A Forever Kind of Family

by Brenda Harlen

  “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.

  She shook her head, as baffled as she was frustrated by the intensity of her response to him. The man only had to touch her and she’d practically melted into a puddle at his feet. And he knew it—dammit.

&
nbsp; The attraction had always been there, but she’d managed to ignore it. Mostly. Of course, that was a lot easier to do when she’d crossed paths with him only a couple of times a year. Now that they were living together, it was a lot more difficult to disregard the tension between them. But she was determined to give it her best effort.

  Her plan to act as if the kiss had never happened lasted only until Oliver was tucked into bed that night. When Ryan came downstairs, she was sitting on the sofa with her tablet, scanning reviews of Elaine Hiller’s work and making notes for Caroline for the next day.

  He sat beside her, angling himself against the arm of the chair so that he was facing her, and asked, “Are we ever going to talk about it?”

  She considered her response as she copied and pasted a particularly favorable quote. “What is ‘it’?” she finally said. “My negligent parenting or the kiss?”

  “I was referring to the kiss,” he admitted. “But before we get to that, you should know that what happened today is in no way a reflection of your parenting skills.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because it’s true. It could have happened when I was here—it could have happened with both of us here.”

  “But it didn’t—it happened on my watch,” she said, feeling not just responsible but miserable about it.

  “Okay—let me ask you a question,” he said. “Do you think my mom is a pretty good mother?”

  “Your mom is amazing.”

  “So you wouldn’t question her maternal skills?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And yet I visited the hospital three times before my first birthday.”

  She eyed him skeptically. “Really?”

  “The first time I was only seven months old—Justin swung a plastic bat and caught me above the eye.” He touched his right eyebrow. “Right there—four stitches.”

  She leaned closer to look at the barely visible scar.

  “When I was ten months old,” he continued, “I swallowed one of Braden’s marbles, apparently because he told me it was candy. Of course, I only have his word for that—it’s not as if I actually remember what he said. And less than a month after that, I fell down the stairs and ended up with a concussion. That time, they had to keep me in the hospital overnight for observation.”

  “Your mother wasn’t a bad mother—she just had rotten kids.”

  He chuckled. “There might be some truth to that. No doubt we kept her busy with countless cuts and bumps and bruises for a lot of years, during which time she was constantly worried that Family Services would show up at the door.”

  Her heart started to pound—she hadn’t considered the possibility that anyone would think what happened was anything other than an accident. Yes, she should have been keeping an eye on Oliver, but it really was an accident.

  The panic that was tying knots in her belly must have shown in her face, because Ryan said, “No one is going to call Family Services because Oliver pulled a cookie jar down off the counter.”

  She nodded, because she wanted to believe him.

  “So let’s move on to what happened after the cookie-jar caper.”

  “You kissed me,” she said, determined to downplay the event.

  “You kissed me back.”

  She could hardly deny it, so she tried to explain it instead. “It was an emotional moment. I was worried about Oliver and I felt responsible for what happened, and you were there for me—so...thank you.”

  His lips twitched, as if he was fighting against a smile. “Anytime.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Actually, it’s probably best if we agree that it won’t happen again,” she said. “Our situation is already complicated enough without adding sex to the equation.”

  “I don’t disagree,” he told her. “But I think that kiss today proved the attraction between us might be stronger than your determination to ignore it.”

  * * *

  In the four weeks that had passed since they’d moved into the house to take care of Oliver, Harper and Ryan had made an effort to work together. But since the kiss they’d shared at the hospital, Harper had been trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

  Bath time had been one of the fun tasks that they usually tackled together. The first time had been a wet adventure for all of them. Oliver loved splashing in the water, pushing his boats through the water and squeezing water out of his animal squirters—and onto Harper and Ryan. He was less enthralled with the washing of his hair and his body, so they’d learned to get that part over with first and let him enjoy some playtime after.

  Tonight when she heard Ryan running Oliver’s bath, she resisted the impulse to offer her help. Instead she stayed in the kitchen to clean up from the little boy’s snack. Jam toast meant sticky fingerprints and crumbs all over his high chair.

  She bypassed the dishwasher in favor of hand-washing the little boy’s plate and cup, wiped down the high chair and scrubbed counters that were already spotless. She didn’t realize how much time she’d spent on those tasks until Ryan returned with the baby clean and dressed in a dinosaur-print cotton sleeper.

