Fulfilling my obligation as your family. “Thought you might need a hand setting out the new inventory,” Gavin said.
Nicholas gave him an assessing look. “That bad, huh?”
“What?”
Nicholas went over to turn on the sound system. “Your life—since Violet broke up with you.”
Gavin frowned. “She didn’t break up with me.”
Nicholas dipped his head in acknowledgment as he did a little two-step to the beat, then went back to unpacking the new inventory. “That’s right. You were never officially a couple.”
It had sure felt that way, Gavin thought.
“Just co-guardians to that baby girl.” Nicholas entered the details of the shipment into the store computer.
That baby girl had a name. And the most winsome face and incredibly innocent and trusting blue eyes...
“Ava,” Gavin corrected, his heart melting a little whenever he thought of his soon-to-be-goddaughter.
Nicholas tilted his head. “So you miss her, too? Not just Violet?”
More than he wished to admit. Reminding himself he was still doing what was best for Ava, however, Gavin shrugged. “I saw her yesterday when I went to visit her.” And Violet was at the hospital, working.
Nicholas punched a few more numbers into the computer. “Bridgette said you showed up while she was babysitting.” He paused sympathetically. “And that you looked like you had lost your best friend and your dog and your truck, all in one really bad day.”
The last thing Gavin wanted to do was to compare his life to the lyrics of some sad song.
Although he felt devastated by the way things had turned out, no question. Violet had said she would stand by him, even after they gave the baby up. She hadn’t.
Nicholas grabbed a stack of price tags. “Although,” he added consolingly, “Bridgette said little Ava seemed really happy to see you.”
She had been, Gavin remembered tenderly. Cuddling close, fisting her little hands in his shirt and looking up at him with those guileless blue eyes, seeming to say to him that it wasn’t too late, this could all still be fixed. Violet’s deliberate absence during his visit, however, had said otherwise.
Gavin pushed the foolish burst of hope away, figuring what was done was done.
If Violet said it was over, it was.
“I’m not here to talk about me,” he told his little brother quietly. “I just wanted to let you know that if you need anything, I’m here for you.”
“I know that.” Nicholas sobered. “You always have been.” Before Gavin could interrupt, Nicholas lifted a hand. “I just didn’t always want you to be there for me. I wanted to grow up. Make my own mistakes. Be on my own a little, you know?”
Gavin did.
“Figured out what you’re going to do next?”
Nicholas attached price tags to the shirts. “Now that I lost all my recouped tuition money in day trading?”
Gavin nodded, seeing no need to sugarcoat things, either. “I’ll loan you what you need to go back to school next semester.”
“Thanks.” Nicholas handed him an attachment gun, a stack of price tags and shirts. “But I want to work my way through school this time.”
His little brother had grown up. “Are you sure?” Gavin asked.
Nicholas carried a stack of tagged clothing to the shelf. “Look, I know that you think that I did all that stuff because of the accident.”
“Because I wasn’t there for you after the trauma the way I should have been,” Gavin agreed.
“But the truth is I had been thinking about dropping out of school all summer, just skipping ahead to a career, the way Michael Dell and Steve Jobs did. I figured I’d make a few really smart investments in the stock market and then I’d be well on my way to becoming the next Mark Cuban.”
Now it all made sense. “Only, it didn’t happen that way,” Gavin concluded.
Nicholas went back to pricing. “And you know what the worst part of all of it is? I was squandering my chances long before that. Because even though I had this great opportunity to make something more of my life while I was at UT, I was never all in.”
Gavin paused. “What do you mean? You were a great student. On the Dean’s List from first semester on.”
“Trouble is,” Nicholas told him bluntly, “I didn’t really do anything my first year and a half there except focus on my class work.”
Gavin continued to defend his little brother’s choices. “You had a social life. Friends...”
“Yeah, but I never committed myself to having the whole university experience. I barely went to any sporting events, never joined any clubs or causes, or went to any of the guest lectures or interesting exhibits on campus. Instead, I lived in the same small-town-kid cocoon I grew up in, passed on the opportunity to meet a lot of new people and hung with the same kids.” His frown deepened. “All the while resenting the fact that my life in Austin wasn’t nearly the adventure I had expected it to be.”
He shook his head in regret and looked Gavin right in the eye. “The point is, big brother, I could have had everything I wanted or needed if only I had seen the value of what was right in front of me. And you know what?” Nicholas paused, suddenly looking older than his years. “You could, too.”
* * *
“DECIDE YET WHERE you’re going to live now?” Poppy asked Violet early Tuesday morning when the two of them met at McCabe House, to begin packing up Violet’s belongings.
She cast a look at the baby buggy parked in a quiet corner of the stable-house. Ava was inside, fast asleep. But she wouldn’t stay that way for long, so Violet had to get busy. She went back to the wardrobe boxes she’d brought out and began to fill them for later transport. “Ava and I looked at two rentals yesterday when I got off work.”
“And?”
