She’d hurt him and that was the last thing she’d meant to do.
She might wish the man hadn’t come back into her life. He might have broken her heart. But he was a good man trying to do the right thing.
And she wasn’t going to turn into a shrew just because life hadn’t gone exactly as she’d hoped.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t... I’m just...”
She didn’t get to finish the thought. He leaned over, kissed her and was facing forward so quickly again she could hardly believe it had even happened.
Based on the statuesque way he was sitting there, as though frozen, she had a feeling his spontaneous action hadn’t been in his plan, either.
It had been only a peck.
But, oh, God, she’d felt it all the way through her.
Still in shock, she handed him the baby carrier as they got off the train, and took the bags to handle herself. He’d bought enough Christmas outfits to dress Stella for a month. And toys that would overflow her bin. She was hoping to talk him into going with her to donate some of it the next day, hoping he wouldn’t be offended.
Nolan Forte would have gladly complied.
When they got to the car, and Stella woke up before they could get her settled in her seat, Lizzie unhooked the baby and held Stella out to her father. It wasn’t time for her to eat yet. She wasn’t fussy. “You want to hold her?” she asked.
They weren’t going to talk about the kiss.
Walking around to the trunk of her car, he stopped. Stared at her, and then at Stella.
Without a word he approached, his gaze only on Stella, and then he looked up at Lizzie again, as though questioning. She smiled, not on purpose, it just came, and carefully handed the baby over, her forearm resting momentarily on his. “She’s pretty good with her neck and head now, but you still need to make sure you support it at all times.”
She laid the baby right in the crook of his arm. He didn’t move. Didn’t adjust her at all. Just stood there, staring down at her, the oddest look on his face.
She’d never known an expression could show such a wealth of emotion. She’d read about it. Seen actors do it. But this was just a guy in a parking lot. Falling in love with his baby girl.
She loaded the bags in the trunk, wanting to give him time. And then took her phone out of her purse and snapped a couple of pictures. Just so there’d be something to show Stella someday, if this was the last time they ever heard from Nolan Fortune.
He didn’t even seem to notice. The baby’s flailing fingers had landed on his lips and he was kissing them.
Lizzie jolted, turned away, pulling her keys out of her back pocket, ready to get the baby in her seat and head home. Filled with shame, with jitters she couldn’t explain, she took a couple of seconds to compose herself, hardly believing that she was jealous of her own daughter.
* * *
“You okay, man?” Daly’s comment, as the band made last-minute plug-ins, checks and adjustments Wednesday night, was softly voiced, but Branham and Glenn were both looking on from their own positions on the stage.
“Great,” Nolan said, shrugging in the way a cool guy did when he wanted to be left alone. “Couldn’t be better.”
He was fine. He dropped his plug-in, twice, and stumbled over a mic stand, sore because he’d run five miles after he’d left Lizzie and Stella that afternoon, and then skipped dinner.
“I’m good,” he said, looking behind him to include Branham and Glenn in his comment. “Let’s get this thing started.”
So he could hit the sack and wake up ready to go in the morning.
In a completely new world. One that contained a tiny being who trusted him enough to lay securely in against his body. Who couldn’t lift a finger to help herself. Who couldn’t defend herself.
So tiny and fragile.
She had so much to learn, this beautiful child with Fortune blood in her veins. He had a lifetime of commitment and responsibility to plan for. A life to support and protect in ways that had nothing at all to do with finances. The Fortune money wasn’t going to take care of this one.
He was.
The second he’d held that weight against him he’d known the difference between a father and a daddy, and knew which one he wanted his daughter to have.
For the next several hours he lost himself in the music. On break he drank water, had a sandwich. And by the time he finally did get to bed, he was more like his old self.
He had his everyday life with his family in New Orleans. He had his “time out,” whether it was music or something else—something like Lizzie and Stella. He had it all under control.
Life was good.
He could do this.
* * *
On Thursday when Nolan texted and suggested that they spend the day at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, Lizzie couldn’t help the feeling of excitement that swept through her.
She’d talked to Carmela the night before about Nolan’s offer to buy her a place to live and while her friend didn’t love the idea, thinking the arrangement would add a complication she didn’t need to an eventual real relationship, she thought Lizzie deserved to have Nolan pay her expenses. Her friend had also been emphatic that if Lizzie took him up on his offer, she needed to be certain that her name was on the deed, and her name only. Otherwise she’d be living at his mercy—always needing to make certain that she pleased him so that he didn’t take her home from her.
Of course, even with her name on the deed, he could quit paying bills whenever he chose, but in that event, she could always sell the place if she had to.
It was going to work. Had to work. Stella would have her father in her life, she’d have the backing of any security he could provide and she and Lizzie could still have their lives. The little girl would be raised with love, not money.
