Vee found two glasses, grabbed a bottle of wine from her fridge, and then sat opposite Gracie. “From the beginning. We’ve got twenty minutes before Ruby loses interest in her millionth re-watch of Peppa Pig.”
So Gracie told her. About meeting Owen’s parents and overhearing their private conversation. About not discussing the end of the school term and how she heard Owen admit he wouldn’t be brokenhearted when she left. She couldn’t bring herself to fess up that she was insanely, stupidly, obviously, head-over-ass in love with him.
As obvious as Ruby’s lime-green-from-a-Popsicle tongue she’d poked out at them from the living room doorway after the cartoon’s credits started rolling. She scrambled up on her mother’s lap and tucked her head into Vee’s shoulder.
“I just sped up the leaving process.” Gracie swallowed yet another sip of wine. The sweet, cool liquid slid down her post-crying-jag throat, which was achy and dried up like her head. “I didn’t want to wait for it to get all weird next week, and, you know”—she flapped a hand in front of her face—“the thanks for the hubba-hubba and see-you-round-buh-bye speech at the end of it.”
“Oh, I’ve heard that speech before.” Vee’s brow crumpled as she slanted a look down at Ruby. “Men suck.”
“Totally suck.”
“They suck the most when you’re insanely, stupidly, obviously, head-over-ass in love with them.”
“What am I, marked with a still-smoking cattle brand?” Gracie directed her best indignant stare across the table and set down her wineglass. “Or have you taken up mind-reading as a hobby?”
Vee pulled an exaggerated frown. “You muttered you were insanely, stupidly in love with Owen into your fourth refill. And the swollen eyes and the amount of snot were a dead giveaway.” She stroked her daughter’s hair, and the girl’s eyelids fluttered down.
“A dead giveaway that men suck,” Gracie said. But quietly, because although she’d knocked back wine as if it were grape juice, she knew better than to wake a toddler who’d just dozed off.
“The ones I choose sure do. I have crappy taste in men. You, on the other hand, have good taste in men but crappy communication skills, and the inclination to run like Ruby does when a balloon pops.”
A sip of wine sucked into Gracie’s windpipe, making her cough. She held up a finger while she got the coughing under control. Not much luck with the heat rising up her throat and blood throbbing in her eardrums.
“I don’t run…” she said in a choked whisper.
Vee’s face remained in the same patient expression as she stood with Ruby cradled in her arms. “Really?” She edged out from behind the table. “You’re not uncomfortable enough in the hot seat to want to leave, then?”
When Gracie didn’t say anything, Vee left the room, murmuring softly to her daughter.
What, her knee-jerk reaction to intense conflict was so obvious?
Gracie carried her wine glass to the sink and rinsed it. As a teenager, she’d used food to avoid conflict with her overbearing father. When that led to bulimia, she’d gained better coping skills through therapy in order to survive. But as an adult, her mother’s death was the ultimate family conflict, and it’d driven her to catch the first flight out of the country. She’d changed jobs—sometimes when genuine opportunities arose but many times due to conflict within the work environment. She’d left apartments because of disagreements with roommates, and, yeah, often she hadn’t confronted the issue but made sure her rent was up to date and just packed a bag. Romantic relationships?
Gracie dried the glass and returned it to the cabinet, her teeth sinking deep into her lower lip. While she wasn’t a pushover, it’d been easier to walk away when things turned sour. She’d never cared enough about a man to stay on the road with him when the way ahead had a few potholes. Easier to take the next exit off that highway.
“Good.” Vee returned to the kitchen. “You’re still here.”
“You hid my keys after the third glass of wine. I can’t leave.”
“Nothing wrong with your feet, sister. You’re willing to listen to me even though hauling your ass down the road to a hotel room would be less painful.”
“This is going to be painful?”
The joking tone in Gracie’s voice fell flat when Vee continued to watch her with her piercing blue eyes.
“That’s up to you. Because you came here expecting me to back you up, didn’t you?”
