Let Me Love You Again (An Echoes of the Heart Novel Book 2) (31 page)

“I don’t want this,” she told him. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t know anything about Parker and me and Camille. Please, don’t put yourself in the middle of our problems.”

“It’s done.” He handed his card to the nurse. Once she was gone, he said, “What happened between you and the bastard you married is none of my business, if you don’t want to talk about it. But Camille’s family, whether I’m her biological father or not. She’s going to get what she needs—without you having to do your
husband’s bidding while he bullies his way back into your life. That’s not going to happen as long as I have a dime in my bank account.”

“How long has she been here?” Marsha asked Dru.

They were staring through the windows of Joe’s CICU room. He was scheduled to move to step-down tomorrow. He was doing as well as a man could expect less than two days after having open-heart surgery. Which meant he was swollen and puffy and paler than Marsha had ever seen him. And he was in a lot more pain than he wanted anyone to know. But as she had every time she’d set eyes on Joseph Dixon since her first day at college, she gazed at him and smiled.

They were going to get through this stronger than before.

He had so much to live for. Just look at the surprise that had been awaiting her when she’d returned from the ER. Bethany was curled up beside her dad, half on his hospital bed, one leg hanging over the side, her head nestled on Joe’s shoulder while he slept.

“Bethie was here when I came back from the bathroom,” Dru said, “about half an hour ago. The nurses said she’d just slipped in. And she’s already stayed too long. I’ve run them off twice so she could have as much time with Dad as she wants. Do you think she’ll stay once we get her out of his room?”

“I think she should know how much we want her to stay.” Like Marsha was hoping Selena and Camille were learning how much they were wanted. Like Oliver hopefully was. “Our family has to pull together now, and not just for Joe.”

Dru hugged Marsha to her side. “Bethie’s doing a good job at the Whip. Whatever we need her to do. She’s even letting me
hang some of her work on the walls. Unsigned. Of course it’s too good. Everyone knows whose it is. There’s so much of her in each painting. But no one bothers her about them. You should see people, Mom. They stop and stare and smile.”

Bethany had a gift for bringing her imagination to life so others could experience how she saw the world. It was in handling day-to-day reality that she still struggled.

“She must have heard by now,” Marsha said, “that Oliver’s back.”

“She’s talked to him a little. People in town are trying to get her to spill what she knows about Oliver and Selena. But she’s not gossiping about the family.”

“Of course she’s not.” No matter how angry Bethany might be at her brother for being gone so long, she’d still protect him.

“Is Camille okay?” Dru asked.

“They’re keeping her for a day from the sound of it. But she’s going to be fine. Oliver and Selena, though . . . he wants to love those two so much. Selena’s terrified to let him try.”

Dru watched Joe and her sister for a while before responding. “Selena’s afraid he’s going to run again.”

“We all are.”

Dru raised an eyebrow. “Except she’s a runner, too. All those years ago from Belinda. From her problems with her husband. From Chandlerville again, from the sound of it. And now Oliver’s crowding her too much, too soon. Maybe so he can do what he thinks he needs to for the family—for me and Brad and you and Dad—and then leave again himself.”

Marsha took in the peaceful picture of Bethany curled next to the foster father who’d forever claimed her as his own. Tears rushed. Blinking her eyes, she kept them at bay.

“We can’t let them go,” she said. “Oliver or Selena. We can’t lose Camille.”

“We won’t.” Dru leaned her head on Marsha’s shoulder. “Not without a fight. Not forever. Not even if they do leave. We’ll make sure they know we’ll always be here for them. The way you’ve let Bethany know. And look, she’s back. She’s with Dad when it matters. Camille will have her chance to know us, too.”

“Family stands up for family.” The way Oliver had pushed back against Selena’s husband’s asinine demands downstairs. Marsha kissed Dru’s temple.

Her daughter’s eyes watered, too. She smoothed her hand over her belly. “Camille belongs with us.”

Marsha dug into the pockets of the light cardigan she wore to counter the artificial cold of the CICU. She passed over a bundle of unused tissues. “The way your baby will belong?”

“It would break my heart”—Dru sniffed—“for my baby not to grow up knowing . . .” She stepped back. Stared at Marsha, her secret out. “You knew?”

Marsha pulled her into a hug. “That you and Brad don’t want to wait until fall to get married, for more reasons than your dad’s health? You’ve been pushing your food around on your plate when you come for Sunday dinner. You usually have more energy than the rest of us combined, but Brad’s been obsessed with you getting your rest since Joe’s heart attack.”

She eased Dru away.

“Plus,” she added, “you’re blooming, honey. You’re more beautiful than I’ve ever seen you, and that’s saying something. Your fiancé obviously thinks so, too, the way he watches you when he thinks no one will notice. I’m so happy for you both.”

Dru laughed, her tears spilling over. “I’m a watering pot. He doesn’t know what to do with me. He likes it better when we fight, and then we make up. Now he just sits there when I get like this
and holds my hand and waits for me to turn back into my old, cranky self.”

