Brought Together by His Baby
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Kristine Lynn
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CHAPTER ONE
KELSEY GAINES SQUEEZED her eyes tighter.
Leave me alone, she willed. Please.
But the images swooped in anyway—pale reminders of her worst moments set to the soundtrack of Page screaming in agony. The sensation that Kelsey could have done something—should have done something as a physician and Page’s friend—was a ghost pain that seized her chest.
She struggled to breathe as the memories assaulted her.
So much blood. An infant not breathing. CPR performed on the small body until a wail filled the room. Then the steady beep of a machine marking the infant an orphan...
Kelsey wrenched open her eyes and checked her phone. Eleven minutes past three a.m. It was safe to say sleep was off the table for the rest of the night.
Sighing, she pulled on the pair of stained sweatpants dangling off the edge of the king sleigh bed and downed the lukewarm water on her nightstand in one gulp. But the hangover of the nightmare remained on her chilled skin.
You didn’t kill Page, the part of her brain desperate for sleep tried to tell her.
That was only partially true.
Page’s death might not have happened on her operating table, but Kelsey had talked Page into resigning from the Gold Fleece Foundation. Doing so allowed the Foundation to cover her delivery when her estranged husband had filed for divorce and then been declared missing from his military outpost. After all, Kelsey’s charity had been designed with women like Page in mind—those who didn’t have family or funds to support them during the biggest moment of their lives.
She had recommended that obstetrician from Santa Barbara because her treating Page, a Mercy Hospital nurse and former Gold Fleece board member, also a friend, would have been a conflict of interest. And because Kelsey had let go of control for that one day her best friend had paid a terrible price.
The ghost pain returned, squeezing Kelsey’s lungs. Kelsey might have lost a friend, and Emma her mother. But Page had lost her life.
Thirty-five years after losing her mother to the same complication, Page’s death had been another reminder why Kelsey had to keep control at all times: in the OR, in her practice, at the Foundation.
And with Emma.
When shrill cries rang out in the next room the infantile sirens of warning flooded Kelsey with purpose. She jumped out of bed, the cool tiled floor beneath her feet acting like a jolt of caffeine.
Emma. My sweet baby.
Well, almost. Just one more set of papers to sign before her guardianship was official.
Kelsey smiled weakly, recalling the first few lines of the letter that had changed both their lives.
If you’re reading this, then the worst has happened and you’re all I have left. Which means...you’re all Emma has left. Please take care of my baby girl. Our baby girl.
Of course Kelsey would—every day for the rest of her life. Even though it had meant losing Dex, who’d disappeared like June fog on a hot July day when Child Services had brought Emma to their house. He’d been crystal-clear about never wanting kids, but if Kelsey hadn’t stepped in Emma would have ended up in foster care. Not a chance was that happening on Kelsey’s watch.
Dex breaking up with her had hurt, but not enough to change her mind.
When she turned on the light, the crystals from the chandelier sparkled against the walls, making the sepulchral space seem almost regal. If only. Royalty would have staff to help out on nights like this.
Kelsey shuddered through a half-yawn as she threw on a robe. Therein lay the conundrum that kept her up on the nights when the nightmares didn’t.
As impossible as this life was—balancing her career as an OB to the Hollywood elite with single parenting—how could she wish away something as precious as time with Emma? She was Kelsey’s chance to get things right, to be the kind of mother Kelsey wished she’d had.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard.
Kelsey’s father hadn’t been shy to chime in. “That’s parenting. Wish I could tell you it gets easier, but I’m not one for fibbing.”
Emma screeched again.
You weren’t kidding, Dad.
“I’m coming, sweetie. I’m coming.”
Kelsey shuffled into the kitchen and turned on the bottle warmer, placing a premade bottle inside as she succumbed to another yawn. Some sleep would be nice. Her dad had argued it was time to hire a nanny. She could afford it and, frankly, she couldn’t afford not to where her career was concerned. But who could she trust enough with her child? No, better to let Emma stay in the hospital daycare, where Kelsey could keep an eye on her.
With the hospital on her mind, Kelsey ran through her morning appointments while she waited for the bottle to heat up.
An eight a.m. high-risk delivery, followed by consults, and then a Gold Fleece Foundation board meeting to welcome Page’s replacement. Anxiety crawled over Kelsey’s skin. Once the new member signed a contract, it would be official. Page’s stamp on the Foundation—and on Kelsey’s life—would only be a memory.
Focus on the delivery. You know what to do.
If it were up to her, she’d start with a Cesarean, since it was likely to end up that way.
But it isn’t up to me—not entirely.
