LITMIR.BIZ

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be married,” she said quietly.

      “I learned too late that my fiancé expected me to cut all ties with my family.”

      “Oh?”

      “After I finished school, I helped my foster mother care for my foster brother, a ten-year-old boy named Billy with terminal cancer. I thought Garret understood that I couldn’t just walk away from Billy simply because I got married. We’d talked about it. I believed he understood my position. Clearly, I didn’t appreciate his issues.”

      Wade said nothing, but his mouth tipped down in a frown.

      “I was at the church, ready to walk down the aisle when someone gave me a note. Garret had left town to go on our honeymoon by himself. He didn’t want to start our married life in second place, he said.”

      “Selfish guy.”

      “That’s what I thought. He wouldn’t have had long to wait,” she murmured, a flicker of sadness tweaking her heart. “Billy died two months later.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      “Me, too.” Connie tucked away thoughts of the precious little boy. He could have been her own child, so deeply had she loved him. “Anyway, my foster parents had put up a lot of money for the wedding—alot for them that is. I needed to get a job and pay them back.”

      “So you came to Tucson. I see. But if you’ve enjoyed your work here, why even think of leaving?” He rubbed his temple as if trying to ease a muscle there. Tiredness revealed itself in the tiny fan of lines on the outside edges of his eyes.

      “I guess I assumed that now you’re home you’d be more involved with Silver,” Connie said bluntly.

      “I will be, as my time allows. But I prefer she have full-time care. That would be you, unless you’ve other plans?”

      “No. Uh, I mean, I’m happy to stay on as her nanny.”

      Actually it would be a relief. After leaving North Dakota, Connie had specifically chosen Tucson because she’d tracked her birth father here. Though she hadn’t yet had any success at finding him, she spent most of her free time searching. Until she figured out why he’d abandoned her when she was eleven, Connie knew she couldn’t remove the barrier that had kept her from totally adopting the faith her foster parents had taught her and trust God in the deepest recesses of her heart. Garret had ruined any hope she had of trusting a man again.

      “After seeing that video, I know Silver is thriving under your care. I’d like to ensure she stays that way. Her happiness is very important to me.” The quiet words hung in the silence. Then Wade rose, his gaze pensive. “If you’ll excuse me now, I’ve had a long flight. I’m going to bed. Amanda’s gone out, but she’ll be back. Hornby’s still around?”

      “Oh, yes. Though I doubt he’ll still be up.” Connie checked her watch then shook her head. “No, I’m sure he’s asleep now.”

      “So he still likes to rise before the rest of humanity? Some things never change. I suppose he’s still fiddling with those roses of his?” Wade chuckled as he followed her from the room.

      “Yes. He won first place in the horticultural show last month.” She indicated the snapshot she’d taken, which Silver had insisted on placing on the hall table. “Now he’s preparing for some kind of Christmas tour. He must have advised you or Mr. Foster about that?”

      Wade laughed. Connie couldn’t help admiring how handsome he was when the stern lines around his mouth relaxed and his brown eyes lost their shadows.

      “Hornby hasn’t advised me of his plans in years,” he chuckled. “He started here when my grandfather ran Abbot Bridges. I think he still sees me as a boy who’s barely tolerated in his precious gardens. Nothing changes for Hornby but his flowers.”

      “His son visited him last week.”

      Wade’s eyes opened wide. “Jared is back in town? I didn’t think he’d ever leave Australia. I’ll have to call him up.”

      “Well, if you’ll excuse me?” Connie tried to step around him, but Wade’s hand on her arm stopped her.

      “So, there won’t be any, um, situations, between us that you might mistake?” Wade asked, his gaze direct.

      Connie had to smile.

      “I’m not looking for a man,” she assured him and then realized that wasn’t quite true. “At least, I’m not looking for a husband,” she amended. “You don’t have to worry about my affections, Mr. Abbot. You’re quite safe.” Then she stepped awkwardly around him and hurried up the stairs to her room next to Silver’s, his “good night” echoing around her head.

      As she sat in her window seat overlooking the backyard, Connie mused on the changes that would come. The Abbot home was large. The master wing was on the second floor, on the far side of the house, opposite Silver’s rooms and hers. The child might have very little contact with Wade unless Connie arranged otherwise.

      “There’s a problem between the two of them, God,” she murmured, watching as Wade emerged on the pool deck ten minutes later. He walked back and forth across the deck, pausing at one end to inspect a bush, then resuming his private stroll. “Some barrier that I don’t understand. Help me to help them. Amen.”

      She didn’t turn on the light, didn’t prepare for bed, as was her custom. Instead, Connie sat in the dark, watching Silver’s father pace across the yard, his steps barely slowing. When he finally sat on one of the chaise longues, the little clock on her nightstand read two thirty.

      Yes, definitely something wrong. It wasn’t her business, but Connie wanted to help. She knew what it was like to face each day knowing your father didn’t care about you, had cut you out of his life. She couldn’t let that happen to sweet Silver.

      Wade wasn’t uncaring. He’d made it a point to visit his daughter, check on her when he arrived home and even bring her a special toy. He’d asked about her welfare, said it was important to him that she be happy. He had to love her.

      “He has to, God. Because I don’t want Silver to be like me.”

      Wade climbed the stairs slowly, knowing he should stay away but needing to reassure himself one more time that Silver was all right, that nothing bad had happened to her in his absence. The reports he’d asked David to send were never enough to soothe his imagined anxieties. And the video Ms. Ladden had sent only made his yearning to be near the child that much stronger.

      “Can you come home and see me in the Christmas play, Daddy? Please? I’m going to be an angel,” Silver had said in the video.

      An angel. A gift from God—for him? That was the question.

      He slipped through the partially open door and stood gazing down at the wonder that was Silver. From the moment she’d been born, he’d been overwhelmed by her, by the silver-gold hair that had never lost its fat curls, by her enormous blue eyes that peered up at him with utter trust, by the tiny hands that grasped his in complete confidence that he would not lead her astray.

      And yet Wade had failed her. At least he felt he had. Though his heart ached to spill out the words of love that had built inside for the past four years, somehow they wouldn’t move past his lips.

      Because since the day Bella had died, he’d been enslaved by fear.

      Fear that Silver wasn’t his. Fear that someone else would claim her and he’d lose the only person in his life who truly mattered. Fear she’d never know how much he wanted to be the kind of dad she deserved. With his return home, those fears erupted anew. What had seemed so simple last week in Argentina—coming home, settling down, being a real father—now took on nuances and complications he hadn’t imagined.

      Bella’s child.

      Not his daughter, but Bella’s child.

      As always, Wade’s mind traveled back to that day

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