  “You’re going to scrub the spots right out of the granite,” he told her.

  She folded the cloth over the towel rail under the sink and reached for the baby.

  “Look at you all ready for night-nights,” she said.

  “Ni-ni,” he agreed.

  Her heart hitched inside her chest when he snuggled against her. And then, of course, he slipped his hand inside her shirt. Thankfully, Ryan, filling the baby’s sippy cup with milk, didn’t seem to notice.

  “I think I’m going to sit outside with him for a little while tonight so that he can look at the stars,” Harper said.

  “I’ll grab his blanket,” Ryan said.

  He did, and then opened the French doors that led out to the flagstone patio. It wasn’t completely dark yet, but the solar garden lights that marked the edge of the patio glowed softly in the twilight.

  Harper lowered herself onto one end of the wicker sectional. Ryan took the seat in the corner so that he could sit sideways, facing her.

  “Do you remember when they bought this house?” he asked.

  She nodded, smiling a little at the memory. “Melissa was so excited.”

  “I think Darren was more apprehensive than excited,” Ryan told her. “He’d told me that they were looking for a starter home and somehow they ended up with a four-bedroom two-story overlooking a golf course—and he didn’t even golf.”

  Melissa had confided to Harper that Darren didn’t even want to go to the open house at first, because the property was outside the upper end of their price range. But she’d convinced him to take a look because it had everything they wanted: it was in a good neighborhood, close to all conveniences, within walking distance to the local schools and had a backyard big enough for all their children—because they planned to have at least three—to run and play.

  “She wanted it more than he did,” Harper acknowledged.

  “And he would have given her anything to make her happy.”

  “The first time she brought me here, I could see why she fell in love with it.” The inside of the house had been perfect. The four bedrooms included a fabulous master suite with a balcony overlooking the backyard; plus, there were three baths, a spacious eat-in kitchen with granite countertops and high-end appliances, a main-floor office/den, hardwood floors, cathedral ceilings and tons of windows to let in natural light.

  “You obviously didn’t see the backyard.”

  She chuckled softly in response to his dry tone. “Not until later.”

  “Because it was a disaster—and probably turned away so many prospective buyers that the sellers felt lucky to get Melissa and Darren’s offer.”

  He was right—not only had the former owners not done anything with the green space, they’d completely neglected it so that it was overrun with weeds, except where their hounds had dug up the ground, and littered with dog
feces.

  Darren and Ryan had done the cleanup, shoveling poop and hacking down weeds, while Melissa and Harper had toured local nurseries for plants and shrubs. She didn’t know the names of even half of the flowers that she’d helped her friend put into the ground, but Melissa had diligently researched the soil and light to ensure a successful garden.

  “It looks great now,” she said, because it did.

  Two years after the big cleanup, the garden was thriving. Tulips, daffodils and hyacinths were in bloom, adding bright splashes of red, yellow and purple to the landscape. As spring shifted to summer, other flowers and colors would take their places, but Melissa wouldn’t be here to enjoy the prosperity of her garden.

  Harper blinked back the tears that stung her eyes. “Tulips were her favorite flowers—she’d be thrilled to see them blooming.”

  “Of course they’re blooming,” Ryan said. “The bulbs were planted in well-fertilized soil.”

  She managed a smile. “They were happy here. Not for long enough—but they were happy here.”

  “So why do you look sad?”

  “I got a call from Simon Moore today.”

  “Who?”

  “The real estate agent.”

  Ryan frowned. “What did he want?”

  “He wondered if we’d made any decisions about what we were going to do with the house.”

  “We’re living in it.”

  “Right now,” she agreed. “But I figured that was an interim arrangement.”

  “I figured it was a logical arrangement,” he countered.

  “We need to consider all of our options.”

  “What options? There’s no room in my condo for even half of Oliver’s stuff, so unless you’ve got more space than I do...” His words trailed off.

  She shook her head. “I don’t.” And she’d already sublet her apartment, anyway. “But there’s got to be some middle ground between a one-bedroom walk-up and a three-thousand-square-foot home on a half-acre lot.”

  “It’s a lot of space,” he agreed. “But it’s a great neighborhood for a family—the neighborhood Melissa and Darren picked for their son.”

  “You’re right,” she agreed. “But Simon offered to come by on Saturday with some recent comparable sales to help us decide what we want to do.”