A Forever Family: Reunited By Their Baby

Nik sat back in his club chair with that unconscious aura of a CEO at home in his world. His dark eyes seemed to scrutinize her as if he were looking for secrets she might be hiding. Her pulse quickened in response.

“Before we reach Mykonos, I wonder if you’d answer some personal questions for me.”

Personal? “If I can.”

“Are you a full-time employee at the hospital?”

“Yes.”

He cocked his head. “What would happen if you needed more time off? Would they give it to you without it causing you problems?”

“I think so, but it would have to be because of an emergency.”

“Of course. One more question. Are you involved with another man right now?”

She blinked. He obviously had a reason for all this probing. “No.”

“And your friend Kellie. Would it disappoint her terribly if you didn’t spend your vacation with her?”

“Yes,” Fran answered honestly. “Why?”

Her question caused him to lean forward with his hands clasped. His intelligent dark eyes fused with hers. “Because I have a great favor to ask of you. I know I don’t have the right, but Demi’s needs are going to be top priority for my family in the days ahead.”

“I can understand that.”

“Judging by her behavior around you in the hospital, and including the fact that she started crying the minute we walked away from her a few moments ago, it’s clear Demi has formed a strong attachment to you. I dread what things are going to be like when you leave on your vacation with Kellie. She’ll not only be looking for her parents, but for you. That’s what’s got me worried.”

Fran had been worried about it, too, but she would never have brought it up. “Surely when she’s surrounded by your family again, she’ll get through the transition.”

He inhaled sharply. “I would have thought her seeing me and my brothers would have been all she needed. We’re a close family and get together often. But this experience has traumatized her in some way we don’t understand. If she isn’t clinging to us, then I don’t expect she’ll want anyone else, not even the staff who are familiar to her.”

“What about your parents? Your mother? Does she look like Melina?”

“They shared certain traits.” His eyes stared into Fran’s. “But I don’t know if Demi would cling to them the way she does to you. I’m very interested to see what happens when she’s with them again. Something tells me it won’t be enough to make the baby feel secure.”

“You’ll have to give Demi time.”

“That goes without saying. Nevertheless, I plan to consult a child psychiatrist after the funeral is over. Depending on what he or she says, I’ll go from there. But for the time being, I’d like to hire you to take care of Demi until you have to get back to Philadelphia. By then I’ll have some idea of how to proceed.”

Fran stirred in the chair. While trembling with excitement at the prospect of loving that little girl for a while longer, she knew how painful it would be when she had to say a final goodbye. She’d known a lot of pain in her life. First the death of her brother, then the death of a dream that had ended in divorce. She might not have lost Rob in death, but it felt like one.

No brother, no husband, no child of her own after three years of marriage. Fran knew herself too well. Another twenty-four hours taking care of that precious baby would be hard enough. But ten more days? She couldn’t risk the inevitable pain. It would come and she wouldn’t be able to stop it.

“When she’s been with your parents, or one of your brothers’ families, she’ll eventually adapt.”

One black brow dipped. “I don’t know. It’s too soon to work all that out and I want a doctor’s opinion first. The one thing I do know is that Demi wants you. If you could bring yourself to help us out here, you’ll be handsomely compensated. Anything you want.”

She shook her head. “That’s very generous, Nik, but I wouldn’t do it for the money.”

He sat back again. “If Kellie doesn’t mind a change in your plans, would you consider it? You’ll stay in an apartment at the villa. There’s a guest room and another smaller room we’ll set up as a nursery. Kellie is welcome to be with you any time you want. But I guess I haven’t asked the most important question. Is this something you wouldn’t mind doing?”

Mind? If he had any idea…Demi had climbed into her heart where she would always stay. Discovering the baby in that garden was as if providence had set the baby down in those bushes at the precise moment for Fran to find her.

But the flags had gone up, warning her that if she told him she wouldn’t mind at all, she could plan for rivers of anguish down the road when she had to tear herself away from that baby. It was a trauma she’d never get over.

“Fran?” he prodded. His smoky-sounding tone defeated her.

