He shook his head while they followed him. “God, girls, you’re only twelve.”
They giggled behind him. Lord save him from everything he knew he was about to go through in Emily’s adolescence.
He handed them both cans of soda, unopened, so he knew they hadn’t been tampered with.
On impulse, he took Emily’s face between his hands and leaned his lips on her forehead. God, he loved her. Oh dear God, he loved the daylights out of her.
He thanked God that he hadn’t screwed her up, that she had a father who had finally seen the light, and he prayed that he hadn’t come to his senses too late for his daughter.
He let her go and the girls walked away. He caught a glimpse of Laura. A breeze through the open window pressed her dress against her expanding belly.
That baby would have no father.
But it would have the monetary support it would need to grow up healthy and safe.
But it would have no father.
Déjà vu.
Just like Emily in her younger years.
Maybe Laura would find a man who loved her, who was more developed than either he or Cro-Magnon Vin, who would take on the baby as his own and give it the fathering it would need.
Acid burned in his stomach. Acid? No. Anger. He didn’t want another man raising his child. He didn’t want another man touching Laura.
You don’t want to raise the baby yourself, though, do you?
Nor do you want to commit to Laura in any way, so grow up and let her move on with her life. Let her find someone else.
He headed to the bar and ordered a Scotch. Neat.
* * *
OLIVIA STOOD AT the bar alone having a martini when she heard Nick Jordan yell that he would never marry Laura Cameron.
She watched Laura smash a slice of cake against his chest then walk away. A moment later, she managed to find her daughter in the washroom.
“What was that all about?” she asked. “Why would Nick Jordan be talking about marrying you?”
“You mean talking about not marrying me,” Laura replied, her tone bitter.
“What’s going on?”
“You haven’t heard? I don’t know how the word leaked out, but I guess it was only a matter of time. Nick is the baby’s father.”
Laura might as well have slapped Olivia. “What?” she said faintly. “Nick Jordan? But I thought you hated him.”
“I did.”
“Apparently, not anymore.”
“Not for a while. I might start again, though. He’s behaving like an ass tonight.”
“What is he going to do about the baby?”
“He has offered child support and I have accepted it.”
“How about paying medical bills?”
“I haven’t asked him to.”
“Ask him. Having a baby costs a small fortune.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Will he be around for the baby?”
“I don’t want him here. This is my baby and no one else’s.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Olivia touched Laura’s shoulder. “You’ve always wanted a whole family.”
Laura leaned her cheek against Olivia’s hand. “I know, but I don’t have a choice. This wasn’t what I had planned at all.”
“All of those things I said about not wanting to be a grandmother?”
Laura nodded.
“I take them back. I want this baby, too.” Olivia had been doing some hard thinking. She was what she was. Her age couldn’t be changed. It was what it was.
“Oh, Mom, thank you. I want this baby to know her grandmother.”
Olivia held Laura until she said, “Mom, I need to be alone for a few minutes, okay?”
“Okay, sweetie. I love you.” She kissed Laura’s forehead and then left the washroom.
Aiden leaned against the wall, waiting for her. She’d known he was at the wedding, but she’d been avoiding him.
“I want to dance with you,” he said.
“I’d like that.” The band was playing a slow song. Why not? Why the hell not? Here, in public, she could hold him, she could be held by him, without worrying about Aiden wanting to take it further. Without fighting her own almost-overwhelming temptation to give in to the man.
She could be held by him here where it was safe.
He danced as well as he did everything, with a natural athletic grace.
She reveled in the warmth of his embrace, in the divine strength of his arms around her.
“You dance well,” he said, his voice a rumble in his chest and an exhalation of breath near her ear.
“So do you,” she murmured with her eyes closed, savoring the moment.
“Have you changed your mind? About us?”
“No.”
His embrace tightened, briefly.
“I’m going to bring your metal piece over tomorrow.”
“I’ll have a check ready for you.”
“No. I told you. It’s a gift from me.”
“But—”
“Be quiet.” He softened the order with a “Please.”
“Okay. Come over at two.”
The following afternoon, Olivia opened her front door.
Aiden stood with the melting vaginal petal in his arms. Goodness, the man was strong.
“Where do you want it?”
“Upstairs.”
He followed her up the stairs and she led him to her bedroom.
“In here. Over there.”
He put it down where she directed then turned and studied her.
“Aiden, no,” she whispered. Don’t tempt me.
He left without another word.
Olivia stared at the petal and wanted to weep that fate would have them come onto this earth at the wrong time for each other.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NICK SAT IN HIS HOME office going over documents that had been sent to him by a client. Since the contracts leaned far too far in the client’s favor, Nick’s pen hadn’t stopped marking them up in the past ten minutes.
