Love Inspired February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Cowboy's Reunited FamilyThe Forest Ranger's ReturnMommy Wanted

by Brenda Minton

  “And if we find a kidney?”

  “If she’s fortunate, she won’t reject the kidney, and both she and the kidney stay healthy. Later in life she’ll more than likely need another transplant. If she gets a kidney from a living donor we hope for twenty years.”

  Twenty years. She’d be thirty-two. Blake shook his head as the reality of his daughter’s future hit. No matter what, she’d have a lifetime of medication and medical care. “So what do we do first?”

  Nurse Palmer stood, clipboard in hand. “We can start testing you, Mr. Cooper. If necessary we’ll test the rest of your family. If they’re willing.”

  “They’ll be willing. But let’s just go with the assumption that I’m the donor. When would we do this surgery? How soon?”

  The nurse smiled. “Let’s take things one step at a time.”

  “It seems to me that time isn’t something we have a lot of.”

  “Mr. Cooper, believe me, I appreciate the urgency of this situation.”

  “Okay, what’s the first step?”

  “We start with paperwork, of course. And then we’ll do blood tests. We want to make sure you have blood types that match. The last thing we want is for her body to reject your kidney.”

  “I’m her dad—why wouldn’t they match?”

  “Mr. Cooper, being her dad isn’t in question. Your blood type, the antigens in your blood and her body accepting your kidney—those are the issues we’re looking at here. And we also want to make sure you’re in good health and that you have two very healthy kidneys.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Yes, let’s.” Nurse Palmer paused at the door. “Mr. Cooper, you have to understand this is a lengthy evaluation. It isn’t going to happen in an hour. And it isn’t going to happen today. We want a complete physical, blood tests, and we’ll also have you talk to a counselor.”

  Great. They’d soon find out he resented the woman sitting across the room from him. He hoped that wouldn’t undo everything.

  “I understand.” He reached for the hat he’d dropped on the end table. “But the way I see it, the sooner we get started, the better.”

  Jana followed them into the hall. “I’m going to stay with Lindsey.”

  Blake gave her a strong look and pushed back a truckload of suspicion. She wasn’t going anywhere with Lindsey. Not now. He knew that, and he’d fight through the doubts about Jana and her motives. He’d do what he had to do to make sure Lindsey got the care she needed.

  He’d deal with his ex-wife later.

  * * *

  Jana watched Lindsey sleep. The nurse’s aide had left when she got back, only to return with a tray holding two plates. The meal was some type of chicken stir-fry. Jana tried to eat but couldn’t. Eventually Lindsey would wake up, and when she did, she’d have questions. Jana would need to have the answers. Real answers, not the ones she’d given her for years.

  As she had done for the past few months, Jana prayed. She’d learned to pray, learned to trust God. She knew that Blake doubted her. Sometimes she doubted herself. But she didn’t doubt God or the faith that she’d learned to rely on when she first discovered that Lindsey’s kidneys were failing.

  She had termed it “end of the rope” faith. She’d been dangling at the end of hers, and God had reached out to save her, even though she’d always doubted His existence.

  “You took me away from here?” Her daughter’s soft voice broke into Jana’s thoughts.

  She looked at her daughter, at the hazel eyes that were so similar to Blake’s. Those eyes were full of accusations.

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  Jana couldn’t look away from her child. She also couldn’t avoid the answer that would make her look like the most selfish person in the world. But hopefully someday Lindsey would see her mother as someone who’d made a mistake and then tried to make things right.

  For now she would tell Lindsey the basics, not the whole story, a story that included not realizing how depressed she was during those dark days before she left Dawson and for months afterward.

  “I was lost, Lindsey. I loved your dad, but I didn’t know how to be the wife of a Cooper. I didn’t know how to live so far away from London. I thought if I tried to leave him, he would take you away from me. I know that what I did was wrong, but at the time I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “You knew he was looking for me. That’s why we moved so often.”

  “Yes.” The word cut deep, to the very depths of her soul. Jana reached to brush dark hair back from Lindsey’s face. “I am sorry. I’m going to make it up to you.”

  “I’ll never leave with you again. You can’t make me.”

  “I won’t try. We’ll stay here so you can be near your dad.”

  “I want to live where he lives.”

  “Okay.” Jana choked on the word, because she knew that her daughter meant living with Blake and not with her.

  “Where is he?” Lindsey looked around the room. “Is he gone?”

  “No, he’s being tested to see if he can be your donor.”

  Lindsey reached for the cup on the table. Jana picked it up, held it to her lips. Lindsey took a long drink and then pulled away.

  “Do I have other family here?”

  Jana nodded. “Yes.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “You have grandparents. Tim and Angie. I think Tim’s mother, Granny Myrna, is still alive. And then there are about a dozen kids, your dad’s brothers and sisters.”

  “A dozen?” Lindsey’s eyes widened.

