Meant To Be Family (Meant To Be Series Book 3)

by Amelia Foster

“So tell me now.” He folded his arms across his chest, and she barely restrained herself from drooling. Connor had always sported lean muscles and strong arms, but the weeks of being confined to a wheelchair and needing to learn how to transfer himself into and out of it had bulked up his frame.

  She lifted her chin and tried to fake bravery she most definitely did not feel. “There was more than that. More that I didn’t tell you because,” she lifted a shoulder, “I figured they were transient things and didn’t mean anything serious. Most everything could be explained away by stress or working too much.”

  “Let’s take two steps back. What were these symptoms you didn’t feel the need to share with your damned fiancé?” His jaw worked back and forth. “And why the hell did you sit on them rather than actually trying to find out what was wrong?”

  She licked her lips before capturing the bottom one between her teeth. “Medical professionals are really good at lecturing patients on all the things they need to pay attention to and all the ways they should be taking care of their health, but they are really bad at applying that knowledge and logic to themselves.” She lifted her brows. “I was in denial that anything serious could possibly be wrong.”

  The color drained from Connor’s face. “Something serious is wrong?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “Not serious as in life threatening, only…lifestyle threatening.” She rolled her eyes to the ceiling in a vain effort to prevent the threatening tears from falling.

  She straightened her spine and met his confused and fearful stare. “I was skipping my periods. Often. I spent more on pregnancy tests in one year than I’d like to remember.” The light in his eyes at the topic shredded her barely functioning heart. “You know I was tired and irritable—”

  He winced. “Irritable is definitely a word. Although some of that was justified. You were a perfectionist living with an admitted oblivious slob.”

  In spite of the pain that cut through her with surgical precision at his use of the past tense, she huffed a light chuckle. “Yeah, the entire concept of putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket, loading the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and emptying the clean ones never really sank in with you.”

  Crimson stained his cheeks. “And there is a pile in my bathroom that can attest to the fact it still hasn’t.”

  Kelsey swallowed down the emotions clogging her throat. Falling back into the same easy relationship was effortless. And dangerous. “Well, irritability is one of the classic symptoms.”

  “Symptoms of what?” His sapphire eyes narrowed as he pled with her to fill in all the blanks she’d created.

  She erected as much of the self-preserving armor as she could manage to piece together as she formulated the words in her head as a test before speaking them out loud. “I’ve gone through premature ovarian failure.” The words never failed to form into a ball of iron in her stomach. “The one thing we’d always discussed, the one thing you wanted almost as much as getting married is the one thing I’ll never be able to give you.”

  Kelsey’s voice broke over the final statement that had propelled her to leave three months ago and taunted her with the same exit now. “I can’t have kids.”

  Realization of her state of near total undress hit as soon as she flew off the bed. Ignoring Connor’s telling silence, she collected her discarded clothes and sprinted to the bathroom. She pressed her back against the door and slid down it as the great sobs she’d managed to contain in front of him wracked her body.

  She drew her knees up and held the balled-up clothes between them and her forehead as she bent over with the never-ending waves of pain. Countless moments passed as the familiar nausea came and went. She pulled her wrinkled clothes back on as hiccups lingered, echoing through her.

  Kelsey pressed an ear to the door before fleeing the space that she’d once adored and dubbed her sanctuary. The place where she’d immerse in a bath after a long day, cradled in Connor’s arms. And the room where he joined her for an early morning shower more than once, playing her body in his expert hands like a finely tuned instrument. When only silence answered, she tugged open the door, prepared to escape as quickly as possible.

  Only Connor blocked her exit from the room and his life once more. Seeing him seated back in the wheelchair hurt in an entirely new way, but her experienced brain reminded her he needed to take his recovery slowly.

  “I know you’re gonna run again, but this time you need to let me say something first.”

  His calm, measured tone stunned her into silence more than his actual words. She nodded mutely. He deserved this moment to get every ounce of pain she’d created off his chest. Kelsey braced herself for the resentment-fueled diatribe her mistakes gave him the right to speak.

  A single tear trailed down his left cheek. “It kills me that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me, that you didn’t respect me and our relationship enough to allow me to make a decision about what I could and couldn’t handle.”

  If she’d wanted to speak, his statement would have stolen every syllable from her.

  “But you didn’t. You never gave me the chance to tell you that families come in all different shapes and sizes. You didn’t let me tell you that six kids, one kid, or no kids, we were still meant to be a family, even if that family was only you and me. And you took away my chance to say that my love for you is unconditional and bigger than any medical diagnosis.”

  Connor reached down to wheel himself a few feet away, giving her room to make the exit they both knew she was desperate for. “You didn’t have to leave, Kels. And you sure as hell didn’t have to leave like that.”

