A Hard Man to Love (14 page)

“Violet’s gestated for more than seven months. The chances of survival are very good.”

Very good was not good enough.

He needed to stay calm, but the doctor needed to understand what was at stake. Drawing on the steely restraint that had carried him through other difficulties, he laid his left hand on the doctor’s shoulder.

“Derrick . . .” Matthew said.

He lifted his other hand toward his younger brother. “It’s all right, Matt, I’m just talking to the man.” He looked the doctor in the eye. “Listen, that’s my wife and my daughter in there. I don’t care what you have to do, who you have to call, but you make sure they both come out of this, you understand me?”

“Mr. Hoffman, I can’t promise—”

He brought his face close to the doctor’s. “
Do you understand me?
”

Matthew stepped forward. “Derrick, for God’s sake—”

“Get back, Matt,” he snarled through his teeth, keeping his gaze locked on the doctor. The man had backed up, but Derrick’s hand tightened on his shoulder so he couldn’t escape. “Do you understand me?”

The doctor nodded, gulping, and shoving his glasses further up on his nose.

When he hurried away, Derrick leaned against the wall with his palm flat on the surface. With his head bent, he closed his eyes, clenching his other hand into a fist, and did something he couldn’t ever remember doing before. He prayed, no begged, for the health of his wife and safe delivery of his daughter, and that all the wrong he’d perpetrated over the years would not conspire against him to harm either one of them.

He felt Cassidy’s little hand wriggle between his fingers and loosen his fist to hold tightly to him.

“It’ll be okay,” she said softly. “Go. She needs you. We’ll be right here, okay? Waiting.” She squeezed his hand.

****

Eva felt like she’d been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. When she shifted, pain cut through her, and she winced.

“Easy.” Derrick’s voice came from beside the bed. She opened her eyes to find him looking at her. The corners of his mouth lifted into a small smile. “Hey.”

Snatches of memory came back. They’d had to perform a Caesarean section to deliver Violet because of complications. Violet!

Her gaze scoured the room. “How is she? Is she okay?”

“Shh. She’s fine. They have her in the neonatal intensive care unit.”

“I want to see her. Take me to her.” She tried to get up, but the effects of the general anesthesia and dull ache from the incision in her abdomen forced her to plop back against the pillows.

He brushed the hair back from her face with a gentle hand. His touch soothed her racing heart. “You’re not in any condition to move around right now. You’ll see her later.” He held his smartphone up for her to see. “I know you hate how I always have this phone with me, but it came in handy. I took pictures.”

He scrolled through the images. She saw her daughter at birth, covered in blood and fluids. Then there were photos of her in the NICU, inside an incubator to keep her warm, tubes attached to her body to give nourishment and help her little lungs breathe. She was almost as pale as the sheet she slept on.

“She’s going to be all right?”

“So far, so good. The doctor said she’ll have to stay for a while—it could be a couple of weeks or longer—until she can do all the normal things on her own: breathing, sucking, swallowing. It depends on her progress.”

The effects of the anesthesia made Eva feel groggy, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Derrick looked down at her with worry lines creasing his forehead. She reached up and cupped his jaw. The rough hairs of morning stubble scraped the palm of her hands. “You were wonderful. You took care of me.” Her hand fell back to the bed.

“I promised you I would. I couldn’t let anything happen to you or Violet.”

If she told him her feelings, what would he say? What would he do?

She should tell him now, whisper it, because her chest hurt with the need to say the words of love she’d held back all these months. Despite the rocky start to their marriage, maybe they could make this work. The idea didn’t seem far-fetched anymore, and Violet cemented their emotional bond.

“I’m glad I wasn’t alone when it happened.” Her voice trembled. “I knew you’d take care of everything.” Tears filled her eyes. “I love you. I love you so much.”

There. She’d said it.

She didn’t know what she’d expected, but she hadn’t expected the color to drain from his face. “Never mind. I don’t know why I said that.” She twisted her head away from him, squeezing her eyes shut in humiliation. “It’s the anesthesia . . . I’m not myself right now. I don’t know why . . . I don’t know . . . I’m delirious.”

