Losing Gabriel (16 page)

Sloan fidgeted for the fifty minutes it took Jarred to arrive, chewing her bottom lip, pacing, staring out the front window. When his car pulled into the driveway, she gave the house, her home for months, one last look. It had been a refuge, a safe haven, but she couldn't dwell on it. The baby was better off with Dawson and Franklin. They would know how to handle LaDonna. Staying in Windemere, being a wife and mother, was more than she could handle, and LaDonna would never go away as long as Sloan was in the picture.

She descended from the porch. Jarred tossed her things into the backseat, settled her in the front. Once on the Interstate speeding to Nashville, he said, “I'm glad you decided to do this. You won't be sorry.”

Riding with him in his car after so many months felt awkward. She wasn't sure of her feelings for him anymore. He was edgy, volatile, and not exactly trustworthy, but he excited her, and always had. Music was the thing that bound them. Feeling like a fleeing prisoner, she said, “I want to sing. This is best for all of us.”

Jarred reached over and cupped her hand in his. “We're going to be a huge hit, Sloan. I got big plans for the band. I'm changing the name—did I tell you?” He hadn't. “Yeah…Loose Change. Lots of opportunity for us in Nashville.” He gave her a sideways glance. “Um…is it going to take long for…you to, you know, get your body back in shape?”

She shot him the finger.

He grinned. “Don't get me wrong, Sloan. You're still pretty…like always. I'm just thinking about the way you used to look onstage. The fans loved your look. Me too.”

She leaned into the headrest. “Don't worry, I'll be ready when the band is.”

“Sure. Right. We've just got a lot of work ahead of us. The good part is that you're on board. You won't believe where you'll be living. I mean, Sy's house is one of those uber-modern places—” He stopped because Sloan wasn't listening, but instead was staring out the side window. “Hey.” He squeezed her hand. “No matter what happened between us before, I never forgot what we once had. You still my girl?”

She was a hundred miles away from that high school girl he'd once known. “I'm my own girl, Jarred.” She rolled down the window and let the hot wind whip her hair into tangles.

Jarred turned on the radio, blasting the volume until she felt the bass vibrate through the car's seat. He started singing to the song as the car hit eighty.

“S
he's gone.” Dawson stood in the doorway of his father's hospital office, hands braced on either side of the door frame.

Franklin, stuffing papers in his briefcase, looked up, startled. “Who's gone?”

“Sloan. She just up and left.”

His eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

“Hell yes, I'm sure! She promised me she would come with me tonight to see Gabriel, but she's run away.” He'd come home to shower, pick up Sloan, and return to the hospital, but he'd felt the emptiness, the echo of silence the minute he stepped through the doorway. Bounding upstairs, he called her name. No answer. He threw open her bedroom door, saw the closet door opened wide, several hangers stripped of clothing, and the dustless places on her dresser where her cosmetics had lain. The missing guitar case was the final confirmation. At first Dawson had stood, gripping the doorknob, his gaze skimming the room, taking it all in, absorbing the truth, unwilling to truly believe it. Reporting it to Franklin only made him angrier. “She's
gone.
”

“Maybe her mother—”

“She hates LaDonna. She'd never go there.”

“Any idea where she might have gone? How she left without a car of her own?”

“I don't know and I don't
care.
” He balled his fists.

Franklin flattened his palms on his desk. “I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry, son.”

“Why would she do that? Run away?” His anger morphed into bewilderment. “Okay…maybe I'm no prize, but Gabriel…he's just a baby. What mother leaves her
baby
?”

“A scared one.” Franklin shook his head. “Maybe she'll return after some time thinking things out.”

“You don't know Sloan. She won't be back, and I won't go looking for her. She doesn't want us. I don't want her!”

From the corridor, a voice from the PA requested some doctor to come to the third floor. Franklin straightened items on his desk, then looked to Dawson still in the doorway. “Question is, what are you going to do?”

“What kind of a question is that? I won't run away. I'm not a quitter like Sloan.”

Franklin hunched, staring down at the mahogany surface. “It won't be easy—raising a baby on your own.” He looked up. “We'll talk tonight, at home. Go on to the NICU now.”

Dawson needed no encouragement. He spun on his heel and walked away.

At the neonatal unit, he gowned up, went inside, and let the nurse lift the baby out of the plastic shell and slip the blue blanketed bundle into his arms, careful to not disturb the cannula delivering oxygen. Dawson settled into the rocking chair just as he'd done every day, twice a day, waiting for Gabe to improve. He thought to all the times Sloan had declined to come to the hospital with him. In hindsight, it had been an announcement of her intentions. She had never meant to stay. The only two women he had loved had left him. Cancer had taken his beloved mother. A painful but valid exit. The other? She had deserted him. Bile rose in his throat. Like himself, Gabriel was motherless.
Not fair.

He peered down at the sleeping baby, not much bigger than a football. Picking up the bottle of formula the nurse had set beside the incubator, he rubbed the nipple across Gabe's lips. This time the baby took it without encouragement, a good sign. The little guy was growing stronger, and with health would soon come release from the hospital, and Dawson would take him home. Alone. His heart lurched. How could he do this, raise a child, by himself? Suddenly the nursery walls were closing in and he couldn't breathe. He'd sometimes felt this way before an important race, but this was no cross-country match. This was a lifetime event.