Her young patient’s plans to have cameras in the room took precedence over Kelsey’s own professional instinct and experience, since the birth was to be live streamed for the mom’s six million social media followers. Still, breech was breech, and short of a miracle—which Kelsey was running dangerously low on these past six months—surgery was inevitable. If that occurred, the film crew would have to leave. Kelsey had made sure the mother-to-be knew that at their last checkup.
Either way, she was in for a long day at the office.
When the warmer turned itself off, Kelsey shook the bottle, then sprinkled the inside of her arm with the formula to make sure it wasn’t too hot before heading back to her daughter’s room. Her daughter. It hadn’t sunk in. After years of waiting for Dex to change his mind about marriage and kids, and years of guilt over her own birth causing her mother’s death, Kelsey had a child of her own and clarity where her dead-end relationship was concerned. All while her career thrived.
She stood in the doorway for half a moment, letting gratitude and grief wash over her in equal torrents.
“Oh, Emma. I wouldn’t trade you in my life for anything except your mother being back here with us,” she whispered. “One thing is for certain—I’m never letting another person I love out of my care.”
The risks were just too great.
The moon glittered off the ocean below, but it was otherwise a starless night. Despite the warmth enveloping Kelsey’s skin, she felt a shiver run down her spine.
She swooped in and picked up the rosy-cheeked infant and Emma’s screams relaxed into soft mewls of hunger.
“Hey, there, little miss. I’m here. No need to bring down the house. We get to see Grandpa’s friend Henry today. He’s the lawyer that’s going to help us become a family.”
She’d hoped to squeeze in the final guardianship paperwork before her morning delivery, but at this rate she’d need the sleep. What was a few hours when forever stretched in front of them?
Emma cooed in response to the bottle Kelsey brandished, then giggled as the warmed formula reached her lips. Kelsey relished the love emanating from the child. She smoothed the errant hairs off Emma’s forehead and kissed it, imprinting this moment into her memories.
“You’re everything I ever wanted,” she whispered against the soft skin of Emma’s cheeks.
Emma just continued suckling away at her bottle, her eyes barely open.
Kelsey fought back another yawn. “You’re also the only thing keeping me together.”
Just as Emma drifted off to sleep Kelsey’s phone rang, sharp and shrill in the otherwise silent kitchen. Emma released the bottle and started wailing again.
“Shh...shh... It’s okay, hun...”
Kelsey maneuvered the nipple past the baby’s trembling bottom lip and got her feeding again before she turned her wrath on her phone. She never silenced it at night, in case a patient had gone into labor, but she sorely regretted it at that moment.
Her frown only deepened when she saw her father’s number on the caller ID.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, in lieu of a more traditional greeting.
“Did I wake you?” asked Mike Gaines.
“No. I was up.”
“The nightmares again, hmm?”
“Maybe... Yeah. But I’m handling them. How did you know?”
“You’re my daughter. I know you better than anyone.”
That was true. Her dad was one of her best friends—her only friend now that Dex had left and Page had...
Kelsey shuddered. “You didn’t answer my question. What’s happened, Dad?”
He paused before continuing, and when he did his voice had lost the calm it usually carried. “You know I think of Emma like my granddaughter already, right?”
Kelsey swallowed back the wave of emotion that rose in her throat, sticky and hot.
“Mmm-hmm,” she answered.
“And I wouldn’t ever willingly let anything happen to either of you?”
“I know. Dad, you’re scaring me. What’s this about?”
Emma sucked away at her bottle, her eyes shut, her body relaxed in Kelsey’s arms. Love washed through Kelsey every time she looked at her daughter. But now the love was tainted with worry.
Mike sighed. “There’s a problem with your guardianship. I just heard from Henry.”
If it were biologically possible for Kelsey’s cells to freeze one by one, seizing her breath, that was what happened.
“But he said it was fine. I’m supposed to meet him this morning to sign the last of the documents.”
“I know. Which is why I’m calling.”
“The letter from Page should have been enough—”
The last half of her thought was swallowed by fear.
“It was, hun. It was. Gosh, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else.” He paused, and the air was pregnant with foreboding. “A blood relative reached out to claim custody.”
Kelsey shook her head, even though her dad couldn’t see her. “No, that’s not possible. The court gave any blood relatives sixty days to contact them and no one came forward. I even went to Texas and asked Emma’s grandfather to take her. I begged him, and the man turned us away. He lost his chance. She’s mine, Dad. Emma is mine.”
Panic rose in her chest and no amount of self-determination could will it back into the pit of her stomach.
“Please tell me Henry has a plan and that no one can take her from me—especially not some distant relative looking for a payout.”
