58. Garrett
Chapter Fifty-Eight
GARRETT
K eeping an eye on both Stella and Emma proved impossible but he tried long enough to make him cross-eyed.
Relax, he scolded. Stella was just riding her bike. But his heart started pounding out of control when she and Mariana disappeared down the street.
Garrett forced himself to sit back. His mother-in-law had the situation in hand. She’d been raising the kid alone for the past five years, for fuck’s sake. He could survive ten minutes.
Emma turned to him, her eyes wide. “Should we follow them?”
Yeah, there was a reason he loved this woman. He laughed nervously, pulling at the collar of his sweater before thinking better of it and taking it off altogether. “That’s harder than it should be, right?”
He plucked at the cotton of his shirt, lifting it up and down to get some air circulation. “I didn’t know my daughter existed yesterday morning, and today I am sweating when I can’t see her.”
Emma had said very little since getting out of bed. But she had eventually let Stella go, which he took as a good sign.
Now she put her hands on her head and staggered to the porch, where a worn wooden bench covered by a cushion looked over the front lawn .
“How did this happen?” she asked, dazed. “Why didn’t my mom tell me the truth?”
“I think she tried,” he said. “But you were in really bad shape when she did, and the memory didn’t stick.”
“How could I forget that?” she cried, her throat thick with tears.
Garrett scooted closer, wrapping his arms around her. “You had a traumatic brain injury. It’s a miracle you recovered.”
“But I did. I got better.” Emma sniffed, wiping her cheek. “She could have told me later.”
He wished she had, but he also understood why she hadn’t.
“Mariana was scared. Part of her has always believed that the father of your baby was a bad guy—bad enough to run you down in the woods.”
Emma closed her eyes, an inarticulate sound escaping as she let her head tip backward. “I keep thinking I’m dreaming and I’m going to wake up.”
Garrett squeezed her arm. “Right there with you. But it’s real and we’re going to handle it.”
He hoped that sounded confident enough. They were going to be a family.
Emma twisted to face him, a pleading anxious light in her eyes. “And you’re sure she’s ours?”
He swallowed, but not because he wasn’t sure. It was what he had to show her.
“One hundred percent,” he said, taking out his phone. “These are going to be hard to see—I sure as hell had a difficult time with them. But you should see them.”
Thumbing the screen, he flipped to the pictures Mariana had sent him.
“Your mom took pictures of you at the hospital, to chronicle your progress.”
“My what?”
It was better to show her. Grimacing, he turned the phone so she could see it.
Emma gasped and snatched up the phone .
It was her in the hospital, in a bed, hooked up to an IV and a bunch of wires to monitor her vitals. The sheets had been pulled taut over her in the shot, enough to discern the start of her pregnancy.
Garrett rubbed the back of his head. “The belly gets bigger in the later shots.”
Emma groaned and bent over the phone, scrolling to the more recent photographs. Her pregnancy belly swelled more and more until the final one, where an anonymous nurse hovered nearby with a tiny, wrinkled baby nestled in the crook of her arm.
“ Shit .” Emma shoved the phone back at him. Then she snatched it back and swore again. “This is crazy.”
“Not as crazy as this,” he said, gently prying the phone from her hands. He went back to the side-by-side of his mom and Stella and showed it to her. “That’s my mom.”
She stared at it open-mouthed. “I guess we know why you’re so sure.”
“Yes, my mom is five here.” He put his arm around her. “I don’t think we need a DNA test to prove she’s mine.”
She shook her head and then frowned. “But you are very rich. Do you want one anyway?”
He shrugged. “It won’t change anything for anyone except my lawyers.”
She looked at him sharply. “Right, then do it. I don’t want anyone to doubt her.”
“They won’t,” he promised. “Even if she weren’t the spitting image of my mother, if I say she’s my daughter, then she’s my daughter.”
Emma swallowed. “What if I want the test?”
“We don’t need it.”
“I might,” she said in a small voice.
Her mind wasn’t going to rest until he agreed.
“All right. Then we’ll do it. But you need to take my word on something—you were madly in love with me. You weren’t with anyone else.”
She smacked him in the arm. “You weren’t that sure a few weeks ago.”
He took her hand, guiding it to his mouth and pressing a kiss to each of her fingertips. “I was an immature jerk back then. I’ve grown up since then.”
Emma rolled her eyes, but her lips turned up at the corners. “Right.”
“I have.” He laughed, even though he felt more like crying. “I have aged like a decade since then.”
Seriously, his heart couldn’t take much more of this.
She shuddered, the aftermath of too much emotion. “You became a father.”
“And you a mother.”
Emma put a hand over her heart. “I’ve been a bad one. I wasn’t even here this past year.”
He pulled her into his side, squeezing her tight. “You did the best thing you could have possibly done. You went to San Diego to find me, so I could fall in love with you all over again.”
Pressing his forehead to hers, he took her scent deep into his lungs. “Although to be honest, I never stopped.”
Emma softened momentarily but she wasn’t done freaking out. “What if that hadn’t happened? I still wouldn’t know Stella was mine. And no one would have ever realized she was yours. All because I didn’t tell you I was pregnant.”
No, they weren’t going to play that game.
