Forever a Father Read online

  “Your grandfather told me a very interesting story,” she said as they strolled over the sand.

  “About the time I was five and tried to eat a baby frog?”

  “No! You did?” She elbowed his arm when she realized he was joking. “Anyway, he’s a funny man. Very sweet.” After a few more steps down the dunes, the waves crashing in the distance, she continued. “He said you and your brothers went deep-sea fishing one morning, and he insists you saved a selkie.” She glanced at him, her lashes batting her cheeks, teasing, testing, challenging him to give her an answer.

  “I don’t even know what a selkie is. I should’ve warned you about him.” He quickened their pace.

  “It’s Irish folklore.” She worked to keep up. “A selkie lives as a seal in the sea but can become a woman or man on land. He said you saved a seal from a pod of orcas.”

  “And what if we did?” It was his turn to tease and test her, to see how much Grandda had told her.

  “The selkie owes you a favor. Padraig insists you’re all going to find wives soon because of it.”

  Daniel clapped a palm to his forehead. Couldn’t he have kept that part to himself? “Sometimes he is so embarrassing. I told you he’s a wee bit touched, didn’t I?” Daniel’s Irish accent was lousy, though he hadn’t really tried.

  “No, you didn’t, but I think it’s sweet of him to want his grandsons married. You did save a seal, after all. I guess he’s allowed his own interpretation of the event. How did you save it, anyway?”

  Daniel took a deep breath, trying to remember the exact events of that day close to a year ago. “The poor seal had been singled out by the orcas. They wear down their prey by playing with it, taunting it. It’s really hard to watch. Anyway, we started our boat and moved closer to the pod. Probably a really stupid thing to do, in retrospect, but the noise distracted the orcas and that gave the seal a chance to get away. Then we moved our boat between the orcas and the seal, helping her—I mean it—escape. Looking back, I realize that could have been disastrous. Don’t try this at home, kids. Like I said, we were stupid trying such a stunt, but we did it nevertheless.”

  “Still, it’s an amazing story.”

  “Not really. We just wanted to take Mark deep-sea fishing because he was down in the dumps after he got out of the army.” I was hardly holding on at the time, too. Come to think of it, so was Conor. “We didn’t have any plans to be heroes or anything. I guess our biggest mistake was telling our family about it at the pub that night, over Sunday dinner.”

  “Well, you certainly made an impression on your grandfather.”

  “Fanciful thinking, as my father calls it. But we all tolerate it because, well, it’s Grandda.”

  “Padraig insists you’ll all find someone, because freeing a mermaid brings good luck in love.”

  Ha! That’s a good one. “The seal was a mermaid?”

  “Have to admit I’ve never heard that part of the folklore meself.” It was her turn to laugh lightly, catching him off guard, as always, with the lilting sound. “Usually the selkie stories I’ve heard are very dark and sad.”

  Well, that’s just great. And suitable for the three damaged Delaney brothers. We’ve all been unlucky one way or another. We’re all fighting our way back from something.

  And it was his turn to change the subject. “How’d things go with my mom?”

  “Terrific.” He could see true and immediate enthusiasm in her eyes. She wasn’t just being polite. “Your mother wants me to work for her on the weekends, giving massages to guests. She said she’d buy the massage table for me, and the appointments would be in the guest rooms at first, until she can find a spot for a mini spa.” Where he and his brothers were currently living would be the perfect place, but, well, they were all living there. “She said the tips alone would be worth it. She even offered to watch Anna while I was at the hotel. I’m pretty sure I can work this out. That is, if you’re okay with it?”

  “If you think taking on the extra work is worthwhile, I’m happy to let you figure out your own schedule. But won’t spa massages take more time away from her?” He pointed to Anna up ahead, giggling and running on the uneven dunes with Daisy as if they were best friends.

  “I’ve had to scramble to make ends meet sometimes, and I hate depending on undependable Ron, so if I work more efficiently, it shouldn’t be too much more time and will be well worth the effort. Besides, she’ll be right there at the hotel when I’m there.”

