‘You guys hungry? Want some cookies and milk? And Curious George on TV?’
‘Yes!’
At least three-year-old boys were easily distracted.
Or maybe not.
‘Spider cookies,’ Cameron shouted. ‘They’re the bestest.’
‘I think we’ve run out of spider cookies,’ he apologised.
‘That’s okay, Daddy.’ Max patted his arm. ‘I’ll tell Gace and we’ll help her make some more.’
He had to sit down with the boys and supervise the milk drinking but Charles wasn’t taking any notice of the monkey’s antics on the screen that were sending the twins into fits of giggles.
His mind was somewhere else entirely, carried away by the echo of his son’s words. The tone of his voice.
That confidence that everything would be put to rights when he’d had the chance to explain what was wrong to Grace.
It hadn’t even occurred to either of his boys to suggest that he make them some more homemade cookies. It might be only a superficial example but it symbolised all those things a mother could do that perhaps he couldn’t even recognise as being missing from their lives.
And that longing in Max’s voice.
And then she’ll come back?
It touched something very deep inside Charles. Opened the door he’d shut in his head and heart that was a space that was filled with the same longing. Not just for a woman in his life or for sex. That need was there, of course, but this longing—it was for Grace.
He had to do a whole lot more than simply apologise for leaving her text unanswered when he spoke to her. He had to make her understand how important she’d become to his boys. How much they loved her.
And...and he had to tell her that he felt the same way.
That he loved her.
That the idea of life without her had become something unthinkable.
There was a painful lump in his throat that he tried to clear away but that only made Max look up at him with those big, blue eyes that could often see so much more than you’d expect a small boy to see.
‘You happy, Daddy?’
‘Sure am, buddy.’ Man, it was hard work to sound as though he meant it. ‘You finished with that milk?’
He took the empty cups back to the kitchen. He glanced at his phone lying on the table beside his laptop on his return.
Was it worth trying to find out if Grace was available?
There was a sense of urgency about this now. What if she really was planning to leave? What if she was actually planning to leave New York? Surely she wouldn’t do that without telling him?
But why would she?
He hadn’t spoken to her since they’d spent the night together. He hadn’t even answered her text message.
Okay, stuff had happened and events had conspired to prevent him seeing her the way he’d assumed he’d be able to, but the truth was there was no excuse for what the combination of things had produced. Without any intention of doing so, he had allowed history to repeat itself. He’d made love to Grace and then seemingly ignored her. Pushed her out of his life because something else had seemed more important.
So why wouldn’t she just walk away?
He’d thought he was protecting her by not giving any journalists a reason to pry into her life when there were things that he knew she would prefer to keep very private.
Those same things that had made her so vulnerable to allowing herself to get close to another man.
Why had he assumed that she needed his protection anyway? As he’d reminded her himself, she was a strong, courageous woman and she had dealt with far worse things in her life than the threat of having her privacy invaded.
She had been courageous enough to take the risk of letting him that close.
And somehow—albeit unintentionally—he’d repeated the same mistake he’d made the first time.
He’d made everything worse.
He hadn’t even been protecting his boys in one sense, either. He’d created the risk of them losing someone they loved. Someone they needed in their lives.
Charles rubbed the back of his neck, lifting his gaze as he tried to fight his way through this mess in his head. The view from the massive windows caught his attention for a blessed moment of distraction. It was beginning to snow heavily. Huge, fat flakes were drifting down, misting the view of the Manhattan skyline and Central Park.
Charles loved snow. He’d never quite lost that childish excitement of seeing it fall or waking up to find his world transformed by the soft, white blanket of a thick covering. But there wasn’t even a spark of that excitement right now. All he could feel was that lump-inducing longing. A bone-deep need to be close to Grace.
He’d never thought he’d ever feel like this again. He’d never wanted to after Nina had died because the grief had been crippling and he never wanted to face another loss like that. He didn’t want his boys to have to face that kind of loss, either.
But it had happened. He had fallen in love. Maybe it had always been there, in an enforced hibernation after that first night they’d been together, thanks to the life events that had happened afterwards.
And here he was, possibly facing the loss of this love and, in a way, it would be worse than losing Nina because Grace would still be alive. If she wasn’t actually planning on leaving Manhattan Mercy, and was only thinking of finding a new place to live, he’d see her at work and see that smile and hear her voice and know that being together could have been possible if he’d done things differently.
There had to be some way he could fix this.
If Grace had feelings for him that were anything like as powerful as the ones he had finally recognised, surely there was a way to put things right.
But how?
A phone call couldn’t do it.
Even a conversation might not be enough.
Charles took a deep inward breath and then let it out very slowly as he watched the flakes continuing to fall. This was no passing shower. This snow would settle. Maybe not for long. It would probably be slush by the morning if the temperature lifted but for the next few hours at least it would look like a different world out there.
A world that Grace had been so eager to see.
An echo of her voice whispered in his mind.
‘It’s always been my dream for Christmas. A sleigh ride in a snowy park. At night, when there’s sparkly lights everywhere and there are bells on the horses and you have to be all wrapped up in soft blankets.’
He could have given her that. But how likely was it to be possible now? Christmas was weeks away and maybe she wouldn’t even be here.
He needed a small miracle.
And as he stood there, watching the snow fall, Charles became aware of the spark that had been missing. Excitement about the snow?
Maybe.
Or maybe it was just hope.
* * *
The letter was still in her pocket.
Grace could feel it crinkle as she sat down on the chair beside her elderly patient’s bed.
She could have gone in and put it on Charles Davenport’s desk first thing this morning but she hadn’t.
Because he’d been in the office. Sitting at his desk, his head bent, clearly focused on the paperwork in front of him. And it had been just too