wanted to feel every inch of her body against him, so he rolled, switching places so he was on top, the leaves providing a soft cushion from the damp ground. He kissed her again and again, barely pausing to breathe, desperately wishing he could make the barrier of their clothes disappear.

  “Gabe.” Holly moaned his name when he trailed a string of kisses to the soft spot beneath her ear. When he scraped his teeth against her skin, she gasped and writhed beneath him.

  He wanted to take her home. Now. To his bedroom.

  A car drove by and the driver beeped the horn twice, breaking the moment. He glanced up in time to see the teenage boy behind the wheel flashing a leering grin and a thumbs-up sign.

  He wanted to laugh, but Holly stiffened beneath him and suddenly gave a Herculean push against his chest. He moved aside and she scrambled to her feet.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, moving much more slowly, thanks to his almost painful arousal.

  “I—We—Anyone could have seen us.” Holly was brushing leaves off her clothes, tugging the hem of her jacket down. “I have to go.”

  “Go?” Call him slow, but he didn’t understand what in the world had her so upset. “Go where? I thought…?”

  “You thought wrong. This shouldn’t have happened.” Her about-face, changing from the woman who’d shivered and moaned in his arms to the woman glaring at him as if he’d committed some horrible crime, confused the hell out of him. She turned and headed toward the house.

  “Holly, wait a minute.” He tried to stop her, but she ignored him, disappearing inside her mother’s house and closing the door behind her with a decisive and final click.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MORTIFIED, Holly leaned against the closed door, covering her burning cheeks with her hands. What had she been thinking to roll around in the leaves, kissing Gabe? Had she completely lost her mind? And what if someone from work had driven by, instead of some teenager? She could already hear the whispers if anyone had seen them together.

  She knew comparing the past to the present wasn’t fair. The gossip that had surrounded her after Tom had been different. Tom had cheated on her while they’d been married. And she’d been pregnant.

  Technically, she and Gabe were free to see whomever they wanted. What they did on their off time should be none of anyone else’s business.

  Too bad that wasn’t the way things worked, especially in hospitals where the employee grapevine was more reliable and saw more traffic than the biweekly administrative newsletter.

  The last thing she wanted was for her private life to be in the public spotlight. When she started dating again, she intended to find someone who had nothing to do with her work, preferably not connected with the field of medicine at all. She’d envisioned a lawyer or a banker. Not another doctor. Not Gabe. He was all wrong for her.

  “Holly, did you get the leaves raked?” her mother called from the kitchen where she was making a batch of Holly’s favorite chocolate-chip cookies.

  “Ah, no, it was too windy.” Taking several deep breaths, she tried to relax her racing heart, wishing she could dunk her head in a bucket of cold water to douse the flames Gabe had ignited with a mere kiss. Just because she’d temporarily lost her mind, it didn’t mean her mother needed to know. She strove for a light tone. “Do you need help with the cookies?”

  “Sure, although I’m almost finished.”

  Shaking off the devastating effects of Gabe’s kiss wasn’t easy. Hiding her trembling hands in a sink full of sudsy water to wash dishes helped.

  But even as she chatted with her mother, she couldn’t get Gabe out of her mind.

  Especially knowing that if she hadn’t pulled away when that kid had honked his horn at them, the chances were high that they wouldn’t have stopped except maybe to move somewhere more private.

  And there was a tiny, traitorous part of her that wished they had.
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  At the end of the afternoon Holly took the cookies home with her, as her mother was diabetic and couldn’t eat them anyway. On the way back to her house she stopped at the grocery store, not in the mood to cook but needing something she could throw together for dinner.

  Since a salad sounded good, she headed to the fresh produce section and bumped her cart into a guy coming the opposite way.

  “I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed.

  “My pleasure.” The guy was about her age, and very attractive with a wide smile and dark, wavy hair. The blatant approval in his eyes as they focused on her face couldn’t be missed, yet she wasn’t able to summon an ounce of interest.

  He may have been a banker, or a stockbroker, or a lawyer, but it didn’t matter. Because he wasn’t Gabe. The realization knocked her back a step. “Excuse me.” She wheeled her cart around him and crossed straight to the spinach.

