The Family Plan (7 page)

“’Kay,” she murmured sleepily, snuggling into his pillows. “G’night, Nate.”

“Good night, poppet.” He brushed a kiss across her soft cheek, smoothed the covers over her shoulders and straightened. She was still wearing the knit outfit she had traveled in earlier, having removed only her shoes before climbing into bed. Nathan hadn’t unpacked her pj’s yet, nor her toothbrush or toys or anything else.

He drew a deep breath at the thought of all that lay ahead of him, and then turned toward the doorway to rejoin Caitlin.

Waiting in the den for Nathan, Caitlin looked at the clutter of suitcases and boxes on the floor and wondered exactly how she had ended up here this evening. All she remembered saying was that if there was anything she could do for Nathan and Isabelle…

The next thing she knew, she’d been picking out groceries and eating hot dogs at his kitchen table.

She’d only been in Nathan’s house a couple of times. She looked at it now through new eyes, studying the leather and wood furnishings, the wildlife prints and golf-and-wildlife-themed knick-knacks. One wall of the room was dominated by an entertainment centre that included a large-screen TV, VCR and DVD players, a sound system and a video game system. Typical young bachelor’s place, she thought of the cozy three-bedroom, ranch-styled house in a neighborhood filled with singles and young marrieds.

“Your life is certainly about to change,” she commented when Nathan strolled into the room.

He scooped up a white stuffed owl Isabelle had been carrying around earlier, and studied it with a quizzical expression. “Tell me about it.”

“Are you nervous?”

The look he gave her was almost comically expressive. “Terrified.”

“I would be, too.” She considered talking to him again about the wisdom of the decision he had made, but he looked so tired that she didn’t have the heart. Maybe after he’d had some rest, he would see things differently.

She glanced at the bags on the floor. “Need help with these things?”

“Yes, you could help me set up the guest room for Isabelle, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. Which things are hers?”

“The black suitcase and carry-on are mine. We’ll just leave them in here for now. The two red suitcases and the purple footlocker hold Isabelle’s things. Barbara Houston’s daughter helped me pack Isabelle’s favorites. I told her to dispose of the rest however she saw fit.”

Caitlin took hold of the handle of a wheeled red suitcase. “Point me toward the guest room.”

He had already hefted the small footlocker off the floor. “This way,” he said over his shoulder.

The house was set up with a split floor plan—master bedroom and bath on one end, kitchen, dining room, den and living room centrally located and two smaller bedrooms and a bath at the far end. The doors were all open.

Caitlin noted that Nathan had arranged one of the spare bedrooms as an office with a desk, filing cabinets, bookshelves, computer system and other basic office equipment. It looked very much like the office she had set up in her two-bedroom apartment.

He had done very little decorating in the guest room. The furnishings consisted of a bed, a nightstand, a dresser and a chest of drawers in a warm-toned wood that might have been maple. A blue-and-green plaid spread covered the bed and a beige ginger-jar lamp with a matching shade sat on the nightstand. White blinds covered the single window; there was no curtain to soften the effect. A couple of generic, framed landscape prints hung on the white-painted walls. It was obviously a room that was rarely, if ever, used.

Still holding the footlocker, Nathan paused just inside the doorway. “Doesn’t look much like a little girl’s room, does it?”

“No,” she admitted, “but it has potential. It’s a good size, and the furniture is nice.”

“Thanks. It’s the furniture I had in my room when I was a teenager. Mom donated it to me when I set up housekeeping on my own. She wanted to redecorate her place, anyway.”

She released the suitcase and turned slowly in the center of the room. “All you need is a new bedspread, throw pillows, curtains and some colorful framed posters for the walls. The built-in bookshelves are perfect for holding books and toys.”

“It sounds like you know just how to fix it up for her.”

She frowned warily. “Now, wait a minute. I was only making a few suggestions, not volunteering to decorate.”

“But, Caitlin, there’s no one else to help me,” he said, giving her one of his well-practiced, hopeful-puppy smiles. “I can hardly ask my mother or sister, and what do
I
know about decorating for a little girl?”

