by Judy Duarte
Okay. So he really did want to be a part of his kid’s life, a part of its mother’s life. But did he dare admit it to Hailey? Admit his fear of inadequacy? Agree to give it his best shot, anyway?
Did he dare lay his heart on the line? Tell Hailey that he really cared for her? A lot?
That he might even love her? The way she deserved to be loved?
Hell, Nick couldn’t ever remember loving anyone, or being loved in return. He wouldn’t even recognize the emotion if it sneaked up and kissed him on the lips.
Like Hailey had done to him, pressing her heart against his chest, placing her arms around his neck, lifting her lips to his. Putting some kind of hold on him that he couldn’t shake, couldn’t break.
Was that love?
Some sappy bond you couldn’t see, couldn’t explain, yet couldn’t imagine giving up or living without?
If so, love had sneaked up on him. And like a fool, he’d let it slip away. He’d let Hailey go without a fight. But how did one go about fighting an invisible foe? Confronting something he couldn’t see, couldn’t touch?
The phone rang, more than once, and it took him a moment to actually hear it. He snatched the receiver and answered, “Granger.”
“Hello, Nick. It’s Kay.”
Was something wrong? With Hailey or the baby? Nick’s heart thudded in his chest. A surge of worry, fear and something else shot through his blood. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, dear. I just wanted to invite you to dinner. Harry’s home now. And we thought it might be nice to have company this evening.”
We thought it might be nice? Did we mean Kay and Harry? Or had Hailey taken part in the invitation?
“I’m not sure how Hailey will feel about me coming over,” Nick said, hoping to pry some additional information from Kay. Some word of how Hailey was doing. A hint of what she might be thinking. About him. Them.
“She’s doing fine,” Kay said. “Of course, I think she’s spending too much time in her room. I thought having company might give her something to look forward to.”
Hailey had been locked up in her room? Was she sick? Or just mad at him for not being more sensitive to her needs and able to say the things she wanted to hear? It was hard to tell. Could she possibly be missing him? Wishing she’d given the idea of their marriage more thought?
Maybe things had changed. Maybe she would be happy to see him. God, he hoped so. He was missing her something fierce.
“Hailey wasn’t too pleased with me the other day,” he admitted to Kay.
“She’s going through a lot right now.”
Nick knew that. Hell, he was going through a lot, too. A lot of emotional stuff he wasn’t used to.
But he needed to take responsibility for his part of the situation. And there was no use skirting the truth.
“I’m to blame for most of her problems,” he said, unable to actually come right out and say, I’m the bastard who got your daughter pregnant. The hard-ass who probably loves her but can’t come clean and admit it. The tough guy who’s afraid to face the consequences of a revelation like that.
“I see,” Kay said, although Nick wasn’t sure what she “saw.” He was still trying to clear his mind, make sense of the obscurity.
“I want to make things right, but I don’t know how.”
The older woman didn’t respond immediately, as though she was still putting clues together. Or maybe she was just trying to decide how to tell Nick he was a jerk. And that Hailey would be a fool to marry a guy like him.
“A woman’s feelings are pretty tender at a time like this.”
Yeah, well, for a guy with a cast-iron heart, his feelings were pretty damn tender, too. Raw. Painful. And way too close to the surface.
“I guess that’s to be expected,” Nick said, although he didn’t understand much of anything about what Hailey was going through, about what either one of them could expect next.
“Don’t worry, Nick. She’ll be all right. With time.”
But Nick didn’t want her to be all right, not if it meant she was going to pull together without him, without even looking back.
For some reason, he wanted Kay to know how he felt about Hailey. “I care about her. A lot.”
“I can understand that. She’s a lovely young woman.”
They were, it seemed, still skating around the issue, around the reality. Hailey was pregnant with Nick’s baby. And even though he’d offered marriage, she’d refused to accept. And that hurt, way more than he’d expected.
With each tick of the old-style, windup clock on the nightstand, he grew more aware of how lonely and miserable his life would be without Hailey in it, without her pretty smile, the lilt of her laugh.
“This is tough on me, Kay. I’m not a sensitive guy. And Hailey needs so much more than I can give.”
Again she paused. “Sometimes it’s hard to put feelings into words.”
“You’ve got that right.” He plowed a hand through his hair, scanned the vast emptiness of an apartment that had always seemed just fine—before Hailey had blessed it with her touch, her scent, her presence.
“So,” Kay said. “Can we set another plate on the table this evening?”
“Yeah,” Nick said, trying to gather his thoughts together. “Sure, I’d like that, Kay.”
When he hung up the phone, things started to fall into place—at least better than they had before.
He had a reason to go to Harry’s house, a reason to bust in on Hailey and see her one more time. Talk to her. Get her to see reason. Tell her the one thing that might convince her that taking a chance and making a home with Nick wouldn’t be so bad.
And if it didn’t help?
Then what did he have left to lose?
He already felt broken and empty.
When Nick arrived at the Logans’, Kay met him at the door before he got a chance to ring the bell.
“Harry’s upstairs resting. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
“Thanks.”
“In the meantime,” she said, “Hailey’s in the kitchen. You might stop in there and tell her hello.”
