The Daughter He Wanted (31 page)

Alex reached for Paige’s free hand and it was cold, as cold as his own heart. In the distance he heard sirens but all he could see was Kaylie’s pale face.

He couldn’t let it happen again.

He couldn’t lose another person that he loved.

* * *

P
AIGE PACED OUTSIDE
the room housing the big X-ray machine, allowing anger at the doctors to take over from the cold and fear she’d felt from the second Kaylie pitched forward into the pool. They said it didn’t matter that she was a baby, Paige could only watch from outside the room.

While her baby lay quietly in the room.

She didn’t care about protocol and she didn’t care about the risk to herself from the X-ray machine. She wanted to be with her daughter.

Alex hurried through the door from the waiting room and relief swept over her. She took his hand and together they watched as the technician took images of Kaylie’s head. A moment later they wheeled her out, and although she was still groggy from the fall, Paige thought she was a bit more alert than she had been when they’d arrived in the ambulance.

The orderly settled Kaylie in the emergency room once more and Paige pulled a chair over to sit beside her.

“My head hurts,” she said in a weak voice.

“You slipped and fell, sweetpea. You’ll be okay.”

“Did you see me swim? I got to the rope all by myself.”

“We saw it.” Alex stepped forward and took Kaylie’s other hand when she reached for the bloodstained bandage on her head. “You did so great.”

The emergency-room doctor hurried in, followed by Kaylie’s pediatrician. “Ms. Kenner, Mr. Ryan. Kaylie is going to be fine.” The doctor put Kaylie’s X-rays on a lighted board and indicated a dark spot on the screen. “She has a nasty bump and there is a small subdural hematoma here, but we don’t see any bleeding on the brain.”

Paige sagged back against her chair and Alex put his hands on her shoulders. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you. Can we take her home?”

Dr. Laffay, Kaylie’s pediatrician, shook her head. “Kaylie needs to stay with us for tonight. We’ll watch her closely, just to make sure there is no damage we haven’t spotted yet.”

“Can I stay with her for the night?” Relief swept over Paige at the doctors’ words, but she didn’t want to leave her baby, not tonight.

“You won’t get much sleep. The nurses will be in periodically to wake her, make sure things are moving along smoothly,” Dr. Laffay warned.

“I don’t care, I want to stay.”

“We’ll have a cot brought in for you, then.”

Ten bustling minutes later Kaylie was settled in a new room in the children’s ward outside the ER. A nurse checked her vitals and made sure she was comfortable before telling Paige to buzz if they needed anything.

She needed Alex, Paige thought, but although he was beside her she could tell he wasn’t really there. He’d held her hand all the way to the hospital. Taken over at the admission desk, giving the pertinent insurance information to the intake worker. Held Kaylie’s hand when she was scared and hurting before the doctors gave her any medication. Through it all he was physically there, but he wasn’t present, not the way he usually was.

Everyone responds differently in a crisis
.

Except he was a park ranger. Used to stressful situations, taking charge. From the second Kaylie had started to fall it was as if Ranger Alex was gone, replaced by a stranger.

“You don’t have to stay.”

“I can stay.” His words were hollow and now that there was no work to be done, his face was pale, even in the dim light of the hospital room.

“I know you can. You don’t have to.” As much as she wanted him to stay, she needed to focus on Kaylie. Not him.

He paced the room. Picked up Kaylie’s chart and thumbed through it as if he could decipher the scribblings on the page. “I’ll stay. For you.” He glanced at Kaylie, tucked under a white blanket with an IV in her little hand. “For her.”

Paige went to him. “You don’t have to. If it makes you uncomfortable.”

“I was going to tell you tonight.”

“Tell me what?”

“Tell you I thought it was time to tell Kaylie I’m her biological father.”

Paige’s breathing quickened and she squeezed his hand in hers. “I think it’s time she knew, too.”

Dr. Laffay entered, interrupting Paige. “Your cot will be delivered shortly, Paige.” She turned to Alex. “Visiting hours were over a long time ago, though. You’ll have to leave.”

“He isn’t visiting. He’s—” Paige paused for a split second and then plunged ahead. If anyone would understand this crazy situation, it would be Kaylie’s doctor. “He is Kaylie’s father.”

