Safe in His Arms

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“See myself out? Sure.” He hoped he didn’t sound as disappointed as he felt.

She blushed just like she had when he’d complimented her cooking. “Uh … I was going to ask if you wanted to wait here until I finish with Emma’s bath and her bedtime story, but if you need to get home—”

“I could stay,” he rushed to say. Yes, he could, but the question was whether he should. His sweaty hands and dry mouth suggested that answer was a big “no.”

“I’ll finish cleaning up the kitchen while you’re doing that.”

“You don’t have to.”

He waved off her refusal. “It will keep me occupied while I wait.”

“Okay, then.”

She appeared as nervous as she had two days before, when she’d shown up at the Brighton Post to dig around in a recent past that would have been better left undisturbed. He listened for her footfalls on the steps, and then the sound of running water upstairs, before collecting the pans on the stove and filling the sink to wash them.

But all he could think about as he scrubbed the pans and wiped down the counters was what he was still doing in Lindsay Collins’s condo when the child he was concerned about wouldn’t be around for the rest of the night. He was still helping out, right? He was here because he wanted to come to Lindsay’s aid to relieve his guilt over the accident and what he’d failed to tell her about it. Only those things.

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, buddy,” he said under his breath.

“Did you say something?”

Caught, Joe shut off the faucet and turned to face her. The running water, as he rinsed down the sink, must have been what kept him from noticing her approach. His senses were off with her. Until lately, he wouldn’t even have considered it possible that someone would be able to sneak up on him, and she’d done it without even trying.

Lindsay stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, her frustration obvious in the hard set of her jaw.

“It was nothing.” He cocked his head to the side. “Boy, that was a quick bath and story. What was it, a picture book?”

But Lindsay didn’t smile the way he’d hoped she would. If anything, her posture tightened.

“No book at all. Just a bath.”

“Oh, weren’t you planning to read—”

“I was. We read a book together every night. It’s one thing that she used to do with Delia that I’ve tried to continue every night she’s with me. It keeps away her nightmares. Usually.”

“Don’t feel as if you need to change your nighttime schedule just because I’m here.” That was all he needed, for his presence there to make things worse between Lindsay and her niece. “In fact, you really shouldn’t change—”

“I didn’t.”

Joe stared at her. She wasn’t making sense. The same woman who was afraid to let her niece munch on a few chicken nuggets was just going to blow off one of their few daily routines because they had company.

“I don’t understand.”

“She didn’t want me to read a story to her tonight.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “She wants you.”

Lindsay expected gloating when Joe joined her on the tiny deck a half hour later, after story time with Emma. Time that should have been hers. How would she prove to her parents, a judge in the custody proceeding and even herself that she was the right guardian for Emma if she couldn’t even get the child to choose her as the person to read her a bedtime story?

This was what she deserved for inviting Joe to stay just because she needed adult conversation. Okay, who was she kidding? She’d invited him to stay because he was easy on the eyes, and he’d made her laugh all night. No matter how flattering the attention he paid her was, Lindsay needed to remember he was only there for Emma.

Shifting in one of the chairs in her faux wicker deck set so she could straighten her stiff leg, Lindsay watched him and waited.

But Joe didn’t say anything at all as he stood resting his hands on the rail and staring out into the wooded area at the back of her complex.

“Well, did she go to sleep?” she asked finally.

“She was about to when I left,” he answered without looking back at her. “She asked me to leave the closet light on.”

“She likes that. Can I get you some iced tea?”

“Maybe in a while.”

She waited for him to tell her more, but he seemed strangely subdued as he continued to look out into the darkness. “What book did she choose for you to read?”

“Love You Forever.”

“The one by Robert Munsch?” Now she understood why he’d become so quiet. She could barely avoid choking up when she read Emma that story about a lullaby that a mother sang to her son. “She picks that book a lot. Delia used to sing parts of it to her.”

“She told me.”

His eyes were shiny when he turned back to her, but it might have been just from the fancy streetlights that lit the walking path through the woods. She’d been ready to be angry with him because Emma had chosen him over her, but it was hard to hold a grudge against someone so obviously moved by the story.

“Don’t tell me you sang it to her, too, or I’m going to give up right now and crawl into a hole.”

He smiled at that. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t do that. No kid deserves that kind of punishment.”

“You mean you’re not good at everything?”

