From Brooding Boss to Adoring Dad (15 page)

“Coulson,” she said a while later, when their passion had gone as far as it could on a public, even though semi-secluded beach. “I wanted … I mean, I never thought we would …”

He shushed her with a finger to her lips, and she responded by pulling his finger into her mouth and sucking.

“You’re going to get us both in a lot of trouble if you keep that up,” he warned, even though he did nothing to stop it.

“Could be fun,” she said, almost shyly.

That was something he liked about her …
loved
about her, that shy sweet sexiness that was as spicy as anything
he’d ever known. “Let me guess. You’re such a good girl, you’ve never gotten into trouble before, have you?”

“Define trouble,” she said, her shyness turning to daring as she looked up at him. “Show me, Coulson. Show me trouble.”

His answer was a moan as he scooped her up into his arms. “It’s on the other side of the cove, in my private beach cabana.”

“I like private,” she said, on a sigh.

It was hours, days, maybe an eternity before she realized that she might be missed. “I think I should go,” she said, pulling the gauzy sheet up around her, not so much to shield herself as he knew every inch of her intimately now but more to separate herself from the moment to make their parting easier. This was a wonderful place, his cabana. A small little beach shack he’d built that she never wanted to leave. But reality rained down. It was time.

“I think you should stay awhile longer.”

His bare backside was facing toward her and even as a physician, who’d seen the beautiful lines of a man before, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Sleek, perfect. Her lover for a moment, but beyond that. “If I stay, you’ll break my heart.” With his beauty, with the emptiness of words not yet spoken, words she desperately wanted to hear. But there’d been no mention of him staying on the island, or changing his mind, not even that he loved her, and she could feel the dull ache of it beginning to settle in again. Being his woman was wonderful, but not enough. “And in the end, Coulson, I have to figure out a way to be able to function here.” He didn’t turn round, didn’t move. Simply stood there, every masculine inch of him, against the backdrop of a white sandy beach and, beyond that, an eternity of blue. Blue was a color of hope, though. That was why
she’d chosen it for her hospital. Yet now, when she saw all the blue just outside the cabana, she felt a swell of discouragement. Even sadness for another loss, for someone else walking out of her life.

“You’ve never called me Adam,” he said. “Why’s that?”

She sat up, pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them, thinking about it for a moment. The truth was, she didn’t know. Didn’t have any idea. “Habit, maybe,” she finally said, not totally convinced.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, he turned to her, yet he kept himself half-hidden in the shadows of the filmy curtains. “Maybe the same reason I’ve called you Red since the day we met … to keep the relationship impersonal.”

“But we’ve changed since that day. Both of us have.”

“Have we? Have we really?” He heaved a sigh then returned to the bed and crawled in next to her, yet avoided any touch, any closeness. “The thing is, I know why I’ve called you Red. I wanted to be impersonal. That was my goal. I wanted to stay detached, even disinterested because … well, I guess you can say that once bitten, twice shy, but that’s a cliché and it’s not really the truth. For a lot of reasons, it was easy to hide behind the failure of my first marriage, and always hold it out there in front of me as a shield. I didn’t want to get involved, and that’s the honest truth. I was good without involvement, and my life was easier when it didn’t have to take someone else into consideration … someone who would let me down, someone I would let down. In my little closed-minded patch of the world, that was good. Then there you were and I knew the instant I saw you that you were going to disrupt everything in my life. Totally turn it all upside down, probably in ways I couldn’t imagine. Like I said, I knew it that first
day at the bar, and I’ve known it and seen it every day since. And the thing is, part of me wanted that upheaval … was probably even ready for it. But most of me really just wanted to keep that shield up. Except you have a habit of slipping right through. Every single time I thought I had my defenses up, you simply walked straight in. And you do it so naturally … Erin. You walk gracefully through life and that’s a rare gift. It’s also frightening to a man who
wants
to be set in his ways.”

“Let me guess. Nobody wants that more than you do, right?”

He chuckled. “Right. And, I’ll admit it. I didn’t want to get involved … to get to the place where we are right now, because I knew if we did, and for whatever reason, we couldn’t sustain it, someone would lose, something would change. Your life, my life … hopes and dreams. Funny thing was, last night, when I actually started thinking in terms of really changing my life or leaving here, that’s when it finally dawned on me that it’s not about losing or even changing. I lost so much to my first wife and I didn’t want to lose this, too. So when you were Red, you were …”

“Impersonal? Nothing you could lose?”

