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“Why not? You are.”
Ouch. The words echoed in the silence.
“I’m sorry,” Ann murmured. “That was an awful thing to say. But I should never have gone out with him, and the sooner Jeff Barlow realizes I’m not interested, the better. With Ernie here at the center, I can hardly avoid him.”
Molly’s eyes still stung from Ann’s earlier words. “You sure try.”
“Yes, and my new best friend is caller ID.”
The throwaway tone didn’t sit well with Molly. She bustled around the room, gathering stray blocks, stacking them and trying to wrestle the remnants of her own fresh pain into some sort of order.
She didn’t have a choice about being alone, but in Molly’s view, Ann was throwing away her potential for happiness with both hands—if not with the sheriff, then with someone else.
Molly shut the cupboard doors for the night and turned to find Ann with tears in her eyes. And Molly’s shoulders sagged. “Is it because of Ernie?” she asked, echoing Jeff’s earlier concern. “He’s a great little kid.”
Ann sniffed. “I know.”
“And I know you like children. You’re wonderful with the babies here. You like them so much you just had to carry Melissa Jones’s diaper bag to the car so you could spend one more minute today with her little Ashley.”
As if caught committing some terrible crime, Ann flushed.
“Well, you are good,” Molly said. “Would I have hired you if not?”
Ann rolled her eyes. “You hired me because you were shorthanded, and I had my degree in education and no other job.”
Which was only part of the reason. Yes, Molly had needed to fill that staff position, but was she simply enabling her sister to avoid dealing with the long-ago tragedy that had changed her life?
For years Ann had not only kept to herself, but she refused to go more than a mile or two from home. Her apartment was just blocks away from Little Darlings, and every day she walked to work. Ann owned a car, which she maintained, and for which she renewed her registration and driver’s license. But she never got behind the wheel. She hadn’t driven once since the accident.
Just as Molly rarely drove past the house she and Andrew had shared in Cincinnati’s Hyde Park neighborhood—and always told herself it was out of her way now. She’d been living with Pop since shortly after Andrew died.
Molly softened her tone. “I also hired you because I love you,” she said. “And to keep you close,” she added with a teasing grin, “so you can take over when Pop gets to be too much for me. In the meantime...I honestly thought you and Jeff were going somewhere. Why not give him—”
“A chance?”
“If it doesn’t work out, you can move on.”
“Like you?” Ann asked.
Another barb for Molly.
“That’s enough,” Molly said, barely holding her temper in check.
“Or maybe I’m wrong.” Ann hesitated, frowning. “Maybe I’m not the only one here with man trouble. I’ve talked to Dad. What is Brigham Collier doing in the house?”
“Waiting for his parents,” Molly said.
The image crossed her mind again before she could stop it. Brig, his dark hair tousled, his blue eyes unable to hide his exhaustion. Brig all but asleep on his feet, holding Laila in his arms.
“Really? Waiting? That’s all?” Ann said. “You’re sure?”
Molly looked away. She could feel her cheeks coloring. “I’m sure.”
Ann was no fan of Brig’s, she knew. From the moment he’d canceled his wedding to Molly and Ann had returned her bridesmaid’s dress to the store, she’d kept him at the top of her personal blacklist. Molly reminded herself that she and Ann were sisters. How could she blame Ann for caring about her?
“You don’t have to worry,” she said, hating that she was justifying herself. “You won’t have to pick up the pieces again. And may I point out that Jeff Barlow is a very different guy?”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Ann said, turning toward the door.
“Just something for you to think about,” Molly murmured, but Ann was gone, leaving her alone with her unhappy awareness of her sister’s increasingly isolated existence. Like Pop. Then she thought of herself.
Hadn’t she learned her lesson years ago? Brig wouldn’t stay long in Liberty Courthouse now, either. Well, she had no intention of letting him into her life again. Even if he did have the most adorable baby on earth.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_df54f278-deb3-5747-a023-89fd9925a0f5)
Hey, Collier. Trip go okay? How’s the little lady? The guys already miss her. Bet your mom and dad like her, too, huh? Off to find some bad guys. H.
BRIG READ THE email again from his teammate, but his smile didn’t last. His thoughts were elsewhere. He had meant what he told Thomas. He had no intention of hurting Molly.
At her kitchen table he punched another number into his cell phone. And frowned. After his earlier run-in with Thomas, he’d double-checked next door again, but Thomas had been right. Still no one was home. His parents’ mobile number kept telling him they were unavailable and sending his calls to voice mail. Their landline didn’t help, either. Right next door, behind a lock he couldn’t access, their answering machine announced their voice mail was full.
Many of those messages were probably from him. He hung up one last time. Molly was home and in the kitchen before he could get out of her way.
