by Caro Carson
They were in the kitchen, starting a pot of coffee and getting out cereal bowls. Zach was free of the sling today, and Brooke had been silently assessing how he used his arm. No problems, so far.
He held up a plastic chip bag that had nothing but crumbs in the bottom. “Make that two bags.”
Brooke started to laugh, but Zach didn’t laugh with her. “Wasn’t that a joke?”
Zach glanced into the living room, where Zoe was playing with a dollhouse app on Zach’s phone. She wasn’t listening to them.
“I did it again. I keep referring to myself as her father. What if I’m not?”
“So you want the answer to be yes?”
He answered her with a groan of frustration as he pulled her into his arms in a giant bear hug. They stood like that for a long moment, and he rested his cheek against her. He’d given Brooke bear hugs like this before, enveloping her in security when she was vulnerable. She thought this might be a little different. Maybe in this hug, she was the bear. She squeezed him harder with both arms.
“I didn’t know she existed until yesterday, but if the lab says no and I have to send her back to Alabama, to a grandmother who is tired of being stuck with her while her mother ignores her, I think it will tear me up.”
He squashed Brooke a little tighter to him. If she was the bear, then she was a teddy bear. Teddy bears didn’t need to talk to provide comfort, which was good, because she didn’t know whether to encourage his hopes or temper his dreams or offer some platitude when she’d never been in his shoes.
“I’ll still be here,” she said, “either way.”
It hadn’t comforted her parents much when they’d lost their daughter, but it was all she had.
“And as a doctor, I can say with authority that there is no scientific evidence that a one-day diet of tortilla chips will cause permanent harm to a child.”
“Hey, Brooke?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
* * *
It was pouring rain during naptime. Zoe was tucked into her bed, which for now was a futon from Zach’s long-ago first apartment. It had been serving as a gamer’s couch in the spare bedroom, where his video games were now stacked in a corner to make room for a pink suitcase’s contents.
Rain often brought hail and flash floods to Central Texas, but on this afternoon, it was soothing, so much so that, despite being on edge over test results, Zach and Brooke were sound asleep together on the living room’s couch when the cell phone rang.
It was Jamie with the lab results. Zach was the father.
He hung up the call and stayed where he was, flat on his back, motionless. Brooke sat up and stayed on the edge next to him, listening to the rain.
“Are you happy?” she asked tentatively, when the silence stretched on. He looked a bit like a boxer who’d been knocked out in the ring.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“But you will.”
“I’m not qualified. I’ve been given this life, this human being, and I could screw it all up.”
It was overwhelming. Brooke couldn’t lie and say it wasn’t, so she told him something else that was also true.
“Yesterday, do you remember how the lab tech swabbed your cheek for the test first? He wanted to show Zoe that it wouldn’t hurt, and then he started giving Zoe that pep talk, the one we all do sometimes. I was thinking that the tech was making it sound like having her cheek swabbed was going to be the best thing that had ever happened in her life.
“But then I looked at you, and I realized the tech wasn’t exaggerating. If this paternity test proved that you were the father, it really would be the best thing that could happen in that little girl’s life. It might be throwing you into a tailspin at the moment, but you’re going to be an excellent father.”
His knockout didn’t last long. Restless, he got to his feet. “I’ve done a great job so far. Just great. I spent four years being oblivious to the fact that she even existed.”
“How could you have known?”
“I should have checked. I should have followed up, even though Charisse was on the pill.” He drove one hand through his hair in that way Brooke found so achingly familiar. “I don’t have any other bastard children running around. I’m sure of it, and not just because I take precautions. Every other woman I’ve been with, I’ve stayed on good terms with. We’ve got mutual friends. I see them around. I know nobody’s had a baby. But Charisse, the one I actually got pregnant, is the only one I never saw again. Damn it. Damn me.”
Brooke pushed aside the jealous pain at the idea of the women who’d come before her by using cool logic. He hadn’t known Brooke, so any women before her had nothing to do with her. There were no other women now that she was his girlfriend.
Maybe cool logic could help him forgive himself for not knowing Zoe had been conceived. “Let’s suppose you had followed up. You saw her get married. If you’d managed to run into her again and seen her with a baby, what would you have thought?”
He considered seriously. “That she and her husband had a baby.”
“That’s what she would have told you, too. She wouldn’t have risked a thing.” From the conversation Zach had relayed yesterday, it was obvious that Charisse did whatever was best for Charisse.
Zach dropped into the armchair facing her. “But she knew. Her doctor told her she could have gotten pregnant any time that month. She should have had a paternity test the day the baby was born. Four years, she took away from me. I missed all of it. I missed the whole baby thing, the first steps, all of it.”
Had she ever thought Zach Bishop was not a serious man? She’d been as wrong about him as he’d been about Charisse. He’d been lighthearted not because he lacked depth, but because he chose to live his life with a positive outlook. She’d wasted a lot of time, ignoring him simply because he chose happiness.
He’d be happy again. He had a daughter who was going to bring him joy and love, like Chelsea had brought joy and love into her family. Brooke just needed to help Zach get through this dark period. She’d seen what bitterness had done for her mother. She didn’t want that to take hold in Zach.
