Brenda Harlen - A Forever Kind of Family

“Bah-bah-bah.”

Harper frowned as she moved into the living room. “Do you think his speech is delayed?”

“No, I think he’s a sixteen-month-old with the limited vocabulary of a sixteen-month-old.”

He was probably right but she thought she’d check the vocabulary lists in her books again to be sure. “Your conference call is done already?”

He nodded. “I knew it wouldn’t take too long.”

She put the bucket of blocks on the carpet and sat down to play with Oliver. The little boy immediately upended the container. “Are you going into the office now?”

“Not today.”

She started the base of a tower for Oliver, aligning three square blocks for the bottom, then overlapping a second row to hold the blocks together. “Why not?”

“I thought I’d spend some time hanging out with Oliver this afternoon.”

“Big,” Oliver said again, offering her a blue block.

“He wants you to make the tower bigger,” Ryan told her, squatting down to add more blocks to the base of the structure she’d started to build.

“You just want to play, too,” she remarked.

He didn’t dispute her claim. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“You had Oliver all morning—it’s my shift now,” she reminded him.

“Just like no one’s keeping score, no one’s punching a clock here,” he said gently. “If there’s something else you’d rather be doing, I don’t mind honing my construction skills here.”

She hesitated, torn between the temptation to accept his offer, annoyance that he handled the little boy so effortlessly and guilt that if she let him, she would again be doing less than her share. “I do have some notes to write up for Caroline for next week’s shows.”

He shrugged. “Or you could take a nap so you’re not cranky tomorrow.”

“I’m not cranky now,” she snapped, her tone in contradiction to the words.

He just lifted a brow.

She turned on her heel and walked out.

Chapter Three

Harper hadn’t planned to fall asleep.

She’d decided that her notes for Caroline could wait, and she’d lain down on her bed to read another chapter in What to Expect the Toddler Years . She managed to keep her eyes open for four pages.

When she woke up, it was almost five o’clock and her grumbling stomach chastised her for not thinking about dinner before she’d put her head on her pillow. After a quick detour to the bathroom, she headed down to the kitchen to see what she could scrounge up for the evening meal.

But Ryan had apparently beat her to that, too, as he was peeling potatoes at the sink. Oliver was on the floor nearby, playing with some plastic lids. They both glanced over when she stepped through the doorway.

“I guess I should say ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you.’”

“Why?”

“The ‘sorry’ because I was tired and cranky. The ‘thank you’ for letting me sleep and getting dinner started.”

“No worries,” he said easily.

“What’s for supper?”

“Steak pie, mashed potatoes and corn.”

“Do you want me to finish the potatoes?”

“Are you going to eat any potatoes?”

“Probably not,” she admitted.

“Then you can make your salad.”

She got the ingredients out of the fridge and set to work.

* * *

Half an hour later, they were sitting down to dinner, just like a regular family.

Except that she had almost no experience being a regular family. She’d grown up in New York City, where her father was an actor and her mother was a talent agent. And for as long as Harper could remember, her parents had been going in opposite directions—to auditions and meetings and events. Occasionally one or the other would take her and her brother, Spencer, along for the ride, but more often they were left at home with the nanny.

The unconventional upbringing was something she’d had in common with Melissa. Her friend’s parents had split when she was in the third grade, and after that she’d done her share of moving from one home to another, never feeling as if she completely belonged in either. As a result, she’d been determined to provide a better upbringing for her son—and a “normal” home in which parents sat down to share meals with their children. Harper wasn’t convinced that was “normal” but she was willing to do her part to maintain at least the illusion for the little boy.

“This pie is delicious,” she said after she’d sampled her first bite.

Obviously Oliver agreed, because he was managing to put more of the steak and gravy in his mouth than on his face.

“One of my aunt Susan’s specialties,” Ryan told her. “I can only take credit for moving it from the freezer to the oven.”

“Between your mother and your aunts and your cousins, we probably have enough pies and casseroles and pastas to last until Christmas.”

“My family has always believed that food can help alleviate any crisis.”

“That much food would solve the hunger crisis in a third-world country.”

“My mother also knows that I can burn toast,” Ryan said. “And she probably didn’t want to make any assumptions about your cooking skills.”

“I can put together a decent meal if I have the time and the right ingredients,” she admitted.

“I wasn’t sure,” he teased. “Because I haven’t seen you eat anything other than salad.”

“That’s not true,” she denied.

“You’re right—salad and a taste of whatever else is put on the table.”

Since that was closer to the truth, she didn’t dispute it. Instead she said, “Even over and above the stocking of our freezer, your family has been amazing. Although there were so many people here the day of the funeral, I’m not sure I remember even half of their names.”

“I’ll make name tags for the next family gathering,” he teased.

“That would be helpful,” she said, her response perfectly sincere. “But for starters, which one of your bothers has the little boy—Jacob?”

“Jacob is Daniel’s son—but Daniel is my cousin. Braden and Justin are my brothers.”

“Justin is the doctor?”

He nodded.

“Is he married?”

“No.”

“But Braden’s married?”

He nodded again. “To Dana.”

“Do they have any kids?”

“Not yet.”

“And you have a sister who has a baby girl, right?”

“Nope—no sisters at all. You’re probably thinking of Lauryn, who is another cousin.”

She frowned. “But she referred to you as her daughter’s ‘uncle Ryan.’”

“It’s an honorary title.”

Harper shook her head. “No wonder I’m confused.”

“Andrew, Nathan and Daniel are my cousins through my uncle David and aunt Jane. Andrew is married to Rachel and the father of Maura. Nathan is married to Allison, who is the mother of Dylan. And Jacob’s father, Daniel, is married to Kenna.

“On my uncle Thomas and aunt Susan’s side, there are three female cousins—Jordyn, Tristyn and Lauryn. Lauryn is the only one married, and she and her husband, Rob, are the parents of Kylie.

“I also have three more cousins—Matthew, Jackson and Lukas—in upstate New York. Matt and his wife, Georgia, have four kids, Jack and Kelly have two, and Lukas and Julie have a toddler.”

“Name tags would definitely help,” she told him.

He just grinned. “What about your family?”

“Small,” she said. “And scattered. My dad has a sister who works for an insurance company in Wyoming, but she never married and doesn’t have any kids. His mother is down in Florida, but I haven’t seen her since I was a kid. My mom was an only child, so there’s just my parents, myself and my brother.”

None of whom had shown up for the funeral, despite the fact that Melissa had been her roommate in college and her best friend since.