“It’s freezing out again.” She bustled around the kitchen, taking off her coat, shaking out her wind-whipped hair. “Where’s Laila?”
“Still napping. I hope. I’ll see in a minute.” He closed his phone, determined to clear the air. “Molly, I didn’t mean to crash on you like that yesterday. Thanks,” he said, “for giving us a room last night. And feeding Laila for me. You’ve been more than generous, considering...” Then he couldn’t find the words he really needed to say.
“What?”
“Well, you know. For one thing...” He looked past her toward the dining room, the front door. “My running off like that years ago—as if I couldn’t get away fast enough.”
“You did appear to be in a hurry.” She attempted a smile, but it didn’t come. “Of course, watching a hometown girl walk down the aisle in a long white dress can’t be as exciting as trying to save the world.”
Brig felt as if she’d punched him in the stomach. Her tone was blithe—deliberately so?—but she made him sound petty. He deserved that, too.
Molly pushed up her sleeves and started to fix dinner. His gaze tracked her movements as she took hamburger from the fridge, a package of buns from the bread box. She flipped on a burner, formed patties from the meat, slapped them into a skillet. Who knew a woman’s efficiency in the kitchen could be a turn-on?
“Well,” she said, just as he had, “now we’ve gotten that off our chests...”
“Have we? Molly. I didn’t want to leave you then. I just wanted—”
“To leave,” she finished for him. “No, let’s not go there. That’s all water under the bridge,” she said, “and we’re not kids, Brig. Eight years is way too long for me to hold a grudge. But last night, I admit, I was a little—a lot—shocked to see you.”
“And Laila, certainly.”
“And Laila,” she agreed. “I doubt Pop’s very keen on having you here, but—”
“No, he’s not. He already warned me not to make another mistake.”
She quirked an eyebrow, then opened the pantry door. Brig studied her slim figure and the way she fit her jeans, but with Thomas’s words in mind, he knew he had no business ogling Molly.
“Your dad’s a hard case,” he said to distract himself. “Kind of like my dad. So I’m used to that. When I was a kid and my father was still on active duty, he could be a real force to contend with.” He paused. “But then, so was I.”
“No wonder Pop and Joe are friends as well as neighbors.”
“Yeah, and a good thing Dad’s mellowed over the years.”
Have you? But Molly didn’t pose the question.
Brig looked down at the cell phone in his hand. “Sorry to still be sticking around. I’ve tried all day to reach my parents.” He could have kicked himself. “This is my own fault. The last time I spoke to them, I told them not to phone me again. Communications are never the best over there, and I was busy making arrangements to bring Laila to the States. I said my next call would be to let them know when we’d arrive.”
“So your coming back wasn’t a surprise.”
“No, but too bad I couldn’t give them a firm date. I don’t know who else to call now,” he said. “Another locksmith just told me he can’t open the door to a house that isn’t mine. No surprise there.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yeah, I knew better than to ask. It was a desperate move on my part.” Another one, he thought, and stood. He could have picked the old lock—one of his many warrior skills—but the new dead bolt was a more difficult obstacle. So was the alarm system, assuming his father had remembered to set it.
Molly emerged from the pantry. “I wish I could think of someone...”
“Don’t worry. As soon as Laila wakes from her nap, I’ll phone for a cab and we’ll be out of your hair.” And Thomas’s. He flipped open the phone again. “I’m sure we can get a hotel room for tonight. My folks are bound to turn up soon.”
That sounded pathetic even to Brig, and deepened his frown.
“And miss seeing them when they pull in the drive?” Molly hesitated a bit too long, then said, as if she’d surprised herself, “I’ve forgotten my manners. You have the perfect vantage point from here to see when they get home.”
The warm air in the cozy kitchen carried the aroma of seared beef, and Brig’s mouth watered. Or was it the sight of Molly’s green eyes dark with concern?
She’d always been pretty, but at thirty she had an inner beauty to match. Too bad he’d blown his chance with her long ago.
Not even hearing what she’d said, he carried on with his line of thought. “In the meantime, who knows where my parents are?” he said. “Or with whom? Most of the landline numbers for their friends have gone to new phone company customers because Mom and Dad’s gang have all moved to Florida or Arizona. The couple I remember best,” he went on, “is living in Mexico. If my folks went to visit one of their old friends, I wouldn’t know where to even start a search. As for any new people...”
He looked hopefully at Molly, who only shook her head.
“I really don’t know who might be in their circle now. Your parents are more social than Pop. Since he retired, he sticks close to home. He golfs occasionally with your dad, but that’s all.”
“Well, my folks are for sure not in town. No activity I can think of would keep them away this long.”
“You didn’t call them from...wherever on the way home?” Molly asked.
