A Forever Kind of Family (7 page)

“Baff,” Oliver said.

“You’re right.” He shifted the little guy onto his hip and headed toward the stairs, grateful for an assignment that he could handle. “Let’s go get you into the bath.”

* * *

A few days after she’d almost melted down in front of Ryan, Harper was feeling more in control of her emotions and a little more comfortable with Oliver. She was cutting Oliver’s grilled cheese sandwich into strips so they were easier for him to pick up when her cell phone rang.

A quick glance at the display revealed that it was Adam McCready, the executive producer of
Coffee Time
. She ignored it. Whatever her boss’s reason for calling, it probably wasn’t as urgent as he thought.

As she reached into the cupboard for a sippy cup, she felt Oliver tug on her skirt. He pointed to the jar on the counter. “Kee! Kee!”

“You can have a cookie after you have your sandwich,” she promised, removing the lid to pour milk into his cup.

“Kee!” he insisted.

She scooped him up and settled him into his high chair, buckling the belt around his middle before sliding the tray into place. “Sandwich,” she said. “Grilled cheese. Yum.”

His arms stretched out in the direction of the cookie jar. “Um! Kee!”

She put the plate with his sandwich on his tray along with his drink.

Her phone had stopped ringing, but now the message light was blinking. She might have ignored the blinking as easily as the ringing except that it then chimed to indicate a text message from Diya.

HD canceled for 2morrow. Adam freaking. Thoughts 4 replacement?

HD was Holden Durrant—their spotlight guest, the one they’d been advertising all week.

She immediately called Durrant’s agent and learned that the actor had the flu and was currently puking his guts out in a penthouse suite at the Courtland Hotel. Harper booked a new date for the following week and also secured a second appearance to coincide with May sweeps. Then she contacted Elaine Hiller—an up-and-coming local artist whose work had recently been exhibited at the New Morning Gallery in Asheville—and filled the vacant slot for the next day. After that she called Diya to give her an update, trusting that her assistant would inform the people in PR so they could run some last-minute promos about their new guest.

By the time that was all done, Oliver had finished his sandwich and his drink and was squirming to get out of his high chair. Harper cleared away his dishes, washed his face and hands, then set him on the floor to play with the box of plastic lids—one of his favorite kitchen toys—while she called Adam to personally assure the producer that the crisis had been averted.

Of course, he wasn’t satisfied with that report but demanded to know when they were going to find time on the program for his wife’s brother’s daughter-in-law, who had recently published a children’s book. Biting back her frustration, Harper went to the office to get her tablet so she could check the master schedule.

She’d just opened up the calendar when she heard a clatter, a crash and a scream. It all happened so fast she couldn’t say which had actually come first. There was only one thought in her mind:
Oliver.

She dropped the phone on top of the desk and raced back to the kitchen. The little boy was on the floor beside an overturned chair with pieces of broken cookie jar and scattered cookies on the floor around him.

But it was the blood mixed with streaming tears and dripping down his cheek that brought her racing heart to an abrupt stop.

Chapter Five

“O
h, sweetie.” Harper carefully picked her way through the broken pottery to lift Oliver out of the mess.

“Kee?” he said, his lower lip trembling.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her own eyes filling with tears.

She grabbed her purse, shoved it inside the diaper bag, then slung that bag over her shoulder and carried Oliver out to her car.

She settled him into his seat, then dabbed at the blood on his cheek with a tissue, careful to avoid the cut on his face. She didn’t know if there was any glass in the wound, but there sure was a lot of blood.

Twelve minutes later, she was checking in at the ER of Mercy Hospital.

Of course, Oliver’s initial screams—probably a response triggered by more surprise than pain—had subsided. Now even his quiet sobs were fading and his tears had mostly dried. But when he tried to wipe the moisture from his cheek, he smeared blood on the back of his hand.

She gave her insurance information and Oliver’s date of birth to the triage nurse. No, she wasn’t his mother—both of his parents had died. Yes, she was his legal guardian. No, she didn’t have any proof of her guardianship status. Yes, she was becoming increasingly frustrated by the endless questions with no evidence of a doctor anywhere in the vicinity.