Lizzie would always be a bit afraid that Nolan’s family could find out about them—that at any point they could wield their money and power to take Stella from her, at least part-time—but that fear was going to be a permanent part of her life now. It was something she was going to have to live with. Nolan was from an extremely wealthy family, and the fear that they might learn he had a daughter, that they might try to take control of their granddaughter, was something she’d learn to manage.
And if the whole thing left her woman’s heart a bit...bereft...then that was something she’d learn to manage, too.
Nolan had offered them a way to make this work, and she had to give everything she had to make that happen.
He’d wanted her rules, her guidelines, her conditions...whatever. She had a few days to come up with specifics.
In the meantime, she had to show him that they could do this.
With that thought in mind, she chose one of the Christmas outfits Nolan had purchased the day before and dressed the baby, complete with a red headband and red silk bow with green holly leaves, so that they could take pictures with Santa at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar.
Carmela was studying from home that day—working on her senior project during her holiday break from school—and she and Nolan managed civil hellos when he arrived.
He’d rented a luxurious SUV, Lizzie found as she followed him out to the parking lot.
“Do you mind if I keep it here?” he asked her as he helped her move the car seat base from her car to the rental. “We can stop in at the agency and give them your driver’s license to have you added as a driver,” he told her. And then added, “I just can’t have the band seeing it.”
Because they didn’t know who he was.
And if they knew, and knew she had a kid, his family could find out.
“Of course,” she told him.
Was he going to rent a car every time he came to town? Or buy one and keep it at her house?
So many things to figure out.
There was no reason for her to fee
l embarrassed, or like she wasn’t good enough, because he hadn’t been willing to spend the next week riding around in her car.
It had been fine the year before.
“I can drive my own car,” she said, telling herself he hadn’t meant any harm. That he was just being himself, which was what she’d wanted. That she was going to have to get used to their differences, to not take offense every time her lifestyle didn’t live up to his expectations. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life feeling like she wasn’t enough. “I don’t need to be an added driver to this one,” she added, just to clarify. She didn’t even want to drive it. The thing had to be worth sixty thousand dollars or more. She’d be too nervous behind the wheel. What if she wrecked it? Or someone slammed into her?
She’d just strapped herself in as she said it, glanced back at Stella in the rearview mirror attached to her carrier, who was freshly fed and wide awake in the backseat, directly behind Nolan, and tried to pretend that she wasn’t hurt.
And that she wasn’t worried that her daughter would barf up her breakfast all over the expensive leather interior. She’d gotten a couple of good burps out of her, but you never knew...
“I just thought... No, you’re right,” he said before letting her know what he thought, and she found herself desperately wanting to know. Good or bad. Who was this man?
How much of Forte had been real?
“I wanted to drive,” he told her then. “It didn’t feel right to ask to take over your car. To use your gas. And... I’ll just buy another car seat. I’m going to need one, anyway.”
He’d been thinking of her? About the hassle of switching the base back and forth? She’d have expected Nolan Forte to be as thoughtful...so why not Nolan Fortune?
Surely she wasn’t guilty of some kind of reverse discrimination. Moneyed people, in spite of their power, could also be kind. Thoughtful. Unselfish.
Ashamed of herself, she smiled at him, told him she was scared to death to drive such an expensive vehicle, and when he assured her she’d be fine, and that she’d be fully insured, she agreed to have her name added to the lease as a driver.
Lizzie found herself wanting to agree with pretty much everything Nolan suggested as they made their way through the bazaar. Stella slept through parts of it, but when she was awake, her eyes were wide open as she studied the twinkling lights lining the booths, the colorful wares on display. It turned out that there was no Santa for her to have her picture taken with after all, but it wasn’t like she’d have understood the significance of the jolly old man at her age. The place was overflowing with unique art, glasswork, paintings and jewelry, woodworking, spices and window frames with pressed flowers in the glass. Nolan offered to buy everything she stopped to look at, and while she couldn’t let herself give in to him—she had no need for the things and nowhere to store them—after a while she was pretty sure he was just messing with her. His teasing tone made her laugh out loud. She gave him a playful shove, and almost melted when his warm grin washed over her.
“I just want you to have everything your heart desires,” he said softly, his gaze completely serious all of a sudden.
Even if her heart desired him?
“I have what my heart desires,” she said, meaning Stella, but unable to pull her gaze away from his.
He swallowed, his jaw tensing as his eyes filled with deep emotion. She thought he was going to say more, but he looked ahead, breaking the trance that had been holding her hostage, and she could breathe again.
* * *
Standing outside a public restroom after lunch, waiting for Lizzie to feed Stella, Nolan people-watched. The indoor bazaar was bustling with rows of booths and shopping extravaganzas. He’d been trying like hell not to do something stupid—like calling his parents and telling them that he was a father—when his phone buzzed a text message.
