Falling For Zoe (The Camerons of Tide's Way #1)

by Skye Taylor

  “There!” She slammed the box into his hand. “If either Molly or I ever see you again, it will be too soon.”

  Porter jammed the ring into his trouser pocket and backed toward the door. “You won’t,” he bit out with angry disdain. “Have a nice life.” Then he was gone.

  Zoe drew Molly into a tight embrace. She should have felt some remorse for banishing Molly’s father from her baby’s life, but she didn’t. They would be happier without him. Molly was better off never knowing what a jerk her father was.

  Even though Molly couldn’t hear her, Zoe rocked both of them back and forth as she hummed “You Are My Sunshine” to her little girl, all the while realizing in the back of her mind, how close she’d come to making a horrible mistake.

  When she’d calmed down enough to write without her hand shaking, Zoe settled the sleeping infant between her thigh and the bedrail. Then she reached for the folder the hospital lady had left with the birth certificate form to be filled out.

  Molly Ann Callahan, Zoe began in careful block letters. Under father she wrote, unknown.

  Chapter 37

  ZOE’S FATHER arrived long after visiting hours were over, but in his usual persuasive style, had charmed his way past the head nurse anyway. He bent over the bassinet with a look on his face Zoe had never seen before. He gently touched Molly’s soft baby cheek with one big finger and then stood gazing at her for a very long time. When he straightened and looked at Zoe over the expanse of room that separated them, he smiled awkwardly, then skirted the bassinet and lowered himself into the chair by Zoe’s bed.

  “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

  Zoe gaped at her father in astonishment. Patrick Callahan never apologized for anything. Nor had Zoe ever heard her father admit that he had made a mistake.

  “I was wrong about Porter Dubois. He’s a better than average lawyer, and I’ll give him a good reference, but I’ve asked him to look for another firm.”

  “You didn’t have to do that for me.” She wondered what Porter had said to excuse himself over the failed attempt to win Zoe’s agreement to his marriage proposal. Or if he’d mentioned anything about his visit to the hospital earlier in the day.

  “I didn’t do it for you.” Patrick harrumphed, then pursed his lips. “Well, maybe a little. But mostly, I did it for her.” He pointed at the sleeping infant.

  “What did Porter tell you?”

  “It wasn’t what he told me. It was what I overheard him telling someone else. He’s woefully ignorant about the subject.”

  Zoe’s father gazed across the room at the little bassinet for a long time, then finally back to Zoe. “How much do you know about my brother Sean?”

  “Not a lot. I know he was killed riding his bicycle when he was just eighteen.” Zoe wondered why they were discussing her long-deceased uncle.

  “My brother was born deaf.”

  “Uncle Sean was deaf? How come I never heard about that before?”

  Zoe was stunned by the information. Her father rarely talked about his only brother, but somehow his being deaf seemed like a detail that would have been mentioned at some point. Zoe knew only that Sean had been on his way to Stanford when he was killed by a drunk driver who’d lost control of his car.

  “Sean had a little hearing, but not much,” her father admitted. “He wore hearing aids when he was little, but learned to lip-read so well he didn’t like to wear them most of the time. He was a straight-A student and an amazing athlete. He was never a halfwit.” Patrick spit out the last word in disgust. Then he leaned closer, resting his palms on the edge of Zoe’s bed. “Is that precious little mite really going to be deaf?”

  “We don’t know for sure. She failed the screening, and I’ll have to take her for a follow up in a month.” Zoe felt tears build behind her eyes.

  The doctor had assured her that one of the best Early Hearing Detection and Intervention programs in the country was just a few hours’ drive away. Zoe had been given a whole packet of information to read, but the thought that her little girl might have to fight for equal treatment her whole life cut deep.

  Porter’s reaction had shocked Zoe completely, but she knew there would be prejudice to be overcome, even from people who meant well. She had envisioned a child who repeated everything she heard, chattered like Jake’s twins, and loved music as much as Ava. She’d imagined lying on the beach at night holding hands with Molly while they pointed out stars and talked about anything that came to mind.