  “You can always try it out and see how it goes. No harm, no foul. I want what’s best for you, so that being said, maybe it would be easier all around if I just gave you a raise.” He wasn’t sure he could offer much right away, but if it helped make her life less complicated...

  “Thanks, but I agreed to that salary for one year when you hired me, right? Besides, I’m looking forward to branching out. I used to really enjoy being a massage therapist.”

  Jumping right into stereotypical male fantasies, Daniel wondered what it might be like having her hands and fingers touching him. He tried to stop the vision, but he was weak—what could he say, he was a guy—especially with her looking so beautiful today.

  It hit him. This was the first time since Kathryn that he’d been remotely interested in a woman. Which lit a whole new fire of fear under him. Since he’d already faced several demons today, he may as well be honest and admit he was far beyond the interest stage, and halfway to knee deep in infatuation with Keela O’Mara. Just great. And the last thing in the world he needed right now.

  Had he turned into a glutton for pain? Even entertaining the possibility of letting any type of relationship, from platonic on up, occur seemed the path to hell on earth. Yet here he was, thinking how beautiful she looked, how the ocean mimicked her eyes. Plus the fact she hadn’t run off screaming with her hair on fire when his grandfather insisted on telling her a selkie had ensured his grandboys would all be married soon.

  “Did I ever tell you you’re the best boss I’ve ever had?”

  Boss. Yes! Employee. Boss-employee would be his angle, or in this case, his saving grace. “Ha! You mustn’t have had too many jobs.” He hoped his face didn’t betray the thoughts he’d just conjured up.

  She offered a sweet smile that made his chest thump. Damn, this had to stop. He glanced ahead to dilute the potency of the moment. Boss. Employee. That “what if” feeling couldn’t go anywhere. He was just beginning to get back on his feet, to feel half-human again. He’d been down heartbreak lane, suffered excruciating pain, been emotionally decimated and was still dealing with the fallout.

  “We better catch up with them.” Without thinking, he reached for her hand and started a slow jog. Then, with her palm flat against his and feeling far too intimate, he realized what a mistake that was. Especially after what he’d just been imagining about her hands. He couldn’t exactly drop it now, though; he’d have to at least wait until they’d caught up with Daisy and Anna. Quit overthinking everything. Just keep jogging, idiot.

  Here’s a thought: enjoy yourself.

  Anna and Daisy romped over the dunes, the child never quite able to catch up. She laughed and called after the pup, who kept running, so she ran harder and faster. Daniel worried they were getting too far ahead, so he picked up his step, Keela keeping pace.

  Daisy leaped over something and landed on the other side, and Anna didn’t even try to stop.

  In the next instant, she disappeared.

  Chapter Three

  Daniel dropped Keela’s hand and sprinted toward the spot on the dunes where the child had vanished. Keela shouted Anna’s name as she ran behind him.

  “Anna!” Daniel also called out. He heard cries and screams in answer. Memories of Emma, tiny and helpless, flooded his thoughts. With his pulse pounding in his ears, his breathing hard, he arrived at the edge of the slope. Anna lay at the bottom, at least eight feet below, on rocks and in ti
dewater. He climbed down the side and, slipping into doctor mode, immediately realized she’d broken her left leg when she’d hit bottom. A compound fracture. The jagged bones sliced through her skin, and she had a deep gash higher up, which bled rapidly.

  “I’m here.” Though breathless, he tried to reassure the panicked child. “Let me take a look.”

  Anna, her eyes squeezed tight with tears pouring out, held still as though afraid to move, though unable to stop trembling. Daniel’s stomach twisted into knots as he fought a flood of anxiety. He focused on her injury, his first hope that the bone hadn’t nicked an artery.

  “Anna!” Keela had made it to the edge of the drop-off.

  “Mommy!” she wailed. A good sign.

  “Do you have your cell phone?” Daniel shouted as he undid his tie and ripped off his shirt to press on the gushing blood above the open break. He’d left his in the car.