“You were going to,” he said. “You didn’t get a chance.”
That was why she was in the woods. She’d been on her way, and some asshole had run her down and snatched five years from them.
More actually. Was pregnancy really nine months? Because he thought he’d read somewhere it was more like ten.
He could feel himself getting pissed off. But he shoved those feelings back. He couldn’t let that anger poison the here and now. They had a future to focus on.
“Our daughter is brilliant, by the way.”
And ballsy. She wasn’t afraid to take on a boy taller and heavier than her. But she’d need a better fighting technique because soon the boys would be too big .
Hell, puberty was going to come way too soon for his comfort as well. Garrett didn’t have the full twelve or thirteen years other dads got to prepare.
“Some jiu-jitsu classes might be in order,” he said. “Or better yet, kickboxing.”
You could do more damage at a distance with kickboxing.
Garrett turned to find Emma staring at him. She fluttered her lashes. “Is this the first father of a daughter meltdown I’m seeing? Or did you also lose it at the park and forget to tell me?”
“First.” And sadly not the last.
Emma ran her fingers through her hair. “God, we’re going to be parental disasters.”
“No, we’re not,” he protested. “Well, maybe we will be at first. But we’ll muddle through.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “I do think Stella is better off now that everything is out in the open.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Plus, I think she likes having a dad.”
“Look at you puffing up like Superman.” Emma grinned. “And you don’t have to tell me she loves it already. I’m pretty sure you’re the reason she’s accepted all this so quickly.”
They looked at each other. He opened his arms and she scooted against him, resting her head against his shoulder.
“I never realized how hard it must have been for her, not knowing who her dad was. Although, I guess it’s good my mom never made up a story for her.”
Yes, he agreed silently. They had gotten lucky. But she was also right that it must have been hard on Stella. She was only in kindergarten, and it had already been an issue.
Also, fuck small towns.
“Was it hard for you, not knowing?”
Emma’s brows puckered. Then she rammed her shoulder into his. Not hard. But hard enough. “I know who my dad is!”
“Oh.” Fuck . He cleared his throat apologetically. “I didn’t realize you knew that. Where is he?”
She shrugged. “Seattle or Oregon. Someplace rainy. With his new family.”
“Oh.” Find a new syllable, dude . That one was getting stale.
He cleared his throat, trying to decide what to say.
“And before you ask, no, he’s not in my life at all. Not since I was two or three,” she said, a hard look on her face. “He did deign to visit after I got out of the coma. I was in physical therapy, and he came by for the first and last time since he left us.”
“How did that go?” he asked, ignoring the buzz coming from his back pocket.
Her face displayed a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “He stayed a couple of hours and left. He didn’t mention Stella. She wasn’t there. But he was extra-judgy about Mom and her boyfriends so there’s a good chance he thought she was hers.He’s a born-again Christian now—so holier than thou. He was ten years older than my mom when they got together. Just another hypocrite if you ask me.”
She sniffed. “Anyway, that was enough father-daughter time for me. He’s welcome to stay the hell away.”
“Noted. No holiday invites for your dad.”
“Those two things do not and will not ever go together.”
She paused before giving him a wry smile. “I’m afraid all things father are on your head.”
He offered her his pinky. “I got this. I promise.”
She wound her own smaller pinky around his. “I know. Thank you. Why does your phone keep vibrating?”
Garrett gave her his most winsome grin. “Because I put it on silent.”
Emma’s lips compressed.
“All right. Well, speaking of disasters,” he began brightly, checking his phone. “I’ve gotten three texts from my aunt Phil in the last hour.”
Her pupils flared. “Did you tell her?”
“Not yet,” he said with resigned smile. “I knew it was too much to hope that Sharon and darling Dennis could keep their mouths shut.”
Emma was starting to look nauseated. “Should we go see her?”
“Not today. ”
Her head drew back. “Your aunt is blowing up your phone and you’re not going to see her today?”
“No.” Garrett was certain. “Today is for us. Well, for you. I had last night. But you got some big news today, so I’m going to turn off the phone entirely and we are going to go inside your mother’s house and order a fantastic dinner for us and our daughter.”
He paused. “Your mother is going out tonight.”
“Of course she is,” Emma mumbled.
“I think it’s good. Generous even. We get to spend time with Stella alone, so she can get used to us as parents. How does that sound?”
“Like your aunt is going to hunt us down and kill us.”
“Let me handle Phil,” he said, rising and holding out his hand.
They were walking inside when he snapped his fingers. “ Bodyguards ! In addition to putting Stella in jiu-jitsu, we’re going to hire some bodyguards to keep an eye on her.”
“Oh my God.” Emma covered her face with her hand.
“Okay, how about a tutor with a law enforcement background?”
Emma gave him a very wifely look of derision.
But Garrett was not about to be deterred. His one true love had been run down like a dog in the woods. Because of it, they had missed one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four days of their child’s life.
If Garrett was ever going to sleep again, he needed to make plans and get some security protocols in place.
“I know some mercenaries. Maybe they can take turns babysitting. No? How about a nanny with martial arts training?”
Emma continued to ignore him, heading to the kitchen. But that was okay. He’d keep working on her.