The Daddy Dilemma

by Karen Rose Smith

  The boys coat rack was a few steps away. Nathan watched Kyle lift a pair of denims, flip them over and wiggle his little fingers into the back pocket.

  Engrossed in trying to whittle down the selection of coats to two or three for Kyle to try on, Nathan wasn’t sure he heard a low voice calling “Dad.” But he turned anyway.

  When he saw his son gasping for air, he dropped the coats and hurried to him. Fear shone in Kyle’s eyes, and his breathing was labored.

  “Hold on.” Nathan tried to keep the panic from his voice as he reached for the inhaler in his pocket. Kyle hadn’t suffered a serious asthma attack in over a year. That day he’d been outside playing too long, and the fall grasses had set him off.

  Trying to stay calm, Nathan shook the inhaler, then held it to his son’s lips. Twice Kyle sucked in the puffs of medication.

  A store clerk was at Nathan’s side, asking if she could help. The scent of her perfume was strong. He ignored her, all of his attention riveted on his son.

  Holding the inhaler himself now, Kyle shook his head to signal the medicine wasn’t helping. “I can’t breathe,” he rasped.

  Although he realized he had to give the medication a few minutes to work, Nathan still scooped Kyle up into his arms. His boy’s face was gray and he was struggling to draw in air. Waiting wasn’t an option.

  “Should I call emergency services?” the clerk asked.

  Nathan hated watching Kyle suffer. His own pulse was racing and his heart pounded in his ears. He had to keep a clear head. If the woman called the paramedics, they would take at least five minutes to get here.

  “Call the E.R. and tell them I’m coming—asthmatic child in crisis.” Then he raced out of the store, running faster than he ever had run even when he’d sprinted in a track meet. He could be at the hospital in less than five minutes. Even one minute could be crucial now.

  That minute could save his son’s life.

  As the automated doors opened for Nathan, he ran into the emergency room of Rapid Creek Community Hospital, yelling for a doctor. Although the hospital was small, it was well-equipped, with a dedicated staff. The clerk’s call must have prepared them, because a doctor rushed to Nathan and showed him to a cubicle. While he administered a dose of medication, a nurse pulled the curtains around them. Kyle’s lips had turned blue and his little face was ashen. Nathan prayed like he’d never prayed before.

  As the doctor, whose name tag read Dr. Marshall, began Kyle’s inhalation therapy, Nathan stayed by his son’s side, holding his hand to keep him calm. Every few moments he said, “I’m right here. You’re going to be fine.”

  Kyle was breathing easier now.

  Dr. Marshall, who was wearing a white coat over a blue oxford shirt and khakis, looked to be in his forties. “I paged Dr. Redding.”

  Dr. Redding was the town’s pulmonary specialist. Kyle had seen him for a checkup at the end of the summer.

  “This treatment will last about ten minutes. We’ll let him rest for a while, then give him another. When Dr. Redding arrives, he’ll examine him thoroughly and check his blood gases. My guess is after an attack like this, he’ll want to keep him overnight.”

  Hearing every word, Kyle’s eyes widened in fear.

  The doctor patted his arm. “Your dad will be able to stay if he’d like. We have a comfortable recliner he can roll next to your bed.”

  Nathan squeezed Kyle’s hand. “If you have to stay, I’ll be right here with you.”

  Kyle seemed to relax again at his words.

  With a frown, Nathan asked, “I can’t use a cell phone in the hospital, can I?”

  The doctor shook his head. “No. But if you’d like us to call someone for you, I’m sure the desk nurse would be glad to do that.”

  “I don’t want to scare my father.”

  “Jeannie is very good at public relations. But you will have to sign a form giving her permission to call.”

  “Paperwork,” Nathan muttered.

  “More and more every day,” the doctor agreed, examining Kyle again. After studying the monitor he was hooked up to, the doctor pulled back a curtain. “I’ll go get that form.”