“You should have thought of that before you brought one home with you.”

When he only kept smiling at her, she sighed and called herself a sucker. “Okay, fine. Maybe I could give you a hand—not that I’m guaranteeing results. I’m no decorator.”

“Maybe you could take her shopping in the morning, let her pick out a few things she likes?”

“Oh, I—”

“I have to go talk to my mother,” he cut in quickly. “I really need to break the news to her before someone else calls her. I can’t take Isabelle with me, obviously, and this isn’t something I can tell Mom over the phone.”

“In other words, you’re asking me to baby-sit while you talk to your mother.”

He shrugged, and his expression was sheepish. “I don’t have anyone else to ask.”

She wished he would quit saying that. She was his business partner, nothing more. It wasn’t her responsibility to help him set up a household after making a rash decision that was guaranteed to estrange him from his family.

Because she was feeling stressed and a little defensive—not to mention exhausted from one of the toughest work weeks she’d ever dealt with—she launched into that lecture she had been trying to avoid. “You understand that this is the way your life is going to be if you go through with this? Baby-sitters and family problems and changing your whole life—even your home? Even your career will be affected. You won’t have the freedom to work any hours you like, the way you have until now. And we’re talking about the next fifteen years. You can’t just go back to the way things were when the novelty wears off, especially if you go so far as to adopt her. This little girl is going to have to be your number-one priority until she’s completely grown and self-sufficient.”

“You think I haven’t considered all of that already?” He planted his fists on his hips and stared at her. “This wasn’t an impulse, Caitlin. I spent several days in California trying to talk myself out of bringing her here, doing my best to convince myself I wasn’t the right person to raise this child. When I said I was terrified, it was more for her sake than my own. Sure, I’ll have to change my schedules, give up some freedom, spend less time partying and playing. I can live with that. But as for Isabelle—her whole life is at stake here. Her future.”

He was pacing now, his hands flying as he vented. It was probably the first chance he’d had to really talk with anyone since he’d had to make this life-altering decision. “I made a list of all the reasons I shouldn’t take this on. It started with the facts that I’m single and have no experience with kids. I reminded myself of the hostility she could face in this town, from my own family, for example. The list of reasons
not
to bring her home with me was several pages long.”

“And the list of reasons why you should bring her?”

He squeezed the back of his neck with one hand, his voice quiet. “Pretty short. Only two reasons, actually. She’s my sister, and my dad would have wanted me to raise her.”

After all the pain he had been through, all the heartache, embarrassment and disappointment, Nathan was still trying to please his father, even after the man’s death. Caitlin understood that. She still faithfully visited her mother, even though her mother hadn’t looked at Caitlin with a glimmer of recognition in more than a year.

Caitlin could no more turn her back on her mother than she could fly. She couldn’t imagine how she might feel if she suddenly found herself responsible for a young sibling. She had a sneaky suspicion she might have reacted much like Nathan had—recklessly taking on more responsibility than was good for her, even at great cost to herself.

She was just glad she wasn’t the one who’d been placed in that difficult position. Nathan might be willing to change everything in his life, but hers was right on track.

Because she did sympathize, she said, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

He seemed to have a little trouble following her transition. “You’ll do what?”

“I’ll stay with Isabelle tomorrow morning while you talk to your mother. What time do you want me here?”

She could hear the relief in his voice when he replied. “Most of the stores open at ten, don’t they? You can pick her up just before then and let her pick out some decorations for her room. Anything she wants to make her feel at home here. You can put it on the company card and I’ll pay when the bill comes in.”

“Maybe you’ll want to hold off on redecorating until after you talk to your mother.”

He read her unspoken subtext easily enough. “You think I’ll change my mind about keeping her after I talk to my mother?”

Caitlin knew Lenore would do her best to talk her son out of this plan. Could he really withstand her tears, her accusations of betrayal, her pleas and threats? “I just think it might be a good idea if you—”

“No matter what my mother says, I’m not changing my mind about Isabelle,” Nathan insisted stubbornly. “I’ve already anticipated everything she could possibly say, even if she refuses to ever speak to me again. I would regret that, of course—hell, it would break my heart. But Mom would still have Gideon and Deborah. Isabelle only has me.”