He didn’t know where the autumn was going. It was already late November and he hadn’t finished work on the Fellows contract let alone starting work on the new O’Connor deal.
His door slammed open, startling him.
“Dad! I know you told me not to bother you, but I have to.” Emily ran into the room clutching the telephone.
“What’s wrong, Emily?”
“It’s Uncle Ty on the phone. He needs to talk to you. Right now. He sounds really tense.”
Nick took the phone. To avoid interruptions, he purposely hadn’t put one in the office. It allowed him to get through whatever work he had to bring home more efficiently so he could spend more time with Emily.
“Ty? What’s up?”
“You might want to get down here. Laura’s in the hospital.”
Nick had been leaning back in his seat, but shot forward. “Why?”
“Something to do with the baby. I don’t know if she’s losing it or what, but an ambulance was called to the bakery. Apparently, there was blood on the floor in the kitchen.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He handed the phone to Emily. “I have to go to Accord.”
“I’ll come, too.”
“Not this time, Emily. You have school.”
She followed him upstairs to his room. He took a carry-on out of the closet and tossed in jeans and a couple of sweaters and underwear.
“Why are you going?” Emily asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Laura is in the hospital.”
“So what?”
“I don’t know. I think there’s a problem with her baby.”
“So why does she need you there?”
“She doesn’t need me.” She really didn’t. She was strong. She would survive whatever happened, but he didn’t want her in pain. She didn’t need more sorrow and grief. She’d been through enough. He didn’t want anything to happen to her. He didn’t want her to lose her baby.
“So if she doesn’t need you, why are you going?”
“She might lose the baby.”
“So what? That would solve all of our problems.”
His pulse lurched. He didn’t want that kind of solution to this problem.
“It would devastate Laura.” She would need a friend. Despite his asinine behavior at Ty’s wedding, he didn’t want Laura hurting. He did want to support her.
Besides, he’d slept with her that one night. He hadn’t planned it and, with the different perspective that time and distance allowed, he knew she hadn’t planned it, either.
He wasn’t a man to sleep around easily. She wasn’t a woman who slept around. They didn’t do one-night stands. So, in effect, for that one night, they’d become involved with each other. They’d had a relationship.
He’d wanted her. Not just any woman. Her.
As far as he could tell, Laura had wanted him. Not just any man. Not a father for her baby. She’d wanted a deep, strong, emotional, insanely hot relationship with him. In the nature of their relationship with each other, it had lasted one night.
Because their night together had been more than a one-night stand, because they knew each other and cared in their screwed-up way, he had to go to her now.
“I have to go,” he said.
Emily started to cry and left the room.
He couldn’t go to her or he would miss the only flight going out to Denver today.
He phoned Mort to ask him to come stay with her. He said he would head right over.
The flight to Denver took too long, as did the drive to the hospital outside of Accord.
At Information, he asked to see Laura. She’d been admitted and he took the elevator to the second floor.
He rounded a corner and found the correct room.
Laura lay in a bed hooked up to an IV, looking pale and tired.
Her hands were swollen. He touched one. She woke up. When she saw him, her eyes widened.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I was only dozing.”
“What happened?”
“I started to go into labor.”
Because Marsha had handled all of the details of her pregnancy while Nick established himself in her father’s company, he knew little about pregnancy and complications.
“Isn’t it too early?” he asked, figuring that much out at least.
She nodded. In her eyes lurked fear. She’d had a miscarriage before. She must be scared to death to lose this baby.
“What are you doing in Accord?” she asked.
Nick frowned. “I came to see you. Ty called. He thought you might be losing the baby.”
“You came for this?”
“Of course.”
Her fingers tightened perceptibly in his. “I thought you hated me.”
He felt a lot of things for her, a weird amalgam of affection and resentment and who knew what else. He never did look at those kinds of things too closely.
“I don’t hate you and I don’t want you to lose the baby.”
“I don’t want to, either, Nick.”
“I know. Tell me what’s happening.” Without letting go of her—he didn’t think she would let him—he hooked a chair with his foot and dragged it over to the bed before sitting down.
“It’s premature labor. Oh, Nick, if the baby were born now, it would be so tiny. It would have to fight for its life.”
He tried to imagine being so small and helpless, hooked up to machines for survival. Right now, it was where it was supposed to be, inside the safety of Laura’s warm and giving body.
“What can we do about it?” he asked. “How can we prevent it from coming so early?”
Her fingers tightened their grip on his. “Bed rest.”
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked, responding to the bitterness in her voice.
“I’ve got a grand opening scheduled for two weeks before Christmas. I’m closing for a week to take that dividing wall down and to finish the place and to bake like there’s no tomorrow. I’m big and I’m slow and tired all of the time and now I’ve got to stay in bed.”
He kissed her fingers. “It’s for the baby’s health.”
