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“I was little.” Lindsey bit down on her bottom lip, staring up at the grandparents she’d been denied. Regret, Jana had so much of it.
“I’ll be in the hall.” Jana smiled at her daughter. “I won’t go far.”
Angie reached for Jana’s hand as she started to walk away.
“Thank you for bringing her back.”
Jana nodded and walked out the door. Her heart ached as she headed down the hall. She was fighting to save her daughter’s life, but now she worried she would have to fight to keep her daughter’s love, too. The Coopers were powerful, and even though they were kind, she knew they would band together to keep Lindsey close. And she knew, even though they would forgive, that they wouldn’t welcome her back into their lives.
The doors of the hospital chapel were open. She stepped inside the quiet room with the wood pews and soft lighting, and for a few minutes she found peace. She kneeled at the altar, soaking up the presence of God, because she knew that only with His help would she get through the coming days.
She prayed for Lindsey. She prayed for healing. She prayed for forgiveness. Then she left the quiet sanctuary, not sure where to go but knowing she needed time alone, and Lindsey needed her grandparents.
“Mrs. Cooper, your husband is on the second floor if you want to join him,” a nurse told Jana.
“I’m...” Jana paused, not knowing how to tell the nurse that Blake wasn’t her husband. “Thank you.”
She walked to the elevator. She hadn’t planned on going to the second floor, but she did. After stepping off the elevator, she headed down a brightly lit hall. She saw Blake buttoning up his shirt as he walked out a double door. He was on the phone, telling someone he would see them soon and he would make it up to them. She didn’t want to think about who he was talking to, but she couldn’t help but imagine. It was a woman, someone he was involved with. Of course he had moved on. It had been ten years. She hadn’t expected him to be alone forever.
He looked up, frowning when he saw her, then ended the conversation.
“How’s it going?” she asked him.
“I’m finished with paperwork and officially checked in to the hospital, I think. They’re going to run tests on my kidneys, heart and lungs.” He shrugged. “They’ve already taken blood.”
“Blake, I’m so sorry that you have to go through this. I’m sorry that we’re pulling you away from your life this way.”
“Why would you say that? Jana, I’d move heaven and earth to make sure Lindsey gets the help she needs.”
She knew he would. He had probably moved heaven and earth trying to find them. Everything inside her ached when she thought about Blake’s no doubt frantic search for his daughter. Not for his wife, though. He’d probably be happy if she dropped off the face of the earth.
Eventually she would have to tell him about the darkness, the depression, that had swept over her during those last months of their marriage. She would have to tell him how long it had taken her to climb out of that pit, and what it had taken to get her life back. But not now. He wasn’t ready to hear that now.
“I know you would do anything for her, Blake. Thank you, for coming with me today.”
“Stop thanking me. It makes me feel like a stranger who happened into your life. I’m not a stranger. I’m her dad.” He pushed the button on the elevator. “I need a cup of coffee. Want to join me?”
“A cup of coffee would be nice.”
As they rode the elevator down to the first floor, neither of them spoke. They were strangers, really. Jana didn’t know about his life. He didn’t know much about hers. They shared a daughter. That was it.
No, that was wrong. They weren’t strangers. They’d been married. He’d wooed her, and she’d fallen in love. She hadn’t exactly fallen out of love. She’d left him because she’d been young. She’d missed her home, people who sounded the way she sounded. She’d gotten homesick. Desperately homesick. And she’d grown terribly sad and hadn’t been able to overcome it.
Now, almost eleven years later, they were back to being strangers. She didn’t know the man he’d become. He didn’t know her. She wondered if they’d ever really known each other. “I’m hoping that we’ll know by morning if I’m a match,” he offered as they walked through the doors of the cafeteria.
“That would be good.” She followed him to the coffee machine.
He filled a cup and handed it to her and then reached for another cup. “Jana, we’ll have to come up with a plan for sharing our daughter.”
“She wants to stay with you,” Jana admitted as she stirred sugar in her coffee. “She’s angry with me.”
