The Doc's Instant Family
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Lisa Childs
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24
CHAPTER ONE
COLLIN CASSIDY DROPPED heavily into the chair behind his desk, more from shock than exhaustion. He felt like he’d been sucker punched. A fist hadn’t delivered the blow, though. The voice emanating from his cell phone speaker had. This wasn’t the first hit he’d taken over the past couple of weeks, but it definitely struck him the hardest.
“Dr. Cassidy, did you hear me? Are you there?”
“Um... I...” Maybe he hadn’t heard the social worker correctly. “Can you repeat that?”
“I found a foster family that will take Bailey Ann. Unfortunately they’re in Sheridan.”
That was more than an hour from Willow Creek, Wyoming—more than an hour from Collin.
“But that might be a good thing,” Mrs. Finch continued. “It’ll be close to the children’s hospital where she had her heart transplant, and she’ll be able to go back to seeing her doctors there.”
And not him.
“Are you sure the foster family can handle her health care?” he asked. “If she doesn’t get her meds...” Her little body could reject the heart that she’d waited so long to receive, the heart she’d nearly rejected once when another family hadn’t been able to handle her care plan. That was why the seven-year-old was in the hospital now.
That was one of the reasons he didn’t want her to go. The other...
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about fostering or adopting Bailey Ann myself,” he admitted.
A sigh drifted out of his cell speaker. “You’ve just recently moved to the area,” she said. “And you’ve just started your job at the hospital. Are you sure now is a good time for you to be considering adoption or even fostering? Especially a child who has special needs like Bailey Ann?”
“That’s why I want to do it,” he said. Because she was so very special.
“So you have a home with space for Bailey Ann? Child care arranged for her while you’re working what must be very long hours? Child care qualified to handle a child with her medical issues? You could do this with your schedule?” Mrs. Finch asked. “Because this other family is ready now to take her. They’re a little older, so they’ve only agreed to a short-term placement.”
He was losing her, just like he’d lost so many other people and places who mattered to him. “She’s still regaining her strength after that last foster family didn’t give her the antirejection meds correctly. She needs to be monitored for a week or maybe two yet at the hospital.”
“I will make sure this family gets the proper training over the next two weeks,” the social worker assured him.
A couple of weeks.
Was that enough time for him to prove himself capable and worthy of caring for her?
“We all want what’s best for Bailey Ann,” she said with that gentle tone that women had used when they’d broken up with him in the past. That whole “it’s not you, it’s me” thing when they were both well aware that it was really him, that because of his hectic schedule, he wasn’t as available or attentive as they needed him to be. He wasn’t enough for them.
He wasn’t enough for Bailey Ann either. He wasn’t ready. Just as he hadn’t been ready to help his own parents. He hadn’t been able to take care of them, to save them. His mom hadn’t survived. His dad had, but because of other doctors and surgeons and someone else who had unknowingly made the ultimate sacrifice.
That was how Collin felt about Bailey Ann, how hard he’d fallen for her. He was willing to make whatever sacrifices were necessary to be enough for her. Before he could say anything else to the social worker, to make his intentions clear, Mrs. Finch ended the call, as if the matter was settled.
Would she even give him a chance?
Knuckles tapped against wood, drawing his attention to the man standing in the doorway to his office. Looking at Colton was like looking into a mirror; they had the same dark eyes and dark hair, the same facial features and tall build. Colton, a firefighter, was a little more muscular than Collin, not that he would ever admit it to his twin.
And they weren’t the only ones in the family who shared a striking resemblance. In addition to their older brother Marsh, they’d recently discovered they had cousins who looked almost as much like them as he and Colton looked like each other.
Colton’s brow was furrowed beneath the brim of his black cowboy hat. He wasn’t wearing his firefighter gear or his paramedic uniform. So, not at the hospital for work. At that moment, their expressions were probably alike: troubled.
They’d had a lot of troubles in the past few weeks, and it wasn’t surprising that his brother was less upbeat than usual. The family ranch house had burned down, but they’d been about to sell it anyway. And fortunately nobody had been hurt in the fire. But what they’d learned after it...
All the family secrets their father had kept from them: a grandmother and cousins they’d never known about. Even their last name. It wasn’t Cassidy; it was Haven.
Collin was reeling, too, but he’d decided to focus on Bailey Ann, on making sure she was not alone. Like he usually felt.
“Hey, everything okay?” Colton asked him. “You look like you lost your best friend. And I know that’s not possible since I’m right here.”
