HAYDEN PUNCHED IN the code, then held the door as Finn carried Jordan’s sleeping form up the last steps.
“Thanks,” Finn murmured. “For everything.” Hayden had ditched the woman he’d been flirting with—someone he and Greg knew from the Children’s Cancer Center, apparently—and insisted Elke stay behind to enjoy the reception. He’d gone to the hospital with them. His presence had allowed Finn the opportunity to slip outside the hospital and call Amelia from time to time.
The doctor had packed Jordan’s nose with gauze and given her a transfusion and platelets. Because of the packing and her condition, she’d also be taking antibiotics as a precaution.
Hayden rolled a shoulder. “Always got your back, man.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve a secret, yeah.”
His brother grinned, offering a middle finger, then disappeared into his room. Finn carted Jordan down the hall.
“Finn?” Amelia called. “Is that you? How’s Jordan?”
“Basically knocked out.” He stopped outside their bedrooms. “Let me get her settled and—”
“No! I need to see her. Bring her in here, please?”
He nudged the door open with his foot and laid Jordan on the near side of the bed.
Amelia rolled onto her side to face her daughter. She stroked her forehead, then fingered the sleeve of the yellow hospital pajamas. “Where’s her dress?”
“In a bag in the foyer. It’s probably unsalvageable. It’s covered in blood.”
“So’s your tux.”
He glanced down. The jacket was still in the backseat of his Explorer. The white shirt looked like he’d lost an ax fight. “Yeah, I’m thinking Hayden and I aren’t getting our deposits back.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged. “Not like it’s your fault.” He crossed to his dresser and rummaged in a drawer. Only some of his clothes had moved with him into the other room. He peeled off the bloody shirt, dropped a T-shirt over his head.
“Someday you have to tell me about that tat.”
Glancing over his shoulder, he found Amelia watching him. He kept the shirt bunched around his neck. “What, this?” The blue-eyed white tiger had been another of his impulsive decisions, though one that had lasted longer than both his marriages put together. Some days you just had to say “what the hell” and go with it. Mistakes were easier to live with than regrets. That was the lesson he’d learned from Ian...one he’d been forgetting lately. Too busy worrying about failing. Failing at his business, failing at his life.
“You got another one?”
He fished an old pair of jeans out of the bottom dresser drawer. “I do. Maybe someday I’ll show you.”
Being that the four crossed swords graced his left butt cheek—a location specifically chosen so his mother wouldn’t see it, or the matching tats on Greg’s and Hayden’s rears—they’d have to be on rather intimate terms.
He popped into the bathroom, exchanging black tuxedo pants for the jeans, then peeling off the black dress socks. Barefooted and much more comfortable, he padded back to where Jordan lay.
“Why is she so out of it?” Amelia caressed the girl’s face.
“Diphenhydramine. She had a mild allergic reaction after the transfusion.”
Amelia’s head jerked up. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now. Like I said, it was mild. Best guess the docs have is that the donor ate a bunch of tomatoes before donating, and Jordan’s body reacted like it does when she eats too many herself. She got a rash. I had no idea that could happen.”
“Oh, sweetie. As if you haven’t had enough problems. My poor baby.”
A goofy grin tugged at Jordan’s mouth. Her eyelids fluttered opened, and she stared blearily at Amelia. “Mommy?”
“Yes, baby, I’m here now.”
The grin widened. “Ty kissed me, Mommy.”
Amelia exchanged a bemused look with Finn. “So I heard.”
Jordan sighed. “It was wonderful. And scary. And...wonderful.” Her eyes shuttered again, and her head lolled to the side.
“Her first kiss, and I wasn’t there for her to share about it with me.”
Finn snorted, perching on the edge of the bed. “I doubt most kids share about their first kiss with their mothers. If not for Hayden catching them in the act, we’d have never known about it.”
“Don’t be so sure. We have a very close relationship.”
He swung his legs onto the bed, stretching out on his side, sandwiching Jordan between them. “We could poll my sisters. I doubt any of them told our mom, and they’re all pretty tight.”
“Jordan told me.” Amelia’s mouth set in a firm line.
“She’s drugged. Did you see her face? She looked like she’d spent hours standing downwind of a Grateful Dead concert.”
