My Three Girls (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Floyd, Susan

  He stopped by Dana’s, no longer home to him, to fix dinner and the girls’ lunches for the next day before he started his shift. Dana at best was polite. In one of the few conversations they had, Dana had tried to plead for the girls to have Christmas with them, but Brady was determined to reunite the girls with their father in time for Christmas.

  “He’s missed five Christmases, Dana,” was all he’d said.

  “I’ve never even had one” was her stomach-twisting retort.

  Soon the girls began the agonizing task of trying to pack up their possessions. They’d come to that little house with almost nothing. Now there were shelves of books, a slew of stuffed animals and a closet full of clothes.

  Brady had already moved most of his stuff by that point. “No use taking up all your space” was how he’d explained it to Dana. The girls realized his things were gone and clung to him when he was around. As for his wife, she accepted the changes he made without comment or emotion, and he couldn’t help but wish for their old relationship back. He knew there was more to their relationship than the girls. But she didn’t, and she wouldn’t let him close enough to let him prove it.

  ON THE DAY they were to take the girls to their new house, Dana woke at 3:00 a.m. with a feeling of dread. The girls weren’t going to end up like Adam. She knew Carson was going to be a good father. Ever since they’d found out he was innocent, she’d taken the girls to visit him every weekend. Carson had drilled her relentlessly about Karen, Jean and Ollie, and she had come to genuinely like him. He was a gentler version of his brother. He noticed small things, like Jean’s small ring and Karen’s dolphins. But that didn’t make Dana feel any better. She stared at the dark ceiling and wondered how she’d live without those girls and couldn’t even begin to think about how she would manage to survive after they’d left.

  After today.

  Today was the day Dana was supposed to give them to their father. That Dana would see them daily at school was small consolation. She would teach them, but that was all.

  She felt someone staring at her and rolled over on her side.

  “Aunt Dana?”

  She smiled in the direction of the small voice. “Karen. You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

  Karen took that as an invitation to join her in the bed. “I can’t sleep. I’m really scared.” Dana felt Karen’s bony elbow dig into her ribs. She shifted to put her arm around Karen’s shoulders.

  “What are you scared about?”

  “I don’t want to live with my dad.”

  Dana didn’t want her living with her dad, either, but she needed to be the adult. “It’s going to take some adjustment from both of you. But you’re going to be fine. It’s all going to work out.” And Dana didn’t doubt it. Karen was going to have her happily-ever-after.

  “What if he doesn’t like us when he lives with us?” Her voice was uncertain, small. Dana took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. Finally, Karen was learning what it was like to trust an adult.

  “He can’t help but love you.”

  “How do you know that for sure?”

  “Because I had thought I’d never love anyone, but as soon as I started living with you, I loved you,” Dana whispered, tightening her arm around Karen.

  “Then why do you want to get rid of us?”

  “I don’t want to get rid of you, but you belong with your father, not with me.”

  “What if we don’t like him? Can we come back and live with you and Uncle Brady?”

  Dana was silent. Of course the girls realized there was tension between her and Brady, but obviously they thought it would work out.

  “You’re going to love your dad. He’s missed too much of your lives and he wants to make up for it.”

  “But I’m going to miss you and Uncle Brady.”

  Dana felt a tear slide down her temple. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

  “Is Uncle Brady going to miss us?”

  Another tear followed the path of the first. “Yes. He’s going to miss you very much.”

  “So you two get to be together and we have to go away.” Karen clearly didn’t think the arrangement was fair. “Do you love him more than us?”

  Dana was silent as she tried to find an answer for Karen. Finally, she said slowly, “I don’t love Uncle Brady more than you. I love your Uncle Brady differently. I think I started to love him because of you. Then somewhere I just started loving him for him.” She realized that her words were true. She did love Brady. She loved the man he was, the man he had to be—even though he knew he would hurt her if he did the right thing.

  “I don’t think you should be mad at him because he got my dad out of jail.”

  “I’m not mad at him about that. Your dad should have never gone to jail in the first place.”

  “I heard you arguing.”

  Dana stroked Karen’s hair. “You weren’t supposed to hear us.”

  “You said you were sorry that you ever met him. Are you sorry you ever met us?”

  Dana fought to speak over her heart, now lodged in her throat. “No. I’m very glad I met you. I was wrong to say what I said to your Uncle Brady. Sometimes when we hurt, we say things we don’t mean.”

  “Do you wish we could stay with you forever and ever?”

  What a question! Dana didn’t answer for a long time. “I would wish it if you didn’t have a daddy who loved you as much as your daddy does.”

  “Do you love me?”

  Dana couldn’t say the words. Adam had asked her to as they sat together waiting at the park.

  “Say that you love me,” Adam begged. “Say that you’ll always, always, always love me.”

  Dana just hugged him close. “I do love you. I’ll always, always, always love you.”

  “When I’m grown up, can we get married?”

  Dana had to laugh. “When you’re grown up, I’ll be an old, old lady. And there will be lots of young, pretty girls who will be standing in line to marry you.”

  “I’ll want you, because you love me.”

  It had taken every ounce of strength that Dana had had to force a smile on to her face so that when he went back to his mother, he would believe it was for the best. She tugged Karen even closer.

