Capital Risk (32 page)

It was the most harrowing, sweaty, utterly disturbing experience of my life.

Then the nurse passed the squirmy bundle of pink to me.

And I figured it hadn’t been so bad.

Nicholas didn’t last. I never saw him cry before, but he nuzzled against me, breath just as labored as mine. They probably should have given him the oxygen. I didn’t need it.

I hadn’t breathed since Bumper looked up at me.

“Oh, she’s the most beautiful baby girl,” the nurse said. “She looks just like Daddy. Look at those big, golden eyes.”

I clutched her, but I was lost. Overwhelmed.

Nicholas held us, both of us.

Me and his daughter.

And we both wept in joy.

The party was scheduled for tomorrow. After finals. Because, for some reason, I thought it’d be fun to chase the baby, take an eight AM final, graduate, and then have a giant formal party to celebrate my degree.

But if anyone could handle it, it was me.

Still, my books were piled on the patio table, cast out around me. I stared at the results of my titration lab. They were the right figures, of course, but smudged with smashed bananas. I’d pass it off as me initialing the work and hopefully my professor—a woman with a young child herself—wouldn’t take too many points off my current A.

It really wouldn’t matter. I still had Atwood Industries to run and the future GMO division of the Bennett Corporation to oversee, but I
wanted
this degree. Not because it was what my family planned for me, and not because I had to finish anything I started, but because it was for
me
.

It was mine.

And I wasn’t letting anything keep me from what was mine anymore.

So I pushed the sippy-cup toward the high-chair and let the chubby little hand squeeze my fingers as I studied.

“Hannah,” I smiled at the squealing toddler. “Can you say
titration
?”

“
Ie-ie-ah-banana.”

Nicholas snorted over his laptop. “Sounds like she’s going into business with me.”

“Yeah, right. That was an –ethyl group. She’s talking compounds and esters.”

The sippy-cup smashed to the table. Nicholas scooped it up before it spilled over my books.

“Thank you, Daddy.” I murmured.

“Did you graduate yet?”

I bit my pencil. “Not yet. Give me twenty-four hours.”

“You sure you can’t take off early?”

I didn’t trust the devious glow in his golden eyes—warm and promising and absolutely not the distraction I needed while studying for my last test ever.

At least, until I went for my doctorate.

“The plane’s ready,” he teased. “Beautiful spot on the beach. Just you, me, Bumper.”

“You know we can’t go until after tomorrow. Hard to host a graduation party if I’m not here.”

“Hard to have a honeymoon if you don’t want to go.”

“Oh, I want to go.”

“Do you?”

“Depends,” I smirked. “What are you planning?”

“You’ll see.”

Nicholas curled a finger. I leaned in close, stealing a heated, perfect kiss.

Hannah squealed in shrill delight. I knew that excited sound. I murmured against his lips.

“Uncle Reed’s here.” I pulled from Nicholas. Reluctantly. “Honeymoon can wait.”

Reed jogged onto the patio, making a beeline for the baby. Hannah loved the game, and she raised her arms for a hug. Spoiled little thing. All she ever got were hugs. And kisses. And trust funds. Mostly hugs.

“You really shouldn’t cage her like this.” Reed slathered her with kisses.

“It’s a high-chair.” I laughed.

“This little girl wants to run.”

“Run and jump and fall off all the steps and rush into the corn…”

And they were down, rolling in the grass. Reed tossed Hannah into the air,
way
too high.

Yeah, we weren’t studying now.

“Place looks good.” Reed mimicked Bumper, squealing just as shrill as she expressed her profound enjoyment at rough-housing with her uncle. “Almost done?”

Nicholas glanced over our new home. “It is.”

It wasn’t the garish Bennett Estate, nor was it the gaudy farmhouse turned mansion. But it was ours. A blended, perfect union of both rural cornfields and hectic business. Nicholas surrendered and agreed to raise Hannah on the farm. It wasn’t much of a fight. He didn’t care where we were or where we lived.

So long as we were together. A family.

And we were.

For the most part. As much as the old wounds healed.

Reed stood, gathering my baby-turned-toddler-before-I-was-ready into his arms. He passed her to me. His voice lowered.

“Are you expecting anyone else?”

I turned.

The dark figure limping his way to the patio hesitated. The party planners and decorators buzzed in his path, and he wasn’t completely stable on the prosthetic leg yet. He clutched an oversized teddy bear dressed in overalls with a little straw hat.

Just like one he gave me once, but this present wasn’t for me.

My heart stilled. I held Hannah close. Nicholas stood.

“Max?”

Max didn’t look at me, but he approached his brothers after a long moment. He appeared…so different. Pale, but still a mountain of muscle and ink and frightening intensity.

“Holy shit, dude,” Reed said. “What are you doing here?”

My words shuddered, lost in a pain I hadn’t felt for a year and a half.

“I invited him.” I stared at my step-brother. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

Max lowered his gaze. “I thought it was time.”

Silence.

We stared at each other. Reunited after what felt like a lifetime of pain, recovery, joy.

Reed slapped a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. “I still haven’t seen that new game room.”