  But Molly might never even hear Zoe’s voice. Or the sound of the ocean. Or wind rushing through the trees, crowds cheering at a parade, the laughter of her best friends, or a lover whispering in her ear. It just seemed so overwhelmingly unfair.

  “You see she gets the best doctors. Whatever it costs. You just have them send the bills to me.” Zoe’s father reached out to cover Zoe’s hand with his own.

  “I love you, Daddy.” Zoe struggled to keep her tears in check.

  “Yeah, well . . . She’s my granddaughter.” Patrick pushed himself out of the chair and returned to the bassinet. “She’s my granddaughter,” he repeated in a husky bluster. Then he picked the tiny infant up awkwardly, blankets trailing, and pressed her against his suit jacket with his cheek against her downy red head. “My little Molly.”

  BREE AND ZOE’S youngest sister Kelly showed up on the appointed day to take Zoe and Molly home from the hospital. Bree had remembered to stop by Zoe’s house to get the car seat which she and Kelly had struggled to get installed in Bree’s back seat, and that had made them late arriving. But eventually all the documents were signed, Molly was strapped into the carrier, and the carrier base checked out by hospital staff. Then they were on their way home.

  As Bree turned into Awbrey Circle, Zoe gaped in stunned silence at the huge space where the big old tree had once stood. Only half of the original brick gatepost had been left standing, and even that tilted at a rakish angle. Bree pulled into Zoe’s driveway and turned off the engine. Zoe climbed out of the car and turned to view the wreckage. Deep gouges marked where the tree had fallen, but the bulk of the massive trunk had been cut up and hauled away. A new pole had replaced the one the tree had taken down with it when it fell, and the electric wires and phone lines had all been reattached, but the ground was still littered with twigs, splinters of branches, and leaves.

  Zoe shuddered at the thought of Jake fighting his way through that mass of tossing broken foliage and downed power lines to get to her. He could have been seriously hurt, but he hadn’t given a thought to his own safety. He was more worried about me. As the realization hit her, a surge of renewed hope flowed into her heart. Jake had said nothing about their relationship since the night he’d retreated in haste after telling her she wanted a fairy tale he couldn’t give her.

  But maybe it wasn’t about her. Maybe he was just afraid of getting his heart trashed a second time. What if he had said I love you the night Molly was born in spite of his determination not to be vulnerable to the whims of a woman ever again?

  If he didn’t love her, why had he come back to check on her when he should have been reporting to the fire station? Why had he cried when Molly was born? And where had the tenderness come from when he’d kissed her afterward?

  Maybe it was time to stop waiting for Jake to make the next move.

  Then she remembered Porter’s visit to the hospital. Although she couldn’t imagine Jake ever reacting to Molly’s disability the way Porter had, the whole scene had shaken her faith. What if the idea of dealing with a deaf child was too much for Jake to accept?

  “Looks like a war went on here!” Bree commented, bringing Zoe’s attention back to the surrounding scene.

  In addition to the missing oak tree, a half-broken gatepost, and the piles of sawdust and wood chips on the ground, bits and pieces of broken toys, a fractured trash can, and other debris lay scattered aro
und the cul-de-sac. Puddles of water still saturated the lawns, and the culvert was full to the brim.

  The Cliffords had obviously not returned home yet, as the roof of their storage shed had been caved in by a big branch that still lay half-on and half-off the small building. A piece of their gutter hung at a crazy angle from the corner of the house, and the door under the porch where Danny kept his bike had been ripped off its hinges.

  Two of Zoe’s garage windows must have shattered, because they were now boarded up with pieces of plywood. Jake’s doing, Zoe suspected. The flowers she’d planted around the mailbox were totally flattened, and the shrubs around the house needed serious pruning.

  Jake’s place appeared to have survived intact, but the twins’ tree house would need shoring up before they could play in it again. A section of railing had been splintered off, and the struts supporting the platform looked precariously uneven.

  “It sounded even worse than it looks,” Zoe admitted as she gazed around in awe.

