“I’m fine.” Where was the boy?
“Has that ever happened before?”
Not since you’ve been back in my life. “Yes. A couple of times. Before I learned to recognize the warning signs. And learned how to prevent it.”
He hated how telling that statement would be. And then figured it was for the best. “I told you, Eliza. I cannot be a father.” Could it be any clearer?
“Is that what your doctor told you?”
Which one?
Didn’t matter. None of them had said so. Brain blips were treatable. Most particularly when they were emotional-stress-based, as his were. He could walk into burning flames and be cool as a cucumber.
But put him in a room with a kid needing a father...
“Did you hear what he told us?”
Did she think he was deaf as well as soulless?
“We have a grandson, Pierce.”
Was she nuts? Putting him right back in the fray?
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
She nodded. Rubbed the back of his neck.
“I love you.”
He loved her, too. But he wasn’t going to use it to hold her to him.
To prove it, as soon as they got back to the hotel, before Daniel had joined them, he turned to her.
“You and the kid talk. Figure out what it is you need to do. We can talk in a bit. I’m going upstairs to rest.”
“He doesn’t know you’re his father, Pierce.”
Relief flooded him. He was pretty sure she noticed. He nodded. “Good.” And then, “Thank you.”
He kissed her. Clung to her. Said goodbye to something he didn’t deserve.
And went upstairs to call his shrink.
* * *
FEELING BEREFT WITHOUT her husband, Eliza couldn’t have followed him if the world had been crashing down. Their son needed her. Now that she knew that, there was no force that could keep her from him.
She finally got why people sometimes said that having children broke up marriages. How on earth did a woman choose between the man she loved and the child they’d created together? The child she’d borne?
Daniel didn’t seem to share her grief in Pierce’s absence. She suggested that they sit out by the pool. It was seventy degrees, too cool for guests to be swimming. They’d have the place to themselves.
She chose a round umbrella table with a view of the hotel door. She could see the lobby. If Pierce came down looking for her, she’d see him.
Taking her cell phone out of her purse, she laid it on the table beside her.
Precise, thoughtful moves. It was as though she were outside herself. Later, when she was alone, she’d come back together and deal with it all.
Daniel started to speak the second they sat down. “The whole reason I...”
She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Do your parents know where you are?”
He shook his head. “They never do on weekends. I’m pretty much on my own. I crash at one or the other’s house. They’re fine with it. I’ll be eighteen soon, a legal adult, and...”
“You just turned seventeen, young man,” Eliza told him. She named the date. And threw in the time, too, though she felt a little immature about that.
“Do they know you’ve been in contact with me?” she asked next.
And was relieved when he nodded. “I talked to my dad about the idea when Molly first suggested it. Both he and mom, and the steps, too, for that matter, were adamant that we give him up for adoption. Molly has no family other than Camille and her foster parents, who are already dealing with new families. My dad tried to prepare me for the fact that I was only going to get hurt. He told me the chances of you being willing to take in a child for four years and then give him back were pretty much nil. Talked about you probably having a family of your own now, too. But in the end, he agreed that if I still needed to try, then he would support the decision.”
Eliza liked the man, whoever he was. Mr. Trevino, she supposed. And wondered what he did for a living. What kind of home his wife kept. If he played with his kids.
“So that’s your plan? Yours and Molly’s? To ask me to keep your son for four years?”
He nodded, looking slightly sick.
“What about your mom?” Mentally she tripped over the word. But she made herself say it. She was not Daniel’s mom. She’d given up that right. And couldn’t think about his plan yet. She was having her own mind blip.
“She pretty much thought we were nuts. But she supported my need to find you. To know who you were. She thought it would help me come to terms with giving up my own child for adoption. You know, to help me realize how much better a life I had with them than I would have...”
He stopped. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt the knife-sharp pain of his words.
“Daniel, I want you to be honest with me. This situation...it’s tough. For all of us. But I’m to blame. You are not. You had no say whatsoever in choices that were made for you seventeen years ago. They affected you, those choices. They were all about you. Shaped your whole life. Obviously you’re going to have your own set of feelings associated with them. And we can’t even hope to build a relationship—” she hoped so desperately that that was what they were doing “—if you can’t be honest with me.”
He nodded. “Just sounded kind of cruel, you know, when it came out...”
She told him then. About her and...his father. About being just shy of her sixteenth birthday when she’d gotten pregnant...
“Wow,” he interrupted her. Grinned way too much like the old Pierce would have done. “So, like, you’re only thirty-three and you’re a grandma!” His chuckle died off quickly.
And she continued telling him about the complicated circumstances that had led to his birth. Leaving out one key factor.
The identity of his father. She couldn’t tell him. Not without Pierce’s permission.
And yet...she’d just told him that they had to be honest with each other.
