Harlequin Superromance February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: His Forever Girl\Moonlight in Paris\Wife by Design (80 page)

And because Lynn had needed her family together.

“Yes?” She sat up. Turned on the light.

She wondered if Grant was asleep. Or sitting up like she was, listening for any sounds from Darin's room, wondering how to prevent a repeat of the day, of the fear of losing the one most dear to you.

She wondered if he missed her anywhere near as much as she was missing him, her partner in fear that night.

“You're wearing your jeans and red shirt just like at dinner.” Maddie, her slender little body dressed in the pink-and-white pajama bottoms and top she kept in a drawer in the spare bedroom in Lynn's house, came slowly into the room, a frown on her pretty face.

“I know.”

“You were in the dark.”

“Yes.”

Sometimes it was nice not to have to answer unspoken questions. Because Maddie had simply been observing a shift from the norm, not asking a question.

“I didn't wake you.”

“No.”

The other woman nodded, picking at a thread on Lynn's comforter.

“Would you like to have a talk?” Lynn asked softly, her heart going out to Maddie. No one on earth tried harder, or wanted to do right, more than Maddie did.

The other woman wouldn't look at her. Her lower lip sucked into her mouth, her teeth biting into it.

“Come on,” Lynn said, patting the end of the bed. “Have a seat and let's chat a bit. It was a different kind of day, and I'd like the company, too,” she said.

Nodding, Maddie climbed up to sit cross-legged on the end of the mattress, pulling at the hem of her pajamas instead of Lynn's bedding.

“You were amazing today, Maddie,” she said. Lila had called a gathering in the rec hall that night. She'd had Maddie and Kara sit up front with her. She'd invited Maddie's parents, as well, but they'd been tired and eager to get back home.

She'd told everyone how Maddie had helped them find Kara and Darin. And then talked about the fact that there were rules at the Stand for a reason, emphasizing how mandatory it was that they all follow the rules as a contingency to their residency with them.

She didn't name names. But Lynn knew that Kaitlynn, the new dance teacher, had received her warning. If the young woman had simply made a mistake, she'd learned from it. If she'd been disrespectfully careless, she wouldn't be with them long.

“I'm going to be in trouble,” Maddie said. She chewed on her lip and picked at her clothes, but she wasn't wild-eyed any longer.

“I'm pretty sure you already learned your lesson about breaking rules,” Lynn said, knowing that Lila was not going to bring up Maddie's infraction. Maddie wasn't a prisoner at the Stand. She could leave if she wanted to.

But Lynn needed the other woman to know that the rules were there to protect her—and everyone else. She needed to know that Maddie's breaking of the rules was a onetime thing.

Or she couldn't entrust her daughter to her anymore.

She couldn't risk another debacle like the one they'd had that day.

“It wasn't your rule-breaking that was the problem today,” she said slowly. “It was Kaitlynn's. She didn't keep Kara safe. She let her go after you. Do you understand?”

Eyes wide and serious, Maddie nodded. “Yes, Lynn. Kaitlynn could've got Kara hurt really bad. I started to cry when I dropped her off, but I didn't know she ran out behind me,” the other woman continued. “If I knew she ran out behind me, I would've taken her hand and walked her back to her class.”

“I know.”

Folding her bottom lip over her top, Maddie continued to pick at her hem.

“So, we're agreed?” Lynn asked. “No more breaking of the rules. Even for Darin.”

“I won't break the rules again,” Maddie said. “I won't sneak away. If Darin wants me to go someplace with him, I'll tell him yes but I have to let you or Lila know first.”

She didn't want Maddie leaving with Darin. But she had a much better chance of preventing them from going out alone as long as she knew ahead of time that they planned to leave. So Lynn nodded.

“Are you tired now?” she asked, thinking about calling Grant.

She'd hoped he'd call her.

“I'm not tired, Lynn, because I have to have an appointment with you.”

She frowned. This was a new one. “An appointment with me?”

“Yes, Lynn.”

Maddie didn't seem panicked. But she did seem...different. Because she'd been brave today and grown stronger from the experience?

Because Darin had kissed her on the lips when they'd arrived back at The Lemonade Stand from the beach that afternoon?

“Why do you need an appointment with me?”

“Because I missed my period.”

