Page 18 of A Heart to Find (Sweetheart Island #2)

Panic for his daughter overrode the cringe factor in how Keira learned of Hailey’s existence. His stomach clenched and a roaring noise echoed in his ears as he helped Keira into the back seat of the SUV.

She scooted all the way across the seat, pinning herself against the door, and picked at her fingernails as Jared tried to get more information from the staff member who picked them up.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know anything other than she is okay but they needed to get in touch with you for authorization to treat her.”

Danielle gave a sympathetic look over her shoulder before pulling out into the snow-covered street.

“Your sister-in-law said to tell you not to panic and not to let it ruin your day.”

Of course she did.

And hearing “sister-in-law”

earned him a glare from Keira, whose face had paled considerably. She knew he was an only child and there was only one way for him to get a sister-in-law.

“Keira, I’ve been meaning to tell you…”

Her eyes bore through his and into his skull.

“Let’s just worry about your daughter.”

And then she looked out her window, drifting further away from him with every second that passed.

She deserved the time to process the new information, and he was too worried about Hailey to focus fully on how to save his skin with Keira, so he tapped his hand on his thigh and repeatedly tried dialing from his cell phone. Still no signal, so he tried to calm his breathing until they arrived at the main offices, where Danielle led him to the landline.

Meredith answered on the first ring.

“Jared, I’m so sorry to interrupt you while you’re away. I’ve tried reaching someone to call off the request to find you, but kept getting voicemail.”

“What’s wrong with Hailey? Is she okay?”

He didn’t recognize his own panic-stricken voice.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Jared. She’s fine, I swear. Had a little incident with falling off the couch when she was goofing around, and I thought the ER docs would need you to authorize treatment so I tried to call you on our way to the hospital.”

“ER docs? What the heck happened?”

“She tore part of her earlobe, but they glued it back together and she’s perfectly fine. She barely even cried. And they didn’t need authorization to treat, so again, I’m sorry to have disturbed you and worried you like that.”

The relieved breath he released could have blown the building away.

“I’m so glad she’s okay.”

“Me too. I just wish I hadn’t jumped the gun and called you. How’s everything going over there?”

He didn’t have the heart to tell her it had been going exceptionally well until she called…

Wasn’t her fault he had been a coward.

“Hey, is my girl there with you? Does she feel like talking to her dad?”

“She would love that. She wanted to talk to you earlier but kept getting sent to your voicemail when we called your cell. She’s been drawing you pictures all day. Let me grab her for you.”

After five minutes of listening to Hailey’s excited babbling, including her rendition of a song from her favorite movie, Jared’s heart rate settled into a normal range. She didn’t sound like her ordeal traumatized her at all. Instead, she bragged about the stickers the nurse had given her for doing such a good job.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay, my little puffer fish?”

“Okay, Daddy. I love you!”

“I love you more.”

“All the way to the candy store?”

“I’d buy you every piece. Behave for your auntie. And no more bouncing around on the couch.”

Once he returned the phone to its base, Danielle asked him if everything was okay.

“With my daughter, yes. Thank you.”

“I can give you a ride back to the lodge,”

she offered.

He shook his head.

“Thanks, but I could use the walk.”

“You sure? The snow is coming down at quite a clip out there.”

He did his best to give an enthusiastic smile in response.

“Well, at the very least allow me to return the basket and blankets to the shops. Please leave them in the car so you won’t have to lug them around.”

“I’d appreciate that. Thank you. Do you know where Keira is?”

Danielle slowly shook her head, an empathetic frown furrowing her brow.

“She said she had to get back to the hotel. Declined my offer for a ride, same as you.”

He nodded and turned to leave.

“Look, Jared. I’m sorry to have been the bearer of bad news. Obviously, things were going well until I showed up to find you. You two are well-matched. Things will work out.”

He had never hoped for anything more.

He thanked her again and ducked out before her well-intended reassurances pushed him off the cliff he hovered near. He needed time alone to figure out how to salvage what he had worked so hard to build with Keira.

Maybe the storm would clear his mind and tell him how to undo the damage he had done by remaining silent all this time.

Exiting the building and inhaling the harsh air on the covered porch, he startled when Keira’s voice interrupted him.

“Is your daughter all right?”

Her voice, soft and sweet, burned through his heart. Maybe he interpreted her silence and glares wrong?

“She’s fine. Her aunt thought they’d need me to okay the treatment, but turns out they happily glued her boo-boo up without needing me at all.”

Keira smiled, but her eyes were haunted.

“I’m relieved. I’m sure you were terrified.”

He nodded.

“Thank you for sticking around. I was pretty sure this bombshell drove you away for good.”

Her gaze dropped, and she twisted the sleeve of her coat.

“I couldn’t leave until I knew she was okay. Now that I know…”

“Keira, I didn’t want you to find out that way.”

She met his eyes dead on, nostrils flaring.

