The Baby Favour

He looked defeated. Scarlet had seen that in him only a few times in all these years. Most of the time, he was the confident, successful CEO of Spencer Surf Shops. The guy who never failed at anything. Who always knew the right decision to make. Sexy, bold and sure of himself. Rarely did that facade crack. Once, when he found out he couldn’t give her a child. The second time, when he couldn’t keep the judge from giving their adopted son back to his biological mother. The third time was when he walked out the door, leaving her and their marriage behind.

She couldn’t imagine what happened tonight that could bring that look of despair back to his face. “Mason?” she asked as she approached.

Her husband shot up in his seat, turning to her with eyes more red than blue. He stood quickly, his jaw flexed tight as he tried to hold everything in. He didn’t speak right away, as though if he opened his mouth, a torrent of emotions would pour out of him instead.

“What’s happened? Is it Jay?”

Scarlet knew that Mason’s younger brother, Jay, had been battling stage four melanoma for several months. The last she’d heard, they’d gotten the devastating news that the cancer had spread into all his major organs and they were discontinuing treatment. It wouldn’t surprise her to find out that Jay had finally lost his battle. Something about the look on Mason’s face, however, made her worry that this was something much worse.

“No,” Mason said at last. “It’s Rachel.”

“Jay’s wife?” Scarlet felt her chest tighten. Her sister-in-law had been like a true sister to her. As an only child, Scarlet had enjoyed having Rachel around to talk to and share marriage war stories with. The idea of Rachel raising their daughter alone after Jay passed had weighed heavily on her mind since she found out the news. Luna was only a year old and would never remember her father. “What happened?”

“She’s dead.”

Scarlet could only clap her hand over her mouth to hold in the painful gasp. It couldn’t be true. The universe wasn’t that cruel. Baby Luna was already losing her father. To lose her mother, too... “How...?” She couldn’t get the words out. How could something like this happen?

“It was a freak accident. She fell down the stairs carrying a basket of laundry. I can imagine her mind has been all over the place dealing with Jay’s illness. She fell in just the right way to break her neck instantaneously. Their housekeeper found her.”

Scarlet didn’t know what to say. Of everything that had run through her head since she received the call, Rachel’s death was the last thing she expected. It was so bitterly tragic on its own, not to mention when it was compounded by Jay’s illness. “Does Jay know?” she whispered through her fingers.

Mason nodded. “He’s the one who called and told me about it.”

She could only squeeze her eyes shut and shake her head. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen. Her own life was a mess and she was dealing with that, but Jay and Rachel... Her heart just ached. Tears welled beneath her eyelids. A moment later, she felt Mason’s arms wrap around her and she didn’t fight it. Instead, she melted into him and let her tears wet the front of his dress shirt. She tried not to think about how good it felt to be in his arms again. How much she missed his scent in her lungs and his warmth surrounding her. He was just comforting her, perhaps comforting himself, and nothing more.

That thought was able to cut through the grief, stab her in her tender underbelly and remind her to keep her emotional distance. With a soft sniffle, she pulled away from him and took a step back. When her gaze met Mason’s, there was a flash of pain there unrelated to the accident. It was as though he was hurt she’d pulled away so soon. As much as she might like to stay in his arms all night, that wouldn’t help her get over him. It was hard enough being in the same room with him knowing he didn’t want her anymore.

Despite everything, Scarlet couldn’t help but wonder why he’d called her tonight. They were getting a divorce and had hardly been speaking for the last two months after he’d moved out of their Malibu beach house. He had family in town. Friends. Surely there was someone else he would want here with him instead of her. He was the one who walked away, after all. Away from her, away from their life together...

Mason cleared his throat and wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry to drag you down here in the middle of the night, but Jay asked to see us.”

Scarlet frowned. “Us?”

He nodded. “He’s waiting on us to come up. He’s on the oncology floor.”

Mason turned toward the elevator, not giving Scarlet a chance to argue with him, as usual. She followed him, both of them silent until they exited on the third floor. Halfway down the hallway, they entered a room with the name J. Spencer written on the whiteboard.

Scarlet held her breath as she stepped inside. She hadn’t seen Jay in a while and she was worried about how she’d react to seeing him in such rough shape. At first, a privacy curtain blocked all but his blanketed legs, then Mason pushed it aside.

The man lying in the bed was half of the robust brother-in-law she’d once known. He’d easily lost fifty pounds on a tall frame that needed every bit of it. His thick brown hair, so much like Mason’s, had thinned. His skin was sallow. But the Jay she knew was still in there somewhere—the life of the party, the comic relief, the easygoing counterpoint to Mason’s perfectionism.

“Hey there,” Jay said in a raspy voice as he spied Scarlet slipping into the room. She reached out and took his extended hand as he offered it to her. “You’re looking beautiful as always, sister.”

Scarlet bit at her bottom lip to keep from crying. “I won’t be able to keep it up if you continue to interrupt my beauty sleep,” she quipped. Jay preferred to keep things light even in the darkest moments, so she’d do her best to comply.

“I know.” Jay’s gaze grew distant as he stared off for a moment. “It couldn’t be avoided. Did Mason tell you what happened?”

Scarlet could only nod as she slipped down into the chair beside the bed. “I’m so sorry, Jay.”

Jay shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. I won’t be wasting away without her. She and I will have a happy reunion before too long. But I asked you both here because I’m worried about what’s going to happen to Luna.”