  “No. I left everything back at the picnic.”

  “Go get help. I’ll take care of this.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s broken her leg.”

  Keela gasped. He left out the profuse-bleeding part so as not to freak her out even more.

  “Mommy!” the child screamed. Lungs still strong, no sign of shock or loss of consciousness setting in. She was able to lift her head and move her hands. Good. Her leg, and not her spine, had taken the brunt of the fall.

  “You’re going to be okay, Anna, sweetheart.” Keela’s voice quavered. “Daniel will take care of you, and I’ll be back as soon as I get help. I love you.” Without another word she sprinted back toward the hotel, Daisy staying behind on the other side of the gully, pacing back and forth.

  Daniel put pressure on the gushing wound, all the while attempting to say soothing words to the hurting and frightened child. “You’re going to be all right. I’m here. Mommy’s going for help. She’ll be right back.”

  Heartbreaking memories flashed through his mind of consoling Kathryn when the unthinkable had happened with Emma. First the ultrasound, the congenital heart defect diagnosis. Then the day Kathryn thought labor pains were Braxton Hicks, not the real thing, until she’d given birth to their barely twenty-two-week-old baby on the bathroom floor. Far too early for Emma to survive. But Daniel had delivered their daughter and held the tiny, limp body close to his chest, bargaining his own life for hers, his grief echoing off the bathroom tile. If there is any way to save her...please.

  Anna sobbed and reached for him. He thought fast and applied his tie above the area of bleeding for a makeshift tourniquet, then tightened it. He wrapped his shirt around the compound fracture to protect it from more sand and seawater getting inside the open wound, never letting up on the area that bled. Then, with his other arm, he hugged her close, lifting her. “You’re going to be okay.”

  “Don’t leave,” she whimpered.

  The plea melted his heart. “Not a chance. I’m right here.” He held her tight, looking for a way out. The only possibility led toward the ocean, since there was no way he could climb the side of the steep slope while holding a child. Heading toward the beach was a huge challenge, but doable, since it was low tide. But only if he didn’t lose his footing on the slippery rocks and possibly do more damage to her leg. But most important, only if he kept his wits about him. He wouldn’t let Anna down. He couldn’t.

  If the bone had nicked an artery, time was precious; he had to move and move fast. Nothing would stop him from saving her. Nothing. With a deep inhalation, he willed himself the strength to safely carry her out of there, and in record time. Her eyes closed. “Stay with me, honey. Are you okay?”

  She nodded instead of answering, whimpering all the while. Alarmed by her suffering, he sped up as he followed the low tide toward the beach, holding on to Anna for dear life. He remembered Emma’s tiny body, how fragile and precious she’d been. How he couldn’t save her because she’d been born too early and with a fatal heart defect. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he made his way, clumsily slipping on rocks here and there, but never letting go of Anna no matter how awkward.

  She felt far more substantial than his baby had. Nothing would prevent him from getting her to the lifeguard station and then to the hospital ER. He glanced down at her leg—the bleeding seemed to have slowed a bit. Though she was broken, she would mend, as long as the blood loss was controlled and he delivered her to where she needed to be. He could do that. He would do it.

  But tiny Emma had never had a chance.

  * * *

  Keela sat with Daniel in the hospital waiting room three hours later, while Anna was in surgery. With every last nerve soundly jangled, she bit on her thumbnail, hoping for a word soon from the on-call orthopedic surgeon. As a doctor, Daniel had obviously pulled some strings to speed things along. She didn’t know what she would have done without his help.

  Her memories were mostly a blur. He’d carried Anna halfway back to the hotel by the time lifeguard help had arrived, and soon after, the ambulance. He’d stayed by her daughter’s side like her own personal angel throughout the ambulance ride and ER visit, helping Keela keep it together whenever she’d fallen apart. Once here, he’d been her voice for the doctors and nurses when she’d been too emotional to make any sense, and also her mother hen, tending to her every need. Water. Coffee. Suggesting that bathroom break. Now, sticking around when he didn’t have to, he’d quickly become her superhero.