“No? Did you plan on me finding out at all? Because I’m pretty sure you’ve had plenty of opportunity to slip that teeny detail of your life in during one of the many conversations we’ve had. And you chose not to. Why is that, Jared?”

“I don’t know. I wanted to tell you. To share everything with you.”

“I shared my deepest, darkest pain with you. And you couldn’t even share with me what I assume is the happiest thing in your life?”

“I want to share with you. I’ll tell you everything now. I started to back there. Remember, I said I had something I wanted to tell you…”

Tears filled her eyes, and the sorrow on her face stabbed him in the gut.

“You should have shared with me long ago. Before I got attached to the idea of loving you.”

He reached for her hand, but she jerked it away.

“Keira, please.”

“Please what? Please brush under the rug the fact that you withheld some pretty huge info from me? Or pretend it doesn’t hurt that you told me when we were together before that you didn’t see yourself as a family man? That you didn’t want kids? That you weren’t sure you wanted marriage? Hearing you have a sister-in-law when you’re an only child… I can’t tell you how that tears me up, Jared.”

A sob tore past her tightly controlled words.

“I can’t tell you how much it hurts to know for sure that it was just me you didn’t see yourself marrying. Me you didn’t want kids with. Me you couldn’t trust with the knowledge that you had a child of your own. A child.”

“You have it wrong.”

Desperation dried his mouth, making the words stick. He had to get this right, and yet he was so unprepared for this conversation.

“You’re the reason I ended up getting married and having a kid.”

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better.”

She stepped around him. He put out an arm to stop her, but she growled, “Don’t touch me.”

He followed her, needing to explain.

“Years after you and I broke up, I realized I wanted what we had. I was too cowardly to show up on your doorstep, and I didn’t want to risk hurting you all over again when I figured you had probably moved on. I became best friends with someone I met while backpacking in Thailand, and we commiserated over being bad at relationships. She knew all about you and tried to convince me to go back and try with you again. Eventually—years later—we decided that since we were such good friends, marriage made sense. Turns out it didn’t. She knew I could never love her—or anyone, probably—the way I loved you. But we got a great kid out of the deal, so we figured it wasn’t a total loss.”

She continued to walk in silence, the only sound punctuating their discussion the crunching of the snow beneath their feet and the whirring hum of the wind as it blew away his chances of happiness.

“I had it in my head that I wasn’t going to talk about my daughter until I knew the matchmaking service had worked. I didn’t want to use her as a bargaining chip.”

The words sounded ridiculous to his own ears. Who was he when he made that decision?

“You think I would have set everything aside and latched onto you so I could have your daughter?”

Her voice was deadly calm, and scared him a little.

“Of course not. That was my plan before I knew I matched with you. For whatever reason, a lot of women I’ve met lately have had a thing about me being a single dad. I can’t explain it. But I wanted someone to want me before wanting to help me raise my cute kid.”

She hmmphed and walked faster.

“Then it was all my own cowardice. I wanted to work it into the conversation, but I didn’t want you to run away before I had time to prove myself to you. I’ve always known you’d be an amazing mother, and Hailey would be lucky to have you in her life. But after hearing everything you’d already been through, I wanted to make sure our relationship would work out before making you feel bad for my motherless child.”

A long silence stood between them.

“Why is she motherless?”

“Her mom passed away six months ago. Elizabeth—Hailey’s mom—is the one who arranged for me to come to the island. She got everything booked the week before she died. She knew I wanted to find a love like the one you and I shared. She’s probably laughing her head off seeing that we ended up here together.”

“She made the plans six months ago?”

“Yeah. She knew I’d need time to mourn her before jumping in. Our marriage wasn’t happy in the conventional sense. We planned to divorce and go back to being just best friends when we realized we were in it for the wrong reasons, but then she got sick. I couldn’t leave her then.”

In a small voice, Keira said, “I made plans to come here six months ago, too. Right after my grandparents died.”

“And you were seeing someone at the time.”

“I was, but only casually. I told you that. Nothing serious like marriage and a child. For crying out loud, the only reason we kept our weekly dinner dates was so we’d have someone to dine out with.”

“So you understand.”

She stopped and turned to him, her face unreadable.

“No. I don’t understand one bit. And while I appreciate your honesty now, it’s too little, too late. Thank you for the fun times over the last many days. I know you’ll find the right person to complete your family. Unfortunately, I’m not the one.”

“You are the one, Keira. You’ve always been the one.”

She shook her head slowly, her chin quivering.

And then she turned and ran ahead, leaving him behind.

Emotionally drained, he didn’t have the energy to run after her.

He had blown it.

She asked for openness and honesty, and she bared her soul to him.

And he shared everything, too.

Except the biggest part of his life.

Shoulders hunched, Jared worked his way back to the lodge, entering through a back door to avoid friendly attention in the lobby.

Maybe she needed time. Time to process what it would mean to their relationship that he had a daughter. Time to wrap her head around the idea of embracing new family dynamics. Time to remember the feelings they stoked in one another.

