The SEAL's Secret Heirs(59)

What she saw surprised her. His small smile for each person was genuine and he returned hugs easily. For someone who hadn’t wanted to come home, he’d meshed into the community well enough. Did he realize it?

Hadley stayed where she was.

“Liam and I will wait with you,” she insisted, stubbornly crossing her arms.

Liam quickly hustled Hadley to her feet with a hushed word in her ear. Whatever he said made her uncross her arms but didn’t get her moving out of the waiting room any faster.

“I appreciate that,” Kyle said. “But it’s not necessary. You’ve done enough. Besides, I need someone I trust at home with Maggie, so Candace can get back to her housekeeping. That’s the most important thing you can do for me.”

Grace’s heart twisted as she got more confirmation that she’d made the right decision in leaving Maddie and Maggie with Kyle—he clearly had both his daughters’ interests in the forefront of his mind.

“Candace is trustworthy,” Hadley countered. “She’s watched Maggie plenty of times.”

Liam captured his wife’s hand and pulled on it, his exaggerated expression almost comical. “Sweetie, Grace is staying with Kyle.”

Comprehension slowly leached into her gaze as Hadley finally caught her husband’s drift. She started shuffling toward the exit. “Well, if you’re sure. We’ll be a phone call away.”

And then they were gone, leaving Grace alone with Kyle. There was still tension between them but for now, the focus was on Maddie. This was the part where they’d be adults about their issues, just as they should have been all along, and get through the night.

“Guess they thought they’d leave us to our romantic evening,” Kyle commented wryly as he nodded after Hadley and Liam. “I’m pretty sure that’s why they went to Vail. To give me the house to myself for the weekend in hopes that I’d call you.”

Not to get him to step up for his girls. That wasn’t even necessary, probably hadn’t been from the beginning. Liam and Hadley had gone to Vail for her benefit. Hers and Kyle’s. And it would have been perfect if she and Kyle had only hashed out their issues before getting involved again, instead of hiding behind their defense mechanisms.

That’s why she couldn’t give him the slightest false hope that she was here because she wanted to try again. The problem was that she might have given herself that false hope.

For all her conviction that she’d made the right decision to walk away from him, something inside kept whispering that maybe it wasn’t too late to take a step toward talking about their issues.

“Will you go with me to see Maddie?” Kyle’s eyes blinked closed for a moment. “I’m not sure I can go in there by myself.”

He’d been stalling. How had she missed that? Because she was busy worrying about what was going on with the state of their relationship instead of worrying about the reason they were here: Maddie. Some support system she was.

Grace smiled as she took his hand again, holding tight. “I’m here. For as long as you need me.”

When his eyes opened, he caught her up in that diamond-hard green gaze of his. “Grace,” he murmured, “come sit with me.”

Meekly, she complied, following him into the hospital room where Maddie lay asleep in a bed with a railing. It looked so much like her crib at home, but so vastly wrong. Machines surrounded her, hooked to wires and tubes that were attached to her tender skin. Grace almost couldn’t stand to internalize it.

Clare was checking something on one of the machines and smiled as they came in. “She’s doing okay. Worn out from the tests. That couch against the window lies flat, like a futon, if you plan to stay. I have to check on some other patients but we’ve got Maddie on top-notch monitors, and I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Press this button if you notice any change or need anything.”

She held up a plastic wand with a red button at the end.

Kyle nodded. “Thanks. We’ll be fine.”

Then Clare bustled out of the room, leaving them alone with Maddie.

“I would trade places with her in a New York minute,” Kyle said softly, his gaze on his daughter. “I would pay if someone would let me trade places. She’s so fragile and tiny. How is her body holding up under all of those things poked into her? It’s not right.”

Grace nodded, her throat so raw from holding back tears, she wasn’t sure she could speak.

All at once, he spun toward her, catching her up in his desperate embrace, burying his head in her hair. She clung to him as his chest shuddered against hers while they both struggled to get their anguish under control.