Brig shook his head. “When I finally got a military flight out, it was either jump on the plane with Laila while we had the chance or miss out and have to wait until whenever the next hop came.” He paused. “I called home from Frankfurt, from my home base on the East Coast and then from JFK, even from here in Cincy. But I had to leave messages....” He trailed off. “The folks must have already gone. And then Laila was being a handful with the time change.”
“I’m sure you did the best you could,” Molly said.
Not exactly, Brig thought. He was always hard on himself—partly because he was the son and only child of a military family with strict discipline and even stricter expectations.
He knew his best wasn’t always good enough. To prove it, he said, “Doesn’t take most people I’ve seen twenty minutes to change a diaper. That was false bravado you saw last night.”
“Practice,” Molly murmured. “That’s all you need.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And about fifty books on child care.”
She was rinsing potatoes at the sink, chopping them, then dropping the pieces into a pot of water. For whipped potatoes? Another of his favorites. He hadn’t had them in months.
She pointed a paring knife at the backyard. “There’s a library out in the center—my day care business behind the house. You’re welcome to borrow any of those books, or all of them.”
Which was another of his problems. Time to read—time to do anything. Brig’s gut tightened. His emergency leave couldn’t last forever. He needed to find his parents and get Laila into their temporary care before he had to take off again for parts unknown. Once he got that call, time would be off the table. He sure couldn’t take Laila back with him into the danger that had ended her parents’ lives.
He studied the play of light on Molly’s hair as she set the pan of potatoes on the stove, then turned on the burner. Her vulnerable nape tempted him.
Brig shifted in his seat. “I, uh, appreciate the offer. About the books,” he added. “But as I said, Laila and I had better clear out. We’ve taken up enough space here, and I don’t want to rile your father.”
“Nonsense. Stay for dinner,” she said. “Just...stay. I’ll handle Pop.”
The words had slipped from her mouth as naturally as they might have years ago before Brig had left her. How many times had Molly or her mother invited him to dinner? Made him feel like part of their family? Thomas was right again. She had been so welcoming, when he didn’t deserve it. She looked so good, he wondered how he had left in the first place.
Yet what else, really, could she say?
Molly had the biggest heart of anyone he’d ever known.
Which only made him feel worse, as if he was taking advantage.
Her father’s warning echoed in his mind. Brig had brought Laila home with only one thought: find a safe place for her with his parents. He realized he needed a long-term solution, but that would require some hard thinking about what was best for the baby and for him. What he hadn’t planned on was seeing a widowed Molly again, being attracted to her after all these years.
With a warrior’s sense of danger, Brig knew he was in trouble. Staying in Molly’s house did seem more practical than staying in a hotel, but his proximity to her would only exacerbate the memory of their broken engagement, and renew the tension between them. She was now the girl next door all grown up, and she offered the brief haven a war-weary Brig badly needed. But...
He would not hurt her again, even as he wondered how to keep his hands off her. Before he left, as he would have to again, he needed to win Molly’s forgiveness.
Maybe staying for another night could help accomplish that goal.
* * *
“WE HAVE A guest room,” Molly reminded her father after dinner that night. “Brig might as well use it.”
Molly had second thoughts of her own, but she’d already blurted out the invitation. She could hardly turn Brig and that sweet baby out into the night. The temperature had started to drop at noon. By the time her kids had gone home, the sky was black with clouds. It was already sleeting outside, and soon the roads would turn icy. The thought of Brig in a taxi, sliding along slick streets, then trying to cope with Laila in some cramped hotel room kept playing through her mind.
Yet how could she convince Pop it was all right for Brig and Laila to stay when she wasn’t that sure herself?
As if to prove her point, Thomas cast a sour glance at the ceiling. Upstairs, Brig was struggling to get the baby to sleep, and Molly suppressed a fresh wave of frustration. She was still worried about Ann, but Pop wasn’t helping her mood.
“What kind of son doesn’t have a key to his family home? I can answer that,” he said, not waiting for Molly to reply. “A man who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
“That’s not true,” Molly shot back, quick to defend him. Too quick, perhaps, but she could see he did care about Laila. “It’s not Brig’s fault his parents have apparently left town.”
“Humph.”
His mouth a grim line, Pop followed her into the living room. Molly sat opposite his faded blue wing chair and attempted to coax a smile from her dad. She knew he wasn’t happy that Brig had breached his nightly routine with Molly: dinner, an extra helping of dessert that she wasn’t supposed to notice on Pop’s plate, his help with the dishes afterward, then their usual talk before he went up to bed. Sometimes they watched TV or a movie together, or he watched a sporting event while Molly pretended to enjoy it, too. She didn’t mind keeping him company. But now...
