A Forever Kind of Family

Quentin Trivitt, Oliver’s maternal grandfather and Celeste’s ex-husband, also came for the funeral—with his thirty-four-year-old wife, who was seven months pregnant with their first child. They’d said all the right things, expressing empathy for the “poor little boy” and his situation but at the same time making it clear that their focus was on their own yet-to-be-born child. They had no interest in raising a grandson, too.

On the other side, Oliver’s paternal grandparents were both living in an assisted-care facility in Greensboro. One of the attendants from the home had brought them to Charisma for the funeral and taken them right back again. Darren also had a sister, but neither Ryan nor Harper had ever met her and no one had known how to reach her to tell her about the passing of her brother and sister-in-law. Harper remembered Melissa telling her that Darren’s sister had been estranged from her family for a long time.

Harper pushed away from the table and carried her plate, with half of her meal still on it, to the counter. “Do you ever wonder...?”

Ryan began clearing the rest of the dishes. “What?”

She hesitated to say the words out loud, as if doing so might be disloyal to her friend, but she finally said, “If maybe Melissa and Darren should have chosen someone else to take care of Oliver?”

“Every day,” he told her.

“Really?”

He nodded. “But I figure they must have had their reasons for choosing us.”

“Maybe,” she allowed. “I’m just not sure I’m the right person to do this.”

“I have more than a few doubts about my suitability, too,” he said, surprising her with the acknowledgment. “But I’m not going to walk away without giving it my best shot.”

She squirted dish soap in the sink and turned on the faucet. “You think I want to walk away?”

“I don’t know—do you?”

She considered the question as she watched the sudsy water rise in the bowl. “Yes,” she finally admitted. “There is part of me that wants to do exactly that.”

“And another part?” he prompted.

Harper plunged her hands into the water and began to wash the pots. “We had a long talk when Melissa asked if I would be the baby’s guardian,” she said, not directly answering his question. “While she was pregnant, when he was still ‘the baby’ and not yet Oliver. I thought it was strange that she would be thinking about such things before her child was even born, but Melissa always did like to be prepared, to run her life according to a specific plan.”

“It’s a good thing she did,” Ryan said. “Because Darren wouldn’t know a plan if it bit him in the butt.”

She smiled at that. “True. Anyway, I asked her—why me? Aside from the fact that I was her best friend, what made her think I could ever be the right choice to help raise her child?”

Harper remembered every word of their conversation, could still hear the echo of her friend’s voice in the back of her mind so clearly that it made her chest ache and her throat burn.

“What did she say?” Ryan prompted gently.

“That she chose me because she knew if anything ever happened to her so that she couldn’t raise her child, I would love him as much as she did,” she confided. “And that’s the part that won’t let me walk away—the echo of Melissa’s voice in my mind, asking me to love her little boy for her. Because I already do.”

He touched a hand to her shoulder. “Then I’d say it’s obvious that she made the right choice.”

Harper still wasn’t convinced, but she knew that she wasn’t going to let down her friend. Not if she could help it.

* * *

Ryan considered it progress that he and Harper had actually managed to have a fifteen-minute conversation without sniping at one another. It was a minor step, and he knew they were going to have to do a lot better than that if they were going to figure out a way to make this guardianship situation work for Oliver, but at least it was a step in the right direction.

Considering that he’d known her for so many years, he really didn’t know her at all. And maybe that was his fault. He’d never made much of an effort, because it had seemed like too much of an effort.

The first time he’d met her, he’d been willing to consider all kinds of possibilities. Darren had assured him that it wasn’t a setup; it was just his girlfriend wanting his best friend to meet her best friend. And since Ryan liked Melissa well enough, he’d figured he’d like her friend, too.

And he had. Harper was attractive—even more so than he’d hoped. About five-five, he’d guessed, with brown hair and dark chocolate-colored eyes. She was a little on the skinny side, but her perfectly shaped lips enticed him to hang on to her every word.