It seemed that there would be nothing anyone could say to change Nathan’s mind about this. Having spent the past couple of hours watching him with his little sister, Caitlin realized that their bond was already too strong to be broken by warnings or threats.

She looked at his determined expression with a touch of awe, realizing that she’d underestimated him. She’d never realized quite how forceful he could be. And she hadn’t expected him to be so courageously self-sacrificing—for any reason. There was a great deal more to Nathan McCloud than he had allowed her to see during the past nine months—maybe more than he allowed
anyone
else to see, even those who were closest to him.

“All right. I’ll pick her up at ten in the morning,” she said, committing herself to taking his side in the coming controversy and hoping she didn’t regret that decision. “But I warn you,” she added in an attempt to lighten the mood, “it’s dangerous to send two women shopping with your credit card and no budget.”

She was pleased when he gave her a semblance of his enticingly lopsided smile. “So I’ll sell my golf clubs, if necessary. I have a feeling I won’t be needing them as much for the next, oh, fifteen years or so.”

Hard to believe he could keep smiling when he said that. Caitlin swallowed. “I’ll try not to go quite that crazy.”

“Buy her whatever she wants.”

Caitlin frowned at him. “You aren’t going to spoil her, are you? You’ve seen in court what happens when children are overindulged. It ruins them for life, teaches them to expect everyone to give in to their expectations.”

“I’ll try not to spoil her,” he promised, smiling more broadly as he raised one hand in a mock vow. “Just buy whatever she needs to turn this into a nice room. I want to make a good home for her here.”

Because the sentiment touched her, even though she was trying her best to retain an emotional distance from this entire situation, she looked away from him and spoke brusquely. “If there’s nothing else you need this evening, I’d better head home now. I have a stack of paperwork in my car I need to go through tonight, especially if I’m going to be free for a shopping excursion in the morning.”

“Did anything come up at work I should know about?”

“Several things,” she replied, thinking of the medical malpractice case she would be working on most of the night. She would have to discuss that with him, of course, but it could wait a few hours. “We’ll talk about them later this weekend.”

He followed her to the front door. “Irene was giving me some pretty deadly looks before she left the office earlier. I got the impression she was only being passably courteous because Isabelle was with me, which I could tell was making her crazy with curiosity.”

“She doesn’t know yet that you’ve taken Isabelle as your ward. I didn’t tell her why you were in California, only that you were tending to personal business. She probably thinks Isabelle is visiting you for a few days or something. She’ll understand better when you explain the situation to her.”

“So she thinks I was in California spending a week at Disneyland while you were carrying the load here?”

“Maybe something like that,” Caitlin conceded. “It wasn’t my place to discuss your personal business with her, of course.”

“Nice to know our office manager has such a high opinion of me,” he grumbled.

“Well, you haven’t done much to change that opinion,” she reminded him. “You either clam up or bolt—or both—whenever she’s around. And you have to admit you play havoc with her schedules and routines. You know how obsessive she is about that sort of thing.”

“Do I ever,” he muttered. “Wonder what she’s going to say when I tell her I’ve taken in a three-year-old? She’ll probably think I should be committed. I’m quite sure she’ll think I’m completely unqualified to raise a child, considering her low opinion of me.”

Because Caitlin still wasn’t quite convinced, herself, that Nathan had made the right decision, she decided not to comment.

Nathan covered the doorknob with his hand when she reached for it, detaining her for a moment. He was standing so close to her that his arm brushed hers when he turned to face her. His expression was serious again, and his gaze held hers when he spoke. “Before you leave, I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me tonight.”

“That isn’t necessary,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. “I was happy to give you a hand.”

“Don’t brush me off. I mean it, Caitlin. I really needed your help this evening—and your company. Bringing Isabelle home alone…well, that was pretty scary for me. Having you here for moral support, even when you were questioning my sanity, meant a great deal to me.”