An Unexpected Father

by Marie Ferrarella

  “About Harper not feeling well?” Tyler questioned.

  Going on with life after Harper if he couldn’t convince her to come back wasn’t going to be easy, Brady thought. But that was something he would tackle later. The immediate thing was making sure that Toby received the proper care.

  “No,” he told the twin, “about Toby. I’ll be right back,” he promised as he stepped away. “Dr. Neubert,” he called out to the ER physician, “I want to ask you a question.” He stepped out into the hallway, the doctor following him.

  Brady was in such a hurry to talk to the busy doctor, he didn’t realize that he had left his cell phone on the chair next to Tyler.

  But Tyler spotted it immediately.

  Megan was in the small, curtained exam room with them. Right now she was talking to Toby. Taking advantage of her inattention, Tyler quickly put his hand over his uncle’s cell phone and moved over to the furthest corner of the room. He turned his back to his brother and Megan.

  Brady had left his cell phone unlocked. Tyler and his brother had cut their eyeteeth on cell phones, frequently playing games on their parents’ and then Brady’s phones when he let them. And he’d watched his uncle make enough calls that he knew exactly what to do. Tyler hit the folder icon for Contacts and scrolled through the names. Now he was grateful that Harper had worked with him and Toby to learn to write all their names. He recognized the name he was looking for.

  Harper’s.

  Thinking that his “unca” would be back at any second, Tyler hit the little green arrow. He listened to the phone on the other end ring.

  * * *

  Harper saw Brady’s name and number pop up. The second it did, her heart began pounding. She still had no idea what she was going to tell him, but right now, all that mattered to her was that Brady was calling.

  “Hello?” she said uncertainly.

  “Harper?”

  That wasn’t Brady.

  For a second, the sound of the childish voice on the other end threw her, not to mention that she was incredibly disappointed.

  Brady wasn’t calling her. One of the twins was. “Tyler?” she guessed because he was the more subdued one of the duo. “Honey, why are you calling me? Where’s your uncle Brady?”

  “We’re in the hospital, Harper,” Tyler told her, distress vibrating in his voice.

  Harper’s mind instantly began racing as all sorts of scenarios occurred to her. Her stomach tightened. “What are you doing in the hospital?”

  “There was an accident, Harper,” the boy blurted out. “Unca Brady needs you. Please come,” he begged.

  “Tyler? What kind of an accident?” Harper asked the boy. “Tyler?”

  The only thing she heard in response to her questions was a dial tone.

  Stunned, she stared at the cell phone.

  An accident.

  Harper’s hand was trembling as she put her cell phone back in her pocket.

  Her heart was pounding hard in her chest as she got her purse and found her car keys. Terrifying realizations filtered through her mind.

  If one of the twins was calling her, that meant that Brady wasn’t able to call himself.

  Oh lord, had that horrible woman sought him out? Had Brady been so upset, so mad that he’d gotten into an accident after hearing Justine call her all those awful names?

  What if he had been driving home with the kids and—A horrible chill went down her spine as she thought about Brady and the twins being hurt—or worse.

  What if in Brady’s case it had been worse?

  He had to be unconscious because if he wasn’t, why would Tyler be calling her instead of Brady?

  What if it was worse than being unconscious, her mind posed.

  What if—?

  “Oh please don’t let him die,” she cried out loud as she raced to her car.

  * * *

  Harper didn’t remember driving to the hospital. All she remembered was praying, as she flew through the lights, that she wasn’t too late.

  Nothing else mattered except that.

  Brady couldn’t die, Harper kept thinking over and over. He couldn’t die.

  She didn’t remember parking her car. All she was aware of was running and praying.

  Her heart in her throat, she asked the woman at the reception desk if a Brady Fortune had been brought into the hospital in the last few hours.

  “Fortune, Fortune,” the young brunette muttered under her breath as she scrolled through the list of names of the people who had been seen in the emergency room in the last few hours. “No, no Brady Fortune,” she told Harper, looking up. “But there was a Toby Fortune brought in a while ago,” she said. “They’re still in the ER. I can—”

  The receptionist didn’t get a chance to finish. Harper was already running to the double doors that divided the ER from the rest of the first floor.

  “You can’t just go in there like that,” the receptionist proclaimed, standing up so her voice would carry.

  Harper only heard the woman as just so much background noise, barely paying attention to what she said.

  He wasn’t dead. Brady wasn’t dead.

  Those words beat like a refrain, over and over again, in her brain.

  He wasn’t dead.

  But what was Toby doing in the ER?

  All sorts of concerns crowded her brain.

  She had no idea which exam room Toby and Brady was in, but she was prepared to go into each and every one until she either found them or they dragged her away.

  But as it turned out, she didn’t have to do either.

  As soon as she stepped into the ER, she saw Brady standing in the hallway outside a room, talking to a nurse.

  She didn’t hear what they were saying. She didn’t care what they were saying. All that mattered was that Brady was there, standing up and talking.

  He hadn’t been hurt.

  “Brady!” Harper cried half a beat before she threw herself, sobbing, into his arms. “You’re not dead!”

