A Forever Kind of Family

by Brenda Harlen

  But it felt strange to Ryan, to be getting ready to go out with Whitney when the woman he really wanted was under the same roof.

  He’d considered canceling his date. In fact, he’d picked up his phone at least half a dozen times to do just that. But for what purpose? So that he could spend another night at home, in the same room with Harper but not actually with her? Not exactly his idea of a good time.

  Whitney offered at least the possibility of a good time. A few hours out of the house in the company of a beautiful, interesting woman he’d met a couple of months earlier on a flight from Raleigh to Philadelphia.

  He’d been on his way to a business meeting; she’d been heading to West Chester for her sister’s wedding. They’d had coffee together during the layover in Washington and chatted throughout the rest of the flight. As a single woman six years older than the bride, Whitney had been bracing herself for the false sympathies of her numerous cousins over her unmarried status.

  After all, she was—she’d whispered the confession— almost twenty-eight years old and, according to her mother, who had married at nineteen, on the verge of spinsterhood. But she’d assured Ryan that she wasn’t in any hurry to get married or settle down—she was enjoying her life too much to want to change it.

  And in the end, that was why he didn’t cancel. He just wanted to spend some time with someone who had no expectations of anything from him. When he arrived to pick her up, he was glad that he hadn’t changed their plans. She’d obviously gone to some effort to get ready for their date and was wearing a strapless red dress that clung to her curves—and she had some very nice curves.

  She was undoubtedly an attractive woman, with blunt-cut blond hair and clear green eyes, and if he passed her on the street, he’d probably do a double take. But aside from that initial and basic stirring of male appreciation, he felt nothing. No zing of heat, no sizzle of desire.

  Instead he found himself thinking that she was taller than Harper, a little curvier than Harper, more outgoing than Harper, and he grew frustrated with himself for the continuous comparisons. As he drove toward Valentino’s for their eight o’clock reservation, he suspected that he was wasting her time as well as his own. But she was easy to talk to and he was hungry, so he ignored his misgivings and made an effort to enjoy the evening.

  She ordered the portobello mushroom ravioli in a creamy sun-dried tomato sauce, he opted for the chicken marsala, and they shared a bottle of sauvignon blanc.

  Conversation was casual throughout the meal. She regaled him with stories of her sister’s wedding that had him chuckling along with her. He told her about Oliver and his current living arrangement, wanting to be up front with her because it had turned out to be such an issue with Bethany. Whitney didn’t seem concerned.

  As she sipped her wine, she told him about her job as a yoga instructor and how years of training and discipline ensured that her body could bend in ways he probably couldn’t even imagine. The smile that accompanied the claim suggested that she wanted him to imagine, but he really wasn’t tempted by the implicit invitation.

  “Is everything okay?” Whitney asked when he failed to respond to her teasing comment. “You seem a little...distracted.”

  “Sorry. I was thinking about Oliver.”

  She winced. “Am I that boring?”

  “Of course not,” he denied. “It’s just that he has specific routines before bed, to help him settle down, and I’m usually the one who gives him his bath. I’m just a little worried that he’ll give Harper a hard time.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine.” She reached across the table and brushed her fingertips over his wrist. “But if you want, maybe we could go back to my place and you could tuck me in.”

  She was a beautiful, sexy woman and she’d been sending him clear signals all night. He wasn’t oblivious. Unfortunately, he also wasn’t the least bit tempted. Because while Whitney was undoubtedly attractive, he was not attracted.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Harper, wanting Harper. Despite the fact that she’d given no indication that she felt the same way and all kinds of hints to the contrary, he knew he couldn’t be with one woman when he was preoccupied by thoughts of another.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s too much going on in my life to start a relationship right now.”

  “Who said anything about a relationship?” she challenged. “I just want to have a good time.”

  Which he didn’t need to be a linguistics expert to know translated into simple no-strings sex. A one-night stand. He hadn’t had a one-night stand since...Harper.

  What was it about the woman that all of his thoughts seemed to circle back to her? Was it a natural consequence of their circumstances—living together and raising a child together? Or was it more than that? Because even though he knew a relationship between them would be messy and complicated, she was the only one he wanted.

  “Ryan?” Whitney prompted.

  “Let me pay the bill and I’ll take you home.”

  She smiled. “I’m just going to make a quick trip to the ladies’ room to freshen up.”

  Ryan signaled for the bill, then pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Harper.

  how’s everything there?

  Good.

  oliver settling down ok?

  He’s already asleep.

  He hadn’t expected that and was, perhaps, a little disappointed that he obviously wasn’t needed at home.

  Is everything okay there? she prompted.

  great

  He sent the single-word message, then followed up with another.

  i might be late

  No problem.

  He figured she couldn’t make it any more obvious that she didn’t want the same thing he did.

