He opened the door, not even sparing Grace a glance, taking her daughter.
"If she gives you any trouble, just call," Grace said, trying to keep her voice light and bright as he walked away, but it wobbled.
Already on the sidewalk, striding to his car, Danny said, "We"re fine."
And he left.
Watching his car lights as they disappeared into the night, Grace stood on her stoop, with her lawyer"s words ringing in her ears, suddenly wondering if Danny really hadn"t tricked her.
Could he have put on jeans a few times, made a couple of pancakes and cruelly lured her into loving him, all to take her child?
Danny entered his home, sobbing Sarah on his arm. "Elise!" he called, summoning his nanny.
She strode into the foyer. Tall and st.u.r.dily build, Elise wore a brightly colored knit cardigan over a white blouse and gray skirt. She looked like she could have stepped out of a storybook, as the quintessential nanny.
"Oh, my. This little one"s got a pair of lungs!" Elise said with a laugh, and reached out to take Sarah from his arms. But as Danny handed the baby to her nanny, he felt odd about giving over Sarah"s care so easily. He remembered that Grace had told him that she didn"t want to share his nanny because caring for Sarah was part of her quality time.
After shrugging out of his topcoat, he reached for Sarah again. "Tonight, I"ll take care of her."
"But-"
"At least until she adjusts to being here."
Elise took a breath, gave him a confused smile and said, "As you wish."
Danny didn"t care what she thought. All he cared about was Sarah. He"d thought hiring a nanny would be the perfect way to help ease Sarah into her new life, but seeing Elise with Sarah felt wrong. Sarah was his responsibility. His little girl. His daughter.
Carrying Sarah into the nursery, Danny thought of Grace. How tears had filled her eyes when Sarah had begun to cry. He"d left quickly, not to cause her pain, but to get all three of them accustomed to this every other Friday night ritual. But he"d hurt her.
Again.
It seemed he was always hurting Grace.
Still, with crying Sarah on his arm, it wasn"t the time to think about that. He wrestled her out of her jacket, little black shoes, tiny jeans and T-shirt, then rolled her into a pair of pajamas.
She never stopped crying.
He put her on his shoulder and patted her back, as he walked downstairs and to the refrigerator where he extracted one of the bottles Elise had prepared. Sitting on the rocker in the nursery, he fed her the bottle and though she drank greedily, sniffled remnants of her crying jag accompanied her sucking. The second the bottle came out of her mouth, she began to cry again.
"I"m sorry. I know this is hard. I know you miss your mom, but this is the right thing. Trust me."
He paced the floor with her, trying to comfort her, but as he pivoted to make his third swipe across the room, he saw the books beside the rocker. The designer he"d hired to create the yellow and pink, bear-theme room had strategically stationed books on a low table within reach of the rocker. After sitting again, he took one of the books, opened it and began to read.
"Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there lived a princess. Her name was-" He paused, then smiled. "Sarah. Sarah bear."
Sarah"s crying slowed.
"She was a beautiful child with blond-reddish-brown curls," he amended, matching the description of the little girl in the book to the little girl in his arms. "And blue eyes."
Her crying reduced to sniffles and she blinked, her confused expression taking him back to the first night he"d cared for her alone-the night Grace had been edgy. The memory caused him to smile. He hadn"t wanted to be alone with Sarah. Wasn"t sure he could handle her. He"d only kept the baby to please Grace.
He took a breath. This time he was caring for Sarah to protect Grace. From him. Adding a failed marriage to ignoring her pregnancy and taking her child wouldn"t help anything. He had to remember that.
"The princess lived alone with her father, the king. Her mother had died when the princess was a baby and a governess had been hired. Mrs. Pickleberry had a face puckered in a perpetual frown and Sarah would pretend to be ill, rather than spend time with her when the king was out of the palace performing his royal duties. Each time, when Mrs. Pickleberry would leave her room, sufficiently convinced that Sarah should stay in bed for the day, Sarah would crawl into her window seat, her legs tucked beneath her, her thumb in her mouth, watching, alone, for her father to return."
Danny stopped reading. The king didn"t have a choice about leaving his daughter in the care of her governess, but Danny had choices. Lots of them. In the argument they"d had the day Grace brought Sarah to him, Grace had asked if it was better for Sarah to be raised by strangers rather than her mother. Still, that wasn"t what was happening here. Yes, Sarah would be stuck with a governess-uh, nanny-while Danny was at work, but he wasn"t taking Sarah away from her mother. Not really. Just every other week.
He glanced down. Sarah was asleep.