“Eva—”

“Derrick, it’s okay. I’m extremely emotional right now. I just had a baby, and I don’t feel like myself. You don’t have to say a word. I don’t know why I said such a thing. It’s okay. Really. It’s okay. I’m sorry.” She was babbling, and at the same time, she couldn’t look at him for fear of what she’d see in his eyes.

She didn’t want to hear him say this wasn’t part of the deal, or some such nonsense he was fond of throwing at her. He’d been up front and honest with her about what to expect. He promised to take care of her and pledged his fidelity. Why couldn’t it be enough? Why did she keep reaching for more than he could give?

“Are you saying you didn’t mean it?” he asked.

She’d always done her crying over him in private, but this time she couldn’t stop the tears from slipping beneath her lids.

“You said you love me.” He took her hand. She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip.

“I didn’t mean it,” she said in a broken whisper.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Please. I can’t do this now. It’s too hard.” She opened her eyes and stared across at the closed curtains.

Derrick handed her a single tissue, which she used to wipe her nose. He still held on to her other hand. Sniffling, she lay there, wishing she could go back in time and stop the impulsive words from leaving her mouth.

“I’ve never told anyone,” she heard him say. She listened, noting the somber tone of his voice, as if he were about to say something of great importance. “I never told anyone that I love them.”

She turned her head slowly in his direction. “No one?”

He shook his head.

“Not even your mother?”

“No. Maybe I did when I was a kid, but I don’t remember. We never said those kinds of things to each other. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. She wasn’t a bad mother. She was just . . . distant, I guess is the right word. When she married Phineas, they hired a nanny to watch over me, which made her life easier.”

He swallowed, and she saw the difficulty it took to share his intimate feelings. She remained quiet so he could let it all out.

“I was a mistake. In a way, I messed everything up for her—at least for a while. Once I was born and my father’s wife found out, he had to choose. My mother never wanted to have a child, so I guess I should be glad she didn’t get rid of me.” He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand. “Phineas was a good man. He never told me he loved me, either, but when I think about it, I know he did. He told me on more than one occasion how proud he was of me.”

“He trusted you, too. He left you everything.”

Derrick nodded. “Crazy, but true.” He looked down into her eyes. “I love you, Eva. It took a long time for me to figure it out because I didn’t want to need anyone. But I need you.” He brought her hand to his lips, and her eyes flooded with tears. “I hope you meant it when you said you love me.”

Her bottom lip quivered. “I did.” A tear glided out of the corner of her eye. “I was so afraid to tell you because I thought you didn’t care. When we were seeing each other, I wanted so much more, but you told me up front that you didn’t want a serious relationship.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said, but believe me, that was a rehearsed speech I’d given to other women. It didn’t apply to you. I wanted you to myself almost from the beginning.”

“Then why were you so distant? Why didn’t you ever let me meet your family? How could you bring another woman to the island when we were together? I don’t understand.”

“It had nothing to do with you,” he said earnestly. “The weekend of my sister’s wedding, I planned to spend as much time with you as possible when I got to St. Simons Island. The truth is, I didn’t want you to meet my family because my family life was so messed up. I didn’t have a good relationship with anyone on my biological father’s side of the family. I didn’t want to introduce you into that mess. Our relationship was so good, I didn’t want to spoil it. That’s why I only let you meet Phineas. That was about the only normal family relationship I had at the time.”

“So you weren’t ashamed of me or something like that?”

“Ashamed of you? No! I thought if you knew how jacked up my family life was, you might not want to see me anymore.” He squeezed her hand. “Sweetheart, you were the one good thing in my life. I wanted to keep you separate from all the ugliness.” He lifted her hand to spread her fingers along his jaw. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

“Maybe you’re not as terrible as you think,” she whispered.

“You make me want to be a better man.”

“Oh, Derrick.”

