Found: A Mother for His Son (18 page)

“You know, Jenna, if we hadn’t…”

“What, Dermott? Spent the night together? If you hadn’t sent Max to spend the night with his grandparents? If you hadn’t put your fist through a wall, which was why you sent him over there? If you hadn’t worked so many hours then you might have seen what was happening to your marriage, or to Max? If
I
hadn’t run away that day we were interrupted in the closet you might not have married Nancy, or if you hadn’t noticed me that day I marched the coffee pot down the hall then we might never have met…” She swallowed hard. “I’ve lived a life of regrets, Dermott. That’s all I’ve ever had. And I know how they can destroy you. All the what-ifs…you dwell on them, wonder, drive yourself crazy, and in the end, it doesn’t matter. You’ve made your choices and you have to live with the consequences. If we hadn’t spent the night together, Max would have been home and this would have been put off. But it was inevitable. It had to happen sooner or later, and in so many ways it’s good that it was sooner, because now that it’s in the open, you can—”

“Spare me. OK, Jenna. Just spare me. The town knows what’s best. They stay away so I can have more time with Max. My in-laws know what’s best by putting photos in Max’s room after I asked them not to. And even you know what’s best…you, the one with the messed-up life, who runs away from everything. Well, you know what? I don’t care what anybody thinks is best for my son. He’s
my
son. I’ll take care of him any damn way I see fit to and the rest of the world can leave us the hell alone.”

Jenna took a step back. If ever there was a time to exit, this was it. Go pack her things, leave town, don’t look back. Except she couldn’t.
Not this time.
“I knew someone who said pretty much the same thing once, a long time ago. Everybody could leave her the hell alone. And to prove that she meant it, she ran away from the best thing that had ever happened to her. Walked out, didn’t look back. Got her wish. But you know what, Dermott? Be careful what you wish for. Being left alone isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. I’ve been there pretty much most of my life, except for the few years I lived with my grandparents.”

“You walked away from them?” he asked.

“Ran away. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough. They were good to me, but I didn’t think I deserved good. I was a bad girl. That’s why my father beat me. That was his excuse, and it stayed with me. I did everything I could to prove to my grandparents just how right my father had been about me and they were about ready to send me away to boarding school because they could no longer discipline me. But I was a bad girl. I deserved to be sent away.”

“So you ran, and you’re still running.”

Jenna shook her head. “No, I’m not running now. Because you need me, Dermott. And Max needs me. But more than that,
I
need
you
.”

“How am I going to get through this, JJ?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “I heard everything Max said, and I almost can’t believe…can’t believe she did that to him. Suspecting it is one thing, but actually
hearing
it…” He shook his head angrily. “I had all these ambitions. Be the best doctor this town could possibly have, be a good husband, be a great dad. And look at me. I failed at it all.”

“You didn’t fail, Dermott. You were deceived, and I think you were probably naive in a lot of ways, but you weren’t…
aren’t
…
a failure. And you’ve got the greatest little boy in the world to prove that.”

“Did you ever go back to see your grandparents?”

Jenna shook her head. “I called a few times, left messages. But those bridges were burned years ago. They want nothing to do with me, and I don’t blame them. I put them through hell.”

“Do they know how you turned out, though? That you’re a well-educated nurse?”

“I didn’t tell them. What was the point? They tried to help at a time in my life when I needed it, and I didn’t want it. And the thing is, I wanted them to fight for me, Dermott. Deep down in my heart, I wanted them to care enough to do a royal battle with me over myself. But they didn’t. I suppose it was easier letting me leave. Or maybe they never thought I’d go through with it. I did, though, and look at me now.”

“Look at you now…engaged in that royal battle for my son.”

“Because he has everything I didn’t, and it will heal him, Dermott. Right now his wounds are tiny. Don’t get me wrong. Tiny doesn’t mean they’re not deep, or that they can be ignored. They’re there. Yet I get the sense that he’s trying to protect you…in his own little-boy way, he doesn’t want you hurt by the things that hurt him. That’s why he won’t call you Daddy.” She stepped closer and laid a supportive hand on Dermott’s arm, but Dermott pulled her into his arms and held her to his chest. For the first time since she couldn’t remember when, she felt safe. Felt like she finally belonged. The funny thing was, it didn’t frighten her the way she thought it would if she ever found it. Maybe that’s because she was ready to find it. Or because she’d found it with Dermott.

Maybe both.

“Will you stay, Jenna?” he asked. “Maybe now’s not the best time to ask, because it will seem like I want you to stay and help with Max. But I want you to stay…for me.
Only for me.
And, yes, I’m being selfish about that.”

Jenna laughed. “You may be a lot of things, Dermott Callahan, but selfish is not one of them.” She paused for a moment, growing contemplative. “When I came here, I didn’t want to stay. I wouldn’t even unpack all my clothes because that would mean I had expectations, and throughout my life the only thing I’ve known of expectations is that they hurt. But deep down I didn’t want to leave here. I’ve armed myself practically every day with reasons to leave, and you’ve seen that. Even last night, after we…This morning, before you joined me in the shower, I’d decided that was an appropriate goodbye for us. The end of some long, unfinished business.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, as if bracing himself for the worst.

“But it’s still unfinished, Dermott, and I don’t think it ever can be finished between us. I think I fell in love with you a little all those years ago, and I know I fell in love with you all the way that day I saw you in the elevator and decided to come here. In my entire life, it was the first time I wasn’t running away
from
something, but running
to
something. And I don’t want to leave you. If you’ll have me, faults and all.”

“That sounds like a marriage proposal,” he whispered.

