The Child Who Changed Them (Parent Portal 5)

The fact that that still mattered to her shook her a bit. Like she didn’t believe Wood and Cassie and Alan were family without the biology?

It had all just been so neat and clean—her plan to atone for her part in Peter’s death, something no one knew about. And to become a legitimate part of the only family she had left in the world.

As she went through the next couple of days, the next week, she alternated between feeling more alive than she had in...memory. And struggling not to shut herself off from the world again. To love from afar.

She’d hurt people. What if she hurt Greg? Or the baby?

And she didn’t feel worthy of the happiness that was starting to infiltrate little parts of her day...to hang there in a tantalizing little wisp of hope as she opened her eyes each morning. She was afraid to grasp it. Couldn’t bear the thought of reaching for it and having it snatched away.

And yet there it was, dogging her steps, daring her to take the chance.

Greg had moved in while she was at work. She’d left an empty garage and returned to find his car there and the door at the end of the hall shut. He’d had the day off.

She’d come home to find a magnetic notepad on the refrigerator, though, and her cupboards stuffed with more food than she’d had in them since Wood left. A note on the pad told her he’d meet her at the ultrasound.

And also had a curious message... “#2.” She pondered that on and off for the next couple of days, smiling at how the man seemed to occupy mind space even when he wasn’t around. He was doing a couple of night rotations.

She’d had an email from him at work, a response to the most recent scan she’d done on Brooklyn. This was the third week in a row in which the hospital had administered a dose of medicine, instructing its staff and her mother to not give the little girl another dose at home. And the scans were showing the same healthy results. Different from Brooklyn’s other scans. When they knew for sure Brooklyn received her medication in the hospital, she was a much happier and emotionally stable child with no stomach issues. When they couldn’t prove that she’d received it at home, she struggled.

The next step would be something that Brooklyn’s pediatrician and Social Services would determine. Her job was to step away. To accept ultimately not knowing, and having no control over, the end result.

Up until Brooklyn’s case, she’d been thankful for that aspect of what she did. Being able to help where she could, offer all of the compassion in her heart, and then...withdrawing.

As she drove to the ultrasound on Friday, she started to see a common theme in her life.

Withdrawal.

Since her parents died, she’d been doing enough to live life, but always taking baby steps backward.

The realization disturbed her. Disappointed her.

Was she wasting the life her parents had given her?

Telling herself the only baby steps she wanted in her life now were the ones the little human being growing inside her would learn to take, she parked and looked for Greg’s shiny blue car, spotting it in the far back of the lot.

As though he’d been watching for her, he got out just as she pulled in, and was approaching her car by the time she was out of it. She had to stand there and wait. It was the polite thing to do.

He looked so incredibly good, familiar and sexy and...solid, in his jeans and short-sleeved pullover shirt. Enjoying the sight was a natural part of being alive.

As was the smile on her face as she walked toward him.

She liked him. Had always liked him. There was nothing wrong with that.

“You ready for this?” he asked as he reached her side and they walked toward the door.

Elaina wasn’t sure she was ready for anything.

But she wasn’t withdrawing from it, either.

She had a baby to live for.

Chapter Twelve

Elaina was a good patient, Greg noted as he stood to the side, watching as she followed the technician’s instructions, sliding up on the table, lifting her shirt, lowering her waistband. A lot of doctors weren’t good patients—himself included.

The fact that Elaina was didn’t surprise him. She was kind and gracious and good at everything she set out to do, from what he could see.

Her home—their home, at least for now—wasn’t just clean, it also smelled fresh. Good. Like a spring day, not like the antiseptic that greeted him at his office door each day. And the decor, while understated, was warm. Welcoming. Every single piece, from a small collection of decorative angels in various mediums set up on a china hutch, to a painted wooden sign with floral design and words that proclaimed that family lived there, seemed deliberately chosen to embody peace and love. Even the colors, soft oranges, reds, golds, wrapped him in a feeling of acceptance.