Lone Star Baby (McCabe Multiples Book 5) (15 page)

Whoa. Wait.
He caught up with her at the door. “Where?”

One hand still on the doorknob, she rose and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Where I belong.” She gazed into his eyes, letting him know with a long, lingering look that although their temporary parenting stint was nearly over, as they had known from the get-go that it would be, their love affair with each other was not. “Where my future is. Here in Laramie. With you.”

Chapter Fifteen

“I have to be honest with you,” Gavin told Ava a half an hour later when she woke for her feeding. “This isn’t exactly the way I saw the evening unfolding.”

He laid her gently on the waterproof pad and went about changing her diaper. “I figured the three of us would spend the evening together. Sort of a last hurrah doing all the things you like best. Hanging with the two of us, drinking milk. Maybe even take a buggy ride through the neighborhood for old time’s sake—” he sucked in a breath, feeling an unfamiliar stabbing sensation in his chest “—before we take you to Mitzy tomorrow.”

But that had not happened.

And now he and Violet would be tag-teaming Ava’s care this evening.

Unless she got back to the house well before he had to leave for his shift.

Ava kicked her legs.

“Not that I blame Violet for running off to take a time-out and pull herself together. Doing what is right for you is hard on her. Heck, it’s hard on me, too. But that’s the responsibility we were charged with when we became your temporary guardians.”

Finished, he shifted the little girl into his arms and offered her the bottle he had prepared for her when she had first started to stir.

Which, coincidentally, had been the moment Violet had exited.

“And it’s a responsibility we take very seriously.” He paused when Ava started to sip then moved her face away from the nipple.

“One day, when you’re settled with your new family, you’ll appreciate the sacrifice we’ve made.”

A sacrifice that was already killing him inside. And they hadn’t even done what was right yet.

Gavin shifted the baby a little higher in his arms.

He tried again.

Ava started to suckle, then stopped. Her tiny face scrunched up. She let out an indignant cry.

Panicking—had the baby warmer made the formula too hot?—Gavin hastily turned the bottle upside down and sprinkled milk on the inside of his forearm. It was lukewarm—just as when he had tested it.

So that wasn’t it.

It had been freshly mixed with bottled water, too. Out of the same big can of powdered formula they had been using the past few days.

He carried Ava over and poured a little of the water he had used into a glass. Sipped. That was fine, too. Nothing out of the ordinary there. He taste-tested the powdered formula. Bland but okay.

Reassuring himself that it wasn’t him she was rejecting, he took Ava back into the living room and settled in the rocking chair. “Maybe I wasn’t holding you just right. Let’s give this another try.”

He settled her into the curve of his arm, making sure he had her head higher than her body, her neck nestled comfortably. He offered her the bottle. Ava grabbed it with both hands. This time she was able to take about four greedy sips without a problem.

He relaxed.

She drank on. Then abruptly let out a startled cry and arched her back slightly.

Another loud, indignant wail escaped her lips.

No problem with her lungs, the physician in him noted.

In fact, he had never heard her so ticked off, the daddy in him agreed.

“Do you have air in your tummy, is that it?” Determined to figure out what the problem was, he moved her to his shoulder. “Let’s see if we can get you to burp.”

Instead, all she did was cry, even more plaintively.

Gavin stood and began to pace. Calmly, he went down the checklist. Her diaper was fine.

She wasn’t tucking up her legs, the way she would if she had colic.

But she was clearly unhappy about something. And definitely looking around at her surroundings.

For Violet?

It seemed so, but all the scientific studies said she was too young to have formed an emotional attachment to any one person.

Which meant it had to be something else.

“I’m not sure what is bothering you, sweetheart, but I know this. Violet will help me figure out what to do when she gets home in a little while.”

Ava looked at him and wailed louder.

It was almost as if she sensed something was up.

But that was impossible. “You can’t possibly have understood anything Violet and I were talking about today,” he told her gently, still walking her back and forth, and cuddling her close. “So you don’t know you’re going to your forever home tomorrow, either,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. He pushed the raw emotion aside and forced himself to be as strong as their little darlin’ needed him to be right now.

Cradling her tenderly, he continued soothing—and reassuring—her. “To a family that will flat-out adore you every bit as much as Violet and I do, if not more.”