“I have insurance. I have credit cards. I just want a doctor to look at him and fix him up,” she implored the nurse.

“Please take a seat in the waiting area until you are called.”

Harper held back a frustrated sigh—barely. “How long are we going to have to wait?”

“It shouldn’t be too long.”

Which, of course, wasn’t any kind of answer at all.

She turned away, her own eyes brimming with tears of helplessness and frustration.

“Harper?”

She glanced up at the blurry figure in the white coat, then blinked and brought him into focus. It was Justin Garrett—Ryan’s brother.

“What happened?” he asked her.

But when she opened her mouth to respond, she discovered that she couldn’t force the words through the tightness in her throat.

Thankfully, Justin didn’t seem to require a response. “I’ll take them into exam room four,” he told the triage nurse.

“But—”

“Dr. Seabrook is examining the elderly gentleman with chest pains in two and Dr. Wallace said she would take a look at the sebaceous cyst in three.”

The nurse pursed her lips in silent disapproval, but she nodded and handed him the chart she’d prepared.

Justin led Harper into the exam room and gestured for her to sit on the bed. She did so, facing Oliver forward on her lap so that the doctor could evaluate his injury.

But Justin didn’t seem in too much of a hurry as he pulled on a pair of sterile gloves. “Does Ryan know you’re here?”

She shook her head, her stomach tensing at the thought of that inevitable conversation. “I didn’t think to call him—or anyone. I just grabbed Oliver and came directly here.”

“Why don’t you give him a call now?” he suggested as he tore open a gauze pad and began to clean the blood from the baby’s cheek.

“I know he went into the office for a meeting today—I don’t think I should disturb him.”

Justin paused to look at her. “You don’t think he’ll want to know what happened?”

“Of course,” she agreed.

But the truth was, she’d hoped that a doctor—preferably someone other than Ryan’s brother—would fix Oliver up so that Ryan would never need to know that she’d been negligent while the baby was in her care. Obviously that wasn’t a possibility now.

While Justin cleaned the baby’s cheek, she pulled her phone out and sent a quick text message to Ryan. If he was going to yell at her, she’d rather he did it in capital letters on a screen so that his brother didn’t overhear.

“So what did happen?” Justin asked when she tucked her phone away again.

“He climbed onto a chair to get a cookie and pulled the whole jar off the counter.”

“Did he get his cookie?”

“No. The jar broke along with all of the cookies in it.”

“The tears are probably as much about missing out on his treat as the laceration.”

“Kee?” Oliver said, giving credence to the doctor’s assumption.

Justin smiled.

“Does he need stitches?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “The laceration isn’t very deep.”

“But there was so much blood.”

“He’s going to be fine.” The doctor’s tone was patiently reassuring as he dabbed something from a tube onto the baby’s cheek.

But Harper wasn’t so easily reassured. “Will he have a scar?”

“He might have a very faint line,” he acknowledged. “But even if he does, it will hardly be noticeable.”

“Hardly noticeable is still noticeable,” she said.

“I know you’re essentially a new mother, and it’s natural for new mothers to worry about every little thing,” Justin said. “But one of the things I’ve learned working in the ER is that bumps and bruises—and even sprains and breaks—happen. This might be your first hospital visit with him, but it won’t be your last. And...” He paused, waiting for her to look at him. “...it wasn’t your fault.”

She didn’t really believe him, but she nodded in acknowledgment of his statement.

Oliver, his thumb in his mouth now, snuggled against her breast.

“See? Even he knows it wasn’t your fault.”

Before she could respond to that, there was a knock at the door and then Ryan walked in. When the baby saw him, he straightened up, a drooly smile curving his lips.

“Hey, big guy—I didn’t know you were planning a field trip to the ER today.” His tone was deliberately light but the look he sent his brother was full of concern.

“He’s fine,” Justin said. “Just a minor laceration that we closed up with Dermabond. It should heal up completely within a week.”

“When you get home, you’ll have to check his baby book to see if there’s a page for ‘First Trip to the Hospital,’” Ryan said to Harper.