“Not by a long shot. Do you sing it to her when you read it?”

“Oh, no. I happen to like my niece.”

“Funny.” Appearing more relaxed than he had been since coming outside, he backed away from the rail and settled into the second chair, with a tiny table between them.

She stared out into the same night that Joe had been watching with faraway thoughts a few minutes before. “Delia had an amazing singing voice.”

His only answer was a nod.

“That was just one of the things she was good at.” She couldn’t help smiling at the memory of the sister she adored. “Everybody loved her. She was smart and beautiful and generous. Voted both Homecoming Queen and ‘Most Likely to Succeed.’ She was amazing.”

“Sounds like it.”

“She was a doctor, you know.”

“Your parents mentioned it.”

There was a flash of something unreadable in his eyes, but he didn’t say more.

“She could have gone into any specialty, but she chose family practice because she thought she could help the most people that way.” Lindsay smiled again. “Did you know she was still in her residency when her husband died? Complications from diabetes. She still managed to finish the program and join a group practice, all while still being a great mom to Emma.”

“She sounds amazing.”

“She was.”

“Didn’t you say you also worked in the medical field?”

The surprise on Lindsay’s face over his question bothered Joe. Was she shocked that he remembered that she’d mentioned her work, or that he was more interested in knowing about her than her late sister?

“I’m an ultrasound technician.”

When she didn’t say more, he asked, “You said you worked in a doctor’s office?”

“A women’s practice.” She repositioned herself as though her leg was becoming stiff again. “Most of my ultrasounds are on OB patients.”

“It sounds like fun work.”

“Sometimes.”

Joe waited and kept waiting. Okay, he could imagine times when her work would be difficult—when the test showed abnormalities or worse—but still, he would have expected her to tell him how much she enjoyed introducing parents to their babies for the first time. To at least tell him a little more.

“So … how long have you worked as a state trooper?”

She was watching him when he looked over at her. He answered her questions—ten years on the force, a commendation on his record—but it bothered him that she’d changed the subject.

Why was Lindsay more comfortable talking about Delia’s accomplishments than her own? Had someone led her to believe that her achievements were less valuable than her sister’s, or was it just survivor’s guilt that made Lindsay gush about Delia? He’d already gotten the sense that Lindsay had no idea how beautiful she was, but was there more to it? Did she see herself as second-class?

“Was your sister a runner like you?”

Again, she looked surprised, as if he’d discovered a long-buried secret or something. “I saw all those certificates and medals in the hall.”

“Oh. Right. I used to run 5Ks. But Delia? Oh, no. She said, for her to run three-point-one miles, there’d better be a mall at the finish line.”

She was grinning as she said it, so he grinned back, pleased that he’d found something she’d done better than her sister. It was unkind to think like this about someone who’d passed away, but Joe could only imagine how hard it had been for Lindsay to compete against an overachieving sibling who was even more revered in death.

“Are you a runner, too?” She cleared her throat. “I mean, are you a runner?”

He didn’t miss that she’d just excluded herself from the group. “Me? A runner? No way. I’d rather have all of my fingernails pulled off with pliers.”

“Pliers?”

“Maybe nothing that violent, but you get the picture.”

“But you do something. It’s obvious you work out.”

“Is it?”

Her only answer was a crimson flush that spread even to her ears. It was hardly a new thing for Joe to have women noticing him. He didn’t miss the furtive looks, but he rarely thought twice about them. So why was he impressed that Lindsay had all but admitted she’d been looking? She had to be the first woman who seemed so humiliated that he knew she’d been looking, though, so he let her off the hook.

“I just do weight training mostly. And the stair climber for cardio.”

“It’s healthy to do something.”

“From all those awards, I’m guessing you’re a pretty good runner. Your parents have to be so proud.” The last he added on impulse, based on an instinct he used to be able to trust before and hoped he still could.

“That’s in the past. It was just a hobby, anyway.”

When he glanced at her, she was staring at the deck boards beneath her bare feet rather than at him. She’d said running was in her past. Probably six months and one pelvis fracture ago. Another thing she’d lost with the accident. She’d called running a hobby when her wall of certificates suggested a passion. She hadn’t even answered his question about her parents, and he could guess why. He suspected that all had not been well with the Collins family long before the accident.

“Well, it’s getting late,” she said.