“She won’t always be angry,” he said as he pulled out money to pay for the coffee. He smiled at the cashier, took his change and nodded toward a booth in the corner.
Jana waited until they were seated before she answered. “Won’t she, Blake? Because I think she will. I think if I was her, I’d resent me. I’d want nothing to do with me.”
“She’s young. She’s been through a lot.”
“She’s been through a lot because of me. So have you. I’m really kind of surprised that you would sit here and have coffee with me.”
He was quiet for a long time, looking into the cup of black coffee, his brows knit together in thought. Finally he looked up. “Yeah, well, I’m a little surprised myself. I’m angry. I don’t know if I’ll ever trust you. But I do know that we have a daughter who needs us both. For her sake, I’ll work through this and we’ll find a way to be friends, to at least form a truce, because she needs that from us. She needs for us to be adults and pave the way for her to be happy.”
“You’re right.”
“Am I? Because I’m talking about you staying here. The last time I saw you, you weren’t too excited about living in Dawson. I still live there, Jana. And this is where Lindsey will live. This time I’ll make sure you can’t get her out of the country.”
Her heart hammered hard against her ribs. “I’m prepared to do what I have to do in order to keep Lindsey safe and happy.”
“You’re prepared to live in the town you disliked so intensely you thought it would be a good idea to take our daughter and leave just a note on the table?”
She met his accusing gaze head-on.
“I’m not twenty-four anymore. I’m thirty-five. We’ve both gotten older and wiser. I’ve learned to deal with life better now.”
If she told him more, he would understand, but she couldn’t. Not now. Whatever she said would sound like an excuse, like a plea for sympathy. She couldn’t tell him, not yet. No matter what he thought of her.
“Why didn’t you come back?” Blake asked her.
“Because I didn’t know what would happen. I was afraid you’d take Lindsey. I was afraid you’d have the police waiting for me.”
“I wouldn’t have done either.”
“Are you sure?” She smiled a little, imagining what lengths he would have gone to in order to get Lindsey back.
“Okay, maybe,” he admitted. “Maybe not.”
He finished his coffee and pushed back from the table. “We should get back upstairs to Lindsey before I have to finish the tests.”
The comment took Jana by surprise. She’d expected him to want more answers, more information. Instead he seemed to be done with her and with explanations.
She would survive his anger. At least she wanted to believe she would. But her heart wasn’t absolutely sure it could survive another round of Blake Cooper in her life.
Chapter Three
“Mr. Cooper, you’re a match.”
Those would go down in history as the best words Blake had ever heard. He’d nearly cried when Nurse Palmer, their transplant coordinator, had given them the news.
Now, just twenty-four hours after Jana had showed up at Cooper Creek, he and Lindsey were scheduled for the surgery that would give her a second chance.
And give him a second chance to know his daughter.
Blake relaxed in the hospital bed next to Lindsey’s. She glanced at him, shaking her head and then laughing. He shot her a look, trying to quell her mirth. Or make her laugh harder.
“What’s so funny?” he finally asked.
She snickered again and the sound filled his heart. It had been empty a long time, he realized. In the years since Jana left with Lindsey, he’d survived but he hadn’t lived. He’d worked. He’d somehow made it to family functions. It hadn’t been easy, watching his brother Lucky’s family growing, watching his other siblings marry and start families.
Just in the past few months he’d finally realized he had to do something with his time. That’s when he’d met Teddy. He couldn’t wait for Lindsey to meet the little boy that he’d started mentoring through their church program, which matched kids with adults.
He smiled at his daughter again and she laughed once more.
“You look great in that hospital gown,” she teased. “And the cap on your head is perfect.”
“They could make these things a little more decent.” He made a face at her. “Or give me a pair of scrubs.”
“Then you’d run around the hospital and act like a doctor. You’d try to do surgery or something.”
“I think running will be out of the question for the next few weeks.” The idea of slowing down didn’t bother him a bit, not with Lindsey here.
