for the meals to be delivered to Noah’s room. Then she checked in with the night staff and her service, telling them she was off duty but intended to stay for a while to monitor Noah. By the time she was done, the food had arrived and she slipped back inside the room. Duran had dimmed the lights and was sitting in the chair facing the bed, his forehead propped on his fist, weariness evident in the slump of his body.
“It’s not the best,” she said, indicating the trays when he glanced up, “but at least it’s dinner.”
He pushed himself up in the chair, nodded in reply and they ate in silence for a few minutes, the air in the room thick with things they left unsaid. Finally, he pushed the tray aside and, speaking quietly so as to not disturb Noah, asked, “Is everyone in town as nice as you?”
She laughed, inexplicably self-conscious at his compliment. “I don’t think I can answer that without sounding as if I’m bragging or dissing someone else. There are a lot of good people here. It’s why I’ve stayed for so long. I like being in a smaller town. I’m sure it’s considerably different from L.A., though,” she added, risking a comment on his personal life, even if it was of the most innocuous kind.
“Night and day,” he agreed, seeming not to mind. “But I’ve only lived there since college. I grew up not far from here, just outside Rio Rancho. This is not that different.” Leaning back, he tilted his head against the wall, briefly closing his eyes. “I’m thinking about moving back, at least to New Mexico—work permitting, that is. I’ve arranged things so I’m between projects and I can have some time to decide. But, ultimately, L.A. isn’t the best place to raise a child.”
“I can only imagine living in a place like L.A. Even so, you seem to have done a good job with Noah. I know it’s not easy raising a child on your own.”
“Personal experience?”
“Hardly,” she said, the laugh this time sounding more like a harsh exclamation. “But I am a pediatrician. I see lots of different kinds of families.”
He raised his head to look at her, with that intense, disconcerting way of his that gave her the sensation he was dissecting her soul. “I always wanted the same kind of family I had growing up for Noah. I really did have the two great parents, the faithful dog and the New Mexico version of a white picket fence.”
“But?”
“But my ex-wife didn’t see it that way. She walked out before Noah turned one, got a quick divorce, gave me full custody and I haven’t seen her since. So Noah’s had to get by with just me.”
“He doesn’t appear to have suffered for it,” Lia said softly. “And things could change.”
“Not for me,” he said in a tone that put a full stop to any ideas he would ever contemplate another serious relationship. “I won’t risk putting Noah through that, loving someone and then losing them. He’s been through enough already. He was too young when his mother left to realize she didn’t want him. He sometimes asked why he doesn’t have a mother and I still don’t know what to tell him.”
She could understand and yet there was sadness in the finality of his words, his certainty that love would never touch his life again with enough strength to make him want to take another chance. But then again, didn’t she, better than anyone, know that the odds were he was right, that it was as likely to turn out badly as well? Any parent who loved his child as much as he did would consider the risks not worth it—unlike her own parents, to whom children were apparently incidental to disposable relationships.
A light knock on the door interrupted them and Lia, thinking it was the night nurse, got up to answer it. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with Cort Morente, a friend, but one of the last people she would have guessed she’d be seeing here and tonight.
“Cort—how did you know…?” She stared at him, completely confused. Duran had said he was in Luna Hermosa to meet with Rafe and now Rafe’s younger brother showed up here, out of the blue. “Is something wrong with one of the kids?” she asked, although she couldn’t imagine why Cort wouldn’t have just called her if there was a problem with one of his four children, even if it had been an emergency.
“No, they’re all fine. I wasn’t looking for you.” Cort looked behind her to where Duran had gotten to his feet and Lia instinctively stepped aside. The two men faced each other, Duran tense, already on the defensive, and Cort cautious, as if weighing his options before making a move. When he finally did, it easily qualified as something she’d never expected him to say.
“I came to see my brother.”
Duran’s first reaction was the completely irrelevant thought that maybe meeting unknown relations got easier after the first one. If so, by the time he’d gotten through all the relatives he seemed to have acquired, it should be simple, no struggling with mixed feelings or debating whether he was doing the right thing for Noah and himself.
Rafe Garrett had at least warned him, when Duran had called to postpone their meeting, that he and Ry Kincaid weren’t Duran’s only brothers. Five of Jed Garrett’s sons were living in Luna Hermosa and for some reason Rafe didn’t make clear, none of them wanted him to meet Jed first. He supposed this one had been elected to come here and determine what exactly it was that Duran wanted. From the steady, calculating gaze he got, Duran guessed Cort Morente’s business depended on him being a quick and accurate judge of character and that Cort was deciding the truth of his claim to being Jed’s son and what his motives were for showing up in Luna Hermosa.
Duran glanced back at Noah. His son slept on soundly, oblivious to the drama around him. Leaving Noah’s bedside wasn’t Duran’s first choice, but Noah would likely be asleep for hours yet and he didn’t want this first meeting with his Luna Hermosa relations constrained by the need for quiet and the concern Noah might wake up and overhear.
Lia must have sensed his hesitation because she took a step closer to the bed and told him, “I’ll stay with him.”
The rush of gratitude at her understanding seemed too intense, out of place for her simple gesture. But for an odd moment, Duran felt they were allies.
“If you wouldn’t mind—” he flicked a hand toward the door “—I think you could help explain. You understand…”
Without a pause, she nodded and after checking Noah once more, followed him and Cort outside the room.
Duran turned to Cort, not sure where to start.
Cort spoke up first. “This is not how we intended this meeting to happen. But when Rafe called and told us about your son, we wanted to see if there was anything we could do.” He made the offer and it sounded sincere. But there was a certain reservation in his manner—not quite suspicion, but a withholding of trust, an unwillingness to take Duran’s claim of kinship at face value.
He couldn’t blame the man; he hadn’t brought any proof of his blood tie to Jed Garrett. He had none for himself, except the word of the stranger who had given birth to him. But he had to convince Cort Morente to make good on that offer because he couldn’t afford to fail the way he had with his birth mother.
“Don’t take this wrong, but I’m finding it hard right now to get my head around going from being an only child to having six brothers,” Duran said slowly. “To be honest, though, it’s more than I could have hoped for under the circumstances, especially if you meant it when you said you wanted to help.”
“Mr. Forrester—” Lia