  “Yes. I love you and I love Jean and I love Ollie.”

  “And Uncle Brady? You love Uncle Brady, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Uncle Brady, too.” There—she’d admitted it.

  “What do you love best about me?” Karen asked.

  “I love your smile, your nose, the way you help your sisters. I love that you make me smile.”

  “So what happens when I’m gone? Who’s going to make you smile?”

  Later, when Dana put Karen back into her bed to get at least a few hours of sleep, she sat in the room and watched Ollie curl up close to Jean. Who was going to make her smile? What was going to fill the hole that these three girls would leave behind?

  By the time Brady arrived to pick up the girls, Dana’s eyes felt as if they were made of lead, partly from the lack of sleep, partly from the weight of sadness.

  “Everyone ready?” Brady asked, his voice overly cheerful.

  “I can’t find my shoes,” Ollie hollered. She had only one sock on. “I don’t want to go.”

  “Ollie.” Brady knelt in front of her. “We’ve talked about this. You’re going to live with your dad.”

  “You’re my dad.”

  “No, he’s not, stupid,” Karen snapped uncharacteristically. “He’s our uncle. Our dad just got out of jail.”

  “Your dad loves you,” Brady told Ollie, and then addressed Karen. “Your dad is being pardoned. Do you know what pardoned means?”

  “Yes. It’s something that says you didn’t do what you were put in jail for.” Karen rattled off the explanation with a preadolescent roll of her eyes.

  “Exactly. A pardon says that the government made a mistake and is sorry he ever had to go there.”

  Ollie’s eyes filled with tears. “Why can�
��t we be a family?”

  Dana watched as Brady glanced up at her. She didn’t see regret or any other emotion on his face. “Because you have your own family to make.”

  “Who’s going to take care of Aunt Dana?” Ollie struggled to put on her shoe.

  Dana, her sinuses hurting from the tears she held back, sat down next to Ollie and helped her with her shoe.

  “Aunt Dana has her job.” His voice was so harsh that Dana bit her lip. Was that how cold he thought she was? That teaching would take the place of his hugs and kisses or his tender lovemaking?

  “If he’s mean to us, can we come back to live with you and Aunt Dana?” Ollie asked, her hands on Dana’s as she fumbled with the little buckle.

  Brady walked out of the house to the car, leaving her to deal with Ollie’s question. While she did, she remembered the look he’d given her on his way out—the one that told her she was the last woman on the earth that he would want to live with.

  THE DRIVE TO CARSON’S HOUSE seemed to take forever. Brady could feel the tension in the car. Dana hadn’t wanted to come, but he appreciated that she had. It would make the move easier for all the girls. He’d been giving her the space she’d requested, and it wasn’t boding well for their marriage. When he’d all but moved out, she didn’t even blink. Now, Dana sat, her back stiff, staring out the window.

  “It’s going to be okay. They’re going to be okay,” he said to her in an undertone.

  She didn’t respond, just continued to stare out the window.

  “They weren’t ours in the first place,” he tried again.

  Her head swiveled toward him. “I just don’t have the ability to meter out the quantity of my love. And I can’t stop loving them because I’m no longer their guardian.”

  Brady looked into the rearview mirror, glad that Karen had on her headphones and Ollie and Jean were too engrossed in pointing out trees to listen to the conversation.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, noticing the direction of his gaze. “I haven’t said anything to them.”

  “I didn’t think you had.”

  Dana gave a bitter laugh. “I can see it on your face.”

  “You don’t know what I think.”

  “You think it’s going to be all right because, after all, I have my teaching. That for some reason, teaching can take the place of living, breathing children who crawl into the bed each morning.” Her voice was hurt and Brady cocked his head to the side.

  It was the first emotion she’d shown in weeks.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Okay.” She stared out the window again.

  “If you want to know, I think you’re a compassionate woman who’s been hurt before and is being torn by doing the right thing.”

  “And you? How do you feel about this?” Dana asked, her voice so low that he could barely hear her.

  “Me?” He was startled.

  “Aren’t you going to miss this?”

  “Miss what?”

  “Miss…us.” She sounded wistful.

  Brady was very still. He cleared his throat and asked cautiously, “Define ‘us.’”

  She looked at him with tears in her eyes.

  “You need for me to define ‘us’?”

  “I just want to know if you think about us the same way I do.”

  “Us. You, me, the girls. That’s the ‘us’ I’m talking about.”

  Brady couldn’t explain how disappointed he was by that answer. If she’d been talking about just the two of them—that would be different. But for her the “us” was a package deal. A readymade family.

  “There is no us.” The words came out sharper than he intended. All this time, he’d thought they’d been working as a team—something he believed would be the foundation for something truly permanent. Yes, the loss of the girls would leave a tremendous hole in their lives, but that didn’t mean that he and Dana didn’t have a relationship.

  “Of course there is an us. The last months have been all five of us together.”

  “And when there’s only two? When the girls go back to their father, will there still be an us?” He didn’t want to be rude, but he had to make her realize that the “us” she imagined—her, the kids and him—could not happen. He was who he was. Not just the father doll in her little play house. He wasn’t anything but Brady Moore. But he was willing to stay with her and make their marriage work.