It struck him again that they were having conversations, the kind he’d seen Jackson have with his daughter, Jade, and Lucky with Sabrina. The last time he’d seen his daughter they’d been limited to conversations about cookies, puppies and going potty. Her laugh then had been babyish. Now she had a preteen giggle, and he was pretty sure she thought the young, male orderly was cute.
He would have to learn this business of being a dad to a teenager, to a girl who looked at boys. He’d have to restrain himself from hurting those boys.
“Where’d your mom go?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.
“Down to the cafeteria. She didn’t want to eat in front of us.”
Jana had disappeared while he’d been out of the room for more tests. It was easier to breathe with her gone. It gave him time to reconnect with his daughter, to learn who she was.
“Did you like living in all of those different countries?” he asked.
“Not all of them. Holland was my favorite. We stayed with a friend of mom’s. A lady who was a flight attendant.”
“Did you learn other languages?”
She nodded. “I speak German and Spanish.”
“Do you have pictures, of yourself, I mean.”
“On my computer. Mom can show you.”
The door opened. Lindsey stopped talking. Her smile was hesitant. Blake glanced toward the door, expecting Jana. Instead it was his sister, Mia. She took in the situation. He held back a grin as she surveyed the room, his daughter and then him.
Mia bypassed him for Lindsey, her smile growing. “My goodness, you’ve gotten big. I’m your aunt, Mia.”
“Nan showed me pictures.” Lindsey offered her own smile. “You were a cop.”
“DEA agent,” Mia corrected. And then she smiled again. “Kind of the same. Are you ready to get this surgery over so you can come home?”
Lindsey nodded, but Blake noticed the look of hesitation. She didn’t know what to expect from the group of people that had suddenly become her family. He had told her about the house she’d lived in years ago, about the land, the horses. She had few memories, obviously. The main one being him holding her on the horse.
“It’s kind of scary to have this big family, huh?” Mia offered when Lindsey didn’t answer. “Don’t worry, it will get easier. I know from experience. I was eight years old when I became a Cooper.”
“Seriously?” Lindsey perked up, intrigued by Mia’s story. Mia had a way of doing that. Blake watched his sister lean in to share with his daughter.
“Yeah, for real. It was hard to get used to all of those Coopers. Sometimes I forgot to talk to people and tell them how I felt. So promise me you won’t do that.”
“I’ll try to remember.”
“Good girl. I’m always around to talk to. And your dad is always going to be there.”
Yeah, that was the sister he knew and loved. Sometimes she withdrew when she had a problem, but she knew how to connect when she really needed to. She focused her attention on him, smiling big as she looked him over.
“What?”
She laughed a little. “Blue teddy bear gowns are definitely your style.”
Lindsey laughed in response to his sister’s comment. He glanced past Mia at his daughter. “Don’t follow her example.”
“Oh, you love me.” Mia moved to stand next to his bed. “Do you know when they’ll do the surgery?”
“They’re waiting for results from one last test.”
“Gotcha.” She patted his arm, her new maternal side showing. She was a stepmother now to her husband, Slade’s, little boy, Caleb. “Is there anything I can do before I leave?”
“Could you get that computer over on the table? Lindsey has pictures to show me.”
“Got it.” Mia grabbed the laptop and Lindsey fired it up. He watched as his daughter and sister looked over the pictures. Mia commented on a few of the photographs and then she picked up the computer and brought it to him.
“Thanks.”
She smiled and shrugged it off. “Don’t mention it.”
Blake hit the slide show option and watched as his daughter’s life flashed across the computer screen. All ages, all locations. But she always looked happy. She hadn’t known what she was missing. The missing had been done by him. Mia glanced at Lindsey, then back at him. “She’s asleep.”
“She needs to rest.”
“She’s beautiful, Blake. And we aren’t going to let her go again.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Be a good aunt? Care about you?”
“Don’t be the family law enforcement officer.”
Mia leaned close to his ear. “I’m being the person in this family with the common sense to know that Jana Parker Cooper can’t be trusted. She came back for a reason. And when she gets what she wants, she’ll leave. Someone has to be aware of that.”
Blake lowered his voice. “Mia, I purposely never pursued charges because I don’t want her to run.”