Although the youngest, Nik clearly carried the weight of the Angelis family on his shoulders. She had noticed how his brothers looked to him. This was a problem none of them had faced before. At the moment she recognized he needed a different kind of help and wanted Fran’s.

But for her own self-preservation, she needed to remain firm. “It isn’t a case of minding. It’s just that I know what Kellie’s answer will be when I ask her. We’ve been planning this trip for a long time. It will upset her too much and I can’t disappoint her. I’m sorry. But until the funeral is over, I’ll be happy to help out.”

“Then I’m grateful for that much.” He got to his feet. “Shall we get back to Demi before my frantic brothers come bursting in here with her?”

Fran had hated disappointing him, but her first priority had to be to herself.

CHAPTER FOUR

AT THREE THE NEXT afternoon, Nik left Fran holding the baby while he walked out to meet Leandros and his wife at the helicopter pad behind the villa. They’d been paying their respects to the other family, the ones who had lost their parents in the tornado and who couldn’t get away before now.

“Fran will be relieved you’re here now. It’s all that matters.” He led them out to the patio of the Angelis family villa where everyone had congregated to talk and eat. More tears ensued while Leandros and Kellie commiserated with his family.

Incredibly, the pain of losing Melina and Stavros was softened by the joy of having found Demi alive, a blessing no one had expected. Nik was heartened to see his family’s spirits had lifted despite their loss.

“It’s all over the news,” Sandro spoke up. “Demi is known as the Miracle Baby. Did you know the hotel in Leminos has become famous overnight?”

“So has the hospital,” Cosimo declared. “They even interviewed Demi’s doctor on the noon news.”

Though the whole family was eager to hold her, Demi clung to Fran just as Nik had suspected she would. The only time she didn’t cry was when his parents held her. But after a few minutes, Demi was looking for Fran and making sounds that indicated she didn’t want to be with anyone else.

Nik knew his parents were hurt, but they hid it well. When they had issued her an invitation over the phone to be their guest for as long as she wanted, they had had no idea they would need her on hand to keep Demi happy. He smiled to himself. Though Fran had turned him down about staying on, she didn’t know this story wasn’t over yet.

His father eyed Fran who was holding Demi against her shoulder. The baby looked around chewing on her teething ring. “Tell us what you thought when you found her. We want details,” he beseeched her.

Fran broke into a tender smile. Once more she repeated her amazing tale. “The hotel is situated on a corner of the street. My first thought was that her mother or father had been walking her in a stroller on the other side of the hotel when those gale-force winds drove Kellie and me to run inside for shelter.

“It seemed more than possible she’d been blown into the garden at the rear of the building. But if that were true, then where were her parents? I was in shock to think she’d been exposed to the elements all night. Honestly, she looked like she’d been dropped from the sky.”

Nik’s sisters-in-law made moaning sounds to think such a thing had happened.

Kellie sat forward. “I came around back and saw Fran holding a limp baby who was wearing only a torn shirt. I thought I was hallucinating.”

“You weren’t the only one,” Fran added. “When neither the police or the hospital staff had heard of anyone looking for their baby, I began to think that’s exactly what had happened, that she’d been carried by the wind and deposited in a cushion of bushes.”

“But twelve miles—” Nik’s mother cried out and put her hands to her mouth. “God wanted her to live.” His father nodded his silver head and wept.

“Nik?” Fran eyed him from her place on the swing. “Has your family seen the pictures you took with your camera?”

He’d been planning to show them later. “Let’s do it right now,” he said, but he had difficulty talking because of the lump in his throat. After pulling out his phone, he clicked on to the picture gallery and handed it to his parents. “Slide your thumb across to see all of them. I took a few pictures in the hospital, too.” He’d made certain he’d gotten some shots of Fran.

For the next little while his family and the Petralias took turns viewing them. Nik’s sixand seven-year-old nephews were eager to look at them, too. The younger threeand four-year-olds had no idea what was going on and played with their toys. In the quiet, Fran’s eyes met his. They were both remembering that surreal moment when she’d showed him the now-famous spot.

While everyone was talking, he walked over to her. “Do you think she’s ready for something besides a bottle?”

