The Good Father

She spoke to him. Sang to him. Distracted him when he got a poke. And played age-appropriate games with him, from peekaboo, to track-the-tiger—having him follow a stuffed animal with his eyes, bringing the toy close enough for him to reach for and eventually letting him grab it.

Ella had no proof that Ted Burbank was anything other than, in her opinion, overly protective and too controlling of his family, but she was certain of two things. First, there was no way Henry’s mother would ever have willingly fed her son by mouth, willingly allowed anyone else to do so, or allowed any improper handling of the G-tube. Nora watched every member of the medical staff with an educated eye.

And second, little Henry meant the world to her.

Nora began watching the clock shortly before eleven. Ella had purposely been on the pod all morning, but seeing patients other than just Henry. She’d kept an eye on Nora, though, and noticed when the woman started to become more agitated. As soon as she finished administering TPN, intravenous nourishment, to a baby whose stomach couldn’t digest food, Ella made her way over to Nora.

“You ready for a break?” she asked the young woman who’d been holding her son for the past hour.

“I have to leave,” Nora said with another glance at the clock. “Ted comes home for lunch at twelve-thirty.”

And his mother couldn’t make his lunch for him?

“Surely he’d understand if you missed lunch just once.”

“He can’t know I’ve been away.”

“His mother knows.”

“She won’t say anything to him.”

“She’s your advocate, then?” There’d been bruises on Grandma’s arms. But the older woman had blamed Nora for the baby’s ill health. Because her son had been right there?

“No, she thinks I’m the whore who trapped him. But he’ll be pissed at her for losing sight of me, so she won’t tell.”

“Will he hurt her?”

Nora’s chin fell to her baby’s forehead. “No, of course not.”

“You don’t have to go back, you know.” She wasn’t a counselor or experienced with victims of domestic violence. But she knew some things. “You don’t have to stay with him.”

Nora looked down at her son. Swallowed, and then, with a peculiar strength in her gaze, met Ella’s eyes. “I know Ted’s a bit aggressive at times, but he takes care of us,” she said with utter conviction. “He means well. He tries hard. He works long hours to support us...”

Were these Nora’s words? Or Ted’s? Repeated over and over to the point that Nora believed the thoughts were her own? Were they true, or had Ted manipulated his young wife to the point that she didn’t have a mind of her own? Ella had done a lot of reading.

She knew how these things often worked.

But...

“Aggression isn’t okay.” She said the only thing she knew to say. “And—”

“I have no one else.” Nora’s words were a statement. “My family disowned me when I got pregnant.” She nodded toward the sleeping baby she still cuddled, in spite of her announcement that she had a bus to catch. “I’d just graduated from high school. I’ve never even had a job. But even if I had, it’s not like I can just leave Henry with a sitter or at a day care and go off to work. He needs full-time trained care...”

Sounded as though Nora felt trapped...

Not once had Nora said she loved her husband. It was something Chloe said all the time about Jeff.

Pulling up a chair, she sat in front of the other woman, sending up a quick mental prayer that she was doing the right thing, and said, “I know of a place you can stay while Henry’s here,” she said. “It’s not far. And someone would see that you got back and forth to the hospital. For that matter, I could pick you up in the morning on my way in and take you back each afternoon after my shift. I go right by there.”

Or close enough. She went by the exit.

Nora didn’t immediately shake her head. The negative reaction took a good minute to come. “I’d have no way to care for him when he’s released.”

“You could bring him to this place with you,” she said, warming to her subject as she thought of the conversation she’d had with Lila the other night. The things the woman had told her about The Lemonade Stand. The things she’d seen when Lila had taken her on a tour.

“I’m serious, Nora. One phone call and you can have a new home. A new life. This place...there’s a nurse on staff so if Henry had a problem, he’d be safer there than he’d be at home.”

And if she was overreacting? If she was interfering in a family life that was none of her business? Causing problems where there weren’t any?

Nora wasn’t telling her no.

