Because of the Baby...

“You don’t need to thank me,” Keaton said. “We’re doing this for Grace, remember?”

“For Grace,” she agreed.

With Keaton a step behind her, Lark headed out of the ICU. As she neared the door to the hall, two people came into view. Her parents. They stood at the nurses’ station, speaking with Lark’s coworker Jessa and hadn’t spotted Lark or Keaton yet.

She slowed her pace, all too aware of Keaton’s towering presence behind her. In the rush of getting prepared for Grace’s homecoming, Lark had neglected to mention to her parents that Keaton would be helping her with Grace. Or maybe she’d dodged the issue to put off dealing with her father’s ire as long as possible. Lark gathered a breath to bolster her courage. This encounter promised to get ugly.

Her mother spotted her first. “Lark?” Her gaze bounced from her daughter to the man shadowing her. “What’s going on?”

At Vera’s sharp tone, Tyrone Taylor glanced around. His expression twisted with disgust when he saw Keaton.

“Grace is coming home with me today,” Lark explained, stopping a good fifteen feet away from her parents, hoping distance and a soothing tone would keep her father’s temper from flaring. “I brought her to see Skye before we left.”

“And him?” Lark’s father demanded. “What’s he doing here?”

“I’m driving Lark and Grace home.” Keaton’s level reply was neither defensive nor aggressive. His body radiated calm confidence at Lark’s side, but her tension didn’t ease.

Lark had let Keaton take on the role of Grace’s caretaker because her parents hadn’t stepped up. Was that dawning on Tyrone and Vera or were they too consumed by their needs and desires to realize they would never be nominated for grandparents of the year?

“Since when are you two so chummy?” Tyrone demanded, his attention fixed on his daughter.

Lark felt her chin lift to a defiant angle in response to her father’s hostility. “Keaton is Grace’s uncle. We are both concerned about her welfare.” She glanced down at the tiny bundle of pink sweetness they all should be concerned about, but failed to refocus her father’s attention.

“I don’t know why you’ve accepted Jake as Grace’s father. He sure as hell isn’t acting like it. What sort of man abandons his baby and the woman he claims to love?” Tyrone shot Keaton a hard look. “What does your brother have to say for himself?”

“I haven’t spoken with Jake.”

Lark’s father made a dismissive noise, but his next words were for Lark. “I told your sister four years ago that Jake was going to ruin her life.”