For the Love of Grace: A Christian Romance (The Callaghans & McFaddens Book 2)

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  “All I want is for you to be happy, Grace.” Bennett’s shoulders slumped as his head bent forward a bit. “I have already accepted that I’m not going to be the person who makes you happy. Right now, I want the baby to be that person.” He straightened his back then shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Give her a name and love her, Grace. That’s all I’m asking of you.”

  Without waiting for her to reply, Bennett turned and headed for the door. Grace crossed her arms tightly over her chest. Pain leaked out of her heart, slowly filling every part of her body as Bennett walked out of her apartment. She bent her head as tears pricked at her eyes and then spilled over. Putting one heavy foot in front of the other, she made her way to the bedroom and crawled under the covers.

  Finally, she let the emotions of the past day spill out, sobbing with the grief and fear of it all. Why was she here again? Alone. Hurting. Afraid. Wasn’t it enough that she’d lost Franklin?

  She thought of the picture Bennett had shown her of the baby. She’d had dark hair like Franklin. He would have fallen in love with her at first sight. He would have visited the nursery as often as he could have. He would have given her a name right away.

  He would have been so disappointed in Grace.

  Grace turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling for a moment before closing her eyes.

  Please, Lord, let her live. Let her be healthy. And please take away my fear of losing her so that I can love her fully. And help Bennett.

  Because while she was willing to take the chance of loving her daughter, she just couldn’t do it with Bennett. It wasn’t as if she didn’t love them both, but she wasn’t going to open herself to the possibility of losing them both. It was enough that she was doing it with her baby. Her daughter.

  Grace felt the tug of her exhaustion and drifted off to sleep, knowing that the alarm on her clock would wake her up when it was time to pump again.

  The alarm went an hour later, dragging her from a deep sleep.

  Time to pump for Olivia.

  Grace’s eyes popped open. Olivia? She lay there for a moment, testing out the name. Olivia. Olivia…Joy. The name lingered in her mind for a moment before settling into her heart. She swung her feet over the side of the bed, wincing a bit with the pain of sitting, before she got to her feet.

  She made her way to the kitchen, stopping to pull the packet of information from the bag she’d brought home from the hospital. After getting a glass of milk from the fridge, she went to the table and set up the pump like the directions told her. Once it was all set up, she settled back with her milk, and as the pump worked, she started to fill out the form to register Olivia’s birth.

  A couple of hours later, Grace had taken a shower and found a small cooler and some ice packs to use to take the milk to Olivia. She packaged it all up along with the packet of information she’d filled out and headed down to her car. As she drove to the hospital, she felt a quiver of excitement at the thought of seeing her daughter. There was still fear lingering in her heart. She knew that something could still happen to Olivia, but she was trying not to dwell on that.

  The only way she was going to be able to do this was to not think about it. Not dwell on the fact that her daughter could be there one day and gone the next.

  No, definitely do not think about that…

  Grace pressed a hand to her stomach as it clenched in fear at the thought. She was almost tempted to turn around and let Tami pick up the milk later.

  But then Bennett’s words came to mind. She had to keep them in mind. Olivia deserved that.

  It was six o’clock by the time she showed up at the NICU. Tami was shocked to see her but quickly walked her through what she needed to do before she could go to Olivia’s isolette. As the first sight of her daughter, Grace pressed her hands to the transparent cover, tears filling her eyes.

  She looked so tiny. But oh, so beautiful. Her head was covered by a pink cap, and Grace wondered how her dark hair looked. Her baby’s small chest moved with steady breaths. She was alive.

  Tami slipped her arm around Grace’s shoulder and gave her a hug. “I’m so happy to see you, Mama.”

  “She’s perfect.”

  “Yes, she is.” Grace gazed down at her. “Olivia Joy is perfect.”

  “Oh, sweetie. That’s the perfect name for her. Olivia Joy Moore.”

  “Welcome to the world, my little love,” Grace whispered. “Your daddy would have loved you.”

  27

  January

  “So. Are you ready for Olivia to come home?” Tami sat on the floor of the nursery, a pile of plastic bags beside her. She’d been tasked with unpacking the diapers Grace had bought and putting them on the change table. She’d also put the wipes into the warming container.

  Grace rocked slowly in the comfortable rocker-recliner that Makayla and Ethan had given her. She had no doubt she’d be spending a lot of time in it. The day after meeting Olivia for the first time, Grace had begun to prepare the nursery. She’d started by painting it a soft rose pink—cliché, but she’d loved the shade of pink she’d found. Next, she’d gone on the hunt for the perfect bedding. Emily, Makayla, and the other girls had joined in, sending her links to various options they’d found. Then there had been the baby shower a couple of weeks ago, which had provided her with enough baby clothes to last Olivia a long time.

  Ethan and Mitch had managed to wrangle together the crib and the change table. They were white in color and added to the soft beauty of the room, perfectly complementing the gray and pink chevron-patterned bedding. The skirt of the crib was pink with lots of ruffles. It seemed perfectly suited to a little girl named Olivia Joy. Her name also hung on the wall in puffed letters of gray and pink that Emily had made.