If there weren’t any problems, if Ted was a good, loving husband, he’d understand if his wife needed a little time away to get herself emotionally stable, wouldn’t he? That was all this would be, then. Nora getting help.

Having a preemie was difficult for anyone, let alone for a child barely out of high school. But being disowned by those who should have been looking out for her?

Whatever the reason, Nora looked like a woman who was running out of hope.

“You can stay at the...place...until you have a job. A home. They help women in your position find jobs. There are full-time counselors on staff. Means to get training. Toys for Henry. Other women for you to be friends with. You’d have your own suite with Henry. A crib. Clothes. The cottages all have self-contained kitchens...”

“I...” Nora was crying now. Looking from Henry back to Ella.

“There’s a pool. And a day care. It’s a very unique shelter for battered women, Nora, and you’re one of them, aren’t you?”

A sob escaped Nora, though Ella mostly noticed it from the way the other woman’s chest shook. They were in a busy pod with patients and hospital professionals moving around them—and they were all alone, too. Emotional scenes with parents in the NICU were, unfortunately, not uncommon.

“Ted... He wouldn’t let me... He said his boy has a mouth and he could learn to eat...”

Henry had had so many tubes in his mouth during the first weeks of his life that he’d developed an oral aversion. The hope was that as he got a little older, and with proper care and developmental therapy, he’d be able to chew and swallow without activating his gag reflex.

“He’d force food down his throat and then when Henry threw it back up, he’d refuse to give him more until the next mealtime. He said when he got hungry enough, he’d eat.”

“There’s red tape we’ll have to go through,” Ella said, scared and determined and wishing she knew far more than she did. “But the people at the shelter will help you with that. There’s a lawyer who donates her services to the residents who can’t afford to pay for them...”

Ted Burbank had the right to full access to his son. Something would have to be done to revoke that.

If...

“Tell me, Nora...has Ted ever hit you? Or threatened you in any way?” Had the man threatened to kill her? From what she’d read for her High Risk team training, death threats were taken very seriously by law enforcement and the courts.

But she couldn’t lead Nora to such a confession.

Nora stood, carefully and capably settling her son back in his crib without disturbing the monitors on him. Without disturbing him.

Ella stood, too, ready to block the woman’s way long enough to try to convince her one more time to take advantage of the help being offered to her.

Instead, Nora turned, faced the wall and lifted her shirt. The bright red welts were clearly new. Ella could see the imprint of a belt buckle there. And Nora had been sitting back, rocking her son all morning.

Clearly the woman was used to pain.

“You need to get her looked at,” a resident who’d been at the crib next door leaned in to say to Ella as he passed. She nodded.

“Let me make the call,” Ella said to Nora as the woman pulled her shirt down and turned around.

“He’ll come here...”

“I’m going to call the police officer who visited you last night. There are professionals used to dealing with these situations, Nora. They’ll help you. And make certain that you and Henry never have to go back to Ted again.”

She believed what she was saying. And hoped to God that those trained professionals upon whom she was relying would come through.

Thinking of Lila McDaniels, she experienced a moment of calm as she left Nora with her son, giving word that if Ted Burbank showed up he was not to be allowed in the NICU and alerting security to the situation. Then she went into her office, closed the door and made a call to The Lemonade Stand.

CHAPTER FOUR

BRETT’S PHONE SIGNALED five new voice mails when he took it out of airplane mode upon landing at LAX Friday afternoon. From his first-class seat, Brett pressed 1 to retrieve his messages. He’d be first to deplane, but the Jetway wasn’t even connected to the plane yet.

The first two messages were from members of the board of directors of Americans Against Prejudice. He’d been fielding calls from various AAP board members for two days. Some had been cajoling, others angry. All of them attempting either to manipulate or intimidate him. In two days, only one member of that board had called him out of shame. Probably fear-induced.

That had been the only call Brett had returned.

The Jetway moved toward the plane. He could see it through the window and stood, phone still to his ear, and with his free hand, retrieved his bags from the overhead bin and put them on the seat beside him.