“It could be,” she said, amazed by her boldness, amazed that all the vulnerability she’d ever felt, and all the fears of rejection she’d always known had suddenly vanished. “If you want it to be.”

“I want it to be,” he said, lowering his head to kiss her. But just as their lips met, the pad of quiet feet on the stairs interrupted them, and one very unsure little boy stood there, waiting for his breakfast ice-cream date.

“Well, right now, another man wants me,” Jenna said, forcing herself to back away from Dermott. She didn’t want to, but this next step was necessary for everyone. “Why don’t you go have that talk with Nancy’s parents? Then join us for…” She glanced at Max, then smiled. “Chocolate.”

“I knew you’d come round,” Dermott said, taking hold of her hand. “We Callahan men have a persuasive way about us.”

“So do we Lawson women,” she said, extending her hand out to Max. Then she smiled. The three of them, hand in hand. One family, meant to be.

One Year Later

“Come on!” Max practically yelled at them. “Mom! Dad! Hurry up!”

“Your son is very impatient,” Dermott said, as he held the car door open for Jenna.

“
My
son is a perfect angel. When he’s impatient, he’s
your
son.” She hesitated before she climbed out. It had been so long, and the few brief conversations she’d had with them this past month so strained. But it was time, and with Dermott’s support, she could do this. She could come home. “Why don’t we just send him up to the door, and we’ll wait here.” Her stomach was in knots, her hands shaking.

“Dad!” Max shouted again. He was halfway up the walk now, and not too happy at his parents’ slow pace.

“Don’t you just love it when he calls me that?” Dermott said, pulling Jenna from the passenger’s side.

It had taken a while, and sometimes
big guy
still slipped out, but Max was growing more secure in the people he loved, and who loved him most in the world, and the more that happened, the more he called Dermott Dad. And lately he’d started calling Jenna Mom—a name she loved. “Why did I ever agree to this?” she asked, as Dermott practically dragged her along the paved walk to the front door.

“Because you know it’s the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, well, the right thing shouldn’t be making me so light-headed. I think I’m going to be morning sick again.”

“I think you were plenty morning sick a while ago, and this is just an excuse.” He patted her still-flat tummy. “And even if it is morning sickness, you’re in the hands of a fairly competent doctor.”

“Who should have stayed home and tended to his medical practice. And kept his office nurse there with him.” People were coming back to the medical practice now, little by little. Most of them anyway. A few still stayed away, thinking it was for the best, and a few, like Alisa Charney, were downright unforgiving, but overall the situation was better for just about everyone. Everybody was still cautious when it came to Max, which was a good thing and, for the most part, time was healing some very deep wounds…time, patience, and a whole lot of love.

Even Dermott’s hurt and anger had mellowed a little, although Jenna knew that it might never completely vanish. But he was dealing with it better. No more punching holes in the wall with his bare fists. And now, seven months married, with the help of a part-time, near retirement-age doctor who’d moved over from Muledeer to help out, and Fort Dyott’s new computer guru, Leona Hazelwood, coming in three days a week to help—a sure cure for
her
loneliness—the medical practice was thriving almost as much as the Callahan family was.

“They want to see you, Jenna. Why else would they have finally invited you?”

She let out a heavy breath. “Because they felt obligated. Because it’s the right thing. Because they want to tell me, face to face, to leave them alone. That what I did can’t be undone.”

He held her around the waist with a firm hand. “This will be good. You’ve helped Max and me, as well as Frank and Irene, and now it’s time that we do the same for you.”

“You’re assuming I want to be helped.”

“I love that stubborn streak, I love that stubborn streak.”

“What?”

“I’m reminding myself that I love that stubborn streak in you.”

“You just wait, Dr. Callahan. Your next child is going to get all my stubbornness, and all yours, too.”

He groaned playfully. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’re really a very mild-mannered, complacent woman who’s been faking her stubbornness all along, is there?”

The front door to the old two-story brick house opened and Jenna sucked in a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. It was her grandfather, and he hadn’t changed much. Tall, square shouldered, white hair. He was bending down to talk to Max, who’d run on ahead and banged on the large brass knocker. “Not a chance,” she said, as she started, in earnest, down the walkway. By the time she’d stopped behind Max, her grandmother had joined them on the porch.

“Grandmother, Grandfather…this is my husband, Dermott Callahan, and you’ve already met my son, Max.”

“The boy who wants to ride the horse?” her grandfather asked.

“The boy who wants to ride the horse,” Jenna said.

“Would it be alright if I take my great-grandson down to the stables?” he asked, his voice sounding as unsure as Jenna felt.

Jenna nodded. “It would be alright.”

Asa Lawson held out his hand to Max, who took hold eagerly. And as the two of them headed off to the stables, Jenna stood and watched something she’d never, ever expected to see. “It’s good,” she whispered to Dermott. Then she turned to her grandmother. “Did you happen to make my favorite sugar cookies? Or buttermilk cake?”

Rather than answering, Amanda Lawson opened her arms to Jenna, and Jenna fell straight into them. “Welcome home, Jenna,” her grandmother said.

Home. Jenna Lawson Callahan, who’d never had a home of her own, was finally, truly at home. But it wasn’t a brick-and-mortar place. Wasn’t a three-story medical building on the main street of Fort Dyott or the little white cottage she and Dermott had moved into on the edge of town. It wasn’t the barn that Max had succeeded in painting entirely blue and purple, and it wasn’t even a horse ranch that stabled the pony her son was now riding. Home was far, far bigger. And Jenna, at long last, had found her home forever.

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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First published in Great Britain 2009
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© Dianne Drake 2009

ISBN: 978-1-408-91211-9