“Ah, yes.” Gracie narrowed her eyes. “I thought we were friends?”
“We are. I don’t know what sort of friends you’ve had in the past, but with a friend that I intend to have for a looong time, I won’t stand by and say nothing while they screw up what is potentially the best thing to ever happen in their life.”
“You’re talking about Owen?”
“I’m talking about making your home here, about coming into business with two women who care about you, about fighting for the man you love, and who, regardless of some overheard snippet of conversation with his mum, I’m pretty certain loves you, too.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in love,” Gracie grumbled, even though her heart resumed beating in a hopeful pitter-patter at Vee’s words.
Vee pressed a fist to her mouth, her faked cough sounding like the word avoidance.
Gracie sighed. Pour half a liter of wine down her throat, and the truth spilled out. “I am in love with him.”
“But you don’t know if he loves you back?”
“No.”
“You don’t know because you haven’t asked. But without bullshitting yourself, do you think it’s in the realm of possibility—from everything you know about the man—that he might? And that he could be as freaked out as you?”
“I guess.”
Vee smirked, probably from Gracie’s sulky tone of voice. Maybe she’d heard it moments before Ruby threw a terrible-two-year-old tantrum.
“Wriggle all you like, Gracie Cooper. You know you’re hooked on the man—and those kids.”
The kids! Gracie’s eyes filled again. “I didn’t say goodbye to them, and dammit—Morgan’s dance is on Friday night. I promised her I’d be one of the chaperones since Owen was working.”
“Then you have some decisions to make.” Vee folded her arms. “Fly to the US and ski your chicken-assed self all over a mountain, or stay here in the Bay and fight for Owen and those kids.”
“I can’t make that sort of decision on an empty stomach.”
“Pizza it is, then,” Vee said with a smile and tossed her the phone.
Yeah, Gracie had a decision to make, and a hell of a lot of soul-searching to do before the sun rose above Bounty Bay’s horizon the next morning.
Chapter 20
Owen stepped out of a hospital meeting room after an hour-long discussion with the hospital’s general manager about budget cutbacks and considered throwing away his years of medical school to retrain as a beach bum.
He drove to work, the sun glinting off another beautiful left-hand break. Eight hours of sun, surf, and squawking seagulls had more appeal than his day of procedure, meetings, and having Jolene, his triage nurse, pull him aside to demand he tell her what had put a bug up his ass today. And she hadn’t been the only staff member to notice.
Owen headed along the antiseptic-and-lemon scented corridor, dodging around a “watch your step” sign. Inside his pants pocket, his phone vibrated. He tugged it out—Jolene, again. He called downstairs, half hoping for an incoming emergency that would demand his entire focus, anything to take his mind off the gaping chasm in his chest where his heart used to reside.
“You need me, Jo?” he said when she picked up.
“You got visitors at reception,” she said. “Your kids and a woman.”
Jolene and the other nurses had started referring to his nieces and nephew as “his kids” a while back, and Owen had given up pointing out they technically weren’t his. Because now, at least in his mind, they were. But that wasn’t what made his stomach perform a triple flip.
A woma
n. Gracie? He was about to ask, then nerves got the better of him. “I’m on my way.”
He disconnected and took the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, blowing through a set of swing doors that led into the emergency department. Morgan’s dark-brown gaze drilled into him as he crossed to where she, William, and Charlie sat. His glance zipped around the rest of the waiting room, passing over the few remaining patients waiting to be seen at four in the afternoon. No Gracie seated among the elderly couple and the father-teenage-son combo. Just his mother, in Owen’s peripheral vision, leaving the public restroom.
No Gracie. So suck it up, buttercup.
He required sutures to keep his mouth in an everything is fine smile, but he managed it, sitting beside Charlie, who looked the less threatening out of his two nieces.
Wrong.
Charlie burst into wailing sobs and flung herself onto Owen’s lap, knocking him back into the hard plastic chair. Eight weeks ago, he would’ve delicately peeled his niece’s arms from around his neck and handed her back to Nana.
