Her Unexpected Family. Ruth Logan Herne

necessary?

      She nodded, tapped her folder and moved toward the stairs. “I’ll send you times as soon as I have them.”

      “I’ll be watching for them.”

      She heard Rory laugh and chat as she helped Grant get the twins’ jackets fastened, and as the upstairs glass door swung silently shut behind her, she paused, wishing she could go back and help with those two priceless children.

      She knew that kids with disabilities did better with high expectations. The thought that Grant McCarthy was content with babying that little girl made her pulse race.

      Of course, when he’d held her hand her pulse raced in a different way, but she chalked that up to reading too many romances lately. Since coming home a year before, she’d avoided dating. She was back in Grace Haven on temporary assignment, to help her parents in a time of need. Her father was fighting brain cancer, and her mother’s popular event-planning business was funding the cost of experimental treatments in Texas. To keep the business going, she and her sister Kimberly had stepped in to help.

      Kimberly was a natural at wedding planning. She’d learned the business alongside their mother, and with her parents’ impending retirement, it was natural for Kimberly to step into the role of running Kate & Company.

      Emily was more at home on the wedding-gown end of things. Outfitting a bridal party, choosing materials and coordinating an entire look of a wedding came naturally to the former department store women’s fashion buyer.

      Dealing with the chronic back-and-forth of event planning drove her a little crazy. It stifled her creativity. But if it helped her father’s prognosis, she could be crazy for however long it took.

      But then—what next?

      She had no idea, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be here in her hometown. She didn’t want to step on Kimberly’s toes, or be given a job out of sympathy.

      She wanted respect. The respect she’d been denied in marriage, the respect she’d been denied professionally when her ex-husband’s father dismissed her from the company. Grant McCarthy’s cutting remark voiced what too many felt, that pageants were nothing more than pretty girls on parade. Her titles had paid for her education, and given her inroads with top designers, but that didn’t alter some opinions that pageants were nothing but fluff, and that meant the contestants were, too.

      At what point would she stop feeling the need to prove herself and just be Emily?

      Her parents had been proud of her pageant success, so Grant McCarthy could just stifle his negativity. She didn’t need it, didn’t want it and wasn’t about to put up with being anyone else’s castoff, ever again. Not personally and not professionally.

       Chapter Two

      Later that day, Grant spotted the international number code pop up on his cell phone. He grabbed the phone as he muted college football on TV. “Christa, hey! How are you? How’s everything going? Isn’t it the middle of the night over there?”

      “I’m all right,” she told him, and she sounded good. So good. “I’m on an overnight and had some time and figured the kids might be in bed.”

      “They are—we’ve got temporary peace in the kingdom.” He laughed when he said it because he knew the reality behind the words. “I met with the wedding planner today, and we’re scoping out reception places this week. I checked the guest list and figured about a hundred and thirty people, right?”

      “The guest list. Yes. I—” A slight pause ensued, as if he’d lost the connection.

      “Christa, you there?”

      “Yes. Yes, I’m here.” She still sounded funny, though. Almost cautious. “Yes, around one thirty with both families and friends. Maybe a few more. I’m guilt stricken that I’m sticking you with all this. It’s not like your life is exactly easy, but Mrs. Gallagher is a sweetheart. She’ll smooth things out for you.”

      “Well, it’s Emily I’m working with. The middle sister.” With the great hair, gorgeous face and take-no-prisoners attitude.

      “Emily’s back?” Surprise raised Christa’s voice. “The last I knew she was married and living in Philadelphia.”

      “Well, she appears to be single and here in Grace Haven,” Grant told her. “She and Kimberly are running the business while her father undergoes treatment.”

      “The cancer. Of course.” Christa’s voice deepened. “I’ve got him on my prayer list,” she went on. Static messed up her next words, but Grant heard the last phrase succinctly. “I hate cancer.”

      “Me, too,” Grant told her, though he wasn’t putting stock in prayer lists. His mother had been an amazingly devout woman, and what did that get her?

      Two extended bouts with cancer before they lost her. His father had walked out on them over thirty years before, and Grant used to pray his heart out as a little kid, begging God to bring his dad back. It never happened. His prayers went unanswered, and that was a good lesson learned at a young age. God didn’t exist, because if he did, he didn’t take his job all that seriously. Grant took everything seriously as a result. “I’ll keep you updated on things either through email or phone, okay?”

      “Yes, thank you! And if you can copy Spencer, that would be great.”

      “Will do. And don’t you worry about anything,” he instructed. “Your job is to stay safe, finish this deployment and get married. Everything here will be fine, I promise.”

      “Thank you! I love you, Grant.”

      Her words made him smile. “I love you, too. We’re all we’ve got now, so we’ve got to stick together.”

      Silence greeted his words again. When she finally answered him, he realized it must be a delayed connection. “We’ll stick together, all right. Hey, gotta go. I’ll call again soon, okay?”

      “Yes. Goodbye, Chris—”

      The phone hummed in his ear. She’d hung up.

      He set his phone down and turned off the game. Life was somewhat crazy right now, and he didn’t see that getting better anytime soon. He had the kids in the only day care center comfortable with Dolly’s behavior issues, his eccentric aunt thought he was spreading himself too thin and needed a wife, and the twins were generally either catching something or getting over something.

      This was his normal.

      He pulled into his aunt and uncle’s yard on Monday morning, ready to start a new week. Aunt Tillie bustled out the side door to greet him while Uncle Percy followed at a less frenetic pace.

      “How are the wedding plans coming?” Aunt Tillie demanded in a too-loud voice. “You makin’ progress?”

      He fibbed slightly. He assumed they were, but he had thought he’d hear from Emily Gallagher and he hadn’t. “Yes. If I need to go check out some wedding stuff tonight, can you sit with the kids?”

      “What those little ones need is a mother,” Tillie declared for about the hundredth time. “I can’t say it’s right.” She shook her head firmly, and her frown matched the motion. “Them bein’ in day care all day, then with a sitter at night, but if you need me, I’ll be here. Hi, darlins!” She smiled and waved into the backseat, blowing kisses a mile a minute.

      The twins laughed and waved back as he and Uncle Percy pulled out of the driveway. He dropped the kids at Mary Flanagan’s day care center, got to work and as soon as his office door slapped shut behind him, he called Kate & Company. When Allison put the call through to Emily, he pretended the sound of her voice didn’t make him want to suck his stomach in. He was in good shape and he didn’t care what Emily Gallagher thought about anything other than weddings. “Miss Gallagher, I thought I’d hear from you by now.