They’d talked about college: she was studying journalism at NYU and hoped to work in television; he was in his final year of business at Columbia. She’d asked about his future plans, he’d said that he didn’t have any specific plans, and she’d shut down.

It wasn’t exactly the truth—he’d always known that he would go to work at Garrett Furniture, but he’d learned to be cautious about revealing his connection to the company. Too many women wanted to be with him because he was a Garrett and heir to at least part of the furniture empire of the same name.

Harper had decided then and there that he lacked ambition. Later, when she found out that he was one of the Garretts, the information had done nothing to bolster her opinion of him. In fact, she’d insisted that it only proved he was too lazy to make his own way outside the family business. He didn’t care what she thought—he liked what he did and enjoyed being part of the continued success of the company his grandfather had built.

Yet despite the obvious personality conflicts between Harper and himself, there was an undeniable sizzle in the air whenever they were together. It had been there from the start and was still there. Even when one or the other—or both—had been dating someone else, the air fairly vibrated with electricity between them. It was a phenomenon that he found as baffling as it was intriguing.

Not that he’d had any intention of ever acting upon it. Especially considering that Harper had always given a clear and unequivocal hands-off vibe...right up until the night that she’d begged him to put his hands on her.

And that was definitely not something that he should be thinking about now.

Going forward, he had to keep his focus on Oliver and not let himself be distracted by the memory of Harper’s warm, naked body wrapped around his.

“You are doing a great job with Oliver,” he said now, as he helped load the dishwasher. “But between your work schedule and the demands of a grieving infant, it’s obvious that you’re exhausted.”

“I’m so flattered that you noticed.”

His brow lifted in response to her sarcasm. “I’m dragging, too, and I’m only working part-time right now.”

“Part-time isn’t an option for me.”

“Then maybe you should think about taking some time off.”

“I did think about it,” she said bluntly. “I can’t.”

He pressed on anyway. “You went back to work only days after the funeral—when did you think about it?”

“In the time between learning about the accident and returning to work,” she told him. “I would have taken more time if I could, but there’s too much going on with the show right now. In fact, we’ve got Lucy Gibbs on the schedule for tomorrow morning, so I have to go in half an hour earlier because she likes to review all of the questions with me beforehand.”

“She can’t do that with someone else?”

“The last time she was on the show and I wasn’t there, she bullied and harassed one of our production assistants to the point that he almost quit.”

“She sounds charming,” he said drily.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that she’s a prima donna when her name is money at the box office.”

“If you’re going in early, will you be able to leave early?”

“I’m going to try,” she said. “But there were a couple of day-care centers that I wanted to check out on my way back.”

He frowned. “You want to put Oliver in day care?”

“I don’t see that we have any choice.” She neatly folded the dishcloth and draped it over the towel bar inside the cupboard.

“Don’t you think we should talk about this—to see if we can’t figure something else out? For God’s sake, Harper, the kid just lost both of his parents and you want to abdicate responsibility for his care to strangers?”

“It’s not what I want. It’s what the reality of the situation demands.” She braced her hands on the edge of the counter behind her and faced him. “I don’t have the luxury of working for a company owned by my family,” she told him. “If I don’t go to work, I don’t get paid.”

“If the issue is money, I’ll pay—”

“No.” She cut him off sharply. “It’s not only about money.”

“I know how important your career is to you,” he said.

But Harper didn’t think he did. Because her career was more than important—it was what defined her.

She’d started as an assistant to the property manager at WNCC-TV fresh out of college and worked her way through the ranks to become an associate producer of the award-winning morning program Coffee Time with Caroline. In the process, she’d sacrificed weekends and vacations, missed get-togethers with friends, turned down more offers for dates than she’d accepted—and then skipped out early on at least half of those that she’d accepted.

Ryan, on the other hand, had been born a Garrett. He’d never had to make any sacrifices to secure his job at Garrett Furniture. Maybe he hadn’t started out as national sales manager of the company, but there hadn’t been a lot of obstacles in his path to the big office.

