Forever Family (Forever #5) Read online

  I paused, swiping at my eye and feeling the grit of pink glitter on my cheek. Great. First I’m expected to head up her shower. Now I have to help with the baby too?

  I tossed my phone on the sofa and plunked down on the floor. There was no doubt about it, I was not handling this well.

  I lay back on the carpet and stared at the ceiling. Coats of paint failed to completely conceal the water stains from a previous upstairs tenant’s bathtub overflow. Parts of the popcorn ceiling were flat from the damage.

  Gavin and I could not seem to get ahead on bills. Despite all the work hours he was putting in and reducing his college load, we were still struggling. My TA position covered only tuition and fees for grad school. With Gavin’s young son, Manuelito, around, I wasn’t able to put in any time at Cool Beans, although I might be able to get some hours since he was gone with his mother to Mexico.

  I felt so tired. Working at the coffee shop didn’t appeal to me. I felt completely out of touch with all those undergrads and their whining about grades and parents and dating. I couldn’t relate to them anymore, and I found myself wanting to shake them and say, “Talk to me when you have REAL problems!”

  The phone buzzed again on the sofa, this time a call. Jenny, most likely. I didn’t move. I had papers to grade. Stars to glitter. And only a few hours until I had to head up to campus for a long day.

  She was on her own. I loved Jenny, but she had to grow up. Nothing like a baby to make it happen.

  I shifted so I could see the framed pictures of Finn. When I moved in with Gavin to a larger apartment, I hung the collage in our living room. There were only a few images. I didn’t take a lot in those seven days my baby had lived, since he always looked the same, his eyes covered with a little mask and his mouth taped to a breathing tube. There hadn’t been much to see. Nothing ever changed but the time and date on the monitor.

  Still, I could admire his stubby little nose. The soft cheeks. His fragile curled-up fingers with the tiny nails. When I’d held him the one and only time, he was so light, like a pile of feathers.

  I didn’t know how Jenny’s baby, Phoenix, felt. I’d managed to avoid holding her, not hard with doting grandparents vying for a turn. Up at the hospital, it had been easy to hold conversations with other adults, averting my eyes.

  Now she wanted me over there.

  The phone rang again.

  Crap. I stood up from the floor and headed for the sofa. Yep, Jenny. I sighed and answered the call.

  “Where are you?” Jenny cried. “Chance left me! Everybody left me!”

  “What’s going on?” I asked. I pinned the phone to my ear with my shoulder and started shoving books in my backpack. I could see where this was going.

  “She threw up! Twice! Then her diaper exploded!”

  “What are you feeding her?”

  “Just the boob!”

  “How often?”

  Jenny’s voice sounded exasperated. I could hear the baby crying close by. “I don’t know! Every time she cries!”

  “She’s still taking it?”

  “Not anymore! I can’t figure out anything to make her stop and Chance left without fixing the swing!”

  I zipped up my bag. “You can just put her in her crib. Clean yourself up. Pull yourself together.”

  “But she’s crying! She’ll be scarred for life!”

  “Nope. She’ll probably fall asleep. Did you get her cleaned up?”

  “Yes, sort of. It was really sticky.”

  Geez, didn’t Jenny understand this was what motherhood was like? That messes and crying were what babies did?

  “Please say you’re coming,” Jenny said. “I’m going out of my mind.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. “I only have a couple hours until class,” I said.

  Jenny’s breath rushed out, making a shhhhrrrr sound on the phone. “Thank you, Corabelle,” she said. “You’re the best.”

  I clicked off the call. The abandoned pink star sat in a sparkling heap on the table. Bits of glitter all over the carpet caught the light. I’d tracked a fair amount out of the dining area myself. I couldn’t help but think of the contrast between what Jenny wanted for herself — the perfect pink stars and beautiful party — and what she was going through. Diapers and spit-up and feeling panicked and alone.

  Definitely time for her to face reality.

  ~*´`*~

  When I got to Jenny’s, she looked more composed than she had seemed on the phone. She wore a bright pink shirt and sparkly gray sweatpants. I tried not to notice the damp spots where her nursing pads weren’t quite up to their job.