  The words were spoken on a barely audible whisper but reverberated loudly in her brain long after she left what used to be her home and long after she buried herself beneath the covers of her single bed in her small apartment.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Connor

  Four Years Earlier

  Connor stepped through the front door and tried to creep up the stairs unnoticed. He was three seconds from success with his right foot hovering over the bottom step when her voice reached him, and he winced.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  He spun on the heel of one of his sloshy sneakers. “I stopped at Mom and Dad’s to pick up something, and Tanner and Izzy were there with the twins and…”

  An auburn waterfall fell behind her shoulder as she tilted her head back and laughed. “And they somehow engaged you in a battle that ended with the two six-year-olds tossing their twenty-five-year-old six-foot-one uncle in the pool?”

  “Basically,” he affirmed with a brief nod of his head.

  In spite of the still excessive wetness of his clothes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged him down for a kiss. “You’re gonna make a great dad one day there, Picasso.”

  He groaned and pulled her closer, his lips pressing more firmly against hers. “Gotta try to keep up with you, gorgeous. You’re damn near perfect at everything you do, so you’re basically gonna kick ass at the whole motherhood thing.” He winked. “But I am totally going to be the cool parent.”

  Kelsey bit her lower lip and trailed one hand down the front of the shirt clinging tightly to his pectoral muscles. “Nearly perfect at everything, eh?” Mischief sparkled in her slate eyes.

  Connor swallowed his suddenly parched throat. “You…excel more in some areas. Naturally.”

  She lifted a brow and gripped his side, just above the waistband of his shorts, under the wet shirt. “Oh, you mean like insurance claims?”

  “Yeah, gorgeous, that was damn near the top of the list.” He hooked his arm beneath her knees and lifted her against his chest. “Right below your shower companion abilities. Care to show off those skills a little?”

  She offered a saucy grin. “Hell, yeah.”

  Connor took the stairs two at a time, even with her cradled close, and turned into the bathroom. He cursed the need to release her for the few moments he had to turn on the water. Every single
one died before being uttered when he turned back to see Kelsey had whipped off her clothes and stood before him with an expectant smirk on her face.

  “You’re a little overdressed there, Picasso.”

  With shaking hands, he peeled off his shirt and pushed his shorts and boxers down in one smooth movement. “Better?”

  Kelsey stepped beneath the spray and held a hand out to him. “It’ll be perfect once you get your fine ass in this shower with me.”

  Growling, he joined her under the warm cascade. His arms wound tightly around her and held her firmly against him as he captured her mouth in a much more passionate kiss. She whimpered as his grip loosened enough to allow his fingers to wander between their bodies and cup one of the firm globes, tweaking the hardened peak.

  “Con-nor.” Her voice broke over his name as his hands wandered farther down.

  He grinned and slid two digits into the warm channel begging for his attention. “Yes, gorgeous?”

  Her chest heaved with labored breath as he ramped up his firm thrusts inside her. “You are way too good at this.”

  Connor dipped his head and peppered kisses along her jaw, nipping at her chin. “I can’t help it, Kels. You falling apart in my arms is one of the most beautiful and addictive things I’ve ever seen.”

  Before she could answer, he circled a thumb around the small nub as he pushed his fingers inside her once more, and she exploded around him, shaking with the force. He tightened his grip to keep her from dropping to the floor of the shower.

  He turned them and lifted her in his arms, pinning her between him and the tiled wall. She locked her ankles behind his back. With practiced efficiency, he moved in her and groaned at the completion that coursed through him.

  Kelsey tilted her head back and arched her neck. “Shit, how the hell do you do that, Connor?”

  Fire burned his lungs as if he were running a marathon as he thrust in and out of her at an increasingly rapid and frantic pace. “Do what, gorgeous? Worship every inch of your body? That’s the easiest damn thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

  She held his face between her palms firmly. “Make me crazy for you again two seconds after you satiated me.” She rocked her hips forward and tightened her legs around his midsection.

  Connor licked down the column of her neck, sucking lightly at her pulse point. “When you love something, you work until you’re good at it.” His tongue traced the shell of her ear, and he dropped his voice to a whisper. “And I damn sure love making you scream.”

  He lowered his head to pull one of the stiff pebbles on her chest into his mouth. His tongue swirled around it in circles, and his hand snaked between them to tease the small bundle of nerves that he knew would be her undoing once again.

  Within the span of a dozen heartbeats, she rewarded him with a high-pitched shriek of his name followed by breathy, muttered curses. He captured her lips once more and thrust inside her three more times before his own earth-shattering release.

  His legs trembled as he pressed more heavily against the wall for much needed support, his breath coming in shallow gasps. They’d been together for more than two years and lived together a large portion of that time, and yet nothing about them was stale or predictable.

  Soft kisses trailed along his shoulder. “You all right there, Picasso?”

  Connor lowered Kelsey to the ground slowly, making sure she had her footing before releasing her. “Perfect. Now,” he grabbed the loofah that was hanging from the shower caddy and grinned, “wanna show off those sponge-bathing skills?”

  ***

  Kelsey

  Four Years Earlier

  Three white rectangles lined up on the bathroom counter.

  Two single pink lines and one big, blue negative.

  One more month and she’d get the digital one to actually see the words “Not Pregnant” because lines and mathematical symbols weren’t reassuring enough and stress couldn’t possibly account for this long without a period.