“Definitely impersonal. And maybe that was a little bit of my battle still playing out. But you know what? I can walk away from here, start a new life, and that’s what it will be … a new life. Not the outcome of a battle—win, lose or draw. Old conditioning dying hard, I suppose. Or, like you said, old habits.”

“But can’t you start that new life here?”

“Can I?”

“There’s nothing stopping you from doing whatever you want, so I don’t understand.”

“Yes, I think you do,
Erin.
Maybe you’re not ready to
say it out loud, but you do understand. So answer this. You still call me Coulson because …”

“Because I didn’t know you wanted me to call you something else.”

He shook his head. “That’s not it.”

“Then, like I said, it’s a habit.”

She pulled the gauzy sheet up to her throat and started to slide away from him, but he reached out and held her there. Still separated, but so close the awareness of her bare flesh on his fought to distract him in ways he was only just learning that Erin could distract him as no one ever had. “Say the words, Erin. You have to say the words. We
both
need to hear them.”

“There aren’t any words, because I don’t know what you’re talking about. And this is a stupid conversation, going on and on about what I call you. I need to go and see the architect, then talk to my dad about—”

“Tell me, Erin.” This time his voice was purposely firm. “Just tell me.”

She looked up at the ceiling, hoping the tears that so wanted to spring to her eyes would roll back in. Then she took a deep breath. “I call you Coulson because it won’t hurt so much when you leave me. Because if I call you anything other than Coulson, I’m vulnerable to something I can’t control, and I’m never going to be vulnerable that way again. I won’t let it happen.”

“Why, Erin?” he asked, his voice gentle.

“Because trusting someone, and being vulnerable to them, hurt me worse than the cancer ever could have. Because in the moments when I didn’t know if I was going to live or die, the pain of my broken heart was worse than anything the doctors were putting me through. I’ve had all the love in the world from the most wonderful person, more than most people ever get, but it doesn’t quite heal me. So
if I don’t.” She batted at the tears finally breaking loose. “If I don’t make myself vulnerable, then …”

“Then nobody breaks Erin’s heart again.”

She nodded.

“But you trust your father, and you certainly have a relationship with him where you’re nothing but vulnerable.”

“Because he chose me. He knew … everything. Knew that I might die. Knew that I could cost him so much money with my care. Yet he chose me anyway. No one else ever did. Not my birth parents, not any of my friends … they all ran away from me. But my father always ran toward me because he chose me.”

“Does he know that you never quite healed?”

She shook her head. “I’d never hurt him.”

“Or maybe you’re afraid he’d run away, too, if he knew? That he’d be disappointed in you somehow for still having that little bit of fear inside you that he might just walk away and, because of that, he would?”

Her bottom lip trembled. Tears poured down her face, but she didn’t speak. Couldn’t. There were no more words, not in her head, not in her heart. Not when someone knew her soul the way Coulson did. Which made her utterly vulnerable to him in every way. There was nothing more to hide, no other feelings to have.

“What they did to you was a horrible thing, Erin. I don’t even know what to say about that. But let me ask you one thing. You love Tadeo, that goes without saying. And he’s a sick little boy, with a very difficult future ahead of him. If I weren’t here to take him and all he had was you, would you leave him? For whatever reason, take your pick, would you walk away from him? ”

Her eyes flew open, registering total shock. “Of course I wouldn’t. If I were lucky enough to have that little boy as my son I’d move heaven and earth to keep him.”

“Like your father did for you. Like father, like daughter, Erin. It’s not in the blood, it’s in the love. In the heart. And
he
did move heaven and earth.”

“Sometimes I wonder why,” she said, sniffling. Finally, he pulled her into his arms and tilted her face up. “The same question I’ve been asking myself for the past few days, but the answer was always there. I was just trying not to see it.” “What question?” “What if I choose you, too, Erin?” “But you didn’t. You chose to take Tadeo and leave.” “In my own moment of vulnerability, I think. Trying to avoid getting hurt. But that’s the thing about a bad choice. Once you know it’s bad, it’s easy to change.” “You’re staying?”