  “The baby fell asleep,” Jenny said. “I didn’t think it would ever happen.”

  “Oh, good,” I said. Even better if I didn’t have to hold or rock her. I’d been stressed about it on the drive over. Just seeing the parts of baby furniture scattered around was starting to set off my need to flee.

  “I can’t believe everyone deserted me,” Jenny said. Her hair was done up in an elaborate updo that mostly hid the change in color. She seemed very put together for someone who was so frantic twenty minutes ago. I struggled to squash my annoyance.

  “I think a lot of parenting is sink or swim,” I said blandly. My mind wasn’t on my words now, but on the panic that was rising in me. I hadn’t felt this bad when we were up at the hospital. But here, surrounded by the way life should have looked for me, a baby in the crib, a home and family, my chest was getting tight.

  Jenny grabbed my hand and led me toward the hall. “Come see her.”

  My knees threatened to give out. My strongest urge was to pull away, to resist, but I forced myself to follow her down the short hall to the nursery. I had to do this. Jenny wasn’t going away. Neither was her baby. This was something I had to face.

  The nursery was dim, the curtains drawn. A soft pink glow came from a shaded lamp in one corner. Our shadows crossed the floor inside the rectangle of light from the hall.

  The room was in serious disarray, boxes and a half-assembled swing all over the floor. Jenny navigated the mess to the crib. I couldn’t see inside due to the ruffled canopy hanging over it.

  Jenny pushed the fabric aside. The baby lay on her back, arms up by her head, wearing a pink and blue sleeper with little roses down the front.

  My heart hammered painfully in my chest. My throat felt thick and my head thumped. I tried to take a step forward, but stumbled on a screwdriver.

  I wanted to walk up and fake it. Admire the baby. Say something encouraging. Jenny was my friend. This was her baby. They would be a part of my life.

  But some other force took over. Instead of getting closer, I backed away. I couldn’t do it. I kept seeing Finn’s crib with its cascade of butterflies flying over it. When I came home from the funeral after Gavin had taken off, alone and flooded with despair, I had destroyed the handmade mobile, piece by piece.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I said to Jenny. “I have to get to class.”

  I whirled around, almost ramming into the door frame, and tore through the apartment. I ran and ran, out the door, to my car, wrenching it open and shoving the key in the ignition.

  I don’t know if Jenny came out. I couldn’t look. I just backed out of the spot and sped away from the scene. I could not handle this. It was the life I had once imagined, longed for, and lost. And now it was the one I might never have.

  I wasn’t sure I could be her friend anymore.

  Chapter 9: Tina

  Both Corabelle and Jenny had texted me multiple times since the pink explosion of a baby shower began, but I only glanced at my cell phone with each soft buzz. I had nothing to say.

  I wasn’t anywhere near the venue where the tortuous event was being held. While I originally was supposed to play a role in this day, my duties as bridesmaid had been fulfilled in the ambulance. Now that the wedding was a baby extravaganza, I had no desire to sit around while people grinned like idiots over giraffe rattles and fuzzy blankets.

  The charcoal scraped a
cross my textured sketch pad like a whisper. The drawing of Albert in his hospital bed emerged slowly from the curves and lines. He looked peaceful, his eyes closed, the fingers of one hand positioned as if they surrounded an invisible oil brush. Chaotic gray ringlets framed his face. He definitely still had a full head of hair. His cheeks were deeply lined.

  I took my time on the crinkles around his eyes, trying to imagine a time when he was younger, his wife and daughter still alive, and happy. That must have been when the smile lines formed, before he put on his perpetual brooding expression so often caught in magazine articles or promotional images once he became a famous artist.

  I saw a glimpse of that long-lost joy here and there, particularly when Layla was around. She had brought up a painting Albert once made of his daughter. It hung on the opposite wall of his hospital room in real life so he could see it. But in my drawing of him, I moved it to just behind his head, as though she was looking over him. The little girl was three or four, practically bouncing with happiness in a pair of red overalls. A matching headband failed to contain her mass of curly brown hair.