They were identical twins, but they were really nothing alike. If they weren’t brothers, they might not even be friends. Colton was easygoing and charming while Collin was intense and focused, so focused that he’d never really taken time to make friends. So Colton probably was his best friend.
“I just got bad news about Bailey Ann,” he admitted.
Colton pressed his hand to his chest as if he felt the ache that Collin was feeling. “Oh, no, is her body rejecting her new heart again?”
A pang struck Collin, too. “No. She’s actually improving a lot.” She’d be ready to leave the hospital as soon as Mrs. Finch trained this other family in how to look after her.
He sighed. “I just got off the phone with her social worker. She found a placement for her.”
Colton stepped farther into Collin’s office and peered at his face, his dark eyes questioning. “That’s a good thing, right?” he asked.
With his emotion choking him, Collin could only shake his head.
“Are you worried they can’t handle her medical care, like her last foster family?”
He sucked in a breath and nodded. “But that’s only part of it.”
Colton’s mouth curved into a slight grin, and he nodded, too. “You’ve fallen for her. You want her.”
He nodded again, then released a shaky sigh. “But what can I really offer her?”
“Love,” Colton said. “You love her. That’s all that little girl wants. Someone who loves her and who will always be there for her.”
Tears stung Collin’s eyes, and he had to close them. “But I’m not ready. I would need a house and child care help for when I’m working, and I don’t have enough time...” He hadn’t had enough time to save his mom or help his dad. He’d had to get through school first and undergrad and med school and his residencies and fellowships. Everything took too long.
“We have somebody in our lives now who knows how to get things done,” Colton said with a grin. “Sadie.”
A grin tugged at Collin’s mouth, too. Their indomitable grandmother that they hadn’t even known they had. “She is a force of nature.”
But because of that, Collin had actually been trying to avoid her. The old woman was intent on matchmaking, and he had no plans to get swept up in her schemes like his cousins and now even his twin had.
He cleared his throat and asked, “Are you here to see Livvy?” That was probably why Colton had showed up at the hospital in his casual clothes, looking more like a cowboy than the firefighter and paramedic he was.
Colton’s whole face lit up with love at the mention of the ER doctor for whom he’d fallen so hard. But then his grin slipped away and he shook his head. “I actually came to see you.”
“About what?” Collin asked.
Colton stood there for a moment, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans. Then he shook his head. “Never mind. It can wait. You need to focus on Bailey Ann so you can prove to the social worker that you’re the right family for her.”
Collin wasn’t even sure where to start. Sadie? She really was good at getting things done, like setting up his twin and her friend’s granddaughter so they couldn’t help falling in love. Not that that was a bad thing, though, since Colton was happier than he’d ever been. But even with his happiness, something was weighing on him.
“I know something’s been bothering you,” Collin said. He’d been trying to get his twin to tell him what it was for the past couple of weeks. “So spill it.”
Colton shook his head again. “Don’t worry about it. It can wait. Bailey Ann can’t. You need to focus on her. Get Grandma to help you.”
Collin’s stomach knotted at the risk of reaching out to Sadie Haven. “She’s going to use it as an opportunity to set me up with whoever she has picked out for me. I don’t have time for that when I have to focus on Bailey Ann.”
Colton chuckled. “You think she has some kind of master plan for all of us? Like she’s arranged a marriage for each of us?”
“Don’t you?” Collin asked. “She had Katie for Jake. Emily for Ben. She brought Melanie back to Dusty after he lost her. And then Taye for Baker.”
“Yeah, because she knows all of them really well. She raised them.” Their cousins hadn’t had easy childhoods either. They were young when their dad died, younger than Collin and his brothers had been when they lost their mom. “She didn’t think Dad had even survived after he ran away all those years ago, and she had no idea we existed until a few weeks ago.”
Collin continued as if his twin hadn’t interrupted. “And she found Livvy for you.”
Colton laughed and shook his head. “No, she didn’t. We found each other right here at the hospital.”
Collin snorted. “Yeah, so you think. But how’d you wind up working out of this hospital?”
“I got transferred to Willow Creek Fire Department from Moss Valley.”
“And you know very well that Sadie was behind that transfer,” Collin reminded him. “Just like we figured out she was behind Marsh getting the position of interim sheriff of Willow Creek when the sheriff suddenly decided to retire. Why do you think she wanted you to work here?”
“So that we would all be closer to Ranch Haven. She wanted to get to know us, to spend more time with us,” Colton said.
Collin nodded. “To spend more time with us and to get us involved with whoever she’s picked out for us.”
Colton shook his head again but slower, more tentatively, and he murmured, “No...”
