Tavish stormed away from the waiting room. He’d done what Lauren had asked, but he didn’t like it. The craving to stay with her, to hold her and wipe away her tears, overrode everything he’d ever wanted. That, he didn’t know how to deal with. His instincts were all wonky. She was trying to leave him. He should be cutting and running first, saving himself the inevitable arterial bleed of having her break things off for good. Of her limiting their relationship to cold shoulders and stilted conversations on his visitation days. But his muscles resisted every step he took away from her. I love you. I can’t ask you...
Alarm bells sounded in his mind. He stopped short, sandals screeching on the floor. She was pulling the exact same crap on him as he’d pulled on her when he’d left her sitting on the banks of the river. The classic “I love you so I’m going to push you away” garbage that had been his MO since he was a kid. Since his dad had left him.
Blinking away the moisture in his eyes, he clenched his hands into fists and straightened. Try again, Pixie. No way would he let her make the same mistakes he’d been making for most of his life. But who was he to show her how to love? He didn’t even trust himself to commit to more than half a year with her and the baby.
Loving her—at least right now, while she was dealing with her dad’s trauma—would require meeting her more than halfway. Sweat broke out on his palms and he slumped against one of the hallway walls. Could he do more than half a year? She clearly didn’t trust him to, with her talking about him being unhappy. But he’d told her the absolute truth—leaving her was not right. Walking away while she sat alone in that uncomfortable hospital chair made him unhappier than staying in Sutter Creek ever had.
The mammoth task of convincing her to trust him weighed him down as if he were stuck under six feet of packed snow. Because before he could convince her to trust him, he had to learn how to trust himself.
And he didn’t know where to start.
Weariness flooded into his muscles. More caffeine would jolt him back to reality. Having left his coffee behind, he needed to get another before he began the stake-out he intended to hold in the lobby on the main floor. He’d damn well sit there until he figured out how to show her that pushing him away was a stupid-ass way to express love.
He peeled himself off the wall and strode into the elevator. The smell of antiseptic and illness permeated the space and seeped into his pores. A shower would be nice, but he couldn’t risk heading home and having her think he’d left. With a ding, the doors opened on the ground floor. Before he could exit, a couple rushed in, leaving him no room to squeeze out.
“Tavish!” His sister flung herself at him. Her freckles competed for space with the mottled blotches on her face. She’d always turned bright red when she cried.
“Kenz. Hey.” He gripped her tighter. She felt rounder than she had a week ago. “You grew.”
“Thanks for the reminder, jerk.”
“It’s a good thing,” he assured her.
She snorted, obviously unconvinced. But he meant it. And excitement nudged away some of his irritation over Lauren’s you-should-go nonsense. Pretty soon her body would start changing. He wanted it all, from feeling the baby kick to dealing with inevitable hormone swings. “You’re not leaving, are you?” His shirt muffled Mackenzie’s voice.
“No, I was going to get myself a coffee.”
“How’s my dad?” Drew’s haggard expression broadcast his level of distress.
Tavish wished he had a father he could feel that depth of emotion for. “Recovering well. I’ll take you to the waiting room.”
As they rode back up to the cardiac floor, he filled the couple in on what he knew. The waiting room was empty—Lauren no longer sat where he’d left her. At the nurses’ station, a guy in blue scrubs told them where to find Edward Dawson.
Drew held Mackenzie’s hand as they hurried to the designated room. A nurse stopped them before they entered. “Sorry, you’re going to have to limit it to one more visitor. He already has two.”
“I should leave. Lauren doesn’t want to see me anyway.” Tavish backed up.
Mackenzie shot him a questioning look before standing on her toes to kiss her husband. “You go in, honey. I’ll take a walk with my brother.”
Drew’s brow wrinkled. He clutched Mackenzie close. “If you’re sure.”
“We’ve been sitting for long enough. A stroll will do me good. Text me if you need me.”
Nodding, Drew ducked into his father’s room.
“Let’s go somewhere happier,” Mackenzie said.
* * *
Lauren sat at her father’s bedside, her attempts to regulate her breathing a fricking failure. Illness came with the territory of her job. But her dad, pale and swathed in blue hospital linens and monitor cables was completely different. She could have lost him. God, she’d almost missed getting to tell him he was going to be a grandfather again. Her final memory of his voice could have been that quiet, shocked tone as he’d processed her having quit. Her eyes went hot.
Her aunt Georgie stood with Andrew against the wall. The two were talking quietly about the arrangements that needed to be made to get Edward some help at home and work for the next while. Lauren planned to ask Dr. Martin if she could take some family time, or at least cut her schedule down until her contract expired, to allow her to give her dad a hand.
“Laur, we’re going to go make a few phone calls. We’ll be quick,” Andrew said.
“Sure,” she murmured as her brother and her aunt left the room.
She traced her fingers along her father’s wrist. Her father stirred.
“Daddy?”
He grimaced and then opened his eyes. “Cookie. Hey.”