Nick actually felt a stab of nervousness. A flutter in his pulse.
Was it a setup? A carefully orchestrated plan to get him and Hailey together? Women did things like that sometimes, tried to fix things. Used a strategy known only to them.
Had Kay tried to help a crippled relationship mend?
Nick sure hoped so. He was going to need all the help he could get.
When he reached the kitchen, he spotted Hailey before she saw him. She wore a pink T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Nothing fancy, yet he found himself gawking.
She stood at the counter, holding an electric mixer while mashing potatoes, her mind on her work, her brow furrowed in concentration. She didn’t wear any makeup to speak of, other than a light glossy sheen to her lips. But she didn’t need any props.
Pretty Hailey could touch his heart with a smile. She glanced out the kitchen window, a wistful look on her face.
His heart did a double flip, landing in a belly flop, and he just stared at her like a moonstruck kid.
What he wouldn’t give to come home every night and find her in his kitchen. Or curled up on the sofa, reading a book. Or playing with their baby on the floor.
He longed to take her in his arms, tell her he was home, see her face light up. Kiss her with all the passion he’d bottled up during the day.
Instead he just said, “Hi.”
She turned, her eyes growing wide, her lips parting.
Okay, so Kay hadn’t told her he’d been invited for dinner, but since she’d answered the door before the bell could alert Hailey to his presence, he figured she’d been playing matchmaker. That she’d tried to force Hailey and Nick into being together, talking. Maybe she hoped they could work things out.
But that was the extent of Kay’s orchestrating.
Nick was on his own now.
Hailey flipped the switch on the mixer, silen
cing the sound of the small motor.
“Kay invited me to dinner,” he said.
“Oh.” Her face seemed to fall.
Disappointed? Hoping that he’d come on his own with something to say?
“I want to apologize,” he said.
“For what?” She leaned her hip against the kitchen drawers that supported the countertop. “Being honest? I can’t fault you for that.”
“I wasn’t being honest.”
She lifted a brow, watched him. Tried to read him. Well, good luck. He was still trying to figure himself out.
“I’ve spent years trying to convince myself that I didn’t need anyone, not a woman, not a family.” He sought her gaze, her understanding. Her compassion, too, he supposed. “It was the only way I could survive in a world where no one gave a damn about me.”
He kind of hoped she’d step in and tell him that she cared about him, remind him that she loved him. But she merely stood there, arms crossed as though guarding her heart.
“This is all new to me,” he said.
She placed a hand on the still-flat plane of her tummy, the spot where his baby grew. “It’s new to me, too.”
“I wasn’t talking about the baby.” He wanted to step closer, to take her in his arms when he told her. To say the words while she looked the other way. But that would be cheating.
“What’s new to you?” she asked, her voice soft, laden with emotions he’d yet to decipher.
Just days ago she’d said that she loved him. Wasn’t it the lasting kind of love? The kind that might overlook the way Nick was sure to screw up this conversation?
“This is new. The rush of feelings I get whenever I think of you. Me. Us.”
If she understood what he meant, she wasn’t making it easy for him.
“I’ve never been in love before,” he admitted, hoping she’d cut him some slack.
Her brow lifted. Her head tilted slightly. “And?”
He took a deep breath, then slowly let it go. “No one has ever loved me before, either.”
She merely stood there, leaning against the kitchen counter, waiting, it seemed, for him to lay open his stubborn heart.
“I’ve been running from love ever since I was a kid, ever since I realized that home wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be. And when it came time to move out and get a place of my own, I was just glad to come home to four walls and some peace and quiet. No yelling. No bitching. No drunken brawls and accusations.”
Her lip twitched and her eyes glistened. She was listening. And feeling something.
He wasn’t wanting her sympathy, though. Just her understanding.
“I feel something for you, Hailey. Something powerful. Something warm. And I tried hard to ignore it.” He raked a hand through his hair, then crossed his arms. “I didn’t realize being in love felt like this.”
“Felt like what?”
She was making him go the distance, spit it out. Lay it all on the table. Well, if that’s the way she wanted it, then he’d spill his guts. And his heart.
“That being in love would make me feel so crazy about you. It’s this powerful I-gotta-have-Hailey-with-me feeling that dogs me wherever I go.”
Was that enough? Was she getting it? Would she help him through the romantic muck and mire and cut to the chase?
It didn’t appear likely, so he continued to stumble and fumble on his own. “I love you, Hailey.”
Her arms dropped, her lips parted. Her eyes brightened. “You do? Are you sure?”
That was all the push he needed. He crossed the kitchen in two steps, took her in his arms and held her tight, losing himself in her apricot scent, in her soft embrace.
He pressed a kiss against her hair. “Yeah, I’m sure, Hailey. But the bad part is knowing that I’m not the kind of guy a woman like you needs.”
She didn’t argue, didn’t put up a fight. But she held him tightly, as though she might never let go.
That had to count for something, didn’t it?
“Are you in this for the duration?” she asked. “I don’t want my baby to grow up without a dad, to feel abandoned if you change your mind.”