“Charisse was wrong, but it would have taken a lot of courage for her to risk her new marriage by confessing there was a chance the baby wasn’t her husband’s.”
“She’s not the courageous type.”
“Zach, not many people are that courageous.”
“You are.”
She shrugged off his compliment, but it was a wonderful, warm feeling to hear his unconditional confidence in her. “You never know what you’ll really do until you are in the situation yourself. I don’t think I’ll ever be called upon to show that particular kind of courage.”
“You’re already showing courage, just by being here.”
“With a handsome man and a cute kid? It’s not that tough.”
“It is for you. You had a nightmare last night, baby. Do you remember?”
She did. It had been the most vivid recollection she’d had in a long time.
The accident in real life hadn’t been gory. In fact, everyone at the time had thought her sister had been lucky and merely knocked unconscious, until it became clear at the hospital that she was in a coma. What made last night’s nightmare so vivid wasn’t blood or gore.
Before bed, Brooke had helped Zoe put on her pajamas and brush her teeth. The sensation of little arms hugging her, the feel of baby-smooth skin as she kissed a cheek good-night, these were the things that had made memories of Chelsea more vivid. In her nightmare, Chelsea always disappeared without warning. Last night, the sudden, sucking loss of hugs and cuddles had felt as fresh as when Brooke was twelve.
She dashed the back of her hand across her cheek, but it was dry. Relieved, she attempted a smile to fool Zach. “It wasn’t so b
ad. Probably just a leftover effect from last weekend.”
Zach left the arm chair to sit with her. He kissed the corner of her eye. “Baby, you aren’t a very good liar. Talk to me. What do you think about all this?”
“I told you the truth. I think it’s the best thing that can happen for Zoe.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He cupped her jaw in one hand and rested his forehead against hers. “You don’t have to be calm. You’re not on duty. Being around Zoe has to be hard for you.”
“I’ll adjust. I had nightmares before Zoe, too.”
“I made you a promise when you sewed me up. I said I would never deliberately do anything to cause you pain.”
“But you didn’t do this deliberately.”
“But the pain is the same for you, anyway. Brooke, I’m so sorry about all this. I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe you should ease yourself into the situation. Sleep at your own place for a while. God knows I’ll miss you, but God knows I don’t want to see you hurting, either.”
She remembered her nightmare, that keening loss of a child’s love. She’d do anything to prevent that from happening to Zach. Anything.
“I’ll be happier if I’m here with you.”
Or she would be, as long as she could keep Zoe safe.
Chapter Seventeen
On the surface, Zach’s week had gone as well as it could possibly go for a man who’d just found out he had a four-year-old child.
Physically, he was fine. His arm was healing fast, his bruises fading to green and yellow. His week’s medical leave was over, and he was cleared to go back to work by Brooke.
His work schedule hadn’t been a problem yet, either, also thanks to Brooke. He worked twenty-four on and forty-eight off at the fire station. Brooke had rearranged her schedule to be off work for the twenty-four hours that he was on duty.
Brooke had thought ahead. She’d set up a video chat between him and Zoe while he was at the firehouse, in case the child became upset at yet another adult suddenly disappearing. The video chat had been fun, but not emotionally necessary. Zoe was surprisingly stable, and Zach believed it was because she’d lived almost entirely with her grandparents while Charisse had been lining up her next husband. If Charisse had dragged her around as an afterthought during her husband hunt, Zach had no doubt that his daughter would have more emotional issues.
His daughter. The best part of his week was simply being with his daughter.
Each day, he learned more about what a preschooler could and couldn’t do. He’d been surprised she could use a fork and knife pretty well, but she couldn’t manage the bathtub faucet. She could entertain herself with leaves and rocks outdoors, but she had to be watched so she didn’t stand in an ant pile or get too close to the creek. From the moment she woke to the moment she slept, Zach was on constant alert, but he was constantly enchanted by her as well. Her smiles were irresistible. Her peals of laughter had to be the happiest sound on earth.
On the surface, life was great.
Deep down, things weren’t right with Brooke.
The surface of her was calm. She didn’t seem to have any problem being around Zoe. She helped her dress, did her hair, played endless rounds of a board game she’d bought in the hospital gift shop. Zach should be grateful.
Instead, he was worried. He’d held Brooke during nightmares. He’d been to her sister’s grave. He’d broken a coffee mug for her one morning. But now, with the snap of her fingers, she had no issue at all. It couldn’t be true.
If she was still having nightmares, they didn’t wake him. He was afraid he was just sleeping harder than before. Days as a father were definitely more demanding than days as a bachelor with a smokin’ hot girlfriend.
They’d had precious little time to be a couple, just the two of them, before Zoe had taken center stage in his life. At the firefighters’ picnic, he and Brooke had planned to delay kids indefinitely, and they’d agreed to talk about any changes of heart on that subject. Five days later, he’d presented her with a child. There’d been no talking. Charisse had blown that out of the water.