  Two hours later, Nathan was seated by Kyle’s bed in the pediatrics unit when his father appeared at the doorway with two cups of coffee and beckoned to him. This was his third cup of high octane caffeine. Nathan knew there’d be no sleep for him tonight. But there wouldn’t have been, anyway. He’d be watching Kyle. With the oxygen tube at his son’s nose and the breathing apparatus on the bedside stand, Nathan wouldn’t forget why his son was here.

  There was another sleeping child, a ten-year-old boy, in a bed across the room. He’d been in an accident and had his spleen removed. His parents had decided not to stay for the night.

  After making sure Kyle was still sleeping, Nathan went to the door and stepped out.

  Galen handed him a cup of coffee.

  Nathan took off the lid and tossed it into the nearby trash can. Then he sipped it and grimaced.

  “It’s hot,” his father warned.

  “It tastes like motor oil.”

  “What do you expect? A latte from Javaland? I can go get you one, but I know you don’t go in for that kind of thing.”

  “Instead of fetching coffee for me, you should just go home.”

  “I thought we should have a talk first.”

  Nathan met his dad’s steel-gray eyes. “What about? What caused this episode? I spoke to his doctor. It could have been the dyes and the smells of the fabrics in the store. It could have been the clerk’s perfume. It could have been—”

  Galen raised a brow. “Before Kyle fell asleep, I asked him if he took his medicine this morning.”

  “I gave him his tablet with breakfast.”

  “That doesn’t mean he swallowed it. And let me tell you, son, that boy can’t lie any better than you could when you were a kid. He nodded that he took it, but he wouldn’t look at me dead-on.”

  Nathan started to get angry, then reminded himself that Kyle was five years old. How could he possibly understand the gravity of his condition? “I’ll have to have another talk with him. But today’s scare should have been enough.”

  After taking a couple of swallows from his cup, Galen hooked a thumb in his suspenders and gnawed on his lower lip for a couple of seconds. “There is something else that could have caused this, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Stress. Kids get stressed just like adults. You know it can be a factor in bringing on an asthma attack. Kyle’s been way too quiet ever since Sara Hobart visited him. He watches the mail every day as if he expects a letter from her. That’s emotional stress on the boy. Maybe you should let him know you’ve forbidden her from having any contact with him again, so he doesn’t expect anything from her. Or…maybe you should change your mind about her visiting him again.”

  “You’re becoming her champion?” Nathan’s voice registered astonishment.

  “Not her champion, but Kyle’s. You have to do something. Who knows what ideas Kyle’s imagination is spinning. He might think she doesn’t want to come back…doesn’t want to be friends with him.”

  “I never should have let her see him in the first place.”

  “You would have still known she was out there. When Kyle starts asking questions…”

  “Why would he have questions? His mother died in childbirth. Period.”

  “Other folks in town know about the in vitro. You can’t keep the truth hidden forever. Better Kyle knows it sooner rather than later, when he’ll resent you for keeping it from him.”

  Nathan felt an icy chill crawl up his back. “And just what am I supposed to do about Sara Hobart? If I let her into Kyle’s life, she could want more than another visit.”

  Holding up his hand to ward off Nathan’s objections, Galen argued, “She knows she has no legal right to Kyle. But Nathan, if he is her son, I think you’d better consider her moral right.” He lowered his voice. “There’s a good chance she’s the boy’
s biological mother. What if he’d died today?”

  “Pop!” Nathan could feel his face go white, his entire body tense, his whole being reject the idea.

  “I know that’s not something you want to think about. And yes, she signed a piece of paper that says she has no rights to Kyle. No rights to make any decisions about him. No rights to visit him or hug him. I get that. Apparently she gets that, too, otherwise she wouldn’t have gone back to Minneapolis. But…” Galen pointed his weathered finger at Kyle. “Just look at him, son. Look at the life he has with me and you and Val. You hardly let him go anywhere or do anything. At least can’t you let someone else into his life who can love him?”