“I know. I’ll do anything for the baby, but I don’t know what to do about my other obligations. I’ve hired all of these servers who think they have jobs starting on Opening Day.”
She stared at the ceiling. “I was trying to get it all done before the baby arrived.”
“Who is the doctor taking care of you?”
She gave him a name.
“I’m going to talk to her.”
She nodded, her eyelids drooping. In a minute or two, she would be asleep.
While he watched, something...happened. Under the thin sheet, her belly moved, a bump rippled along under her skin.
He placed his palm on the huge mound that was her pregnant stomach, and a second later, a tiny elbow or knee brushed his hand.
He snatched it back, the wonder of it backing up in his throat. He put his hand on her again and the baby brushed against him, as though they were communicating, as though the baby were saying, “Daddy, play with me!”
All of those missed times with Emily came back to haunt him, all of those moments when he’d been too busy for her.
Another child would be born and would live through all of those missed moments, through opportunities squandered.
All hail the god of commerce and business.
It was his life, though. He didn’t know how to leave it, didn’t know who to be without it. In his office, in his world, he felt real, needed, useful.
This was real, too. This baby he’d thought of as a tiny amorphous thing was real, was “talking” to him from the uterus. He was overwhelmed by the responsibility.
He might not be able to help the unborn baby, knew he would spend the rest of his life missing her growing up, but he could help her mother. And he would.
He went in search of her doctor and finally found her.
“Can you tell me what’s going on with Laura Cameron?”
“It depends. Who are you?”
“Nick Jordan. The baby’s father.”
The doctor nodded. She was only a few years older than him, trim and tall with short dark curls and eyes that had seen a lot.
“Laura is in preterm labor.”
“What does that mean?” Nick asked.
“In layman’s terms, premature labor.”
“What will happen?”
“If she gives birth now, the baby will be very small and at risk.”
“Meaning it could die?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How can you change it? If her body wants to give birth now, how do you stop it?”
“I’ve put her on a tocolytic to suppress labor and inhibit contractions. In case she does deliver, she’s also on a corticosteroid to help the baby’s lungs mature. We want to give the baby a fighting chance.”
“So, will she be hospitalized until she gives birth?”
“No. We’ll keep her overnight for observation and then send her home. She will be bedridden, though. We don’t want to take chances.”
“But she’s got a business to run.”
The doctor stiffened so subtly, Nick almost missed the movement.
“She’ll have to make a choice between the baby and the business.”
“No contest,” he said. “She’ll choose the baby.”
The doctor seemed to relax. “Good. She’ll need support in the coming weeks. Despite our best efforts, anything could still happen.”
“Okay. I’ll stay to help her until the baby’s born.”
Once more, Accord beckoned, and once more, he answered the call.
He phoned Emily and explained what was happening.
“You’re going to stay there?” Her nose sounded stuffy. Had she been crying all this time? “For how long?”
“I don’t know. Until Laura seems stable, I guess.”
“Come home soon.”
“I will. Guess what. I felt the baby today. It moved against my hand.”
Silence.
He cursed. He’d said the wrong thing. She didn’t want to have anything to do with the baby. She especially didn’t want to hear him express anything that remotely resembled happiness.
* * *
NICK WAS IN a foul mood.
He phoned Ty. He needed to talk to him. “Do you mind if I stay at your place tonight? Or should I go to the B and B?”
“Go to my place. I’ll pick up something for dinner.”
By the time he got to Ty’s, his mood wasn’t any better and he guessed that the root of his mood was fear. He was smart enough to figure that much out. The doctor had scared the daylights out of him. The baby could die. They should have got rid of it right at the beginning.
Wasn’t it funny that neither he nor Laura had ever thought of that? They had accepted that she was pregnant and that she would have the baby and that was that.
They would do what they had to do to keep the baby alive and inside of Laura for as long as possible. So why this foul mood?
Was it because Emily didn’t want to accept the baby? So what? Neither did Nick, not really, despite those moments of magical touch with the baby still in Laura’s womb.
The plan hadn’t changed. He would give her child support and that was it. The purpose of this trip? He was here to help a friend.
He took a beer out of the fridge, but his hands shook when he tried to open it. He slammed it onto the counter.
What if the baby died? How on earth could Laura lose another baby? He’d seen her grief at the cemetery his first afternoon in Accord.
Ty walked in, his arms full of grocery bags with the organic market’s logo on them.
“If you’re going to buy organic,” Nick said, his tone peevish, “you should use your own reusable bags.”
He couldn’t stand anything illogical in life.
Ty put the bags on the counter, crossed his arms and stared at Nick.
“What’s wrong with Laura?”
Nick handed the can of beer to Ty. “Open this.”
Ty did and gave it back to him.
Nick took a long draw on it and then said, “Preterm labor.”
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