A Forever Kind of Family (6 page)

“Except that you are doing it,” his cousin pointed out.

“I have these moments—a lot of moments—when I find myself floundering and wish I could call Darren. From the minute that Oliver was born, he instinctively knew what to do.” He stared at the dregs of coffee in the bottom of his cup and quietly admitted, “I miss him. Every single day, I miss him. And then I think about Oliver, about how lost and confused he must feel. In one fell swoop, life as he knew it was destroyed—and somehow, I’m supposed to help him pick up the pieces.”

“You don’t have to do it on your own,” Andrew said.

“I know, but Harper and I seem to work better together if we’re not.”

“I’m sure it’s been a difficult adjustment for both of you—instant parenthood under a shared roof with a virtual stranger.”

“Neither of us is getting much sleep because Oliver’s up several times in the night.”

Andrew winced. “I remember those nights—a lot of those nights. They’re not fun for anyone.”

“Least of all Oliver,” Ryan agreed. “It breaks my heart when he wakes up asking for ‘mama’ or ‘dada.’”

“As hard as it was for both Maura and I when we lost Nina, we at least had one another.”

“Poor Oliver’s stuck with me and Harper.”

“I’d say Oliver’s lucky to have you and Harper.”

“He’d be luckier—and drier—if she knew how to change a diaper,” he grumbled.

His cousin looked surprised. “She doesn’t?”

“I’m actually not sure. Every time he needs to be changed, she shoves him at me.”

Andrew chuckled. “Apparently she’s as smart as she is beautiful.”

Ryan didn’t doubt that she was. Smart and beautiful and sexy and sweet, and she was frustrating the hell out of him—which was not something he intended to talk to his cousin about.

He set his empty mug aside and stood up. “Since I’m here, I should spend some time in my own office and let you sneak out of yours.”

“Sounds good to me,” Andrew agreed. “But if you ever need anything, anytime, let me know.”

Ryan nodded. “Thanks.”

He wasn’t in the habit of dumping his problems on his family, but it was nice to know that they were there if he needed them. As he intended to be there for Oliver—and Harper.

Because the more time they spent together, the more he was beginning to realize that she needed them every bit as much as they needed her.

* * *

Harper had been in the habit of spending an hour at the gym after leaving the studio each day, but she hadn’t been doing that since she moved into Melissa and Darren’s house to take care of Oliver. While Ryan had been great about manipulating his schedule to accommodate her work hours, she didn’t think it was fair to put him further behind in his own schedule for her personal workout. So for now her exercise was walking with Oliver.

Thankfully, he was content in his stroller, happy to watch the world go by as he was pushed around. She’d usually take the long way around to the park, and then she’d let the little boy play on the toddler climber and baby swings for a while before they headed home again.

Today when she unbuckled Oliver and helped him out of the stroller, he bypassed the climbing structure and raced over to the baby swings.

He grabbed hold of the plastic seat. “Whee! Whee!”

The slender blonde woman pushing another little boy on the adjacent swing chuckled in response to Oliver’s demand. “He knows what he wants, doesn’t he?”

“He certainly does,” Harper agreed. She smiled at the blonde as she lifted Oliver into the swing, then did a double take. “Have we met?”

The other woman nodded. “At the funeral. I’m Kenna Garrett—my husband, Daniel, is Ryan’s cousin. And this—” she gave her little boy another gentle push “—is Jacob.”

Harper fastened the belt around Oliver’s middle. “I’m usually pretty good with names, but there were so many people there that day.”

“No need to apologize,” Kenna assured her. “You had a lot of more important things on your mind that day.”

“Whee!” Oliver demanded.

“Whee!” Jacob echoed.

Kenna chuckled and Harper pulled back Oliver’s swing and set it in motion.

“How is Oliver doing?” Kenna asked.

“The days are good,” Harper said. “But he still wakes up in the middle of the night almost every night crying for his mama.”

Kenna’s eyes misted. “Poor fella.”

Harper nodded.

“That’s got to be hard on you, too. I remember how constantly exhausted I was before Jacob started sleeping through the night.”