“That’s why I’ve been staying away from her,” Collin admitted. Marriage wasn’t for him. He’d already lost too many people in his life, and he had no intention of ever risking his heart. And even if he thought it was safe to fall in love, with all his student loans to pay off yet, he was in no position to get married. These were all reasons that he should let Bailey Ann go to that foster home, but letting go of her was one more loss he wasn’t sure he could handle. He had started treating her during his internal medicine residency. Despite all of her health struggles and all of the people who’d abandoned her because of them—her biological parents and numerous foster families—she was still so affectionate and optimistic. She was an inspiration for him.
He would have to do everything he could to get custody of her, even swallow his concerns and ask his grandmother for help. He’d simply be firm about not being able to give his heart away. He couldn’t handle another heartbreak.
And it would break anyway if Bailey Ann was sent away. So right now, he had nothing left to lose.
GENEVIEVE PORTER HAD lost everything that had ever mattered to her—some things and people before she’d even realized they had mattered. She’d made so many mistakes in her life that had cost her dearly. The biggest mistake was in not realizing how short life could be for some.
Too short.
The second biggest mistake was in trusting people she shouldn’t have. One was her ex-husband. The other...
“I’m sorry,” Sue Masters said as she settled heavily into a chair across from Genevieve’s desk. The gray-haired woman worked as a nurse in the Emergency Department at Willow Creek Memorial. “I thought that you wanted to make sure that your nephews were all right. That they were safe.”
“Yes, but I just wanted you to let me know what you heard around town or if they had to go to the hospital,” Genevieve said, with a pang of regret. “I didn’t expect you to call Child Protective Services on the Havens.”
After one of the boys had been injured in an accident, Sue had called CPS to investigate the children’s safety with their current guardians. The case had, fortunately, been closed quickly, with the Havens being cleared.
Tears shimmered in Sue’s usually frosty blue eyes. “I know. I made a terrible mistake.”
“The mistake was mine,” Genevieve said. Along with so many others she’d made over the years. “I should have been clearer about my intentions.” The problem was that she wasn’t even sure what her intentions were.
Not anymore.
Sue reached across the desk and patted Genevieve’s clenched hand. “I can’t imagine how you must feel over all of this. The fact that the Havens didn’t even let you know...”
They had probably contacted her mother or at least tried, but Genevieve doubted Sue would believe that. Clearly she remembered Genevieve’s mother as the sweet little girl she’d grown up with, not the bitter woman she’d become. Given the way Sue’s face usually had a pinched look to it, like she’d just sucked a lemon, Genevieve’s mother probably wasn’t the only one who’d become bitter over the years.
Genevieve didn’t want to become like either of these women, though she worried she had without even realizing it. “They may have tried to.” Genevieve defended the Havens. “I’ve moved a lot over the years. And Mother and Father have as well.”
“But surely there would have been a way to get them the news about the crash and...” Sue murmured.
“Have you talked to Mother lately?” Genevieve asked.
The older woman’s face flushed. “No. But I know they’re out of the country a lot.”
Genevieve suspected the woman hadn’t spoken to her old school friend in years. Once her parents had moved away from Willow Creek, they’d cut all ties to their hometown and had never looked back. Not even now...
Unlike Genevieve who, when she’d finally learned of her loss, had returned. But once she’d arrived in Willow Creek, just the thought of contacting the Havens had made her stomach clench. Her life had been one painful loss after another, and she couldn’t face opening herself up to that again. So she’d done what she always did and had thrown herself into work. She’d joined a local law firm, the same one at which Ben Haven had worked before becoming deputy mayor of Willow Creek and now mayor. She didn’t want to follow his political path, but she’d thought that he might come around the office from time to time.
He hadn’t. And now she hoped he didn’t. After the debacle with CPS, Genevieve hoped she didn’t encounter any of the Havens. But her heart ached to meet seven-year-old Miller, five-year-old Ian and the toddler, Jacob. Her nephews.
SADIE MARCH HAVEN, soon to be Lemmon, was falling in love all over again with the little girl lying in the hospital bed. She understood now why Bailey Ann was Collin’s favorite patient, and why Colton, who’d shared that tidbit with her, also spent so much time visiting the little girl. He must have been by today because the child was wearing his black cowboy hat. Since he was rarely without it, the little girl must have either charmed or manipulated him into letting her borrow it. The hat was so big it kept slipping down over her face so she pulled it off. With her sparkling dark eyes and dimpled smile, Bailey Ann was beautiful, but she was more than that. She radiated goodness, sweetness and hope.