“Both were fine. In town, close to both the hospital and Mom and Dad’s place. I’m not sure I want to live in an apartment with a baby, though—and that’s all that was readily available. Too much potential for noise from other neighbors. And what if Ava wants to go outside?”
“I don’t know.” Poppy pressed an index finger against her cheek and pretended to think. “You go to a park? Or over to Mom and Dad’s? Or my place?”
Violet rolled her eyes at the droll suggestion. “You forgot Rose and Lily.” Her triplet sisters. “And Maggie and Callie.” The twins, who lived in San Antonio. “They all live on ranches.”
Poppy grinned. “It would be a little far to go for a twenty-minute romp in the grass, I suppose. Although having Ava play with her cousins would be nice.”
Violet smiled, imagining just that. “It will be.”
“Do you have any other options?”
Violet packed quickly. “Mom and Dad’s, where we are residing now.”
“What about the place where you were bunking when you first brought Ava home from the hospital?”
Nice way to bring the subject around to her failed romance.
Violet made a comical face at her sister. “Cozy as that would be, I really can’t see me kicking Gavin out of his home.”
Poppy waggled her brows mischievously. “Why should he have to leave?”
Violet groaned.
“He loves Ava, too,” Poppy pointed out.
“Not enough to adopt her.”
Her sister—who’d recently had great success convincing her best male friend to adopt a child with her, sans romance, sans marriage—waved off the small detail. “Give the man time.”
Violet wished.
Disappointment spiraling through her, she reminded her sister, “We didn’t have time. Mitzy wanted a decision within twenty-four hours. After some initial confusion about what was the best thing to do, I finally figured out what really matters in this world—”
“Loving someone and having them love you back?”
Violet nodded. “I told Gavin what I wanted us to do. Unfortunately, he disagreed.”
Another shrug. “So he made a mistake.”
If only he would admit that! Our lives would be so very different. But he hadn’t, so...
“He knows his own mind, Poppy.”
“True enough. But does he know his own heart?”
Good question, Violet thought as a melancholy silence fell. Not that it mattered now.
Determined not to make the same slew of mistakes she had before, Violet taped the moving box shut with a vengeance. “I can’t pretend I know better than Gavin what he wants and needs, Poppy.”
Poppy’s eyebrows rose. “Even if you do?”
Violet focused on the packing. “I can give Ava all the love she needs, as a single parent. Plus, I’ll have the entire McCabe clan as backup.”
Poppy hung clothes inside another wardrobe container. “Sounds good.”
Another silence.
Violet read her sister’s mind. “But still less than ideal.”
“You’ve always been all about striving for perfection.”
Didn’t she know that, Violet thought ruefully, striding past the Conestoga wagon, where she and Gavin had first slept together and later made love.
“And up to now, that’s never really worked out.” She could admit that now. Admit she had been holding on to an ideal that was never going to happen, and circumventing her own potential happiness in the meantime.
Poppy came closer, planting her hands on her hips. “So now you’re going to settle. Give up on Gavin—”
“Whoa there, Nellie.” Violet held up a palm to stop her. “I never gave up on him. He gave up on us.” As a couple, as potential parents, as a family...
“In what sounds like a rare moment of self-doubt.”
It had been that, all right. Had Mitzy not been pressuring them to make a decision...had Ava not had an ear infection...had Gavin, one of the best ER docs around, not missed it...would the result have been the same?
After all, before Ava had gotten sick, Violet had been ready to relinquish her care out of a misguided sense of nobility, too. Because she had thought the only way she could really honor the task she had been charged with—the only way Ava would be happy—was if she were in a traditional family, with a mother and father who were happily married and had been for a while.
She hadn’t taken into consideration Ava’s closeness with her, or Gavin, or the fact the three of them had already bonded, irrevocably. She hadn’t taken into consideration the love she felt. Was it possible Gavin felt that same level of affection, and just would not—could not—admit it to himself, for the very same reasons that had almost stopped her?
“It was a mistake to let things end between you and Gavin like that. You must know that,” Poppy persisted.
She did, and she didn’t, Violet thought.
On the one hand, she still wanted to be with Gavin more than life.
On the other...she couldn’t shake the nagging sense of déjà vu, or the worry that she was once again in an untenable situation, chasing after a man in the wrong way, at the wrong time.
She wiped the tears from her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I can’t force him to want to be with us,” she said, her voice breaking.
Poppy engulfed Violet in a warm, sisterly hug. “Oh, honey,” she murmured consolingly, as only a big sister could. “You don’t have to.” Poppy hugged her all the tighter. “Don’t you know that?”
* * *
“THERE’S BEEN A SNAG in the process,” Mitzy Martin told Violet later that same week.
Her heart skittering in alarm, Violet set the infant carrier on the floor of the social worker’s office. Ava cooed softly, oblivious to all that was at stake. Determined to make this work, no matter what, Violet sat opposite Mitzy. Silently vowing that once she had the temporary guardianship made permanent, she could work on resolving the rest of her problems, starting with her broken relationship with Gavin.