“Thankfully, because I have to get up so early, Ryan has been dealing with most of the middle-of-the-night stuff.”

“That’s right—he told me you work on
Coffee Time with Caroline
,” Kenna recalled.

“Do you watch it?”

“Faithfully,” Kenna assured her. “I started tuning in when I was on mat leave and I got hooked, so when I went back to work in the fall, I had to DVR it.”

“Went back to work doing what?” Harper asked.

“I teach science at South Ridge High School.”

“Sounds challenging.”

“It’s a piece of cake compared to being a stay-at-home mom,” Kenna assured her. “And yet there are still days—most days, in fact—when I wonder if I made the right choice. But school will be out for the summer in eight weeks, and then I’ll be able to devote myself to being a wife and a mother.”

“Who looks after Jacob while you’re working?”

“Daniel mostly works from home now, and his mother helps out
a lot
. Early on I suggested that we look into day care, and she was devastated to think that I’d prefer to have strangers looking after her grandson. Which wasn’t true, of course—I was just worried that it might seem we were taking advantage of her.”

“It’s nice to have family support,” Harper agreed.

“You’ve got it, too, you know,” Kenna told her.

She nodded. “And I’m grateful. I honestly don’t know how we would have managed without the help of Ryan’s parents, especially those first few days after the accident.”

“I can’t imagine,” Kenna said sincerely. “I had nine months to get used to the idea of having a baby. Actually, forty weeks and two days, since Jacob wasn’t in any hurry to be born. And during that time, I read everything I could about childbirth and babies and what to expect and I thought I was prepared. But the reality is, no one can ever completely prepare you for the joy and responsibility of being a mother—as I’m sure you’ve already realized with Oliver.”

“I’m not his mother,” Harper felt compelled to point out—partly because she didn’t want anyone to think she was trying to take Melissa’s place in her son’s life and partly because the title of mother terrified her even more than the responsibilities of being a caregiver.

“Maybe not biologically,” Kenna acknowledged. “But in every other way that matters.”

Harper knew it was true, and she felt a pang deep in her heart for the little boy who would never really know the woman who had given him life or how very much she’d loved him. She would tell him, of course. She would do everything in her power to ensure that he never forgot his mother, but she knew that he was too young to really hold on to any of the memories that he had.

“When Melissa asked me to be his godmother, I didn’t hesitate. She was my best friend, and I loved Oliver from the minute he was born. But I never thought I would actually have to do anything more than take him on occasional trips to the zoo or museums and buy him fabulous presents.”

“I’m sure she thought the same thing,” Kenna said sympathetically.

* * *

Ryan worked late that night, and when he got home, Harper was getting Oliver’s bedtime snack of oatmeal and banana ready.

They chatted a little about their respective days—he told her about the plans for Garrett Furniture’s upcoming annual summer picnic and she told him about meeting Kenna and Jacob at the park. Though the conversation was easy, he detected a hint of coolness in her tone—the likely cause of which was revealed by her next comment.

“The receipt for your dry cleaning is on the counter,” she told him as she settled Oliver into his high chair. “Along with the note from Nadine Deacon that was in the pocket of the jacket you wore for the funeral.”

He’d forgotten about the note—probably two seconds after Nadine had slipped it into his pocket.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I actually thought you’d managed to refrain from hitting on women at your best friend’s funeral.”

Her comment chafed, as she’d no doubt intended. Maybe he did have a reputation for enjoying the company of various and beautiful women—and he wasn’t going to apologize for it—but he wasn’t an indiscriminate womanizer.

“I didn’t ask for her number—she gave it to me and told me to call if she could help with anything.”

“Oh, well, that’s different, then,” she said, in a tone that indicated it was not. “Although I’m not sure that Brittney would agree.”

“Bethany,” he reminded her.

Oliver blew a raspberry, spraying cereal and banana out of his mouth. Harper used his bib to wipe his chin, then offered him another spoonful.

“And you’re hardly in a position to criticize me when you were chatting up the long-haired guy with the polished loafers.”