All the things that Sadie, after all the tragedies in her eighty years of life, had learned to embrace, to hold on to with all her might.
“May I give you a hug?” she asked the little girl.
Bailey Ann threw back her covers and scrambled across her bed to wrap her arms around Sadie’s neck. She patted Sadie’s long hair. “You’re pretty,” the little girl said.
Sadie laughed. Nobody had called her that in a long time. If ever...
Not even her late husband.
Her fiancé, that old fool Lem Lemmon, said sweet things, and the way he looked at her made her feel pretty. Made her feel like a young girl again instead of the old woman that she was.
“You’re the pretty one,” she told Bailey Ann as she pulled back and cupped the child’s cheek in her hand.
Something about the child reminded Sadie of Jenny. And moisture filled her eyes at the thought of the granddaughter-in-law she’d lost in the car accident months ago with her beloved grandson Dale. Gone, like so many other people she’d loved.
Bailey Ann’s hands were in Sadie’s hair, her fingers running through the long white strands. “Your hair is so pretty. You look like Mrs. Claus.”
Sadie laughed again. “I guess I will be soon,” she admitted.
Every year Lem dressed up like Santa Claus. He’d had white hair and a white beard for as long as most people could remember, and for the month leading up to Christmas, he wore his Santa suit and sat in a sleigh in the Willow Creek town square. Kids stood in line for hours to tell him what they wanted to find under the tree. And Sadie knew that if he didn’t think their parents could afford to give them presents, he would make sure they got something to open on Christmas morning himself. Lem Lemmon was a good man. Once it would have killed Sadie to admit that, but now...
She wasn’t sure that she could live without him. This was love. This was what she wanted for all her grandsons.
“Are you psychic?” a deep voice asked.
“No, Dr. Cass, she’s Mrs. Claus,” Bailey Ann said.
Sadie chuckled and turned her head to grin at her grandson who stood in the doorway. He arched a brow over one of his dark eyes, and a pang struck her heart again at how much he looked like his grandfather and his father. She’d lost his grandfather a dozen years ago, and she’d thought his dad was dead longer than that.
But, despite all the odds, Jessup was alive. He’d been living as JJ Cassidy on a ranch just an hour away from Ranch Haven.
“I haven’t married him yet,” Sadie said. But they couldn’t wait much longer, not at their ages and not with the way they felt about each other. She leaned closer to the little girl and whispered, “And you have to keep it secret who he really is...” She pressed a finger against her lips.
Bailey Ann gave her a solemn nod before moving her fingers across her mouth like she was zipping her lips and throwing away the key.
Sadie couldn’t resist. She had to hug the child again. “You are just precious,” she said.
“Yes, she is...” Collin murmured, his voice gruff with emotion.
Clearly this grandson already knew something about love—a father’s love for a child. This little girl wasn’t biologically his. Colton had told her that whatever family she’d had once had abandoned her because she’d always been so sick. But Collin was sticking by her.
“Bailey Ann,” he said. “Did you know that your visitor here is my grandmother, Sadie Haven?”
“Hi,” Bailey Ann whispered.
“You seem to already know about Bailey Ann,” he said to Sadie. “How did you...”
“I have sources everywhere,” she said. Or at least she tried. But she wasn’t always successful at getting the information she wanted. Collin’s father was a good example. He’d taken off after high school and she hadn’t been able to track him down. She hadn’t even known where to look. That was because he hadn’t wanted to be found. He’d been so sick, and he’d stayed away to avoid her overprotectiveness—and to avoid breaking her heart if he died.
Now that they were back in touch, she knew how much he regretted staying away. He understood well what she’d gone through because his oldest son, Collin’s brother Cash, had disappeared after high school, too.
“My twin has a big mouth,” Collin said.
“A family shouldn’t have secrets,” she said.
Collin snorted derisively. “Hmm... I wonder what my cousins would say if they heard you make that claim?”
Heat rushed to her face. She had kept secrets from his cousins—or at least one big secret. The cousins had no idea they had an uncle, and none of them, including her, had known about Jessup’s sons. Cash, Marsh, Collin and Colton. The Cassidys.
“Well, a family shouldn’t have secrets,” she repeated. “That doesn’t mean that they don’t.” She suspected his twin was keeping a secret, that something was bothering him. But now she could see that something was bothering Collin even more.
With the way he was staring at the little girl, with such longing and loss, it was clear what it was. “I’m not psychic,” she said. “But I can tell that you need me.”
Collin chuckled softly. “And I bet you love that.”
“I love you,” she said. “I want you to be happy.”
And maybe that would excuse what she was about to do...