  “You don’t understand,” Dana muttered finally.

  “On the contrary.” He felt his heart starting to ache. “I think I understand much too well.”

  “Don’t fight,” Karen begged suddenly from the back seat.

  “We’re not fighting,” Brady said. “Sometimes Dana and I just disagree on things.”

  DANA COULDN’T SAY anything to Karen. If Brady thought that whether or not there was an “us” was only a small disagreement, then she had completely misread him. Maybe he’d come to realize she really was a spinster schoolteacher and he was trying to find a way to go back to his old life. Funny, that hurt more than the thought of the girls leaving. She knew they weren’t hers, that they belonged with Carson, and eventually she would come to feel good about the decision. But right now, she was devastated to think that she was going to return to her old, lonely life.

  Dana hung back when they got to Carson’s house. It looked a bit sterile, without the personal touches that would make it a home, but that would be Carson’s job.

  “Our house is green!” Karen said in delight. “Is he here?”

  “I think so.”

  As if on cue, Carson stepped onto the porch. He was smiling, and as she did every time she saw him, Dana looked for the resemblance between the two brothers. Maybe in the way they held themselves. Maybe around the eyes. But the open delight on Carson’s face was something she never saw on Brady’s. It wasn’t fair that the man she loved was so much more contained than his brother. The men embraced and the girls stared up at the tall man who was their father.

  “Dad.” Karen sounded old again.

  “Karen.”

  “This is Ollie.” Her hand gestured to her right. “And this is Jean.”

  Carson nodded. “I remember. We saw each other last week.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  After a long pause, Brady opened the door. “Why don’t you go in? You girls can see your rooms. Karen will get her own room and Ollie and Jean are going to share for a while. Your dad picked out bunk beds for you.”

  Dana’s heart was in the pit of her stomach. They’d talked about getting bunk beds for the girls. Carson gave her a small smile and gestured for her to join them.

  “Coming, Dana?” Brady asked.

  Reluctantly, she followed them in.

  She heard Karen squeal and then come running out of a bedroom.

  “Ohmigosh! Aunt Dana, you need to see this.” Karen took her hand and tugged her in the direction of a room.

  Dana hadn’t known what to expect, but the home looked wonderful. They walked on brand-new carpet past the simple but classic furniture, until they stood in front of a door that had a colorful “Karen” painted across it. Dana looked inside and smiled.

  “It’s a canopy bed,” Karen cried. “And I have my own desk. And look at this bookcase! I’ve never had anything like this before.” She ran her hands over the books on the shelf. “It’s pink!”

  “It certainly is pink.”

  A beautiful girl’s room. Pink fluff, retro pastel furniture. Someone had worked very hard to get the room this way. She couldn’t imagine that it was Brady.

  “Your dad picked all this out for you.” Brady’s voice came over Dana’s shoulder. She was startled to find him standing right behind her, Carson beside him.

  “He did?” Karen expressed her disbelief. “How could he?”

  “He found them in catalogs and ordered them for you.”

  Karen looked uncertain. She stared at the man standing in the doorway, his hands jammed in his pockets, his eyes shyly downcast. Dana and B
rady moved farther into the room so Karen could see her father. “You did?” she asked him. “How come?”

  It took a long time for Carson to answer. Finally, he said gruffly, “Because you’re my little girl.”

  Karen stared at him without a word. Then Carson crouched so he was eye level with her. He held his arms open, but Karen backed away. Carson couldn’t hide the hurt on his face.

  “Do you remember me?” Karen’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Of course I remember you. You’re my little girl.”

  “I’m not a little girl. I’m eleven.”

  “No matter how old you get, you’ll always be my little girl. Always.”

  “Even when you were in jail?”

  “Especially when I was in jail. I thought about you all the time.”

  “But you never remembered my birthday.”

  “I remembered every one of your birthdays.”

  Carson smiled slowly and with a cry of joy Karen launched herself into his arms. He pulled her close, squeezing hard.

  Dana turned away, brushing past Brady, who held out a hand but pulled it back when she rebuffed him. Whether she liked it or not, Brady Moore was a very wise man. But she couldn’t admit that yet. She needed time to heal her own hurts first. Pasting a friendly smile on her face, she peeked into Jean and Ollie’s room and found a lovely castle bunk set, complete with a turret playhouse attached to the side. Jean was sitting on the top. She gave Dana a big grin and Dana crossed over to her.

  “I love you,” Jean whispered. “We have our own closets!”

  “I love you, too.” Dana looked around the room that was for just Ollie and Jean and realized it was bigger than the room all three had shared at her house. Here, the girls would be sleeping in their own beds rather than sharing the pull-out couch.

  “There’s room for everyone here,” Ollie declared as she opened the box filled with her stuffed animals. She pulled them out, then carried them over to her bed to arrange them carefully. “But I get the pillow,” she told them.

  Dana sat on Ollie’s bed, hugging the long spotted neck of a giraffe. She bounced a couple of time. “This feels very, very good. I think you’re going to like it here.” Dana got off the bed and got on her hands and knees to check out the turret.