  Leaving in the pitch dark on an ambulance stretcher with Molly cuddled in the crook of her arm and three big men trundling along at her side, Zoe hadn’t been aware of the destruction. It had all passed in a blur. But now, looking at it in the daylight brought back memories of the tumultuous heaving of trees, pelting rain, and the thunder of the wind. And that had been after the worst of the storm had passed.

  “I’ll bet,” Bree agreed. “Sam and I were down in Wilmington with my mom. There were branches down, but we never lost power.”

  Turning her back on the damage, Zoe bent to release Molly’s carrier and lift her out of the car. Bree ducked into the car after her to wrestle with the car seat’s base.

  “It was nothing like the last hurricane, thank God.” Kelly gathered up a clutch of shopping bags and butted the door shut with her hip. “Daddy sent his man over to clean up our yard, but it wasn’t really that bad. He should have sent the guy up here.”

  “I still know how to use a rake,” Zoe assured her sister as she carried her sleeping baby up the stairs.

  As soon as she opened the door, the issue of her debris-strewn lawn was forgotten. All three dogs bolted free, then doubled back. They were torn between greeting Zoe and checking out the slumbering bundle in the carrier. Jet prodded Molly’s blankets with an inquisitive nose, then glanced up at Zoe as if looking for an explanation. Hoover sniffed Molly cautiously, but thoroughly, then sat down to see what would happen next. Scotch whuffled softly as if aware that his usual loud barking might wake whatever it was. Zoe scratched each of the dogs behind their ears, then picked her way between them and into the house.

  “Nothing like a welcoming committee,” Kelly said, stopping to pat each furry head before following Zoe into the hall.

  In spite of the enthusiastic canine welcome, Zoe felt the emptiness where Jake might have been if things were different. She parked Molly, still in her carrier, in a corner of the sofa to sleep undisturbed and offered Kelly and Bree something to eat. Ava had called the hospital before catching the school bus that morning to assure Zoe that there was food in the fridge and a coffee cake on the counter.

  As they sat on stools around the kitchen island enjoying a hot cup of coffee and a slice of Ava’s coffee cake, Zoe kept a smile on her face and tried to dismiss the fears that hovered just below the surface. Their father had apparently told Kelly about the hearing test and Porter’s defection because neither woman mentioned either. But they were agog with interest about Molly’s untimely arrival in the middle of the storm and Zoe’s engaging neighbor’s involvement in it.

  “He’s a fireman. At least he’s a part-time volunteer fireman. And you told me he delivered a baby once before.” Zoe directed that last bit at Bree. She still hadn’t heard the whole of that story and curiosity was killing her.

  “And it was just the two of you here together?” Bree ignored the hint. “How cozy.”

  “Gertie was howling outside, and the tree had come down, cutting off the electricity and my phone.” Zoe felt a catch in her chest at the remembered panic when she realized she was going into labor and had only her dogs for company.

  Kelly’s face took on a suitably horrified expression. “Weren’t you terrified?”

  “I was scared out of my mind,” Zoe admitted.

  “But then came the hero from next door to the rescue,” Bree said with satisfied relish.

  “Bree, please,” Zoe begged her friend to leave the issue of Jake alone.

  Bree’s grin faded, and she studied Zoe with a serious expression. “Sorry. It just seemed kind of romantic. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  Kelly came to Zoe’s rescue. “Being in labor hardly seems very romantic to me. Especially with the power out and no doctor at hand. I’d have been a basket case.”

  “I pretty much was,” Zoe confessed. “I was lucky Jake thought to check up on me before reporting to the fire station. He wanted to go for help, but I kind of panicked and pleaded with him not to abandon me. So he stayed.” Zoe deliberately turned away from the probing look in Bree’s eyes. “As soon as he got a signal, Jake called nine-one-one, but by then Molly was already born. Once they managed to cut through the big tree, the EMTs arrived to take us to the hospital. The rest is all kind of a blur.”

