“I was pretty angry at you,” the girl freely admitted, not attempting to hide the fact. “Some of my friends don’t even have dads. I have one and you wouldn’t even let me meet him no matter how much I begged you. So I decided to do it on my own,” she said, a little defiantly.
“She’s your daughter, all right,” Dillon said without any intended malice. “Headstrong to a fault.”
Maura’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to insult me?”
“No, in his own way, he’s giving you a compliment,” Hailey told her, playing peacemaker again. “It takes a strong, determined woman to raise a child on her own. If you hadn’t been as strong as you were, you might not have been able to make it. Or to go on to marry someone you fell in love with,” Hailey pointed out.
“Huh,” was Maura’s only initial comment.
She looked at Hailey for a long moment, silently going over things in her mind. And then she nodded her head, as if agreeing with the conclusion she had come to. Pulling her shoulders back, she said, “Would you like to come inside for some coffee?” she asked. Then, realizing that her question could be construed as only including one of them, Maura clarified, “Both of you.”
“Are you sure?” Hailey asked, glancing toward Dillon to see if he was all right with this, as well.
“I wouldn’t have asked you if I wasn’t,” Maura informed her pointedly.
“Well then, I’d love to come in for coffee. Our flight back to Texas isn’t for several hours,” she told Maura. She looked at Dillon. “How do you feel about coffee?”
“Definitely for it,” he answered, following the two women and his daughter into the house. For the time being, peace appeared to have been restored, mostly, he thought, thanks to Hailey.
Chapter Nineteen
Dillon found himself anticipating an explosion, or at the very least, name-calling when the initial dust had settled, but neither scenario materialized. Instead, he and Hailey wound up having an exceedingly civilized visit with Maura, who, it seemed, had actually had time to think the situation over. The woman grudgingly agreed that perhaps allowing Dillon to have regular visits with their daughter was actually for the best.
By the time he and Hailey were at the airport, Dillon finally had to admit that things were beginning to look positively rosy.
“That was really a surprise,” Dillon said to Hailey—not for the first time—as they began boarding their flight. “I honestly didn’t think that Maura would ever actually come around.” He couldn’t believe the amount of relief he was experiencing.
Hailey waited until they had made their way to their seats and sat down before she commented. It didn’t seem like the sort of conversation Dillon would appreciate having over the heads of strangers.
As she took her seat, she smiled at Dillon. She didn’t know how he had managed to get them seats next to one another at the last minute, but he had.
“How could Maura not come around?” she asked him. “She’s a mother, first and foremost,” Hailey pointed out. “And when Julie ran away, I think it finally hit Maura just how much her daughter was being hurt by this war she was waging against you. If Maura didn’t want to risk losing Julie again—or permanently—she knew she was going to have to change her tactics. In essence, Maura realized that she was going to have to loosen up,” Hailey told him.
Dillon nodded. What Hailey was saying made sense. But he knew from experience that sense and Maura didn’t always travel in the same circles.
“Still, this could have easily gone another way entirely,” Dillon told her.
That sort of mindset could suck him down a dark rabbit hole, Hailey thought. She did what she could to block it.
“Don’t think about what could have happened, just think about what did—and build on that,” Hailey advised with an encouraging smile.
He looked reluctant for a moment—because it left him open to disappointment—but then he gave in.
“You’re right,” Dillon agreed, his mind already considering possibilities. “When this project is finally finished and behind me, I’m finally going to be able to start spending quality time with Julie.”
And less time with me.
Well, what had she expected was going to happen? she asked herself. This was what Dillon had wanted, and in her own way, she had helped to bring about this scenario and make it happen.
While she was really glad for Dillon, Hailey couldn’t help feeling sorry for herself.
And that was when it hit her.
She had fallen in love with Dillon.
There was no other reason why she wanted him to be happy in a situation that didn’t include her. In order for him to be happy, he needed to spend time with Julie. What it boiled down to, she thought with a sinking heart, was that Dillon was going to be moving back to Fort Lauderdale when his jobs in Rambling Rose were finally wrapped up. Or maybe even before then.
He hadn’t said anything about her moving there with him, but even if he had, Hailey thought, it was a hell of a chance for her to take, uprooting her whole life and resettling in Fort Lauderdale on the slim chance that Dillon might eventually propose to her.
What if he said he only wanted her to live with him, not marry him? Could she settle for that? Would she be happy with just that?
The empty feeling in the pit of her stomach was her answer.
No, she wouldn’t.
Dillon looked at her. “You’re being awfully quiet,” he commented after ten minutes had passed.
She wasn’t about to ruin this for Dillon by doing what she had told him not to do: focusing only on the negative side.
So she said brightly, “I’m just happy for you with how things turned out.”
Dillon wasn’t really buying that, but for now he nodded. “That’s mostly thanks to your doing,” he acknowledged. “If you hadn’t told me to just hang in there...”
