Page 12 of The Chase
Well, as best as he could, anyway. It was the diapers that did him in, though. Each and every time.
Diapers…he despised diapers, though. In every way imaginable.
It had taken him two weeks to hire a nanny he trusted. She seemed to get things on a good routine so he could work during the day. Buthewas their dad now, so after the nanny left for the day, it was his job. He’d also cut his hours at the office back, and tried to take them with him when he could. Kurt was determined to be anactivefather in every way he could.
He had Garth and Marie, his foreman and foreman’s wife, as backups. They had alreadyclaimedhonorary grandparent roles and the girls adored them—especially Marie. Kurt tried not to take advantage of their offers to watch the girls too much. Just a few times so far, but he appreciated them for what they’d already done for the girls. Marie was always making them cookies, or knitting them blankets, or justdoingthings for them. Making them feel loved. Welcomed.
Hell, it was almost like Kurt had a family now. That was still making him reel a little. He’d never really had one of those before.
He loved these little girls. Adored being ‘dad’. And when the social worker got there to do his next home check, he was going to talk to her about what he had to do to make that legal forever. He’d had his private investigator look into Tisha and her boyfriend. What Lassiter had found was sad. They truly hadn’t had any other family.
Just Kurt. Either that, or they’d picked him because he was the wealthiest man they knew. He would never know. All he’d gotten was a cryptic letter from the children’s mother in the case of her death, asking him to take care of her daughters. The grammar had been horrible, and it had taken him a while to decipher the mix between cursive and print and spelling errors. She’d just been a young woman at the mercy of a system that destroyed people.
Kurt was one of the lucky ones who ever escaped it. The foster system in this country needed a serious overhaul.
Well, now the girls were his family, too. Once he got them settled, he would figure out what to do about Calvin—and Gene Hiller. If that little boy was Kurt’s, he wanted to know. To make sure his son wasn’t being raised by a murderer.
And…Greer. He had to find a way to check on her. He’d been so busy with the girls, everything had just sort of paused. Greercould be carrying his fourth kid right now. It was time he did what he had to do.
That…kind of terrified him in ways that it never could have before a month ago. He could easily afford a dozen more kids and not blink at the cost, but the time and energy four kids was going to require…threatened to defeat him just thinking about it.
Of course, his youngest would have a beautiful mother to shoulder half the work. And he couldn’t see her letting their baby stay out there with him while the baby was so young. She wouldn’t want to be away from the baby overnight, either, and if she breastfed, she and the baby would be a packaged deal for a long while.
It would probably work out best if she brought the baby out each visitation, and just…stayed overnight each time. That would give him time with her to convince her he wasn’t the total asshole she thought him.
Maybe…someday…she’d forgive him, too.
Kurt’s gut tightened when he thought about Greer holdinghisbaby close. Now he understood why some men were so damned possessive of their women. He felt more primitive over Greer Hiller than he ever had a woman before.
The stray thought that if she wasn’t pregnantnow, he could get her pregnant in the near future struck him out of nowhere, as he put Bronte down for her nap.
He contemplated it for a bit.
Or wait until maybe when Bronte was three or four? Bronte was only five months now. Greer wouldn’t even be twenty-seven or so then. Of course, he’d be thirty-seven, but that wasn’t too old. They could have a couple more kids before he was forty. She did come from a big family; she’d probably want lots of kids to love. She was a social worker, after all. She’d even told him she wanted kids someday.
Then he had to remind himself of the truth. Greer despised him. She would despise him even more if he took Calvin away from the Hillers forever.
Just how that was going to work with Greer being a Hiller struck him again. What if her family hatedhisbaby for Kurt taking Calvin back? Took it out on his baby somehow? Or thought Greer had betrayed them being with him that way and pushed her away? She adored her family; he knew that. To be cut off from them would be bad.
That would hurt her, destroy her.
Kurt didn’t really know how families like the Hillers worked at all. But taking Calvin from them completely would just hurt Calvin most of all. That was the last thing Kurt would ever want to do. It wasn’t like he could just go bring Calvin home with him someday, and there Greer was, with their baby. Talk about confusing them all.
If someone took the girls from him now, it would break him. And Calvin didn’t just live withGeneHiller. He lived with Greer’s brothers Gunn and Grady, and the investigator had said Genesis Hiller, the sister a few years older than Greer, took care of Calvin a great deal.
Genesis lived there. Probably acted a lot like Calvin’s mom or something. She had been there for longer than that three-year-old could remember. For all actuality, Genesis Hiller was Calvin’smomright now. Would it be fair to take that away from Calvin? Just destroy that little boy’s sense of safety and belonging? That little boy thought Gene was his daddy. Taking him away right now would hurt him.
Kurt remembered what it had been like to be moved from foster home to foster home when he was just a few years older than Calvin now. How it had destroyed him every time.
Kurt couldn’t do it to Calvin without serious consideration. Not…after the girls. Not after seeing how Bristol grieved for the mother she had lost. He just couldn’t.
But he didn’t want to lose some sort of relationship with his son. And that meant dealing with Gene Hiller.
He was going to have to figure out what was best for Calvin somehow—even if that meantnothaving a relationship with Calvin now. All he wanted was what was best for Calvin, but the idea that his son was living with who amounted to a murderer…He’d have to find a solution to this.
Beforehe dealt with Greer.
Because if she was carrying his fourth child…he was never letting her get away.