  To his chagrin, Nathan could remember the happiness on Kyle’s face when he’d been playing with Sara. He could remember the connection that had taken hold in a very short time. He’d wanted to deny it. He’d told himself Sara Hobart was a novelty to Kyle, and that was the reason his son liked her. But deep down, Nathan knew there was more. That “more” was what had caused the knot in his gut…the knife of fear that stabbed him every time he thought about Sara Hobart.

  Galen rubbed his hand through his gray hair. “Ever since you lost Colleen, you’ve made Kyle the center of your world. You left your life in the city so you could come up here and make a new start with him. So you could be around for him. But maybe you’re not enough. A dad can’t be a mom. A father just doesn’t know some things instinctually the way a mother does. Believe me, son, I know. Sometimes I’d dig down deep to find something to say to you or Sam or Ben and it just wasn’t there.”

  “Obviously it wasn’t there for our mother, either. Obviously she not only had nothing to say, she didn’t want to say it. At least not to us. She couldn’t wait to leave us and Rapid Creek. Sara Hobart has a high-powered career in Minneapolis. She’s not going to leave that to take care of a little boy here. And I don’t want her to take care of him, because I’m going to do that.”

  “Whether she’s willing to be a full-time mother really isn’t the issue,” Galen protested. “Letting her spend a little time with Kyle is.”

  While Galen’s words batted against Nathan’s heart, he could hear Sara’s voice in his head. I was in an accident and had to have a hysterectomy.

  His gut clenched. A coward would take the easy way out. A coward would take the safe route. A coward would forget about Sara Hobart. Forget she even existed. She had no rights, no say, no claim on his son. Yet…

  Leaving his dad, Nathan walked back into Kyle’s hospital room, stood by the bed and looked down at him. His son’s eyes were closed, but he knew they were the same green as Sara’s. Shouldn’t he at least find out if she was Kyle’s mother?

  A DNA test for the three of them was a huge step, one he had to think seriously about before acting on. This wasn’t the kind of decision he was impulsively going to make in the aftermath of a crisis.

  Maybe tomorrow morning he’d know what to do.

  Saturday afternoon, when there was a knock on Sara’s office door, she looked up, expecting to see another of the firm’s associates who was working on the weekend, as she was. Ever since her visit to Rapid Creek, she’d worked practically nonstop, billing more hours than she had before her accident. She hadn’t known what else to do to keep her mind off Kyle.

  Her gaze fell to the picture of Kyle on her desk, the one she’d taken with her camera phone. It was grainy and not very good, but it was something.

  “Come in,” she called, since the door didn’t open at once as she’d expected it to.

  When it did open, and she saw the man standing there, her world spun a little too fast. She wasn’t dizzy, exactly, but she felt disoriented and definitely off balance. Was she seeing things?

  “Can I come in?”

  The deep voice was the same. The brown hair falling over his forehead was the same. The jawline Kyle had inherited was the same. Nathan Barclay stood in her office, and she was speechless.

  He frowned. “I stopped by your apartment. Since it seemed deserted, I took a chance you might be working.”

  Finally she managed to string a few words together. “What are you doing here?”

  He came further into the office. Wearing boots, jeans and a red-and-black flannel jacket, he didn’t look as if he belonged in the city. “I could give you the short version or the longer version. Which would you prefer?” His gaze dropped to the photograph of Kyle on her desk. “Where did that come from?”

  “My camera phone. I only took the one. I just wanted something…” She trailed off, thinking she shouldn’t have to explain.

  Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair. “Maybe we should do this somewhere else. How late will you be working?”

  She closed the folder for the lease agreement she’d been studying. “I could be finished now if this is about Kyle.”

  He nodded. “It’s about Kyle.”

  “Is anything wrong? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. Now. We need to go someplace we can talk in private. A restaurant wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “We can go to my place. Did you drive down from Rapid Creek?”

  “No, I flew in. But I rented a car.”

  “Is it in the parking garage?”

  “Yes.”

  On her visit to Rapid Creek she’d realized Nathan was a man of few words. At least with her. She wondered if he was like that with everyone, or only people he didn’t know well or didn’t want to know well. She got the idea his being here wasn’t entirely voluntary. “I’m parked there, too. You can follow me to my place.”