  Albert coughed, and I paused, my charcoal still against the page. He didn’t wake, though, so I resumed the image, smudging a bit of shadow on the pillow next to his head.

  I felt at peace here. Knowing Albert and I shared something so concrete, his daughter and my Peanut, helped keep me calm. My guilt pricked that I was skipping the baby shower without telling anyone, but what was I supposed to say? “Hey, Jenny, I know we’re friends, but I’m blowing off your big day because I can’t handle it.” Right. Best to just shut up.

  To tell the truth, I hadn’t told Darion either. He had a shift today, so he was here at the hospital. But I knew his routine. I could avoid him. I’d confess later. I just couldn’t risk somebody talking me into going. Not worth it.

  A nurse slipped in the room. “Asleep?” she whispered.

  I nodded. She made a note on her iPad. “I’ll hold his lunch tray,” she said.

  I returned to my sketch. I’d made many of Albert, almost as many as I had of Darion and his sister, Cynthia. Sometimes I drew him painting or sculpting. Other times, it was like this, in a hospital scene. But mostly I liked to capture his expressions. His face always told me so much about him, as much as his art, if I looked closely. He was so haunted. But so eager to impart what he could to me.

  While he could.

  My breath hitched just thinking about the dark day that surely wasn’t far off. Albert slept more and more. Layla helped me track his wakeful periods so I could visit him at those times. Today she was having lunch with a friend, and I was perfectly content to skip the baby shower and sit with him.

  I wasn’t sure how much longer I would get to.

  The door eased open again, and I looked up, expecting that the nurse’s message didn’t get to the kitchen and Albert’s tray had arrived anyway.

  But it was Darion.

  He stepped inside. He had on a crisp white coat today, which meant he’d been doing some administrative work. He was still relentlessly proper about those things despite my efforts to get him to relax.

  His attention turned to Albert for a moment, then he raised his eyebrows at me. I sat stonily, then realized I was busted. Jenny or Corabelle must have messaged him.

  I closed the sketch pad and slid the charcoal stick into its slot in my art box. Party over. Or pity party. Whatever this was.

  The bag bumped my back as I slung it over my shoulder. I squeezed Albert’s arm. He didn’t stir.

  Darion reached for my hand as I approached. I took it, trying to calm myself with the touch of his cool fingers. We walked silently down the hall until we passed the nurses’ desk.

  “Let’s go to the staff lounge,” he said. “It’s quiet today.”

  Saturday afternoons were always a peaceful part of the surgical ward. All the scheduled procedures were done in the morning, and it would be hours before the night activity jumped the ER into gear.

  “You’re sneaking me into the doctors’ den?” I asked.

  “Mm-hmm,” he said. “Just remember if anyone shows up to act like Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd in Spies Like Us.”

  This did make me laugh. “Doctor, doctor? Doctor, doctor?”

  He waved his badge on the door and nudged it open with his shoulder. “Precisely. Only sexier.” His voice dropped into a low rumble.

  I obeyed. “Doctor, oh, doctor,” I said with a smile.

  “That’s more like it,” he said.

  Now I wondered what he was up to.

  We headed inside the lounge. Two sofas lined one wall. In the middle, three large round tables filled the open space. The back wall was all kitchen. A long desk held a couple laptops and charging cables.

  A female surgeon in scrubs poured a cup of coffee from one of four carafes near the sink. She gave us a curt nod and headed back out.

  “So, this is how the other half lounges,” I said.

  “Hardly anybody uses this place anymore other than to grab coffee. Nobody has time to sit around and talk shop.”

  “Damn managed care,” I quipped. We’d had this conversation before.

  He shrugged out of his white coat. “It is what it is.”

  Darion was dressed formally as always, white shirt, dress pants, and tie. But he loosened the knot at his throat.

  “You going to change?” I asked.

  He pulled me close to him. “Undressing isn’t necessary on location.”

