“And who is with you?” Jen asked from the chair next to them.
“My other mommy and daddy who loved me very, very much, and who are up in heaven always watching over me.”
“Always,” Hallie assured Ahn.
Ahn kept turning the pages until she found another section she liked. She stopped at the New York trip.
“There’s Ba and Ong,” she said, pointing to Jen’s mom and dad, then she rattled off something to Jen in Vietnamese that Hallie didn’t understand. Ahn switched back to English when she pointed to Ben’s parents. “And there’s Grandpa and Mimi.”
Hallie looked over at Jen. “I’m so glad you’re teaching Ahn Vietnamese early. That was something Janet and David were planning to do.”
“My parents were determined their children were going to be bilingual. Of course, having been born here, I speak better English than I do Vietnamese. But you should hear Ahn talking to my parents on the phone. I wonder if Vietnamese comes so easy for her because that’s the first language that was spoken to her.”
Ahn turned the page. “There’s Berta and Old Poop.”
Roberta had made the mistake of calling The Colonel an old poop in front of Ahn. Ahn had called him that since. In fact, they all had—behind his back, of course. Only Ahn could get away with saying it to his face.
“That’s me. And that’s my Nate,” Ahn said when she turned the pages backward until she found the picture of them asleep on the sofa. But she looked up at Hallie with a mischievous grin.
“No. My Nate,” Hallie told her and tickled Ahn.
Ahn squealed in delight.
It was a game they used to play for Nate’s affection and Ahn had never forgotten it. Nate had always chosen Ahn over Hallie. Looking back on how their lives had unfolded, she had to wonder if that had been a game.
“No, Aunt Hallie. My Nate,” Ahn said again, wiggling off Hallie’s lap, bored with the pictures and the teasing.
Buster was a willing victim when Ahn sat on the floor beside him. He licked her face.
“My Buster,” she said and hugged him before she leaned over with her ear to Buster’s mouth.
It was another game Ahn liked to play. When she wanted to do something she thought might be refused, she always blamed it on Buster.
She looked up at Hallie. “Buster says he wants to go watch
Nemo
. Can he?”
“Ask your mommy first,” Hallie told her.
Ahn looked up at Jen.
Jen nodded in approval and Ahn and Buster disappeared in the den. There was no reason for Hallie or Jen to go start the movie. Ahn could operate the DVD player better than both of them.
When they left, Hallie rose and placed the album on the bookshelf in the kitchen. She returned with the coffee carafe to refill Jen’s cup and her own.
“I can’t wait for you and Roberta to see Ahn in her tutu next week,” Jen said.
“Old Poop’s coming with us,” Hallie said.
“I sent Nate an invitation, too, Hallie. I doubt he’ll come, but I wanted you to know in case he does.”
Hallie sighed. “You might not believe this, but I would be thrilled if Nate came. And not for the reason you’re thinking. It has nothing to do with me. It just breaks my heart that Nate is missing so much of Ahn’s life. He should be there for her first dance recital, dammit.”
“Don’t worry,” Jen said. “I’ll send him a copy of the video. Believe me, Ben will be the obnoxious father in front with his camera.” Jen paused for a second before she said, “Tell me the truth, Hallie. Don’t you miss him?”
“Of course I miss him.”
“I can’t even imagine what you’re going through being away from him like this. I panic even if Ben’s late getting back from the gym, afraid he’s been in some fatal accident.” Her hand instantly flew to her mouth. “God, Hallie, what a completely thoughtless thing for me to say to you. I am
so
sorry.”
Hallie reached out and took Jen’s hand.
“There’s no reason to apologize, Jen. In fact, maybe Janet and David’s accident is why I have been able to get through Nate leaving. The accident is proof that there are no guarantees in life. I have to accept he isn’t coming back and get over it.”
“Well, I’m still worried about you. I even felt guilty about Ahn sleeping over tonight. If you weren’t taking care of her, you might decide to go out and get laid. I’ll tell you right now I’m one woman who would not be able to go six months without a little somethin’-somethin’ on the side.”
Hallie laughed. “I’ll take Ahn any day over a little somethin’-somethin’ on the side, Jen.”
“Well, maybe that’s a good thing,” Jen said. “Ahn would have pitched a fit if she hadn’t been allowed to come.”
“I would have, too. Having Ahn sleep over keeps me sane. Plus she gives me someone to talk to other than Buster.”
“You know very well the only reason you have no one to talk to is of your own choosing, Hallie Weston.”
“Maybe so. But I’m not ready yet. Maybe someday I’ll date again. But to tell you the truth, the thought of going back to the dating scene and meaningless sex for the sake of it makes me want to throw up.”
“Even if the meaningless sex happened when you took a quick weekend trip out to Malibu?”
“Drop it, Jen,” Hallie warned. “If Nate ever gets back in my bed, it will be because he wants to be there, not because I pushed him into it like I did before.”
“Well, I don’t care what you say. I think you need to call him, tell him you’re miserable without him and tell him to get his sweet ass home.”
“I think that’s one of Nate’s problems,” Hallie said. “He doesn’t know what it’s like to have a real home. And that’s why he can’t envision having one.”
“Or,” Jen said, “maybe the home he did envision was with you and Ahn. Then Ben and I came along and messed that up.”
“You did not mess anything up. I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. If Nate hadn’t thought you and Ben were the right parents for Ahn, he never would have agreed to the readoption. I do know him well enough to know that.”
Jen leaned over to hug Hallie.
