Page 93 of Tempting Fate
Monday, Drew called work and told them he wasn’t coming in for the rest of the week. While Harper was treating the ordeal as a big adventure, and had even gone to school, he couldn’t bear to leave her yet. He was having a difficult time letting her out of his sight for even a few minutes.
“Did you see this?” Kristy came into the kitchen with her tablet and showed Drew the headline in theNugget Tribune: “Prodigal Daughter Saves Child, then Herself.”
Drew scanned the story and chuckled.
“You’re laughing; that’s a good thing.” Kristy gave him a hug.
“Have I told you how happy I am that you came this weekend…that you were here when this all went down?” She’d been a rock. Frankly, he didn’t know what he would’ve done without her.
She’d shuttled back and forth between Sierra Heights and McCreedy Ranch at least a dozen times, making sure Harper was never alone and watching Paige while Emily and Clay dealt with Raylene’s rescue and the aftermath. She’d gone with Drew and Harper to Quincy to identify two of the attackers while the third recovered in the hospital. And she’d called Harper’s counselor, just in case their daughter needed to talk to someone outside the family.
“I’m glad I was here, Drew.” She poured herself a glass of juice and joined him at the breakfast table. “To be candid, it was the first time I felt like part of this family.” By “family,” Drew knew she meant him and Harper.
“You were always part of it,” he protested.
“I’m not blaming anyone.” She held up her hands. “Honest. Under the best of circumstances, blending a family is difficult. And this…well, it was a unique situation.” She forced a grim smile, because “unique” was a euphemism for what he and Emily had gone through during the years their daughter was missing. The odds of getting Harper back after all that time was truly nothing short of a miracle. “And as much as I want to be involved in Harper’s transition, I understand that you and she need time to catch up and make up for years of missed bonding. It doesn’t mean it hasn’t been hard on me. At the risk of sounding like a child, I felt left out. Until this weekend.” She sipped her juice and let out a breath. “It sounds awful, but it took what happened in the barn for me and Harper to really connect.
“She clung to me, Drew. After she ran home and you went to call the police, she clung to me. And it wasn’t because I was the only person around. She knew she mattered to me and I mattered to her. In those few desperate moments, it clicked: I’m her family, I’m someone she can rely on, someone who will always love and protect her. It clicked, and the seismic shift in our relationship stuck, because things have been different between us ever since. I’m no longer an afterthought or a nuisance who takes you away from Harper. I’m someone who is important to her.”
Drew swiped at a tear. Between the arrests and ensuring Harper’s well-being, there’d been so much going on that Drew hadn’t noticed. The truth was ever since reuniting with Harper, he’d been on his own shaky ground as far as reconnecting with his daughter. But while he struggled, Kristy had been relegated to outsider. He’d probably been as guilty of making her feel that way as Harper.
“We’re all important to each other,” he said, and reached across the table for her hand. “And you…you’re my life, Kris. You’re my everything.”
Her eyes grew wet. “And you’re mine. I know it’s been rocky between us. The reason I came on Friday was to give you news, talk it out, and hopefully get back to where we were before Christmas.” Before he’d been complicit in making her a third wheel. “Friday, Saturday, there was never a good time to talk, and then…Sunday.”
When their world had been rocked. But thank God everyone had come out fine in the end.
“News?” he asked.
“News.” Her face lit up like sunshine. “I’m glad you’re sitting down, because you’re not going to believe it. I’m pregnant! Or at least I think I am. I missed my period last week, chalked it up to stress from all the tension, then, on a lark, took a pregnancy test Friday morning. Positive.”
Something in his chest moved, and for the first time since Harper came home, the prospect of having a baby wasn’t fraught with complexities. It was just…joyful. So freaking joyful that his heart felt ready to burst. “But when? I thought we missed this month’s window of opportunity.”
She lifted her shoulders. “I’m thinking it was the night we skipped Wendy’s dinner because we were fighting.”
They’d had incredible make-up sex—the first time they’d been spontaneous in months. His lips tipped up and he couldn’t stop smiling. “Well, I’ll be damned. No IVF, no fertility monitor, just good old-fashioned sex.”
“Just good old-fashioned sex.” She laughed. “Are you happy? Be honest.”
He pulled her up and danced her around the kitchen. “Happy doesn’t even begin to describe it.” Funny how life worked. He’d convinced himself that having another child would interfere with getting closer to the one he’d lost. But now, now that it was staring him in the face, it suddenly felt like this had always been the master plan.
There’s room in your heart—in your life—for two children, take it from me. The day I met Justin and Cody was the day I started healing. Emily’s words reverberated through his head. When had his ex-wife become so sage?
“Really? Because I’d gotten the impression that with Harper…that you weren’t so gung ho about having a baby right now.”
“I wasn’t,” he admitted. “At least, that’s what my head was telling me. But a second ago, when you said the wordsI’m pregnant…my heart reacted in a way that was entirely different. I want this, Kris. I really, really want this.”
She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “Good, because I have an idea.”
“Yeah.” He nuzzled her neck. “What’s that?”
“I think we should move here full-time.”
He pulled back and did a double take. Kristy had agreed to their current living situation for him, because of Harper, but it never would’ve been her first choice. She was an urban dweller by nature and loved their life in Silicon Valley.
“Hear me out.” She laughed at his dubious expression. “It’s cheaper to live here, and if we sell our house in Palo Alto, we’ll have a nice cushion if I want to take a year or two off from work for the baby. With a newborn, I don’t know how easy going back and forth will be. This way we’ll eliminate that headache. We’ll be here for Harper, and she’ll be able to grow up with her new sister or brother. And despite what happened Sunday, obviously a fluke, this is a good place to raise children. Watching the way the community rallied around Harper and Raylene was nothing short of amazing.”
There was no denying that Nugget was a tight-knit town. When Harper had gone missing, Drew’s Bay Area neighbors had either looked at him and Emily with recrimination or had been too busy with their own go-go lives to offer succor. Here, the townsfolk stood together in times of need, even with someone as disliked as Raylene. Yep, they certainly took care of their own.