  Except for the memory of Jake’s tireless hands rubbing her back and the tenderness in his voice as he coached her through the contractions. Or how the word babe kept dropping into his encouraging patter. None of that had been lost in the shadowy memories of that stormy night.

  Nor had the look in Jake’s eyes just before he’d kissed her with Molly still suckling at her breast moments before the lights flickered back on, then off again. When Zoe closed her eyes, she could still remember what the pressure of his mouth had felt like on hers. And the feeling of utter connection they’d shared in that magical moment.

  Zoe studied her plate, carefully loaded a bite of cake onto her fork, and brought it to her mouth.

  “I guess Daddy turned into a marshmallow at the hospital.” Kelly cut another sliver of cake and slipped it onto her plate. “This cake is delicious. You have to get the recipe for me.”

  Zoe mumbled in agreement as the memory of her father cooing and babbling nonsense to Molly at the hospital flashed into her head, pushing the images of Jake out, at least temporarily. Her father had still been there, comfortably ensconced in the rocker with Molly asleep in his arms when the night nurse came on duty at eleven and reminded him that visiting hours had been long since over. Zoe had never seen that aspect of her father before. Maybe he was mellowing, and he’d be a whole lot different as a grandfather.

  “What are you grinning about now?” Bree helped herself to a second slice of cake as well.

  “I was thinking about Daddy with Molly. He’s going to spoil her rotten.”

  “All those bags in the living room?” Kelly gestured in the general direction. “They’re all from Daddy. And believe it or not, he did his own shopping.”

  Chapter 38

  JAKE CLIMBED THE stairs to Zoe’s porch with a crazy mix of hope, anticipation, and dread churning in his gut.

  He’d seen the stunning ring in the box on Zoe’s windowsill that promised a life of security and ease, and he’d backed off to give her time to consider it. But he’d never seen the ring on her finger. Nor had Porter brought Molly and Zoe home from the hospital. Jake didn’t know if Porter had even visited at the hospital, but there’d been no sign of him at the house.

  You’ve had your chance, Porter Dubois. And you blew it!

  The ring in Jake’s pocket wasn’t nearly as impressive as the one Porter had offered her, but Jake hoped it would mean a whole lot more. He and Zoe had been through a lot together in the short time he’d known her. They’d shared more in five months than most people do in five years. Maybe in a lifetime. And he wanted to share the rest of that lifetime with her.


  In spite of his conviction that friends with benefits never worked out, he’d come to realize he and Zoe complemented each other. She filled the holes in his life and in his heart, and he wanted desperately to fill the empty spaces in hers. He was pretty sure she’d already forgiven him for the pain he’d caused her. He was pretty sure she loved him even though she’d never told him so. The signs had been there for Jake to read all along, if only he’d been paying attention.

  Quite aside from her willing response to his physical overtures, there had been her interest in his family right from the start. She’d helped him to see his daughter as a young woman instead of his little girl. And, even after he’d hurt Zoe with his careless words, she’d been there for him while he came to terms with Celia’s move.

  And what about the little Smurf fireman named Jake? Didn’t that make some kind of statement about where her heart belonged?

  Zoe’s utter faith in him the night Molly was born was humbling. But it was also empowering. It had given him the courage to overcome his demons. And it gave him the courage to come here tonight to tell her he’d been wrong and ask her to marry him. It gave him the hope that Zoe loved him as much as he loved her.

  Jake took a deep breath and knocked.

  And waited. And knocked a second time.

  He knew she was home. Perhaps she was sleeping. He tried the door, which, as usual, was unlocked. He let himself into an empty hall and wondered where the dogs were. Out in the yard, maybe?

  The sound of Molly crying came from the nursery upstairs. Then Jake noticed the muted sound of a shower running, which explained why Zoe had neither answered the door nor gone to check on her baby.

  With quick, light steps, Jake took the stairs in an eager rush and walked into the dimly lit nursery. Molly lay on her back, her tiny mouth wide with angry cries. She waved her arms with impatient jerks, and she’d kicked off her blanket and pumped her feet in unison with the flailing arms.