Message three was from Detroit. A call he’d been expecting. A follow-up with a nonprofit museum he’d toured the morning before, confirming their desire to acquire his services and give him a seat on their board.

He didn’t really have time in his schedule, but the museum was a hands-on science, music and technology facility that could make a real difference with the next generation of Detroit leaders. And their meeting schedule mostly coincided with the Washington, DC, group so he could make both with one trip.

The fourth message came up as, with his one free hand, he slung his bags over his shoulders, and picked up his briefcase. A confirmation of a haircut appointment he had the next morning. He nodded at the captain and the flight attendant standing in the open doorway of the cockpit as he disembarked, and was almost to the gate and that much closer to his car when he heard the fifth message.

“A front-yard sprinkler head sprung. George fixed it.”

He didn’t wait for the click he knew would follow. His mother took good care of him. He’d come up with the plan shortly after he’d sold the dot-com and finalized details for The Lemonade Stand. His mother liked to take care of people. And he’d banked on the fact that if she thought he really needed her, she wouldn’t be able to say no. He couldn’t travel as much as he did, and focus on the job as he needed to do, without having someone to take care of his private business matters for him—including his charity work. And he valued his privacy—as she valued hers. She’d understand that he didn’t want a stranger managing his affairs.

His plan had worked. She’d agreed almost without hesitation. Through email. And the setup had backfired, too.

She took care of him. She just wouldn’t see him. Or have a back-and-forth, two-way conversation with him. She knew his schedule and tended to his home when he wasn’t there. And if she needed his input, or to relay information, she texted him. Or emailed. Or left the occasional voice message.

The one concession she’d made a few years ago, when he’d threatened to hire someone else to care for him, was to give him access to her home so that he could help her, too. But even then, she’d extracted a promise from him that if her car was there, he wasn’t to enter.

She didn’t trust herself to see him. To get caught up in a relationship with him. And then turn on him again. Her fears were likely groundless. And the walls they built around her sky high.

After more than thirteen years of her personal silence, Brett was beginning to accept that some things were never going to change.

* * *

AS IT TURNED OUT, Ella drove Nora to The Lemonade Stand as soon as she got off work that afternoon. The vulnerable young mother had asked if she could stay with her son until then. She hadn’t wanted to go with a stranger—a member of the Stand staff who’d been planning to come get her—and because hospital security had already had to call the police on Ted, who was in custody, there was no harm in Ella leaving the hospital alone with Nora.

No risk of them being waylaid or followed by an irate husband. Not that night. As soon as Ted was arraigned, or had hired an attorney, he’d be out of jail. He hadn’t hurt anyone—this time. He’d just refused to leave the hospital without his wife and had been arrested for trespassing.

And after that night, Ella could come and go as she pleased. Ted had never met her. Had no idea a member of the hospital staff, or anyone else for that matter, was helping his wife pull off her rebellion, and he was no longer allowed access to the NICU. At least not for the next week. The restraining order Nora and her infant son had been granted was only temporary.

Ella had no doubt it would become permanent the next week when Nora appeared before a judge.

Lila had met her at the outside door of the Stand, ushering them inside with the warmth Ella had known Nora would find, and five minutes later, Ella was climbing back behind the wheel of her Mazda CX-5. The small, four-door sport-utility vehicle she’d purchased just before quitting her job to move to Santa Raquel still smelled new and added to the overall euphoria she felt.

Nora was going to be fine. Baby Henry was going to be fine. And her new life was turning out far better than she’d even hoped.

So, of course, it was time to get on with it. Right now. While she was filled with such an acute sense of energy and purpose.

Sitting in her car in the parking lot, Ella dialed a number she knew by heart, but refused to program into her speed dial or add to her contacts. She couldn’t let it get that personal.

If Brett didn’t pick up, she’d leave a message. As busy as she was, he was busier. Working all over the country in various time zones. And flying across them when he wasn’t working. Maybe they could talk through messages. He was good at that. Had been communicating that way with his mother for the entire time Ella had known him.

