Julie began crying in earnest and Claire felt like joining her. “I think she’s hungry. Can you go get a nurse to help me?” She was still nervous about feeding a baby.
Logan rose without a word and left the room. Several moments later, a nurse padded into the room in her customary white sneakers, but Logan didn’t return. The nurse was a sweet, chirpy redhead with a warm smile. “Your husband sent me to help you,” she told Claire in a cheery, sunshine-and-rainbows voice.
Claire didn’t bother telling her that Logan wasn’t her husband and that he probably never would be.
Somehow, Logan had managed to completely screw up his proposal to Claire. He prowled down the maze of corridors in the maternity wing, cursing himself for being a complete idiot. Had he actually used the word compatible? And partnership? Thinking about it even made him cringe.
But then, what else could he say? I’m desperately in love with you and I want to marry you even if you don’t love me because I’m a selfish bastard who can’t bear the thought of sharing you with anyone else? It was the truth, but it sounded far worse than an offer of partnership and compatibility.
It didn’t matter, anyway. Claire had made it obvious that she refused to marry him. She wanted more than he could offer her. She didn’t love him and never would. Hell, she probably wanted to shack up with what’s-his-name from New York. Logan should have known better than to ask her. Didn’t he have any pride?
He reflected on that as he turned and began making his way back down the hallway he’d just come from. The sterile scent of the hospital hung in his nostrils, sweet, medicinal and faintly sickening. God, he hated that smell. The thin sound of a baby crying reached his ears, but the only other noise was that of his loafers squeaking against the shiny tan floor.
On further thought, it would appear that where Claire was concerned, no, he didn’t have even a shred of pride remaining. God knew he’d tried to keep his distance, to give her breathing room, but he just couldn’t anymore. She was the woman he loved and the mother of his child and damn it, he wanted her in his life as more than just a fellow parent. He wanted it all, the normal, happy family life he’d never had.
And he wanted it with Claire and Julie, and a dozen more kids that they had yet to have. Okay, so maybe a dozen kids was overdoing things a bit, but now that he was thinking of it, four sounded like an ideal number.
As he approached Claire’s room, he spotted her mother swooping down the hallway with her quiet husband in tow. The last thing he wanted or needed right now was to endure Anne’s thinly veiled disapproval. Salt in the wounds. She loathed him and she hadn’t made even a polite attempt to mask the fact. Claire’s sister Sophie didn’t like him either, but at least she didn’t glare at him as if he were the turd floating in her swimming pool.
Before he could duck down another hallway, Anne’s vulture gaze homed in on him. Her already prudish mouth dipped into what he’d dubbed her oh-it’s-Logan look.
“Logan,” she said, stopping as she reached him. “How are Claire and the baby?”
“They’re fine,” he answered as courteously as possible, and if she didn’t detect the mutual enmity in his voice then it was a credit to his restraint. He had tried to like the woman, truly he had, particularly since she was the mother of the woman he loved and the grandmother of his daughter. But the damn woman made liking her an exercise in futility.
“Congratulations.” She sounded reluctant, her eyes flitting around the hallway as though searching for an escape route. “Well. I think I’ll go visit Claire and my new granddaughter.” She turned to her husband. “Coming, John?”
John’s gaze swung to Logan. “In a minute. I’d like a word with Logan first.”
As Anne disappeared into Claire’s room with an even tighter frown of disapproval marring her face, Logan inwardly cursed. Hell. What could this be about? Mentally, he braced himself.
John gave him a fatherly tap on the shoulder. “Walk with me for a minute, son.”
Although it was likely only a reference to their age difference, the word “son” struck a chord in Logan. No one had ever called him that. In thirty-odd years of life, not a single person had ever referred to him as son.
Logan obliged Claire’s father, walking with him down the hallway in the direction he’d just come from. The silence that stretched between them felt painfully awkward to him. He felt as if he should say something, but he’d be damned if he knew what.
“I love my daughter very much,” John said at last, saving Logan. “She’s been through a lot this past year. First the divorce, then the baby and her off-and-on relationship with you.”
Logan kept his expression neutral. “I realize that, and I have been trying to make amends for it.”
John stopped, pretending to examine a mother-and-child print hanging on the wall. Some dim recess of Logan’s brain registered that it was a Mary Cassatt. College Art History 101 did tend to reassert itself at the oddest moments.
“I like to see my daughters happy,” Claire’s father murmured at last, looking at Logan over his shoulder. “Right now, Claire doesn’t seem happy to me. Does she seem happy to you, Logan?”
He found himself on the defensive. “She’s as happy as I’ve ever seen her.”
John nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t think I’ve seen my daughter truly happy in years. Her last marriage was a flop, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”
“Yes.” Logan had no idea where this conversation was headed.
“I don’t want to see her in another dead-end relationship.” John’s face was impassive as he looked at Logan, belying the image he often presented of a quiet, harmless tagalong to his wife. “I want her to be happy. Do you want her to be happy?”
“Of course I do.”
“Here’s the real question for you then.” John paused, his gaze suddenly frank. “Do you think you can be the one to make her happy?”
John might as well have leveled a fist to Logan’s gut. The question knocked the wind out of him. For several moments, he couldn’t collect himself enough to form a response. “I wish I could be that man,” he said at last. “I don’t think she’ll let me.”
