by Janice Lynn
She wanted a family. Matthew’s family.
Which scared her.
To want those things was foolish and a waste of energy. Maybe someday she’d have this, a family of her own, but it wouldn’t be with Matthew. He’d made that plain in Florida and again in Memphis. He wasn’t looking for anything long-term, wasn’t that what he’d said?
She closed her eyes, gave in to the rhythm of the moving swing, pushing off each time her feet came near the ground, welcoming the momentum each time Matthew’s hands made contact and gave a hardy push.
Higher and higher she went, her mind clearing and a sense of flying taking hold, making her want to stretch her arms out and go soaring through the air.
Lightness came over her and before she thought better of it she leapt out of the swing, laughing as she landed on her feet with her arms outstretched. “Ta-da!”
“What was that?” Matthew laughed from where he stood behind the swings, giving the girls another push.
“Me reliving my youth,” she blurted out, although it wasn’t exactly true. She couldn’t recall having ever jumped out of a swing in the past, just had memories of watching other kids do so while playing with each other as she watched from the sidelines.
“Looks good on you.”
Her eyes met his. Her breath hiccupped in her throat. No wonder she wanted this. Wanted him. Despite his struggles over his thrust-upon parenting role, he was a good man, was an excellent heart surgeon, was a fantabulous lover and was beautiful to look upon, inside and out.
“Thank you,” she told him as she made her way back over to her swing and set it in motion again, aided by the feel of Matthew’s hands against her bottom for a brief moment.
She definitely should have played more on swings as a child. And more taking chances in her life after that, instead of always playing it safe.
Or was this her brain’s way of trying to convince her that taking a chance with Matthew was okay? That she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life by being here with him today? That she wasn’t setting herself up for horrific pain? That she wasn’t setting sweet little Carrie up for pain, too?
Leaning back into the swing, Natalie closed her eyes and gave in to the swinging motion again.
“I want to jump, too,” Carrie called out.
“Go for it,” he encouraged. “You got this.”
Natalie opened her eyes just in time to see Carrie let go of the swing’s chains and do exactly what Natalie had done minutes before.
Only Carrie’s flight wasn’t a liberating soar. Instead, she flailed through the air.
“Carrie! No!” Natalie warned, planting her feet on the ground to slow her swing the moment the child let go and practically flipped out of the swing seat.
She reached Carrie milliseconds after the little girl hit the ground.
Carrie’s leap from her swing and into the air played in slow motion in Matthew’s head. Even before she hit the ground, he knew her landing wasn’t going to be pretty. She’d come off the swing too high and at the wrong angle, almost as if she had just let go and fallen forward out of the swing rather than leaping.
If only the jump really had been in slow motion and he could have gotten to her in time to catch her.
If only he could move at all.
Carrie’s returning swing slapped against his chest in his frozen state as she landed on the ground hard, and all wrong.
“Carrie!” Natalie knelt next to the unmoving child.
Fear slammed Matthew, paralyzing him. Fear that he’d let something happen to Robert’s child. Fear that she might be seriously hurt. Fear that he’d failed so quickly, so horribly at this parenting thing.
His heart wrenched as Carrie’s cries filled the air, but so did a sense of relief. Cries required life.
He’d had horrors of her landing on her neck.
As Natalie knelt beside her she sat up, tears streaming down her face and sobs escaping from her lips.
Seeing her moving had Matthew wanting to sob, too.
He should go to her. It was what a parent would do. He should take her in his arms and comfort her.
It was what Natalie was doing.
“What hurts, sweetie?” she asked quickly, her gaze raking over Carrie, searching for injury, connecting with how Carrie held her left arm at an awkward angle.
Eyes wide, she gasped between tears, “My arm.”
Carrie was hurt and he was frozen in place like a blazing idiot.
“Try to hold still, sweetie,” Natalie encouraged. “I’m going to check you over.”
But Carrie was panicking, guarding against Natalie’s attempts to do so. Other than scraped knees Matthew didn’t recall any injury in the child’s short four years with her parents, so the fall had to have her frightened.
Why wasn’t he moving toward her? Why wasn’t he checking her? What was wrong with him? He should be the one checking Carrie. She was his responsibility.
“Am I going to die like Daddy and Momma?” she sobbed, her big brown eyes glassy from her tears.
Failure sucker-punched Matthew in the gut. He hadn’t even considered that she might associate her pain to her parents’ death.
Natalie kissed Carrie’s forehead. “No, sweetie, of course not. But you are hurt and I need to check you.”
She gently examined Carrie’s arm. It didn’t take a degree to see the odd angle of her forearm. Matthew’s stomach threatened to spill the birthday cake he’d eaten earlier. How could he have let this happen?
“Is Carrie okay, Uncle Matthew?” Liz asked, tugging on his shirt and drawing Natalie’s gaze to him momentarily.
Her expression was one of confusion—as in, why wasn’t he by her side helping check Carrie, helping reassure her that she was going to be okay?
