скачать книгу бесплатно
“MAMA, WILL YOU be looking for a daddy for me when you’re away at law school?”
Brianna’s sweet high-pitched voice came from the backseat of Delainey’s small car. She had made a quick stop at her parents’ home and hustled Brianna into the car in case her mother had heard about Hunter.
Helen Talbot would have to chat about wasn’t it wonderful that such a nice and handsome man like Hunter Morrison was back in town, and maybe they could invite him to dinner and maybe they could invite him to marry this single mom and rescue her from the disappointment of a life she had arranged for herself. Her mother would never say most of those things, but she would think them from time to time. Delainey couldn’t get upset, as her mother only wanted what was best for Brianna and her.
“Law school is going to be very hard, sweetie, and I don’t expect to have much time to look for a husband,” she answered in her mother voice.
Brianna was silent, and Delainey was sure the subject wasn’t finished.
“How hard can it be?”
Delainey smiled at this one. “What brings this up all of the sudden?”
“Duh.”
Delainey stayed silent. Duh had been banned from their conversations as too derogatory and too often used.
“Sorry, Mommy. Sorry I said duh. I know you’re very smart. But I’ve been looking for a daddy for years.”
“Years?”
“Well, I think I’ve been wondering all my life if I could get one.”
“That’s fair....” And normal, and it broke Delainey’s heart that there had been no prospects.
“What about Lenny? He was at our school talking to us about being a police officer. He’s not married.”
“That’s Officer Gardner to you. He’s engaged to be married. In fact, we’re invited to his wedding reception in a few weeks.”
Delainey pulled into the driveway of her small two-bedroom home on the upper part of White Pine Court. The house was surrounded on three sides by the beautiful long-needled tree designated as Maine’s state tree.
“Do I get to wear a new dress?” her daughter asked as Delainey pulled into the one-car garage and turned to look at her daughter.
She had to laugh at the expression on her daughter’s face. “If you use those big brown eyes of yours on Grandma, I think you’ll get a new dress. You two pick out a pattern and we’ll go shopping for the cloth.”
“Yeah. Maybe she’ll make a new one for you, too, and you can find a daddy for me at Lenny—at Officer Gardner’s wedding ’ception.”
As Delainey opened the rear door, Brianna clicked the safety belt and leaped from her booster seat.
“How would you do it, if you were looking for a husband for me?” Delainey asked.
Brianna raced to the door ahead of her mother, as was their normal pattern.
“Well, I suppose I could make a pro-and-con list like we did in school last week when we were deciding where to send the money we raised for charity.”
Delainey squeezed her daughter’s hand as she let the two of them into the mudroom, wondering what Brianna truly wanted to know.
“But, Mommy.” Brianna stopped and tugged until Delainey paused and faced her. “If looking for a daddy means you have to go away, I don’t think I want a daddy at all. Are you sure you have to go away to school?”
“I’m not going to be very far away, only a couple hours. I’ll see you every weekend.”
Brianna looked up at her with pleading eyes. “Can I come and stay with you in your apartment?”
“I won’t be there much and when I am, I’ll be studying or sleeping. Maybe both.”
“You can’t study and sleep at the same time,” Brianna said in a very sober tone as she put her backpack on the desk in the corner of the kitchen and then washed her hands at the sink.
“Apple and chicken breast or green salad and a hamburger?”
“Apple. I want to eat while I do my daddy list.” She hummed as she dug a pad of paper out of her pack. “I need to decide if I need a daddy at all.”
How much of Brianna’s life was she going to miss while she was at school? It had never seemed to be the right time to leave her daughter. When Brianna was a baby, leaving her for weekdays, even with loving grandparents, had been out of the question—even if her mother’s arthritis had been up to it.
She washed an apple and cut it into chunks.
“Mama?”
She looked down to see Brianna, who had appeared suddenly at her side, staring up at her.
Delainey smiled. “Here’s your apple. Do you want peanut butter?”
Her daughter’s eyes widened into the look Delainey knew meant she was troubled. “Mama, is there something wrong with us?”
CHAPTER THREE
“WRONG WITH US?” Delainey’s chest squeezed. Here it was. The real question her daughter wanted to ask. She put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and hunkered down so they were eye to eye.
“Yeah, because I don’t have a daddy and you don’t have a husband.”