“I hope so. She needs the nourishment.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. I’ll tell cook to get out a jar of her favorite fruit and meat.”

Fran hugged the baby. “You’d like some food, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?”

Whether she wanted it or not, she needed it. Having made up his mind, Nik left the patio and headed for the kitchen. In a minute he returned with the food and the high chair that had been in use for several years.

He put it in front of Fran, then plucked the baby from her arms and set her inside it. The cook had given him a bib that he tied around her neck. Both Fran and Demi looked up at him in surprise.

Nik shot them an amused glance. “We’ll both feed her,” he explained and sat down on the swing next to her. “You take the turkey.” He handed her the jar and a spoon. “I’ll give her some plums.”

“Coward,” she whispered. Her chuckle filled him with warmth.

To his relief the baby began to eat, which meant her initial trauma had passed and she was relaxed enough to want her semi-solid food again. Once she’d been put in a private room at the hospital, the nurse hadn’t been able to get her to eat anything. Fran had to see the transformation and think twice about turning him down when he asked her again.

“Well, look at you,” she said to Demi with a big smile. “I didn’t know you were such a good eater.”

Demi beamed back at both of them. Nik had never actually fed Demi before. Aided and abetted by Fran, he found himself having more fun than he could remember. Some turkey clung to the baby’s upper lip, making her look adorable. Both he and Fran chuckled in delight to see her behaving normally.

Soon she finished her food while the family looked on in varying degrees of interest and curiosity. They weren’t used to seeing Nik feed her. But most of all, they were shocked at the way Demi responded to Fran. The hurt in his parents’ eyes had intensified. It didn’t surprise him when Nik’s father eventually got up from his chair and walked over to give his granddaughter a kiss on the cheek.

“One would never know what you lived through, Demi,” he spoke in Greek. “Come to your grandpa.” He wiped her mouth with the bib, then untied it and picked her up to take her over to Nik’s mother.

Demi adored her grandfather, but the further he took her from Fran, the more she squirmed and kept turning her head to find her. Nik’s mother got to her feet and held out her hands to Demi, but the baby started to cry.

“What’s wrong, darling?” his mother talked to her in their native tongue, attempting to cuddle her. “Tell me what’s the matter.”

Nik knew the answer to that. She wanted Fran. It really was astonishing to see that even with the entire family surrounding her, Demi wanted a stranger if she couldn’t have her own mother and father. He eyed Fran covertly, daring her to close her mind and heart to what was going on here.

His stomach muscles tightened as he watched the looks of surprise and confusion from everyone, but especially at the pain on his parents’ faces when Demi started crying in earnest.

They’d lost Melina, but it had never occurred to anyone that Demi wouldn’t soak up the love they were ready to heap on her. Nik believed it was a passing phenomenon. It had to be. But right now something needed to be done to calm the baby down.

“You know what I think?” he said in English. “Demi’s barely out of the hospital and needs to go to bed.” So did his parents who needed to rest to get through this ordeal.

“Of course,” his mother concurred.

“Fran and I will take her and put her down, then we’ll be back.”

He clutched the baby to him and started for the villa. Fran got up from the swing and followed him to the apartment. Earlier he’d asked the housekeeper to get it prepared. With the help of the staff, they’d moved the crib and other things from the nursery in Melina’s apartment to the spare room. For now it would serve as a nursery while Fran took care of Demi.

Together they got the baby ready for her afternoon nap with a fresh diaper and a white sleeper with feet.

“You look so cute in this,” Fran said, kissing her cheeks several times. Once again Nik marveled how natural she was with Demi, almost as if the baby were hers. Neither of them were bilingual, but it didn’t matter. They spoke a special language of love that managed to transcend. Watching Demi, you’d think Fran was her mother. How could that be? Unless…

Was it possible that the baby’s head had suffered an injury when she hit the earth and she’d developed amnesia?

Were there cases of such a thing happening to an infant? Amnesia might explain her connection to Fran. She’d been the first person Demi saw when she’d awakened in the hospital.

But if that were true, then why did she respond to the family, to Nik? Though it was half-hearted, she did recognize everyone. He was baffled and anxious to talk to a doctor first thing in the morning.