Scarlet felt stupid. She’d focused on the trauma of the loss and hadn’t even considered the fact that Luna would be orphaned soon. No wonder Jay was up in the middle of the night worried about his daughter’s future.

“We want you to raise her. The paperwork officially just names Mason as her guardian for some reason our lawyers explained but I never understood, but of course we intended to leave her to both of you. I know how badly you both wanted a child. This isn’t the way I expected it to happen, but I hope that you’re open to the possibility of adopting Luna and raising her as your own.”

“She’ll always be your child, Jay,” Mason said.

Jay shook his head. “She won’t remember us, Mason. You and Scarlet will be the mother and father she knows and I’m okay with that. When she’s older, you can tell her about us and about how much we adored her. But I hope you’ll embrace this opportunity and raise her with all the love and support that Rachel and I would’ve given her.”

Scarlet’s heart lodged in her throat as she realized the implications of Jay’s words. She couldn’t make a sound, she could only sit stunned and listen to the two brothers discuss her life like nothing had changed between them. Mason hadn’t told his brother they were getting a divorce yet. Jay was speaking about their future as though he expected them to raise his daughter together. What were they going to do?

Mason reached out and took Scarlet’s hand, squeezing it tightly to silence her concerns. Her gaze met his for a moment and she knew that he sensed her panic. “Of course we will,” he said.

“Promise me,” Jay said.

Mason swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes shut before nodding. “I promise, Jay. Luna will want for nothing. She will have all the love that we can give her.”

Jay finally seemed pleased. He relaxed back into his bed and took a deep, labored breath. “Thank you. You know, when you write your will, you never imagine you’ll actually need it. At least you hope you won’t. In the morning, I’ll have my attorneys start the process of having you declared her legal and physical guardian, Mason. I can’t fill that role from my hospital bed, and before long, you’ll be all she has anyway. Once I’m gone, I hope the two of you will consider adopting her.”

“Of course,” Mason said. His grip on her grew ever tighter as Jay spoke. “You don’t need to worry about a thing.”

* * *

“You haven’t told your brother that we’re getting a divorce?”

Mason halted his quick pace. They were just exiting the hospital and heading toward their cars when she finally confronted him. He was thankful she’d waited that long so no one could overhear the truth he desperately wanted to keep from his brother. He pivoted on the asphalt and turned to look at his soon-to-be ex-wife.

He’d tried not to react to seeing her again for the first time since he moved out, but not even his grief could suppress his response to Scarlet. Even now, after spending the last hour with her under the worst possible circumstances, his heart still skipped a beat when their eyes met. There was an undeniable connection between them that time and distance hadn’t dulled. He didn’t know if anything could.

She was the most beautiful women he’d ever seen in person, and LA was filled with beautiful people. In his eyes, no one could compare. Scarlet had long brown curls that trailed down her back, soft brown eyes and a disarming smile that had immediately caught his attention when they met. That was just the beginning of her appeal, he soon learned. She was also talented, smart, sensitive and a wonderful mother. At least for the short period of time she had been able to be one.

“No, I haven’t told him. I didn’t tell anyone in my family about the divorce yet.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Mason repeated, running his fingers anxiously through his hair. “Because my brother has spent the last few months of his life battling terminal cancer. My parents are a wreck, barely holding it together. I didn’t want to dump more on them. And really, the demise of our marriage seems fairly inconsequential in comparison, don’t you think? They’ve been too caught up to even notice they haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“Of course it doesn’t compare, but it’s hardly insignificant. Now, because you haven’t told anyone, Jay thinks we’re going to raise Luna as one big, happy family.” Scarlet’s large brown eyes reflected the panic that he’d felt the moment he realized what Rachel’s death would mean for him.

“I know,” he admitted. “But how could I possibly tell a man in his position no?” He remembered his brother asking about putting him in the will not long after Luna was born. He’d agreed. Of course he’d take his niece in an emergency. He just never expected there to be an actual emergency. Or if there was, that it would happen at the worst possible time in his own life.

His lawyer had just sent him a draft of the mediated divorce settlement to review. Once they agreed on terms, it was a matter of signing off and filing it with the judge. Mason had moved out of the house he and Scarlet had bought together in Malibu and got a place in the Hollywood Hills. The new place was definitely a bachelor pad, not a single-dad pad. It was a midcentury modern design decorated with lots of glass, wood and chrome, completely unsuitable for an infant just starting to walk.

Then again, the home he’d shared with Scarlet in Malibu would be perfect. It still had a decorated nursery in it. She’d shut the room up and left it as it was the day they took their adopted son, Evan, back to his birth mother. The home also had an open floor plan with soft, safe surfaces that were fully baby proofed over a year ago.

It also had Scarlet, the mother that Luna would desperately need. That was where Luna should be. Mason was happy to have children with Scarlet when she wanted them, but the idea of being a single father to his niece was horrifying. He didn’t know anything about babies, and he was certain Jay wouldn’t leave Luna to him if he knew Scarlet was out of the picture.

The trick was convincing her to go along with this. After their adoption plans went south, she swore she would never go through that again. Was asking her to take in Luna, even temporarily, going to aggravate the wound? He didn’t know. All he did know was that he’d made a promise to his brother and he would do whatever he had to to keep his word.