Gabe's knit hat slipped back and the soft down of black hair fanned out. The boy's eyes popped open and stared up at Dawson without blinking. Dawson exhaled, calmed his jitters, and forced himself to settle. He offered a half smile and, in a Darth Vader voice, said, “Gabriel, I am your father.” The baby yawned, closed his eyes. A wave of protectiveness for the infant surged from some deep inner core. He put Gabriel on his shoulder, patted his back, and was rewarded with a tiny burp. “I won't leave you, Gabriel Berke. I swear to God.” Then he began to rock, as much to soothe himself as his newborn son.

L
ani never much cared for the month of February. The days were often damp with light snow or freezing rain, skies were gray and bleak, the land brown and lifeless, and when the sun shone, its light looked faded and watery. February may be the shortest month of the year, but to her, it was the most dismal. Except for this February. She was on her way to an interview for a job she wanted with all her heart. She certainly needed the job, but her wanting of it transcended her need of it.

As she drove slowly down the tree-lined street in the older, most picturesque section of Windemere, the moneyed section of stately old homes dating back to the late 1800s, her mind returned to the night before and her fight with her boyfriend, Ben Claussen. Sitting in Ben's car in front of the apartment she shared with her sister, Melody, the car still toasty warm from the heater and the hot breaths of tongue-tangled kisses, she'd told him about her interview. Ben had recoiled. “A job interview! You
have
a job. Dammit, Lani! We hardly see each other now.”

“But this will be a caregiver job, Ben. It's perfect for me.” She'd put off telling him until the last minute because she knew he'd want to try and argue her out of it.

“Classes, your hospital duty, your current job, your horse, oh, and then Ben.” He ticked off his grievances. “I'm last in line, Lani.
Last.
You're first for me.”

“That's not fair. I told you when we first met how it was going to be. I'm not just on idle here. I want a nursing career.” She was finishing up her second year of nursing credits at MTSU, and Ben, an engineering student, was completing his third year. He had a full scholarship and mostly worked for spending money. He'd been a lifeguard at the community pool the previous summer, where they'd met, and they had been dating ever since. Ben was charming, funny, good-looking, and crazy about her. She liked Ben—she did. It was fun having a boyfriend, but Ben wanted every minute of her free time and all of her attention—more of either than she had to give. She also realized other girls would be standing in line for him, but she could only give what she had to give to being a couple.

“This interview thing sucks, Lani.”

“You know I have to work this summer, and it needs to be a better job than the one I have now.”

“News flash—it's only February.”

“My boss at the hospital asked me to interview for the job. What was I supposed to say?” She tried to placate Ben. “It's just an interview. No guarantees I'll even get a job offer.”

“You'll get it,” Ben grumbled. “And I'll stand in the back of your line.”

Now driving down the street watching house numbers go past, she ignored the prick from her conscience about her other reason for wanting the interview. She turned off the engine in front of a large redbrick two-story house fronted by a porch with dark wicker furniture and an expansive plate-glass picture window. She thought the place charming, even in colorless February.

Lani took deep breaths to calm her racing heart.
Professional,
she told herself. Most of all, she had to look and act professional. She gathered her things, went up the three steps to the brightly painted front door, and rang the bell. Moments later, the door opened and she looked into the dark eyes and surprised expression on the face of Dawson Berke.

Dawson felt a momentary shock seeing this woman on his doorstep. His father had failed to mention she was closer to Dawson's age than either Franklin's or Paulie Richardson's grandmother. All Franklin had told him was “I'm sending someone over for you to interview. She's sharp, dedicated, and conscientious. Please consider her. We need help with Gabe, and she's qualified.”

Lani smiled brightly, held out her hand. “I'm Alana Kennedy, but everyone calls me Lani.” She had wondered if he would hold even a glimmer of a memory of her from their high school days, realized quickly he did not, and felt a momentary letdown.
Why should he when he'd been with Sloan?

He shook her hand awkwardly, remembering her purpose for coming, his lack of interviewing skills, and Gabe's need of a daytime caregiver. “Come in. Please.”

She followed him through the small foyer and into a formal living room where the furniture had been shoved against the walls, clearing the center of the hardwood floor for a child's racetrack for motorized Matchbox cars. “My son's.” Dawson gestured at the setup. “His playroom's in the basement, but we play race cars here because there's plenty of space. Maybe we should go to the den.” She followed him into a room of comfy well-used furniture. A lone Persian area rug in hues of reds and purples covered a portion of the bare wood floors.

He motioned for her to have a seat on the sofa and took the leather chair near it. “Dad said that you're studying to become a nurse and that you might be interested in a caregiver job.”

“Yes, to both. I'll finish my second year in May, but I've been in the hospital Step-Prep program since Dr. Berke started it. A volunteer at first, but now a very serious student in the three-year nursing program. I want to go into pediatrics when I graduate, but for now the program keeps me in the hospital and gives me clinical experience.” She didn't want to oversell herself, but after seeing his initial reaction to her had decided she might have to persuade him she was right for the job.