  “That’s fine,” he replied, but she had the feeling that nothing was fine. Just why was he here?

  Pushing a few files into her briefcase, she could feel his gaze on her. His appraisal made her self-conscious. When she lifted her jacket from a wooden captain’s chair, she dropped it.

  Close by, Nathan picked it up and handed it to her. Their gazes met and she felt impacted by the intensity in his gray eyes. She was suddenly glad he would follow her and they wouldn’t be occupying the same vehicle. She needed time to compose herself and to adjust to him being here, and what that might mean.

  Apparently he didn’t want to discuss whatever it was on the phone. She’d expected never to see him again. Never to see Kyle again. But now a little flare of hope almost made her giddy.

  Twenty minutes later Sara was letting Nathan into her apartment, trying to remember exactly what state it was in. She hadn’t been there much lately, only to sleep. It was too lonely. Too quiet. But most of all, she was surrounded by too many things her mother had loved. At first after her mom died, keeping her antiques, using them herself, had felt comforting. But after Sara’s accident, and after seeing Kyle, the furniture had caused her heart to ache even more.

  Nathan had stopped inside the doorway and was taking it all in, from the claw-foot table and double-globed Quoizel lamp, to the lacy doilies on the arms of the camelback sofa covered in a pretty pink flowered damask, to the Victorian lace curtains at the windows.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, noticing his expression, which seemed a bit puzzled.

  “This isn’t at all what I expected,” he admitted.

  “I’m afraid to ask what you did expect.” Her smile was wry and she was hoping he’d relax a little bit with her. On the other hand, it might be better if he didn’t. If he relaxed she might not be able to keep her distance as well. One thing she knew about Nathan Barclay—from the pictures of his deceased wife all over his house, to his wariness about her and any claims she might have concerning Kyle—she needed to keep her distance. She’d had enough heartache in her life not to even consider giving in to a little bit of chemistry that might ripple between them.

  “I expected you to live in a modern glass-and-steel condo with contemporary paintings on the walls. I never imagined lace and antiques.”

  “The antiques were my mother’s. They weren’t antiques when she bought them at yard sales and thrift shops years ago. But she had
a good eye and a talent with fabric that I didn’t inherit.”

  “You just got rid of your furniture?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

  “Believe me, it was nothing I was attached to. Except for that rocker.” She pointed to a wooden rocking chair with lions carved onto the back. “That I found for myself when I was in law school. Mom taught me how to look for bargains at yard sales. It had about ten coats of paint on it. It cleaned up great, don’t you think?”

  “You refinished it?”

  “Sure. Lye water, steel wool, glue here and there.” She headed for her kitchen, which was small but cheery, with its yellow, polished-cotton valance over the window, and philodendron hanging in one corner. “Would you like something to drink? Tea or coffee?”

  “Coffee.”

  A long counter separated the living room from the kitchen, with a post at each end rising to the ceiling. After taking off her jacket and hanging it over a dining room chair, she quickly poured water into the tank of the coffeepot. She measured out chocolate-flavored coffee, which was all she had, and switched the pot on.

  Sneaking a glance at Nathan, she noticed him unzip his jacket and lay it over the back of the sofa. He wandered about, studying the titles on her bookshelves. A duplicate picture of Kyle sat on the coffee table. She felt…naked having his dad look around her place like this. Intuition told her he was absorbing everything he could about her. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

  Producing a copper tray from a cupboard, she set two mugs of coffee on it, a carton of nonfat creamer, and sugar packets she kept for guests. Then she carried it to the coffee table and lowered herself to the sofa cushion, hoping Nathan would sit, too. He was making her jittery just being here.

  But if she thought she was jittery before, when he came over and sat beside her, she knew the true meaning of the word. When she’d visited Rapid Creek, she’d attributed her reaction to him to the situation, meeting Kyle for the first time and being stirred up about all of it. Now, however, she realized the man himself disturbed her…made her suddenly feel…hot.