Falling For The Single Dad. Jessica Hart
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TWO
The Cowboy’s Second-Chance Family
Caroline Anderson
CRISIS in night. Please contact us ASAP.
Harry Kavenagh stared at the message handed to him by the hotel receptionist, and felt a cold chill run through him. No. Not now. He wasn’t ready.
He’d never be ready—not for this.
Still staring at the words, he rammed the fingers of his other hand through his hair, rumpling the dusty, sweaty strands even further. So what now? He turned the paper over, looking for more information, but there was nothing.
‘When did they call?’ he asked.
‘This morning, sir. Just after you went out.’
Fingers suddenly unsteady and his heart thudding in his throat, he called the number from his room. Five minutes later he was in a car on the way to the airport, his mind still reeling.
He couldn’t believe it was actually happening. Stupid. He ought to be able to. It had been his idea, after all. They’d wanted to turn off the machine weeks ago, with his agreement, but he’d seen enough loss of life. Too much. So he’d begged them to reconsider—exhausted, perhaps a little drunk and stunned by what they’d told him, he’d haggled them into submission.
They’d kept their side of the bargain. And now he had to keep his.
He swallowed, staring out of the window, not seeing the bombed-out buildings, the shattered lives all around him. A shell exploded a few streets away, but he barely noticed. It all seemed suddenly terribly remote and curiously irrelevant, because in the space of the next few hours, his whole life would change for ever.
She was tiny.
So small, so fragile looking, her fingers so fine they were almost transparent under the special light. She needed the light because she was yellow. Jaundiced, apparently. Quite common in slightly prem babies. Nothing to worry about.
But Harry worried about it. He worried about all of it. How on earth was he supposed to look after her? She was just a little dot of a thing, so dainty, no bigger than a doll. Small for dates, they’d said. No wonder, under the circumstances.
He didn’t want to think about that, about how he’d failed her mother. How he’d brought her here to London to keep her safe and then failed her anyway.
‘How are you doing?’
He looked up at the nurse and tried to smile. ‘OK. She was screwing her face up a minute ago. I think she might have a nappy problem.’
‘Want to change it?’
He felt his blood run cold. No. His hands were too big. He’d hurt her…
‘She won’t break, you know,’ the nurse teased gently. ‘You’ll be fine. I’ll help you.’
So he changed her nappy—extraordinarily complicated for something so ordinary—and by the end of the day and a few more goes he’d mastered it, even managing to grip those tiny little ankles between his fingers without snapping her legs when he lifted her up to swap the nappies over or wipe her unbelievably tiny bottom.
Such soft skin. Such astonishing perfection, all those little fingers and toes, the nails so small he could hardly see them. She was a little miracle, and he was awed beyond belief.
And terrified.
The nurse—Sue, her name was, according to her badge—brought him a bottle and helped him feed her again, and she brought it all up all over him. Panic threatened to choke him, but Sue just laughed and cleaned her up, lent him a fresh scrub