When Amelia’s lower lip started to quiver, he back-pedaled. “Hey, now. I was just teasing you.” He reached across Jordan to brush his fingers across Amelia’s cheek. “She did tell you. You guys have a terrific relationship. As to missing out on a first...” He moved his hand to his daughter’s face. “I missed them all. Kind of nice that I got to hear about this one before you did.”
Amelia stared at him for a moment. “You weren’t entitled to them,” she said gently.
“I know.” But now... Things had changed for him tonight. At the idea of missing the rest of her life, of missing all of Chip’s firsts, a big hole opened in the middle of Finn’s chest. He stroked Jordan’s forehead.
“I didn’t mean for you to get hurt in this,” Amelia murmured.
Gruffly, he cleared his throat. “I know that, too.” He slipped one arm behind Jordan’s neck, the other under her knees. “I’m going to put her to bed now.”
Amelia pressed a quick kiss to their daughter’s forehead before Finn lifted her.
After settling her in, he returned to Amelia’s room, standing in the doorway. “Anything else you need?”
“Company?” She patted the covers next to her. His pained expression when he’d left...she needed to know what was going on in his head. Where he...where she...stood.
“I dunno. Wasn’t it too much company that made your blood pressure shoot up today?”
“That was forever ago. I’ve been all alone since then. Besides, I’m used to you. You don’t make my blood pressure shoot up.”
“Way to bolster my ego,” he muttered. “You don’t mind if I lie down, do you?”
He exhaled loudly as he lowered himself to his side, then propped his head in his palm. “After taking her to the doctor’s a few times, I thought I knew how all this worked. Thought I could stay detached. But I have never felt terror like I did when Hayden brought her into the ballroom and I saw all that blood. I swear, I aged ten years in ten seconds.”
“Scary, isn’t it?” The terror in his voice when he’d called to tell her about the situation had touched Amelia. Deeply.
“Yeah.” His eyes shimmered. He lowered his head.
“Hey...” She threaded her fingers into his dark hair, pulled his head to her shoulder.
Stiff and unyielding at first, he eventually sighed, relaxing into her. She stroked the silky waves. Damp warmth spread into her nightshirt near her collarbone. “Are you crying?” she murmured. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, assure him everything would be all right—just like she did for Jordan. “Hell, no.”
“Either tears or blood are seeping into my nightshirt from your face, and we’ve had enough blood for one day.”
“Amen to that.” The gentle whoosh of the central air filled the silence. “It was bad. Made me realize exactly how many things can go wrong for her. Bleeding, infection...”
“Ahhh. You were thinking about your brother, and what happened to him. And applying that to Jordan.” Amelia’s heart clenched. For the first time, she had someone who shared her darkest fear.
His shoulder twitched against her body. He lifted his head. Tear tracks stained his cheeks. He brusquely dragged the back of his hand over his face, wiping them away. “I...I can’t lose her, Amelia. Not to an infection, not to the aplastic anemia... Not to you. I might not have been entitled to it in the past. But tonight changed everything. Tonight, I became a dad, Amelia. Not a sperm donor. She’s my daughter. And I’m claiming her.”
Stunned, Amelia stared at him.
He draped his palm over her belly. “Chip, too. A son needs a father. I want to be part of their lives.”
He framed her face with his hands, pressed his lips to hers. “Part of yours,” he whispered.
“Did you save the best for last, or am I an afterthought?”
He took her mouth again, harder. Driven. Desperate.
She matched him for intensity, demanding more. Letting their emotions swirl around them like a tempest. Finally pulling away from her, he growled, “Did that feel like you’re an afterthought? Or how about this?” He shifted, pressing a rock-hard erection against her hip.
Heart hammering, and with her brain still off-line from his kiss, she shook her head.
His megawatt sexy grin slid into place.
“W-what?”
“Your hair is rumpled, your eyes are languid and your face is flushed. There’s something extremely satisfying in knowing I made you look that way.”
“Arrogant, arrogant man.” She cupped him through the denim, smug at his sharp intake of breath and the way his body bucked in response. “And who made you like this? Hmm...I think that would be me.”
“Evil woman.” He hissed as she rubbed him, then reached down and clamped her wrist, stilling her. “Don’t stoke a fire we can’t put out, Amelia. It’s cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Tell me about it.” Despite his grip, she managed to wiggle her fingers, making him twitch again. “I can put this fire out. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Let me touch you, Finn. Let me...make you feel good.”
He groaned. “Don’t tempt me. But I’m not about to engage in...fun...when you can’t have some, too. It’s not fair.”