  Rationally she knew she needed to see a doctor, but she had a talent for coming up with excuse after excuse of why she couldn’t make it. The strongest being the time constraints that came with opening her rehab center.

  At the sound of footsteps echoing down the hall, Kelsey swiped all the tests, their boxes, and the instructions into the duffel bag Connor had gotten her when she graduated with her degree. She zipped it closed moments before he swung open the bathroom door.

  His mouth quirked into a lopsided grin, and he leaned against the doorframe. “Have I mentioned you look hot as hell in those scrubs?” He grabbed her hands and unwound them from the handles of the tote. “We could go back to bed and I could show you instead.”

  Kelsey chuckled and rolled her eyes. “How about instead of that, you go off to your very important meeting, I’ll go interview yet another candidate for the receptionist position, and,” she slid both arms around his waist, pulling him close, “tonight we will reconvene to discuss that more in depth?”

  He bent forward and caught her lips with his in a passionate but all too brief kiss. “That’s why you’re the brains of this operation.” Another peck to the tip of her nose and he turned on his heel to walk out.

  She breathed an unusual sigh of relief when he left. He’d worry unnecessarily, and it was completely pointless when she was certain there was a reasonable and logical explanation for everything from the exhaustion to the irregularities in her cycle. Until she actually discovered what that was, there was zero need for him to go crazy with concern.

  It was the same pep talk she’d been giving herself for the past year and a half when things began to change. Headaches much more frequent than ever before plagued her, sometimes to a debilitating level. At first, the near-constant exhaustion made sense. Graduate school and then organizing the opening of the rehabilitation facility could easily bear the responsibility. And her frustration with Connor…might be over the top at times, but he really took that messy artist stereotype and ran with it. Being irritated was logical.

  But no amount of perfectly logical reasoning could take the burden for months on end without a period followed by more excessive cramping than she’d ever experienced before.

  She shook her head. She’d give it a few more months. The more their lives leveled out and they fell into a routine, the more likely it was that everything would go back to normal. Including her body.

  Kelsey tied her hair up in a messy bun that leant itself to convenience given the unpredictability of her job. Currently, she could do anything from one-on-one work with a patient to administrative duties to answering the damn phone without the benefit of a receptionist since her last one left after throwing a tizzy in the office.

  She splashed her face with some cold water and gripped the sink, letting the water drip from the tip of her nose and down her cheeks into the basin. Yeah, things would definitely return to somewhat of an even keel when she managed to get her facility fully staffed and she and Connor moved into the dream home he had designed. She just needed time and then everything would be perfect.

  But every tingling reminder that something much more serious than stress was at play was lost at the ringing of her cell phone. She curled her lips down when she saw one of her staff members’ phone numbers pop up on the display. With a swipe of her finger, she connected the call, grabbed her bag, and ran down the stairs two at a time.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  Despite the worry churning her gut, she smiled at the silver travel mug perched on the stand beside the front door with a scrap of paper stuck beneath it. Connor’s perfectly flourished handwriting had scribbled a quick note, “Please don’t try to start the day without your much needed caffeine fix.”

  “K-K-K-Kelsey?” The first therapist her dad had hired, before she’d even taken over the role as the owner of the practice, Stefanie stuttered her name across the line in perfectly panicked tones. In the background, Kelsey could make out shouts and sirens.

  Nausea wrapped her gut in a tight
vise, and an icy bath of dread washed over her from head to toe. “Stef, what happened?”

  Sobs responded, and Kelsey raced to her car, not even stopping to double check that the front door was locked like she normally did. “I’m on my way.” She disconnected the call and fought the urge to break every traffic law as she drove the five miles to her office.

  She was positive that her heart stopped beating when she rounded the corner and saw the parking lot filled with firetrucks, their heavy hoses pouring water down the charred exterior of her building. She managed to step out of her car and walk three steps before the sickening feeling overtook her stomach and she heaved uncontrollably.

  Stefanie was by her side in moments, arms wrapped supportively around Kelsey’s shoulders as they cried together in an agonizing symphony.

  The same thought played on repeat in her brain, and she pulled her phone from the front pocket of her scrub top where she’d stashed it when she left home. Without even looking at the screen, her fingers dialed the familiar numbers and a shaky hand held the device to her ear.

  “Hey, Kels, I’m in the middle of—”

  “Connor,” she choked out his name between hiccuping sobs, “my office. It-it-it’s on fire. It’s completely destroyed.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Connor

  Present Day

  An awkward, weighted silence blanketed the air between Connor and Dean as his younger brother blinked. “You didn’t feel the need to mention this?”

  Connor’s knuckles whitened their grip on the cane he’d been able to downgrade to from the walker over the past couple of weeks. Thanks to Kelsey and her persistence. “There’s been a lot going on.”

  Crimson crept up Dean’s neck. “You’re walking. After surgeries on your pelvis, your knee, your tibia, you’re freaking walking and you…what? Are too busy to bother telling your family? Maybe a quick phone call or shooting us a text? Shit, a carrier pigeon would’ve been preferential to silence. What the hell, Connor?”