  The gorgeous man took her brush-off with a casual shrug and headed off in the opposite direction. Rattled, she gathered her salad ingredients and went through the checkout line, feeling slightly sick. Maybe she’d eaten too many of her mother’s cookies.

  At home, the nauseous feeling in her stomach persisted.

  Because as much as she didn’t want to be involved with Gabe, or with anyone she worked with, it was obviously too late.

  She wasn’t attracted to anyone else.

  Gabe couldn’t stop thinking about Holly, wishing things could have ended differently.

  He’d just finished putting the chicken in the oven when JT came home. The child seemed exhausted, maybe some lingering effects of the virus he’d had. He wasn’t too tired to give Gabe a big hug. Gabe returned the embrace, telling himself this was all that mattered.

  He’d figure out how to be a good father somehow. Maybe he and JT could figure it out together.

  “Did you have a good time?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It was so cool!” JT was tired, yet he’d clearly had fun as he described everything he’d seen at the farm. “We saw cows, horses, chickens, but no pigs.” JT looked perplexed. “The farmer said he didn’t have any pigs.”

  “Bummer.” Gabe suppressed a grin.

  “We watched the farmer milk the cows, but the milk was gross.” JT wrinkled his nose. “It was warm. Yuck.”

  Gabe had to laugh. “We only keep milk in the fridge so it doesn’t spoil.”

  “And then we saw a baby cow, he was so cute.”

  “Calf,” Gabe corrected.

  “Yeah, a calf. Then me and Kyle climbed all the way up to the top of the loft. There was lots of straw up there and it made us sneeze.”

  Gabe only listened to JT with half an ear because he was distracted by thoughts of Holly.

  This had been the second time she’d pushed him away. You’d think he’d get the message she wasn’t interested.

  Except she’d kissed him back. Had urgently pressed against him in a way that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but interest.

  Until the car driver had beeped his horn.

  “Is supper ready?” JT peered at the oven. “I’m hungry.”

  “Almost.” Gabe focused on finishing his dinner preparations, including mashing the potatoes and cooking the broccoli, JT’s favorite vegetable because he liked the way they looked like little trees.

  JT continued to talk about his trip, more about the antics in the car on the ride up than anything else. After dinner was bathtime.

  JT splashed in the tub and Gabe sat on the lowered seat of the commode, thinking about the long, lonely night ahead of him. JT was already yawning, the adventures of his day catching up with him. No doubt he’d be asleep well before his usual eight o’clock bedtime.

  He noticed JT kept dropping the soap. At first he thought the boy was just too tired to get a grip on the slippery bar, but then he noticed JT eventually picked it up with his left hand.

  But the boy was right-handed.

  “Is there something wrong with your hand?” he asked, wrapping a large bath sheet around the boy’s damp body.

  “No. It just feels tingly.”

  Tingly? Gabe frowned, wondering why on earth JT’s right hand would be tingly. Was this some sort of leftover symptom from the virus he’d had? Maybe he should take the boy in to the pediatrician for a good work-up.

  Tucking JT in a few minutes later, he sat on the edge of JT’s bed. “I’m glad you had fun today.”

  “Me, too.” JT smiled, his eyelids starting to droop. “Did you talk to the pretty lady yet?”

  Holly? “Uh, sort of.”

  “Is she coming over?” JT blinked, trying to stay awake.

  “Soon.” Gabe felt bad about lying, but he couldn’t invite Holly over. Could he? He pressed a kiss on JT’s forehead and the boy’s arms came up around his neck in a fierce hug. He returned the gesture, hoping that applying for adoption was the right decision, for both of them. “Good night, buddy.”

  “G’night, Uncle Gabe.”

  He returned to the living room and stared at the blank TV. He didn’t want to watch some brainless show or outdated movie.

  He wanted to see Holly. Damn it, there had to have been something more going on this afternoon. She had been as emotionally involved in their embrace as he’d been.

  Fishing his cellphone out of his pocket, he dialed Marybeth’s phone number. If she was busy, fine. At least he’d tried.

  “Marybeth? It’s Gabe. Hey, are you doing anything tonight?”

  “Well, it is a Saturday,” she said in a wry tone, and his heart plummeted.

