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“Come on, Mom,” he said, using the same tone the girl had used. “Just one more game. You won’t get the chance after this place closes.”
The way “no” was written in her stiff posture made him glad he hadn’t offered to spring for the game. She probably thought he was an ax murderer who bowled while his ax was being sharpened. He’d already turned to retrieve his badge from the bi-fold wallet in his jacket pocket when she finally spoke.
“That’s probably not a good idea—”
“I’m not a criminal, really.” Maybe not a criminal, but desperate—he sure sounded that. To cover the awkward silence, he extended his hand and said, “I’m Brett Lancaster.”
He would have continued by saying “Michigan State Police,” the way he usually did, but this lady blanched at his name alone. Now that was a reaction he’d never received from a woman.
Unable to resist a call to protect, he reached beneath her elbow to steady her. Her skin was so smooth where she’d pushed up her shirt sleeve, he could have sworn he’d grasped fine silk. He almost worried he’d snag it with his own calloused palm.
“Is there something I can get for you, ma’am? Water?”
She shook her head, but she still appeared dazed. The children weren’t any help, crowding their mother and making worried sounds instead of giving her room to breathe.
Finally, when he couldn’t decide whether to shake her alert or call for a paramedic, she offered a strange, apologetic smile and extended her free hand. “Hi, I’m Tricia Williams. And these are my children Lani, Rusty, Jr. and Max. Kids, this is Mr. Lancaster.”
Tricia Williams? His frustration from earlier began to fester again but the feeling subsided. This was too funny to make him mad. Who ever heard of getting stood up and then ending up meeting face-to-face out on the town, anyway?
Coincidence? Not really. The village of Milford, Michigan, was too small for any chance meeting to be called a coincidence. There just weren’t that many places to go. And since he hadn’t called in to pick up his messages—and her cancellation—until he was already on Milford Road just outside the village limits, he’d figured the bowling alley was as good a place as any to blow off some steam. He deserved at least that after being idiot enough to let his sister badger him into a blind date in the first place. Had he learned nothing from his last relationship fiasco? Like never to get involved again?
“Tricia. So we finally meet.” Brett chuckled as he reached to shake her hand, but his laughter died as soon as they touched. Her hand felt so small, while his was huge and clumsy. As their gazes connected, he glimpsed sadness beneath her smile, but Tricia glanced at the ground and pulled her hand away. When she looked up at him again, whatever he’d seen before had disappeared.
“Yes, finally. Charity has been trying to arrange this thing forever.”
“Oh, yeah, Charity, my sister Jenny’s friend from the hospital. So that’s how this whole thing got set up.”
Now that he knew her identity, he also remembered the vague details his matchmaker sister had provided: attractive, Christian, age twenty-six, widowed mother of three. That last detail had nearly made him call the whole thing off, but his sister’s persuasive skills were legendary. Before, he’d suspected that this woman had been deserted, but now that he knew who she was, he also understood Tricia had been forsaken in a more painful and permanent way.
“Mommy, look at this,” Lani called out.
They turned to see the children taking turns leaning over the ball return, the fan blowing their hair.
“Okay, guys, we’ll finish this game and play another quick one. Then it’s home to baths and bed.”
Squeals of delight caused others at nearby lanes to shoot curious glances their way.
But Max drew his eyebrows together. “No bath.”
His mother whisked him up in her arms and started spinning. “Yes, bath. With lots and lots of soap.”
The child made a face only a mother could love and scrambled out of her arms. Rusty, Jr. was already winding up for his frame, while his sister sat at the desk, attempting to keep score. Happiness lit Tricia’s eyes as she turned back to Brett.
“So this is what you cancelled on me for?” he couldn’t help asking. Tricia’s shoulders shifted. “Your exact words on my machine were ‘I’m sorry, but something important came up.’”
She nodded. “And something important did. Actually, three important things.”
“I can see that.” He could. So why did he feel strangely jealous over the children she had chosen to spend time with rather than him? He should have been used to having women toss him away by now.
“I tried to reach you before you left home. Charity told me you rent a house in Brighton.”
“I do, but I had some errands to run and came into town early.”
She didn’t ask him to elaborate, which was just as well because he would like to forget about his visit to his parents’ house in Bloomfield Hills and the disappointment he still sensed every time his dad looked at him. When would his family finally accept that he was doing something for himself this time and they weren’t going to change his mind? On the next lane over, he watched several pins fall, except for a lonely six pin. He, too, was standing alone these days. It wasn’t the life he’d expected, but at least he’d regained his pride by following his heart.
Surprised he’d been daydreaming again, Brett glanced back at Tricia and caught her studying him. Though she looked away, a sensation of warmth settled in his chest.
