She was a passionate lady with a right to express her feelings. She had a right to feel good about herself. To feel whole. To feel wanted for herself. Rafe had ingrained all of those feelings in her until a new Zoe had taken shape, a woman who was not afraid of children, a woman who was not afraid she was less than adequate, a woman who finally felt ready to let good healthy scars heal over the old wounds, and go on.
She’d fallen in love with a man and two children over the weeks they’d been together. The pencil broke in her hands, and she stared at it, distressed. She’d been living with a rash of secret maybes for days. Maybe the four of them could make it work. Maybe she no longer needed a contract signed in blood. Maybe Rafe’s feelings for her had nothing to do with wanting a caretaker for the kids.
Unfortunately, she was less and less sure of his feelings for the boys. She knew-dammit, she knew he loved them. He wasn’t a selfish man, but he kept making little comments to the effect that she shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that he was ready to handle them. He claimed he couldn’t. He claimed he wanted a lifestyle built around two, not four.
She’d kept thinking time would change his mind. Six weeks might not be enough time, but it was all they had. The situation was complicated by their work, which forced them to live in different states. How would they solve that problem?
But there was no solution at all if Rafe really didn’t want the kids. She couldn’t desert them. Her doubts about being a good mother were still strong, but not like before. How could she possibly choose between the only man who’d ever really mattered to her and the children, who had no one but Rafe and her?
Guilt racked her like pain. She was the one who’d put them all in a position of emotional risk. If she’d been less selfish, none of this would have happened. If Rafe had been less than Rafe, if she’d needed him less, if she could have loved him less, if she’d never let that first kiss happen, if she’d never…a thousand guilts pounded in her head. She couldn’t seem to live with any of them.
A phone jangled in the next office, and she’d swung her feet off the desk before she heard Sandy’s bright voice answering it.
“Zoe?”
Dragging a hand through her hair, she picked up her receiver.
“Zoe. Parker’s sick. Come home, would you?”
She was home within twenty minutes. As she burst through the door, she wasn’t absolutely sure who looked sicker, Parker or Rafe. Wrapped in Rafe’s arms, the little boy clutched his blanket; his eyes were teary and his complexion so white her heart turned over. But Rafe-until now she’d never seen him less than cool in an emotional crisis. His face was drained to ash color, his eyes were frantic and his hair looked as though he’d run his hands through it a thousand times. As he paced the room with Parker, Aaron trailed after the two of them like a forlorn waif.
“He was fine this morning,” she said swiftly.
“His fever’s a hundred and one! He was perfectly okay, and then all of a sudden-”
“I’ll call a doctor.”
“We’re not calling a doctor. We’re going to a doctor.”
“Yes.”
“Or a hospital. Dammit, where’s the closest hospital?”
In every problem with the kids, she’d been the one to panic and he’d been the rock. For that reason alone, she strove for patience as Rafe strode through a crowded doctor’s office and tried to bully the nurse into scheduling Parker as an emergency. Not that a far too warm Parker wasn’t downright miserable, but there was a child with a broken leg and another little one with a cut on her arm that obviously needed stitching.
And Dr. Thornby’s examining room barely held two, much less four. Zoe took the only chair, with Aaron on her lap. Rafe stood beside her, his hands crammed in his pockets, while the young doctor bent over an irritable Parker. Rafe had taken one look at Thornby and decided he didn’t like the town’s only pediatrician.
“He’s too damn young,” Rafe mouthed to Zoe.
“For heaven’s sake, would you give him a chance?” she mouthed back.
“If you put that stick in my mouth, I’m going to throw up all over you,” Parker warned the doctor. “I hate doctors, and so does my brother.”
“See, the kids don’t even like him,” Rafe mouthed to Zoe. “I think he’s a quack.”
“Rafe.” This time Zoe spoke aloud. She stood up, still holding Aaron, and handed him to Rafe. “Sit,” she ordered him firmly, received a look of shocked surprise and wandered over to Parker.
“Listen, lovebug,” she told the boy, “I know you don’t feel good, but in this family we don’t talk about hating anyone. Ever. If we’re scared, we say we’re scared. Okay, monkey?”
The doctor shot her a wink. “Believe me, I’ve been through this before. Not to worry.” A few minutes later, he adjusted his stethoscope around his neck and said quietly to Zoe, “He has a little cold and a very mild ear infection-”
“Mild!” Rafe snorted from the corner.
“-which I can treat with an antibiotic. It’ll clear up in a few days. I’ll give you a prescription for a nonaspirin fever reducer, too. Bring Parker back in a week for a checkup. He should be perfectly healthy by then. In fact, it’s my best guess he’ll be stomping around in three days.” He leaned over to pat Parker’s knee and then smiled at Zoe. “For the father, I prescribe two straight shots before dinner and an early bedtime.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Hasn’t he ever seen the child with a little cold before?”
Parker peered around the adult bodies to level fever-glazed eyes on his brother. “Did you hear that? Uncle Rafe has to have the shots.”
It was an hour before they were back home, because they had to stop at a drugstore for the prescriptions. By then, Zoe had high hopes Rafe would turn back into Rafe. Instead, she was ready to ship him off to the nearest asylum by the kids’ bedtime. She was as concerned as he was, but pacing around the house like a caged tiger was not helping. And trying to reason with a four-year-old about why he had to swallow terrible-tasting medicine was all very nice, but it went on for thirty minutes until Zoe tipped the tablespoon in Parker’s mouth and held his lips closed until he swallowed.
“That,” Rafe said heavily, “was cruel.”
Zoe set a shot glass in front of him and went into the other room to get the kids into their pajamas. Aaron closed his eyes the minute his head hit the pillow, but Parker wasn’t about to sleep. “My ear hurts, and I can’t breathe when I lie down,” he complained.
“We’ll fix it so you don’t have to lie down,” she whispered back. Bringing in the rocker from the living room, she swaddled Parker in a light blanket and rocked him. When his cheek cuddled sleepily on her shoulder, she closed her eyes and felt love ache through her like a surprise.
She’d known feelings were growing inside her for the twins, but not like this. For three years, every time she’d seen a child, she’d thought of the children she couldn’t have. For three years, she’d held her chin high and told the whole damn world she didn’t care. She cared. She’d always cared, but the wonder was holding and loving Parker and not having an ounce of emotional baggage intrude on that. Parker was himself, not the children she couldn’t have, not other children, not the source of something that had cut up her life. He was just…Parker. A little boy who needed someone to love him.
A little boy she loved very much.
Barely a half hour passed before Rafe appeared in the doorway. On stocking feet, he edged toward the bed. Aaron never moved when Rafe adjusted his blanket, or even when he sat down at the foot of the bed near the rocker.