Good question, with the only answer being that he was a total failure of a parent.
His other niece squatted down next to Carrie. Mandy patted her right shoulder, telling her it was going to be okay.
“She’s hurt, Uncle Matthew,” Liz said, sounding a little panicked. “Carrie is hurt.”
He glanced down at the little girl staring up at him with big eyes that begged him to do something.
Do something, he ordered himself. He was a renowned heart surgeon, had never frozen like this no matter what the circumstances. What was wrong with him?
“Matthew?” Natalie’s voice broke into his self-recriminations.
Snapping out of his frozen state, he scooped Liz into his arms and moved toward what was difficult for him to look at because Carrie’s broken limb was the culmination of all he was lacking as a parent.
“She will be okay.” He wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or to his niece. “But we’re going to have to get her to the emergency room to get a special picture taken of her arm.”
He looked directly at Carrie, hating that the child was having to deal with anything negative so soon on the heels of losing her parents.
“You’ve broken your arm,” Natalie told her in a calm voice. Much calmer than Matthew felt. “You’re going to need the bone reset, okay? We’re going to have to take you to the hospital,” she continued.
Hopefully, that was all Carrie would need done. She looked so tiny, so helpless sitting there crying, tears staining her shirt, so much of his two best friends blended in her features.
How could he have allowed anything to happen to her?
“I don’t want to go to the hospital,” Carrie cried, looking at Matthew as if he were responsible and clinging to Natalie as if she was a lifeline.
He didn’t blame her. If he’d known what he was doing, he wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.
“Can we come?” both nieces asked in unison.
Setting Liz down, Matthew knelt beside Carrie. “Go in with the girls and tell the others what happened,” he told Na
talie. “I’m going to load Carrie into the car. Meet me around front.”
“I want Natalie!” Carrie cried, clenching her fingers into Natalie’s shirt. “Please don’t leave me.”
“And could you grab a clean button-up shirt and shorts from one of the girls for Carrie to put on when we’re through at the hospital?” Matthew continued, ignoring Carrie’s pleas.
Natalie looked hesitant, but then pried Carrie’s hands free of her shirt, took Liz’s and Mandy’s hands into hers and headed into the house with the girls in tow.
Taking care not to bump Carrie’s left arm, Matthew scooped her into his arms and stood with her.
She felt so little in his arms, so helpless. Shame that he’d let this happen to her filled him. Shame that he hadn’t done better by her. He’d known he wasn’t cut out for parenthood yet he’d played around at it for the past five months, pretending he could do this.
Obviously he couldn’t, and needed to do what was right for Carrie.
Natalie and Matthew’s family rushed out of the house, requested items in hand, just as Matthew was buckling Carrie into her car seat. He shut her door and motioned for Natalie to get in the driver’s seat.
“Could you drive so I can sit back here with her? I didn’t want to put her into her car seat, but two wrongs don’t equal a right and it’s my job to keep her safe.”
His tone implied that he thought the little girl’s fall was his fault.
Natalie reached out to touch him, to reassure him that Carrie’s injuries were an accident, but he shrugged away her touch.
“Oh, honey.” Matthew’s mother winced, taking a peep into the car at the child. “Grandma will be there with you in a few.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Matthew immediately corrected. “Stay here with your company. I’ll call when I know something.”
His sister and a few of the other guests said things, too, but they blurred in Natalie’s head. Everything was blurring in her head.
Why had Matthew shrugged away her touch? For that matter, why had he stood at the swing for so long after Carrie’s fall?
Wanting to ask him about his odd behavior, but knowing now wasn’t the time, Natalie climbed in, pushed the button to start the car and had them on their way.
Her mind racing, she drove on autopilot.
Carrie went back and forth between whimpering and crying on the drive to the hospital, saying she didn’t want to go to the emergency room, that she didn’t want Matthew, that she wanted her mommy and daddy.
As she glanced in the rear-view mirror Matthew’s pale, gaunt expression tore at Natalie.
“You’re going to be okay, Carrie,” he soothed from the back seat. “This is going to be okay.”
He didn’t address her request for her parents, but then, what could he say?
* * *
The emergency room doctor consulted a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who’d taken Carrie to surgery to reset the bones, leaving Natalie and Matthew in the waiting room.
Carrie was wheeled away while Matthew looked as if he might pull rank and stay at her side during surgery.
Natalie understood. Part of her wanted to be at the child’s side to make sure nothing went wrong, too. Logically, she knew that Matthew or herself would just be in the way, a distraction that might cause a problem. They needed to let the surgeon do what he’d been trained to do.
She tried to comfort Matthew, but again, he wasn’t receptive to her touch. Natalie sank into one of the waiting room chairs and watched him pace back and forth.
His mother, sister and a slew of other family members arrived minutes behind them, despite Matthew’s request that they stay home. His family hugged him and comforted him and he semi-let them. Natalie watched, feeling more and more like an outsider.
They’d been waiting for what seemed like hours before Matthew got a call Carrie was in Recovery, that everything had gone fine and they’d allow him to come to see her very soon.