Running over the words she’d leave on his recording as she listened to the phone ring, Ella started her car. Maybe she wouldn’t have to—

“Can you meet me at Donovan’s in half an hour?”

What the...?

The first contact they’d had in years, and he didn’t even say hello?

“Yes.” She didn’t know where the hell Donovan’s was, but it must be in town, which meant her GPS would find it. And Santa Raquel wasn’t big enough to require more than thirty minutes to get from one end to the other.

“Tell the hostess to show you to my table.” Click.

Ella’s first reaction, after she’d picked her jaw up off the floor, was to call him back and tell him to go to hell.

She might have, if not for two things. First, Brett was emulating his mother. Which meant he was emotionally vulnerable. He wasn’t immune to her.

And second, she needed him.

Far more than he had the ability to hurt her.

Still sitting in the running car, she did a quick internet search for the restaurant. Typed in the address to her GPS.

Ten minutes. That was the drive time between where she was and where he’d be waiting for her.

At his table.

Holding court.

Unless she got there first. And asked the hostess to bring him to her table. Car in gear, Ella pulled out, driving just past the speed limit. Not fast enough to get a ticket. Just as fast as she could safely get to where she was going.

Would have been nice if she’d had a chance to change out of her puppy dog–plastered beige scrubs and into a pair of tight jeans and an equally tight black sweater. He’d always liked her in black. And tight would show him she hadn’t gained a pound since their college days when he’d hardly been able to keep his hands off her.

A toss of her hair and bit of fresh makeup wouldn’t be remiss, either. But none of that was going to happen.

His Highness had given her no time to prepare.

And that was just as well. There was no need to impress him with her womanly wiles. The woman lurking inside Ella was off-limits to him.

* * *

“WHAT DO YOU mean she’s already here?” Brett was not in a good mood when he walked into the beachfront Italian eatery before the dinner rush that Friday afternoon. He hadn’t even had time to stop home and drop off his bags, wanting to just get this last meeting done with and then go home, take a swim in his heated pool and crash on his couch with a beer and some mindless television.

“She arrived ten minutes ago, Mr. Ackerman. She said she’d rather be seated than wait...”

Cheryl—he knew because he read her name tag—was a familiar face at Donovan’s. And he was a nice guy. So he smiled, said something inane like “good” and indicated that she could lead the way.

The place was moderately busy, but empty enough that he could have chosen a table where he could have his back to the wall, able to see the entire room when his lovely ex-wife sashayed into the room, and steel himself against the effect her sexiness always had on him.

He’d had a solid plan.

And she had a table with a view. Along a wall of windows in the cliff-top eatery that looked over the ocean. If there was a bottle of wine sitting at the table, he was leaving.

“Over this way...” Cheryl rounded a large table, heading across the room. He didn’t need her guidance. He’d noticed the back of Ella’s head the second he’d entered the room. The way she held herself, back straight, that unruly dark hair up in a ponytail...

As if she was still a damned college student, not a charge nurse who should have short hair that was easy to care for and stayed out of the way.

A guy couldn’t get lost in short hair...

“I’ll take it from here,” he said when they were still a good six feet away. He was about to see Ella again.

And was suddenly struck with the knowledge that he couldn’t have witnesses. He almost turned to leave.

Would have if he knew how in the hell to turn his back on unpleasantness. But he didn’t. No, Brett was the type who saw a divorce attorney before the separation.

“Ella.” Taking a perverse pleasure as she jumped when he came up beside her table, Brett pulled out a chair.

A glass of water sat in front of her.

Not wine.

Good.

“Have you ordered?” he asked.

God, she looked good. Great. Better than ever. How long had it been since he’d seen her? A year? Two?

Four years, three months, one week and two days. Give or take a week, his mind, its usual relentless self, reminded him. He hadn’t kept count. Not even he was that anal. No, he’d lain in bed the other night—wide awake when he’d needed to be well rested for his meeting the following morning—and completely relived that last time. She’d been clearing her things out of the home they’d bought in Santa Barbara after he’d sold the dot-com.

He’d lain in bed and counted how long ago that had been.

