Page 51 of Second Chance Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings #5)
Taylor felt her lower lip tremble as tears filled her eyes. She hated that her son knew that. She hated that she hadn’t been able to protect him from that truth.
“I know it’s not my fault for being sick, just like it’s not your fault that Martin was an asshole.
” He grinned, and despite her heart breaking, she found herself smiling.
“It’s just life. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s bad.
It’s like the blood gases test; it’ll hurt, or it won’t.
” He smiled. “But I’ve always known I’ll be okay because I had you.
And now I have Caleb. And as bad as Martin is, Caleb is good. ”
She let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “So, you’re happy that Caleb’s your dad.”
“I used to spend hours, so many hours, imagining what he would be like, and in my head, I always wanted him to be Coach Taylor. That was the best dad I could think of having.”
Her brow furrowed. “From Friday Night Lights ?”
Owen nodded. “Yeah, and he had our last name, so that made it even easier to imagine.”
“But Caleb is even better than him.”
“He is,” she agreed.
“I mean, he’s Hot Pastor,” Owen joked.
Hot Pastor. Right. She needed to tell him about the marriage so he wouldn’t have visions of his new dad being the next Bachelor, which there were rumors about.
“Um, so, when I was in the hospital, the day after I got out of the ICU, um…” She licked her lips and brushed her hair behind her ear.
“Caleb, your dad, came in to see me, and he brought up… he suggested…he had looked into putting his name on your birth certificate, which we want to do if you are okay with it.”
“I mean, yeah, he’s my dad, so yeah.” Owen nodded, but his eyes were narrowing slightly in suspicion. He knew there was something more she needed to say.
“At the time, everything felt very, um, uncertain, and he felt, well, we felt like the best way forward was a legal arrangement because of medical insurance, and also there was the question of next of kin and?—”
“Mom, your hives.” Owen picked up the cloth and handed it to her again.
She pressed it just below her neck.
“Just say it,” he prompted. “Whatever it is, it’s fine.”
“He thought we should get married, legally married, and I said yes.”
Owen’s eyes lit with excitement as his jaw dropped. Literally, his mouth was agape. “You guys are getting married.”
“We got married. That day. It wasn’t a wedding. It was just paperwork we signed. I didn’t even get out of bed.”
“Oh.”
“It wasn’t about romance or love; it was about security.”
A crease appeared between Owen’s brows. “But you love him.”
She wasn’t going to deny it. “Yes, I do.”
“And he loves you.”
“No, but that’s not a bad thing,” she quickly defended him.
“Mom, he does.” Owen pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened the photo app. “Look.”
He started scrolling through photo after photo of Caleb sitting beside her bed in the hospital.
There were dozens, and in all of them he was either holding her hand, touching her arm, or brushing a hair off of her face.
In some of the photos, he was kissing the back of her hand.
Others, he was kissing her forehead, which she knew he did now, but she had no memory of him doing so in the hospital.
There were photos of him holding her hand to his face with his eyes closed; it looked like he was praying for her, but she didn’t know if that was the case.
Then Owen pulled up short videos of Caleb.
In one he was talking to her while she was out of it.
She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the look in his eye honestly stole her breath away.
There were a couple of videos of him speaking to doctors; his tone and posture were definitely of a man with “my wife” energy.
She’d learned that term from the romance novels she read during Owen’s hospital stays.
“Oh, and then also, I found this.” Owen took his phone back and scrolled further down in his photos. When he turned the phone back around, she saw it was a snap of the second photo strip they’d taken at Daytona Beach, the one that Caleb had.
“Where did you find that?”
“It’s in his first Bible, in the box that he keeps the jersey he wore when his high school football team won the national championship and the MVP trophy he won in baseball. That’s it, just those four things.” Owen smiled.
She wondered if Owen was right. Did Caleb actually love her, not just as the mother of his child but as more? Or maybe he’d just used the photo strip as a bookmark.
“And no, it wasn’t just a bookmark.”
“How did you know I thought that?” She pushed the phone away from her. Sometimes Owen actually freaked Taylor out, and she worried he could read her mind.
“Because I know you, and you are really clueless sometimes.”
“I am not.”
“So you know Dr. Davies changed his rotation while you were in the hospital just so he could have the excuse to come and see you every day?”
She knew that Dr. Davies was covering for someone while she was there, but when that happened, Mario did the same thing.
“No, he didn’—”
“And then there was Dr. Kent in the ICU. I thought he and Caleb were going to throw down when he wouldn’t let Caleb in to see you.”
“That was just because of the rules.”
“No. It had nothing to do with the rules. The old guy in the room next to you was visited by his landscaper’s daughter, who was home from college, and an intern at his company.”
“Still, you don’t know if the reason Dr. Kent didn’t want Caleb to visit had anything to do with?—”
“Mom,” Owen interrupted her. “He asked me if you were single. How long had you been single? What type of guys you dated. And where my dad was.”
“I was in the ICU?!” If it were anyone else telling her this, she wouldn’t believe them, but Owen never lied to her. He was so honest sometimes it actually hurt her feelings.
“I know,” Owen agreed. “And then there was the balloon delivery guy that left his card with his number every time he dropped off a new order. Half of those balloon bouquets were from him.”
“They were?” She did wonder why she’d gotten so many balloons.
“Those are just the latest admirers while you were in the hospital. Mom, guys are always falling all over themselves around you, but you are oblivious.”
She shook her head.
He sighed. “I don’t know why you guys said you got married, or what your other reasons were, or why you don’t want to admit to each other that you do love each other, but I know that neither of you would have married each other if you didn’t actually love each other.”
“Owen, sometimes when you’re an adult, you have to do?—”
“No, it’s not about being an adult. Maybe for some people it is, but you guys would have found another way.”
“You don’t?—”
“Yes, I do know.” His tone turned serious, somber, as he continued, “because marrying someone that you’re not in love with would be cruel to do to the other person, and neither of you are cruel.”
She opened her mouth to argue his point, but she couldn’t, so she closed it. Instead, she stared at her son in total and complete disbelief. “Who are you? Where did you come from?”
“Didn’t we just go over that?” he teased.
Her head fell back as she started belly laughing. What he said was funny, but she was also just so relieved that not only did Owen know, he was happy about everything.
“I hit the gene pool jackpot.” He smiled widely, causing his two deep dimples to crease in his cheeks as he popped his collar. “I have Hot Pastor for a dad and a mom who had an ICU doctor ready to throw blows with Hot Pastor.”
She was still laughing as she stood and pulled him into her arms, hugging him tighter than she probably should have. “Are you sure you’re okay with us being married?”
“Yeah.” He nodded as he held her tight. “I’m not gonna lie, I sort of wish I could have been there, but I’m sure your dream wedding didn’t involve you being hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed, so.
” He shrugged, but then he gasped and looked up at her.
“But, wait, does this mean we can stay living here, not just until you’re better? ”
“Is that what you want?”
He nodded rapidly.
“Yeah,” she smiled.
“Then, yep.” He put his hands out and spun around in the grass; both dogs hopped up and ran in circles around him. “I’m fine with it. It’s all good.”
She was happy to see that he felt as at home in Caleb’s home as she did.
And also happy that he’d taken the news of her being married so well.
As far as the rest of it went, she wasn’t really sure where to put that.
For now, she’d just focus on the fact that for once in her life, she wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It was a strange feeling, but one she hoped she would get used to.