  As she gazed around the room, her fingers stroked the soft baby blanket that Emily had also made. Grace was supposed to be folding it to go into the bag of things she was taking to the hospital to bring Olivia home. The car seat was already at the hospital since they had needed to do the car seat test with Olivia in it before they’d agreed to let her come home.

  Finally, Grace’s thoughts circled back to Tami’s question. “Some days I think I am, but at other times I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle this on my own.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Tami said, a hard edge to her voice. “Where you’ve always been wrong.”

  The tone of her friend’s voice had Grace looking at her in surprise. “What do you mean? It’s not like I have a husband to help me with this.”

  Tami leaned back against the wall as she shook her head. “No, you don’t have a husband, but right above you, you have Ethan, Makayla, and Sierra. Below, you have me, and you have Mitch. Emily and Steve are just a phone call away. You. Are. Not. Alone.”

  Grace stared down at the carpeted floor. She knew that Tami was right. Sort of. But when Olivia woke in the middle of the night, Grace was the one who would have to get up with her whether she’d had enough sleep or not. And it didn’t escape her notice that Tami didn’t mention anything about Bennett.

  “I don’t really understand why you haven’t ever truly accepted the people in your life. You are so focused on what you’ve lost that you don’t see that you’ve also gained.” Tami shifted, drawing her legs in to sit with them crossed. “You lost your parents, but you still had your grandmother. And when she passed away, you had Steve and Emily—who view you as one of their own, by the way. And on top of that, you have a boatload of siblings you’d never had before. And two best friends who would stick by you through thick or thin.” Tami hesitated. “And I know it was horrible to lose Franklin, but you’ve got a daughter to love. And you might have had the chance at another love.”

  Might have had. Grace’s stomach clenched.

  “God has known what you’ve needed, and for every loss you’ve had, He has been there for you, Grace. For your daughter’s sake, you need to understand that you have many caring people in your life—people God has brought to you�
��and accept their help. And their love.”

  “I can’t do that,” Grace said as her hands grasped the blanket in her lap. “Everyone I love dies.”

  “Everyone, Grace?” Tami asked. “Everyone? Is this your way of letting me know that you don’t love Makayla and me? That we aren’t important to you?”

  “What?” Grace gave Tami a startled look. “Of course, you’re important to me. Why would you say that?”

  “Because you say that everyone you love dies, and yet Makayla and I are still fine. Steve and Emily are fine. Not everyone you love dies.” Tami reached over to lay a hand on hers, her dark eyes serious. “I’m not in any way dismissing the losses you’ve had. In fact, I struggle to understand why you have had so many. But as someone who loves you, I hate to see you missing out on so much because you’re living in fear.”

  “I’m not living in fear. I mean, I did go to the nursery to be with Olivia.”

  Tami nodded, her hand slipping off Grace’s. “Yes, you did, and I’m so happy that you did that. But you need to treasure all the relationships in your life. Cherish them. Don’t hold yourself back out of fear because of the thought that you might lose them. Open your heart to truly love, sweetie. Show your daughter what it’s like to live and love without fear. That’s something Keenan has taught me.”

  Grace brushed away the tears that had begun to fall. “I don’t like being scared, but I hate losing people I love even more. So it’s just been easier to not allow myself to love people in the same way I did my parents.”

  “I know it’s not easy, sweetie, but here’s a verse for you that Keenan shared with me. He says it’s one of his life verses. After he shared it with me, I memorized it for myself, and it says, There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. It’s from 1st John 4:18 if you want to look it up. But I think you need to memorize it, then embrace it and believe that if loss is still to come, God—along with all of the rest of us—will be there for you.” Tami got to her feet and bent over to give her a tight hug. “Think about it. See you tomorrow for release day.”

  Grace smiled at the thought. “Yes. Release day.” She hesitated then added, “I love you, TamTam. I really do.”

  “I love you, too.” Tami gave a quick wave then left the nursery.

  Grace let her head drop back against the recliner. Tami’s words had had claws, and they were now sunk deep into her heart. She couldn’t deny anything of what Tami had said, but it was terrifying to consider opening herself up to truly loving people. It had been difficult to open up her heart to Olivia, but over the past two months, she’d fallen more deeply in love with her little girl on a daily basis.

  And she wouldn’t give that up for anything. If something did happen to Olivia, at least she’d have the wonderful memories of this time together. Well, not all the memories had been wonderful, but the few scary ones they’d had, paled in comparison to the progress she’d made. In time, Grace hoped that the most vivid memories of all of this would be the positive ones. The next day would be the best memory to date, and Grace realized that she needed to accept the help of those around her to give her and Olivia even more positive memories.

  Grace pulled the car into a spot in front of C&M Builders and put the car in park. She didn’t turn it off, though, because while it was a warmer than usual January morning, it was still chilly, and she wasn’t entirely sure she was going into the building.

  It had been a week since Olivia Joy had come home, and after panicking the first night, she’d called Tami for help. Her friend had ended up spending the first three nights with her as she’d gotten used to having a baby who needed her, without having monitors and nurses to help her. But for the past four nights, she’d been able to handle the baby by herself.