And marveled at how far he’d come since then...

“You look good, Brett.” Her smile, oh, God, that smile. He had no idea if she’d ever answered his question about ordering.

And a waitress was approaching.

“We’ll have a bottle of wine,” he blurted. Just a small bottle. He named the one. It went well with...

What the hell. He liked it. And knew she did, too.

“I don’t...” Ella was shaking her head.

He pretended not to see. “And bring us the bread-and-cheese plate,” he continued, naming a popular Donovan’s appetizer.

Bread, wine...and time. Just enough to deal with this situation. And not a second more.

“Would you like two glasses with that?” the waitress, someone he didn’t recognize, asked.

“Yes.”

Ella didn’t argue. Brett relaxed just a tad.

And the woman left.

* * *

CHLOE WASN’T EXPECTING her anytime soon. Ella had called her sister-in-law before leaving the hospital to let her know she was working late and had no idea when she’d be home. Chloe had said she’d fix Cody fish sticks for dinner. She’d taken him to the complex park that afternoon. Had met another mother there with her toddler. A little girl.

She’d sounded more relaxed than Ella had heard her since she’d brought Chloe to Santa Raquel to stay with her.

“I didn’t need any wine,” she said now. But she lied. She did need it. If she was going to get through this meeting without throwing herself at her ex-husband’s chest and begging him to hold her.

The temptation was made worse by the fact that she knew he’d do it if she asked. And then he’d let her go.

Because that was Brett’s way.

And she’d fall apart again.

Because that was what being with him did to her.

“Just one glass,” he said.

She nodded. Saving her strength, her arguments, for what mattered.

“The view is lovely.” She stared at the ocean. Awkward. But he was the one who’d chosen their meeting place. And the one who’d ordered—requiring any serious conversation to wait until they’d been served.

“When they first built this place it was a warehouse.”

“With a view?”

He shook his head. “No, this wall of windows was put in when it was converted to a restaurant.”

Who cared? Who cared? Who cared? She glanced to the side. Looking out into the room.

Where was that wine?

More important, the waitress who needed to deliver it so that they could be left alone.

“You’re wearing the same cologne.” She’d picked it out. After he’d sold the dot-com and they’d had their first taste of money. They’d gone into an expensive department store and smelled what had seemed like a million different scents. She’d chosen one for him. He’d chosen one for her. They’d bought the home in Santa Barbara. He’d put plans for The Lemonade Stand in motion. And started his nonprofit policing business...

“You’re not.”

Not what? Oh. Wearing the same cologne...

It had been one of the last things to go after the divorce was final. She hadn’t been able to bear giving it up. And then later, hadn’t been able to stand the scent. It reminded her too much of him.

Another sideways glance. Still no waitress... Wait, yes, there she was, at a table across the way, taking an order.

“Your hair is shorter.” His legs were as long and perfect, his suit fit him to perfection and that dimple just above his jawline still turned her on.

“Yours isn’t.” Did his voice have a bit of an edge? She stared at him. Wishing, as she had so many times in the past, that she could get through to him.

Their hearts had always been connected, but he closed his mind to her when it came to his most inner sanctum.

No waitress yet. No wine or bread.

She couldn’t wait anymore. “I’ve moved to Santa Raquel.”

“I know.” Kind of hard to pick curtness out of two words. But she needed it to be there. Needed to know that he was emotionally affected by her choice to invade his home territory...

Ella pulled herself up straighter. No. She needed Brett to be...Brett. Self-sufficient and capable. If he had any needs, if she was privy to them, she’d be compelled to try to meet them. And end up heartbroken when she failed.

“Here you go.” The voice startled her. As did the arm that reached between Ella and Brett, putting first one then the other wineglass down in front of them. All that time waiting, and Ella hadn’t even seen the waitress coming.

An unopened wine bottle was all that remained on the tray the woman held and, taking it, she set the tray down on a vacant table behind them, held out the bottle for Brett to examine, and at his nod, pulled a corkscrew out of her pocket and turned it into the bottle.