Nicholas’s gaze stayed on me and the baby. “Sarah?”

“It’s okay.”

Nicholas and Reed granted us privacy. I snuggled Hannah close.

Max still hadn’t met my gaze. He hadn’t expected to talk to me alone. He hadn’t talked to me at all.

And that hurt more than anything.

“A year and half, Max,” I whispered. “You didn’t call. You didn’t try to see us. You didn’t even
text
.”

“Yeah.”

That was it? That was all he would say? Hannah squirmed, but I adjusted her against my hip.

“You didn’t come to see your niece when she was born.”

That was the greatest insult, but I wasn’t done listing the wounds he caused me.

“You didn’t come to the wedding. You didn’t come to the house. You didn’t even try.”

“I tried.”

“You did a horrible job.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me here, baby.” He rubbed his face. “Not after what I did.”

So much had happened since then. So many questions and problems and pain, and so many
good
things. The baby. The marriage.

It was so easy to love when we had no secrets, no hidden motives.

“You haven’t forgiven me yet,” he said.

I stared at the cornfields, the back field where my entire family buried. Josiah and Mike. Dad. Mom, who’d held on long enough to meet her granddaughter. I’d needed everyone in my family to rebuild my life after it crashed down. That included Max.

And he had refused to come.

“It’s hard to forgive you if you aren’t here to forgive, Max.”

He tensed, meeting my eyes.

“We’re a family now,” I said. “We’re all we have. Nicholas and me and…” I shrugged with Bumper. “And Reed. We’re supposed to be a family. I wanted that more than anything. And you weren’t there.”

“You
wanted
me here?”

Not at first. It took time. But it wouldn’t have taken nearly as much if we had been together.

“I thought you were dead,” I said. “We all did. And then you call a
week
later only to disappear again. Max, I didn’t want you here, but I needed you. I still do.”

He didn’t believe me. He didn’t
want
to believe me. He surveyed the farm, pretending to care an ounce about the corn and dirt. He turned. His attention rested on the baby.

“That her?” he asked.

“No, I stable a whole flock of kids now.”

“You know what I mean.”

I edged her close to Max. Now she decided to play it coy and hid her face in my shoulder.

“What’s her name?”

“Hannah Rain Atwood-Bennett.” I kissed her cheek to earn her giggle. “Still call her Bumper though. It grew on us.”

His words lowered. “She looks like Nick.”

“She should.”

“Is…is she…”

“His? Yes.”

“Are…are you sure?”

I hated speaking of it. It wouldn’t have made a difference. Nicholas and I loved Hannah unconditionally.

“I’m a geneticist. She’s Nick’s.”

A man as big as Max would fall the hardest if he let it happen. He didn’t though. He composed himself with a breath and nodded.

“Good,” he said. “That’s…the way it should be.”

Yes. It was. “Do you want to hold her?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Max.” I shifted her. Hannah hid her face, but she smiled, baiting him to reach for her.

“I have no idea how to hold a baby.”

“It’s easy.” I passed her into his arms. Max’s muscles swallowed her, cradling her within ink and strength. Hannah looked at Max with a goofy grin and babbled.

He instantly fell in love.

“What’d she say?” His words wavered. He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t breathed.

“Hi, Hamlet, banana, and
tor-tor
. We think that’s her word for tractor. She’s giving you a tour of the farm.”

“She’s amazing.”

“She is.” I brushed her chubby little arm. “She could use another uncle.”

“Not me.”

“Yes you. Max, this family isn’t a normal family. But we’ve been through too much together to separate. We can’t heal on our own. It isn’t fair to punish ourselves for what happened in the past. It’s not fair to Hannah.”

He hadn’t stopped staring at her. I didn’t blame him. Most times I couldn’t help but watch her too. And I caught Nick studying the baby monitor at night if only because I told him she had to learn to sleep in the crib, not cradled against his chest.

“I graduate college tomorrow,” I said. “The new Bennett seed division is finally doing research. My farm is thriving. Nick posted record profits. Hannah started walking. Reed’s got this new girlfriend and—honest to God—it’s one crazy story about where he got her. Max, you have to be here for some of this. Promise me this isn’t another goodbye.”

“That’s up to you, baby.”

I herded him to the table. He walked better now, without the bad leg. I doubted he wanted to talk about the amputation. He hadn’t even told Nicholas it was done until he was healed and in the prosthetic.

“We do have to talk,” I said.

He clenched his jaw, bracing for a war I wasn’t planning to reignite.

“You have a year and a half of photo albums to get through,” I said. “You missed
everything
. I have thousands of pictures of Hannah you have to see.”

“I’m holding her. I see her.”

“
Thousands
, Max. She was a flower girl in the wedding. It was adorable. You have to see it.”

“Whatever you want.”

I touched his cheek, bending down to kiss his forehead.

“I just want her to know she has a family. That’s she’s safe and loved and
wanted
.”

I wanted the same for him.

“Then I’ll look at as many pictures as you want.”

“I’m glad you’re back.”

He held Hannah closer. “Yeah. Me too.”

***