Caught Up In You (Cardinal Springs #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

WYATT

October 14

“Wyatt!”

My sister’s voice wakes me from sleep like the whistle of a train: loud, then trailing off as she races past my bedroom door. The bathroom light floods the hallway, and I squint.

“Hazel? You okay?” I croak as I pry myself into reality. I sleep like the dead, and it usually takes half an hour and two cups of coffee before I’m able to put words in the right order.

But then I remember two things:

1. My baby sister is pregnant.

2. She’s due in four days.

I sit straight up in bed.

“Hazel? What’s going on?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” she calls from the bathroom. “I might be in labor?”

I trip out of bed and reach for a pair of sweatpants that’s lying in a heap on my floor, then join the heap when my big toe gets caught on the hem and I go down like a bag of hammers. “What do you mean, might be ?”

“Well, either my water just broke or I peed myself. But nothing is happening. No, like, contractions or anything. So maybe it’s just pee? I have no idea, this being my first rodeo,” she says. I can’t get over how remarkably calm she sounds. Like there isn’t a whole person about to emerge from her body. “Actually, there’s a puddle on the floor next to my bed. It’s either pee or amniotic fluid. If my water broke, I have to be at the hospital within an hour even if I’m not feeling any contractions. So I need to figure this out. Can you go smell it for me?”

“What?” I am not awake enough for this conversation. My brain is swimming in questions and the really good dream I was having about eighties-era Bruce Springsteen. It was all white T-shirt and biceps and an ass that wouldn’t quit and the Boss . You know how it is.

But finally, with great effort, I land on one question. Just one.

“What does amniotic fluid even smell like?”

“Uh, not like pee!” she yells back. “I’m going to stay here on the toilet because when I stand, more…uh…liquid…comes out?”

“Right,” I mutter. I take a deep breath and try to feel every part of my body in this moment. This is not a dream, no matter how much I want to keep caressing Bruce’s ass in those jeans. Hazel is pregnant, and there might be a baby coming right now . And all that stands between me and a screaming ride to the hospital is me smelling a mysterious puddle.

“Please?” Hazel begs.

I sigh. “You better make me that baby’s godmother,” I tell her as I pad down the hallway and into Hazel’s room. Thankfully the floors are wood, so whatever greets me will be easy to clean up. It’s about the only thing that’ll be easy to clean up in my sister’s room, which is stuffed with teetering stacks of textbooks and hardcovers and overflowing with potted plants, each healthier and hardier than the last. “It’s like the Rainforest Café in here,” I mutter, stepping over a pothos vine.

“Who else would be the godmother?”

“Maybe that little bitch from high school? McTinsleigh?”

“Ryleigh. And you’re just mad that I loaned her your leather jacket and she threw up coconut rum on the lining.”

“You bet your ass I’m still mad about that,” I reply, locating the puddle. “I found that jacket at a flea market in Orlando, and it still smells like a spring break mistake.”

I take another deep, centering breath and remind myself that this is probably just one in a long list of disgusting tasks that awaits me as a future live-in auntie. Because there is going to be a whole-ass baby living in my house. And anyway, Hazel is my little sister, and there’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for her, including smelling a mysterious bodily fluid. My love for Hazel is why I’m here in Cardinal Springs to begin with, and that has turned out not to be such a bad thing. Hazel has given me all the best things in my life, and she’s about to give me my niece.

The puddle is roughly the size of a serving platter with a Jackson Pollack–esque spatter pattern radiating outward. It’s clear, as far as I can tell. I’ve been working in bars for more than a decade, so I’ve dealt with many a mysterious puddle. But I’ve never had to smell one.

“Let’s fucking go,” I whisper, squaring my shoulders. Then I drop to my knees, get as close to the puddle as I can tolerate, and sniff.

“Well?” Hazel shouts.

“Saddle up, cowboy!” I yell back. “We’re having a baby!”