Brianna’s large and dark eyes held a kind of desolation that twisted Delainey’s heart. She sat down on the floor and pulled Brianna into her lap. With her arms around her child, she sighed and knew she was going to have to find a way to explain something Brianna often asked about.
“Did someone say something to you?”
“Janis said my daddy left town because he didn’t want to be part of our family. She’s wrong, isn’t she?”
“Your daddy left before you were born, before he even knew about you.”
“But he could have come back. Did he stay away because he didn’t want to be my daddy?”
“My wonderful, beautiful girl, if he didn’t want to be a daddy, it would not be because of you.”
“If he came back and met me, would he love me?”
“If he didn’t love you, it wouldn’t be because you weren’t good enough or cute or funny enough. It certainly wouldn’t be because you weren’t smart enough.” She tugged a lock of her daughter’s abundant dark brown curls.
“What would it be?”
“It would be because of what he believes about himself.”
“Like maybe he believes he wouldn’t be a good daddy,” Brianna said, her words coming out slowly, thoughtfully.
“Like that. I like to think he’s out there in the world learning enough about himself to love himself. And if we ever find him, he’ll love you, too.”
“Do you love yourself, Mama?”
“I do, my little bean.”
Brianna giggled. “I’m not a bean.”
“You’re my fantastic daughter and I’m your fantastic mother. That makes us the Fantastic Family. When Janis says things like that, it’s because she’s feeling bad or scared about something.”
“Really?”
“Really. Next time, tell her to have a good day and walk away. Or you can ask her if she’s all right. You might be surprised by what she says.”
Brianna turned and snuggled close. “I’d like to have a daddy because sometimes I just get scared.”
Delainey leaned her chin on the top of her daughter’s head. Me too, my sweet little girl. Me too.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, Hunter let himself into the office before anyone else got there. He wanted to get started on Shamus’s files.
The day had started with a glorious sunrise. He had run through the village from Shamus and Connie’s house, where he was staying for a few days, and down along the docks and south to the rocky shoreline of Little Cove Park.
When the town was quiet and the streets sat deserted except for one curious brown dog nosing around and one runner from Chicago, Bailey’s Cove seemed to have barely changed since he left, except several stores stood vacant. Quirky, old and new meshed together to form one of those old-fashioned communities where people might stop for a short visit and move on. Too bad. With its position on the coast, the town could draw many tourists if it had more to offer.
He hung his trench coat in the closet.
Sleep hadn’t been easy last night. He kept thinking of Delainey and wondering if he had made another colossal mistake coming here. He had needed to leave Chicago, but come to Bailey’s Cove?
For the past three months he had been unengaged in law. He’d grown tired of jogging Chicago’s lakefront. The gym personnel called him by name when he went in to work out. He’d rebuffed so many invitations to be entertained it had become embarrassing from many angles.
When Shamus had called, it had seemed like some sort of divine intervention, but now he felt trapped by the machinations of life that ambled relentlessly on, chewing people up and spitting them out.
Shamus, for instance. Hunter was sure there was something about Shamus’s calling him now that had nothing to do with the desire to suddenly retire. That Shamus had called a Morrison wasn’t the puzzle. Morrison and Morrison had been founded by Harold and Hadley Morrison, his ancestral grandfather and uncle. That no one had ever changed the name spoke to the casual attitude he had already noticed at the law firm. Shamus had guaranteed this would be different than city corporate law, and Hunter knew before coming here Shamus wasn’t wrong.
For better or worse, he was here until Shamus didn’t need him anymore, because there was one thing he’d refused to give up in the big city and that was what his father had called the Morrison integrity. He had told Shamus he’d help out, and that he would do.
In the file room between Shamus’s office and Harriet’s, he helped himself to a few of Shamus’s files labeled Active.
The first case he opened had a big N/C for no charge scrawled across the top. He almost chuckled at the thought of seeing N/C written on one of the files in the records room at his old firm.
On the rest of the page Delainey’s neat penmanship filled in the blank lines.
Yesterday he had learned that Delainey Talbot was single or single again—the details were fuzzy. The “someone else” who had made her so cold after he left must be out of her life. That was too bad.
It was all too bad.
Too bad his goal had always been to leave Bailey’s Cove. Too bad and entirely his fault, he had thought it best to let Delainey go look for someone else.
Maybe he could have talked her into moving to Chicago, but would she have thrived there or just survived?