“I’m choosing. You. Tadeo. Your father and even Mrs Meecham. Miss Francelle Henry. Davion and Trinique. Breeon, Leron and Algernon Adam Edward. This life. That awful blue building …”

“Blue is good,” she said. “It’s a color of hope.” “Would you choose me, Erin, if I don’t change my mind about the color? ”

“I would choose you, Adam. No matter what kind of boring colors you like, I would choose you.”

“Red is nice,” he said, running his fingers through her hair. “It’s my new favorite color. Although I’ll admit I’m suddenly not as fond of plain old white as I used to be.” He pulled the gauzy
white
sheet off her and dropped it on the floor beside the bed, at the same time arching wicked eyebrows at her. “Nope, don’t like it at all.”

Ten months later

“See what I can do?” Tadeo yelled at his admiring public. his soon-to-be mother, father, grandfather and his adopted
aunt, Mrs Meecham, not to mention Miss Francelle Henry, who’d moved into one of the guest cottages one day several months ago and had never moved out. She’d already become a vital part of the community, working at the hospital every day, playing with the children, taking care of Tadeo.

“What can you do?” Erin called back to him, as the rest of this wonderful family sat at the picnic table, enjoying the cool of the afternoon as a few friends prepared the beach for the festivities. It was hard to believe it was here, but they’d decided to wait until Tadeo was well on his way to full recovery. So this day marked three special events: Tadeo’s official release as a patient from the Algernon Glover Hospital; her wedding; and the signing of Tadeo’s adoption papers. In another hour she’d be Adam’s wife and shortly after that Tadeo’s mother. And in such a casual way … the way it should be. A stroll to the beach with her family, joined by a few close friends, then exchanging vows at sunset.

“This!” In the blink of an eye Tadeo popped a wheelie in his wheelchair.

Erin gasped, of course, while Adam laughed. Algernon, who still had sight but not so much these days, was the one who jumped up and shouted, “That’s my grandson! I taught him how to do that.” He headed straight for Tadeo to give him the old high-five.

“They’re incorrigible,” Erin said, wondering if there was a better word to describe contentment. So far, in all these months, she hadn’t been able to think of one.

“It’s only going to get worse,” Adam whispered in her ear. “When your father finds out about the next one on the way, there’s going to be no stopping him.”

“I’ve got a while before it shows, so let’s just keep our secret a little longer.” She gazed out at her dad, who was
heading off toward the beach with Tadeo … for the big surprise
before
the wedding. She had an idea her dad already knew that he was going to be a grandfather again, maybe that’s why the blindness hadn’t yet overtaken him. Who knew? Or maybe his happiness and newfound purpose, including Tadeo, had something to do with it. Whatever the case, she suspected he was giving Adam and her time to enjoy the wonderful feeling between themselves of becoming parents for the second time.

As for Tadeo, he wasn’t being quite so patient. She’d wanted to keep the surprise a surprise a while longer, maybe give Adam his wedding gift in a more private moment, but Tadeo had insisted it had to be now. He wanted a big public presentation, and there was no way she could refuse him, as he’d been making plans for days.

“Look, I think I’ll go and walk through the hospital before I come down to the beach, see if anybody needs anything before we head off on our honeymoon.”

“Honeymoon? What honeymoon?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that. I know this nice little cabana on the other side of your beach. Might have stocked it with a bottle of champagne … the non-alcoholic kind.”

“Ooh, tempt me more, Dr Coulson.”

“And I have this awesome stethoscope. Thought maybe we could practice listening to each other’s hearts.”

“And …?”

“Yam bammys. Had Kevan make them fresh just a little while ago.”

“You had me with the yam bammys, Doctor. But let’s skip the first part, where you go to the hospital. Tadeo’s waiting on the beach, not very being patient about it, and the hospital is doing just fine without us.” Better than fine. The Algernon Hospital, as people were calling it, was fully
functional, and she had so many visiting volunteer doctors she almost felt lazy at times. It was good and she already had plans to expand, thanks to a generous donation from Miss Henry. More than that, her father had actually chosen Adam’s clinic over the hospital as far as where he wanted to practice medicine, maybe because the small setting made him feel more confident. Whatever the case, with her dad’s help, Adam was in mid-plan to build a small general hospital himself. All good, again.