“You look like you just returned from ’Nam,” my sister says to me, her voice a dreamy whisper as she dips her chin to nuzzle the downy soft head of Eden Wyatt Hart. Yes, her middle name is mine, and frankly that’s the least I deserve after watching my sister’s vagina turn into a portal to hell.

“Well, you woke me in the middle of the night to smell a puddle, and the next thing I knew I had a front-row seat to what a placenta looks like, so it’s going to take me some time to recover,” I reply.

Though to be honest, I’m already starting to forget. Eden is only an hour old, but already her little pink lips, chunky cheeks, and fuzzy red head are turning the memory hazy. I carefully slide into the sliver of bed beside my sister, resting my head on her shoulder as we both stare at Eden. “So, red hair, huh?”

That was a surprise. Hazel and I are true brunettes, though we’ve both experimented with different hair colors over the years. Mine currently has hot-pink highlights, and Hazel’s growing out a copper balayage. But Eden? She came out looking like the love child of Pippi Longstocking and Carrot Top.

“Her dad,” Hazel whispers, her eyes going watery.

I hold my breath. In all these months since Hazel arrived home from college with her surprise belly, she’s barely mentioned Eden’s father except to say they spent only one night together and she has no idea how to find him. And I haven’t pushed her. She’s had a lot on her plate, what with trying to figure out her online classes for the spring so she won’t get too far behind and can finish her landscape design degree at Cornell, to say nothing of all the prep involved in becoming a mother. My book nerd little sister has approached it all with the same tenacity she applied to prepping for her SATs. I’ve always figured she’d tell me about the baby’s father when she was ready.

Which is now.

“It was winter break. I stayed at school to work in the botany lab, remember?” Her eyes never leave her daughter as she talks.

Her daughter . God, it’s simultaneously shocking and absolutely right.

Hazel takes a deep breath, and I give a quiet nod, not wanting to interrupt, to break the spell. Laying eyes on her daughter for the first time has cracked something open in Hazel, and it’s my job to catch whatever falls out.

“It was the first week of January and bitterly cold, but it hadn’t snowed. If it’s going to be that cold, it really should snow,” she laughs, like it’s the first bit of wisdom she’s instilling in her daughter. “Otherwise it’s just miserable. But one night I left the lab late, and as I crossed campus, the first flakes began to fall. And there he was: tall, lanky, with this thick, wavy red hair. I could see the snowflakes landing on it. He was staring at his phone, lost. I asked him if he needed help. His name was Alex, and he was passing through on his way from Toronto to New York, where he had an audition for something. A play, I think? He was in line in front of me at the Botanist and we just started…talking. About coffee and plants and life. I honestly don’t even remember how it started, but it was incredible. I’d never had so much to say in my life.”

I can barely picture this, but I know how big of a deal it must have been. My shy, quiet sister was always more interested in the book in her lap than the people around her when we were growing up. It took her six weeks of living with me before she said more than six words in a row. There must have been something really magical about this meeting…about him .

“One thing led to another, and he said he had time to kill so he didn’t get to New York too early. He didn’t have a place to stay there, couldn’t afford a hotel. Anyway, I invited him back to my apartment, and we had this incredible night.” She blushes. “Anyway, when I woke up, he was gone. To be honest, I was crushed. It seemed like we’d really connected. I didn’t think he’d ghost, but…there you have it. Same old story.”

She laughs softly to herself, then leans down and places a kiss on the top of Eden’s head. “But he left you behind, baby girl, and how can I be mad about that?”

I let out a long breath, turning the story over in my head. “You didn’t get his last name?”

She looks up and meets my eyes, her lips quirked into a grin. “Adams. Alex Adams. Can you believe that? Might as well be John Smith.”

“We could hire a PI, maybe. Or send Eden’s DNA to one of those ancestry places. Maybe one of his relatives will turn up.” I’m quickly slipping into fix-it mode, which is my standard operating procedure.

Hazel shakes her head. “We’ll find him. Someday, I know we will,” she says, then yawns. “If he’s meant to be found, we’ll find him.”