“I can’t believe I let this happen,” he berated himself, pacing across the lobby while he waited on the okay to head to the recovery room.
“These things happen.” Matthew’s mother wrapped him in a hug again and plopped several big kisses on his cheeks. “Don’t you recall how many broken bones you and Robert had between the two of you? His mother and I knew the emergency staff by name.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“We were boys, and Carrie has already suffered so much.”
“Being boys makes it okay how?” his sister piped up. “Just because you and Robert were guys didn’t make it okay. You scared us all several times. Remember that time you...?”
While his family continued to go on and on about the past, about how accidents happened and how a parent couldn’t bubble-wrap their child, more and more unease took hold inside Natalie.
Matthew hadn’t wanted her touch, her comfort.
Of course he hadn’t. She was nothing more than a temporary lover.
As she recalled her thoughts when they’d been playing on the swings, her longings for their relationship to be real, nausea churned.
She was getting too involved in his life, in Carrie’s.
Seeing the child hurt had torn at her heart, had filled her with a protectiveness for the girl that surprised her. She’d have willingly taken Carrie’s place, taken the pain so she wouldn’t have to experience it.
Natalie wasn’t supposed to get attached, nor was she supposed to let the child get attached to her.
Carrie’s pleas for her to stay echoed through her mind, reminding her of her own silent cries over the years not to be left behind yet again by one foster parent after another.
Yet she’d always been left.
Just as she’d be left behind this time, too, if she didn’t make a preemptive move.
Matthew’s mother had her arm wrapped around him and was telling another childhood story. Part of Natalie would have liked to hear it—and all of her would have liked to know what it felt like to have a mother’s arm wrapped around her. It had been so long since she’d been held with love. None of her foster parents had really shown her love. The McCulloughs had been wonderful, encouraging, but they’d not been warm and fuzzy kind of people. Jonathan sure hadn’t loved her. Matthew’s touch gave a glimpse of what it could be like, but she didn’t want to fool herself. He didn’t love her.
She needed to get away, to escape childhood memories and personal demons, to go somewhere to decompress, to get her head on straight and put an end to this fiasco she was caught up in with Matthew.
It was time to leave.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“WHERE DID YOU GO? Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was when I came back from seeing Carrie, expecting you to be waiting, and my family said they hadn’t seen you since prior to my going to Recovery?” Matthew demanded, storming into Natalie’s office and closing the door behind him with a loud thud.
Looking up from her desk, Natalie cringed, but didn’t defend her actions. Then again, what could she say? She’d bailed when he’d needed her, when Carrie had been hurt.
How could she have just left without a word?
At first, he’d thought she’d slipped out to go to the restroom. When he’d finally gotten to see Carrie in Recovery and had reassured himself she was going to be okay despite his poor care, Natalie was nowhere to be found.
He waited for her to say something, pacing across her office, then turning toward her. “Why?”
She didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I didn’t belong.”
“I invited you. Of course you belonged. Probably more so than I did.”
Visibly rattled, she shook her head. “I was just a temporary lover, Matthew. Taking me to your family function was inappropriate.”
“A temporary lover?” He frowned. “We’re dating, Natalie.”
>
“We were,” she said quietly.
He stared at her. “We could have had something really great while it lasted.”
“You think that’s fair to Carrie? To bring someone into her life, let her get close to them, and then when you get bored and say adios, then what? You think Carrie isn’t going to suffer?” She stood, leaned toward him. “I assure you, Carrie will be hurt by the women you have come and go in your life.”
“What women I have come and go? There’s only been you for months, Natalie. There are no other women.”
She looked taken aback at his admission. What had she thought? That he’d been dating woman after woman since Miami, before moving to Memphis?
“But you’re probably right. That’s just one more in a long line of things I’ll do wrong where Carrie is concerned.”
He’d always thought of himself as a great uncle. Being Carrie’s uncle had been fun. He could sweep in, have a good time with her without any responsibilities. But he had never been meant to be her father. That had been Robert’s place.
Only Robert wasn’t here, and Matthew was doing a crappy job of trying to fill his friend’s shoes.
He’d liked his life. He had liked being a bachelor, being devoted to his career, being a best friend, being an uncle. He wasn’t sure he liked anything about his current situation—especially his failing relationship with the woman across from him.
“Our ending whatever this is between us now, before anyone gets hurt, is for the best.”
Matthew narrowed his gaze. “The best for whom?”
“Everyone.”
Ending things with Natalie didn’t feel like the best thing. But maybe she was right and he needed to think of Carrie, of doing what was best for her.
Which didn’t include being raised by someone who had no clue what he was doing.
Two weeks had passed since Carrie’s accident. Two weeks in which Natalie had avoided Matthew as much as possible, as she was doing now by hiding out in her office working on charts.
She’d assisted during two surgeries with him, but had otherwise not spent more than a few awkward minutes with him here and there when their paths crossed in the neonatal unit or in the cardiac lab.