Jaw dropping, Lynn told herself to be calm. This was Maddie. Her heart pounded, anyway.

“You missed your period,” she repeated in lieu of the words she'd have liked to find.

“Yes, Lynn.” With a very strange peacefulness, Maddie looked straight at her.

“You were due a week ago,” she said, knowing Maddie's cycle because women's cycles were her business, because Maddie spent so much time at her house—and because their cycles were pretty much the same.

“Yes.”

She tried to think back. To remember if Maddie had had her usual few hours of cramps. If there'd been extra trash in the bathroom can, or things used from under the counter.

And couldn't recall.

“You probably had it and can't remember,” she said now. But Maddie was usually pretty good about her period. It was regular. And so something she counted on.

“I didn't have it, Lynn.” Maddie would panic at the thought of having Grant read Kara a bedtime story, but she didn't seem to be the least bit frightened of something that would strike terror in a lot of women.

“Okay,” Lynn said slowly, watching her houseguest. “Well, there are lots of reasons for a woman to miss her period. It's nothing to worry about. You'll probably get it this coming week.”

Maddie shook her head. “No,” she said emphatically. “I need an appointment with you, Lynn, because I missed my period and I'm going to have a baby.”

Oh, God. Not tonight. She was beat. To a pulp. Completely spent and in need.

Of Grant.

“You aren't going to have a baby, Maddie. You know it takes a man and intercourse to make a baby.”

“I know that, Lynn. Darin is a man and we had intercourse.”

Lynn's hands dropped to the bed. She stared at the mentally handicapped woman.

And knew that life had just taken an irrevocable turn.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

T
HE
TEXT
CAME
shortly after eleven on Monday night.

You up?

Yeah, he was up. In more ways than one. With Darin safely home, but the day's emotions still running amok, he'd been sitting in the dark thinking about the woman who'd been by his side through the second worst day of his life.

The first being the day Darin had injured himself trying to save his wife's life.

He'd been thinking about the fact that their regularly scheduled sex date was less than forty-eight hours away. And determining that the odds were in their favor of actually consummating their agreement this week.

Just the thought had him hard.

Yeah.
His thumbs typed the message back to her.

He was sitting in the dark in nothing but a pair of silk basketball shorts, prepared for a long night. He looked forward to Lynn's next message.

His phone rang. Her moniker popped up on his screen.

“Hello,” he said, his voice low, a grin spreading across his face.

“Can you talk?”

The strangled tone in her voice made him sit up straight. “Of course,” he told her. “What's up?” He'd help her handle it, whatever it was.

“Maddie and Darin had sex.”

“What?” Grant was on his feet before he realized it, and had to rein in his volume, as well. “There's no way. No chance...”

And just as Lynn started to talk again, he remembered Maddie's voice on the phone that afternoon, telling them how she and Darin had snuck away from the The Lemonade Stand to spend an early morning on the beach.

“There's more.”

What more could there possibly be? They'd been through the entire gamut of life's crises already that day. “What?” he asked, still stuck on the fact that his brother had had sex.

And was probably going to be wanting it again.

So much for his “just friends” speech. His ridiculous idea that he'd be able to distract Darin from Maddie.

With diving.

“I think Maddie's pregnant.”

Her voice dropped on the last word. But it rang in his ear with the strength of a gunshot.

“You think she is or you know she is?” The numbness filtering through him was welcome. He'd take more of it.

He just wasn't going to think.

“I went to the clinic for a home pregnancy test and ran it on her. It's positive. It's only been a week, and it could be a false positive, but it's an early-detection kit. We keep them in stock because we need to know as soon as possible if an abused woman is pregnant by her abuser when she arrives at the shelter.”

She was talking too fast. Faster than he could think.

Because he wasn't going to think. Ever again.

With the exception of the one hope she'd given him. He'd concentrate on that.

“What are the chances of a false positive?”

“Slight. More often it would be a false negative because a woman's body produces hormones at different speeds. Maddie already has elevated levels of the hormone a woman's body produces when she's pregnant.”

“It's got to be wrong.”

“I agree. But I doubt it.”

She sounded stiff. As if she had a scarf tied too tightly around her neck. But try as he might, he heard none of the panic that was raging through him as he listened to Lynn.

“She said that making a baby was Darin's idea.”

