Taking a Chance on the Single Dad

PROLOGUE

LEADEN SILENCE CRACKLED down the line, turning the armchair Brenna had inherited from her grandmother from snug and comfortable to something resembling a hard plinth beneath the suddenly tense muscles of her bottom.

‘Hunter? I said I’m missing you.’

‘Missing you too, Bren.’

The tension didn’t back off. It ramped up. That was not the voice her fiancé used with her. At least that was what he would be if they actually openly acknowledged they were getting married next summer, and if they finally got around to choosing a ring to validate their enduring love for each other.

But Hunter seemed to have a lot on his mind at the moment that had nothing to do with them.

‘Tell me what’s happening in Kamloops. How’re your parents?’ she asked.

Again, that awkward silence. They didn’t do silences—usually had too much to say to each other.

‘Hunter? You’re scaring me.’

‘Hold on, will you?’

In the background she heard a door open, then shut, followed by footsteps on a wooden floor. Was he on the deck? Winter in the Okanagan wasn’t even close to tropical. What he had to tell her must be something he didn’t want his family to overhear.

Was his father in a worse state than his mother had indicated yesterday? All he’d said was that she had been in hysterics when she’d rung, saying the family orchard was in crisis and he had to get over there urgently for his father’s sake. He’d left Vancouver within three hours, an overnight bag and his laptop over his shoulder, despair in his eyes and a one-way air ticket in his hand. He hadn’t driven as snow had been forecast near the Rockies.

‘Bren, I was going to ring you later tonight. Everything’s in turmoil here.’ The harshness of his voice frightened her.

What was going on?

Talk to me.

But if she demanded information from him, he’d shut down. Shut down? It seemed he was already under lock and key. She looked around the familiar, cosy sitting room of the house she’d grown up in, her gaze not alighting on any one object for more than a few seconds, her heart pounding faster by the minute.

Finally she had to say something or go spare. ‘Do you want me to come across for the weekend?’

‘Bren, I don’t know where to start. Dad’s—’

She heard him swallow, and a gnawing feeling there was bad to come began deep in her stomach.

‘The business is on the verge of bankruptcy. I don’t know if it can be saved. The insurance company’s fighting paying out for the flood damage done last year. The same thing’s happening with many of the orchards in this area. I haven’t gone into the paperwork yet, but people are muttering about the company that owns the power station being at fault.’

‘Can’t the insurance company pay out and then go to the power provider for the money?’ Of course she knew that wasn’t how these things worked, but anything to delay whatever was about to slam-dunk her.

‘Insurance companies are not charities. If there’s an out they’re going to take it, and to hell with what Dad’s been paying them over the years.’

The bitterness in Hunter’s voice shocked her. But he was loyal to his parents so the

ir troubles would be his, regardless of his own aspirations. Just like her and her family, especially her dad. She’d always been encouraged to follow her dreams.

‘I guess I’m aware of that. I was hoping for more, that’s all.’ A fairer outcome for Hunter’s family and a happy improvement in the way he was talking right now wouldn’t go amiss.

‘There’s a lot to do here.’

Here it comes. Brenna waited, tensing as though Hunter had a gun aimed directly at her chest. More specifically, her heart.

‘Dad’s worried he’s failed again. It’s like he doesn’t know what to focus on to get things sorted.’

Brenna swallowed hard. There was more to this—but what? ‘Darling, I’m so sorry. What can I do? For you?’

The sound of a long indrawn breath had her fingers gripping the phone, her thighs tight.

She hurried to add, ‘I’ll come at the end of my shift tomorrow night to be with you. I’ll pack more of your clothes too. Let me know what else you need. I can fill the car till there’s no room left but for me. Fingers crossed the storm will have passed through by then.’

‘No, Brenna. You can’t come. There’s nothing you can do here.’

‘I can support you—be with you. I love you. You know that.’

‘Yes, I do.’

Was that resentment in his quietly spoken words?

‘Hunter?’ Now her toes were tucking under and her knees were pushing together. There was ice in the air, yet the heat pump was blasting out a toasty twenty-two degrees.

He was dragging in a lungful of air. Then, ‘The only thing I want you to do for me is pack up all my gear and send it across. I am not returning to Vancouver.’

‘But what about your job? Your study?’ Me? ‘Vancouver’s your happy place. You’ve said so a hundred times. We’re a couple—we stick together through everything. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you through this.’

‘I have to move back to the orchard. It’s the only chance there is to make the place viable again. Mum and Dad need my support to get through this.’

Did he mutter again?

‘It’s not the first time I’ve had to step up for them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s how our family works. Ever since that quad-bike accident they’ve made me think I owe them for the trouble it caused and that I can never repay them, but I keep trying.’

Hunter had just stolen any words she might have been about to utter. Their relationship wasn’t being taken into consideration. Not at all.

‘Hunter, we’re a couple—for better and for worse,’ she gasped through frozen lips.

It was happening again. Someone else she loved was deserting her.

‘Would you pack up and move out here to join me?’ he whispered.

Anger flared. How dared he ask her that? ‘You know I would—after I’ve finished my exams and when my dad’s...’

The thumping in her chest slowed, creating a pain under her ribs and a knot in her belly. Dad. Her mainstay as she’d grown up trying to understand how her mother could leave and never contact her again. Not once.

‘Oh.’

‘Exactly. We’ve both got too many commitments. I don’t want you putting aside your medical degree for me either. You’re an amazing doctor, Bren, and you have to finish what you’ve started.’

