and we never really talk, so nothing gets settled. Perfect.”
She had a point. Rehashing old hurts wasn’t going to get him the answers he was most interested in. He wanted to know all about his little girl. “Fine. You want settled? Start talking, I’ll listen. Tell me about Caroline. Was she born deaf?”
“No.” Taking a sip of coffee, she cradled the mug between her palms. “She had normal hearing until the summer she was two.”
Outside, the wind blew snow against the window and it hit the glass with a whispering tap. Wes watched her and saw the play of emotions on her face in the soft glow of the overhead lights. He felt a tightness in his own chest in response as he waited for her to speak.
“We spent a lot of time at the lake that summer, and she eventually got an ear infection.” Her fingers continued to turn the mug in front of her. “Apparently, it was a bad one, but she was so good, hardly cried ever, and I didn’t know anything was wrong with her until she started running a fever.
“I should have known,” she muttered, and he could see just how angry she still was at herself for not realizing her child was sick. “Maybe if I’d taken her to the doctor sooner…” She shook her head again and he felt the sense of helplessness that was wrapped around her like a thick blanket.
Wes felt the same way. The story she told had taken place nearly three years ago. He couldn’t change it. Couldn’t go back in time to be there to help. All he could do now was listen and not say anything to interrupt the flow of words.
She took a breath and blew it out. “Anyway. Her fever suddenly spiked so high one night, I was terrified. We took her to the emergency room—”
“We?” Was she dating some guy? Some strange man had been there for his child when Wes wasn’t?
She lifted her gaze to his. “My brother Chance drove us there, stayed with us. The doctors brought her temperature down, gave her antibiotics, and she seemed fine after.”
“What happened?”
She sighed and sat back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest as if comforting herself. “When she healed, she had hearing loss. We didn’t even notice at first. If there were hints or signs, we didn’t see them. It wasn’t until the following summer that I realized she couldn’t hear the ice cream truck.” She smiled sadly. “Silly way to discover something so elemental about your own child, but oh, she used to light up at the sound of those bells.”
She took a breath and sighed a little. “The doctors weren’t sure exactly what caused it. Could have been the infection itself, the buildup of water in her ears or the effects of the antibiotics. There was just no way to know for sure.”
“Wasn’t your fault.” He met her gaze squarely.
“What?”
“It sounds to me like you couldn’t have done anything differently, so it wasn’t your fault.”
Horrified, he watched her eyes fill with tears. “Hey, hey.”
“Sorry.” She laughed a little, wiped her eyes and said, “That was just…unexpected. Thank you.”
Wes nodded, relieved to see she wasn’t going to burst into tears on him. “Will her hearing get worse?”
“Yes.” A single word that hit like a blow to the chest. “It’s progressive hearing loss. She can still hear now, and will probably for a few more years thanks to the hearing aids, but eventually…”
“What can we do?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “As much as I appreciate you being kind before, there is no we, Wes. I am doing everything I can. She wears hearing aids. She’s using sign language to expand her conversational skills, and get familiar with it before she actually has to count on it. And I’m considering a cochlear implant.”
“I read about those.” He leaned his forearms on the table. He’d been doing a lot of reading over the last several hours. There were dozens of different theories and outlooks, but it seemed to him that the cochlear implants were the way to go. Best for everyone. “They’re supposed to be amazing. And she’s old enough to get one now.”
“Yes, I know she is.” Belle looked at him and said, “You know, her doctor and I do discuss all of this. He’s given me all of the information I need, but it’s not critical to arrange surgery for Caro right this minute. It’s something I have to think about. To talk about with Caro herself.”
Astonished, he blurted, “She’s only four.”
“I didn’t say she’d be making the decision, only that I owe it to her to at least discuss it with her. She’s very smart, and whatever decision I make she’ll have to live with.” She pushed up from the table and carried her unfinished coffee to the sink to pour out. “I’m not foolish enough to let a little girl decide on her own. But she should have a say in it.”
“Seriously?” He stood up, too, and walked over to dump his own coffee. He hadn’t really wanted it in the first place. “You want to wait when this could help her now? You want to give a four-year-old a vote in what happens to her medically?” Shaking his head, he reached for his cell phone. “I know the best doctors in Texas. They can give me the name of the top guy in this field. We can have Caro in to see the guy by next week, latest.”
She snatched the phone right out of his hand and set it down on the counter. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What you’re too cautious to do,” he said shortly. “Seeing to it that Caro has the best doctor and the best treatment.”
Both hands on her hips, she tipped her head back to glare up into his eyes. “You have known about her existence for two days and you really think you have the right to come in here and start giving orders?”
Those green-blue eyes of hers were flashing with indignation and the kind of protective gleam he’d once seen in the eyes of a mother black bear he’d come across in the woods. He’d known then that it wasn’t smart to appear threatening to that bear’s cubs. And he realized now that maybe trying to jump in and take over was obviously the wrong move. But how the hell could he be blamed for wanting to do something for the kid he hadn’t even known he had?
“All right.” Wes deliberately kept his voice cool, using the reasonable tone he wielded like a finely honed blade in board meetings. “We can talk about it first—”
“Very generous,” she said as barely repressed fury seemed to shimmer around her in waves. “You’re not listening to me, Wes. You don’t have a say here. My daughter’s name is Caroline Graystone. Not Jackson. I make the decisions where she’s concerned.”
His temper spiked, but he choked it back down. What the hell good would it do for the two of them to keep butting heads? “Do I really have to get a DNA test done to prove I’m now a part of this?”
Her mouth worked as if she were biting back a sharp comeback. And she really looked as if she were trying to find a way to cut him out of the whole thing. But after a few seconds, she took a breath and said, “No. Not necessary.”
“Good.” Something occurred to him then. “Am I named as her father on the birth certificate?”
“Yes, of course you are.” She rinsed out her coffee cup, then turned the water off again. “I want Caro to know who you are—I’d just rather have been the one to pick the time she found out.”
“Yeah, well.” He leaned against the counter. At least the instant burst of anger had drained away as quickly as it came. “Neither of us got a vote on that one.”
The problem of Maverick rose up in his mind again, and he made a mental note to call home again. Find out how the search for the mystery man was going. And it seriously bugged him that he had no idea who it might be. Briefly, he even wondered again if Cecelia and her friends were behind it, in spite of Cecelia’s claim of innocence. But for now, he had other things