You need to play for the Christmas Eve party. Mom’s stressing out about you being gone again. Text and tell her you’ll play...
His oldest sister, Georgia, was bossing him around as usual. Which snapped his head on straight. There was no way he could tell his folks about Stella. Not yet. Because he’d told Lizzie he wouldn’t, of course.
But also because he needed time to prepare them.
A plan to prepare them.
Skipping Christmas again would not prepare them for anything good.
He only had seven more days with Lizzie. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week, would only leave him five.
It was Stella’s first Christmas. He wanted every second he could squeeze with Lizzie, too. Carmela was staying in town this year, but Lizzie had given him the full ten days, which meant that he could spend the entire day with them.
And he had to think of the future. The big picture. His family eventually accepting, welcoming, his illegitimate child, made with a woman he’d only known for two weeks.
He wasn’t a kid. Couldn’t live in the moment anymore.
Scrolling down to a different text conversation, one between him and his mother, he responded to her request of two days before to play a set of holiday carols at the annual Fortune Christmas Eve party.
Yes.
Perversely he didn’t respond to Georgia.
Nor did he want to tell Lizzie what he’d done.
Chapter Thirteen
Lizzie saw Nolan texting when she came out of the bathroom. And just like that reality hit. Like the year before, she could kid herself that living in the moment was the right choice. That any moments with him were better than none. Why her heart was so glued to Nolan she had no idea, but she couldn’t deny that the man brought a depth to her life, an excitement, that no one else did.
Not even Stella—not in the same way. Stella was a part of her, one that would eventually leave her to have a life of her own. Nolan... He seemed like a part of her that was going to be right there beside her until the day she died. Stella was a blessing. Nolan was a partner.
Except...no. He wasn’t.
When Nolan was in Texas he had no responsibilities other than showing up to play the sax every night. He was the one who said so. These two weeks every year were his time away from responsibility.
But he had an entire life filled with high-pressured responsibilities.
People who had the right and privilege of texting him anytime they might feel the need.
People to whom he’d respond.
He was using his expensive cell phone, not the cheaper version she’d seen the year before. Presumably the one she’d seen had been the one he mentioned purchasing only for band use. The number he’d given her. The reminder that she hadn’t warranted access to the Fortune number hurt all over again.
And then she reminded herself that he’d given her that number this time around, even before he’d known about Stella.
Still, to see him on that phone, attached to his real life...
For all she knew, he could already have a team of lawyers representing his family in terms of Stella. She’d believed in him once, with her whole heart, and he’d been hiding the truth from her the entire time. She’d had absolutely no idea. Would have bet her life on him.
And she’d have lost.
He looked up and saw her, and Lizzie tried to appear as though she was just exiting the restroom. She also tried to forget the glow in his eyes, the warmth in his smile, tried not to feel her own intense response to him, as he rejoined them.
He was Nolan Fortune and she could not afford to forget that.
* * *
The bazaar was known for its live entertainment, featuring a mixture of local talent and Grammy Award winners on an intimate stage—one of the reasons Nolan had chosen the destination for their day’s activity, because he and Lizzie were both musicians. The first band was onstage within minutes from Lizzie feeding Stella after lunch.
The act was local—
a country music trio with violin, guitar and bass—and their Texas rendition of traditional Christmas carols, while different, was quite good. Stella, who’d been asleep when Lizzie came out of the restroom, woke up when the music started, fussing, and when Nolan bent to get her out of her stroller, Lizzie picked her up immediately, bouncing gently to the beat of the music as she sang words to the instrumental entertainment.
He couldn’t really hear her voice, except for a note or two now and then, but strained to catch as much as he could. Though he’d asked several times the year before, she’d never sung for him, but he knew she used to sing in choirs and was certified to teach vocal as well as instrumental music.
He’d suggested once that she do a number or two with the band, adding vocals to their jazz, but she’d pulled back immediately, telling him that she preferred her music engagement to be from the sidelines. She didn’t want the limelight.
Another reason she’d never fit into his real lifestyle. In New Orleans, the Fortunes were recognized pretty much everywhere they went.
Which was why he never played in clubs there.
The trio segued from one song to the next and broke into a lively rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” A few shoppers started to dance in the aisles and, without thinking, Nolan put his arm around Lizzie as she held Stella on her hip, encompassing both of them, and then, with his other hand on her opposite shoulder, guided them into a country-western two-step. Laughing up at him, Lizzie fell into step, her body moving with his, their hips in contact again and again.
A mating ritual.
People were watching them. He caught them out of the corner of his eye. Used to attention, and the attention Stella was getting by looking too adorable in her little red tights and holly Christmas dress and bow, he felt a surge of adrenaline like he hadn’t felt in...a year.
“You’re good at this,” he said, looking down at Lizzie as he continued to move them in beat to the music. “Why haven’t we done this before?”
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