Feeling like her heart was being pulled in half, she waited for his question.
Oddly enough, it didn’t come.
He didn’t want to know who his father was?
Didn’t he want to know that young man who’d left for the army and been coerced by her father never to contact her again, and had done so anyway? Because their love had been calling to him since the day he’d left town?
“So...you and Mr. Westin, do you have any kids?” There was the question. Fifteen minutes later than she’d expected. And coming in a different door.
She wanted so badly for Daniel to know what a great man his father was. She wouldn’t build their relationship on lies.
“Pierce was injured in the Middle East. He’s unable to father children.” She felt like she was walking in a minefield but moved ahead anyway. Trusting that she had it in her to be a good mother.
“So he was in the military, too?”
It took her a second to realize that the “too” referred to his biological father. She’d told him he’d been conceived the night before his father had left to go to the army.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s a cop now, in Charleston.”
He nodded. “I know. Officer Ryan told us when they had us all in for questioning last week. He’s kind of a serious dude, isn’t he?”
“Officer Ryan?”
Daniel shook his head. “I guess he’d be Officer Westin, not Mr., huh?”
Or Dad.
“So...” She didn’t know how much longer she should leave Pierce up there alone. “Tell me about your son.” Did he seriously want her help raising the baby?
Her heart palpitated at the thought. She couldn’t see how a baby would fit anywhere in her life. And knew she’d do whatever it took to make it happen.
> “That’s why I did this.” He nodded. “I never even thought about looking you up before all of this.”
His words hurt. But she couldn’t blame him.
Really, in a sense, she was glad. He’d have needed her only if he’d felt the lack of a mother’s love. While he didn’t like being an in-between—which she fully understood—he was a lot more secure and loved than he probably realized.
“And that’s why I don’t get Camille trying to sabotage the whole thing. She knows why meeting you was so important.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started scrolling before turning it to her.
The breath caught in her chest and wouldn’t move. In or out. She could hardly make out the small form in the bassinet with tubes protruding from nearly every part of his body. Her eyes were filling up again.
“Oh my God,” she said. Smiling. And crying, too.
She’d just lost her heart again. In a way she’d never have believed possible. She’d never even met the little one, and she’d give her life up for him.
No matter what.
“It’s a miracle he’s alive,” Daniel was saying, a tone of pride in his voice way beyond his years.
Her baby had his own baby. Was more of a parent, already, in the six weeks his son had been alive, than she and Pierce had ever been.
Daniel had been talking for fifteen minutes straight about Bryant Nathaniel. Talking about physical challenges and the special care the baby was going to need for some time to come, once he was released from the hospital. He knew it all. And spoke with a sense of responsibility that broke Eliza’s heart. And did it good, too. She was so proud of him. But couldn’t take any credit for the young man he was.
“What’s his prognosis?” she asked, alarmed as she listened to the battles being taken on by such a tiny body.
“Perfect, they tell me,” Daniel said. “It’s mostly premie stuff. He wasn’t hurt in the accident.” He broke off.
In the next instant, she could swear she was looking at Pierce. A more modern version of him—as in, the Pierce she knew now. Daniel’s face had twisted, his eyes hardened. Not in meanness. Just...with foreboding.
“Molly didn’t die because of injuries she sustained in the car accident,” he said. “The seat belt caused her to go into early labor. She died giving birth to him.” There was no emotion in his voice now. And out of nowhere, Eliza knew a fear she’d never felt before.
Hopelessness.
“I was there,” he continued. “Mom had taken me to the hospital as soon as she woke me up. Molly wanted me in the delivery room with her. It was touch-and-go, and she was so weak. She was bleeding too much. Then something happened, something about birth fluid going into her body because something had perforated.”
He blamed himself. The fault wasn’t his, but he blamed himself. The truth was clear to Eliza.
And suddenly, in the midst of all the pain, she understood.
Things happened for reasons. Everything, not just some things.
Pierce’s choice to join the army had led to the day he’d faced that young boy. Killing the boy, which he believed at the time would have saved countless lives, had taken a piece of his soul. And now here was his son, with his own piece of soul missing.
Somehow she was supposed to do something with all of this.
She had absolutely no clue what to do. How to do it.
She just knew that she was a wife. And a mother.
And she had to find a way to be both.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
PIERCE DIDN’T LIE DOWN. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. Knew he didn’t want to. The exercise would be a nightmare in waiting. He had things to work out.
Within himself and with others.
Sitting on a balcony identical to the one he’d shared with Liza the week before, he thought about the conversation he’d had with the department psychologist he’d been speaking with for the past couple of years.
He was on track. Doing the right things. Taking responsibility for his own mind. Taking charge. He could have a prescription if he wanted one. They both knew he didn’t.