“I’ll tell you something else,” Hallie said. “If the only way Nate could see making a home with me was if Ahn stayed in the picture, he did me a big favor by leaving. I’m better off without him.”
“And you really feel that way?”
“Absolutely.”
She grinned. “Then how soon can I fix you up with that cute new associate Ben just hired?”
Hallie swatted her. “You’re impossible.”
Ahn came running into the kitchen with Buster loping in behind.
“Buster wants two cookies, one milk.”
Jen and Hallie looked at each other and laughed.
“I’ll get Buster’s cookies,” Hallie said.
Jen said, “I’ll get Buster’s milk.”
Nate had been in a foul mood all day. He suspected it would be even worse tomorrow. Ahn would be onstage at her dance recital, and everyone would be there to watch. Everyone except him.
He had arranged for a huge balloon bouquet to be delivered to Ahn today with a card from him. He also planned to call her tomorrow before the recital so he could tell her how proud he was of her. It was keeping in touch with her that counted.
At least Nate told himself that.
“I gotta get this,” Dirk said, grabbing his phone from the table and slapping it against his ear.
Nate was glad for the break.
They’d become good friends while working on the documentary, but Dirk had obsessive-compulsive disorder big-time and minutia was his specialty. He’d been talking nonstop since they arrived, another reason Nate had tuned him out. They’d gone over the particulars of their new project beyond the need to ever go over those details again. As soon as Dirk got off the phone, Nate was going to dump him and get the hell out of here.
He glanced around, trying not to eavesdrop on Dirk. An old guy at the intersection caught Nate’s eye. As the light turned yellow the man stepped off the curb. From his peripheral vision Nate spied rapid movement and turned to see a car approaching the same intersection going way too fast with no signs of slowing.
Dammit! Didn’t the driver see the old man?
“What the hell?” Dirk yelled when Nate jumped up, overturning the table.
Nate made a lunge forward and grabbed the old man by the back of his shirt, spinning him around. The guy fell backward out of the way, but Nate fell forward.
When the car hit him, the impact lifted Nate off his feet and threw him into the air. He landed on the pavement flat on his back with such force it knocked the breath out of him.
Nate struggled to breathe as darkness closed in around him. And the last thing he saw before everything went black was Hallie’s beautiful smiling face.
“I was just thinking about you,” Jen said. “You aren’t riding with Roberta and Old Poop tomorrow night are you?”
“No. Why?”
“Because I want you to pack your jammies and sleep over. I don’t know why I didn’t think to ask you before. But there isn’t any sense in you driving back to Boston after the recital. Besides, if you stay over, that will give us a good excuse to go shopping on Saturday.”
“One slight problem,” Hallie said. “Buster.”
“Bring him. You and Buster can stay in the cottage. Ben won’t even have to take his allergy medicine.”
Hallie hesitated. Thinking about Nate’s cottage had thrown her for a second. She shook that off, too.
“Well, I guess Buster would be all right in the cottage while we’re at the recital.”
“Say yes,” Jen urged. “Ahn will be ecstatic.”
“Okay. Yes.”
“So? What’s up? Why did you call?”
Again, Hallie hesitated. There wasn’t any reason to worry Jen with the eerie feeling that had come over her. Especially not now that she knew Ahn was safe.
“You know, I can’t even remember why I called,” Hallie lied. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wait,” Jen said. “I wanted to tell you something else. Ahn got a huge balloon bouquet from Nate this morning. Ahn was thrilled. The card said he’d call her before the recital.”
“I’m glad he did that for her,” Hallie said. “See you tomorrow.”
So Nate wasn’t coming. His loss. Not theirs.
Hallie dropped her phone back into her purse, refusing to think about Nate one second longer. She was excited about the weekend and she wasn’t going to let him not showing up spoil that.
Leaving her desk, Hallie headed back to the control room, her mind already focusing on what she’d always done best—her job. She at least had that satisfaction. For today, that would have to be enough.
That thought sobered Nate.
As fast as the darkness had closed in around him earlier, Nate finally stepped forward into the light of clarity.
He’d been running from death.
From his father’s death. From David’s death. And from his own mortality. Nate still had it all screwed up in his head that a commitment to Hallie would tempt death to take it all away from him. He’d falsely believed that as long as fate placed them together there would be no threat involved. But when the time came to make a conscious
choice
to remain with Hallie, it had scared Nate. He hadn’t been willing to leave Hallie behind the way his father had left him and David had left Ahn.
But now Nate knew the truth.
Death hadn’t taken his father because he had a family he loved. His father had done exactly what Nate had done when he saw someone in danger—he’d acted on instinct. Just as David’s death hadn’t been a punishment for loving Janet and Ahn. Accidents happened. Nobody planned for them to happen. Nobody could control whether or not they happened. But they were accidents, not punishments.
He’d been afraid of leaving Hallie behind, yet what had he done?
He’d left her behind anyway.
Unless he started living his life instead of running from death, Nate knew he wasn’t going to be any better off than his mother had been spending all those years lying in bed staring at a blank wall.
“Don’t try to get up, man,” Dirk said, bending over Nate with his cell phone still to his ear. “The ambulance is on the way to take you to the hospital.”
Nate sat up anyway.
He was bruised and banged up. But as far as he could tell he was still all in one piece and nothing was broken. He rolled his neck, just to make sure.
“You are one lucky SOB,” Dirk said. “Man, if you’d landed even one foot farther out in the street another car would have hit you.”
Yeah, he was one lucky SOB. He loved an incredible woman, and, with a little more luck, she still loved him. The second he was medically cleared, he was heading to the airport to find out.