“Oh, the cranky will come as the hormones surge and your feet swell and you both are freaking out about how the rest is going to work, now that you’re adding a new life into the mix of your jobs and your marriage and everything else you both love to do around town.”

“We’d already do anything for this baby,” Dru gushed. “Anything. We stay up at night, dreaming of how it will be, everything we’ll have once we have our own family to raise. I don’t know how you and Dad do it, so many kids from so many different places, and somehow you made us all feel like we were your priority.”

“Each of you was.” Each of them still was. Every child Marsha and Joe had fostered still belonged to them. Would always belong with them. “Just like this baby, and Camille, if she’s Brad’s, will be your priority from now on. That’s how love works. No matter how full your heart feels, there’s room for more when someone you love needs you.”

“Like Camille and Selena need Oliver, regardless of what some paternity test says. They’re meant to be together, Mom. We can’t let them screw this up again.”

Chapter Nineteen

Selena gathered her purse from the small table in her daughter’s hospital room. She was still wearing her jogging gear from that morning. She smelled like her run and like a mother who’d been scared out of her mind for the last four hours. She needed to clean up before she tackled more drama.

“You’ll make the right decision.” Belinda had settled into the chair beside Camille’s bed as soon as Selena stood.

Once Camille had been moved to the pediatric unit and fallen asleep, Selena’s mother had split her time between pacing back and forth across Camille’s tiny room grumbling about Parker, and silently pacing in the hallway outside. She’d stepped back in a moment ago, saying Oliver was waiting to give Selena a ride home. Where, Selena had no doubt, she and Oliver would be dealing with Camille’s questions, Parker’s latest asshole move, and Oliver’s determination to intervene on Selena and Camille’s behalf. All before Selena could get herself cleaned up and back to the hospital in her own car.

“Is there a right decision?” she asked.

“You’re worried about the money Oliver wants to shell out?” her mother asked. “And what it means?”

“I don’t know what
any
of this means. Or how I’m going to explain what happens next to Camille.”

Belinda pulled her newspaper from the canvas bag she’d had the presence of mind to grab when they’d raced out of the house with Camille. Selena’s mother had brought her bag, Camille’s flower quilt from her window seat, and Bear. Meanwhile, Selena didn’t even have her purse. Her mother had said she’d sit with Camille while Selena took whatever time she needed to pull herself together.

“One of these days,” Belinda said, “you’re going to have to completely trust someone.”

“I trust you now.” It was still a little shocking, how easy and right that felt.

“Did you ever really trust Parker?”

“Did you ever trust Daddy?”

“Gabriel . . .” Belinda slipped on the sliders she used to read, then pushed them up to rest on the top of her head. “Your father wasn’t cut out for family. I knew that when I married him. But you were on the way, and we loved each other, and I thought he’d grow into the rest. Just because he couldn’t, just because Parker thought success meant money and things and a family everyone in his corporate world could admire . . . doesn’t mean every man, even one who’s had trouble settling down, won’t come through if you give him a chance.”

Selena shook her head. “After all these years. After how much you disapproved when Oliver and I were dating . . . now you’re practically shoving me at him.”

Belinda laid her paper on the table by the bed. “It’s okay to want
him, Selena. It’s always been okay, even in high school when I was terrified of how reckless you two were being. I didn’t want to believe how much you loved Oliver. How much you needed him. And I didn’t want him to make you even more unhappy than you already were. But I believe that he loved you back then, no matter how badly the two of you ended things. I think he could be good for you still, if that’s what you want.”

“But what . . .” Selena thought of all the dreams she’d fought about building a life for her and Oliver and Camille. “What if Camille turns out to be Brad’s?”

“And you’ve given your heart to a man who isn’t her father?”

Selena nodded.

“A man,” her mother added, “you think won’t want you or your daughter once he doesn’t have to feel responsible for you?”

“He’s trying to be responsible. But . . .”

“You want to be loved.”

And Selena so wanted for that love to be Oliver’s. Look at the way he’d held her and kissed her at the Dixon house. The way he’d talked so carefully with Camille when she was upset, and tried to help her understand. Even how he’d overstepped and pushed back against Parker downstairs when it had technically been none of his business. It all sounded so good.

But was it love?

“If it’s not going to last,” she said, “I have to put a stop to it, for Camille’s sake.” For both their sakes.

You could destroy me . . .

“How?” her mother asked. “Camille’s asking her own questions. She’ll be looking for her own answers. You can try to stop what you’re feeling for Oliver. But you can’t decide for your daughter who and what she’s going to care about. Trust me. I’ve done the legwork.”

“But what if she’s hurt all over again?”

“What if she loves the Dixons and Oliver, or Brad, or all of them, and everything turns out fine?”

You wouldn’t have been able to stay away from me whether Camille was involved or not. And it terrifies you, what that could mean.