Thank G.o.d. He didn"t think he could take any more of the story"s inadvertent accusations. He laid the baby in her crib and stood for several minutes, just watching Sarah, basking in the joy of being a dad, considering all the things he could do for Sarah, and convincing himself that while he had Sarah, Grace could also do so many things, things she otherwise didn"t have time to do.
But the soft smile that had lit his face suddenly died. Grace might have time to do tons of different things, but she wouldn"t. She would spend every hour he had custody worrying about Sarah. Not because Danny wasn"t trustworthy, but because she would miss her. And only because she would miss her. In fact, right now, Grace was probably crying, or lonely. And he absolutely couldn"t stand the thought of it.
He wasn"t the kind of man to hurt people. But his reasoning this time went beyond his own image of himself. He couldn"t stand the thought of Grace missing Sarah because he loved her. The last thing any man wanted to do was hurt the woman he loved most in this world. And yet that was what he always did with Grace. He hurt her. When he"d met her, he was a broken, empty man. She"d reminded him of life. That Sunday night at the beach house, she"d given him a glimpse of what they"d have together if he could open up. When he couldn"t, she"d gracefully accepted that he didn"t want to see her anymore. But when she"d gotten pregnant, she"d tried one more time. When he rejected her again, she didn"t return until she had Sarah. Offering him something he truly didn"t deserve: a place in their daughter"s life. A place she hadn"t s.n.a.t.c.hed away. Even knowing his dark secret, she had faith in him when he had none in himself.
Danny gritted his teeth. He knew the solution to this problem. He knew it as well as he knew his own last name.
In order to save Grace, he had to let go of his guilt. He had to try again. In earnest.
Or he had to take Sarah back to Grace. For good. No more shared custody.
Halfway to the kitchen to make cocoa, Grace heard a knock on her door and peered at her watch. Who would be visiting after nine at night?
Expecting it to be her parents, who were undoubtedly worried about her because this was her first night without Sarah, she turned and headed for the door. When she looked through the peephole and saw Danny holding sleeping Sarah, she jumped back and yanked open the door.
Reaching for Sarah, she said, "What happened? What"s wrong?"
He motioned inside her house. "Can we talk?"
Cradling Sarah on her arm, she looked down and examined every exposed inch of her sleeping baby. Her gaze shooting to Danny, she said, "She"s fine?"
He nodded. "Yeah. It"s you and I who have the problem. We need to talk."
Grace"s heart stopped. She"d nearly had herself convinced that Robbie was right. Danny had tricked her and he had gotten everything he wanted at Grace"s expense. All because she"d fallen in love with him.
But he was back, saying they needed to talk, sounding like a man ready to give, rather than take. Still, this time she had to be strong, careful. She couldn"t fall victim to the look in his beautiful dark eyes...or the hope in her heart.
She had to be strong.
"Danny, it"s late and our lawyers said everything we needed to say-"
"Not mine. He hardly said anything. And there are a few things I need to say. Put Sarah to bed. In her bed."
The gentleness of his voice got to her. If nothing else, Grace knew with absolute certainty that Danny loved Sarah. Knowing her lawyer would probably be angry that she talked to Danny without counsel, Grace stepped aside so Danny could enter.
As she turned to walk up the steps with the baby, she saw Danny hesitate in her small entryway.
Remembering he was always more at ease in her home when she gave him something to do, she said, "I was just about to make cocoa. You could go in the kitchen and get mugs."
"Okay."
When she returned downstairs, Grace saw he had only gotten as far as the stools in front of the breakfast counter. Again noting his hesitation, Grace said, "Don"t you want cocoa?"
"I"d love some."
He sounded so quiet and so unsteady that Grace didn"t know what to say. She set the pan on the stove and poured in milk and cocoa, waiting for him to talk. When he didn"t, she lowered the flame on the gas burner and walked to the breakfast bar.
"Did something happen with Sarah?"
"No. She was fine." He caught her gaze. "Why did you do this? Why are you letting me have her every other week?"
She shrugged. "You"re Sarah"s dad. She loves you. You love her."
He caught her gaze. "And that"s it?"
"What else is there?"
"You didn"t give Sarah to me to try to force my hand?"
"Force your hand?" She laughed. "Oh, my G.o.d, Danny, when have I ever gotten you to do anything? You didn"t believe I slept with you because I liked you. You were sure I had an agenda. You didn"t believe I was pregnant when I told you. You kicked me out of your office. You were so suspicious of me when I suggested shared custody that you insisted on the agreement. If there"s one thing I know not to do it"s try to force you to do anything."
"You didn"t give me Sarah so that I"d be so grateful I"d fall in love with you?"