“Well, I’m up pretty soon, so…”
He should have appreciated her attempt to make it easy for him to bow out, but he found he wasn’t ready to leave. Instead of answering her, he crossed the hardwood surface to where her little girl was preparing to bowl.
“You know, Lani, I bet you’d hit more pins if you tried this.” He pointed to the arrows on the floor. “Try aiming your ball at the very center arrow.”
Soon, he had all three children vying for his bowling tips and the grown-up attention from “Mr. Brett” that went with them. No way would he admit it to his fellow troopers at the Brighton Post, but this had to count as his best Saturday night in months. No, he wouldn’t allow his thoughts to go there and spoil the happy moment.
In the middle of an arms-looped celebration dance with Rusty, Jr. over the boy’s first strike, Brett caught sight of Tricia watching him again, her expression stark without the contented mask she’d worn all night.
How he could have missed her lovely eyes before, he couldn’t imagine. Framed by spiky lashes, they were dark, shiny brown and huge, strangely both too large for her face and perfect in their porcelain backdrop. Their hollow quality, though, captured him, reeling him in, making him ache in the vicinity of his heart. She looked like a waif, and he felt this need to protect her. For an unguarded second, her expression hinted she just might let him.
Brett wasn’t sure what had passed between him and the mother of the Williams children—only that whatever it was, Rusty, Jr. had seen it, too. With an abrupt jerk, the boy ripped away his hand and marched to the bench, where he dumped off his bowling shoes.
“Mom, it’s time to go. We have to get up for church.” Already, the boy had his sneakers on and was holding up Max’s for him.
It didn’t take a psychology degree for Brett to recognize the boy’s jealousy over his mother. He couldn’t blame him for feeling threatened. What had he been thinking, looking at Tricia with the hope that he could heal her heart, that maybe she could even heal his?
“He’s right. We’d better get home.” Tricia’s gaze was apologetic, if guarded. Had she felt it, too?
Max stomped his foot. “I don’t want to go.”
“But we’re having fun,” Lani whined. “Do we have to?”
“It’s getting late. I’ll have to drag you guys out of bed in the morning.”
Tricia bent to change her shoes, but Max wouldn’t budge. He sat down cross-legged on the floor and folded his arms.
“Max, do I need to count to three?” Tricia asked in a low warning, but the boy didn’t even look up. “One…two—”
Before she could reach three, Brett scooped him up and tickled his belly. “Hey, bud, you’d better listen to your mom. You don’t want her to say we can’t play together anymore, do you?” Upside down, Max shook his head.
Tricia’s surprised expression showed she’d gotten the message about another play date. As he carried the child to her, she met him halfway, probably to remain out of her older son’s earshot.
“I want to see you again,” Brett whispered.
She accepted Max into her arms. “I don’t think—”
“I never got a real date. It wasn’t very nice to cancel that way. Not quite a lie, but almost.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but—”
“Good, then I’ll accept your apology Friday when we go out.” As he waited for her to look at him, he sensed victory. “Think you can get a sitter?”
When she hesitated, he pressed his advantage. “Because if you can’t, I can probably call your friend, Charity. But then I’d have to explain how you cancelled out on the first date and—”
“I can get one.”
With that she stalked away and helped Max tie his shoes. Rusty, Jr. refused to look in Brett’s direction, but Lani kept peeking back. Both she and Max waved at him as their mother hurried them out the door.
The bowling alley felt empty as soon as the troop left. If he had any sense at all, Brett would simply forget to call about Friday and chalk the whole situation up to bad judgment in his letting Jenny set him up. He was in way over his head by considering even one real date with a widow, let alone a widow with children. If Tricia Williams’s baggage was weighed at an airport, it would be stamped “heavy” and slapped with a surcharge. But here he was tempted to offer to carry it for her, anyway.
He should have been counting his blessings that her son had tried to stop all this craziness before any real damage was done. But he could only feel relieved and grateful he’d get the chance to see Tricia again.
Chapter Two
A digital bedside clock and a distant street lamp offered the only illumination as Tricia collapsed, fully clothed, onto her bed an hour later, the bed-and-bath routine behind her. From the way her body ached, she would have guessed it was past midnight, but the red clock numbers confirmed it was only nine-thirty. As shadow and light slow-danced along the wall in the shape of maple tree branches, she wondered how long it had been since she’d slept. Truly slept. Days had become months and then metamorphosed into years when she wasn’t watching.
She couldn’t shake the image of Rusty, Jr., who had radiated tension as she’d helped him out of the shower and into his pajamas. His misplaced fury was transferred to everything around him, from the comb that wouldn’t go through his hair to the stuffed dog that landed on the floor next to his bed. He had every right to his anger, for all he’d lost. She understood it, felt it down to her soul.
