that he might as well go home to his own family.
His family—his boys—were being well taken care of by his parents, all of whom he’d talked to while he was in the waiting room. Everything was going on as usual. But for now, without him, Nina had no one.
And he just couldn’t bring himself to leave her.
So he went to the elevator, got in and hit the button for her floor.
The maternity floor.
He knew it well. He’d been there for the birth of each of his three sons. With Laurel...
That memory wrenched his gut. The way countless other memories had during the past year.
The past year of hell...
It just wasn’t easy.
Not waking up to find his wife had left him.
Not raising three kids on his own.
Not dealing with his own anger and grief and sometimes rage and despair.
Not dealing with his sons’ emotions, which were sometimes right on the surface and other times came out so subtly he missed them until it was too late.
Not going on, living in the same town where they’d both grown up, being where almost everything in their life had happened, revisiting places like this hospital, where events had come about that were apparently not as meaningful to his ex-wife as they were to him....
Yeah, hell pretty much described it. And he was just trying to work his way through the emotional muck, in much the same way that Rust Creek Falls was still working its way through the muck left from the flood.
But he had confidence that Rust Creek Falls would get through its reconstruction and come out on the other end. He still wasn’t altogether sure about himself. Or about Ryder or Jake or Robbie.
When the elevator arrived on the maternity floor, he found Nina’s room without a problem and breathed a sigh of relief. It was a private room on a different corridor than where new mothers were located.
If he’d had to walk into one of the same rooms Laurel had been in with any of the boys he didn’t know if he could have done it. He could only push himself so far, even though he was doing his damnedest to get out of this hell he’d been in since Laurel had left.
Just pretend you’re okay even if you aren’t—that was what he’d decided he had to do. And maybe if he pretended he wasn’t buried under the blues, he’d finally start to actually see daylight again.
But one way or another, he’d already made an early New Year’s resolution—he was determined to spare his family and friends any more of what he’d been wallowing in for the past twelve months. No more telling everyone to beware of love, to avoid relationships. No more being the naysayer as he watched people couple up. He’d at least keep his mouth shut.
The door from the corridor was open and the curtain around the bed was only partially drawn so he could see that Nina was asleep, and he reconsidered staying once again. After the day they’d had she was probably exhausted and she could well sleep until her family got there, or even until morning.
But he really, really didn’t want to go yet. Just in case.
So he went silently to the visitor’s chair and sat down, settling in to study Nina rather than thinking more about the other times he’d been on the maternity floor or about the misery of this past year.
Nina Crawford...
Jeez, she was beautiful.
Her long, shiny hair was the color of chestnuts and it fanned out like silk on the pillow.
Her skin was pure porcelain.
Her nose was perfect, thin and sleek, and just slightly pointed at the end.
Her mouth was petal-pink, her lips just lush enough to make a man want to kiss them.
Her face was finely boned with a chin that was well-defined, cheekbones that were high and sculpted, and a brow that was straight and not too high, not too narrow.
And even though her eyes were closed and her long, thick lashes dusted her cheeks, he had a vivid recollection of just how big and brown they were—doelike and sparkling, they were the dark, rich color of coffee.
Yep, beautiful. Exquisitely, delicately beautiful.
Without the doctor telling him, he would have never guessed that she was as far along as she was. By now, with all three of the boys, Laurel had not looked the way Nina did. Not that he hadn’t thought Laurel was beautiful, because he had.
He was a man of nature, and he’d genuinely thought the entire process had that feel to it—natural and as beautiful as a sunrise evolving out of the dark of night.
But the more weight his ex-wife had gained, the more unhappy she’d become. Even more unhappy than she’d been during the rest of the marriage she’d never really been happy in....
Laurel was the last thing he wanted to think about, though, so he sealed off the memory and focused on Nina, who honestly did make true the adage about pregnant women glowing.
Or maybe that was just the way she looked all the time....
Since he’d never noticed her before, he couldn’t actually be the judge.
Although sitting there now, studying her, he wondered why he’d never noticed her before. How could anyone who looked the way she did have gone unnoticed?
She was only twenty-five—that was probably a factor because she was too young for him to have paid attention to. Plus he’d been so involved with his marriage—first in the early throes of love, and then trying to save it—that he hadn’t really paid attention to any other females. And even as an adult, Nina’s being a Crawford just automatically clumped her together with the rest of her family, who had all been cast under the shadow of contempt. Put it all together and he supposed that he’d just been blind to her.
But he wasn’t blind to her anymore.
At that moment he was sorry he wasn’t sitting as close to her as he’d been in the backseat of his truck. With the blanket over the two of them. With his arm around her—the way it had been when he’d put it there without even thinking about it.
The same way he’d kissed her without even thinking about it....
A Crawford. He’d kissed a Crawford.
A pregnant Crawford.
This had been a very strange day....
But still, thinking about it, here he was wishing he was back there. Stuck in a blizzard. At risk of having to deliver that baby.
Because it had somehow been nice there like that. With her.
It had been the best time he’d had in a very, very long while....
Okay, maybe he’d lost it. The best time he’d had in a long time, and it had been in that situation, with a Crawford?
That
