Despite her exhaustion, her worries and her questions, Kelly couldn’t help smiling. Betty never changed. According to town legend, she’d been born talking.
“I’d like to speak to my father.”
“Of course you would. He’s right in his office. Just got here a few minutes ago, but then you’d know that. Pastor Hall is as regular as the church clock. He walks through that door every day at exactly eight fifty-eight. In the past ten years I don’t know that he’s been late more than once, and that was because he stopped to help old Mrs. Winston with her car. It had a flat tire, or was it out of gas? Anyway, he’s quite punctual.” She paused to draw breath. “I’ll let him know you’re on the phone.”
There was a click as she was put on hold. Kelly knew that it would be a couple of minutes until her father could get Betty off the intercom so that he could pick up the phone. The older woman was a trial at times, but she was as much a part of Kelly’s world as the town where she’d grown up. Betty and Horace had never had children. Despite that, and their differences—her talking constantly and him as silent as a tree—they rarely went anywhere without each other and when they were together, they always held hands. Once when Kelly had been all of fifteen or sixteen, she’d even come across them kissing in a corner of the choir room. It had been the only time she known Betty to be quiet.
“This is an unexpected pleasure,” her father said a few minutes later. “Good morning.”
“Hi, Dad. How are you?”
“Fine, and according to Betty, I was here right on time, which is a good thing. Otherwise I would have missed your call.” He chuckled. “That woman.”
“I know she makes you crazy, but you can’t get rid of her. She’s the only one who understands the filing system.”
“Exactly. So what’s going on in your life?”
She appreciated that he asked questions rather than assuming a surprise call meant trouble. Her father had always thought the best of her, she reminded herself. He’d always been there for her. Which made the reason for her phone call more difficult.
“I have to ask you something,” she said slowly, holding onto the receiver and closing her eyes. She pictured her father, in his shirtsleeves, sitting behind his large desk. “It’s about when I was in high school.” She cleared her throat. “More specifically, when I got pregnant.”
“All right. What would you like to talk about?”
She drew in a deep breath. Her eyes began to burn, but she refused to cry. “I never wanted to disappoint you,” she whispered. “I knew what you expected of me and I wanted to do that, but things got out of hand. It was just the one time.”
She heard him sigh. “I can’t decide if I should tease you about it only taking one time, or if I should remind you that I love you. I always loved you. And I don’t mean that with a silent ‘even while you were pregnant’ at the end of that sentence. I think I loved you most then because you’re my daughter and you were in pain. I suffered with you. In a different way, perhaps, but no less profoundly.”
“Then why did the light go out of your eyes?” she asked. “Until then, whenever you looked at me, I could see this wonderful light shining from your eyes. I knew that I was the center of your world. But when I told you, the light died. It’s never come back.”
“Oh, Kelly, I wish you were here instead of several thousand miles away.”
She gave a soft laugh that was half a sob as well. “So you could beat me?”
He chuckled. Daniel Hall had never once spanked her. The threat of a beating was a private joke between them. “Maybe,” he teased, then grew serious. “I’ll admit that I was shocked to find out about your pregnancy and a little chagrined. After all, you were the pastor’s daughter. But that was more about me than you. I thought I knew where you were all the time and what you were doing. It was startling to realize you’d grown up so much. Somewhere along the way my little girl had turned into a beautiful woman and I hadn’t noticed. Probably because I didn’t want to see. Once you grew up, you would go away and I didn’t think I could bear that.”
Two tears escaped her tightly closed eyelids. Kelly groped for the box of tissue on her desk. She wiped her face and sniffed. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“No. Don’t you dare be sorry. I’m proud of you, Kelly. Not because you’re a doctor, but because of who you are. You’re the best daughter ever. Nothing changed for me. The light didn’t go out of my eyes, it went out of you. And when it died inside, you couldn’t see it in me anymore.”
Her eyes popped open. Kelly stared unseeingly at the wall across the room. “What?”
“It’s true. I’ve wanted to say something for years now, but it never seemed like the right time. I’ve watched you punish yourself over and over for something that was never your fault. You were seventeen when you got pregnant and barely eighteen when the baby was born. You had a wonderful dream of being a doctor, and the brains and opportunity to make that happen. Yes, you gave your child up for adoption. Is that so horrible?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve spoken with Annie Jane’s grandparents just as you have, Kelly. Their daughter was desperate to have a baby. In many ways, you saved Sara. Did it ever occur to you that was the reason you got pregnant? Did you ever stop to think about the gift you gave that family? You can have more children if you choose, but Sara couldn’t have any. Every life touched by that child has been blessed. Even yours.”
His words swirled around in her head. She’d never thought of her circumstances this way before.
“You are a gifted healer,” he continued. “You’ve always said that you could have made it if you’d kept the baby. And I’m sure you would have. You’re smart and determined. But what would you have done with your life? Would you have gone to medical school?”