Hailey laughed, shaking her head. “Like someone could have actually bullied you into doing something,” she told Dillon, stressing how inconceivable that was given the situation. “Accept the credit where it’s due, Dillon. You did this. Maura saw how much this meant to you, and, more importantly, how much it meant to Julie. Maura is no dummy. She had to have known that if she stood in your way, she’d be the loser in more ways than one. She would have alienated Julie and, more than likely, by taking a stand against you, she would have lost her daughter.”
What Hailey was saying was all true, but there was something in her tone that Dillon found troubling. Something that said while she was happy for him, she wasn’t happy in the absolute sense. Something was bothering her.
But he had never been the type to push, to try to burrow deeply beneath the surface. If something was bothering Hailey and she wanted him to know, she would tell him. It was strictly her choice. So he left it—and her—alone.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t have a lot to occupy his mind. He and his brothers still had the hotel to build, not to mention that the restaurant was in its final stages and some things needed to be reviewed. That would be Ashley, Nicole and Megan’s department, he thought. He had taken precious time away from all that to bring his daughter back to Fort Lauderdale. The round trip there and back had eaten up more than a day and he knew he was going to have to explain that. While he was thrilled to have finally met Julie face to face, he couldn’t help wondering how his family was going to react about his having kept his daughter a secret from them. He just hoped that they’d understand and ultimately welcome this new member of the family.
* * *
“What’s wrong?” Hailey asked, looking at the perplexed expression on Dillon’s face.
They’d finally landed back in Texas and, since they didn’t have the added inconvenience of having to wait for their luggage, they were able to make their way to the parking lot with relative speed. Dillon had driven his own car to the airport and had left it parked ther
e when they began their odyssey back to Fort Lauderdale.
Having gotten into the vehicle, Dillon hadn’t started the car. Instead, he had placed a call to Callum to let him know he was back. When his call went to voice mail, he called Steven—with the same results. So he tried calling Stephanie. When that call went to voice mail, as well, he began to feel frustrated. It showed all over his face—and that had prompted Hailey’s question.
“What’s wrong is all the calls I just made aren’t going through. Instead they’re all going to voice mail,” he complained. “Something’s up.”
He wondered if it had something to do with the restaurant project.
“Are you sure you’re getting a busy signal?” Hailey asked. “Maybe there’s a tower that’s gone down for some reason. Service has really improved in the last year in Rambling Rose, but sometimes...”
“No,” he said, holding his phone up just in case she was right. But he could see that he had most of the bars on his cell phone. That wasn’t the problem. “I’ve got four out of five bars, so there’s definitely a signal.”
“But nobody’s answering?” she guessed.
Dillon frowned, putting his cell phone on the console tray.
“No,” he confirmed. “Nobody’s answering. Something must be up,” he repeated, adding, “Something that appears to be involving my whole family.”
“Like what?” she asked. So far, she wasn’t able to connect the dots and wondered what was running through Dillon’s mind.
“Beats me. Look, I can drop you off at your place—” His mind racing, Dillon was already trying to plan for several contingencies.
Hailey’s voice wedged its way into his thoughts. “Or you can take me to wherever you’re going,” she told him. He had already been through a lot these last couple of days and she wanted to be there to support him no matter what came up. “Why don’t we go to your ranch and start there?” she suggested. “Someone should probably be there and they might be able to tell you what’s going on—if there is anything going on,” she qualified.
Well, he certainly couldn’t argue with that, Dillon thought.
“It’s worth a shot,” he agreed.
“Any guesses?” Hailey asked as they pulled out of the airport parking lot.
“Not a clue,” he said, frustration throbbing in his voice. And then he had a thought. “Unless the city council has decided to pull their support for the new hotel we’re building.”
That, he thought, was the worst-case scenario. But what other reason was there for this sudden silence on his family’s part? He didn’t want to entertain any dire thoughts.
“Don’t go there yet,” Hailey advised. Then, because she had learned what he was like, she decided to qualify her words. “At least not until you have to. Maybe there’s another explanation for what’s going on.”
At least she fervently hoped so.
But neither one of them could even hazard a guess what that could possibly be.
* * *
When they got to the ranch, they found Callum there with the twins. But his wife, Becky, didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” were the first words out of Dillon’s mouth as he walked into the main section of the mansion.
Completely involved with the twins, Callum looked up, startled. “Sorry, I’ve been on the phone for a good part of the last couple of hours—at least when the twins let me talk,” he amended. Callum looked a little overwhelmed at the moment.
“I left you a couple of voice-mail messages,” Dillon told him.
The truth of it was, he had left a couple of messages on both his brothers’ phones, as well as on Stephanie’s. Since being unable to reach anyone in his family wasn’t a usual occurrence, he had gotten really concerned.
Trying to keep one of the girls from leaving her artwork permanently scribbled on the coffee table, thanks to the crayon she had found, Callum was only partially paying attention to his brother.
“Sorry, I didn’t see the messages,” Callum confessed, confiscating the crayon.