He didn’t have to worry that taking a few weeks off might jeopardize his position, but Harper knew that a leave of absence—even in the short term—could completely derail her career.

“I just don’t think we should rush into anything,” he continued, his tone conciliatory.

But she’d learned the hard way that if she didn’t take action, things didn’t get done. “How much longer should we wait? Another couple of weeks? A month?”

“More than three weeks,” he retorted.

She forced herself to take a deep breath before their discussion escalated into a full-blown argument. “I did some research and made some phone calls. I’m not suggesting we drop him off somewhere first thing tomorrow morning.”

He nodded slowly as he wiped Oliver’s hands and face. “What day cares are you considering?”

That he asked suggested that he might come around on the issue, and because she needed his cooperation to make it work, she answered in an equally careful tone. “First Steps and Wee Watch are the only ones that are on the short list so far. Little Hands looked good, too, but its location isn’t convenient for either of us.”

“Andrew’s daughter, Maura, went to Wee Watch.”

“So that would be your choice?”

“My choice would be to figure out a way to coordinate our schedules so that Oliver doesn’t have to go to day care.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “Well, I work every day from six a.m. until noon, sometimes with production meetings afterward. Can you work your schedule around that?”

“Do you understand the word compromise?”

“Yes, I do. But I’m not willing to compromise my job.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m only asking you to pause to take a breath, to give all of us—and especially Oliver—some time to come to terms with everything that’s happened.”

“That sounds great in theory, but the last three weeks have been complete chaos and I need to get things settled and get my life back on track.”

“Do you really think anyone at work needs you more than this little boy—” he picked Oliver up out of his high chair “—does right now?”

“No—but at least at the studio, I know what I’m doing.”

It wasn’t something she’d planned to admit, especially not to Ryan. But the truth was, even after only three weeks, it was apparent that he was much more comfortable with Oliver and much better at anticipating the little boy’s needs than she was, making her feel not just inept but dependent on him.

And that was why she needed to focus on her work: because it was the only place right now that she felt competent and in control. When she was with Oliver and Ryan, she felt overwhelmed and helpless and all kinds of other emotions she wasn’t ready to acknowledge, much less put a label on.

Chapter Four

Ryan wasn’t usually awake at 5:00 a.m.—and he didn’t understand why any sane person would be. But Thursday night, Oliver was even more restless than usual, waking at midnight, then 2:00 a.m. and again at 3:00 and 4:00.

As a result, Ryan fell asleep in the rocking chair with the little guy in his arms and heard Harper’s alarm go off forty-five minutes later. Then he heard the shower start, and there was no going back to sleep for him after that. Because thinking about Harper in the shower teased him with mental images of her sexy body naked and wet, and suddenly certain parts of him were very wide-awake.

Not wide-awake enough to want to get dressed and go into work, as Harper did at that ungodly hour five days a week. He didn’t know anything about television, but it seemed crazy to him that she had to be at the studio at six o’clock in the morning for a show that didn’t go on the air until ten. Even more surprising was the fact that she genuinely seemed to enjoy her job.

Coffee Time with Caroline was an hour-long program, but Harper didn’t leave the studio when filming was done. Instead she went back to her office to review any problems or concerns with the staff and prepare for the next day’s program.

He didn’t usually get to his office at Garrett Furniture before two o’clock, which meant that he was often in meetings or conference calls with other salespeople from then until five, when everyone else went home because their day had started at a normal hour. It was hardly an ideal situation, but so far it was working for them. Not seamlessly but satisfactorily.

Day care would simplify both of their lives—he couldn’t deny that. He also agreed that Oliver could benefit from an environment shared with other children and the exposure to alternate routines. But he still believed it was too soon. There had been too many changes in the little guy’s life recently to throw another one at him right now.

He’d never envisioned himself as a “Mr. Mom” kind of guy, but he found that he was enjoying his time with Oliver. They were establishing their own morning routines, which usually included sitting down in front of the television every morning at 10:00 a.m. to watch Coffee Time with Caroline. Though they didn’t see Harper on TV, it was fun to view the end product of her work.

