Harlequin Medical Romance July 2021--Box Set 1 of 2, page 25
“The landlord said he’d been living on the porch for months. He’s very friendly. Do you like dogs? Does Maisie?”
“She’ll be over the moon. She’s been pestering me for one for ages, but I was going to wait for her birthday next year.”
“You’ll come, then? It’s a...date?”
“It’s a start.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE HOUSE THEO had rented turned out to be on a stretch of beach just outside Williamtown, about a twenty-minute walk from Willow’s home. Willow was grateful for the walk, as she wanted time to collect her thoughts. This would be the first time Maisie would have any amount of interaction with Theo, and she was nervous about how it would go.
Willow had simply told her that they were visiting a friend. The plan was to have a picnic lunch on the beach, and Maisie chattered excitedly from her stroller about the dog Willow had said would be there.
Maisie, Willow knew, would be fine, no matter how this afternoon went. After all, as far as she was concerned, this was just another day out. To Willow, it was much more. Her conversation with Roni had been spinning in her head all week. She knew that she hadn’t had feelings like those she felt for Theo in a long time. But despite all the reasons not to start anything with Theo—and there were so many good reasons—maybe Roni was right. Maybe all of those reasons were nothing more than Willow’s way of hiding from herself.
Swearing off relationships had let her feel safe. For years, she’d told herself that she could be content with just herself and her daughter. But then, she’d never encountered anyone like Theo over the past few years. Someone who gave rise to the first stirrings of a desire for something more.
Or perhaps “first stirrings” was a bit of an understatement. She still remembered the way Theo’s hand had brushed her neck when they kissed. The way her shawl had dropped down from her shoulder.
She’d wanted so much more than just a kiss.
But she’d also meant what she’d said, about wanting to take things slow. The attraction she felt for him had disrupted her calm life and left her feeling thrown off-balance, because she knew the heartbreak that could come if things went badly.
She’d felt encouraged by the conversation they’d had in the cafeteria. But then, Theo always knew what to say. It was whether he followed his words up with actions that mattered.
They approached Theo’s house, where he waved to them from the porch. Like their own house, it was built on stilts to protect against hurricanes. Maisie hopped out of her stroller and they traipsed down the narrow pathway, until Maisie came to a dead stop.
“No,” she said.
“What is it, love?”
Maisie pointed a chubby finger. “No dog.”
A large, curly-haired dog sat placidly next to Theo on the porch. As Willow and Maisie stared at it, it placed its head on Theo’s knee and gazed at him with brazen adoration.
“This is Bixby,” Theo said, scratching the dog behind its ears as Bixby closed his eyes in ecstasy. “He came with the house. He lives out here on the porch, and seems very determined to stay.”
Maisie stepped back, and peeked out from behind Willow’s skirt. “What’s wrong, Mais?” Willow asked. “I thought you were excited to meet the doggy.”
“That one’s too big.”
“He is a big fellow, isn’t he?” said Theo, rubbing Bixby’s sides. The dog stood up and shook, and Maisie cowered behind Willow even more. Willow guessed the dog was some mix of Labrador and poodle. He seemed to resemble the average dust mop, with about the same amount of coordination.
“Here’s the great thing about big dogs, though,” Theo continued. “They’re big enough to hug, which is important when you’ve got a dog with as much fluff as Bixby here. And they’re clever. Bixby and I have only known each other a few weeks, but he can do all kinds of tricks.”
Maisie’s lower lip began to pout, and Willow knew where this was going. “She doesn’t have much experience with dogs,” she said to Theo. “I think she was expecting a small puppy.”
“He’s very well-behaved,” Theo said.
“Yes, I can see he’s perfectly calm, but it’s not him I’m worried about.” She jerked her head toward Maisie, whose lower lip was now trembling. Willow was certain tears were on the horizon. Her protective instincts were on the alert. Bixby clearly wasn’t a vicious animal—at the moment, he was trying to lick Theo’s face—but she didn’t want her daughter to feel afraid. “It might be best to take the dog inside,” she said.
“Let’s just try one thing more,” Theo said. Willow grit her teeth. Theo might mean well, but he didn’t seem to understand that Maisie was about to implode. He needed to take the dog inside before she had a full meltdown.
“Look at what he can do,” Theo said. “Shake, Bixby.” The dog sat up, alert, and extended his paw.
Willow began, “I don’t think that’s going to—” But to her surprise, Maisie had stuck her head out from behind her skirt.
“What else can he do?”
“Oh, lots of things. He can give me a high-five.” Theo and Bixby demonstrated. “But this is my favorite. Let me show you.”
Maisie watched intently as Theo showed her a tennis ball and three paper cups. Willow watched Maisie just as intently. Only a moment ago, her child had been showing classic signs of an imminent Maisie Meltdown, and Willow had been determined to rescue her from anything that could cause her a moment’s fear. Now, she was taking tentative steps toward the porch, all traces of tears gone as she watched Theo and the dog.