Now?
Now he weathered the storm, her little body quaking in his arms. He met his mum’s solemn gaze above Charlie’s curls.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But they insisted on coming. I called first, and the nurse assured me you were having a slow day.”
Slow and torturous. “It’s okay. I’ve got a moment. What’s going on?”
He knew the answer, even though he hadn’t told anyone Gracie had gone yet. He hadn’t the balls to breathe a word of it to his dad when he’d dropped off Morgan’s school uniform and extra clothes for Charlie and William early that morning.
Morgan met his gaze behind William, her arms tightly folded. “At school today, Olivia told me she’d heard her mum on the phone talking to Gracie. Gracie’s at Vee’s house, and she’s staying there.”
Owen’s heartbeat only had time to skip once before Charlie reared back in his arms.
“And no one will tell me why Gracie isn’t at home!”
“Is it ’cause she doesn’t want to look after us anymore?” William kept his gaze tracking along the grid pattern of the linoleum.
Blood from his racing heart pounded through Owen’s brain.
“It’s not that she doesn’t want to.” He shifted Charlie to sit sideways on his lap. She rested her head on his chest, and it hurt, it physically hurt to continue speaking. “Gracie was only staying with us for a little while, like you were staying with me for a little while until Nana got better.”
“But I want to stay with you for always.” Charlie’s tear-filled eyes turned up to his.
“Me, too,” William said, dragging his gaze away from the floor.
Morgan didn’t say anything, until William not-so-subtly nudged her in the ribs.
“I guess I do, too.”
“I want you guys, too, but…” But what kind of life could he give them, even if he did cut down his hospital hours? “But you deserve more time than I can give you.”
“Because you’re a doctor.” Wise beyond his years, William glanced around the waiting room. “And you’re busy helping people.”
“Yes,” Owen said.
Charlie tugged on the tie he hadn’t had time to remove from his earlier meeting. “You’re not too busy for us anymore,” she said. “And Gracie could look after us while you’re working. She loves us.”
God, she did. That he knew without a doubt. “She does, but—”
“And you love her,” Morgan interrupted. “We can tell. It’s sooo obvious.”
Owen stared at his eldest niece. It was as if the words came straight from Ali’s mouth, said in the same teasingly sarcastic tone.
“Like Severus Snape loved Lily.” William laughed. “Uncle Owen, Uncle Owen—she’s your patronus!”
William was right. Gracie was his patronus—the shining light he clung to when darkness threatened to overwhelm. His happy place.
“Owen,” his mother said. “Can I talk to you privately?”
Owen kissed the top of Charlie’s head and transferred her back to her seat. “Don’t move, you three.”
Morgan rolled her eyes, but Owen caught the glimmer of a smile on her lips. He walked with his mother to the far side of the waiting room, out of earshot of the kids.
“Are you serious about becoming the children’s guardian?” she asked.
Owen studied his mum’s face, the marked laugh lines bracketing her mouth, the sagging skin under her faded-green eyes. Eyes that remained steady on him with strength that went beyond a woman who’d survived a triple bypass surgery only a couple of months ago.
“You need to be sure,” she added.
He thought about everything Gracie had taught him—patience, how to loosen up a little and have fun, that trying avocado and Vegemite on toast might not be as bad as it sounded, that reconnecting with Charlie, William, and Morgan was possible. That falling in love was the easiest thing in the world to learn with the right person.
“I’m sure,” he said. “I love them.”
“You’ve always loved them because they’re Alison’s. But now I see you love them solely because of who they are.” She squeezed his arm. “Your father and I were hoping this would happen.”
“Guess you know me better than I know myself. Though I have no idea how I’ll make it work.”
“We’ll make it work. Your father and I are happy to remain in Bounty Bay for a while longer until you figure something out.” She cocked her head, lips pinching into a small, secretive smile. “Until you figure out how to convince Gracie to forgive you for whatever stupid thing you did.”
