Cradling her tenderly, he continued soothing—and reassuring—her. “To a family that will flat-out adore you every bit as much as Violet and I do, if not more.”
Ava abruptly stopped crying.
She looked at him with tear-filled eyes.
Regret welled within him. His resolve wavered. But with effort, he pushed his guilt aside. Again. It didn’t matter what he wanted. What he wished. He knew, with every practical iota of his being, that he was doing the right thing in giving her to a set of parents far better equipped to raise her than he and Violet were.
He had to be strong.
Just as Violet was.
Had to do what was best for Ava. She turned away from him and began to cry again, even more poignantly. And what she needed now, he noted, was the kind of deeply intuitive, familial support he had never been able to give.
* * *
“YOU COULDN’T HAVE picked a better time to come back,” Tara told Violet when the two of them ran into each other in the hall just after 9:00 p.m. “One of your patients just checked in to the hospital.”
“Carlson Willoughby?”
The oncologist nodded. “He’s having surgery early tomorrow morning. I was going to go over the post-op treatment plan with him and his wife now. If you’d like to tag along...”
Violet knew the boundaries that had been put in place needed to be maintained. “I don’t want to undermine you.”
“You won’t,” Tara replied with confidence. “He has a brand-new attitude, thanks to the talk you had with him and his wife.”
“One that was long overdue,” Violet admitted, still feeling a little chagrined over her part in the untenable situation that had evolved.
“Well, whatever you said to him worked. Because he and Mrs. W. said they had faith in the entire medical center, and that included me. So however I want to proceed is fine with them.”
Together, they walked toward the nurses’ station. “Wow, that is a change.”
Tara paused to pick up a chart. “I’d still like your input, though. Since you know the patient’s response to former protocols better than anyone.”
“I’d be glad to help out.” Violet paused as the newly minted mom in her went on high alert. In the distance, an infant could be heard crying hysterically. It sounded an awful lot like Ava. In fact, Violet noted in alarm as she swung around to see Gavin striding toward her, a bawling Ava in his arms, it was Ava! Leery of further disturbing other patients on the floor, the two of them ducked into the nearby staff lounge.
Luckily, at that moment, it was quiet and empty.
Violet switched from doctor to mom mode in an instant. “What’s wrong?” she said, instinctively holding out her arms.
His face taut with concern, Gavin handed the little girl over. “I think she misses you.”
Violet wanted to say that was impossible. Ava was several weeks away from attaching to anyone in particular. Yet the moment they were together again, Ava stopped crying, blinked through her tears and looked up at Violet as if she had just saved the day.
A mixture of maternal tenderness and contentment swept through Violet.
“What’s this all about?” she soothed, snuggling Ava close. “Why are you giving your da—” She almost said daddy, then stopped and corrected herself. “Um...Gavin, such a hard time?”
Another blink of Ava’s dark lashes. A wince. And then a wail of complete and utter distress. This time she didn’t stop. No matter what Violet said or did.
“How long has she been like this?” Violet asked, patting her back gently. Still Ava sobbed, her tiny fists clutching at Violet’s white coat until Violet thought her own heart would break.
“It started off and on as soon as you left the house.”
Which had been three hours ago, Violet noted.
“It’s only been the past forty minutes or so that I couldn’t get her to stop crying at all.” His eyes narrowed. “I checked everything. Her diaper’s dry. I fed her—or tried to. I held her upright so she could burp—which she did with no problem.”
“Did you try swaddling her?”
Gavin raked a hand through his dark hair. “And de-swaddling. Nothing worked.” He paused, broad shoulders tensing. “What now?”
“I’m not sure.” Her concern mounting, Violet looked at Gavin. “But maybe we should have her checked out. Who is the pediatrician on call tonight?”
He pulled up the schedule on his phone. “Your mom.”
With a hiccup, Ava abruptly stopped crying.
Gavin studied the infant in relief.
Exhausted, Ava laid her head on Violet’s chest.
Love swelled in Violet’s heart. She knew she wasn’t the baby’s mother, but she certainly felt like it. Tenderly, she touched her hand to Ava’s cheek. It was wet with tears but not warm enough to indicate fever. Still... “We might be overreacting here, but to play it safe, I think I’m going to ask my mom to take a look at her.”
Gavin paused, brow furrowed. “You really think there is something wrong with Ava—other than simply missing you tonight?” Beneath the worry in his tone there was something else she could not immediately identify. Something nearly as unsettling.
Violet looked him in the eye, nodded. “And deep down you do, too. Otherwise you wouldn’t have rushed her to the hospital to see me.”
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER Violet sat on a gurney in an exam room, holding Ava tenderly in her arms, while her mother went through the physical exam. Gavin stood nearby, watching with concern, ready to help in any way needed.
“It’s an ear infection,” Lacey McCabe said after viewing Ava’s ear canal with an otoscope. “It’s just starting, but it looks to be painful. We’ll start Ava on acetaminophen and an antibiotic right away. She’ll be feeling better in no time.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Teary with relief, Violet cuddled Ava close while Gavin zipped up her sleeper.