  “I just heard about the accident.” Conor Delaney in full deputy sheriff uniform rushed into the surgical waiting room, concern blazing in his eyes.

  “They’re doing an ORIF,” Daniel said.

  “Layman’s terms, please.”

  “Open reduction internal fixation. They reduce the fracture, then hold the bones in place with screws and plates so they can heal and grow back together.”

  Conor grimaced. “That doesn’t sound fun.”

  Keela’s stomach knotted tighter at the thought of what her baby was going through.

  “She’ll have a long recovery, and infection will be a major concern.”

  Oh, God, they were nowhere near out of the woods.

  “Tough luck. Wow. I’m so sorry.” He glanced at Keela with an empathetic expression. Pulling herself together yet again, she mustered a wan smile. Then he nodded at his brother. “What happened to your shirt? You on staff here now?”

  Daniel glanced down as if just realizing he’d been without a shirt when they’d first arrived and he’d had an ER nurse grab a scrub top for him. The fact that he’d been shirtless for the entire ambulance ride hadn’t gone unnoticed by Keela, either, and she’d been right about the washboard abs. Strange what a person notices in crisis mode. Under the circumstances, it felt so wrong to be aware.

  Seeing Conor Delaney in uniform also proved her earlier suspicion, and Keela did her best not to stare at the man. So these Delaney brothers were all hunks. She winced inwardly at the contemptable thought, considering her daughter was having emergency surgery.

  Being around two men, it hit her that she hadn’t called Ron. For distraction while the brothers talked, she dialed her ex-husband’s number. Doing her best to pull it together, she prepared to tell him the whole story.

  He was not happy.

  “She’s in surgery now, if you want to come to the hospital.”

  “This is all your fault, you know.”

  She flinched at the accusation, unable to respond to his cruel words. Had she heard right?

  “If you’d let her come with me today, this wouldn’t have happened. Now your daughter’s got a broken leg, and surgery costs a small fortune.” Ever the compassionate, loving father. She fisted her free hand.

  Rather than scream at him for being such an eejit, she shut down. Besides, the yelling tactic had never worked when they’d been married. It just made him double his belligerence. All the reasons she’d wound up asking for a divorce...
“I thought you might want to come see her. I’ll let you know when she’s in her room.” Keela hung up, her fingers trembling with anger.

  Soon her eyes flooded and her face crumpled. She hated letting him get to her, but it hurt so much she could hardly breathe. Did he always have to be such an arse? In her gut she knew Ron would come around eventually; he always did. But never without first inflicting intentional pain. Her being his favorite target. You’ve screwed up again. Why can’t you be good enough, smart enough, pretty enough?

  A strong arm wrapped around her shoulders and drew her close. She buried her face in a warm neck. The full-throttle stress of the afternoon had caught up to her, and after priding herself for reasonably holding it all together—in the crying department, anyway—she fell apart. Completely. In Daniel Delaney’s arms, with Conor looking on. Several seconds later, the tsunami subsided, and she tried once again to pull it together bit by bit.

  “How’re you holding up?”

  At first she thought Conor was asking her, which seemed odd, since she clearly wasn’t holding up at all, couldn’t even form words yet. Soon enough, she realized Conor’s concern was for his brother.

  “I’m okay, thanks,” Daniel said, quietly and introspectively.

  During a ragged inhalation, Keela shifted position and wondered. Was there a reason Daniel might feel uncomfortable in a hospital? But he was a doctor.

  “Good. Well, listen, man, I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Yeah. Of course,” Daniel said over her head, since it was snuggled under his chin. “Thanks for checking in. We’ll keep you posted.”

  “Take care, Keela. I’m sure Anna will be fine, and let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, then whimpered, further embarrassing herself. But at that moment Daniel was her pillar of strength and she clung tight, grateful that he held her close.