Her lower lip started to wobble. “Oh, Dad.”
“Love you.”
“I love you, too.” Lauren squeezed his anesthesia-chilled hand. Hers wasn’t much warmer, really. “Don’t move, Dad. You’re in the hospital. Do you remember what happened?”
“Yeah. Woke up. Four-thirty?” Swallowing, he glanced around the room without moving his head. He’d want water to moisten what had to be a surgery-munged mouth, but she couldn’t let go of his hand just yet. “Crushing pain. Surgery.”
Relief swamped Lauren at the sound of his voice, releasing the tears welling in her ducts. “I was so worried about you. But the surgeon said everything went fine.”
“It’s all pretty foggy.”
She sniffled. “This is my fault. I stressed you out too much by quitting my job.”
Her father’s gaze sharpened. “Try again. I worked too hard and pretended I ate well. My blood pressure was through the roof. I kept that from you.”
She wasn’t going to let him distract her with his own puny sins. “You needed me. And then I left. Just like I did with Mom. And Grammy and Gramps.”
“Lauren.” His voice quieted. His fingers clenched hers. “When you were fourteen, did you know how to cure post-surgical infections?”
“No. Of course not,” she admitted.
“And would you have stopped your grandparents from driving to Billings that day?”
“No. It’s not about controlling what happens...”
“Then what is it about?”
“It’s about making sure I’m here for you and Cadie and Andrew if something goes wrong.”
“Cookie, you came home as fast as you could. We’ve had some hard times as a family, but we’ve gotten through them together.”
His assurance boosted her conviction. “Exactly. I need to stay so that we can keep facing stuff together.”
“Lauren. That’s not what I meant. We don’t have to live in each other’s pockets.”
She shook her head, pulling her chair closer to the bed. Resting her head on his hand, she tried to believe him. And couldn’t.
Her father, eyes tired, stroked her hair. “Would you expect me to cancel all my business trips or my annual Dublin vacation just in case you or Cadie or Andrew needed me?”
Agh, that makes sense. But it’s different. She’d been the one to support her father, her sister, over the past year. If they didn’t need her support, and if she didn’t need to be a doctor for her mother’s sake, then who was she, really?
“I’m afraid,” she admitted.
“Of what?”
Dark spots formed behind her eyelids as she shut them hard enough to make her cheeks hurt. “Losing you. Mackenzie, Andrew, Cadie. Everyone.”
“Tavish?” her dad asked quietly.
“Yeah.” But she’d already lost him. Instead of working through her fears and taking the risk of compromising with him, her instinct had been to run away. Protecting them both. Except she hadn’t protected him at all. She’d hurt him. And her clinical side shone a beacon into the hidden parts of her psyche, the ones she didn’t want to look at. If a patient sat down in her office and told her a phobia was standing in the way of the person fully living life, Lauren would refer them to a counselor immediately. Physician, heal thyself.
“I don’t know how to be with him. But we’re not going to be able to completely sever ties.” The alluding words came out before she thought about the fact her dad was hooked up to a half-dozen beeping machines. Frick. Getting big news hours after heart surgery wasn’t in his best interest. She threw out a cover. “Because I love him.”
Pain edged his smile. “You always have, Cookie.”
“And it’s never been enough, Dad.”
“It’s going to have to be, isn’t it?” He glanced at the ceiling, then back at her. “I promised myself I wasn’t going to compare you to your mother anymore. But I can’t, not when it comes to this—she always got sick early in her first trimester.”
“And...” she said, one last desperate attempt to evade the subject.
“Lauren—” his wan smile turned chiding “—you can’t be retching in the bathroom all week at work without people noticing. Rumors made their way up the chain to me. I was going to wait for you to say something, but this morning reminded me that sometimes we shouldn’t waste time.”
Truth. She and Tavish had wasted so much time. A decade, really. Definitely the last year. “I’m pregnant, Dad.”
“I know, Cookie. Which thrills me, truly. But how are you feeling about it?”
“About the baby? Fantastic.” The baby needs me.
And Tavish said he needed her, too. But her meeting the baby’s needs would mean not meeting Tavish’s. Her inability to properly love the two people who were entitled to all she could give pinched her rib cage tight enough to steal her oxygen.
And she couldn’t see a way to love them both without risking too much.
* * *
Mackenzie’s “somewhere happier” involved navigating a warren of hospital hallways. Tavish strode behind her, surprised at her speed. She moved at a good clip for someone with a serious waddle. They emerged through a set of glass doors into a well-tended prayer garden. “Hopefully we won’t have to be in a hospital again until I’m giving birth to this little one.” She rubbed her belly and then her back. “Today’s been pretty awful. Andrew’s in shock.”
“I could tell.”
“And as much as I feel bad complaining when I’m not the one who just had a heart attack, my back is killing me. Being away, having time to ourselves was nice, but I’m so ready to have this baby.”
“You got this, kiddo. Only four more weeks.”
“Shh, don’t tell Mackenzie,” she joked in a theatrically quiet voice.