The first fifteen minutes of the show were spent on casual banter between Caroline and her headline guest/cohost, which was followed up by various segments with other guests. Sometimes they were celebrities on tour to promote one thing or another; other times the guests provided a more local flavor.

Every Monday, there was an SPCA spotlight to show some of the cats and dogs that were available for adoption at the local shelter; the Tuesday program included a trivia game with contestants chosen from the audience; Wednesday offered some kind of cooking segment—either the chef of a local restaurant or tips from moms for quick healthy meals; Thursday there was a “book chat”; and Friday focused on home improvement and decor.

Today’s guest was Ryder Wallace—of the locally produced reality series Ryder to the Rescue—demonstrating the proper way to lay floor tile. Ryan thought his cousin Lauryn should get her husband, Rob, to watch the program, because God and everyone else knew that Rob couldn’t even hang a picture straight. As Ryder explained the intricacies of grout application, Oliver’s eyes grew heavy, and by the time the end credits rolled, the little guy was asleep.

* * *

Ryan knew that Andrew didn’t like to spend more than a few hours every day in his office at Garrett Furniture, so he was grateful when he stopped by the following Monday and found his cousin was there. He poured himself a cup of coffee and settled into a chair across from the desk. “You’re keeping more consistent office hours than I am these days.”

“Not by choice,” Andrew assured him.

Although his cousin’s official title was VP of research and design, he still considered himself a carpenter and preferred working with wood to pushing paper.

“Yours or mine,” Ryan agreed.

“No one objects to you taking whatever time you need to adjust to your life being turned upside down.”

He nodded, grateful for the understanding. Of course, that was why he’d come to see Andrew—because he knew that he would understand. Several years earlier, his cousin had experienced something similar when Nina—his first wife—died suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving him a widower and a single father to their young daughter.

“How did you get through it?” Ryan asked him now.

“I honestly don’t remember,” his cousin said. “I lived in a fog for a long time after Nina’s death, just going through the motions of every day—and I only managed that much for Maura.”

Ryan sipped his coffee and considered the question that niggled at the back of his mind. He’d come to Andrew for information and advice, but he didn’t want to appear insensitive. Although his cousin had moved on with his life and was married to Rachel now, he didn’t imagine it was easy to talk about the loss of his first wife—or the impact of her death on their daughter.

But he finally ventured to ask, “Does Maura remember her mother at all?”

“I’m not sure. She was only three when Nina died. There are pictures of her in Maura’s room, and we talk about her at appropriate times. And, of course, her maternal grandparents are always telling her how much she looks like her mother and reminding her how much Nina loved her.”

“But she calls Rachel ‘Mom’ now, doesn’t she?”

Andrew nodded. “That was her choice. I think because all of her friends have moms, it meant a lot for her to have someone in that role, too.”

“Oliver still doesn’t say very much, so what he’s going to call me and Harper in the future isn’t really of concern right now.”

“What is?”

“Everything else,” he admitted.

His cousin’s smile was wry. “Welcome to fatherhood.”

“I thought I had a lot more years before anyone would say those words to me.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know if I can do this—be a father to my best friend’s little boy.”

“Except that you are doing it,” his cousin pointed out.

“I have these moments—a lot of moments—when I find myself floundering and wish I could call Darren. From the minute that Oliver was born, he instinctively knew what to do.” He stared at the dregs of coffee in the bottom of his cup and quietly admitted, “I miss him. Every single day, I miss him. And then I think about Oliver, about how lost and confused he must feel. In one fell swoop, life as he knew it was destroyed—and somehow, I’m supposed to help him pick up the pieces.”

“You don’t have to do it on your own,” Andrew said.

“I know, but Harper and I seem to work better together if we’re not.”

“I’m sure it’s been a difficult adjustment for both of you—instant parenthood under a shared roof with a virtual stranger.”

“Neither of us is getting much sleep because Oliver’s up several times in the night.”

Andrew winced. “I remember those nights—a lot of those nights. They’re not fun for anyone.”