At Morrison and Morrison he had the right to read her personnel file, but he decided not to go there. All he had to do was to listen to the chatter and he was sure he could learn all he cared to know about any of the staff, including Delainey. Shamus trusted every one of them within their limitations and that worked for him.
The second client file he pulled out concerned one neighbor trimming the tree of another so it wouldn’t overhang the neighbor’s garage. The suing neighbor had already planned on moving out but was suing for pain and suffering because of the trim job on the tree. This one had one hour billed to it and a note in Delainey’s hand to “Call Mrs. Harrison’s daughter and see what’s really going on.”
Last night over after-dinner drinks, Shamus had talked about some of the workers. Patty, the receptionist, distracted the staff if left to her own devices. Carol couldn’t spell and even spell-checker could not save her. Shirley was just too cute to scold, Shamus had said of his granddaughter. Eddie would do everything to perfection—to a fault. The others each had some workable flaw except Delainey. Apparently the only thing she couldn’t do was walk on water. Shamus had said he might want to ask her about that someday.
A door slammed somewhere downstairs. The staff was beginning to arrive.
He could have guessed Patty’s flaw without Shamus telling him, as she had been happy to relate her life history, which, while fascinating to someone... Carol and Shirley had been more reserved, although he did now know Carol was thirty-eight, single and loved her collection of eyewear. Shirley was checking things out to see if she should follow in Shamus’s footsteps, but no way was she staying in this tiny town, she had said, and blushed. Eddie, who had graduated nearly a year ago from high school and had been a paid intern since, seemed happy just to be a part of it all and was clearly in love with an older woman, Shirley, who must have been all of twenty.
Eddie might be trying to decide on a career. With his goggle-eyed innocence, Hunter hoped it wasn’t law, at least not law in the big city. It just might break a boy like that.
He opened another folder. It felt strange, even after being out of the office for two months, not to have client meetings, teleconferences or even a court date scheduled. Several folders later and there hadn’t been a single file without Delainey’s neat handwriting in it somewhere.
Yesterday the rest of the staff had said hello and welcome and had enjoyed the champagne and cake. Except Delainey—she hadn’t had cake. She had slammed one glass of champagne and split as soon as she could get away from Shamus.
Her hair looked as if it was still that soft, silky golden. Her figure had filled out, and long after she had left the room, he’d found himself wanting to touch her, stroke her hair, feel her body against his.
During the sleepless hours last night, he had refused to let his mind linger there. She had moved on.
But in the light of day, he couldn’t figure out what she was still doing in Bailey’s Cove working as a paralegal. She either hadn’t gone to law school or she’d given it up for some reason. That she wouldn’t have passed the bar was not an option, for she was the only person in their high school whose grades were better than his.
Once he had looked through the stack of files he had pulled, the chatter level downstairs had risen to boisterous. He doubted they knew he was here, as Shamus’s wife had insisted she make breakfast for him, and Shamus had driven him to the office. His rental car would arrive in two days. A reminder how remote Bailey’s Cove was from the rest of the world.
His office door stood open, so if anyone came upstairs, they would see him, but diplomacy dictated it was time to go downstairs to let them know he was here. He didn’t want to be charged with big-city guerrilla tactics or give anyone a heart attack by coming down later in the morning and have them get all paranoid about what he might have heard or seen that they didn’t know about. And he smelled coffee.
In a few moments, he was down the stairs and approaching the door to the coffee room. Break room, they called the fully equipped kitchen with three large round tables and a dozen and a half chairs. The closer he got, the more understandable the words were through the door.
Something indistinct and then clearly, “...Delainey.”
“She’ll be in after she talks to her daughter’s teacher,” Patty was saying to someone.
Hunter stopped cold. Daughter? Delainey had a child? Maybe she was married after all. Though her name was still Talbot, that didn’t really mean anything anymore.
“I guess she wants to bring dinosaur cookies for her birthday next week and the teacher is enforcing the sugar moratorium they agreed on for the class New Year’s resolution.”
“Well, that’s hardly fair to do to a bunch of six-year-olds.”
Hunter hadn’t gotten into a prestigious law school by being a dullard, and the math of that simple statement smacked him in the face.
Delainey had a child who would be six years old next week. Unless she was having sex with someone else at the same time she was having sex with him...his child.
How could she not tell him?
He spun around to head back toward Shamus’s office.