After a second to recover from the shock of that accusation, she shook her head sadly. He really did believe that people only did nice things when they wanted something from him. "Oh, Danny, I didn"t give you time with Sarah to drag you into a relationship with me."
"Really?"
"Yes. I gave you time with Sarah because you"re her dad."
"And you want nothing from me."
Grace debated lying to him. She wanted them to be a normal family. She wanted him to be the happy, laughing guy who"d made love to her at the beach house. She wanted him to want her. To welcome her into his life with open arms. She wanted a lot, but she didn"t expect anything from him. The way she saw their lives unfolding, she would spend most of the time they had together just happy to see him unwind.
But if there was one thing she"d learned about Danny over the past weeks, it was that he valued honesty. So she took a breath and said, "I want a lot. But I"m also a realist. You won"t fall in love again until you"re ready. n.o.body"s going to push you."
He slid onto the stool. "I know." Pointing at the stove, he said, "I think your pot"s boiling over."
"Eeek!" She spun away from the breakfast bar and ran to the stove, where hot milk bubbled over the sides of her aluminum pot. "Looks like I"ll be starting over."
"I think we should both start over."
Not at all sure what he meant by that, Grace poured out the burned milk and filled the dirty pot with water, her heart pounding at the possibilities. "And how do you propose we start over?"
"The first step is that I have to tell you everything."
She found a second pot, filled it with milk and poured in cocoa, again refusing to hurry him along or push him. This was his show. She would let him do whatever he wanted. She"d never misinterpret him again. "So tell me everything."
While she adjusted the gas burner, he said, "Tonight I really thought through the things that had had happened to me in the past several years, and I realized something I"d refused to see before this."
He paused again. Recognizing he might think she wasn"t paying attention, Grace said, "And what was that?"
"My marriage to Lydia was over before Cory"s accident."
At that Grace turned to face him. "What?"
"Tonight when I was caring for Sarah in my brand-new nursery and thinking about how sad you probably were here alone, I realized that you are very different from Lydia. She and I spent most of our married life fighting. First she didn"t want children, then when we had Cory she wanted him enrolled in a school for gifted children in California. We didn"t fight over my pushing him into taking over Carson Services. We fought because she kept pushing him away. She didn"t want him around."
"Oh."
"I won"t say I didn"t love her when I married her, but I can now see that we were so different, especially in what we wanted out of life, that we were heading for divorce long before Cory"s accident. Tonight, I finally saw that I needed to separate the two. Cory"s accident didn"t ruin my marriage. Lydia and I had handled that all by ourselves."
"I"m sorry."
He laughed lightly. "You know what? I knew you would be. And I think that"s part of why I like you. Why I was drawn to you at the beach house. You really have a sixth sense about people. I saw how you were with Orlando and listened in sometimes on your conversations, and I knew you were somebody special. More than that, though, you respected the same things I did. Especially family and commitments. You and I had the thing Lydia and I lacked. Common beliefs. Sunday night when we were alone, I realized we also had more than our fair share of chemistry." He paused, then said, "But I panicked."
Since Grace couldn"t dispute what he said-or add to it-she stayed silent, letting him talk.
"Tonight, rocking Sarah, thinking about you, hating that you had to give up your child, I was angry that life had forced us into this position, but I suddenly realized it wasn"t life that forced us here. It was me because I didn"t think I could love you without hurting you."
Too afraid to make a hopeful guess about the end of his conclusions, Grace held her breath.
"I guess thinking about my own marriage and Lydia and Cory while holding Sarah, I finally saw something that made everything fall into place for me."
Grace whispered, "What"s that?"
"That if you and I had been married, we would have weathered Cory"s death. You might have honestly acknowledged my mistake in grabbing my cell phone, and even acknowledged that I would feel guilty, but you never would have let me take the blame. You and I would have survived. A marriage between us would have survived."
Grace pressed her hand to her chest. "That"s quite a compliment."
"You"re a very special person. Or maybe the strength of your love is special." He shook his head. "Or maybe you and I together are special. I don"t know. I just know that through all this you"d been very patient. But I"m done running."
She smiled. "Thought you didn"t run."
"Well, maybe I wasn"t running. Maybe I was holding everybody back. Away. But I can"t do that anymore."
She took a breath, her hope building, her heart pounding.
"Because I love you. I love you." He repeated, as if saying it seemed so amazing he needed to say it again. "I couldn"t stand the thought of you here alone, and though I don"t want to hurt you I finally saw that unless I took this step, I would always be hurting you."
Her voice a mere whisper, Grace said, "What step?"