Did he have to be so nice when he was breaking her heart?

‘As for leaving your father now that he’s been diagnosed with dementia—that’s not happening. Not on my account. Nor can I see you doing it. Not easily, any rate.’

He had her there. Damn him. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she ignored them. Her dad needed her, along with her stepmum and half-sisters. She couldn’t walk away from being there for them through this black time. All the love he’d spoiled her with since her mother had run away had got her through the bad times; she intended doing the same for him.

But she loved Hunter. He was her mainstay. They were supposed to be getting married when she qualified. Hunter loved her. He’d said so often. Yes, he did love her. There’d never been anything false about his declarations. They could make this work. They had to.

‘Brenna, there’s no easy way to say this so I’ll be blunt. We are finished. We have to be. We can’t hang in limbo for the next however many years, until my family is back on track or things have changed for you. I am truly sorry, but there is no alternative.’

When Hunter called her Brenna there was no arguing with him. She’d tried and failed too often to risk it now. Though what more did she have to lose? Seemed she’d just lost the love of her life.

There was nothing else essential other than breathing. Dragging in air to make sure her lungs were still working, she closed her eyes and strove for something to make this all go away.

Not happening.

She could go crazy: cry and yell, plead and beg. Or she could dig deep for dignity, and not make Hunter glad he’d called it quits.

‘Bad timing, huh?’ she sniffed.

* * *

‘The absolute worst, sweetheart.’

The endearment curdled Hunter’s stomach. Brenna was the love of his life, the sunshine and the warmth, the reason he worked so hard to put aside money, so he’d be able to buy a home for her—for them—in the near future.

You don’t have a future with Bren any more.

The urge to hurl the phone across the yard had his arm lifting. He needed to hear it smash into a thousand pieces just as his heart was doing. But he held on so tight his fingernails were digging deep into his palms, the harsh edge of the instrument pressing into his ear.

It was the most awful timing possible to have this happen to his parents, to Brenna, to him. Bren didn’t know about his father’s mental instability in times of crisis. Neither did she know how controlling and selfish his parents had been with him as he’d been growing up, and that that had been his reason for moving to Vancouver. He’d thought he’d escaped, that they’d finally accepted he had his own life to live. He’d been wrong, had been drawn in once more to straighten out their messed-up lives regardless of his aspirations.

It was an insurmountable problem he couldn’t find a way around. He’d never forgive himself if he remained in Vancouver and his father carried out his threat to take his own life. And Brenna could not leave her father when he had dementia. Even with her stepmum and sisters there supporting him, Brenna was so close to her father she wouldn’t dream of moving away. Neither could he ask her to put her medical degree on hold with less than a year to go. He’d never forgive himself when she came to resent him for requesting that. It was bad enough his own paramedic training was going on the back burner.

‘Hunter? Stay in touch. Please.’

That would hurt worse than anything. To see Bren, talk to her, and not be able to share the future they’d started planning together would be hell on wheels. ‘No. I can’t do that. It has to be a clean break. Over and done as of now. So sorry, Bren, I really am.’

Do it. Now. Before you lose the courage.

‘Goodbye.’ His finger stabbed the off button, remained stuck to it, as though preventing him ever hearing from Bren again.

No woman had made him so happy and carefree and yet so determined to succeed. No woman, no person, had believed in him as much as Bren had. Her only expectations had been that he be himself, believe in himself and follow his own dreams—something his parents had never allowed.

He loved her beyond all reason, and yet he’d just put her aside for his family’s problems. Old habits did not disappear in a cloud of happiness after all. If only he could be that man Bren believed in. If only he could make his parents understand he’d been trying to help the day when he’d overheard his father bemoaning how he couldn’t shift the cattle himself because of his headaches.

Hunter had taken the quad bike out to round up the ca

ttle and shift them to a field on the side of the hill. It had gone well until a bull had charged the bike. Only eleven, he hadn’t been able to control the heavy machine and it had rolled, leaving him with a smashed leg and angry parents who’d said he’d made things worse for them by not being available to help around the orchard while his bones healed. From then on, they’d continued to make him pay for his misdemeanour with more and more demands.

None of this made tonight’s decision about his relationship with Brenna easy. This time his father had threatened to swallow a bottle of paracetamol, and as he’d done it once before they couldn’t take any chances. Not that he was telling Bren about his father’s mental state. She might start watching him to see if he was unstable too. Not that she’d be seeing him again. He had to remain strong about that. He loved Bren with every fibre of his body.

His only hope was that by doing the right thing for his parents it would keep him focused in the months ahead when the going got tough. Because it was going to. Not a doubt in the universe. His own plans and needs and love would be shelved. Didn’t mean he had the right to ask Brenna to put hers alongside his.

The phone lit up. Bren’s number came up on the screen. Then the ringing began. He pressed Off. She tried again. And again.

Then Hunter did hurl the phone with all the frustrated strength he had. It soared over the back yard, across the fence to land with a splash in the trough.

‘Goodbye, Bren. Love you.’

The back of his hand slashed at his face as he hunched over, letting the rain soak his clothes, chill his skin further. Not caring what happened to him. But he had to. He was needed here. There was no choice.

CHAPTER ONE

Six years later...

HUNTER FORD LEANED his shoulder against the doorframe and watched his son’s tiny chest lift and fall under the light bedcover as he slept, and sighed with relief. ‘You’re happier already, aren’t you, my boy?’ he whispered through a thick throat.