A Mom for His Daughter by Jean C. Gordon

Author:Jean C. Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-10-17T17:52:26+00:00

Chapter Nine

He’d become a coward. Since last weekend’s sledding trip with the Bridges group, Marc couldn’t get the vision of Fiona’s upturned face, rosy cheeks and lips and Stella chanting “kisses” out of his head. He couldn’t deny it. He had wanted to kiss Fiona and had a gut feeling she hadn’t been against the idea. He’d thrown himself into his work, just as he had in New York when life had gotten hard for him. He slammed his SUV to a stop in his parents’ driveway behind Fiona’s car.

What was she doing here? Tracking him down for his evasive responses to the couple texts she’d sent him? In his dreams. Both of the texts had been about work. He trudged to the kitchen door, let himself in and stomped off the snow—and some of his agitation—on the mat just inside.

His mother’s voice floated through from the dining room. “I really thought he’d be here by now, before Stella fell asleep.”

He had, too. Stella rarely fell asleep for anyone but him. But he’d gotten involved in the hands-on work of laying the tile for the kitchen floor, and then one of the guys had had to leave. Marc had volunteered to stay. The physical labor had felt good.

“She curled right up and nodded off on the couch before I finished reading her the story she wanted,” Fiona said.

Mom laughed. “Yeah, with John’s TV program and snoring providing the right amount of monotonous background noise to keep her asleep.”

“I should head out,” Fiona said.

He heard the slide of a chair on the hardwood floor as he approached the dining room doorway.

“Thanks for dinner.”

Fiona had come for dinner? How had he missed that?

“Thank you for your ideas.”

Ideas. What was his mother cooking up?

“Stay a minute and let me tell you about Stella’s doctor’s appointment today. I had hoped to tell you and Marc together.”

That was another act of cowardice, taking his mother up on her offer to take Stella to her follow-up with Dr. Franklin. He’d convinced himself she could handle it better than him, just as Cate always had.

“You can tell us together.” Marc walked into the dining room and pulled out the chair next to Fiona.

“Hi.” She smiled at him, needling his heart.

“Hey.”

“We missed you at dinner,” his mother said, glancing at Fiona.

Fiona tugged at her shirtsleeve. “We got together with Claire, Andie and Natalie to plan Renee’s baby shower.”

“Right.” Marc vaguely remembered his mother saying something about that, but not about Fiona coming to dinner. Wasn’t that what he wanted? His family to treat Fiona as one of them, for Fiona to spend time with Stella without him? Then why were his mother’s and Fiona’s words making him feel guilty about the extra work hours he’d put in lately?

“So what did Dr. Franklin say?” Marc held his breath waiting for his mother’s response.

“The tests point to some type of IBD.”

“Inflammatory bowel disease,” Fiona said.

“I know that.” His words came out sharper than he meant them to, but the results weren’t what he’d wanted to hear, even if they were what he’d expected deep down.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.