Nik drew a bottle of premixed formula from the bag. When Fran put the baby in the crib, he handed Demi her bottle. Speaking Greek to her, he told her he loved her and wanted her to go to sleep.

Before she started drinking, the baby made sounds and stared up at the two of them with those dark brown eyes that could have been Melina’s.

“Come on, Fran,” he whispered. “Let’s go.”

“See you later, sweetheart.” Fran patted her cheek, then started to follow Nik out of the room. They’d no sooner reached the door than Demi burst into tears.

Fran looked at him with pleading eyes. “I can’t leave her yet.”

Nik had been counting on that. “She loves you.”

Again Fran averted her eyes because she knew what he’d just said was true. “You go on and be with your family, Nik. I’m sure you have things to discuss before the funeral tomorrow. Tell Kellie to come and keep me company while Demi falls asleep.”

“I will. Maybe when she sees how much the baby wants you, she’ll tell you the vacation can wait a few more days.”

“I—I don’t think so.” Her little stammer indicated she wasn’t quite as confident as she’d been on the plane.

“We’ll see,” he murmured.

She gripped the bars of the crib. “The baby’s worn-out from all the excitement, but still needs time to settle down and get sleepy. I’ll join you on the patio later.”

This extraordinary woman was right on all counts, but if the truth be told, Nik would rather stay in here with her. “All right, but I’ll be back soon to relieve you if she proves too restless.”

He strode swiftly through the villa to the patio and sought out Kellie. “Fran wants to talk to you. I’ll show you to the nursery.”

She spoke to Leandros who nodded his head, then she followed Nik through the house. Before they entered the apartment he said, “I’m not sure there wouldn’t have been a catastrophe tonight if Fran weren’t here to take charge of Demi.”

Kellie smiled at him. “After college she went into hospital administration, but they soon found out she’s a remarkable people person for the young and the old. That’s why they put her in the position she holds now. I wager she’s sorely missed already. I’m lucky she could take off these two weeks for our vacation.”

Having seen her in action with Demi, Nik agreed. He also got the message from Kellie not to count on Fran’s generosity beyond tonight. In fact, he was sure he’d been warned off, in the nicest way possible. While cogitating on that thought, he was more determined than ever to prevail on Fran to remain longer.

They reached the door to the apartment. “Come find the family after my niece has fallen asleep.”

A half hour later Fran tiptoed out of the nursery with Kellie and they went into the bedroom. “I think she’ll stay asleep now. Tell me what’s happened with Leandros?”

“If anything, things are worse. But before we get into that, tell me what’s going on with Nik.”

“What do you mean?”

Kellie sat down on the side of the king-size bed. “He has you ensconced in this fabulous apartment with the baby in the adjoining room, almost like you’re a permanent fixture.”

“I told him I’d help out until after the funeral tomorrow.”

“But he’d like it to be longer, right?”

Nothing got past Kellie. Fran nodded. “On the flight to Mykonos, Nik asked me if I would stay on to tend Demi until she’s comfortable with the family again. He hopes I’ll remain here until I have to go back to Philadelphia. I told him no because you and I were on vacation.”

“Are you hoping I won’t hold you to it?”

She shook her head. “No, Kellie. I only told him that as an excuse. This has nothing to do with you or our trip. I need to leave tomorrow before I find myself wishing I could take her back home with me. If it were possible, I’d like to adopt her.”

“Adopt an Angelis?”

“I know how outrageous that sounds. That’s why I’m glad we’re leaving tomorrow.”

Looking haunted, Kellie got up from the bed. “I know how attached you are to the baby already and would love to say yes to him.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t.”

“You must think I’m being difficult, but it’s because I’m afraid to see you get hurt again. When I think what you went through with Rob…”

Fran sucked in her breath. “Believe me, I don’t want that kind of pain again either. When I found Demi in that garden, I felt like I’d been handed a gift. I wanted her to be mine. But she isn’t! If I stayed here ten more days, it would kill me to have to walk away from her, traumatizing her once again. I refuse to put myself or her in that position. I’ve had too many losses in my life.”