Emma’s guardianship would come with four hundred thousand dollars from her father Liam’s SGLI—the military life insurance paid out after his rucksack and gear had been found burned near an enemy outpost, changing his status from MIA to KIA. Emma’s paternal grandfather had added a hundred grand to the pot when he had signed over his rights to the child. Kelsey didn’t need the money, so she’d put all of it into a trust fund for when Emma became an adult. Like hell someone was going to use Emma to snatch it up.
“It’s not a distant relative. It’s her father, Kelsey. He’s been found alive and he wants to meet his daughter.”
Kelsey’s thoughts spun like an out-of-control carousel while she paced the floor with Emma on her hip. The child giggled, clapping her hands in glee each time Kelsey spun and headed back in the other direction.
What Kelsey wouldn’t do to protect that giggle at all costs.
My God, she thought. Liam Everson is alive.
All the scenarios she’d run through her head and that one had never occurred to her.
Kelsey knew a little about him from the three years since Page had lived in California. She and Liam had been estranged, so he’d remained in Texas while Page took a job as a nurse at Mercy, and then joined the Gold Fleece Foundation board after her first year. Liam had been an Army trauma doc.
He and Page had tried to reconcile before his last deployment, and even though the reconciliation hadn’t worked Page had found out she was pregnant just days after Liam deployed again. Neither had expected the baby, but both had been in agreement about one thing—they’d do anything to make sure the life growing inside Page didn’t know anything but love.
They’d been going to work on a joint custody agreement when Liam returned, but then he’d been captured and everything had changed with that one devastating call.
And now he was safe and home on American soil...and his daughter was in Kelsey’s arms.
On one hand, this was a miracle.
A miracle that Page would miss.
But on the other hand...oh, God...it was a miracle that might sever Kelsey’s connection to Emma.
No.
“Can he take her, Dad?”
“I dunno, hun. Henry said he’ll get in touch when he knows more. Right now, it just sounds like the guy wants to meet his daughter. But he’s stationed in Texas, so I’m not sure how that’ll work.”
“But how will he care for her if he’s in the Army? He deploys every year,” Kelsey said, her voice dangerously close to shrill.
An hour had passed since she got the news, willing it to be a bad joke of some kind.
“Kelsey, I know you’re reeling. We all are. But you need to hear Henry out. He’s concerned that how we handle this might make or break your career. Page was part of the Foundation, and that’s gonna come up at some point if Emma’s dad makes a custody play.”
Kelsey barked out a humorless laugh. “I don’t care about my career. I care about Emma.”
“No one’s questioning your love for the child—but Kels, listen to reason. Captain Everson is her father. And he’s just escaped a war-torn country by trekking eighty miles to a sovereign nation. After a month of hiding and being on the run he’s been home two months, processing the worst news a soldier can get—the mother of the child he hasn’t even met yet died, Kelsey.”
Kelsey’s breath came in short gasps. She gulped for more oxygen, but every time she inhaled it felt like she sucked in water, not air. She was drowning on dry land.
“I know,” she whispered. “I knew it the minute you told me who contacted Henry. But that doesn’t mean I don’t count, right? I mean, I’ve raised Emma for the past six months, Dad. Six months of doctor’s appointments, daycare interviews, nighttime bottle feedings, diapers...”
She trailed off and kissed Emma’s head, where her baby-fine hairs were finally beginning to grow out. Emma smelled like the sun and soap and love. She smelled like home.
“You count, yes. But you can’t deny a soldier—heck, any man, for that matter—his chance to know his daughter.”
Of course I can’t. But I can’t just stand idly by and watch fate take her from me, either.
“What about the letter from Page? She was my best friend and her letter said I was her choice for Emma.”
She was on the verge of screaming...tearing her hair out. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. She wasn’t supposed to work harder than anyone she knew and do the right thing only to have everything spin out of control in the end.
“Don’t I at least have a say in what happens to her?”
“Don’t think I don’t agree with you,” her father said.
The unmistakable crack in his voice was enough for her to consider running away to a country with no extradition treaty, with him and Emma in tow.
“But it isn’t up to us. The choice Page made was an impossible one, but she did it thinking she was out of options. And, like it or not, Bug, an option has presented itself. For now, just think of this as a blessing on Emma’s behalf. She has a father who’s alive and who wants to be part of her life.”
“Okay...”
Kelsey choked back a sob and kissed Emma’s forehead, leaving tears behind. She wiped them off and concentrated on loving this infant until someone forced her to stop. It was the only thing she controlled at that moment. It was her lifeline.
“And I know it hurts to imagine what that’ll mean for you—trust me, I’m scared to death I’ll miss seeing the girl grow up too—but this is good news, Kels.”
Good news that would explode her life into unrecognizable shards.