Ava abruptly stopped crying.

She looked at him with tear-filled eyes.

Regret welled within him. His resolve wavered. But with effort, he pushed his guilt aside.
Again.
It didn’t matter what he wanted. What he wished. He knew, with every practical iota of his being, that he was doing the right thing in giving her to a set of parents far better equipped to raise her than he and Violet were.

He had to be strong.

Just as Violet was.

Had to do what was best for Ava. She turned away from him and began to cry again, even more poignantly. And what she needed now, he noted, was the kind of deeply intuitive, familial support he had never been able to give.

* * *

“Y
OU
COULDN
’
T
HAVE
picked a better time to come back,” Tara told Violet when the two of them ran into each other in the hall just after 9:00 p.m. “One of your patients just checked in to the hospital.”

“Carlson Willoughby?”

The oncologist nodded. “He’s having surgery early tomorrow morning. I was going to go over the post-op treatment plan with him and his wife now. If you’d like to tag along...”

Violet knew the boundaries that had been put in place needed to be maintained. “I don’t want to undermine you.”

“You won’t,” Tara replied with confidence. “He has a brand-new attitude, thanks to the talk you had with him and his wife.”

“One that was long overdue,” Violet admitted, still feeling a little chagrined over her part in the untenable situation that had evolved.

“Well, whatever you said to him worked. Because he and Mrs. W. said they had faith in the entire medical center, and that included me. So however I want to proceed is fine with them.”

Together, they walked toward the nurses’ station. “Wow, that
is
a change.”

Tara paused to pick up a chart. “I’d still like your input, though. Since you know the patient’s response to former protocols better than anyone.”

“I’d be glad to help out.” Violet paused as the newly minted mom in her went on high alert. In the distance, an infant could be heard crying hysterically. It sounded an awful lot like Ava. In fact, Violet noted in alarm as she swung around to see Gavin striding toward her, a bawling Ava in his arms, it
was
Ava! Leery of further disturbing other patients on the floor, the two of them ducked into the nearby staff lounge.

Luckily, at that moment, it was quiet and empty.

Violet switched from doctor to mom mode in an instant. “What’s wrong?” she said, instinctively holding out her arms.

His face taut with concern, Gavin handed the little girl over. “I think she misses you.”

Violet wanted to say that was impossible. Ava was several weeks away from attaching to anyone in particular. Yet the moment they were together again, Ava stopped crying, blinked through her tears and looked up at Violet as if she had just saved the day.

A mixture of maternal tenderness and contentment swept through Violet.

“What’s this all about?” she soothed, snuggling Ava close. “Why are you giving your da—” She almost said
daddy
, then stopped and corrected herself. “Um...Gavin, such a hard time?”

Another blink of Ava’s dark lashes. A wince. And then a wail of complete and utter distress. This time she didn’t stop. No matter what Violet said or did.

“How long has she been like this?” Violet asked, patting her back gently. Still Ava sobbed, her tiny fists clutching at Violet’s white coat until Violet thought her own heart would break.

“It started off and on as soon as you left the house.”

Which had been three hours ago, Violet noted.

“It’s only been the past forty minutes or so that I couldn’t get her to stop crying at all.” His eyes narrowed. “I checked everything. Her diaper’s dry. I fed her—or tried to. I held her upright so she could burp—which she did with no problem.”

“Did you try swaddling her?”

Gavin raked a hand through his dark hair. “And de-swaddling. Nothing worked.” He paused, broad shoulders tensing. “What now?”

“I’m not sure.” Her concern mounting, Violet looked at Gavin. “But maybe we should have her checked out. Who is the pediatrician on call tonight?”

He pulled up the schedule on his phone. “Your mom.”

With a hiccup, Ava abruptly stopped crying.

Gavin studied the infant in relief.

Exhausted, Ava laid her head on Violet’s chest.

Love swelled in Violet’s heart. She knew she wasn’t the baby’s mother, but she certainly felt like it. Tenderly, she touched her hand to Ava’s cheek. It was wet with tears but not warm enough to indicate fever. Still... “We might be overreacting here, but to play it safe, I think I’m going to ask my mom to take a look at her.”