A nurse pops her head in. “Morning, Mama! How goes life with your new little miracle?”

I have to stifle a snort. Look, having just witnessed it, childbirth is indeed a miracle, and I will fight anyone who has something less than stellar to say about the wonder that is Eden. But all of the women on this ward talk like Precious Moments figurines come to life.

“Good,” Hazel replies. “Tired.”

“Why don’t you try to get some sleep. It’s vital for a healing body,” the nurse says, and that I can get on board with. “We can take her to the nursery, or we can pass her off to your sister.”

Hazel looks momentarily panicked at the thought of Eden leaving her arms, but I give her an encouraging nod. “I can take her, Haze. You’ve got to sleep.”

“You’re tired too,” she says, letting out another leonine yawn.

“Yeah, that’s what coffee’s for,” I say. “Grace and Carson are about to drop off provisions. So you sleep, I’ll hold Eden, and when you wake up, there will be muffins from Crimson ’n’ Cream waiting for you.”

“Oh, that sounds like heaven,” Hazel says as I take the sleeping baby, wrapped up tight like a burrito, from her arms. When I’ve got Eden nestled in the crook of my elbow, Hazel rolls over gingerly. As her eyes start to flutter shut, she whispers, “I wish we could call Mom.”

An ache rockets through my chest, because of course that’s the one thing I can’t give her. We’ll have to wait until Mom has time at one of the obscenely expensive pay phones at the prison where she’s being held. We’ll have to wait for the fuzzy, disembodied voice alerting us that we have a collect call. That’s when my mom will get the news of Eden’s birth.

Until then, we’re just a little family of three.

I don’t fall asleep, but at some point during the next hour or so, my brain definitely goes into hibernation. I alternate between staring at Eden, who’s sleeping in my arms, and the monitors beside Hazel’s bed. Now that the adrenaline from the birth has worn off, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this tired in my life. If I think too hard about all the ways my life is about to change, a wave of panic swells inside me. But I swallow it down, because panic won’t help me now.

I need to pull it together, just like I did eight years ago when the social worker called, letting me know that my mother had been arrested. That she wouldn’t be making bail. That Hazel was staying with a friend for the night, but if I couldn’t get to Cardinal Springs in the next day or so, my sister would be placed in foster care.

I packed that very day. Called to quit my job at the bar when I was already headed north, Nashville and all my mistakes in the rearview mirror.

Libby Hart—my mother, if you can call her that—had once again made a stupid decision because of a man. Only instead of stealing her car or slapping her around or breaking her heart, this man had loaded her Corolla with a duffel bag full of meth and told her to drive it to Chicago. Libby wasn’t even a drug user. She should have known better, shouldn’t have put Hazel in danger like that.

But as angry as I was—and still am—I can’t deny that coming to Cardinal Springs and taking responsibility for Hazel was exactly what I needed.

I sigh, thinking about letting Libby into this little cocoon. I’ll have to pretend that I’m not furious, so angry I can’t see straight, because Hazel, with her good nature, has forgiven Libby.

Hazel still calls her Mom.

Libby hasn’t been Mom to me for decades.

“Oh my god, he’s so hot.”

Whispered voices outside the cracked door of the hospital room jerk me out of my inner monologue. Under slept and overwhelmed is the perfect state for eavesdropping on hospital gossip.

“Seriously, he’s like the Midwestern Henry Cavill.”

“I would take him to an on-call room in heartbeat. Hell, I’d do him in the third-floor janitor’s closet. The one with the leaky ceiling tile?”

“Is he single?”

“As far as I know. I mean, he’s always working, so maybe a hospital hookup would be perfect.”

“Susie down in radiology went to prom with him. She says he’s an amazing kisser.”

“God, if he was good in high school, imagine what he could do with that tongue now.”

A half moan, half groan seeps through the door, and then the conversation dies, replaced by a shuffle of feet. Then one of the voices says, louder and brighter, “Good afternoon, Dr. McBride!”