“I don’t know,” Kelly admitted. “It would have taken so long just to get through college, what with working full-time, taking care of a child and taking classes.”
“You made a choice. You weren’t selfish, you weren’t bad, you just made a choice. You gave your daughter to a warm, loving family. There is no evil in that decision. Let it go, Kelly. Forgive yourself. You have been blessed. Stop turning your back on those blessings. Instead, be grateful and move on.”
Tears flowed down her cheeks, but they weren’t painful or sorrowful, instead they healed her. She felt the empty spots in her heart filling with love and compassion. She felt her spirit lighten, perhaps for the first time in fourteen years.
“You’re right,” she said simply. “Why didn’t I see it before?”
“Because you weren’t ready. You had to take the journey to get to your current destination. I love you and I’m proud of you.”
Even across half a continent, she felt the warmth of her father’s love. It was as if he was with her, holding her close, just as he had when she’d been young. “I love you, too, Daddy.”
He was right. The light had always been in his eyes. But she’d been too ashamed to see it shining there. She’d spent years beating herself up for something that deserved to be forgiven a long time ago. If she’d been blind to her father’s love for all this time, what else was she having trouble seeing?
“Good morning,” Kelly said as she walked into Corina’s room. “How are you feeling?”
The teenager smiled wanly. “Better. I slept most of the night.”
“The nurses gave you high marks for cooperating,” Kelly told her, then pulled up a chair. She would check vital signs in a minute, first she owed her patient an apology.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Corina said before Kelly could start talking. “I know it got bad.”
Kelly touched the teenager’s hand. “I’m glad I was here for you this time, Corina. Because I know I wasn’t the last time I saw you, and I’m sorry about that.”
Corina raised her bed a few inches. Her braided dark hair spread out on her pillow. Her big eyes widened slightly. “You got paged to the hospital. It was an emergency.”
&
nbsp; Kelly shook her head. “You’re letting me off the hook, and it’s not necessary. Yes, I was paged and I had to go then, but you needed to talk. I should have made time later.” She squeezed the girl’s fingers, then released her hand.
“The reasons are complicated,” Kelly said slowly, meeting her gaze. “Your situation reminded me too much of something that had happened in my life. Something that I was afraid to face. I got uncomfortable and it seemed so much easier to hide. So that’s what I did.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. So I’m going to explain.” Kelly quickly recounted the events of her own senior year in high school.
Corina stared in shock. “You gave up a baby for adoption when you were my age?”
“Yes. A little girl. Her name is Annie Jane and she’ll be fourteen this summer. I’ve kept in touch with her family through her grandparents. For a long time I thought I’d been selfish in giving up my daughter. I thought if I just tried hard enough it wouldn’t have been difficult for me to make it work. But I was wrong. I had an opportunity to do something with my life. Something that would make a difference. Something that I desperately wanted. I’m not saying that giving up Annie Jane was easy. I will have to live with the consequences of that decision for the rest of my life. But I don’t regret the decision. Knowing what I know now, I would do it all again.”
Corina’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t change anything?”
“Well, I’d forgive myself a little sooner. But aside from that, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Kelly drew in a deep breath and probed her heart. The sense of peace filling her told her that she spoke the absolute truth. She wouldn’t change a thing about her life. Knowing what she knew now, she would even still have become an OB-GYN, because that was where her talent lay. Her need to be around children would be filled by having a half-dozen kids of her own.
“You have to do what’s right for you,” Kelly told the teenager. “The other girls in the neighborhood aren’t going to live your life. They don’t have your scholarship or your drive. Think long and hard before you turn your back on that opportunity. What do you really want for yourself and your child?”
Corina began to cry. Kelly rose and hugged the girl. “It’s okay. You don’t have to decide now.”
“I feel so guilty,” Corina said. “But I want to go to college. I spoke to the adoption lady a couple of days ago. She says that there are lots of really great families who want my baby. She’ll help me pick the best one.” Corina raised her head. Tears spilled out of her eyes. “Am I doing the right thing? Am I being selfish?”
“Not for one second. You are making a tough choice, but it’s the right choice for you. I believe in you. If you want, I’ll be with you when you choose the family. And I want to stay in touch while you’re in college.”
She brushed away the teenager’s tears. “I even want to help financially. I’ll cover whatever expenses the scholarship doesn’t. In return, you’re going to have to bust your butt to maintain your grades. The only thing I want from you is two promises. The first is that you’ll always do your best, and the second is that you’ll forgive yourself and instead of feeling guilty, that you’ll spend your time counting your blessings.”
Corina hugged her hard. “I promise,” she whispered. “Thank you, Dr. Kelly. Thank you for everything.”
“No problem.”
Forty minutes later Kelly left a much relieved Corina watching a morning talk show. The teenager would have to stay in the hospital for another night, then she would be moving into Kelly’s tiny apartment. The teenager never wanted to go back to her tenement neighborhood again. Life would be complicated until August, when Corina left for college, but Kelly knew they would figure it out.
She felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders. She was filled with a sense of calm and completeness she’d never experienced before, and her first thought was to share it all with Tanner.
She paused in the hallway. Who would have thought that Tanner could have become a part of her life so very quickly? Two months ago she’d barely known the man existed—and what she did know she didn’t like. Now she couldn’t imagine her life without him. If she’d ever made a list of what she was looking for, Tanner would be everything she’d ever wanted.
She loved him.
Kelly didn’t know when that had first happened, but it was true now. She hadn’t just bonded with Lia, she’d also bonded with Tanner. The time they’d spent together, the confessions they’d shared, the lovemaking had bound her to him with a connection that was strong enough to last a lifetime. She wanted to be with him always. She wanted to make a home with him, have children with him, grow old with him.
A quick glance at her watch told her that she would probably catch him in his office right about now. Should she go find him and tell him all that she’d learned, or should she wait? Then she reminded herself that she’d waited long enough already. She’d wasted fourteen years waiting to be good enough, when the answer had been inside of her all along. She was done waiting. It was time to act.
Kelly pulled a hard hat off the table by the entrance to the construction table and followed the large arrows to Tanner’s office. He was on the phone when she entered, but he looked up, smiled and motioned for her to take a seat by his desk.
She did as he requested, then removed her hat and smoothed down her hair. Now that she was here, she wasn’t so sure what to say.
“Hi,” he said when he’d hung up. “I didn’t expect to see you this morning. How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” She grinned. Despite her physical and emotional exhaustion the night before, when she and Tanner had finally returned to his place and put Lia back to bed, all she’d wanted was to make love. She’d needed to feel him next to her, on top of her, filling her up and making her whole. Now she recognized that she’d needed to express her love, but at the time she’d only known that she needed to fill the yawning emptiness inside.
He stretched. “Me, too. But in a good way. You can keep me awake for that any time you’d like.”
She stared at him, at his familiar handsome face, at his blue eyes and his strong body. “I have to tell you something,” she said. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I spoke with my father this morning and with Corina. I finally realized I’ve been punishing myself for years. I’ve been living half a life because I didn’t feel that I deserved more. I’ve been so worried about my past that I forgot to think about my future.” She sat a little straighter in her chair.
“But all that’s behind me now. I’ve come to understand that if I can forgive other women for the difficult choices they made, I can also forgive myself. I did the best I could at the time. I’ve gone on to have a successful life doing something that I love. Equally important, my daughter is a happy, healthy, well-adjusted young woman. In time she may want to meet me, or she may decide against that. Either choice is hers. I have promised myself to be as understanding of her as my father was of me.”
Tanner stared at her. “You have been working through a lot.”
She nodded. “I’m done punishing myself. I’ve decided to go after what I want.”
He didn’t move, but she sensed his withdrawal from the conversation as surely as if he’d stepped out of the room. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m happy for you.” His words sounded sincere, but the bleak expression in his eyes didn’t change. “It’s just that I’m going to miss you. I’ve gotten used to having you around. I didn’t think we had anything permanent, but I also hadn’t figured on you leaving just yet.”
Kelly told herself not to jump to conclusions. Just as she had issues from her past to come to terms with, Tanner had the same. She took a calming breath before speaking.
“I’m not going anywhere, Tanner. I’m willing to give you as much time as you need to learn to trust me.”
“Oh, I do trust you. You’ve been a great help to Lia and me.” He leaned forward and placed
his hands on the table. “You’re an amazing woman. In time you’re going to want to find the right kind of man. Maybe another doctor or a lawyer. Someone professional. Someone—”
“I love you,” she said, interrupting. “I don’t want anyone else.”
He stiffened. The bleakness left his eyes, but she couldn’t read was he was thinking. “You say that now, but it’s because of last night. Eventually—”
She rose to her feet and walked around the table until she stood next to him. “Eventually I’m still going to love you. Not a doctor or a lawyer or anyone else. Just you. I love you, Tanner. And Lia. I love both of you.”
He stood up with such force that his chair went skidding back and bumped into the wall. “Dammit, Kelly, I’m trying to be noble here.”
“Why?”
“Because you deserve better.”
She gathered up all her courage. Here it was—the moment of truth. Was she really going to say what she was thinking? Was she, for once in her life, going to go for it?
“Could anyone love me more or better than you do?” she asked.
She watched him wrestle with his demons. Uncertainty, longing, pain, mistrust, then need, all chased across his face. She knew about his past, about the ways he’d been let down. She knew how difficult it would be for him to let himself believe that someone was always going to be there for him. She knew about his pride, his strength and the small dark place he kept hidden in his soul.
He reached out and stroked her cheek. “No one could love you more than I do,” he said hoarsely. “Or better. You are my life, my world. I don’t want anyone else in my bed or my arms. You’re the one I want. For me, for Lia, for the children I want to have with you.”
Their Little Princess Page 19