Gavin paused, brow furrowed. “You really think there is something wrong with Ava—other than simply missing you tonight?” Beneath the worry in his tone there was something else she could not immediately identify. Something nearly as unsettling.

Violet looked him in the eye, nodded. “And deep down you do, too. Otherwise you wouldn’t have rushed her to the hospital to see me.”

* * *

F
IFTEEN
MINUTES
LATER
Violet sat on a gurney in an exam room, holding Ava tenderly in her arms, while her mother went through the physical exam. Gavin stood nearby, watching with concern, ready to help in any way needed.

“It’s an ear infection,” Lacey McCabe said after viewing Ava’s ear canal with an otoscope. “It’s just starting, but it looks to be painful. We’ll start Ava on acetaminophen and an antibiotic right away. She’ll be feeling better in no time.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Teary with relief, Violet cuddled Ava close while Gavin zipped up her sleeper.

Lacey McCabe shot a tender look at the patient, then paused to write out the orders. “No problem.” She ripped off the prescription and handed it to Gavin, who was suddenly struggling to contain his emotions, too.

“I was going to ask if you had decided on a family for Ava yet.” Lacey looked from the baby to Violet to Gavin, and back to her daughter again with maternal wisdom. “And maybe you have?”

It wasn’t a question Violet had expected. Yet she knew the answer with a certainty as solid and real as this moment in time. An answer that had been coming for a while now. She had just been afraid to admit it out of fear that, as in the past, the happiness she yearned for would not materialize, after all.

A lump in her throat, she nodded slowly.

Her mother hugged her, suddenly a little teary-eyed, too. “Oh, honey,” Lacey said thickly. “I thought this might be the case. And for the record...I think you’re doing the right thing.”

* * *

“W
HAT
WAS
ALL
that about with your mom tonight?” Gavin asked after they’d picked up the medicine at the hospital pharmacy and driven the short distance home.

Violet lifted Ava from her car seat and carried her inside the house. The trauma of the evening had worn the little one out. Now that the acetaminophen had taken effect, she was once again sleeping soundly. “My mom just figured out I’m going to adopt Ava,” she said, a remarkable calm coming over her.

And now that she’d made the decision, she was suddenly feeling so much better! As if this was where they had all been headed, after all. Soon, Gavin would have to admit it, too.

Eyes narrowed, Gavin closed the door behind him. “This isn’t what we discussed earlier this evening.”

How well Violet knew that. She had almost made the worst mistake of her life. And all because she had refused to listen to what her heart was telling her. Gently, she lowered Ava into the bassinet. To her relief, the exhausted infant kept right on sleeping.

She walked into the kitchen, staying close enough to keep an eye on the baby yet far enough away that their conversation wouldn’t wake her.

Violet leaned against the counter, aware Gavin hadn’t come to his senses yet. But that was okay, she could help him get there.

She looked up at him. “Earlier this evening I thought the same you did, that everything had to be perfectly worked out for Ava to be happy.” She shook her head, her heart clenching at the grave mistake that had almost been made. “But I didn’t understand that what she really needed was to be with us.” Her heart filling with joy, Violet sent another tender glance the baby’s way. “But she showed us how wrong we were.”

Gavin came closer, appearing as sure of himself as he was in the ER every day. “Look, I know this evening was traumatic for you and for Ava. It was hard on me, too,” he said calmly. “But that’s no reason to let our overwrought emotions drive us to do something ill-advised.”

Violet straightened to her full height. “Tell me you’re not comparing what I’m about to do to the fact your brother dropped out of college after his accident!”

He kept his dark gaze locked with hers. “Our situation is more complicated than that.”

You think?
“Well, at least we agree on something!” Violet fired back.

“However, the underlying principle remains the same,” he went on reasonably, suggesting she would soon come to the same conclusion. “Never make major decisions in the wake of a potentially life-altering event.”

Aware she suddenly felt so shaky she could barely stand, Violet tucked her arms against her chest to still their trembling. “So you don’t love Ava,” she choked out, an unbearable sadness coming over her.

Abruptly, Gavin looked as irked as she felt. “Of course I love her,” he said gruffly. “It’s impossible to be around her and not love her. She’s a great little kid. Sweet and adorable. Her effervescent personality shines through even at this young age.”