“I can’t imagine not waking up to her every night...every morning.”
Had she really just complained about the three-a.m. wake-up? Even now, she couldn’t recall anything before taking Emma into her home and her heart.
“What if I miss her first steps? Her first word?”
What if something happens to Emma when I’m not there to protect her?
Kelsey’s knees trembled under the weight of the news and she slumped into an overstuffed armchair. Emma curled against her neck, her breath hot on Kelsey’s skin.
“Why don’t I come by at seven-thirty and we can make a plan? It’ll gimme a chance to chat with Henry and see if there’s any more details before Emma’s father heads your way.”
“He’s coming here? Today? I’m losing Emma right now?” Panic flooded Kelsey’s system.
“No one’s losing anything, hun. He’s just coming to meet you. To meet her.”
Kelsey hissed out a breath, but none of the pressure behind her eyes dissipated.
“Kels...” her dad said softly. His voice betrayed the concern he usually kept at bay.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t doubt you will be. But there’s one more thing.”
The floor might as well have dropped out from beneath Kelsey’s feet the way her stomach lurched.
“There’s more?”
What else could there possibly be?
“Nothing crazy. Just something Henry said in passing that I thought you should know before you meet the guy. I’m not sure if Page ever said anything, but his father is the founder and president of—”
“I know who he is. You can’t work in healthcare and not know the Eversons. But what does that have to do with Emma?” Kelsey asked, bordering on hysteria.
“Henry seems to think they’ll have the full weight of Everson Health Systems to throw behind a custody case if Captain Everson decides to open one.”
Kelsey’s hands shook.
“Not that he’s planning to, as far as we know, but Henry wants to cover all bases just in case.”
“They don’t get to do that. Liam’s dad refused to take custody six months ago, right? I mean, there’s a signed court document.”
“I’m not sure... Henry just wanted you to know, but you can’t let it worry you, okay?”
“Stop. Just...stop, please. I love you, Dad, and I’m grateful for the call, but I can’t take in anything else right now.”
“Lemme just say this. The man’s her father, and when I say that it’s with love and empathy for what you’re going through, but if I were in his position I’d move heaven and earth to get to you, hun.”
Kelsey set Emma on the Very Hungry Caterpillar play mat in front of her and gazed around the room. A year ago it had been decorated by the renowned designer Christian Milan himself, and then featured on the cover of Vogue along with Kelsey in her doctor’s coat over a power suit. Now Kelsey was slumped on her laundry-covered couch in brandless spit-up-stained sweats and her boho carpet was buried somewhere beneath the eighty-four kids’ toys strewn about the room.
Her life was unrecognizable.
But she loved it.
Emma had completed a part of her life Kelsey hadn’t realized was missing. Being with the child was what she looked forward to most, aside from helping other women realize their dreams of motherhood.
Grief sat square on her temple, giving her a tension headache.
“I need to get some rest, Dad. I’ll see you at seven-thirty.”
“Sure thing, Kels. Rest will help. I promise everything will look better in the morning. Henry told me that a few decades ago and look how that turned out. You’re the best part of my life, kiddo.”
Kelsey winced. She didn’t need a reminder that she’d made the man a widower.
“Thanks, Dad. Talk to you soon.”
She hung up the phone and picked Emma up off the floor, tucking the half-coo, half-giggle noise the baby made into her heart while she put Emma back to bed.
Alone in her room, she pulled up a news video of Liam’s emotional return on her phone. Kelsey recognized his chiseled features from a photo Page had had. Despite the overgrown beard and long, scraggly hair, she caught a glimpse of a warrior. A warrior she might be up against in the battle of her life.
She replayed the video twice more, looking for clues. Why had he waited so long to find Emma, though? He’d been home two months now.
Kelsey sank into a rocker identical to the one she had in the living room. She found a soft knitted blanket and wrapped it around her torso. Tears slid hot and heavy down her cheeks, dappling her gray sweatshirt with yet another liquid substance.
She wasn’t guaranteed another minute of time with the beautiful child she’d come to love as her own. Her future was up in the air and she didn’t like the unease that caused. She needed rest—but more than that, she needed to attack this new development head-on.
Captain Liam Everson.
She couldn’t fight the fact that he was Emma’s father, nor the obvious reason he’d been unable to claim his rights until now. But Kelsey deserved to be a part of Emma’s life too—as a physician who delivered babies safely every day, who was in a better position than her to protect her?
With a new sense of purpose, Kelsey strode to her closet. She unbuttoned and slipped out of the fear cloaking her, shelved the anxiety draped around her shoulders, and picked out a suit to replace them both. If Liam Everson, the warrior, was coming here, she’d be ready to do battle for what mattered most.