“Hi,” the good doctor replies, his voice deep and friendly, the audio equivalent of a cozy flannel blanket on a cold winter’s day.

Then the door opens and his tall, broad-shouldered frame is filling the tiny room. Six foot something and dark haired, his blue eyes filled with a kind, yet steady warmth. He’s wearing a pair of khaki pants that makes him look sexy and not at all like a youth pastor. He’s also got on a navy shawl collar sweater with a white lab coat over it, a stethoscope around his neck.

I still don’t know exactly how I feel about Owen McBride, pediatrician and Cardinal Springs golden boy. I’ve lived here long enough to have heard tales of his baseball triumphs in high school and college, of the stray animals he’s rescued and the old ladies he’s led across the street. He’s basically the floor model of a good guy . A person like that would normally cause me to roll my eyes, but Owen McBride is also my best friend’s older brother. He really is that nice.

And he’s so fucking hot that sometimes it hurts to look at him.

Now the conversation in the hall makes sense.

“Hey,” he says, his voice low to avoid disturbing Hazel. But she’s already stirring, as if she senses the brute force of his hotness in the room. “How are we doing?”

“Good,” I say, dragging my focus down to the baby in my arms. “She seems to be doing all the baby things just right.”

“Hey, Dr. McBride,” Hazel says as she pulls herself up to sitting, wincing only slightly as she settles onto a maxi pad the size of a Subway sandwich tucked into a pair of mesh undies.

“Hi, Hazel, it’s good to see you,” he says. He holds his giant hand underneath the sanitizer dispenser, then rubs it into his palms in a way that absolutely should not be sexy but somehow is.

Jesus Christ, I need to get laid if I’m lusting after a man applying industrial foam hand sanitizer.

He crosses the floor and holds out those clean, capable hands, and thank god I don’t have to answer any questions, because I’m not sure I have the power of speech at the moment. I may be attracted to Owen McBride, but I think I kind of hate the affect he has on me. This level of attraction can only lead to disaster.

I watch as Owen takes Eden to the little bassinet beside Hazel’s bed and unwraps her blanket. That rouses the baby, who promptly squinches her eyes shut and opens her mouth, letting out an ear-splitting protest.

“Good lungs,” he says with a chuckle, then warms his stethoscope before placing it gently on her tiny chest and belly. A little V appears between this thick, dark brows as he listens. When he’s done, he wraps her back up like he’s doing origami, and as soon as Eden is snuggled back into her blanket, she quiets. Then he lifts her, and I let out the most embarrassing involuntary whimper at the sight of this giant man holding this tiny baby. He hands Eden to Hazel, then smiles his golden boy smile.

“She’s perfect,” he says, like he’s offering a benediction.

“She is?” Hazel’s voice betrays all the hope and terror that I imagine comes with being a new parent, but another smile and a gentle pat on the shoulder from Owen seems to relax her.

“Absolutely. You did great, Mom,” he says, and I tear up at the new title for my baby sister. “Don’t hesitate to call with any questions, and you’ll get a text from my office about your first appointment. We want to see her in three to five days to make sure she’s eating and gaining weight like she should, but right now I have no concerns.”

I didn’t realize that I was holding my breath, waiting to hear the verdict from Eden’s doctor. Eden looks good to me, and she’s eating and sleeping, and Hazel and I have fumbled our way through our first diaper change (bless the kind nurse who refrained from laughing as she guided us through the motions). But what do I know about babies? So I’m grateful for his reassurance.

And then, with a final smile, he’s gone.

“Put your tongue back in your mouth, Wyatt,” Hazel says with a smirk. “Or ask him out.”

“The man wears khakis, Hazel,” I reply, settling back into the plastic recliner that’s become my temporary home. “He owns multiple pairs of khakis. Owen McBride is not for me. And besides, I have other things going on right now.”

And then, as if to remind us that she is now the boss, Eden lets out a wail that could wake the dead.