Of course. Blame it on the guy.
That thought was quickly thrown out for the nonsense it was.

This was Darin and Maddie they were talking about.

“She said that when you wouldn't agree to their marriage, Darin told her if they got pregnant, we'd have to let them marry.”

His brother had the problem solved!

The momentary glee he felt quickly crashed with a string of mental swear words.

“They can't have a baby.”

“Maddie is considered medically sound enough to make that decision for herself. We can't force her to abort the child. And she is adamant that she's going to have it.”

“I'll make Darin change her mind.”

He heard how ridiculous he sounded. And knew, down where it counted, that there was no way on earth he'd choose to have his brother's child aborted.

“What are their chances of having a mentally sound child?”

“Darin's handicap was caused by a diving accident and Maddie's was caused by a lack of oxygen at birth. There's nothing genetically wrong with either one of them.”

His tension hit an all-time high. “There's no way they can live on their own and raise a child.” Frustration getting the better of him, he ran his fingers through his hair. Paced his darkened living room and swore as he stubbed his toe.

“Sorry,” he said into the phone when he realized she'd heard his expletive.

“I said the same thing when I saw the test results.”

“In front of Maddie?”

“She wasn't there. I told her the test results won't be ready until the morning and sent her to bed.”

“You don't ever lie to her.”

“I am the bearer of the results and I won't be ready with them until the morning,” she said, sounding tired more than anything.

“What are we going to do?”

“I have no idea.”

He had an idea. A ludicrous one. But he had to think about it—long and hard—before he voiced it aloud.

He needed some encouragement from her, too.

“Okay, well, I suggest we try to get some sleep and talk about this tomorrow.”

“I've already rescheduled my morning appointments,” she told him. “I'm planning to take Kara to day care as usual. Maddie's there in the morning, as well. As soon as they're safely settled, I'll come back here.”

“I can call Luke to cover for me and meet you there after I drop Darin off at therapy.”

“Okay.”

That was it. An agreement.

And lives that had just changed forever. He was facing an enormous challenge and waiting to meet with Lynn before attempting to solve it. Before making any decisions.

He wasn't going it alone anymore.

Whether the change crept up slowly while he was busy ignoring the signs, or whether it was just borne that day, brought on by the near-crisis they'd avoided, Grant didn't know. What he did know was that he needed Lynn.

Hanging up with her, he stood in the living room that, in all these years since Darin's accident, had always brought him peace but now only seemed to fill him with emptiness.

He stood there and saw his life. He was a thirty-eight-year-old man with...responsibilities.

A man who'd been so determined not to be struck down again, not to have life pull the rug out from under him again, that he'd quit living.

A man without a wife. Without children of his own, or any hope of having children of his own.

A man who'd fallen for a woman who'd just come through a harrowing day with calm and aplomb.

She hadn't fallen apart when Kara went missing, and didn't fall apart after the little girl had been found, either. She'd hugged Kara, held on to her for the rest of the time Grant was with them, but she'd been incredibly calm.

As if she had no real needs at all.

She wanted him physically. But other than that?

Darin certainly had needs. Maddie had them. And Kara and Brandon. But seemingly not Lynn.

No, she was in complete control. Always.

Was it because of what she'd been through with Brandon? Because, like him, she couldn't cope with the idea of having her life change so completely again?

Or because that's just how she was? How she had always been?

The funny thing was that up until that day, he'd thought himself to be just like her. In complete control. And yet here he stood, in silk shorts and nothing else, with a life that was completely out of control.

He cared about Darin. And Maddie and Kara, too. So much so that he hadn't wanted to leave them that night. He'd wanted to keep every one of them, Lynn included, under his roof where he could protect them.

He looked out into the night, into the darkness that mirrored emptiness back at him, and saw a picture of his life to date.

A wasteland.

* * *

L
YNN
SPENT
A
sleepless night. She accomplished very little. A couple of loads of laundry. Some ironing.

She watched late-night television.

And made decaffeinated coffee she didn't drink.

By morning, she was exhausted beyond her ability to cope. But she fed Maddie and Kara. Walked with them to the day care, telling Maddie that she'd have her results for her at lunchtime.

The other woman didn't seem the least bit concerned.

She'd submitted to the test because Lynn had insisted that that was what would happen if she came to the clinic to see her. But she hadn't needed the results to know what her body was telling her.

