Chapter Seventeen
Brian loved his house. It was small—a two bedroom cape built before his grandfather was even born.
It only had one bathroom, and it was upstairs between the two bedrooms. The ceilings up there were sloped, following the roof line, which made the bedrooms feel even smaller.
The kitchen was a decent size, but it was badly in need of updating, and other than refinishing the hardwood floors, he hadn’t done much decorating in the living room.
But the house had a deep front porch and it sat on forty acres of land. As far as he and Stella were concerned, a shady spot to sit and acres of their own woods to explore were all they needed.
Now he stood in the driveway, arms crossed, trying to see the property through Siobhan’s eyes.
To him, it was rustic. Would it look shabby to her?
She might think he was lucky to have been able to grab some great land because he took on the fixer-upper residence.
Or she might think he was a loner type living in a shack in the woods.
“It’s not a shack,” he said out loud. Then he looked down at Stella, who was gazing up at him with her usual blend of curiosity and adoration. “It’s comfortable, right?”
Stella’s head whipping around was Brian’s first warning.
Then he heard the distant sound of a car engine.
His driveway was off of a dirt road that was off of a back road, so they didn’t get much traffic.
Siobhan and Oliver would turn the corner and come into view any second, so he took a few deep breaths to clear any residual worry from his face.
He ran his thumb over the rock in his pocket, trying to soothe himself, but that was a lost cause.
His skin was hot and prickly, and it was hard to take a full breath.
Anxiety wasn’t something that he’d dealt with a lot, but since Oliver had come into his life, he felt so out of his depth, he couldn’t remember what standing on solid ground felt like.
And Siobhan. Everything was different now and there was too much at stake for them to risk messing it up, but he missed her so much he couldn’t really wrap his head around it.
He was thankful he was still on his feet and hadn’t passed out when her car came into view.
She smiled when she saw him, and he returned it as some of the anxiety melted away.
He’d worked himself into quite a state, but it was as though he saw her face and his body relaxed.
Oh, it’s her. We really like her and it’ll be okay.
“Did you have any trouble finding the place?” he asked when she’d turned off the engine and climbed out.
“No, even though you’re really out here in the middle of nowhere. It must be fun in the winter.”
He waved a hand toward the pole barn, under which he kept the three-quarter-ton truck he used for plowing, along with the plow, sand hopper and a pretty impressive tractor. Not that Siobhan would find it impressive, he thought. But it was. “I don’t usually have a problem getting in and out.”
“Mommy!” a small voice yelled, and Siobhan hurried around the car and opened Oliver’s door. “Stella!”
It was hard to tell who was more excited—the boy or the dog—but the two immediately started running around the yard. Oliver’s laugh echoed through the trees, and Brian chuckled. It was impossible to be tense while watching the two of them play.
“There’s nothing in the yard that can hurt him.
Stella has an area she’s limited to without me, and she’ll keep him in it, too.
We’ll just make sure he stays out of the pole barn.
” He turned to face her and caught her looking at him.
“You want to sit on the step? The front porch is nicer, but they’ve got more space back here. ”
“Sure. He always has a burst of energy after being in the car for a while.”
Once they were seated side by side on the step, with enough space between them so their arms and legs wouldn’t brush each other, Brian rested his elbows on his knees.
“So is there a certain way we should explain this to him? I don’t want to traumatize him or anything, so even though it would suck, if we should wait and ask somebody, we can. Like a therapist or something.”
“If he was older, I’d say that was necessary. But at this age, I think he’ll roll with it, to be honest.”
It wasn’t long before Oliver found a colorful leaf on the ground and came running back to show it to his mom, Stella right beside him. “Look, Mommy.”
“It’s so pretty!” She took the leaf and twirled it between her thumb and finger. “Oliver, do you remember when you asked why you don’t have a daddy?”
Brian’s breath caught in his chest when he nodded. “Colton has a daddy and Abby has a daddy, but I don’t.”
“We didn’t know you had a daddy, but we found out you do. Brian is your daddy, so we came to visit and you’ll get to visit him and Stella a lot now.”
Oliver leaned on Brian’s knee and looked up at him with blue eyes that reflected his own, and the eyes of his brothers and father. “You’re my daddy?”