He had never felt better than he had only an hour ago.

And he hated the thought that his own stupidity could have cost him the love of his life.

Again.

“I need to speak to Hannah Willows, please. It’s urgent.”

Keira called down to reception the second she walked into her room and could reach the landline.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Holden. She’s very busy dealing with the storm. It’s coming in much stronger than the forecast suggested, and we weren’t as prepared as we normally would have been.”

Keira struggled to hold on to her manners and decorum as her emotions threatened to spill all over the island.

“I understand. Please have her call me as soon as she gets a moment?”

“I will, but is there something I can help you with?”

Why wait? Hannah knew the history Keira shared with her in the beginning, but Keira needed to get off this island as soon as humanly possible, so she would have to rely on the kindness of a stranger.

“Actually, maybe you can. I need to schedule a time to have the ferry take me back to the mainland. As soon as possible, please.”

“Ooh, I’m afraid the soonest will be days from now. A state of emergency has been declared over this Nor’Easter and all transportation has been temporarily halted—even all the regional airports have grounded their planes. I’m afraid we all need to wait out the storm before planning any off-island events. But we have extra activities planned throughout the resort, and?—”

“It’s not for an event. Please, I need to get home.”

“If there’s a medical emergency?—”

“There’s no medical emergency.”

Just a broken heart and an exploding mind.

“If you could please have Hannah call me as soon as she can, I’d really appreciate it. My cell phone still isn’t picking up a signal, so she’ll have to call my room. Thank you.”

She considered reaching out to Robyn. Or Megan.

Instead, she reached out to her pillow and climbed into bed.

Her emotions were so tangled together that she couldn’t even begin to unravel them. Like combing knots out of her hair, she had to take the patient approach before tearing everything out at the root.

Her brain took mercy on her and allowed her to drift off. But just when she settled into dreamland—a dream where Jared held his hand out and led her down a path of rose petals to a lovely gazebo by a lake—the phone next to her bed rang.

“Jared?”

Melodious laughter and the distinct clanging of wrist bangles greeted her on the other end of the line.

“I am delighted to hear you so eager to speak to your match! From the message I was left, I was afraid something terrible had happened, and you were ready to quit. So glad to be wrong.”

Keira sat upright in her bed and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Had she seriously answered the phone with his name on her lips?

“Hannah, thank you for calling. I apologize—I don’t know why I said his name. But yes, I need to get off this island. I don’t want another shot, either, I just want to go home and put this experience behind me.”

“Oh buttercup. I hear anguish in your voice.”

Her compassion threatened the tentative grip Keira held on her emotions. Holding the phone to her ear, she wrapped her fuzzy blanket around her shoulders to ward off the chill.

Then she breathed deep and focused on staying calm and collected.

“It’s been a rough day,”

she admitted.

“But I knew from the beginning that he and I didn’t belong together. So if you could assist me in leaving here, you won’t hear from me again. I’ll leave glowing reviews and pretend it was the best experience of my life.”

“I’m not concerned with the reviews, rose bud. I’m concerned with why you’re giving up now. Last time I saw you two flitting about the island, you looked like the textbook definition of infatuated.”

Keira closed her eyes against the pain stabbing her temples.

“Keira love, we have resources available to help you navigate the difficult bumps we all hit in relationships. But trust me when I tell you—you don’t want to waste a precious minute when you could be spending it with the one you love.”

A sob caught in Keira’s throat and she couldn’t respond.

“I lost my husband when he was in the prime of his life. Our children were young, and we had our whole lives ahead of us. If I could go back and forgive him quicker for every single fight we had, I would do it in a heartbeat. Pride has no place in a love affair. Please don’t give up before you’ve given it a full chance.”

Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, Keira steadied her breathing and sat up straighter in her bed.

“I’m so sorry for your tragic loss, Hannah. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been. And I truly, truly appreciate your wisdom and advice. I will carry it with me into the next relationship I enter.”

Not that she had any intention of ever doing this to herself again… “But I know this can’t work. I did have fun, and this island is amazing. Jared isn’t a bad guy. I just have some wounds that he adds salt to, and I am trying my best to heal every day.”

“I hear you, lily of the valley. I feel your pain. And I salute you for giving it your best shot.”

Relief coursed through Keira as Hannah accepted her decision.

“Unfortunately, there’s no way to get you off the island. We’ve been notified that the storm is intensifying so much that we may not even be able to get people off island at the end of the session. We’ve started the process of notifying the next guests that there may be a delay. Believe you me, if there was a way to push this storm off course, I’d do it. As much as it pains you to be here, I’m going to have to recommend that you keep your head up and enjoy the island for what is offered, even if you’ll be leaving without a love match. And if there’s anything I can do to help you, you know where to find me.”

Keira exchanged begrudging words of gratitude and farewell, and returned to the dream world, where her brain did its best to protect her from the reality of yet another loss in her life.