She was pregnant.

And not the least bit upset about that fact.

Because Maddie couldn't problem solve. Which meant that sometimes she couldn't see the real problems in her life. She had no idea how much she'd just complicated her life.

Back at the bungalow, Lynn figured she had an hour to rest before Grant arrived. By her best estimation, they'd have another hour, give or take a few minutes, to find a solution to their problems.

And then she'd be facing lunch. And Maddie.

She went to bed and stared at the ceiling. After wasting five minutes of sleep time she moved out to the couch—hoping she'd trick herself into thinking she wasn't really trying to go to bed.

Five minutes later she started to cry. And knew that wasn't going to work. She had to sleep. More than anything.

She was a medical professional. Understood the importance of proper rest, most particularly during times of crisis. If she wanted to have the capacity to cope, she had to sleep.

If she'd had a sleeping pill, she might have taken part of one. What she had was a bottle of wine Brandon had brought her from San Francisco several months before. It was in the cupboard above her refrigerator.

A quarter glass of wine would calm her. The effect would be more instantaneous than anything else she could think of.

So she poured—and felt odd doing so in the early hours of the morning. But she drank it. And when it didn't work as quickly as she liked, she carried the glass—and the bottle—into the living room with her. She'd lie on the couch and sip slowly until the wine took effect. If it happened in the next ten minutes, she'd still have half an hour to sleep before Grant arrived.

* * *

N
ERVOUS
AS
HELL
and hating the fact, Grant knocked on Lynn's door ten minutes before their scheduled meeting that morning. In jeans and his Bishop Landscaping polo shirt he could have been facing any other day.

But the only thing familiar about his day so far were the clothes.

Lynn didn't answer his first knock so he knocked again. Maybe she wasn't back from the main building yet. He was early, after all....

He heard the door click. She'd unlocked it, pulled it from its jamb and left it hanging there.

Catching a glimpse of her through the crack she'd made, he pushed his way in. The back of her bright green scrubs preceded him into the living room. So he followed, a bit concerned when she sidestepped and almost hit the lamp on the side table.

It wasn't until he'd skirted the couch where she'd dropped, ready to sit beside her, that he noticed the half-empty bottle on the table.

“You're drinking?” She didn't drink much. She'd told him once that she couldn't tolerate the loss of control.

And unless he was missing his mark, he'd say she'd just consumed half a bottle of wine before eight in the morning.

“I couldn't sleep.” She didn't sound drunk. Or even particularly upset.

Maybe if he'd had more sleep, Grant would have held his tongue. He doubted it. His life had come unglued and he went right along with it.

“What's with you?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the couch, a good foot away from her, his elbows on his knees.

“What do you mean?” Her gaze was steady as she looked at him.

“You are the most controlled individual I have ever met. Nothing fazes you. Not even your daughter's disappearance.” Once he started, he couldn't stop, as weeks of pent-up tension erupted inside of him. “Oh, you were concerned, I'll give you that, but you stood there completely engaged at all times.”

“If I wasn't how would I help find her?”

“That's just it, Lynn. You were thinking about helping to find her at a time when most mothers would be catatonic with fear and grief. But not you. You just stay right there in your mind, keeping control of everything, moving forward and solving the world's problems.”

The words were unfair. He knew it. He wasn't as good as her. He'd tried to maintain control and lost it completely.

“Don't you ever just feel? So much that it drowns out all rational thought and you do something crazy?” Like ranting at the woman you loved when all you really wanted to do was take her to bed and lose yourself in her arms.

“Crazy like drinking at eight in the morning?” she asked, calm as ever.

“I'm sure you had a rational reason for doing so.”

“Rational?” Lynn jumped up so fast she spilled wine down the front of herself. And did nothing to clean it up.

It was going to stain.

“You think I'm rational?” She wasn't screaming, but her voice was raised louder than he'd ever heard it. “I was ironing clothes at three in the morning. Socks, Grant. I ironed socks! The elastic melted. I think I ruined my iron.”

Pacing the room, her nearly empty wineglass still in her hand, she turned her back to him.

If he hadn't been so upset, he might have grinned.

“The first thing I did after I got Kara to bed and said good-night to Maddie was run to my bathroom, curl up in the corner and sob.” She turned around.