The only way he was ever going to be able to get over his aversion to being a father was to forgive himself.
It was a battle only he could fight. Only he could win.
There was no pill that would do it for him.
There is no right or wrong here, Pierce. He’d been told again that afternoon, during phone counseling, but many times in the past, too.
It didn’t matter that he’d been a great soldier, wouldn’t matter if the President himself gave him a Purple Heart. If he couldn’t forgive himself, the demon wasn’t going away.
He couldn’t forgive himself. Lord knew, he’d tried. Tried to find some way he could understand what he’d done in a different way.
His mind wouldn’t let him.
And no one else could make it happen; it was between him and his psyche.
And now there was a grandchild. A grandson.
One who needed Eliza.
He was going to have to let her go.
* * *
ELIZA TOLD DANIEL that she had to speak with Pierce. The boy nodded, his gaze serious. Not hopeful. But not lacking in hope, either.
She wanted to hug him. To pull him to her heart and never let him go.
He needed more than hugs.
She couldn’t make promises to him without Pierce’s input. Without him knowing. He was her husband.
“I am not going to give you up a second time.” She looked him straight in the eye as she made the one promise she could in that moment.
He seemed to understand. Wise beyond his years. His gaze moistened, though there were no tears. He nodded. Stood.
“I have to get to the hospital. I like to spend more time with him on Saturdays since I can go for only half an hour before school, and then in the evenings,” he said.
She nodded. Had seen pictures of Daniel holding his tiny son. And had sobbed right there at the pool, too.
“Is it okay if I join you there later?” she asked him, also standing. Her grandson was just a few miles away.
“That’d be awesome.” Daniel nodded. Kind of smiled. And then, leaning over, he gave her a loose hug. All in all, it was a little awkward. Arms not sure what to do and a lot of distance between their feet.
For Eliza, it was all the impetus she needed to do what had to come next.
And balm to a very pained heart, too.
* * *
PIERCE DIDN’T WANT to interrupt Eliza’s time with Daniel. He had some things to say to the boy. But they could wait. He needed to take care of his wife first.
He needed to free her to take care of the children...
Yet when he heard her key in the door, he knew he wasn’t ready.
Grabbing the keys, he met her at the door. “I was just heading down,” he said. A complete fabrication.
A sign of what was to come? The two of them speaking in platitudes instead of truths?
“Are you sure, Pierce? Did you rest?”
He told her about his phone call. Or rather, that he’d made it. And that he was okay.
“In that case, I need you to drive me to the hospital,” she said.
His first thought was that she was in physical distress. And then it hit him... “To see the baby.” He understood. Knew, too, that she’d worded her request the way she had on purpose—to make it about her. Not him. Or anyone else. She didn’t expect any more out of him, wasn’t asking any more out of him, than a ride there and back.
Watching him, she nodded.
He wanted to give her the truth. “I can’t see him.”
“I understand.”
She took his hand. Squeezed it. And then kissed him.
* * *
ELIZA HAD TOLD herself that she was not going to meet her grandson for the first time without Pierce present. They’d missed their only child’s babyhood. Separate and apart. They would begin their second chance side by side.
Just as they’d found out Daniel was their son. The two of them. Side by side. Together.
That couldn’t have been a mistake.
She took Pierce to a family waiting room just down the hallway from the NICU. Daniel had told her where to come, to text him when she got there and had said he’d come get her. The room wasn’t big. Daniel had told her it was usually used for families in crisis.
She didn’t ask what that meant. Her imagination filled in those blanks.
And yet, if ever there was a family in crisis, it was theirs.
They’d passed the larger waiting room, with children’s toys and activities, magazines and a couple of couches, closer to the elevator. “I should wait down there,” Pierce said when she turned into the vacant room.
She shook her head. “He said this one would be more comfortable,” she said.
He nodded. Squeezed her hand. And let her go.
Tearing up again, Eliza slipped out the door, closing it behind her as Daniel had told her—except that he’d told her to wait on the inside, where Pierce thought he was waiting for Eliza to be done. The closed door indicated to hospital personnel that the room was in use.
She hoped she was doing the right thing. Knew she was taking the risk of her life.
Because she had no other choice.
She texted Daniel. Told him she was there.
And then she walked down the hall.
Sent one more text.
And prayed.
It’s a matter of life or death, Pierce. Talk to him. For me.
Pierce read the text once. And then twice. It came in under Eliza’s number. She was the least dramatic person he knew. Yeah, she’d been emotional that day—who wouldn’t be?—but even on the way to the hospital she’d been calm. Nurturing.
It was Eliza’s nature.
He didn’t know what she meant. She wasn’t asking him to join her in the unit. Wasn’t asking him to see the child.
Her Soldier's Baby Page 21