“Least of all Oliver,” Ryan agreed. “It breaks my heart when he wakes up asking for ‘mama’ or ‘dada.’”

“As hard as it was for both Maura and I when we lost Nina, we at least had one another.”

“Poor Oliver’s stuck with me and Harper.”

“I’d say Oliver’s lucky to have you and Harper.”

“He’d be luckier—and drier—if she knew how to change a diaper,” he grumbled.

His cousin looked surprised. “She doesn’t?”

“I’m actually not sure. Every time he needs to be changed, she shoves him at me.”

Andrew chuckled. “Apparently she’s as smart as she is beautiful.”

Ryan didn’t doubt that she was. Smart and beautiful and sexy and sweet, and she was frustrating the hell out of him—which was not something he intended to talk to his cousin about.

He set his empty mug aside and stood up. “Since I’m here, I should spend some time in my own office and let you sneak out of yours.”

“Sounds good to me,” Andrew agreed. “But if you ever need anything, anytime, let me know.”

Ryan nodded. “Thanks.”

He wasn’t in the habit of dumping his problems on his family, but it was nice to know that they were there if he needed them. As he intended to be there for Oliver—and Harper.

Because the more time they spent together, the more he was beginning to realize that she needed them every bit as much as they needed her.

* * *

Harper had been in the habit of spending an hour at the gym after leaving the studio each day, but she hadn’t been doing that since she moved into Melissa and Darren’s house to take care of Oliver. While Ryan had been great about manipulating his schedule to accommodate her work hours, she didn’t think it was fair to put him further behind in his own schedule for her personal workout. So for now her exercise was walking with Oliver.

Thankfully, he was content in his stroller, happy to watch the world go by as he was pushed around. She’d usually take the long way around to the park, and then she’d let the little boy play on the toddler climber and baby swings for a while before they headed home again.

Today when she unbuckled Oliver and helped him out of the stroller, he bypassed the climbing structure and raced over to the baby swings.

He grabbed hold of the plastic seat. “Whee! Whee!”

The slender blonde woman pushing another little boy on the adjacent swing chuckled in response to Oliver’s demand. “He knows what he wants, doesn’t he?”

“He certainly does,” Harper agreed. She smiled at the blonde as she lifted Oliver into the swing, then did a double take. “Have we met?”

The other woman nodded. “At the funeral. I’m Kenna Garrett—my husband, Daniel, is Ryan’s cousin. And this—” she gave her little boy another gentle push “—is Jacob.”

Harper fastened the belt around Oliver’s middle. “I’m usually pretty good with names, but there were so many people there that day.”

“No need to apologize,” Kenna assured her. “You had a lot of more important things on your mind that day.”

“Whee!” Oliver demanded.

“Whee!” Jacob echoed.

Kenna chuckled and Harper pulled back Oliver’s swing and set it in motion.

“How is Oliver doing?” Kenna asked.

“The days are good,” Harper said. “But he still wakes up in the middle of the night almost every night crying for his mama.”

Kenna’s eyes misted. “Poor fella.”

Harper nodded.

“That’s got to be hard on you, too. I remember how constantly exhausted I was before Jacob started sleeping through the night.”

“Thankfully, because I have to get up so early, Ryan has been dealing with most of the middle-of-the-night stuff.”

“That’s right—he told me you work on Coffee Time with Caroline,” Kenna recalled.

“Do you watch it?”

“Faithfully,” Kenna assured her. “I started tuning in when I was on mat leave and I got hooked, so when I went back to work in the fall, I had to DVR it.”

“Went back to work doing what?” Harper asked.

“I teach science at South Ridge High School.”

“Sounds challenging.”

“It’s a piece of cake compared to being a stay-at-home mom,” Kenna assured her. “And yet there are still days—most days, in fact—when I wonder if I made the right choice. But school will be out for the summer in eight weeks, and then I’ll be able to devote myself to being a wife and a mother.”

“Who looks after Jacob while you’re working?”