“You’re adopting her. That’s wonderful.” The doctor called for another cot. “We’ll make an exception. It’s important for Kaylie to be with people she knows for the next few days. She’s going to be in quite a bit of pain as the hematoma heals.”

The cots arrived and Paige and Alex settled into the darkened hospital room with the beeping machines and the occasional sigh from Kaylie.

“You told her I’m Kaylie’s father.” Alex reached across the darkness to take Paige’s hand. He felt warm, familiar, and she was glad for the contact.

“You are her father. I would have corrected the adoption part of it, but I’m exhausted. I know we wanted to tell Kaylie first, but I don’t think she’ll mind, since you get to have your first sleepover because of it.”

He chuckled in the darkness but his voice was heavy when he spoke. “When I saw her fall I felt like I was falling, too.”

“Alex.” Paige squeezed his hand in sympathy.

“I had this terrifying thought that I would lose someone else I loved. I do love her, Paige.”

“I know.” His words warmed her in a way the blankets and his touch couldn’t. “She loves you, too.” She settled her head against his shoulder. “I love you,” she said for the second time.

He was quiet for a long time. “I know,” he finally said into the darkness. “I love you, too.”

Paige fell asleep holding Alex’s hand and listening to the quiet beep of the machines in the room. He loved her.

They were the four best words she had ever heard.

* * *

A
LEX PACED THE
hallway outside Kaylie’s hospital room with Paige by his side the next morning. The doctors were examining her. He wanted to be in there. Wanted to know she was okay. Now, not in five or ten minutes when they finished the examination.

Fathers all over the world had to be feeling the exact same way, he thought.

Finally, the door opened and the nurse gestured for them to come inside. Kaylie was still groggy from the pain medication but she offered them a thin smile when they came back into the room.

“She’ll sleep for a while yet, and we’d like to do a CAT scan this morning, just to make sure there is no bleeding on her brain. But if everything goes well, she should be in her own bed tonight.

“Really?” Paige’s voice was a squeak.

“Really.” Dr. Laffay looked uncomfortably from Paige to Alex and then the ceiling. She opened the door and a small man with a gray comb-over came in. Alex recognized him as Nelson, from the fertility clinic. Dr. Laffay continued, “We made an exception last night, because of the circumstances, but
if
Kaylie needs to stay another night, only you will be allowed to stay, Ms. Kenner.”

Paige looked blankly at Alex and then the doctor. “But he is her father.”

“Adopting father. Until the paperwork is completed—”

“Biological,” Alex said. “We should have corrected you last night, but with everything going on we didn’t. I am Kaylie’s biological father.”

“No, you aren’t.” Mr. Nelson spoke from the other side of the room.

“Yes, he is.” Paige’s voice sounded reedy to Alex’s ears, like she was trying to remain calm and failing. She focused on the pediatrician and not the man from the clinic. “You know about the insemination, but there was a mix-up at the fertility clinic. Alex is Kaylie’s father. We just found out a few weeks ago. Mr. Nelson can explain.”

“It was only Alex’s name and identifying number that were mislabeled,” Nelsen said from his side of the room. “I stamped the letters notifying you of the swab results myself before handing them over to the mail clerk two weeks ago. When you didn’t respond, we began calling.”

“I put the envelope with my important papers, because you were so positive Alex was the father. I didn’t read it.” Paige whispered the words, then pulled her cell phone from her purse to scroll through the recent calls.

She showed Alex an unidentified number with repeated calls, but no voicemails. He swallowed hard and did the same. The same number called him several times over the past week, but there were no voice messages.

“This isn’t the number I programmed into my phone, but it’s yours?” Nelson looked at the readout and nodded.

“The number you programmed would have been the receptionist, not my direct line. I felt it would be best to speak directly to you—”

Alex cut him off. “What does this mean?”

“The tests were conclusive. You are not the girl’s father.” He softened his tone and turned to Paige. “When no one answered your phone this morning, I called the emergency contact in your file. Your friend directed me here.”

“But you said—” Paige reached for Alex’s hand but he stepped away. He couldn’t touch her. Not now. Not when the steady life he wanted to build was being snatched away from him.