He snorted. “What makes you think I did something stupid?”
She simply raised an eyebrow.
“I think she overheard some of our conversation yesterday,” he said.
“I can’t believe she would’ve walked away after you cleared that up and told her how you feel. The kids are right; it’s obvious you love her.”
Obvious to everyone apart from him, it seemed. He tried not to hunch his shoulders. Thirty-two years old and he felt like a kid about to admit to his mother that, sorry, he’d forgotten to lock the front door, and someone had burgled the house.
“I didn’t tell her.”
Her hand dropped from his arm. “You let her go after she heard you say in men-speak that you didn’t care about her?”
Shit—was that how Gracie would’ve translated it?
“I, uh, well—I kissed her goodbye.”
By the God grant me patience grimace on his mum’s face, his admission didn’t help.
“Oh, Owen,” she said. “Where is my bold and determined son who sacrificed so much to become a doctor? For a smart man, you’re really not very bright.”
Nothing he hadn’t already said to himself. “Thanks. I get it. But why would a woman I’ve known less than two months take on the responsibility of three kids…and me? It’s too much to ask.”
“It’s not too much to ask a woman who loves them—and you—in return. Only you’ll never know the answer unless you pull up your big-boy Spiderman underpants and go ask her.” His mother rose on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Think about it. We’ll let you get back to work.”
Then she gathered his nieces and nephew to her like a mother duck with ducklings and sailed out of the hospital. Leaving him standing, staring after her until the distant sound of sirens snapped him out of his trance.
Two hours later, following a brief phone call with Sam, who finally got back to him with Vee’s address after texting his mum, Owen knocked on Vee’s front door.
She opened it, Ruby perched on her hip and munching on a carrot stick.
Vee didn’t say a word, so Owen blurted out, “I need to speak to Gracie. She probably doesn’t want to talk to me—”
“You think?”
“Please. Just tell her I’m here.” Though Vee’s apartment was so tiny he could just about—
Vee moved forward, blocking his view inside the door. “She’s gone, Ow
en.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“To Auckland.”
Ruby gave him the hairy eyeball and shoved the last of the carrot stick into her mouth.
“Is she flying out to the US?” The words were ripped from him as his brain spun, calculating driving times and traffic conditions to Auckland International Airport.
“Settle down, big guy,” she said. “Take a breath and think before you need a paper bag to breathe into.”
He looked at her and she pulled a well? face.
“Go ahead,” she added. “We’ll wait for your conclusion.”
So Owen did.
He stood on Vee’s doorstep, the sound of a leaf blower whining in the distance and the fading smell of autumn sunshine tickling his nose. He thought about the way Gracie looked at him when they made love and the way she looked at him over the dinner table when William told one of his terrible jokes. He remembered the sound of her pleasure and the sound of her tears as she cried with him over the loss of his sister. He thought about the feeling of rightness when they followed the kids along the beach, holding hands, and the touch of her fingers rubbing his nape to soothe the tension of a brutal work day. The strawberry scent of her body lotion and the smell of bubble bath on her hands as she helped Charlie in the evenings.
Her warmth, her kindness, her admiration, and understanding of his career. The silent fear she’d never shown, afraid to trust his feelings for her because he hadn’t had the balls to put them out there. She’d run—because up to now, that was how she’d coped with perceived rejection—but she hadn’t run far.
Because he loved her, because he knew, deep down, what sort of woman Gracie was, he knew the answer to Vee’s question.
Vee and Ruby continued to watch him. He smiled, and Ruby offered him a shy smile in return, extending a chubby fist.
“She’s coming back.” He gave the toddler a gentle fist bump, which made her giggle. “Cinderella’s got a ball to attend.”
Vee nodded, her blue eyes twinkling. “Maybe you deserve her after all, Doctor O-for-Observant.”
***
No more running out of hurt and fear.
Teach Your Heart: A New Zealand Opposites Attract Romance (Far North Series Book 3) Page 24