His Best Mistake. KRISTI GOLD
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father-in-law offered his garden. It’s going to be damn hot, but Erica wants an outdoor wedding. And it shouldn’t be too bad at sunset. Are you still willing to stand up for me under those conditions?”
“You bet.” Kevin would gladly brave the elements to fulfill his duty as Kieran’s best man, although he’d never really been “the best man.” Not even close.
Kieran inclined his head and sized him up. “If you don’t get a haircut before the wedding, people won’t be able to tell us apart. I don’t want my bride kissing the wrong man.”
Kevin ran a hand through his hair and laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. In the meantime, I’m going to let it grow out. I kind of want to hang on to it a little longer since I lost so much during the chemo.” The same chemo that could have altered his chances of having a child, which reminded him of why he’d come to see his brother.
In preparation for the boom-lowering, Kevin drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Leah came by the house yesterday.”
Kieran leaned back and rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I’ll be damned. What did she want?”
Kevin reached into his gym bag, pulled out the items Leah had given him yesterday and offered the photo to Kieran. “She brought me this.”
Kieran took the picture and stared at it for a long moment before he turned his attention back to Kevin. “Is this what I think it is?”
“If you’re thinking that’s my daughter, you’d be right.” My daughter. Never in a thousand years would he have believed he’d be saying that. Nor did he expect to feel what he’d felt after learning the news.
“She looks exactly like our baby pictures.” Kieran shook his head. “Man, this is a shock.”
“Yeah. What a way to start a week.” What a way to change your life in a matter of minutes.
Kieran laid the photo on the desk and slid it toward Kevin. “I can’t believe Leah waited this long to tell you.”
“Considering what I did to her, I can’t really blame her. And as it turns out, she did try to tell me. She hung up when some woman answered, and I’m fairly sure that woman was a home health-care nurse who was giving me transfusions at the time. But I understand why she would assume otherwise.”
“She assumed she’d been replaced,” Kieran said.
Kevin couldn’t fault Leah for that, either. “She was going to try to tell me again right before the baby was born, but she went into premature labor.”
Kieran frowned. “The baby’s okay?”
Exactly the same thing Kevin had asked the baby’s mother. “She’s healthy, according to Leah. And since Leah’s a pediatrician, she should know.”
Kieran grinned. “As far as I’m concerned, Kev, this is damn good news. I say tell Leah the whole story, and maybe you’ll get another chance with her.”
If only that was a possibility. If only he’d done things differently, told her about his illness instead of using his pat confirmed-bachelor excuse. If only he hadn’t done irreparable damage to their relationship by trying to protect her, maybe he wouldn’t be in this predicament now. Then again, he wasn’t certain he would do anything differently, even knowing what he knew now. The last thing she’d needed during a pregnancy was dealing with his problems. “I don’t see any reason to tell her the whole story.”
“You can dole out the advice, Kevin, but you can’t follow it.”
Kevin couldn’t remember giving his brother any advice worthy of notice. “What are you talking about?”
“When you were in the hospital, you told me I needed to drop my guard and confide in Erica or risk losing her. I did that, and look how well it turned out. Now you have a chance to do the same thing, and you’re not even going to try.”
“There’s no point in trying. It wouldn’t change anything.”
“Why do you think that?”
Because a few major issues still prevailed. Issues that prevented Kevin from attempting to win Leah back. “First of all, Leah hates lying and even if my intentions were good, she’d have a hard time buying it. Secondly, she wants a big family, and I might not be able to give her that because of the chemo.”
“Why don’t you let her decide if that matters?”
On to the most important issue. “It’s too late for us, Kieran. She’s already involved with someone from her hometown. I’m pretty sure he’s the reason why she’s decided to set up practice in Mississippi once her fellowship is done. And I’m also sure that’s why she gave me this.” He held up the envelope. “If I sign on the dotted line, I’ll terminate my parental rights.”
“You’re not seriously considering that, are you?” Kieran looked and sounded incredulous.
Kevin had seriously considered it all through the night. Yet every time he thought about walking away from his daughter—a child he had yet to see, the only child he might ever have, he hurt like hell. He hurt just as deeply when he thought about walking away from Leah. Again. “On the one hand, I keep telling myself no way would I let another man raise my child. On the other, maybe that would be the unselfish thing to do. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a father.”
“Just don’t make any rash decisions until you take one more important step,” Kieran said.
Kevin suspected his brother was about to ask him to do something he wasn’t prepared to do. Not until he knew which road he was going to take. “If you’re going to say I need to tell Mom and Dad about the baby, I’m not ready to do that.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
Kevin’s impatience was nearing the breaking point. “Then just say it, Kieran, so I can go work out.”
“Forget the workout. Go see your baby girl, Kev.”
“THERE’S SOMEONE here to see you, Leah.”
At the sound of her roommate’s announcement, Leah looked up from Carly, who’d drifted to sleep at her breast. “I didn’t hear the doorbell.”
Macy moved into the room and secured a band around her wavy blond hair. “That’s because he didn’t ring the bell. I was on my way out when I found him standing on the doorstep, looking like a stray dog.”
Leah suspected she knew the identity of that stray dog. “Did you manage to get his name?”
“I didn’t bother, but I can tell you what he looks like. Dark hair, dark eyes, good-looking in a slick kind of way. Come to think of it, he looks just like her.” She pointed toward the still-sleeping infant in Leah’s arms.
Oh, great. “Leave it to Kevin to show up unannounced,” Leah muttered, though she had no cause to criticize him. Yesterday she’d done the same thing.
Macy’s eyes widened. “Kevin, as in the baby-daddy Kevin?”
“That’s the one.”
“I thought you weren’t going to tell him.”
“I changed my mind.” Or lost her mind, as the case might be.
When Leah moved the baby to her shoulder and stood, Carly released a little whine of protest. “Hold her for a minute. She needs to be burped.”
Macy looked as if Leah had asked her to perform an appendectomy on the dining-room table. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout burpin’ babies.”
Leah grabbed a towel from the side of the rocker, draped it over Macy’s shoulder and handed Carly over. “Just pat her back a couple of times.”
When the baby released a moderate belch, to say Macy looked frazzled would be a grave understatement. “What