“It’s true. And you have no idea how much I looked forward to our weekends together.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know how. And I didn’t know how you felt, either. When you mentioned that schmuck, James . . .”

“He’s not a schmuck.”

“When you mentioned that schmuck, James,” he said again in a harder tone, obviously not liking that she defended the other man, “it drove me out of my mind. Up until then, I assumed you weren’t seeing anyone because I wasn’t.”

“I wasn’t ‘seeing’ James. He really was just a friend. But I’m surprised you weren’t seeing anyone else.”

“No one. I swear. In fact, the woman I planned to take to the wedding wasn’t someone I was involved with. I just needed a date because I didn’t want to show up alone, and she didn’t mind accompanying me. My plan was to spend most of my time with you at the villa.” He smiled slowly. “For some reason, all I could think about was you, and no other woman had a chance.”

Eva glowed from the inside out. “I didn’t know I had so much power,” she whispered.

“Don’t take advantage too much. Go easy on me,” he whispered back.

“I don’t think anyone can take advantage of you.” She sighed. “I do love you. With all my heart. Promise me we’ll always talk to each other. Just like this.”

“I promise. Anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Can I eat in bed?”

“Eva . . .”

“You said anything,” she reminded him with an impish grin.

“All right.” He shook his head. “You can have anything you want, sweetheart. All you have to do is ask.”

****

The nurse came in later and gave Eva some pills for the pain. Derrick sat with her until she fell asleep, and then he quietly left the room.

Outside in the waiting area, two couples and what looked to be grandparents sat watching the television mounted in the corner. Cassidy sat flipping through a magazine. Roarke had arrived, and he sat next to her, while Matthew paced the floor restlessly. They all three looked up.

“Consider yourselves lucky to be here for this momentous occasion,” he announced. “Your beautiful niece, Violet Hoffman, has arrived, weighing in at a whopping three pounds, three ounces.”

A cheer of relief went up in the room. Even the other people in the waiting room clapped and smiled. Cassidy ran over and gave him a hug. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew she’d be fine.”

Since only parents were allowed in the NICU, they couldn’t see Violet in person, but Derrick showed them the photos he’d taken with the camera phone.

Matthew offered to buy a box of “It’s a Girl” cigars from the gift shop. “I know these aren’t as good as what you’re used to,” he said to Derrick.

“It’ll do for now,” he replied.

The four of them went outside into the early morning. The sun was just beginning to rise on a new day. After a couple of puffs, Cassidy started coughing, followed by Matthew.

“I can’t do this,” Cassidy said, wheezing.

“Don’t inhale,” Derrick advised.

She put out the cigar and left the smoking to her brothers.

Derrick blew his smoke up into the early morning sky. He suddenly realized the most important people in his life were all here in the same place. His wife and daughter were safe upstairs, and his brothers and sister were lending their support beside him.

A wry smile lifted one corner of his mouth.

Life couldn’t be better.

Chapter Fifteen

Derrick scrolled through Eva’s account online, a frown creasing his forehead. He didn’t like what he saw.

Large disbursements had been made over the past three months to the investigator searching for her father, and after their conversation last night, it didn’t sound as if the so-called investigator was any closer to finding him since the last time they’d discussed his progress. Yet he needed more money. And Eva had come to Derrick to ask for more money—something she’d never done before.

He’d recognized the look in her eyes. The pleading desperation he acknowledged came from wanting something so much you’d do anything to get it.

He’d promised to have the funds transferred over after the weekend. Under normal circumstances, he would have done it right away, but a peculiar sensation in his gut made him want to look into this further. The negligible amount didn’t concern him. What concerned him was that this “investigator” could be taking advantage of her desperation. That he couldn’t tolerate.

Derrick understood the emotional need to connect with family and how it could cloud logic, and as he looked at the situation from the outside, he saw what Eva couldn’t. Her explanation for why he needed more money sounded fishy. In emotional situations like this, normally intelligent persons could be swayed into unintelligent behavior. Coupled with a heart as big as Eva’s, the detective had hit the jackpot.