“Fair? What part of any of this is fair, Finn? Didn’t you tell Chip the day of the surgery that life’s not fair, and he should learn that now? I mean, our daughter’s facing a life-threatening disease and—”
“What did you say?”
“Huh? Life’s not fair?”
He shook his head, then flopped onto his back. “Our daughter. You called her our daughter.”
The urge to deny it burned her tongue. But after all he’d done, after his tears, his obvious love for Jordan...“Yeah. I guess I did.”
He sighed. “Wow.”
“A pronoun doesn’t mean all that much. I can give you a pronoun after tonight.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He returned to his side, looking down at her. “What exactly is the plan, Amelia? For after, I mean. Does that pronoun come with any actual benefits later on, or is it just an empty word?”
She shrugged. “You...this whole situation...my plans are blown to hell. Right now, believe it or not, I’m just trying to get through one day at a time.”
“One day at a time. Okay. That will work for now, I suppose. But not forever, Amelia. I want more.”
Her stomach tightened. She wanted more, too, but wasn’t sure what more looked like. She did know what it didn’t look like—it didn’t look like marriage.
###
Spending time together in her bed became something of a habit. One Amelia found she really enjoyed. They talked, they snuggled, they kissed...sometimes they simply lay there in companionable silence.
Other times they lay there in seething hot, frustrated silence, struggling with desire they couldn’t quench. Exasperating as hell to have a batteries-not-required partner but not be able to make use of him. And the stubborn man continued to refuse to allow her to alleviate his frustration.
For four long weeks.
The stubborn man in question glanced over at her from the driver’s seat of his Explorer. They’d stopped, she assumed at some sort of intersection. Hard to see the landscape when you were completely reclined in the passenger seat.
“How you feeling over there?”
Amelia tightened her grip on the shoulder portion of the seat belt. The lap portion rode well below her rounded tummy. “Good. Relieved. I mean, at least we know Chip is now sort of out of the woods.”
Late that Sunday afternoon, out of consideration for Amelia so she didn’t have to run into other patients, Bethany had administered an ultrasound in her office. At thirty-five weeks along, Chip was pronounced fully viable. They’d rushed the development of his lungs with steroid injections so that if he was born now, he’d be fine.
Still small, but able to breathe.
But for them, for Jordan, size mattered. So they had to hope he didn’t come early. The stitches that secured him in the womb would stay put until week thirty-eight or thirty-nine, unless Amelia began experiencing contractions, or an increased sense of pressure. In which case Bethany would remove them immediately.
Finally, they were in the home stretch. Although five more weeks in bed until she hit full-term did seem like another eternity. She’d written three journal articles, revamped the office bookkeeping system, to Sia’s dismay, and built a new Web site for the office. She was running out of actual productive things to do. She sighed. “I wish we didn’t have to go straight back to the house. Just driving around, even though I can’t see a damn thing, is such a treat.”
“You’re in luck then,” Finn said, as the car began to move again, “’cause I have a surprise for you.”
Amelia’s stomach churned and she shivered—a Pavlovian response to the word. “You know I hate surprises.”
“You’d rather go back to bed now?”
She gritted her teeth. This was Finn. Not Ron or whatever his real name was. “Are those my only two choices?”
“Yep.”
She rode in silence.
He chuckled. “You’re actually thinking about it, aren’t you? Come on, be brave. Face the big, bad surprise. I think you’ll like it. I’ve put a lot of effort into it.”
A lot of effort? “You’re not helping.” Still...going back to staring at the ceiling in his room... “Okay. I’ll take the surprise.”
“That’s my girl.”
His girl. The concept didn’t jar as much as she expected. In fact, she sort of liked the idea. The last few weeks, drawing closer to him, she’d realized that maybe she had been shortchanging herself. Her daughter.
The gentle motion of the car, combined with actually being out of the bed, being pregnant, and the relief over Chip, made her snooze. She started awake each time they stopped.
Finally, he parked. “We’re here. Give me a few moments to take care of some stuff, okay?”
“Okay.”
The car rocked as he shut his door. The tailgate opened, and she tried to catch a glimpse of what he was doing. To no avail. She couldn’t see a damn thing. And she couldn’t sit up without his help.
He made two more trips to the car before he opened her door and offered her his arm. Finally upright, she glanced out the windshield while the wave of dizziness passed.