  He had no idea what to make of the emotional display or where she might have gotten the idea that he was dead. All he knew was that Harper was here, in his arms, and she had never felt so good to him as she did right at this moment.

  He only realized that she was sobbing as he continued holding her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tyler threw his arms around her leg and wiggled in between Harper and Brady. “Harper, you came!” he cried excitedly.

  “Hey, me, too!” Toby piped up, unable to reach Harper from his bed, but there was no way he wanted to be left out. “I’m the one who fell out of the tree!” the twin complained.

  Wiping away her tears, she entered the room and embraced Toby, careful not to touch his cast. She knew that could wind up hurting the boy. “You don’t have to tell me,” she assured him. “I know that—and don’t you ever do that to me again,” she warned him. “I was worried sick.”

  “No, no more flying squirrel tricks for him,” Brady declared, looking directly at the injured twin. “Right, Toby?”

  “Don’t worry, Unca Brady. I learned my lesson good,” the boy told him solemnly.

  Brady sighed as he rolled his eyes. “Oh, if only I could believe that.”

  “I really mean it, Unca Brady,” Toby vowed, awkwardly crossing his heart with his left hand.

  Twisting around to look up at Harper, who had stepped back and was leaning against Brady, Tyler hopefully asked, “Are you gonna go home with us, Harper?”

  With all her heart, she really wanted to. But she had actually resigned from the position and Brady had hired someone else to take her place, so it was all out of her hands now.

  “That’s up to your uncle Brady,” Harper said.

  Tyler turned to face his guardian now. “Can she come home with us, Unca Brady?”

  “
Yeah, can she? Pleeeease?” Toby asked, adding his voice to the entreaty.

  Brady was with the twins on this, but he didn’t want to pressure Harper into agreeing to anything. “Sure. But only if she wants to.”

  “Do ya, Harper?” Tyler asked eagerly.

  Toby gave her the most pathetic look as he echoed Tyler. “Do ya?”

  Harper grinned broadly at the two boys. “Just try and stop me.”

  “Nobody’s gonna stop you, Harper,” Toby guaranteed. “Right, Unca Brady?”

  Brady smiled as his eyes met Harper’s. “Right,” he agreed.

  * * *

  Brady brought his vehicle directly up to the hospital entrance as Harper stood to the side. She was holding on to Toby’s wheelchair while Tyler waved madly at Brady just in case he didn’t see them.

  Toby was ready to break into a run and wasn’t happy about being restrained in the wheelchair this way. “I broke my arm, not my leg. Why do I gotta sit in this stupid wheelchair?” he wanted to know.

  “It’s hospital policy, Toby,” Harper told the boy. “You don’t want to make anyone unhappy by breaking the rules now, do you?”

  Toby hung his head and sighed. “No, ma’am.”

  She patted the arm that wasn’t in a cast. “Good boy,” she praised, just as Brady brought his vehicle to a stop before them.

  “Ready?” he asked Toby, getting out.

  “Oh, so ready,” Toby declared with enthusiasm. “I just wanna go home with Harper.”

  Brady glanced in her direction and said, “Me, too.”

  Harper’s heart warmed and swelled.

  The next moment Harper secured Tyler into his car seat while Brady did the same with Toby, lifting the injured twin because he was able to handle the heavy cast more easily than Harper. But when it came to securing the car-seat straps, Toby spoke up, asking that Harper do it. He even added “Please” to clinch his request.

  “I’d be happy to,” Harper told the twin.

  Tyler leaned over, watching Harper as she finished securing his brother in the car seat. “I guess we’re all back together again,” Tyler announced happily.

  “It certainly looks that way,” Brady answered. “I can come by with one of my brothers and we can bring your car to the house later,” he told Harper. Right now he knew it was important for Toby to be assured that Harper was coming home with them.

  Getting into the front seat behind the steering wheel, Brady glanced at Harper as he started up the car. He couldn’t begin to put into words how happy he was to have her here with them now.

  After turning on the engine, he pulled out of the parking lot.

  The words burned on her tongue. Harper couldn’t keep this to herself any longer. She leaned in toward Brady so her voice wouldn’t carry to the backseat as she told him, “I really tried to fight this, to stay away, but I just simply can’t.” She flushed, embarrassed, thinking of what had transpired earlier today. “I can only imagine what you might think of me.”

  He knew what she was talking about. “I only heard a little bit from Megan about what happened before Toby fell out of the tree.” But then, he didn’t need to hear everything. “Why on earth would you think that I would take that woman’s word over yours?”

  Harper shrugged. She couldn’t really explain it. “I was just afraid, that’s all. People tend to believe the worst.”

  “I don’t,” he told her simply.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the duo behind them, but the twins, thanks to the extremely emotionally trying day they had both put in, were exhausted and had already fallen asleep.

  Satisfied that the twins wouldn’t overhear her, Harper turned around to face Brady. It was time that he heard the truth.

  “I didn’t realize what was going on at first but it turned out that Justine’s husband began paying unwanted attention to me almost from the beginning. And he started complimenting me. First about the way I was handling his daughters, then about the way I looked and dressed.