Theo hid a tennis ball underneath one of the paper cups, and switched the placement of each cup in front of Bixby. “Go on, Bix. Find your ball.”
The dog knocked over one paper cup, then another. Neither hid the ball. He placed his paw on the third cup and looked expectantly at Theo.
“Sorry, boy,” Theo said. He turned the cup over to reveal that it, too, had been empty.
“You tricked him!” Maisie shouted. “Poor Bixby, that wasn’t fair!”
Theo tossed the tennis ball to Maisie, who caught it with both hands. “Maybe you can be a better playmate for him. He loves fetch. He’ll bring that ball back to you as many times as you’re willing to throw it.”
Minutes later, Maisie and Bixby were running back and forth together on the beach.
“I don’t get it,” Willow said, trying to wrap her head around what had just happened. “Look at her. One minute she’s about to go into full-on tantrum mode, and now suddenly they’re the best of friends.”
“Well, Bixby’s easy to make friends with.”
“No, it’s more than that. I was ready to jump in and protect her, even though she clearly didn’t need it. But you gave her a chance to see that there was nothing to be afraid of.”
“She just needed a little time to adjust to a new situation, that’s all. Children sometimes think they’re scared, when really, they just need a moment to get used to something new.”
“How do you know so much about children?”
“I had a large family, remember? I spent my teenage years looking after my younger cousins. It taught me how to tell the difference between real tears and an attempt to escape a situation.”
Theo had set up a picnic blanket on the beach where they could have lunch and watch Maisie play. As they filled their plates with grapes and cheese, Willow heard Maisie shriek with laughter from further down the beach.
It had always been important to her to be protective of Maisie, but she realized that her daughter did, indeed, need to be pushed to face her fears. If she’d had her way, Maisie would still be huddled behind her skirt, instead of running on the beach, playing with a dog. It was the swimming lessons all over again, only this time, someone had given Maisie a chance to be brave, instead of giving in at the first sign of a trembling lip.
“I know I should be firmer with her,” she said to Theo. “I’m probably lucky that Maisie’s well-behaved most of the time, because I’m not great at standing my ground with her. The first sign of tears, and I’m usually ready to give in.”
“I’m sure it can’t be easy, being a single parent. You’ve got no one to back you up, or reassure you that you’re on the right track.”
“Intellectually, I know it’s not easy, but it’s hard to remember to give myself a break. I chose this life, so I feel like I should be better at it. I should push her more. I want her to be brave and open to adventure.”
“Didn’t you push her by moving her out here in the first place? That was a bold and adventurous move.”
“I suppose. But I think Maisie would have me wrapped around her little finger no matter where we lived.”
“Was it a hard decision, to leave London?”
Willow shook her head emphatically. “No. It was a careful decision. It was a big change, but nothing about it was hard.”
“Really? Surely there must have been some difficulty adjusting. You moved thousands of miles from everything you knew. And London has so much to offer a child. It must have been hard to take Maisie away from all those experiences.”
“Hardly. Maisie was missing out on much more in London. She was always being watched by someone else, stuck at daycare or with a neighbor. I was so busy all the time, and yet on the salary I was making, I could barely make ends meet. I grew up in Islington, and it was all I knew. But Maisie deserved more. At the very least, she deserved to have her mother around.”
“It must have been hard on you, too.”
“I was missing so much of her life. And then...” She paused, because it was still painful to think about, but she pressed onward, anyway. “I missed her first word.”
“No!”
“Yes. She was about one year old, and the daycare workers mentioned that she’d been saying ‘horsie’ when she wanted her stuffed horse at naptime. They thought I already knew. Apparently she’d been saying it for weeks. I was so upset that I’d missed it. And sad, of course, that it wasn’t ‘Mummy,’ although I suppose that’s silly. Children say all kinds of different things for their first word. But I couldn’t help feeling as though it meant something. That if I’d been around more, maybe her first word would have been ‘Mummy,’ and maybe she’d have said it to me.”
“But you were there for her. Maybe you weren’t physically with her as often as you wished you could be, but you were doing the best you could to support her.”
“I was. But it wasn’t what I wanted. And when I found the job here...well, that was the first time I started to hope that maybe I could have it all. I could support our family and spend lots of time with Maisie, too.”
“And it...wasn’t as though you had any family you were taking her away from.”
“No. I mean, I’d assumed you didn’t want anything to do with her.” She could see that her words caused him some pain, but it was the truth. And even though she didn’t want to hurt him, it did mean something to her that he was feeling the weight of all that he’d missed. She touched Theo’s arm lightly. “We can’t change the past. I can’t change that Maisie and I have built a life here, just as you can’t change that you weren’t able to be part of our lives for the past few years. What matters is what we want the future to look like.”
“Speaking of the future, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk about. You don’t have to make any big decisions about it yet, but I wanted you to know that there’s lots of family in England, for Maisie, if she ever wants it. Some of my brothers and sisters have children. She has cousins her age, and grandparents who would be delighted to spoil her rotten.”