“Simon Moore was the real estate agent who sold this house to Melissa and Darren. He came to pay his respects.”

“Are you saying that he didn’t give you his number?”

“He gave me his business card,” she acknowledged. “In case we decided to sell.”

“We’re not selling their house.”

She scraped the last of the oatmeal out of the bowl. “That’s an emotional rather than a rational response.”

“How would you know?” he challenged.

She stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you’re so damned rational about everything, I sometimes wonder if you feel anything.”

“I feel plenty. I just don’t think it’s necessary to share my emotions with everyone around me.”

“I’m not everyone—I’m the man you’re helping to raise a child with,” he pointed out, his voice tinged with frustration.

“I grew up in a home filled with drama,” she told him. “And as if it wasn’t enough that I had to live in it, I got to read about it in the headlines of the tabloids, so forgive me for wanting to spare Oliver that.”

He knew some of her family history from Darren and Melissa—and yes, because he’d seen some of those same headlines—but he hadn’t thought about how her parents’ very public breakups and reconciliations had affected her. Until now.

“There are no photographers lurking in the bushes outside,” he assured her.

She sat back in her chair and sighed, toying with Oliver’s spoon as he played with a chunk of banana. “I know. Or at least the logical part of my brain does. And then I remember being blindsided when I walked out of school one day to find a reporter demanding to know how it felt to know that Peter Ross was claiming he wasn’t my father.”

“Jesus, Harper—I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “Apparently the tear-streaked face of a ten-year-old love child on the cover of a magazine helps to sell a lot of copies. Eventually, the test results proved that he
was
my father, but that wasn’t worthy of mention.”

No wonder she’d learned to hide her feelings.

Ryan was angry at the reporters who hadn’t seen her as anything more than a juicy headline, sick for the child she’d been and frustrated that the woman she’d grown into was so determined to keep him at a distance. While he understood a little better now why she kept such a tight rein on her emotions, she needed to understand that they were a team and that they needed to work together to do what was best for Oliver. And it would be a lot easier to do that if he wasn’t continuously running up against the walls she kept putting up between them. But her confession about her past gave him hope that she was starting to open up to him, at least a little.

Oliver had finished his snack, so Harper gave him his two-handled sippy cup. He raised it to his mouth, one-handed, and sucked back milk like a man taking a swig of beer.

Ryan couldn’t help but smile, thinking about the countless brews that he’d tipped back over the years with Darren. “Like father, like son,” he noted.

Harper’s lips started to curve. Then her smile wobbled and her gaze shifted away.

He could guess what she was thinking, because his mind had gone in the same direction. His offhand comment had reminded both of them that the little boy wouldn’t have the chance to learn anything else from either of his parents.

Grief made his chest feel tight, and that was before he saw the tears precariously balanced on Harper’s bottom lashes.

Oh, crap.

He’d practically demanded proof of her emotions, but he hadn’t wanted to see her cry.

What was he supposed to do now?

Ryan didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with emotional females. It was rare for him to get so deeply involved with a woman that she’d feel comfortable crying on his shoulder, and even when he ended a relationship, he was careful to ensure there was no cause for tears.

Of course, this situation was completely different, and he knew he shouldn’t be surprised by Harper’s grief—it had been a hellish few weeks for both of them. Truthfully, he was a little surprised she hadn’t broken down before now.

Not that she was breaking down now. Despite the shimmer of tears in her eyes and the quiver of her chin, she was valiantly fighting to hold it together. Obviously she didn’t want him to see her cry any more than he wanted to see her cry.

Blindly, she unbuckled the belt around Oliver’s tummy and lifted him from his high chair.

“Harper.” He touched a hand to her shoulder, not sure what else he was supposed to say or do.

She shrugged off his touch. “Don’t. Please.”

“Don’t what?” he asked helplessly.

“Don’t be nice to me.” It was as much a plea as a statement. “I’m barely holding on by a thread here, and if you show any understanding or compassion, you’re going to have your arms full of blubbering female.”

Then she thrust Oliver at him so his arms were full of squirming baby instead and fled from the room.

He stood there for a minute, not quite sure of his next move.