They’d have that talk now, then. Charisse didn’t get to screw up the lives of the people he loved any longer—not Zoe’s, not Brooke’s.
He was sitting on the porch steps when Brooke pulled into the drive in her red car. He took a sip from his cold beer as she opened the door and swung her legs out. He admired the view, letting his gaze take that leisurely trip from the tips of her professional pumps, up those trim legs, past the pinstriped skirt. He savored the heat in his body that burned at the sight of her. This was the woman for him. She always would be.
He lifted his gaze to her face. That worry wrinkle marked the space between her brows as she looked toward the creek and around the property. She glanced right past him, up to the porch. He knew the exact moment she spotted Zoe, because she nearly drooped with relief—for less than a second.
By the time she took her first step toward him, that smooth, serene smile was in place.
That was the problem. The invisible barrier hadn’t been there before. She’d flirted with him, been annoyed with him, aroused by him, worried for him. She’d been real. He’d take any of those over this merely pleasant Brooke.
He wanted to say welcome home, but she was just visiting his house. The change of clothing she carried on a hanger over her arm meant she’d stopped at her apartment on the way here.
“Hi, baby.” He twisted off the cap of another cold bottle and held it out to her. “Welcome to happy hour.”
“Oh.” She patted the clothes she carried. “Let me just hang these up and check on Zoe.”
He shook his head and stood up. “You’ll miss the view. Turn around.” He took the clothes from her and hung them from the edge of the porch railing.
She dutifully accepted the beer and turned to face west.
“Isn’t it something?” he asked. “They lifted the flash flood warnings for the night. After that morning rain, we’ve got something spectacular to look at.”
The sunset couldn’t hold Brooke’s attention. She turned to look up at the porch. He stole a brief kiss, since she hadn’t offered.
“Zoe’s fine. The railing is solid. The only way off the porch are these stairs. Jamie’s wife suggested the library today. It was a hit. Zoe’s got a ton of books up there.” He sat on a step, and she took the one below him. He set his beer down and began to pull her ponytail holder loose, already anticipating the slide of her dark hair between his fingers, the way she’d sigh at the sensation and lean against his knee. It was a fine way to start a talk.
“Any interesting patients today?”
“Not really.” Her hand hovered over the ponytail for a moment, but then she dropped it into her lap. Zach took that as permission to proceed. She settled against his leg, but he could tell she wasn’t resting her full weight on him.
“Any pediatrics?”
“Strep throat. A boy who was luckier than Zoe and only had a sprain, not a fracture.”
That was it. She only trusted him with half of herself. There was none of that brutal honesty from before. I hate kids, she’d said, but only after giving everything she had to save one. Only after fighting to keep a stranger’s child from the same fate as her sister. He’d understood.
“Brooke!” Zoe came down the stairs, pink cast swinging in the twilight.
“Watch that arm,” Zach said. “It’s a weapon.”
Brooke smiled at his joke, and Zoe started to sit on her step, but then so subtly that he almost missed it happening, Brooke had Zoe up on Zach’s step instead. A minute after that, Brooke was in the house to get them all something to munch on, something that would appeal to a child. There’d be no sharing a beer at sunset. No overdue conversation.
The same thing had happened this morning, now that he thought about
it. He’d been kissing Brooke in the kitchen. Zoe had come in and Brooke had immediately backed off and let Zoe throw her arms around Zach’s legs instead.
The evening snack led to Zoe’s bath time, and although there was barely space for Zach to stand in the doorway of the bathroom, he felt the distance. Zoe was nearly buried in bubbles in the tub, her waterproof pink cast glowing through the white foam, and Brooke was on her knees on the hard tile, performing acrobatic stretches to wash Zoe’s hair.
Already, they had a little routine. Brooke would pull the plug, wrap Zoe in the towel, and hand her to Zach, who’d carry her to her makeshift bedroom. It seemed as if they were a team, but their roles were separate.
He looked down at Brooke and felt a longing for her that made him hurt. He was losing her. She loved him, she loved his daughter, but the distance wasn’t in his imagination.
He hit the wall. Literally.
Woman and girl, both, looked at him, startled. He thumped the side of his fist more gently on the wall a second time.
“It’s hollow. I had made plans to knock this out.”
“You did?” Brooke poured clean water from a plastic cup over his daughter’s hair, shielding his child’s eyes with the flat of her hand.
“It would make room to put in a double sink. New tile. I had plans.”
“It sounds great. Why don’t you do it?”
Separate tasks, again. Not, I’d love to help do that.
Jeez, he was being as melodramatic as Charisse. This wasn’t Brooke’s house, and he hadn’t invited her to make it hers. Why should she assume he wanted her to help?
He needed to lighten up, so he inclined his head toward little Zoe and winked at grown-up Brooke. “Been putting those tools to work building a distinctly feminine bed and dresser set this week instead. You can buy a lot of pink plastic toys for the price of a bathroom light fixture.”
Serious thoughts would intrude. He was a father now. “That reminds me. I’ve got to get her declared as a dependent on my health insurance before that hospital bill comes in.”