Winning His Heart: The Millionaire's Homecoming / The Maverick Millionaire

“It was a good deal!”

He rolled his eyes but took the glass from her. He casually wiped the sweat off his brow. She refilled the glass and he took a long, appreciative swig.

There was something about the scene that was so domestic and so normal that she wanted to just stay here, in this sunny moment, forever.

His phone buzzed and he took it out of his pocket, frowned, read a message and put it back. “Could I tap into your internet for a few minutes? A video is coming through that I’d like to look at on my laptop instead of my phone.”

“Of course.”

He went and retrieved his laptop from where it was now stored on her kitchen counter. He sat outside on one of her deck chairs. He looked uncharacteristically lost.

Kayla refilled his lemonade one more time. “I hope you don’t get a splinter,” she said when he thanked her and settled more deeply into the chair.

He looked like he hadn’t even heard her.

“Because, Duh-veed, it would be very embarrassing for you if I had to pull a sliver out of your derriere.”

“That would be awful,” he agreed, but absently.

Suddenly, she was worried about him. He seemed oddly out of it since he had taken that phone call. Now he was scowling at his computer screen.

“Hey,” she said softly.

When he looked up he could not hide the stricken look on his face.

“David? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s a bald-faced lie,” she said.

“You’ve got to quit calling me a liar,” he said, but even that was a lie, because while the words were light, his tone sounded as if his heart was breaking.

She had never known a stronger man than him. Not ever. And so it was devastating to watch him turn his computer to her so she could see what he was looking at.

The strongest man she knew put his head in his hands, and she thought he was going to weep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#u154f1487-a90a-5ce5-b9c4-2d41c72dff94)

KAYLA TURNED HER ATTENTION to the screen to give David a moment to compose himself. It took her a minute to figure out what she was looking at. And then she knew. It was some kind of retirement home. Unbelievably posh, and yet...

“Oh, David,” she whispered.

“I have to put her name on a list. If they have an opening,” he said, his voice a croak, “I have to decide right away. I need to go meet with the director and look at the facility in person this afternoon. I’ll come back in the morning.”

“I’m going with you,” she said.

She could not leave him alone with the torment she saw in his face.

He looked at her as if he was going to protest. But then he didn’t.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“I’ll go pack an overnight bag. And make arrangements for Bastigal to go to the kennel.”

And it wasn’t until she was in her room packing that bag that Kayla considered the implications of it. She sank down on the bed.

Life seemed, suddenly, to have been wrested from her grasp, to have all these totally unexpected twists and turns in it.

But there was something about making this decision to go with David that felt as if she had been lost in a forest and suddenly saw the way out.

She needed to be there for him. His need and his pain were so intense, and she needed to be there, to absorb some of that, to ease his burden.

Kayla realized there was the potential for pain here, tangling herself deeper in his world. And yet, she had to do it.

The word love whispered through her mind, but she chased it away. Now was not the time to study this complication.

Wasn’t it enough to know that something amazing was happening, and that it was happening to both of them?

She didn’t have to—or want to—put a label on it. She just wanted to sink into the sensation that they weren’t, either of them, as alone as they had been just a short time ago.

And she wanted to sink into the feeling of gratitude, that all the events of her life, even her difficult marriage—or maybe especially that—had prepared her for this, made her exactly the person she needed to be to rise to this challenge and more: embrace it.

* * *

David was so grateful that Kayla was there with him. It took his mind off what he was about to do. As they drove to Toronto she was the most pleasant of diversions—the way the wind caught in her hair with the top down, how childish she was in her wonder about the car, her lemony scent—what kind of ice cream stain was she trying to get rid of now?—tickling his nostrils.

He wanted to take her for lunch at a place he favored downtown, which was coincidentally close to the “retirement” home, but she took one look at his face and knew he was not up to even the rudiments of ordering a meal.

Instead she had him stop by a food truck, got out and ordered for both of them, and they sat in his car and ate.

“I’ll try not to spill, Duh-veed,” she said, but quickly saw he was not even up to teasing. She put out her hand and he took it, and it seemed after that he would never let go.

He left the car—she insisted he put the roof up, otherwise he was so distracted he might have left it down—and they walked to Graystone Manor. David knew from the video that it was a converted sandstone house that had belonged to a lumber baron at the turn of the century. It had a specialized wing for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.

The director, Mark Smithson, met them at the door. He was kind and soft-spoken, but nonetheless it reminded David of consulting with a funeral director over his father’s ceremony many years ago.

It was a beautiful facility. The rooms were like good hotel suites, the colors were warm and muted, the quality of the furniture and art was exquisite.

As Mr. Smithson talked about their programs for patients with all forms of dementia—people first, illness second, life maps and memory boxes, gardening and crafts—David knew he had come to the right place. He wondered if he should have made this decision long ago.

Still, it was with great sadness that he made the deposit and filled out the forms for his mother.

“We could have a vacancy very quickly,” Mr. Smithson warned him, kindly. “You will only have forty-eight hours to make up your mind.”

A vacancy. David realized his mother could come here when someone else died. He could not trust himself to speak.

Again he was aware of his hand in Kayla’s, and that that alone was giving him the strength to do the unthinkable and unspeakable.