“I’m not going anywhere, honey. Not now that I’ve got you in my life and figured out what love is. Not when I want to make a family with you.” Nick pulled away, just far enough to see her eyes, to cup her face. “I’m not a romantic guy, Hailey. And God knows I’m far from perfect. I don’t ride a white horse, and I can’t carry you off into the sunset. But I love you. And I swear on all that’s holy to give everything I’ve got to our marriage, our relationship. To you and the baby.”
Nick loved her.
Hailey couldn’t ask for any more than that. Tears welled in her eyes as she saw the love glowing in his eyes.
“What do you say?” he asked. “Will you marry me?”
“Are we talking weddings?”
He scrunched his face. “I should have known a simple little service in front of a justice of the peace wouldn’t be good enough for a woman who reads bride magazines.”
“It would just be a small wedding.”
“How small? You, me and a preacher?”
“Bigger than that.”
“Will I have to wear a tux?”
“And a smile,” she said. “You’d have to be happy about it.”
Nick kissed her, then slid her that crooked grin she’d never grow tired of looking at. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”
“Me, too,” she said. Then she slipped her arms around his neck, pulled him back into her embrace. “I love you, Nick Granger. With all my heart.”
Then they sealed their love with a kiss.
In a small room off to the side of the Park Avenue Community Church, Nick fiddled with the bow tie on his tuxedo.
“Can you believe I’m wearing one of these monkey suits in broad daylight, before God and practically the whole city of San Diego?” Nick asked Harry.
His old friend and soon-to-be-father-in-law laughed. “You’ll do just fine. I always knew some woman would soften your edges. I just didn’t realize that woman would be my little girl.”
“Yeah, well, she’s left her mark on me.”
“Is that so bad?” Harry asked.
“Nope. I’ve got to admit, I like the changes she’s made in me, in my life.”
Harry placed a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “You know, I’ve always thought of you as a son. Now I guess it’s official.”
“This family stuff is kind of new to me, Harry, but I’m looking forward to being a husband and a father. A son, too.”
Harry wrapped him in a bear hug. “Just treat my little girl right.”
“I will. But speaking of your little girl, I was hoping she’d agree to a simple, outdoor wedding. You know, something on the shore in La Jolla, or maybe even in Bayside. Something laid-back and easy, where the bridal party and guests didn’t wear shoes.”
“Once Kay and Hailey put their heads together, you and I didn’t have anything to say about this. All we had to do was put on a tux and show up.”
A light rap sounded at the door, then Joe Davenport, Nick’s friend and best man, entered the room.
“It’s time,” Joe said.
Yep, it was time, Nick thought. Time to marry the woman he loved. Time to give their baby a name and a home. Time to create the kind of family that he and Hailey had never known. The kind of family she’d always dreamed of.
Him, too, if truth be told, but he’d never allowed that dream to surface. Not until Hailey entered his life and turned his lonely world on end.
Moments later Nick stood at the quaint old church that Kay and Harry had attended for years. Fellow bad boy and fireman Joe Davenport stood at his side as Nick waited for Hailey to walk down the aisle.
Music from an old pipe organ began, and Maria, Hailey’s sister-in-law, started down the aisle. Moments later, the organist began the first chords of the bridal march, and Harry escorted pretty Hailey down a flower-petal-strewn, white-carpeted walkway. Her sm
ile, so happy and full of love, took Nick’s breath away and shot hope and promises through his core.
When his bride neared the altar, a heartbeat away from Nick’s arms, Reverend Morton asked, “Who gives this woman away?”
Harry cleared his throat and said in a loud, booming voice, “Her mother and I.”
In short order, the scripture was read, prayers were spoken and the vows were made. Then Nick kissed his wife with all the love in his heart.
But the wedding wasn’t over yet.
“Please join Mr. And Mrs. Granger as they begin their lives together,” Reverend Morton said. Then he nodded, and Nick took Hailey by the hand.
As they reached the front steps of the church, a line of horse-drawn carriages awaited them.
“What’s going on?” Hailey asked, clearly aware of the fact they hadn’t rehearsed this part, that climbing in a carriage wasn’t in her carefully laid wedding plans. “Where are we going?”
“For a ride through Balboa Park.”
Hailey glanced behind her, saw Harry and Kay climbing into one of the carriages, too, along with the others.
“This is sweet,” Hailey said. “And romantic.”
Nick took her hand in his. “I guess you bring out all kinds of crazy things in me.”
Hailey blessed him with a smile. “I’m glad.”
As they rode through the park, the dappled sunlight danced through the trees. And ten minutes later they drew near the carousel.
“Oh, look,” Hailey said, her voice soft and wistful.
When the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the merry-go-round and Nick climbed out, she asked, “What are you doing?”
Nick slid her a crooked grin and reached out to her. “You have to snag the brass ring, honey. It won’t fall in your hands.”
The carousel slowed to a stop, and Nick ushered Hailey aboard, lifted her onto the pony she favored. And as the crowd of brand-new family and old friends clapped, the merry-go-round started up.
Military-band-style music played, and the carousel ponies and zoo animals began to circle. Hailey, looking prettier than any bride magazine cover girl, broke into a laugh. “And you told me you weren’t a romantic guy.”