A weathered picnic table sat in the sand only yards beyond the car, near the gently lapping lake. Alongside it, he’d pitched a beach umbrella. He’d staked a red-and-white checked cloth to the sand, beside it, an air mattress.
“Oh...” Amelia eased herself out of the car.
Finn scooped her into his arms, trudging through the sand. He carefully sank to his knees, then settled her on the mattress. He peeled off her slippers. “Gotta have bare feet at the beach.” He smiled at her. “I have a few more things to get. You good?”
She nodded. “I’m so good I could burst.”
“No bursting. That would be messy. Good surprise, right?”
It certainly beat being left at the airport while your bank accounts were cleaned out. “Right.”
He jumped up and headed back to the Explorer.
Amelia smoothed the denim circus tent she wore, tucking the edges under her to keep it from blowing. Fashion, never her strongest suit anyway, had been another casualty of her situation.
The wind fanned her skin. The low-riding sun warmed her feet. She wiggled her toes and sighed.
Finn returned with a wicker picnic basket and a silver bucket with a bottle sticking out of it. “Sparkling grape juice,” he explained.
“This...this is amazing, Finn. Is this the same spot where you made the video with Jordan?”
“You’re getting ahead of me.” He scooted across the picnic blanket to her. With a hesitant smile, he uncurled his hand.
Glad you’re here.
She lifted his ink-covered palm to her mouth, pressed a kiss to it. “I’m glad, too.”
Instead of the fried chicken he’d prepared for their indoor beach picnic, this time he’d pulled out all the stops. Shrimp. Bite-size pieces of filet mignon. A medley of summer squash roasted in olive oil. A potato chip and marshmallow fluff sandwich on white bread that they shared, him grimacing, her laughing. The elegant flute he used to serve her sparkling grape juice made her laugh more. “Somehow the straw detracts from the crystal more than the lack of alcohol does, don’t you think?”
He shrugged. “We do the best we can with what we have. Or what we need. Or something like that.” He clinked his glass against hers. “To making lemon meringue pie when life gives us lemons.”
“You’re not calling me a lemon, are you?” She took a sip from the straw.
His blue eyes twinkled. “No. But now that you mention it...”
A man and woman strolling the beach slowed as they passed. “Aww,” the woman said. “How romantic.”
Face flushing, Finn saluted her with his champagne flute.
As the couple walked farther down the beach, the woman whacked the man on the shoulder with the shoes she was holding. “Jerk.” The wind carried her complaint to them. “How come you don’t do something romantic like that for me?”
“Ow.” The man rubbed his arm. “We’re at the beach enjoying the sunset. Take it or leave it.”
Amelia bit her lip, but burst into laughter once the couple were out of sight. Finn laughed, too.
“Poor guy,” she said, once her giggles had died down. “You set the bar too high for him to follow.”
“Because you’re worth it.” Finn leaned over to kiss her. Suitable for public viewing, it was sweet. Tender.
She completely melted.
He cleaned up their dinner mess, repacking the basket. Then he stretched out beside her. The wispy clouds over the lake turned cotton candy pink. Then peach. Then orange.
Finn fidgeted.
Finally, she turned her head from the glorious setting sun to him. “You’re wiggling like a five-year-old on too much sugar. Do you have sand fleas in your pants or what?”
“Um...or what.” He rose to his knees on the picnic blanket, fumbling in his pocket. “Amelia, I know I’ve already got two strikes against me, but I’m thinking the third time’s the charm. I don’t want to lose you. Or the kids.”
Amelia’s heart began to pound. No, dear God, please, don’t let him go where I think he’s going.
“I know it’s not what either of us planned, but I want us to be together. A real family.”
Her stomach tightened.
The little box creaked as he snapped it open. Sunlight caught in the diamond, casting tiny rainbows across her. “Amelia, will you marry me?”
She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. Her pulse thundered in her ears. “Oh...Finn. Oh, God.” She shook her head as the lovely dinner he’d fed her churned in her stomach. “Marriage...I—I...no. I don’t do marriage.”
His eyes widened. Then his brows drew together. “But—”
“No. No, no, no.” Her whole body shook. Marriage? Because of the kids? To be a family?
“Take some time, Amelia....”
The first man had taken her money. Her pride.
This one wanted something even more precious.
Her children.
Bile rose in her throat. She rolled in the opposite direction of him, coming to rest on her hands and knees on the sand.
He held back her hair while she lost her dinner.