She knew he was teasing—or she hoped he was. But his words unleashed a fresh wave of emotion—grief because this was only one of many firsts that her friend would not experience with her son, and guilt because, despite Justin’s reassurances to the contrary, she couldn’t help but feel responsible for Oliver’s ordeal.

This time when the tears filled her eyes, she couldn’t hold them back.

Ryan’s panicked gaze shifted from Harper to his brother.

“Why don’t I take Oliver to the cafeteria for the cookie he didn’t get earlier?” Justin suggested.

“Kee!” Oliver agreed.

The doctor lifted the baby from Harper’s arms and carried him out of the room.

She swiped at her tears, but her efforts were for naught.

“Do you want to tell me what this is about?” Ryan asked when they were alone in the exam room.

She shook her head and grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter as her tears continued to fall.

“You don’t want to tell me, or you can’t, because you can’t cry and talk at the same time?”

She nodded.

“Okay, then.” He hesitated for a moment, not certain how to console her—or even if she’d let him. But he reached out to circle her shoulders with his arms and draw her gently into his embrace. “Let it all out.”

She offered only a token resistance, then tucked her face into his shoulder and sobbed as if she’d lost her best friend.

And she had.

Melissa and Darren had died less than a month earlier, but in that time, Ryan hadn’t seen Harper shed a single tear. He couldn’t say with any degree of certainty that she hadn’t cried when she was alone, but he didn’t think she had. She’d seemed to focus instead on the practicalities of what needed to be done without giving in to any emotion. He’d thought she didn’t feel anything—obviously he’d been wrong. She’d just bottled it up inside, and now that the cork was out of the bottle, all of those emotions were pouring out.

When the storm of emotion finally subsided, he tipped her chin up to look into her eyes. They were still shimmering with moisture. Her lashes were wet and spiky, her cheeks streaked. Whatever makeup she’d put on that morning had been washed away—but she looked more real and more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, and it seemed not just natural but necessary to lower his head and kiss her.

Her breath caught when his lips brushed against hers, and she went completely still. But she didn’t pull away, so he let himself linger, savoring her flavor, slowly deepening the kiss. Her hands lifted to his shoulders, almost tentatively, as her lips parted to welcome the leisurely exploration of his tongue.

She tasted sweet and hot and tantalizingly familiar. He’d kissed her before—and a whole lot more. And although the one night they’d spent together had been more than four years earlier, the memories flooded his brain and his body, making him ache and yearn for her.

Harper had called that night a mistake. He thought that assessment was rather harsh. In his opinion, falling into bed with her the night of Darren and Melissa’s wedding had been an impulse—and probably one he should have resisted. But he couldn’t regret it. He regretted only that the closeness they’d shared that night had somehow created greater distance between them the next day.

Four years ago, they’d been acquaintances with mutual friends. Now they were living together, sharing not just a home but custody of a little boy who needed both of them. Which meant that he couldn’t afford to screw this up.

Slowly, reluctantly, he ended the kiss.

Harper blinked and drew in a breath, then exhaled, a little unsteadily. He knew just how she felt.

“That was...unexpected,” she finally said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “And even though it probably wasn’t very smart, I can’t promise it won’t happen again.”

She opened her mouth, closed it without saying a word.

“If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

“I should go get Oliver—he’s overdue for his nap.”

It was classic Harper—instead of dealing with messy and uncomfortable emotions, she’d rather pretend they didn’t exist.

But he knew better now. He knew that beneath her cool, carefully composed facade was a warm and passionate woman who felt things deeply. That knowledge only made it harder for him to walk away.

And he needed to walk away—at least for now. They both needed some time to think about what was between them and to decide where they would go from here.

“Okay—I’ll see you at home later.”

* * *

Harper didn’t walk out with him.

She needed a minute to herself, to settle her galloping heart and steady her shaky legs.

She wanted to dismiss what had happened as “just a kiss,” but she knew there was no “just” about it. They’d been in the middle of an exam room in the ER department and she’d practically wrapped herself around him like a Tensor bandage.