He wasn’t Kaylie’s father. He had nothing to offer them.

Nelson swiped a handkerchief over his beet-red face. “It was only your name. We are certain of this now that the tests have come back.” He focused on Alex. “Your name was placed on one wrong vial, and during our records switch over the paperwork indicated that vial was used for insemination. The actual sample belonged to the donor she chose. Not you.”

He couldn’t breathe. Alex fisted his hands and concentrated on taking one deep breath and then another until he didn’t feel like his chest would explode. “You’re sure about that?” Alex said sarcastically.

“It was human error.”

Dr. Laffay picked up Kaylie’s chart and turned her sympathetic gaze to him. “Human error sounds about right. You filled out Kaylie’s records? And the extra paperwork about donating blood if there was a need.”

The muscles in Alex’s jaw tightened. “I did. We didn’t know how serious the situation was.”

“It’s protocol, especially with traumatic injuries. You entered your blood type as A positive.”

“That’s right.” What was she getting at? What did his blood type have to do with anything?

“Kaylie’s blood type is B negative. Paige carries A positive, as well. It is highly unlikely, just from a blood standpoint, that you’re Kaylie’s biological father.”

Alex felt the world shift. Not her father? How could he not be her father? There was the physical resemblance. The call from the lawyer.

He’d been playing dad for over a month, for God’s sake. Paige crossed her arms over her belly. What was happening to his life? He was fine eight weeks ago. Cold and alone but fine. Now he could feel the cold creeping over him once more and felt powerless to stop it.

He wasn’t Kaylie’s father. This entire messed-up month, his guilt over moving on, the stress put on the Parkers. The ordeal Paige had to slog through with her own parents. All because a bumbling intake worker slapped his name on the wrong vial.

“I don’t understand. You said you were sure. You offered a settlement.” Paige and the doctors kept talking but Alex refused to listen. He didn’t need halfhearted explanations or consoling. He looked at the little girl in the hospital bed. Physically she looked like him and his heart ached.

“The hospital could run a separate DNA test to corroborate the clinic findings, but I don’t think it’s necessary,” Dr. Laffay said. “Of course, you’re welcome to stay in the room during visiting hours.”

“How long will that take? Another test,” Paige asked. Alex stared out the window. The voices all sounded so far away, like the television sounded when he was waking up in the morning after forgetting to shut it off.

“The results could be ready within the week.”

Alex could feel his heart, every slow, labored beat, as the world came back into focus. “When your lawyer called, I was told my sample was used in the insemination.”

“We were trying to rectify the situation as quickly as possible. Our investigator noticed the difference in your records and those of Ms. Kenner. We pulled the donor samples and had all of them tested. They all match the actual donor, not you. We are very sorry.” He cleared his throat. “You will, of course, both be compensated for the trouble.”

“Compensated?”
Alex swallowed back the anger. “A month ago your lawyer turned my life upside down and now you believe you’ve rectified the situation because it was just a typo on a form?”

This wasn’t happening, not again. He would not accept that Kaylie, beautiful, smart Kaylie, wasn’t his daughter. They had the same hair, the same eyes. He loved her, for God’s sake. How could she not be his?

He gripped the windowsill as if that might anchor him to the room. To Kaylie.

To Paige.

“Please go,” Paige told the doctors. “We would like to have some time with our daughter.”

The doctor and Mr. Nelson shuffled out. Paige came to him, put her hands on his shoulders. He didn’t want her sympathy. Didn’t want words that would tell him it didn’t matter. This mattered. If he wasn’t Kaylie’s father, who was he? Paige chose to be a single mom, and seemed to accept him into her life easily, but that was when he had the right to be there. The drama with her parents, his in-laws... Without a biological reason to keep fighting those external forces... If he wasn’t Kaylie’s father, why would Paige want all that upheaval?

“Where does this leave us?” he finally asked.

“It leaves us as Kaylie’s parents.” There was a tremor in her voice, a question, like she wasn’t sure, and Alex moved away from her touch. He couldn’t do this, couldn’t watch this break down before him.

“You’re her parent. I’m nothing.”

“You are a part of her life. She loves you. She doesn’t care about DNA or mislabeled vials in a lab somewhere.”