“You’ll make it.” He coughed. “Can’t wait to meet him or her. I’m going to need the practice.”
His sister reached for his arm and dug her short nails into his skin. “Practice?”
“Lauren’s pregnant.”
Mackenzie’s eyebrows hit the sky. “No.”
He cringed. “Crap. She didn’t want to tell anyone yet.”
She gave him a rib-cracking hug. “This is amazing! Your kid will be so close in age to mine! Cousin buddies. When did this happen? How?”
“When I was in town for the bachelor party. And the usual way.” A smirk sneaked past the solemnity of the day.
“You’re going to be a daddy. Holy jeez.” Her smile faltered. “You must be crapping yourself.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I’m feeling surprisingly calm about fatherhood, but pretty pessimistic about Lauren and me. She...she pushed me away today. Said she loved me too much to ask me to compromise any more than I already have.”
“Sounds familiar,” Mackenzie said grimly.
“Nothing like having your own horse crap flung back in your face.”
A thoughtful hum passed through her closed lips. “You don’t have to stay away.”
“I know. I don’t want to.”
She startled. “You don’t?”
Tavish paused, letting the scent of a nearby honeysuckle bush drift over him. He’d smelled the same fragrance yesterday on their hike, found it calming. Not so, today. If only he could go back twenty-four hours... No. Going backward never helped. He and Lauren needed to move forward. Together. It meant trying something entirely different on his part. For Lauren’s sake, for the baby’s, he’d stick. “I want to stay.”
She nudged him with an elbow. “Have you told her how you feel?”
He bristled. “Yeah. She doesn’t trust me. But a child? It’s all-consuming, Kenz. I can’t imagine wanting to go anywhere.”
“I understand.” Mackenzie’s surprise softened into acceptance and sympathy. “It has a way of superseding everything.”
The thought that had been lurking on the edges of his brain for a couple of weeks made it to his tongue. “So how could Dad have deserted us?”
A frown crossed his sister’s face. “Immaturity. Selfishness. Bad choices. Take your pick.”
“It was his nature.” And Tavish was going to have to fight his own nature. He wouldn’t give in like his father had.
“No, it was his choice. Just like it’s yours. And you seem to be choosing the opposite.”
“I’m trying to. But I’ve acted like him way too many times not to think that I inherited his tendencies.”
She poked him in the chest. “You are not like Dad. He never wanted to be a parent. You do.”
His mouth fell open. “He didn’t want kids?”
Mackenzie served him a look of disbelief. “You thought he had? Why else would he have completely cut ties with us?”
“I’d never thought about it that closely.” A lie. He had. He’d just ignored the answer, hadn’t wanted to admit that his father didn’t want him at all.
Acknowledging it now was no less of a shiv to the gut at thirty than at thirteen. The scenario he’d drawn for himself, of his dad being torn between wanting to be at home and wanting to get away, started to vanish into the ether of his childhood, replaced by the hard reality of complete rejection.
But the pain of analyzing his father’s true feelings was followed by a flash of relief. If he was so different from his father on wanting children, he might be different on raising them, as well. The brick of genetics started to crumble inside him. He put a hand to his lightening chest. His stomach throbbed like he’d taken a gut shot. But it didn’t itch with the need to flee.
Mackenzie stared at him with wide, compassionate eyes. “You’ll be a great dad. And there’s no reason you can’t be with Lauren.”
Oh, to be that confident. Despite the shift in his own perspective, Lauren still stood in their way. “I can work on our trust problems, will stay in town for most of the year. But if she’s still so ruled by fear and can’t believe me, it’ll hurt us over time. She pushed me away today. She said it was because she loved me and couldn’t be what I needed, but I’ve said that way too many times myself to believe it.”
Every time he’d spouted crap like that, it had been because he was afraid of something. Lauren claimed to be afraid of leaving her family. He didn’t buy that anymore. She was afraid of people leaving her. And why wouldn’t she be? Her mom, her grandparents—
Him.
Damn. Well, he’d prove her fears wrong this time. He wiped a hand down his face. His breath, thrashed by his nerves, came out jagged. He’d spent his whole life believing himself to be his father’s replicate. Shifting away from that belief turned his self-image a hundred and eighty degrees. And if the arguments that had convinced him didn’t convince Lauren...
He swore under his breath.
Mackenzie kicked him in the ankle.
“Ow. No one’s in earshot.”
“You’re in a prayer garden. It’s the principle of the thing.” His sister’s voice vibrated and her facial muscles twitched with what looked like pain. She swayed and her hands went to her belly.
He grabbed her around the waist and had to tense his arms to keep her upright. She was slowly becoming deadweight. Her knees must have given out. He shored her up against his side. “What’s wrong?”
She hissed out a breath. “I think I’m having contractions.”
He swore again. This time she didn’t give him trouble over it. “You sure?”
Nodding so hard her whole upper body shook, she squeezed her eyes shut. “Yup. My water just broke.”