“If you’re worried about the potential noise factors in the apartments I was considering renting, you needn’t be,” Violet told the social worker, aware that now that her mind was made up she was more optimistic than she had been in a long time. “I decided to take my parents up on their offer to have us bunk with them for a while.”
Their large Victorian wasn’t exactly the cozy domain Gavin’s home had been, but it would do, for now.
Mitzy straightened the stack of paperwork in front of her. “I’m glad your parents were able to convince you to do that. But that wasn’t the problem.”
Stymied, Violet asked, “Then what was?”
Mitzy looked toward the open doorway.
“Me,” Gavin said simply.
He strolled in. Clad in a dove-gray shirt that brought out the stormy hue of his eyes, coordinating tie and jeans, hair clean and rumpled, he looked sexy and as masculine as could be. His manner both serious and genial, he locked eyes with Violet for a heart-stealing long moment; one that said he had missed her every bit as much as she had missed him the past few days. He then knelt to say hello to Ava.
The infant gurgled happily as she looked up at him.
He held out his hand. Ava curled her fingers around his finger and held on as tightly as Violet suddenly wished she could.
Mitzy looked on, as amicably inscrutable as always. “Let’s get started, shall we?” she said mildly.
Gavin nodded. He kissed the back of Ava’s hand, then gently extricated himself and put a soft cotton rattle in her fingers. Rising, he took a seat beside Violet and turned to look at her once again.
She swallowed nervously. This was not how her reunion with the handsome physician was supposed to go!
Before Violet knew it, she was pivoting toward him in her seat, so quickly her knees brushed the hard musculature of his thigh.
Tingling at the brief, sensual contact, she pulled back slightly, until they were no longer touching. “I thought you were okay with me adopting Ava on my own?” That was the word he’d sent her through Mitzy, anyway.
His expression solemn, Gavin admitted, “Before I’d had time to really think about it, I thought that was Ava’s best option.”
“But now?” Violet urged. Her heart thundered in her chest. Her spirits rose and crashed and rose again.
Gavin looked more coolly determined than she had ever seen him. “Ava needs a mother and a father, Violet.” He continued practically, before she could draw a breath. “She needs both of us.”
Which, ironically, was what Violet had been saying for days now. Still, it took a moment for his gruff declaration to register. She stared at him in amazement. “You want to adopt her now, too?”
He nodded, all the love and commitment she had ever wanted to see shining in his eyes. “Along with you. Just as Tammy Barlowe wanted.”
And what about the two of us? Violet couldn’t help but wonder. Do we take a step back? Pick up where we left off? Find some new way to carry on?
His inscrutable expression gave no clue.
Violet knew what she wanted, of course.
But were they on the same page? Or would they differ here, too? And how would she feel if they did?
She only knew she wanted him back in her life, but for the right reasons this time. Reasons that were grounded in reality, not wishful thinking.
Seeming to understand they needed a moment alone, Mitzy stood and picked up the baby carrier. With an efficient smile, she announced, “Ava and I are going to give you a few minutes to talk. If you-all need us, we’ll be down the hall saying hello to other members of the staff.”
The door shut behind her.
The romantic, idealistic side of Violet wanted to throw herself into Gavin’s arms then and th
ere. The more practical side urged her to slow down this time and to proceed a hell of a lot more cautiously. That process started by understanding what was in his heart.
She stood and paced a safe distance away from him. “What changed your mind?”
His lips curved ruefully. “A number of things,” he admitted in chagrin. Rising slowly, he kept his eyes on hers. “For starters, I realized you were right. I love Ava as my own, too.”
She hitched in a shaky breath. Tears of joy and relief blurred her vision. She pushed the words around the lump in her throat. “Then why didn’t you say so?”
His mouth tightening with regret, he said, “Because missing that diagnosis really shook me. I’d never had my emotions get in the way of being a doctor. Never mind expect it would happen as a father.”
The pain in his low tone matched the anguish she’d felt in her heart.
Swallowing, Gavin shoved both hands through his hair. “To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure I was good enough for her. Or for you. I’ve had a lot of loss in my life already, and you and I both know I don’t exactly have the best track record where relationships are concerned.”
With a rough breath, he closed the distance between them and took her hand. “I couldn’t stand the thought of letting either of you down, and instead, that’s exactly what I did. Even though I had promised, having been orphaned myself, that I would never turn my back on another parentless child.”
Glad he was finally telling her all that was in his heart, she took his other hand and looked up at him. “What happened to make you feel differently?” Because clearly, a lot had changed. “What happened to help you understand that not only are you good enough for Ava and me, but exactly who we want and need?”
Affection lit the ruggedly handsome planes of his face. Briefly, he told her about the talk he’d had with his younger brother. “Turns out I’m more of a role model than I thought. And I had plenty of time to think, to miss her and miss you, and realize what my life would be like with the two of you in it, and what it would be like without.” His grin widened. “You-all won, hands down.”
Joy poured through Violet as Gavin took her all the way into his arms.
Lone Star Baby (McCabe Multiples Book 5) Page 19