  “I thought maybe I was imagining things, but then he would find ways to corner me. I knew for a fact that he was seeing other women behind his wife’s back and he tried more than once to add me to the pack. I needed the job—especially after Justine accepted a job transfer to Rambling Rose and talked me into coming with them. She said she couldn’t take care of her children and handle the rigors of working on a new job. She made me feel that I would be abandoning her if I left, so I agreed to come with the family and didn’t say anything about the way her husband was behaving.”

  Harper sighed, remembering. Wishing she didn’t. “I just kept trying to avoid Edward—until Justine walked in on us and misunderstood my pushing Edward away as some sort of foreplay. She became livid, called me all sorts of names and fired me on the spot. She also said she was going to see to it that I would never work as a nanny again, here or anywhere else. Ever,” Harper emphasized. “Justine had such an authoritative way about her, I was sure everyone would believe her.”

  Brady blew out a breath, shaking his head. “That’s what bullies count on. That they can intimidate you. I’m sorry you had to go through that—and sorry that you ever thought I would take her side instead of yours,” he concluded.

  It all felt like a horrible nightmare now. “I never wanted you to find out and I never wanted you and the boys to suffer because of me,” she told him.

  Brady nodded. “I have to admit, when you first said that, that you needed space between us, I thought you were right.” Glancing at her, he saw surprise flicker in her eyes. “That I needed to focus on the twins. I didn’t feel that I had any business getting involved with you—or anyone right now—because of this whole situation with the twins. But it’s too late. I love you,” he told her. As she stared at him, dumbfounded, he went on to say, “The kids love you as well and to be honest, I believe that we’re all better off together. You can see that, can’t you?” he asked, searching her face.

  Her mouth dropped open. She was utterly surprised at the depth of the feelings that Brady had just expressed. Feelings that were entirely mutual.

  He had just poured out his heart to her and she hadn’t made a single comment. He didn’t know what to make of it. “Say something,” he told her.

  He had managed to take her breath away and she searched for the words to explain her silence and how she felt about what he had just said.

  “I didn’t think you were interested in a serious relationship,” she confessed.

  “I wasn’t,” he answered honestly. “I never expected any of this. It just happened. But when it’s right,” he went on, pulling up into his driveway and turning off the engine to look at her, “it’s right. And this,” he concluded, drawing her into his arms, “is so very right.”

  Glancing behind him, he saw that the twins were still asleep. So Brady kissed her.

  Long and hard.

  “I think,” he said some moments later, “that should put an end to all the arguments.”

  She smiled up into his eyes. “At least for now.”

  There was a lightness within her. A lightness she hadn’t thought she would ever be able to experience again, especially after everything that had happened recently.

  It felt wonderful.

  “Does this mean you’re really gonna stay, Harper?” came a sleepy voice from the backseat.

  Startled, they turned and looked at Tyler. “Hey, I thought you were supposed to be asleep, big guy,” Brady said to the boy.

  “I woke up,” Tyler said, executing a yawn that was bigger than he was.

  “So I see,” Brady told the twin with a laugh.

  Tyler turned to look at Harper. Nobody had answered his question yet. “So are you really gonna stay?” he asked Harper again, then before she could answer, he added, “Please say yes. If you do, it’ll make Toby get better real fast,” he promised.

  “Well
, I certainly can’t argue with that,” she told the twin. Because he was still waiting, she answered, “Yes, Tyler, I’m going to stay.”

  But Tyler was still leery and he wasn’t completely convinced. “For a long time?” he wanted to know.

  “Yes, for a very long time,” she answered.

  “Yay,” he cheered. At the same time, he was desperately fighting to keep his eyes open.

  “I hope she plans on staying forever,” Brady told the boy as he looked at Harper.

  For her part, Harper was totally stunned to hear Brady say that. After everything that had happened, she hadn’t expected that. “Do you mean it?” she asked him.

  “I never meant anything more in my entire life,” he replied. “There’s a vacant position at the boys’ school. I’m sure that the nanny I just hired to take your place—by the way, nobody can take your place—would be happy to transfer there.

  “I realize that it might sound like I’m moving a little fast here,” he allowed, “but I’ve already been dragging my feet too long and it’s about time I started taking steps that were moving in the right direction—for everyone.” He looked into her eyes, searching for a sign that she understood. “Am I making myself clear?” he asked her, afraid that his meaning was getting lost amid the myriad of words that had come spilling out of him just now.

  Harper laughed helplessly. “Right now, my head is spinning around with all sorts of thoughts that are chasing each other,” she confessed.

  “Tell you what. Why don’t we take these guys inside and I can try to make myself clearer after we put the twins to bed?” he told her hopefully.

  Her eyes smiled at him. “Sounds good to me,” she replied.

  After getting out of the vehicle, they each took a twin. Harper carried Tyler while Brady had Toby in his arms and brought the boy into the house, careful not to jostle his cast. The last thing he wanted was to cause Toby pain and wake him up.