  NOW I got it. I glanced at the door. “Are you serious? Right here? In this huge open room where anyone can walk in?”

  “They do it all the time on Grey’s Anatomy.” He leaned in and kissed me.

  I relaxed into his lips and felt the loosening in my belly, but still. This was an open lounge. Not Surgical Suite B, where nobody ever walked in, well, other than a random custodian.

  Still, I didn’t break the kiss. I was willing to go where Darion would take me. I was the wild one. He couldn’t scare me. And I wasn’t convinced he would follow through on this.

  Darion slid my bag off my shoulder and dropped it behind him on a table. I could feel everything falling away as I focused on him.

  He slid his hands beneath my fuzzy sweater and ran them up my back. “Mmm, braless as usual,” he whispered against my lips.

  Now he definitely had me. I turned my head just a little. “Deciding to put your career on the line?” I asked against his cheek.

  “If doctors got fired for sex on the job, the patients would run the hospital.”

  I pulled back to look into his eyes. “Dr. Darion Marks, what’s gotten into you?”

  He shifted a hand around to the front to cup one of my breasts. I sucked in a breath. He said, “It’s really more about getting into you.”

  His hands moved down to the backs of my thighs and lifted me up against him.

  I allowed my knees to part and wrap around his hips. My arms snaked around his neck so I could hang on.

  He nuzzled into the hair over my ear. “That’s it.”

  My heart sped up. Darion was not a risk-taker. This was big. He pulled me firmly against him and took several long strides toward the long counter next to the sink. He set me on an empty spot and shoved the sugar and creamer containers out of his way.

  His lips caught mine again. I closed my eyes and quit thinking about where we were, just got lost in the spiraling need that was spinning through my body.

  Darion’s hands slid up my thighs beneath my skirt. Now the drumbeat was pulsing between my legs, wanting him to move faster, to be bold.

  His fingers curled around the lacy strap of my panties. I sucked in a breath against his mouth. “I should ban these,” he growled.

  “Are we going to need duct tape again?” I asked. Darion had been forced to repair my underwear during a lunchtime tryst when we were first together.

  “My skills are better honed,” he said. In one quick movement, he lifted me and jerked the panties to my knees.

  “Just be
glad I prefer to wear skirts,” I said.

  He tugged the panties down my legs and tossed them on the counter. “I am,” he said.

  His thumb made a path up my thigh, and I clutched at his neck. When he reached his destination, I lurched against him, desperate for contact. How had he known exactly how to fix me, exactly what to do?

  He massaged my nub, making me writhe against his hand. My hips moved with him, reveling in the attention and care he took with each heightening sensation, my tightening need.

  I heard his belt jingle and reached down to help him unfasten the buckle. “Now if you would just switch to kilts, we’d be in business,” I said, jerking down his zipper.

  “We are anyway.”

  His voice hitched when I found him, lifting him up and out of the boxers.

  “Don’t take your time,” I said, sliding forward on the counter so I was perched on the edge.

  His hands spread my thighs wider. I found myself calculating the risk. If someone walked in, they’d see his back, my bare knees. Not much else. My skirt covered us.

  It was fine.

  Darion shifted forward, and I found him. He reached around to grasp my bottom and drag me onto him.

  I gasped as he thrust straight inside. We’d spent so much time being comfortable lately, behind closed doors, in our big perfect bed. This was exhilarating, liberating. Fun.

  He reached between us again. He knew what would get to me fast. His thumb pressed against key parts in tight circles. My head felt light, the world falling away. The contact was intense and fierce. He worked me hard with his fingers and his hips rocked against me.

  The pleasure radiated out, broad and heavy at first, then splintering into lightning shards. I cried out as it bolted through my body, making me clutch Darion, holding on for dear life.

  He buried his face in my neck, his rhythm fast and steady and forceful. My body clamped down on his as the orgasm reached its peak. I felt his body tense, then release, and warmth spread through me. I gasped for breath, coming down with him in degrees.

  Darion wrapped his arms around me. “Thank you for indulging me,” he said.