  “Yes. The Coopers had several children, then adopted more. It’s a very big family. They have a large ranch with horses and cattle.”

  Lindsey closed her eyes, a faint smile appearing on her lips. “I always thought I remembered my dad and the horse.”

  Lindsey opened her eyes again and her smile faded. “I’m mad that you kept me away from them.”

  “I know.”

  “Mothers make mistakes, sometimes.” The woman’s voice at the door startled Jana. She turned to face the visitors and then she stood as Angie Cooper entered the room. “You brought her back to us, Jana. That took courage.”

  Jana didn’t know what to say. Behind Angie, Tim Cooper filled the doorway. Older, but every bit the man she remembered. He entered the room, frowning and then looked past her, his gaze locking on the face of his granddaughter, and he smiled.

  “Lindsey, these are your grandparents.” Jana stepped back out of the way. “Tim and Angie Cooper.”

  “You can just call us Nan and Granddad.” Angie leaned over her granddaughter. “You are just as beautiful as I remember.”

  “I was little.” Lindsey bit down on her bottom lip, staring up at the grandparents she’d been denied. Regret, Jana had so much of it.

  “I’ll be in the hall.” Jana smiled at her daughter. “I won’t go far.”

  Angie reached for Jana’s hand as she started to walk away.

  “Thank you for bringing her back.”

  Jana nodded and walked out the door. Her heart ached as she headed down the hall. She was fighting to save her daughter’s life, but now she worried she would have to fight to keep her daughter’s love, too. The Coopers were powerful, and even though they were kind, she knew they would band together to keep Lindsey close. And she knew, even though they would forgive, that they wouldn’t welcome her back into their lives.

  The doors of the hospital chapel were open. She stepped inside
the quiet room with the wood pews and soft lighting, and for a few minutes she found peace. She kneeled at the altar, soaking up the presence of God, because she knew that only with His help would she get through the coming days.

  She prayed for Lindsey. She prayed for healing. She prayed for forgiveness. Then she left the quiet sanctuary, not sure where to go but knowing she needed time alone, and Lindsey needed her grandparents.

  “Mrs. Cooper, your husband is on the second floor if you want to join him,” a nurse told Jana.

  “I’m...” Jana paused, not knowing how to tell the nurse that Blake wasn’t her husband. “Thank you.”

  She walked to the elevator. She hadn’t planned on going to the second floor, but she did. After stepping off the elevator, she headed down a brightly lit hall. She saw Blake buttoning up his shirt as he walked out a double door. He was on the phone, telling someone he would see them soon and he would make it up to them. She didn’t want to think about who he was talking to, but she couldn’t help but imagine. It was a woman, someone he was involved with. Of course he had moved on. It had been ten years. She hadn’t expected him to be alone forever.

  He looked up, frowning when he saw her, then ended the conversation.

  “How’s it going?” she asked him.

  “I’m finished with paperwork and officially checked in to the hospital, I think. They’re going to run tests on my kidneys, heart and lungs.” He shrugged. “They’ve already taken blood.”

  “Blake, I’m so sorry that you have to go through this. I’m sorry that we’re pulling you away from your life this way.”

  “Why would you say that? Jana, I’d move heaven and earth to make sure Lindsey gets the help she needs.”

  She knew he would. He had probably moved heaven and earth trying to find them. Everything inside her ached when she thought about Blake’s no doubt frantic search for his daughter. Not for his wife, though. He’d probably be happy if she dropped off the face of the earth.

  Eventually she would have to tell him about the darkness, the depression, that had swept over her during those last months of their marriage. She would have to tell him how long it had taken her to climb out of that pit, and what it had taken to get her life back. But not now. He wasn’t ready to hear that now.

  “I know you would do anything for her, Blake. Thank you, for coming with me today.”

  “Stop thanking me. It makes me feel like a stranger who happened into your life. I’m not a stranger. I’m her dad.” He pushed the button on the elevator. “I need a cup of coffee. Want to join me?”

  “A cup of coffee would be nice.”

  As they rode the elevator down to the first floor, neither of them spoke. They were strangers, really. Jana didn’t know about his life. He didn’t know much about hers. They shared a daughter. That was it.

  No, that was wrong. They weren’t strangers. They’d been married. He’d wooed her, and she’d fallen in love. She hadn’t exactly fallen out of love. She’d left him because she’d been young. She’d missed her home, people who sounded the way she sounded. She’d gotten homesick. Desperately homesick. And she’d grown terribly sad and hadn’t been able to overcome it.

  Now, almost eleven years later, they were back to being strangers. She didn’t know the man he’d become. He didn’t know her. She wondered if they’d ever really known each other. “I’m hoping that we’ll know by morning if I’m a match,” he offered as they walked through the doors of the cafeteria.

  “That would be good.” She followed him to the coffee machine.

  He filled a cup and handed it to her and then reached for another cup. “Jana, we’ll have to come up with a plan for sharing our daughter.”