  He signed the credit card receipt and tucked his phone away again as Whitney came back to the table. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Eight

  Harper stared at the message that Ryan had sent and wondered why the man couldn’t seem to capitalize or punctuate his text messages.

  i might be late

  It was laziness, she decided, annoyed that he couldn’t be bothered to make an effort. Or maybe she was more annoyed by the content of the message than the delivery, because the brief statement confirmed that he was having a great time on his date with Whitney and wasn’t in any hurry to come home.

  She was annoyed, too, with her own response.

  No problem.

  But what other response could she have given? What could she have said? She didn’t want to admit that she still struggled when she was on her own with Oliver, and she definitely didn’t want to admit—even to herself—that the idea of Ryan with another woman drove her insane.

  Which was crazy, because she didn’t want him. Or—as he’d pointed out—she did want him, but she didn’t want to want him. And if she hadn’t had enough reasons four years ago, their current situation added another.

  And her current situation was pacing the floor with an unhappy baby.

  “You said he was sleeping.”

  She jolted at the sound of his voice from the doorway. “And you said you were going to be late,” she reminded him, shifting Oliver to her other shoulder.

  He shrugged. “Change of plans.”

  “Well, Oliver was asleep,” she said, then sighed. “He woke up when I put him in his crib and hasn’t stopped crying since.”

  “Do you want me to take him?”

  She responded by transferring the little boy to his arms.

  Of course, as soon as she did so, Oliver drew in a long shuddery breath and stopped crying.

  She shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder why I’m even here.”

  Ryan rubbed Oliver’s back as the baby snuggled against his shoulder. “Because he needs you.”

  “Apparently he needs you.”

  “And when you’re not here, he’s just as fussy for me,” Ryan told her. “He needs both of us.”

  She crouched down to pick the scattered toys u
p off the floor. “I just thought I’d be better at this by now.”

  “You’re doing great. He just needs some time to get used to the new status quo.”

  “How much time?” she wondered.

  “I don’t think there’s a definitive answer to that,” he said. “But you should probably count on the three of us being together for the next eighteen years or so.”

  “I hope it won’t take that long for him to learn to put himself to sleep.”

  “It wouldn’t really be so bad, would it—for the three of us to be a family?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “It’s just that I had no plans for a family—at least not at this stage in my life.”

  “So when?”

  “When I was where I want to be with my career.”

  “Where’s that?” he asked curiously.

  “Executive producer.”

  “Will you really be satisfied with that? Or will that just become a stepping-stone to something else?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He shrugged. “It seems to me that you’re always looking for something more or better than what you have.”

  “I’m not always,” she denied.

  “What about the night of Darren and Melissa’s wedding?”

  She froze. “What about it?”

  “I thought we were pretty spectacular together that night.”

  “I—I don’t remember.”

  It was a blatant lie, of course, and the smile that curved his lips confirmed he knew it, even before he whispered “Liar” close to her ear, then nibbled gently on her lobe.

  Her eyes instinctively closed and a low moan sounded deep in her throat.

  “Do you remember how many times I made you come that night?”

  “No,” she said, which wasn’t a lie, because she’d lost count. The things he’d done to her body, the way he’d touched her, with his hands and his lips, had given her mindless, endless pleasure.

  “Neither do I,” he admitted. “But I never got tired of hearing you scream.”

  She started up the stairs. “It was a long time ago.”

  “You don’t think I could make you scream again?” Ryan asked, following right behind her.

  “I think Oliver does all the screaming we need in this house.” She turned on the light in the baby’s room, pulled back the sheet on his bed so that Ryan could put him down.

  He did so—and they held their collective breath for a moment, waiting to ensure that he was really asleep.

  Ryan nodded and she gently laid the sheet on the baby, then turned toward the doorway. She started past him, but he caught her around the waist and pulled her close.

  Her breath caught; his teasing smile faded; and the air fairly crackled with sexual energy. She lifted her hands to his chest, to keep him at a distance. He caught them with his own, held her close.

  “Whitney invited me back to her place tonight,” he told her.

  “So why didn’t you go?” she challenged.

  He held her gaze. “Because I couldn’t be with her while I was thinking of you.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t even kiss her.”

  She didn’t ask why—she didn’t want to hear him say that he wanted to kiss her. Because she was afraid that if he did, she’d invite him to do so.

  But he didn’t seem to expect a response—or an invitation.

  He lowered his head and covered her lips with his.

  And just like the last time, just like the first time, she melted. Not just into the kiss but into him. His mouth moved over hers, boldly, confidently, not just coaxing but demanding a response.

  She gave it willingly. She kissed him back until her heart was pounding and her head was spinning and her body was pressing against his, silently begging for more. A lot more.

  But once again, he drew back, exhaling an unsteady breath as he leaned his forehead against hers.

  “I wanted you the first time I saw you,” he told her. “The night we met at Topaz.”