Nervous tension had her scooting across the bed to flip on the lamp, letting the warm yellow light bathe what had become her favorite room. Here she could be alone with her memories of Rusty, warm thoughts of his arms around her and private thoughts of the sweet intimacies of their marriage.
Reaching for her wedding band on the table and slipping it on, she surveyed the room. In the far corner, she could still see Max’s cradle where it once had rested. A smile settled on her lips as she envisioned her family’s first day in the house, her belly still swollen with the promise of their youngest child. Rusty and she had tumbled together on the bed that night, too exhausted from moving furniture to even love each other in the bungalow they’d struggled to finally afford.
She’d felt so safe then—and always—in his arms. The way she never did now. The way she never would again.
Memories of her husband flashed in her thoughts, in brilliant color this time when they’d become more like a sepia photograph lately, in danger of crumbling. But why were the memories coming tonight, when she needed rest to prepare her for the ordeal of going to church?
The Sunday tradition of attending services as a family was once the highlight of her week, even if they were continually late, and someone was always whispering or making paper airplanes with the bulletins. They were together then, worshiping God. The way it should be. Now every time she sat listening to one of Reverend Bob Woods’s sermons, something seemed missing. Not her belief. She’d never lost that. Without her faith, she never would have survived the last two years. But hope—there just wasn’t enough of that in her heart anymore.
Though she’d regret it in the morning, she let her thoughts travel, through picnics, birthday parties and quiet moments. To Rusty’s contagious smile.
But then another smile stole into her thoughts, so surprising that she flipped over and sat up in bed. Brett Lancaster? The man was a stranger. A stranger who had no business being in her thoughts—or in this room where Rusty’s memory still thrived.
Agitation had her wrapping her arms around her knees. She didn’t want to remember the disaster their would-be date had been. But maybe God had chosen now to convict her heart over her deception in breaking the date.
Why hadn’t she just gone out with Brett and gotten the whole annoying business over with? As adroit as she’d become at avoiding second dates, she already would have said goodbye to Mr. Lancaster and would be free until her next friend insisted on setting her up. Instead, guilt had forced her to reschedule.
Shaking her head, Tricia couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Brett’s mini bowling clinic. At the way his eyes crinkled in the corners when he laughed with Lani. But it was the memory of those same chocolate eyes focusing on her and widening with some indefinable emotion that made her as uncomfortable as it had at the bowling alley.
Suddenly, this rescheduled date felt like a huge mistake. What if Brett had the wrong idea about her, that she actually was open to a relationship? That couldn’t have been further from the truth. He needed to understand that her heart was still committed to her husband.
Who are you trying to convince? She shook away the question and her uncomfortable guilt as she rushed over to the his-and-hers closets and opened one of the doors. On the side that was still his, the closet rod was empty except for a royal-blue jacket bearing the words “R and J Construction” and a sport coat. A lonely Detroit Lions football cap rested on the shelf.
Tricia grabbed the sport coat, Rusty’s only dress jacket aside from the gray suit she’d buried him in, and pressed her face to the collar, inhaling his scent. Her nose burned. The room blurred. Drawing in the smell so deeply that her lungs ached, she held her breath until the survival instinct insisted she gasp. If only she could hold him there, deep inside of her. Her breath hitched as she realized his scent had already begun to fade. How long would it be until she couldn’t smell him anymore, and she had nothing left of him?
So exhausted. For the first time in months, the effort of coping crushed her with its weight. The brave smile and strong words—parts of a facade that said she and the children were fine—crumbled around her. She wasn’t fine. Rusty, Jr. certainly wasn’t fine. His surliness grew more apparent every day, and he was beginning to act out. Lani seemed to curl deeper into herself each week and into her Little House books, where Ma and Pa always came home to Mary, Laura and Carrie. Only Max seemed oblivious, for he would never remember what he’d lost.
As the first tears in weeks came hot and furious, Tricia laid the sport coat aside, clasping the blue jacket and wrapping it around herself. She dropped back on the bed and drew her knees up to her chest, pulling the jacket tight beneath her chin. Again, she breathed Rusty’s scent and fell into a troubled sleep, claiming the only warmth the love of her life could still bring her.
The organist at Hickory Ridge Community Church was still playing the postlude Sunday morning when Charity McKinley hurried up the side aisle, trying to catch Tricia before she could get out the door. Even sitting right near the back hadn’t helped Tricia escape this time. She wondered if anyone would notice if she made a fast break for her station wagon.
“So tell me,” Charity said as soon as she’d given her friend a quick hug.
Tricia glanced down quickly at the children, worried that Rusty, Jr. might repeat some of the last evening’s antics if they mentioned Brett Lancaster.