  “She wants to stay with you,” Jana admitted as she stirred sugar in her coffee. “She’s angry with me.”

  “She won’t always be angry,” he said as he pulled out money to pay for the coffee. He smiled at the cashier, took his change and nodded toward a booth in the corner.

  Jana waited until they were seated before she answered. “Won’t she, Blake? Because I think she will. I think if I was her, I’d resent me. I’d want nothing to do with me.”

  “She’s young. She’s been through a lot.”

  “She’s been through a lot because of me. So have you. I’m really kind of surprised that you would sit here and have coffee with me.”

  He was quiet for a long time, looking into the cup of black coffee, his brows knit together in thought. Finally he looked up. “Yeah, well, I’m a little surprised myself. I’m angry. I don’t know if I’ll ever trust you. But I do know that we have a daughter who needs us both. For her sake, I’ll work through this and we’ll find a way to be friends, to at least form a truce, because she needs that from us. She needs for us to be adults and pave the way for her to be happy.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Am I? Because I’m talking about you staying here. The last time I saw you, you weren’t too excited about living in Dawson. I still live there, Jana. And this is where Lindsey will live. This time I’ll make sure you can’t get her out of the country.”

  Her heart hammered hard against her ribs. “I’m prepared to do what I have to do in order to keep Lindsey safe and happy.”

  “You’re prepared to live in the town you disliked so intensely you thought it would be a good idea to take our daughter and leave just a note on the table?”

  She met his accusing gaze head-on.

  “I’m not twenty-four anymore. I’m thirty-five. We’ve both gotten older and wiser. I’ve learned to deal with life better now.”

  If she told him more, he would understand, but she couldn’t. Not now. Whatever she said would sound like an excuse, like a plea for sympathy. She couldn’t tell him, not yet. No matter what he thought of her.

  “Why didn’t you come back?” Blake asked her.

  “Because I didn’t know what would happen. I was afraid you’d take Lindsey. I was afraid you’d have the police waiting for me.”

  “I wouldn’t have done either.”

  “Are you sure?” She smiled a little, imagining what lengths he would have gone to in order to get Lindsey back.

  “Okay, maybe,” he admitted. “Maybe not.”

  He finished his coffee and pushed back from the table. “We should get back upstairs to Lindsey before I have to finish the tests.”

  The comment took Jana by surprise. She’d expected him to want more answers, more information. Instead he seemed to be done with her and with explanations.

  She would survive his anger. At least she wanted to believe she would. But her heart wasn’t absolutely sure it could survive another round of Blake Cooper in her life.

  Chapter Three

  “Mr. Cooper, you’re a match.”

  Those would go down in history as the best words Blake had ever heard. He’d nearly cried when Nurse Palmer, their transplant coordinator, had given them the news.

  Now, just twenty-four hours after Jana had showed up at Cooper Creek, he and Lindsey were scheduled for the surgery that would give her a second chance.

  And give him a second chance to know his daughter.

  Blake relaxed in the hospital bed next to Lindsey’s. She glanced at him, shaking her head and then laughing. He shot her a look, trying to quell her mirth. Or make her laugh harder.

  “What’s so funny?” he finally asked.

  She snickered again and the sound filled his heart. It had been empty a long time, he realized. In the years since Jana left with Lindsey, he’d s
urvived but he hadn’t lived. He’d worked. He’d somehow made it to family functions. It hadn’t been easy, watching his brother Lucky’s family growing, watching his other siblings marry and start families.

  Just in the past few months he’d finally realized he had to do something with his time. That’s when he’d met Teddy. He couldn’t wait for Lindsey to meet the little boy that he’d started mentoring through their church program, which matched kids with adults.

  He smiled at his daughter again and she laughed once more.

  “You look great in that hospital gown,” she teased. “And the cap on your head is perfect.”

  “They could make these things a little more decent.” He made a face at her. “Or give me a pair of scrubs.”

  “Then you’d run around the hospital and act like a doctor. You’d try to do surgery or something.”

  “I think running will be out of the question for the next few weeks.” The idea of slowing down didn’t bother him a bit, not with Lindsey here.

  It struck him again that they were having conversations, the kind he’d seen Jackson have with his daughter, Jade, and Lucky with Sabrina. The last time he’d seen his daughter they’d been limited to conversations about cookies, puppies and going potty. Her laugh then had been babyish. Now she had a preteen giggle, and he was pretty sure she thought the young, male orderly was cute.

  He would have to learn this business of being a dad to a teenager, to a girl who looked at boys. He’d have to restrain himself from hurting those boys.

  “Where’d your mom go?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.

  “Down to the cafeteria. She didn’t want to eat in front of us.”

  Jana had disappeared while he’d been out of the room for more tests. It was easier to breathe with her gone. It gave him time to reconnect with his daughter, to learn who she was.

  “Did you like living in all of those different countries?” he asked.