  She remembered that night, of course, and her own unexpected and intense reaction to meeting her best friend’s boyfriend’s best friend for the first time. She’d worried that her friend was playing matchmaker. Then she’d seen Ryan sitting beside Darren and all of her misgivings had dissipated. Because there was no way a guy who looked like that needed to be set up with anyone. And if by chance she was wrong and it was a setup, well, how could she object to being set up with a guy who looked like that?

  It was an undeniably shallow reaction, but she’d been twenty-one years old and not particularly interested in depth. She had, however, been interested in ambition, and the gorgeous, sexy college student had been too laid-back. More interested in heli-skiing and rock climbing and diving than building a career.

  He’d said nothing to defend himself or his character. In fact, he’d told her that he had no interest in a woman who was so tightly wound up she practically vibrated—no matter how sexy she was. This matter-of-fact acknowledgment of his attraction had taken her aback.

  And aroused her. Not that she’d been willing to admit the fact—and definitely not to him. But the chemistry between them had simmered from that first night and for the next two and a half years—until it finally boiled over the night of the wedding.

  “I still want you,” he said now. “But the next move is yours.”

  * * *

  The next move is yours.

  She wasn’t sure if his words were intended as a reprieve or a challenge, but she had other worries—such as Oliver starting day care on Tuesday.

  Melissa had taken a leave of absence from her job a few weeks before Oliver was born and, at the time of the accident that took her life, had not yet decided if and when she would go back to work. For the whole of his life to that point, she’d been her son’s primary caregiver, so day care would be a big change for him.

  Harper agreed with Ryan that the little boy should be eased into the new environment. So while Oliver would be going to day care, it would be only part-time in the beginning. A few hours a day three days a week.

  Harper had done her research, arguing that children who went to day care had better socialization skills and fewer illnesses when they started school. Ryan wasn’t convinced. In the end, it was a simple logistical issue—he couldn’t effectively do his job if he wasn’t in the office on a more regular basis.

  They’d spent a lot of time discussing the pros and the cons, visiting facilities and meeting the caregivers. When they finally made their decision, she was confident it was the right one. But the night before Oliver’s first day, she found herself wondering if she’d pushed for it to happen too soon, and she continued to hold on to him long after he’d fallen asleep in her arms.

  Around nine o’clock Ryan came upstairs. “What’s the matter?”

  She got up from the rocking chair and finally put the baby in his crib. “I’m having second thoughts about Oliver starting day care tomorrow,” she admitted.

  To his credit, he didn’t say “I told you so.”

  To her surprise, he said, “He’s going to be fine.”

  She nodded, because after advocating in favor of putting him in day care for weeks, she could hardly argue against it now.

  “It’s only a few hours,” he reminded her. “I’m going to drop him off at eight thirty and pick him up at eleven thirty.”

  They’d agreed that they would ease the little boy into the new routine, starting with three hours a day three days a week. When he was accustomed to that and actually looking forward to going—which she hoped would happen—they would add an hour at a time until he was going full days three days a week.

  The morning that Ryan was scheduled to take Oliver to the Wee Watch Childcare Center, she found herself constantly glancing at her watch. At seven o’clock, she wondered if they were awake. At seven thirty, she considered calling to make sure they were up. At seven forty-five, she speculated about what Ryan was feeding the little boy for breakfast. At
eight o’clock, she knew they would be getting ready to leave the house. By nine thirty, Diya had threatened to take her watch to ensure that she focused on Coffee Time.

  When the show was finished, she raced through the usual wrap-up to get home to hear about Oliver’s first day at Wee Watch.

  He was playing with his blocks when she walked in the door, but he abandoned them to rush over and give her a big hug. She hugged him back, relieved to see that he’d survived his first day apparently unscathed.

  “You’re home early,” Ryan noted.

  “A little,” she said, unwilling to admit that she’d rushed for any particular reason. “How was Oliver when you took him to day care today?”

  “Good.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Really? No clinging? No crying?”

  “Just a little, but the childcare worker promised a lollipop if I’d let go.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Okay, Oliver cried, too,” Ryan admitted. “Huge sobs and fat tears, and if I didn’t have that meeting, I’m not sure I would have been able to walk away.”

  “How was he when you went back to pick him up?”

  “Fine. He was sitting in one of those little chairs at a round table eating cubes of cheese and raisins, and when I told him it was time to go, he didn’t want to leave.”

  She frowned. “I thought snack time was ten o’clock.”

  Ryan didn’t say anything.

  “What time did you pick him up?”

  He sighed. “It was ten o’clock.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I felt so guilty for leaving him there when he was obviously so unhappy.”

  “So he was at day care for a whole hour and a half?”

  “We both agreed that it would be best to ease him into a new routine,” he reminded her.

  “Which is why he was supposed to start with three hours,” she reminded him.

  “We’ll try for three hours tomorrow.”