  This trip to the office was the first time she’d ventured out with the baby. Over the past week, she’d had a steady stream of visitors. Some from church, but mainly it had been Tami’s and Makayla’s families. Everyone had been to visit except Bennett. Since the day he’d confronted her about going to the NICU for Olivia, he’d totally pulled back, and to her knowledge, he’d never returned to see the baby.

  As she thought about everything Tami had said, she realized she had gained a new perspective on Bennett as well. Following her conversation with Tami, Grace had read through blogs and websites and books, trying to figure out if it was right for her to be having feelings for a man when her husband hadn’t even been gone a year. Sadly, none of them had been able to give her a definite answer. The underlying message she seemed to pick up on was that everyone’s journey of grief was their own. What might feel right for one person, might feel wrong for another.

  Because it was Bennett she had feelings for, her situation was a bit different since she’d known him forever. And, quite possibly, she’d loved him for that long too. She had just been unwilling to accept how she felt. It wasn’t that she had loved Franklin less because of her feelings for Bennett, but it seemed there was room in her heart for both. Loving Bennett wouldn’t diminish what she’d had with Franklin, she knew that now.

  Finally, as she’d laid in bed the night before, she’d prayed and asked God for peace and direction. When Olivia’s cries had woken her a few hours later, Grace had gotten out of bed with the surety of mind that Franklin would not want her to live her life tied up in grief over him. Whether it was with Bennett or someone else, Grace knew that Franklin would have wanted her to love again, if the opportunity came her way.

  Letting out a shaky breath, Grace turned off the car and got out. She opened the back door and leaned in to lift the car seat off its base. The car seat cover blocked the wind and the cold as she hurried toward the front door of the office. It was her first time back since having Olivia. She’d been on maternity leave since Olivia’s birth, with Maya stepping up to handle all the responsibilities that had once been hers. Surprisingly, she hadn’t felt the loss of the job the way she’d thought she would. Instead, it had been a relief to not have to worry about anything but her daughter.

  She opened the door to the entryway and then the one leading into the foyer. Maya looked up and smiled when she spotted Grace.

  “Hi, Grace!” Maya stood up as Grace set the car seat on the desk. “Ooooh. Can I see her?”

  Grace lifted the cover, and, after a quick check on the baby, she turned the seat around for Maya to see.

  “Oh my word, look at that hair.” Maya looked up at Grace. “She’s just beautiful.”

  “Thank you. I was surprised at how much hair she had. Some has fallen out, but she’s kept quite a bit. Definitely got that from her daddy.”

  “Did I hear the voice of my favorite baby’s mommy?” Makayla asked as she appeared from her office. “I didn’t know you were coming in today.”

  “I was going to run to the store for a couple of things and decided to drop by.”

  Makayla bent over the car seat. “Oh, she’s sleeping.” The disappointment in her voice was clear. “That’s not acceptable.”

  Grace laughed. “It’s not just acceptable, it’s preferable when I’m out and about.”

  “Still,” Makayla huffed.

  “I can’t wait until you have a baby of your own and then I can pester you about waking it up.”

  Before Makayla could reply, the door to the foyer opened. Grace lifted the car seat to move it off to the side so Maya could deal with whoever had walked in.

  “Hey, guys,” Makayla called out. “Look who’s here for a visit.”

  Grace turned slightly, freezing for a moment as Bennett came into her line of sight. Their gazes met for an instant before Bennett looked down at the car seat she held. Grace looked past Bennett, expecting to see Mitch or Tristan. Instead, her gaze landed on a tiny woman with a big smile.

  She moved past Bennett, her eyes focused on the car seat. “Is that a baby?”

  “It certainly is,” Makayla said. “The cutest baby on the planet. So brace your
self.”

  The woman approached as quickly as her high heeled boots would let her. She bent forward to peek inside, her long curls sliding off her shoulder. “Oh my goodness, Makayla. You are so right.” The woman then straightened and aimed her bright smile at Grace. “You must be Grace. I’m Emma Holt. I’ve heard so much about you. It’s great to finally meet you.”

  Grace glanced from Makayla to Bennett and then back to Emma. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

  Who exactly was this woman? Makayla hadn’t mentioned anything about her. Why was that?”

  Since the car seat was getting a little heavy, Grace moved forward to put it back on the desk.

  “I can’t get over how beautiful she is. Her cheeks are so chubby. And that hair!” Emma was once again peering into the car seat. “Her name is Olivia, right?”

  Grace nodded, wondering how this person could know so much about Grace while she knew nothing about Emma Holt. For the first time since she had gone on maternity leave, Grace found herself missing the job and the office because she felt out of the loop.

  Bennett had moved to stand beside the desk and was talking with Maya. The front door opened again, and this time it was Tristan who walked in. He smiled at Grace and came over to give her a hug.

  “Oh no,” Emma said. “The boss has arrived.”

  “I’m not your boss,” Tristan said with a slight smile and a shake of his head. “That would still be Bennett. He’s the boss of all of us.”

  “And don’t you forget it,” Bennett said before looking at Grace. “Nice to see you, Grace.” Then he turned back to Maya. “I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me.”

  And then he was gone.