Lacey McCabe shot a tender look at the patient, then paused to write out the orders. “No problem.” She ripped off the prescription and handed it to Gavin, who was suddenly struggling to contain his emotions, too.
“I was going to ask if you had decided on a family for Ava yet.” Lacey looked from the baby to Violet to Gavin, and back to her daughter again with maternal wisdom. “And maybe you have?”
It wasn’t a question Violet had expected. Yet she knew the answer with a certainty as solid and real as this moment in time. An answer that had been coming for a while now. She had just been afraid to admit it out of fear that, as in the past, the happiness she yearned for would not materialize, after all.
A lump in her throat, she nodded slowly.
Her mother hugged her, suddenly a little teary-eyed, too. “Oh, honey,” Lacey said thickly. “I thought this might be the case. And for the record...I think you’re doing the right thing.”
* * *
“WHAT WAS ALL that about with your mom tonight?” Gavin asked after they’d picked up the medicine at the hospital pharmacy and driven the short distance home.
Violet lifted Ava from her car seat and carried her inside the house. The trauma of the evening had worn the little one out. Now that the acetaminophen had taken effect, she was once again sleeping soundly. “My mom just figured out I’m going to adopt Ava,” she said, a remarkable calm coming over her.
And now that she’d made the decision, she was suddenly feeling so much better! As if this was where they had all been headed, after all. Soon, Gavin would have to admit it, too.
Eyes narrowed, Gavin closed the door behind him. “This isn’t what we discussed earlier this evening.”
How well Violet knew that. She had almost made the worst mistake of her life. And all because she had refused to listen to what her heart was telling her. Gently, she lowered Ava into the bassinet. To
her relief, the exhausted infant kept right on sleeping.
She walked into the kitchen, staying close enough to keep an eye on the baby yet far enough away that their conversation wouldn’t wake her.
Violet leaned against the counter, aware Gavin hadn’t come to his senses yet. But that was okay, she could help him get there.
She looked up at him. “Earlier this evening I thought the same you did, that everything had to be perfectly worked out for Ava to be happy.” She shook her head, her heart clenching at the grave mistake that had almost been made. “But I didn’t understand that what she really needed was to be with us.” Her heart filling with joy, Violet sent another tender glance the baby’s way. “But she showed us how wrong we were.”
Gavin came closer, appearing as sure of himself as he was in the ER every day. “Look, I know this evening was traumatic for you and for Ava. It was hard on me, too,” he said calmly. “But that’s no reason to let our overwrought emotions drive us to do something ill-advised.”
Violet straightened to her full height. “Tell me you’re not comparing what I’m about to do to the fact your brother dropped out of college after his accident!”
He kept his dark gaze locked with hers. “Our situation is more complicated than that.”
You think? “Well, at least we agree on something!” Violet fired back.
“However, the underlying principle remains the same,” he went on reasonably, suggesting she would soon come to the same conclusion. “Never make major decisions in the wake of a potentially life-altering event.”
Aware she suddenly felt so shaky she could barely stand, Violet tucked her arms against her chest to still their trembling. “So you don’t love Ava,” she choked out, an unbearable sadness coming over her.
Abruptly, Gavin looked as irked as she felt. “Of course I love her,” he said gruffly. “It’s impossible to be around her and not love her. She’s a great little kid. Sweet and adorable. Her effervescent personality shines through even at this young age.”
So what was really happening here?
Why weren’t they on the same page with this when they were so close in so many other ways? Violet gestured in confusion. “Then?”
Gavin released a frustrated breath. “I want her to have everything she deserves.”
Still struggling to understand where he was coming from, Violet pushed on. “Including?”
“Two parents who don’t panic when something goes wrong.”
Was that it? Violet wondered in a mixture of frustration and relief. Gavin thought he had failed Ava? Failed them both? The same way he felt he had oft let down his family? It hardly mattered as long as one of them had remained calm, and Violet had. “Yes, but I didn’t panic,” she reminded him quietly, looking him right in the eye.
His jaw tautened. “I did.”
Violet took his big hand in hers. “And that’s normal for new parents,” she reassured him softly. “My mom told us that when we had the whole can’t-get-her-to-sleep-in-anything-but-our-arms debacle, when we first brought Ava home from the hospital.”
He averted his gaze and moved away from her. Getting a glass from the cabinet, he poured himself some water from the tap. “You know what Tammy’s request was.”
Violet joined him at the sink. She tipped her head back to better see his face. It was all she could do to keep her voice from rising. “I know what Tammy’s ideal outcome was. That you be Ava’s daddy and I be her mommy. And see that she has lots of extended family so she’ll always have someone to love her, no matter what.” And now that Violet had come to her senses, she fully intended to do just that.
Gavin stared at her in weary resignation, then spread his hands wide, reminding her tersely, “And if that didn’t work out, which Tammy fully expected it might not, she wanted us to find a local family to love her baby girl. Arrange for an open adoption and be Ava’s godparents. And you and I agreed from the outset, when we went over all the options—” he set the glass down with a thud “—that the last scenario was best.”