“Oh, Fran—” Kellie gave her a commiserating hug.

She wiped her eyes. “I’m glad we’re leaving after the funeral. I need to put this experience behind me and forget Demi exists. It has dredged up too many painful memories. I need to move on.”

By now Kellie’s eyes were wet. “That makes two of us. Leandros doesn’t want me working in his office.”

“He wouldn’t even consider it?”

“No. He says he wants to be able to come home to me after a hard day’s work, but the reason is crystalclear. Though he hasn’t come right out and said it, our love life has never been satisfactory to him.

“How could it have been with a bride who was in terrible pain the first time he made love to her? His marriage to Petra was nothing like ours. They were expecting a baby when—when—” She couldn’t go on. “That’s why I have to put some real distance between us. Karmela can supply him what’s missing. Our marriage is over.”

“I can’t bear it, Kellie.”

“It’s for the best. Like you, I refuse to wallow in any more pain. As for the Angelis family, they need to hire a nanny as soon as tomorrow after the funeral and get her installed right away.”

“Agreed. I know Demi will miss me, but she’ll get over it. She’ll have to. I made that clear to Nik.”

“For your sake, I’m glad.” They eyed each other for a long moment. “Even though I’m nursing a horrendous headache, what do you say we put on our best smiles and go out to the patio as if nothing in the world is wrong? After we’ve mingled for a while, I plan to have an early night.”

“So do I. Demi will be needing another bottle before sleeping through the night.”

They reached the door. “Leandros will cover for me until he’s ready for bed. It’s what he’s good at. You might as well know we haven’t slept together for the last month.”

Fran understood her pain. She hadn’t slept with Rob for the three months leading up to their separation. It had been the beginning of the end.

The day was winding down. Nik’s mother and sisters-in-law spoke together while he talked with the men. But they all stopped long enough to admire the two American beauties who’d just stepped out onto the patio.

At the first sight of Fran, Nik felt an unwanted quickening in his body. The same thing had happened at the hospital when they’d been removing their masks and gowns. In a very short time she’d grown on him despite the pain he was in.

Most of the Greek women he’d known and dated were more chatty and conscious of themselves, famous for drama on occasion. His sisters-in-law were like that. Fiery at times—beautiful—and they knew it. Melina hadn’t been quite so theatrical. That’s probably why she’d appealed to the quietly spoken Stavros.

Fran was an entirely different kind of woman. She seemed comfortable in her attractive skin, reminding Nik of still waters that ran deep. Did her calm aura hide unknown fires within? He felt in his gut this woman could become of vital importance to him.

After some soul-searching, he recognized his motivation to keep Fran in Athens wasn’t driven exclusively by Demi’s best interests. Already he was trying to find a way to persuade her to stay on for his own personal reasons. But he feared that if he lowered the bars to let her inside his soul and she couldn’t take what he would be forced to tell her, blackness would envelop his world. He faced a dilemma he’d never experienced before.

Should he run from what he feared most? Or did he reach out for the one thing that might bring him the greatest joy?

On impulse he turned to the others. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to Kyria Myers.”

By now Kellie had joined her husband, leaving Fran alone. He watched her wander to the wall at the edge of the patio and look out over the water. Her violet-blue eyes flicked to his when she saw him approach. “I can’t imagine gazing out on this idyllic view every night of your life. All the stories about the Greek Islands are true. You live in a paradise, especially here on Mykonos.”

“I agree there’s no place on earth quite like it. On the weekends, I look forward to leaving the office in Athens and coming home. The temperature of the air and the sea turns us into water babies around here.”

She smiled. “There’s an American artist who has done some serigraphs of Mykonos. He’s captured the white cubic style of a villa like your family’s to perfection.”

“I know the artist you mean. I’m fond of his artwork, too, particularly several of his Italian masterpieces.”

“Aren’t they wonderful?”

He nodded, enjoying their conversation, but was impatient to get down to business. “How long did it take Demi to finally fall asleep?”

“Um, maybe ten songs,” she quipped. Her gentle laugh found its way beneath his skin.