  “I understand.” Of course she was busy. What college student wasn’t busy on a Saturday night?

  “But you’re lucky I broke up with my boyfriend a couple of weeks ago so I’m not doing anything but studying.”

  He pumped his fist in the air and mouthed a silent, “yes.” Continuing aloud, he said, “Really? You seriously don’t mind?”

  “No, I don’t mind. I’ll come over and watch JT. I can study there just as easily.”

  “Thanks.” Grateful, he hung up and then sprang into action.

  He was going to Holly’s house to talk to her. And he wasn’t leaving until he had answers.

  Holly took the pink box off her dresser and carried it into the living room. Lifting the cover, she stared at the meager yet precious contents.

  Kayla’s picture was on top, her daughter’s face relaxed and at peace. If you didn’t look too closely, you could almost believe she was asleep.

  Carefully, she lifted out the pink dress, knowing that she really needed to preserve the fabric in a protective sealed container but unwilling to pack it away just yet. Touching the silky fabric helped her to remember Kayla’s birth. Lastly, she lifted out the pink clay footprint, with Kayla’s name and birth date incised along the top.

  Kayla Marie Richards. She traced the letters of her daughter’s name with her index finger, feeling sad. Born February fourteenth, died February fourteenth.

  Tears pricked her eyelids and she brushed them away with an impatient hand. She needed to stop wallowing in the past. She loved her daughter, missed her very much, but there wasn’t anything she could do to bring her back. Kayla would always live in her heart.

  And maybe it was time she started thinking about a future.

  She could admit now that she’d overreacted that afternoon with Gabe. She’d taken the opportunity to run because she was starting to care too much.

  Kissing Kayla’s picture, she packed everything back into the pink box and carried it back to her room. Instead of setting it on the top of her dresser, where she’d always kept it close at hand, Holly took it to her closet and chose the highest shelf, one she could barely reach, and pushed the box way back so it was out of view.

  Satisfied, she closed the closet door, wishing it was as easy to close away her past.

  Her heart leaped when her cellphone rang. Racing to the living room, where she’d left it, she picked it up and opened it without even looking. “Hello?”

  “Holly?
It’s Tom.”

  Tom? As in her ex-husband? Shocked, she couldn’t imagine why he was calling, they’d only exchanged a dozen words, all very polite and civilized, in the two years since their divorce. “Is there something wrong?” she asked, thinking it had to be serious, like his mother was ill or dying, for him to call.

  “No, but I’m trying to get in touch with Gabe. Have you seen him?”

  All the air left her lungs. Did Tom have some sort of latent psychic ability to know she’d spent a portion of the afternoon rolling in the leaves with Gabe? “Why do you think I know where Gabe is?”

  “Holly, it’s a simple question.” Tom’s tone was irritated. “If you don’t know where he is, just tell me.”

  “I don’t know where he is.” Holly was still having trouble comprehending how Tom and Gabe must have kept in touch all this time. And wasn’t it interesting how Gabe hadn’t mentioned a word? “Did you try him at home?”

  “Yes. Never mind, I’ll just leave him a message. Sorry to bother you.” He hung up.

  Her doorbell rang, and with a frown she glanced at the clock. It wasn’t that late, only eight-thirty, but she still glanced through the window, surprised for the second time that day to see Gabe.

  She opened the door, not feeling very gracious. “What are you doing here? Where’s JT?”

  “Hi, Holly. May I come in?”

  Sensing he wasn’t about to leave without talking to her, she opened the door. “Is this about Tom? Because he just called here, looking for you.”

  “Tom?” Gabe’s frown was genuinely puzzled. “Called for me? Why?”

  “I don’t know.” She closed the door behind him. “Are you telling me you guys haven’t kept in touch?”

  “No. I’ve only spoken to him a couple of times out of pure necessity.” Gabe took a seat on her sofa. “I walked out on the wedding, remember? We argued. We haven’t exactly been on friendly terms.”

  “I see.” Maybe she shouldn’t have doubted Gabe. Knowing Tom, he probably wanted some sort of favor. Why she’d been blind to her ex-husband’s selfish tendencies she had no idea. Feeling awkward, she stared at Gabe. Why was he there? “Do you want something to drink? I have a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge.”