He thought he said yes, but his throat was so clogged with emotion, he wasn’t sure the word was recognizable, so he nodded.
The boy tilted his head, and then grinned. “Do you want a leaf, too?”
Brian watched Oliver—his son—run off and then scrubbed his hands over his face. His body vibrated with emotion and he didn’t think he could have spoken in that moment if he had to. His throat and his chest felt as if they were being squeezed in a vice.
In a flash, Oliver was back, holding out another leaf. “Here you go, Daddy.”
Brian sucked in a shaky breath, and then managed to take it with a trembling hand. “Thank you. Can I have a hug?”
Oliver reached up and wrapped his arms around Brian’s neck as he lifted him off the ground. He was careful not to squeeze too hard as he closed his eyes. Tears slid down his cheek, probably landing in the boy’s hair, but he didn’t let go until Stella nudged his leg.
He managed to swipe his cheeks with one hand while setting Oliver on the ground, and then he gave Stella’s ears a good scratch.
“I like leaves,” Oliver said, still leaning against his knee. “Do you like leaves?”
“I do. In the fall, I make piles of leaves and Stella plays in them.”
He giggled. “Mommy does that for me at the park sometimes. We don’t have our own grass. Is this your house?”
“It is. Do you want to see inside?”
* * *
Something had shifted in Siobhan, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. While she’d known Oliver would adapt easily to Brian being his father because he was still young enough not to know how things usually worked, hearing him call Brian Daddy had wrecked her.
No, that wasn’t it, she thought. Hearing that had rocked her, but it was Brian’s reaction that had totally wrecked her. It had been a humbling and emotional experience watching a man be profoundly changed by a single word.
But change him it had, the same way Siobhan had been changed when Kelly put Oliver in her arms and told her to keep him.
Now she was afraid that moment might also have him rethinking all the things he’d said when being Oliver’s father was a hypothetical.
Maybe now that he’d felt those arms hugging him and heard the word Daddy, he’d fight to keep him.
No, she told herself firmly. She knew Brian better than that. She knew his family. None of them wanted to cut her out of his life. But as she followed them into the house, she looked at Oliver’s tiny hand tucked into Brian’s much bigger one and her chest felt tight.
His house was small and she wasn’t sure if rustic or just old was a better description, but it was clean and cozy, with great light from the big windows.
The kitchen needed updating badly, but the floors were gorgeous.
She took for granted he’d been chipping away remodeling when he had the time and money, and buying the campground with his brothers had probably taken a lot of both from him.
They only got as far as the living room, where Oliver spotted the wicker basket of books. “Beep beep!”
Brian chuckled at her expression and shrugged.
“I ran to the store this morning and got a few things. I probably asked a dozen different parents with little ones with them which books had that phrase in them before a guy with a daughter about his age took pity on me. There are also some classics I remember from when I was a kid, and other ones the dad recommended.”
“That’s sweet, though he’s going to bail on the tour now because some of those he hasn’t seen before.” Oliver was already sitting on the floor, pulling books out and showing them to Stella, who stretched out beside him.
“That’s okay. Maybe we can sit at the kitchen table and talk for a few minutes. I installed a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs, and we’ll be right there.”
“Okay.” He sounded serious again, which refired her nerves.
He pulled out a chair for her, and then walked around to the other side of the table. She sat, her mind spinning as she tried to anticipate what would come next.
Oliver’s favorite books. There was already a baby gate. He was making this house into Oliver’s home.
“Hey, are you okay?” She heard Brian’s voice, but it sounded like it was coming from some far end of a tunnel. “Siobhan, what’s going on?”
Siobhan couldn’t say the words out loud. Even if she managed to come up with a way to phrase the question, fear closed her throat.
Kelly and Steve lied on the birth certificate and they lied on the adoption papers. Brian Kowalski was Oliver’s biological father and he could fight to have the adoption overturned.
And he’d win.
Nausea rolled through her stomach, and she brought her hand to her mouth as things got fuzzy.
The lights seemed to dim slightly and she placed her other hand flat on the table in a feeble attempt to steady herself.
As though from that same end of the long tunnel, she heard the scrape of chair legs on the floor, and then hands were helping her to the floor.