“That was before we got so involved with her and each other,” she told him thickly.
Noting he had a little spit-up on his shirt, he strode into the bedroom. Tugged that and his T-shirt, which was similarly soiled, over his head. He dropped both onto the basket on top of the washer and then headed, bare-chested, to his closet for a new one.
Violet followed, taking in the masculine set of his broad shoulders and taut abs.
She wished she could fall into his arms and make love with him, and let all their problems fall away, but she also knew that would only be avoiding the inevitable.
She lounged against the dresser, watching him get ready for his shift, which would start in less than thirty minutes. Taking a deep breath, she looked him in the eye. “That was before I understood what it was to love a child so completely. Or to have a baby look to me as her mommy.” Violet stared at the hard, aloof expression on his face, wondering how everything could be falling apart so fast.
Desperately, she tried again. “Ava wanted me tonight, Gavin.” She beseeched him to understand. “And when you’re with her, and she’s not trying to communicate that she has an earache, she wants you, too.”
Gavin brushed his teeth and splashed water on his face and then dried his face with a towel. He swung back to face her, his expression all the more intent. “Ava also enjoyed being with Mitzy and both sets of adoptive parents. She snuggles up to my sister and all the nurses from the Special Care Nursery at the hospital, too.”
Unable to dispute the truth, Violet fell silent.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Listen to me, Violet. We have to take a step back here and look at the situation realistically. We have to honor our promise to do what is best for Ava, not just in the present but in the long run.”
That was gut-wrenchingly similar to what Sterling had said to her when he hadn’t wanted to marry her, after all, Violet noted miserably.
“Adopting her together may be what is best for you, and maybe even me, but it isn’t what’s best for Ava.” Eyes serious, Gavin paused to let his words sink in. “We can’t make rash decisions based on ER emotion.”
Frustrated that he wouldn’t let himself feel what she did for the child in their care, Violet countered with equal certitude. “The Willoughbys did. They met in an ER, decided there was something there and got married a week later. And they’re still together some sixty years later. Still passionately in love with each other, even as they work together to battle Carlson’s cancer.”
Gavin stood his ground. “And a lot of others who did the very same thing got divorced.” He headed for the fridge and took out the makings for a sandwich. “We made our decision earlier this evening. Had Ava not developed an ear infection, that decision would still stand.”
She watched him layer thinly cut ham and Swiss cheese on oatmeal bread, and finish it off with a slathering of brown mustard. Methodically, he began putting together a meal.
“So once again fate intervenes!” She stepped back so he could get a sandwich bag from the drawer. “Don’t you get it? The universe is trying to tell us something and we need to pay attention to what that is!”
He dropped the sandwich and an apple into a brown paper bag, closed the top and set it aside. He exhaled roughly, looking as ticked off as she felt. “You’re being hopelessly idealistic. You know that, don’t you?”
She glared in exasperation. They didn’t have time to argue the point; he had to be at the hospital in fifteen minutes. “And you’re being ridiculously pragmatic! Maybe because you don’t really want to commit fully to anyone. Not to an ex-fiancé, not to Ava, not to me...”
A stressful silence fell.
Aware she was on a roll, she continued, “Because as long as you use your past insufficiencies where your loved ones are concerned as an excuse, you’ll nev
er risk it all with anyone else. You’ll never risk being hurt, the way you’re hurting me. And Ava. And anyone else who dares to love you.”
“You don’t mean that,” he countered brusquely.
Didn’t she?
As they stared at each other Violet wondered if she had ever really known him at all. Or had she just seen what she had needed to see and felt what she had wanted to feel to justify their reckless affair?
There was only one thing she knew for certain. Only one thing she had to hang on to, as she warned, “I’m not letting Ava go, Gavin. I’ve made up my mind about that. And Ava and I are a package deal.”
Gavin’s jaw hardened. He looked at her, a world of hurt and disappointment in his eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Violet threw up her hands and moved farther away from him. “If you don’t want to do this, then that’s your right,” she vowed, hot, bitter tears pressing against the backs of her eyes.
Even though the thought of him walking away from their little girl—and Ava had become their little girl in the past few weeks—crushed her heart and soul.
“But I can’t—and won’t—put Ava in the position of being around someone who doesn’t love her the way she deserves.” The way Sterling had dissed her. “Because you’re right,” she said shakily, pointing to the bassinet. “That little girl sleeping in there? She commands only the best.”
Gavin stared at Violet as if he couldn’t believe it had actually come to this. “You’re leaving me?” he asked hoarsely.
Violet nodded, knowing it was the right thing, too. She swallowed around the lump in her throat and ran a weary hand through her hair. “Turns out I need someone with a romantic bone in his body, after all.”
Chapter Sixteen
Gavin punched in the security code and walked in the back. Closed for business as always on Sunday, the Monroe family store was devoid of customers, the only sound the ripping open of shipping boxes.
His younger brother turned to face him. “What are you doing here?” Nicholas asked Gavin.
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