“Mom, can we go talk to Reverend Bob and Mr. Westin?” Lani indicated with her head toward the minister and youth minister shaking hands with members in the vestibule.
Tricia didn’t have any illusions her daughter wanted to have a heart-to-heart with grown-ups, but she nodded anyway. As expected, her children ran out to join Reverend Bob’s granddaughter and Andrew Westin’s children, who were giggling and banging hangers in the coatrack together. Discordant clanging and chatting voices filled the void as the organist stopped playing.
“How’d it go?” Charity pressed again. “What did you think of Brett? We’re expecting a full report.”
Charity’s husband, Rick, stepped up and caught the tail end of her comment. “No, we’re not. Only one of us is being too nosy for her own good.” He dropped a kiss on Tricia’s cheek. “I hope you had a good time, but don’t let her bully you into telling us about it.”
“Well, I never,” Charity said with an impatient toe tap and a petulant expression that crumbled into a chuckle.
Her husband shook his head and rolled his eyes but gathered his spirited wife into his arms and kissed the top of her golden head. Tricia was still amazed by the transformation Charity had undergone when, first, she’d met Rick and, more importantly, she’d met the Lord close up. Even now the couple were still acting like newlyweds after more than two years. Charity gazed up lovingly at her husband before turning back to Tricia.
“Don’t listen to him. He hates it when I set people up. He thinks I’m bad at it.”
“Especially when you set up a friend with some guy somebody tried to set you up with a few years back.”
“Jealous?” Charity gave him a sidelong glance. “Ignore him. I never went out with Brett. It’s just that Jenny is dying for her brother to meet someone nice.”
At the look of constrained curiosity, Tricia took pity on her matchmaker. “Sorry, there’s not much to say. I met him, but we didn’t go out yet. We had to reschedule.”
Brett probably wouldn’t have told the same story, but Tricia had given the gist of it. And no matter how uncomfortable it would be to go out after their embarrassing meeting, she’d resigned herself to going through with it. She owed him that much.
“Oh, that’s too bad. When are you going? Have you decided what the two of you are going to do? Do you need us to watch the kids?”
Peppered by Charity’s questions, Tricia felt a direct hit from the last one, which probably would have required her to tell the rest of the story about the date that didn’t happen. “No,” she answered too quickly. “I mean…I already asked Hannah.”
Charity’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to say something else, but Rick put his arm around her again. “Remember, sweetheart, matchmaking doesn’t give you rights to all the details.” He pressed his wife against his shoulder and turned to Tricia, his expression serious. “You’re probably not into this stuff, anyway.”
Once again, Rick had come to her rescue, the same way he’d been doing since Rusty died—both emotionally and financially. As much as she hated continuing to rely on him when she should have stood firmly on her own two size seven-and-a-half narrows, she appreciated the support. Losing Rusty had devastated them both. And Rick was probably no more prepared to watch her date other men than she was to begin a social life. His loyalty to his best friend’s memory was still too strong.
“It’s okay,” she said when Rick seemed to expect Tricia to agree with his assumption about her reluctance to begin dating. “We haven’t made firm plans yet.”
Charity nodded. Tricia waved as the couple moved past her toward the exit. Finally, she let go of the breath she’d been holding. Didn’t anyone understand that she was happy? Maybe not ecstatic, but she was content. How many people could say that? She had a nice home, a good church family, three beautiful children and a good start on a self-supportive future. It was enough for her. She just wished it was enough for all of her friends.
Brett took a deep, calming breath as he shuffled up the walk to the tiny white house, more nervous than he’d ever been for a date. A dozen times in the last six days, he’d considered canceling, worried that he was way out of his league dating a widowed mom. He’d even phoned Tuesday to call it off, but at the first sound of her voice, and the corresponding shiver in his spine, he’d heard himself firming up plans for their Friday date instead. Later, he’d scrambled to make sure his dad hadn’t offered the tickets to someone else.
As he reached the front door, it flew open and a barefoot Max zipped out onto the porch. Then the boy stopped himself and extended his hand, as if he’d been carefully coached. “Hi, Mr. Brett.”
“How ya doing, Max?” Brett gripped his hand. “Isn’t the cement cold?”
“It’s April now. That’s almost summer. When it’s sunny, we’ll go swimming.”
He returned the boy’s grin but doubted his logic. Around chilly southeast Michigan, he didn’t see any point in putting on a swimsuit until at least mid-June. Even now, his lined jacket felt no warmer than a wind-breaker. He hauled the boy into his arms and opened the storm door.
A trim blonde with a long ponytail hurried across the living room and jerked to a stop in front of Brett. “Maxwell Thomas Williams, I told you not to go out that door in bare feet. What will your mother say?”