The thought gave Willow pause. Somehow, she hadn’t considered what Theo’s large family might mean for Maisie. Since Maisie’s birth, she’d envisioned life with just the two of them. But now Maisie had cousins. She didn’t know what that would be like. She’d never had a cousin.
She recalled the brief surge of jealousy she’d felt when Theo first arrived on the island. The idea of her special bond with Maisie changing to include anyone else had been inconceivable. She’d just got used to the idea of Maisie spending any time with Theo. It felt strange to consider that there might be a whole host of other people who also wanted to be in Maisie’s life.
“Do they know about her?”
“No. The only person I’ve ever told is my twin sister, Becca. She’s very good about privacy. Telling the others would only complicate things.”
“How so?”
“For one thing, most of my family members, whom I love dearly, are not the best with boundaries. Half of them would swarm into your life the moment they became aware of your existence. They’re not big on personal space. It’s their way of showing love, but it can be very overwhelming. I think it should be your choice whether they become part of Maisie’s life or not.”
Or Maisie’s choice, she supposed, when Maisie got older. Willow thought of all the times that she had seen families support each other through difficult diagnoses and medical emergencies. She’d always been touched, and a little envious, when she saw family members come together through tough times. Willow was proud of her own independence, but there were many times when she wished she had more family to rely on for support. And even though she might not ever have the support she wished for, it might be possible for Maisie to have family members who would be there for her when she needed them. It brought a strange, bittersweet ache to her heart to think about it. As much as she wished she could meet Maisie’s every need, she knew there were some shoes she could never fill.
Losing her own parents at an early age had taught her that lesson well. Gran had loved Willow with all her heart, but she’d never been able to give Willow the large family she’d longed for. And sometimes love wasn’t enough. There had always been the danger that if something happened to Gran, Willow would be all alone. But Maisie wouldn’t have to face that risk, with Theo and his family involved in her life. No matter what her daughter faced, she could have the family support that Willow had always longed for.
“Even if they’re intrusive, it must have been comforting to have your family around you while you were going through cancer,” she said. “They must be so glad you’re finally in remission.”
He looked away, and she thought she saw a guilty expression in his eyes. “What is it?”
“I may have somewhat downplayed my cancer to them. They never really knew how bad it was.”
“How on earth would you do that? Why would you do that?”
“My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s shortly before I started chemo. He’s still doing all right, as far as his health goes, but his mind is very different from what it used to be. It’s been heartbreaking for my mum. Watching her go through that, I knew I couldn’t burden her with everything I was going through, too. So I downplayed everything. I emphasized the cure rate for melanoma, and I never mentioned my treatment unless someone asked about it. I hid the side effects from everyone, except Becca. I tried to act like I had more energy than I did, and I stayed away from everyone on the worst days.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Theo had something she’d wanted for her entire life: a family that could support him through tough times. And yet when he’d needed them most, he hadn’t reached out to them at all.
“I’m surprised you could keep such a secret from your family, if they’re as pushy as you say they are.”
“It wasn’t easy, believe me. But everyone was very upset about my father. I was determined not to burden them any further.”
“With the truth? Don’t you think they would have preferred to know what was going on?”
“I didn’t lie to them.”
“But you put on a facade. You told them what you thought they wanted to hear, rather than being honest with them.”
She could see that he was uncomfortable with this interpretation of events. “I wanted to do what was best for them,” he said. “I love my family. I couldn’t bear to see what my mother was going through. She was just starting to realize that she was losing my father just a little bit more, every day. I couldn’t stand to think that she’d have to worry about me, too.”
She could see that his intentions came from a good place, but she worried that the results of his choices left people feeling shut out. For three years, she’d thought he hadn’t cared about Maisie at all because of his silence. And even recently, when he’d arrived on St. Victoria, he’d been silent for that first week because he’d said he hadn’t wanted to bother her, while she’d begun to think that he’d left the island and given up on fatherhood. She believed that Theo meant well, but she wondered if he realized that by keeping his feelings so far inside, he was shutting himself out from people who might care about him.
And if Theo was so used to shutting people out, then would he shut her out? Or Maisie? She needed to know.
“What about now?” she said. “I hate to suggest this, but what if the cancer comes back? How can I know for sure that you’re not just downplaying anything that’s wrong so that I’ll feel better?”
“That’s not going to happen,” he said.
“But how do I know?”
He thought for a long moment. “I suppose all I can do is promise to tell you if anything changes,” he said.
“And will you?” she said. “You’ll tell me at the first sign of any problems?”
“Yes. Only there aren’t going to be any problems.”
“How can you possibly say that? Surely you must worry about the cancer coming back. How could you not, as an oncologist and a recovering cancer patient.”
“I worry about it sometimes, in an abstract way.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe you. You’re scared about it, I can tell.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Scared?”
“Absolutely. And it’s completely understandable. Anyone in your situation would feel the same way. I even feel a little scared, thinking about your health.”