“You impressed Dad with your work ethic, as he calls it. Dad's dedicated to his job too.”

She smiled and shrugged. “I'm doing what I love. Makes a difference as to why I do it.”

“Gabe's only had one caregiver besides me and Dad since I brought him home from the hospital…Mrs. Richardson…but she wanted to retire and move to Florida. She left at Christmas. Gabe misses her. We all do.” Paulie's grandmother had been the perfect helper when Gabe had been a baby, but once he'd turned two on his last birthday, she'd had trouble keeping up with him. “My work schedule will pick up soon, so we need someone here at the house with him.”

“I can work full-time once classes end.”

Dawson eased back into the chair, studying the brown-haired, brown-eyed girl. She was pretty, not beautiful, but she had an effervescent smile and her enthusiasm sparkled. “So, um, tell me more about yourself.”

Lani laced her fingers together to keep them from betraying her nervousness. “I was born and raised here. I live with my sister now in one of those renovated apartment buildings over on Magnolia Street.”

Mentally he mapped the distance. “Not so far.” It meant she could get to the house quickly if necessary.

“My sister Melody's a lawyer over on Main. Works for Mr. Boatwright in that converted Victorian that's painted in shades of green.”

“I've seen it. You come from a family of lawyers and doctors?”

“A teacher and a journalist.” She flashed a smile, took a measured breath, and decided to put the unsettling part of history on the table. “Full disclosure. You and I were in the same senior class.”

He straightened, and his heart kicked up a beat. “Ah. So you must know my story…my whole story.”

Feeling the specter of Sloan Quentin hovering in the room, Lani picked her way around the thorny past, saying, “Small-town-itis. In Windemere, if anyone sneezes, someone blesses him two streets over.”

That made Dawson laugh and it pleased her. “Anyway, after graduation, I worked in the hospital along with some part-time jobs. Currently hold one out at Bellmeade horse stables and the other serving food at the Waffle Palace. Imagine the daily excitement—‘Maple syrup, or blueberry, sir?' ” She mimicked her waitress voice.

He grinned at that too.

“Everyone has a story, but since graduation, all of us have moved on. And so I remember when Gabe was born…in fact, I fed him and rocked him while he was still in the NIC unit.”

Dawson startled. “You did?”

“It was part of my job,” she quickly added. “But it was my pleasure too. We're called snugglers. I still volunteer if the unit's shorthanded.”

Again, her smile softened him.

“Gabe was three weeks old before I could bring him home.”

“I remember when he left the unit. We all cheered. Every time a preemie goes home, it's a victory.” She glanced around the room, at the gas fireplace with glowing logs, at the framed photos and family pictures on walls and perched in bookcases. There was a large montage of Gabe at maybe six months and another with Dr. Berke, Dawson, and Gabe hovering around a cake with a single glowing candle. “Is Gabe here?”

“He's taking a nap. That's why I asked you to come right after lunch. I wanted to talk to you before he meets you.” Dawson glanced at the mantel clock. “He'll be up soon, but you should know he's shy around strangers. Don't be too put off if he hides from you.”

Lani brightened. “But I'm no stranger. Gabe and I are already friends.”

Another revelation Dawson was unprepared to hear. Since Christmas and Mrs. Richardson's departure, Dawson and Franklin traded off days of staying home with Gabe. Dawson worked three days a week and weekends at Hastings Construction and took evening classes at MTSU toward his business degree, but with the building season coming on, he needed to work longer hours. Franklin took Gabe to the hospital with him two days a week—where he had staff to help him with his grandson. “My father didn't mention that Gabe already knows you.”

“Oh! I thought he did.” She thought she may have fumbled the interview because Dawson seemed totally surprised by the admission. “Dr. Berke asks me to watch Gabe when he brings him to his office for the day—that is, if I'm in the hospital.” What she didn't add was that she made time to be with Gabe, letting Dr. Berke know she would be available on the days Gabe came with him.

“You're full of surprises.”

Dawson's tone didn't sound as friendly. Lani's stomach clenched. Why hadn't Dr. Berke told Dawson more about her before she'd come? “I…I think that's why your dad asked me to interview. Because Gabe already knows me.”

“And because of his condition,” Dawson added, feeling manipulated. This wasn't really an impartial interview at all. His father had handpicked this girl, this Lani, to care for Gabe. She was a gung-ho nursing student, focused on pediatrics, personable, kind, friendly, already familiar with Gabriel's medical circumstances, in need of a good-paying job—and apparently a favorite of her boss, Gabe's grandfather. What Franklin
really
wanted was Dawson's seal of approval on the girl. Why hadn't Franklin simply hired her himself instead of going through the pretense of Dawson giving her an interview? He cleared his throat. “I…um…have a couple of other interviews.” His conscience twinged with the lie, but he was irked by his father's subterfuge.

“Oh, of course! No problem.” She shot to her feet.

Dawson stood too, and started to speak, when the clatter of Gabe coming down the stairs calling, “Daddy! Daaaddy. Find me, Daddy,” broke the awkward silence.