Carolyne Aarsen - A Father in the Making

“Please. Don’t say any more. Anyone would have done the same.”

“I don’t know about that. However...” she hesitated, feeling ungrateful in spite of her words of thanks to him “...I am concerned about Nico and how attached he seems to be to you.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed and Mia wasn’t sure how to read him. For the sake of her son, she kept going.

“Nico has a lot to deal with right now and I’m afraid that...that if he gets too attached, too connected, he’ll get hurt when you go.”

“Why do you say that?” His eyes still held her but his voice sounded grim.

“You’re only here until your horses heal up, and then you’re leaving, right?”

Nate nodded, affirming what she already knew.

“When my husband left, it took Nico a long time to get over that.” For six months after Al had left, Nico slept with Mia, afraid to be on his own.

“And now the aftermath of this fire—” Mia’s voice broke and she pressed her lips together, feeling an unwelcome jolt of sorrow for her family’s loss of business and home. She looked away from Nate’s piercing gaze, took a steadying breath and soldiered on. “I am worried that Nico is too strongly connected to you now. I don’t want him hurt when you leave, so I would appreciate it if you could discourage him spending time with you, somehow.”

The heavy silence following her request made her regret what she had said, but it was what she had to do to protect Nico.

“Sure. I get it.” Nate looked away from her, bent over and grabbed the rope he had dropped. “You’ve got to take care of your kids. Keep them safe.”

That was her only reason, she reminded herself as she hesitated, wishing she didn’t feel like such a heel. “I know you rescued him and I can’t tell you enough how grateful I am—”

“You don’t have to thank me anymore,” Nate said quietly, settling down on the hay bale, his eyes on the rope he was braiding. “We’re good.”

Mia hesitated a moment more, still not entirely happy with how things had gone down, torn between what Nate had done for her and what she had to do for her children.

He looked up at her and for the space of a heartbeat their eyes met. And for the space of that same heartbeat she felt it again. That glimmer of appeal. Of attraction.

Stop this. Quit this right now.

But she couldn’t look away.

“You should go,” Nate said finally, twisting the strands of rope together. “You don’t want to be late.”

She nodded her acknowledgement then without another word, left.

But as she walked across the yard to her van, she wondered if her warning to Nate was as much about herself as it was about Nico.

Chapter Five

Don’t watch her leave. Keep your eyes on what you’re doing.

But it was as if his practical mind and his lonely soul weren’t communicating, and Nate watched Mia as she walked across the yard.

Her slender frame looked too fragile to carry the responsibility of four children, but he had seen the effect of the thread of steel running through her. The fact that she warned him away from Nico bothered him on one level and yet, at the same time, created a sense of admiration.

This was a woman who put her kids’ needs first.

Something his mother never did.

He shook the foolish thoughts off, grabbed a pail of oats and headed outside to the corrals. He had been headed out to feed them when Nico had come into the barn. Instead, he’d had a one-sided conversation with the boy while he cleaned out Tango’s stall. And then Mia showed up.

Nate poured the oats out for his other horses, spacing the piles far apart to keep them from fighting. Nola munched at her oats, lifting her head from time to time to make sure the other horses kept their distance. Nate walked around her, grimacing at the scratches that marred her golden coat. “Hey, girl,” he said, running his hands over her expanding belly. “I’m excited to see your foal. Should be a real goer. But can you wait until we get settled in Montana before you have it?”

She nickered again, as if agreeing with him, then put her head down and continued eating, crunching at the oats.

Nate checked out the other horses, touching them, reminding them who was in charge. Before he entered the barn he stopped, looking behind him at the snow-capped mountains that edged the ranch feeling a twinge of envy at their beauty. His brother had ended up with a prime piece of real estate thanks to his deal with Evangeline’s father, who had owned it previously.

He was happy for Denny, though. Nate knew how bad Denny felt after his divorce with his first wife cost the ranch that Nate had seen as a place of refuge. A place he felt safe. At the Norquests’, he never had to worry about someone striking out at him for no reason. Locking him up in the basement for days on end.

And now, with the death of the man who had hurt and tormented him so often and in so many ways, Nate felt free. Though the letter tucked in his back pocket mocked that very freedom.

Nate spun around and strode into the barn, tossing the pail aside, struggling once again with memories that had, for the most part, been eased away with the unconditional love of Denny’s family. They had introduced him to faith and had shown him a better way to live. His stepfather was nothing to him. He would take nothing from him. Ever.

* * *

Mia pushed the stroller back and forth, thankful the girls still slept, equally thankful she could get the large stroller into the counselor’s office. Josh sat beside her immersed in his computer game. In the small room just off his office, she heard Dr. Schuler talking to Nico.

Please, Lord, let something good come from this, Mia prayed. She could use some good news. The girls were out of sorts and she knew a lot of it had to do with being yanked out of their routine. Josh was uncharacteristically cranky.

Tomorrow she had to deal with the insurance company, and her initial contact with the agent this morning hadn’t been encouraging.

Please let the doctor have figured out how to help Nico.

The door creaked open and Dr. Schuler stepped out. With his blond goatee, longish hair, plaid shirt and faded blue jeans he looked more like a West Coast logger than a therapist. But Mia wasn’t going to quibble about his wardrobe choices. Dr. Brouwer had had nothing but encouraging words for this man.

Nico came behind Dr. Schuler, clutching a handful of papers covered with the same colorful drawings as the papers Dr. Schuler carried. Mia suspected those pictures had been the main source of communication between them.

Dr. Schuler gave Mia a smile that she could only construe as encouraging. Then he stopped at his desk, laid the papers down and hit the intercom button. “Nancy, could you come into the office and take Nico and Josh to the playroom for a few minutes?”

A short, portly woman bustled into the office and squatted down in front of Nate and Josh. “I have a fun race-car set I would like to show you,” she said.

Josh needed no encouragement, but Nico glanced at Mia, who nodded her assent. Only then did he leave.

“So I’ve had an interesting session with Nico,” Dr. Schuler said as he tapped the stack of papers in front of him. “I understand both from Dr. Brouwer and from the pictures he made for me that he survived a fire?”

Mia nodded, her guilt over not being there plunging like a dagger in her heart as she clutched the stroller, pushing it back and forth, back and forth.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Dr. Schuler said.

“I should have been there.”

“With your two girls? Do you think you could have gotten four children out on your own?”

His probing questions put things into perspective for Mia. Reluctantly, she nodded, accepting the quiet wisdom he was giving her.