That wasn’t like his brother, Dillon thought. Even with his hands full, Callum could always multitask. His initial gut feeling had been right. Something was definitely wrong.
“Is there some kind of trouble at work?” he asked Callum.
Callum looked at him blankly. “What?” And then Dillon’s question seemed to sink in. “No,” he answered. “It’s nothing at work.”
Hailey interceded, taking Luna, the overactive twin, from him. Callum looked at her gratefully.
“Then what?” Dillon wanted to know. If there wasn’t a problem at work, then what was going on?
“And where’s Becky?” Hailey asked, wiping off traces of jam from the other twin’s face. “I’m guessing from that really tired expression on your face, she’s not here, is she?”
“Becky’s at the hospital,” Callum answered. “I’m pinch-hitting for the babysitter who had some kind of last-minute emergency.”
There was something in Callum’s voice that told Dillon this wasn’t just a regular workday for Becky, either. He could swear there was agitation in the air.
Before he could ask again, Callum looked up and frowned. “Eric brought Linus back to Rambling Rose to see the doctor.”
“We already know that part,” Dillon said. And then his expression grew more serious. “This isn’t just about a cold, is it?” he asked, recalling that he’d heard Linus’s dad was worried about the boy.
His brother shook his head. Picking up Sasha, the sticky twin, he began to wash off her face and hands with a wet towel.
“No, I really wish it was, but it’s more serious than that. A great deal more serious,” Callum emphasized.
Instantly concerned—not just because Linus was the tiny local celebrity, but because she, like everyone else in Rambling Rose, had fallen in love with the boy—Hailey wanted to hear more details.
“Why, what’s wrong with him, Callum?”
“According to Becky, a great deal. The upshot of it is that the kid might need a bone marrow transplant,” Callum said.
As he spoke, he looked at the twins. Hailey could only imagine how he felt. He’d come to love those little girls in a short amount of time. How would he feel if it were one of the twins who was sick? She knew Callum’s empathy as well as his heart went out to Linus’s father. And to Linus.
“The poor little guy,” Hailey said, thinking of the hurdles the baby had already gone through: being born prematurely, then abandoned by his mother, who was still missing. It was just pure luck that his father had turned up. When they had broken up, Eric hadn’t even known that Laurel was pregnant. He certainly hadn’t been prepared to have her take off the way she had. The moment he’d found out what was going on, he had claimed Linus and then taken the boy with him.
And now this.
It just seemed like neither Linus nor his dad could catch a break.
“Well, Linus is rather young,” Dillon said, thinking of the surgery. “But his dad’s probably a match,” he speculated, trying to think positive.
Callum picked up one of the girls and held her in his arms.
“Eric’s at the hospital being tested right now,” he told them. “If everything’s okay, they’ll confirm the diagnosis, and then the hospital can begin making preparations to do the surgery as soon as possible.”
Hailey nodded. “The sooner the better,” she agreed. “You don’t want to wait too long. Some other complication might just crop up and then there might be more problems to deal with.”
Dillon looked at her, curious. “How do you know so much about the subject?”
“I had a friend once who got very sick. The doctors thought it might be a problem with her bone marrow—but it wasn’t.” Hailey shrugged, realizing that she had gotten way too serious, reliving one of the attempts t
hat had been made to save Janelle’s life.
Clearing her throat, she deliberately forced a smile to her lips. “But that isn’t going to happen with Linus. Like you said, his dad’s probably a match and they’ll do the transplant right away.”
As if to bail her out, Callum’s cell phone rang. Hailey took the twin he was holding into her own arms, along with the one she was already holding, to allow him to take the call in relative peace. Or that was her reasoning at the time.
Opening his phone, Callum saw that it was his wife calling. “Hi, honey, we were just talking about you.” He glanced at his brother. Hailey guessed that Becky had probably just asked him who we were.
The next second, she saw that she was right because Callum told his wife, “Dillon and Hailey. They’re back and I think—wait, what?”
Callum’s entire countenance changed as he listened to his wife’s voice on the other end of the call.
Hailey kept her eyes on him, taking everything in as all sorts of half thoughts were forming in her head.
Something more was obviously going on, she thought. Did it have to do with Linus?
Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. The expression on Callum’s face was exceedingly serious and almost forbidding.
She and Dillon didn’t have long to wait to find out. Ending the call, Callum put his phone back into his pocket as he looked from Dillon to Hailey.
“Well?” Dillon demanded. “What’s going on?”
“Eric’s not a genetic match to Linus,” Callum told them in a quiet voice.
Chapter Twenty
For a moment, the only sounds in the room were the noises made by the twins as they babbled to each other. Dillon and Hailey looked at one another and then at Callum. Neither of them looked as if they could believe what they were hearing.
“What did you just say?” Dillon asked his brother in disbelief.
“Eric’s not a match. He can’t donate bone marrow to Linus.”
Fortune's Greatest Risk (The Fortunes 0f Texas: Rambling Rose Book 4) Page 17