9. Carly

Pure panic. It flooded my veins, clouded my vision as I ran to Ella, faster than I thought my legs could ever carry me.

The afternoon sun bathed the playground in golden light as Nate and I frantically searched for Ella. God, what a horribly disparate background to this scene from my nightmares. My heart pounded in my chest as panic threatened to consume me. And then, finally, there she was, crumpled like a broken doll on the mulch, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Ella!" I cried, rushing to her side and scooping her into my arms gently. "What happened, baby? Are you okay?"

Ella buried her face in my shoulder, her sobs muffled against my shirt. I felt a lump form in my throat as I held her close, my mind racing with worry even as she sputtered out that she fell off the jungle gym, that something hurt.

"You okay, kiddo?" Nate asked Ella, his voice calm but concerned as he joined us, crouching to our level on the ground. He looked at me with compassionate, fearful eyes, clearly just as worried about my baby's wellbeing as I was. It was like he was asking me if I was okay, too.

"Let's—let's get her to the car," I started to say, and Nate reached to help me lift her, but then I remembered that Mom had dropped me and Ella off at the park since she needed the car for some moving-related errands today. What I wouldn't do to not have to share a vehicle with my mother, especially at this moment.

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves. "Shit. I mean—maybe I should call someone." I consciously didn't say an ambulance, since Ella would instantly wail even louder at that. But she also wasn't profusely bleeding or otherwise in visibly dire straits, so I could just be overreacting with my panicked Mom brain. Ella was crying too hard to notice my swear, too, or she would have asked me to put a dollar in our swear jar. That thought only sent another pang of fear into my heart.

"I'll drive," Nate offered like a bona fide knight in shining armor. "Come on. Let's get her comfy, yeah?"

We made quick work of it, adrenaline helping me pick up Ella easily even though she was getting too big for that these days. I couldn't relinquish her to Nate, though. I was her mother. She needed me.

"Watch her head," I told Nate for what felt like the hundredth time as we got Ella buckled into his back seat. There was no car seat in Nate's SUV, but my mom was always going on about how kids Ella's age didn't need car seats back when she was raising me, anyway. I could just hear her voice now, telling me how everyone should stop being so neurotic and overprotective.

If she could see how badly I was shaking right now, maybe she'd change her stance.

"Nate, I don"t know what to do," I let out in a strained whisper once we'd closed Ella into the car. It was only becoming clearer that I was clueless as each second ticked by. "She's—Ella's afraid of doctors, and our insurance isn"t great, so I don"t want to take her to the hospital unless we absolutely have to, but I"m—I'm so scared. I'm scared that she might be seriously hurt."

My voice cracked with unshed tears. Nate listened patiently, his presence a reassuring anchor in the midst of my turmoil. But I always resisted any urge to feel calm, especially where Ella was concerned, so I blurted out, "No, fuck it. Let's get her to the hospital. I'll just call the bank, and?—"

"Hey, it"s okay," Nate cut in, stopping my anxious spiral in its tracks and gripping my upper arms in the same way he had when we'd run into each other at Forge, before I'd learned he was my new stepbrother. "She doesn't look too bad off, alright? I'm not an expert, but I think she'll be okay for a minute. Let"s just take her to Dwight"s house. My younger brother Bennett's back in town, and he's staying there. He's a pediatrician, and a damn good one. He can check her out first and let us know if we need to go to the hospital. Does that sound good?"

It kind of did, actually, an instant relief, even as I questioned whether not taking Ella to the ER right away made me a terrible mother. I blinked back tears of gratitude, overwhelmed by Nate"s kindness even as my brain whirled in a thousand directions, playing out every scenario at hyper-speed. The idea of taking Ella to my new stepbrother number three wasn't exactly ideal, but I knew logically that was mostly just my usual resistance to change kicking in, rejecting the fact that I had stepbrothers now at all. But with one like Nate, it couldn't be all bad, could it? How bad could a pediatrician stepbrother really be?

"Thank you," I said finally, my voice trembling with emotion. "You don't have to do all of this, you know. She's not even your kid."

Nate smiled almost sadly, his eyes warm with understanding. "Yeah, but she's yours. We"ll figure this out together, Carly. Let"s get Ella to Dwight"s."

It felt like seconds and hours at once, the car ride passing in a frantic blur, but then finally, we were pulling into Dwight's driveway and Nate was helping me get Ella settled inside on his dad's cream-colored sofa. Her tears had calmed to a slow, steady flow rather than big, gasping sobs, but now I could see the problem more clearly. Her left ankle was clearly giving her issues, and it looked swollen. I hoped it wasn't broken, especially when Nate and I explained to her that Bennett was going to check her out. Immediately, I could tell my baby girl was anxious about seeing a doctor, even outside of the scary doctor's office setting.

"Ben's a nice doctor." Nate was reassuring her like a pro. "He's just gonna check out this ankle of yours, alright? He won't hurt you. He's way nicer than me, even."

That made Ella almost giggle, though the sound of it was still waterlogged and weak. Nate was looking more and more like my hero and Ella's the longer this day went on. There was something straight-up dreamy about his taking care of my baby this way, and I didn't even have time yet to unpack what had almost happened at the park. Had I really been about to kiss this man, my stepbrother, in broad daylight at a children's' playground? Something was majorly wrong with me.

When another adult finally entered the room, I thought I'd fully fallen off the bus to crazy town, because for a second, I swore I recognized him. Bright red hair, a sweet boy-next-door kind of face that made you instantly want to trust him, an average build that was plenty sturdy for the kind of work he did. But no, it couldn"t be. It was just a second before I rejected the thought that I'd seen him before. This was just Bennett, Logan and Nate's other brother. I was just recognizing him as someone I'd heard of, someone who was here to help, surely.

But after the younger man took in the scene before him, his intelligent eyes snapped to mine, the contact practically knocking the wind out of me. Bright green, warm, painfully familiar irises, though I hadn't seen them anywhere but in my daughter's own face for the past five years. And instantly, I remembered it all. That fateful night in college, the chance romantic encounter that was so out of character for me but so desperately needed at the time. Bennett's handsome face formed a careful sort of "Do I know you?" smile, and the truth hit me all at once.

It was the first time I'd seen Ella's father since the night she was conceived, and now he was my new stepbrother.