smoky, smudgy lashes, which on a face less masculine would have seemed feminine. And Darby felt a twinge of guilt for noticing such a thing at a time like this—he’d just learned that his sister and brother-in-law had been killed in an automobile accident earlier that day, and she was cataloging his features.
“You were there?” His voice, husky and low-pitched, rolled from where he stood in his open doorway, down the three steps to where Darby stood with the social worker. “At the accident?”
She nodded, but it was her companion who spoke. “Ms. White was first on the scene, Mr. Cullum. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to discuss this inside?”
He shook his head, just as he’d done when they’d arrived. He still watched Darby, and her throat went even tighter. “And Elise…my sister spoke to you. Said she wanted me to take care of her kids. She said that. Before she—”
Again, Darby nodded. She felt chilled, even though the night was warm. She cleared her throat. “Her only thoughts were of her children.”
“Who were safely inside the child-care center where you work.”
“Yes. Marc and Elise were—” She hesitated, scrambling for composure. “Were on their way to pick them up. And the accident happened, um, on the corner… outside our building. I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “The children—”
“An associate from my office is with the children right now,” Laura cut in. “We thought it best until we’d had a chance to speak with you.” She had at least twenty years on Darby’s twenty-six, but even she looked a little red-eyed. “If you’re unable to take your nieces and nephews, they’ll be placed in a temporary foster home until we’re able to reach their grandfather. We understand he left on a business trip earlier today. His plane is probably just now arriving in Florida, and we’ve got someone waiting at the airport there to tell him what has happened. We have very good foster homes in Fisher Falls, but it is something that we would all like to avoid, if possible. Family members are almost always preferred.”
His square jaw tightened. “How did you know I was here? I’ve only been in Fisher Falls for two weeks.”
“Your business card was in Elise’s purse,” Darby said. “Your address here was written on the back of it.”
“I’m surprised she kept it,” he murmured. Then blinked and raked one long-fingered hand through his thick black hair, leaving it standing in rumpled spikes. His shoulders rose and fell heavily as he looked back, into the modest-size house. “I’m not exactly set up for kids here. This place is just a rental.”
Darby wasn’t sure if he was speaking to them or to himself. He turned around again and focused those mossy-green eyes on her. “The kids you want me to take in. How old are they?”
Darby blinked, and abruptly gathered herself. Just because he was their uncle didn’t mean he had to know their exact ages, she reasoned. He was new to town, as he’d admitted. Perhaps he hadn’t seen them in a while.
“Regan is four, Reid is three. The triplets are nine months.” She thought she heard him mutter an oath, but decided she’d imagined it. “They’re wonderful children, really.” Oh, why was she telling this man that? She cared for the Northrop children periodically at the Smiling Faces Child-Care Center; he was their blood. The children had been entrusted to him by their mother’s last words; surely he knew how sweet his own nieces and nephews were.
“Mr. Cullum, I know this is a difficult situation. I’m sure we can arrange for any items you may need,” Laura inserted calmly. “That is, if you do agree to your sister’s wishes. We’re not trying to force you to do so. I’m certain your father, once he returns from Florida will be anxious to—”
Darby barely heard the rest of the other woman’s words as she watched Garrett Cullum’s green eyes harden. No longer soft and mossy-green, they held all the warmth of ice chips. And Darby was glad that he wasn’t looking at her just then.
“Where do I pick them up?” he asked abruptly.
The cell phone attached to Laura Malone’s hip suddenly chirped to life, and she excused herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to take this. I’m the senior social—”
Garrett waved away Laura’s apology and looked at Darby, clearly expecting her to answer him. “They’re still at the center,” she told him. “We’ve got car seats and other things that you can use until…well, until.” Darby felt sure that Molly Myers, the center’s administrator, wouldn’t protest her lending out their precious equipment. And in a few days, when Molly returned from her conference down in Minneapolis, she’d confirm it. Darby figured this infraction of the center’s rules was understandable. Considering the circumstances.
Her throat tightened up again and her head ached deep behind her eyes. She drew in a short breath and focused hard on the pickup truck parked in the driveway. “Is that yours?” There was no way he’d be able to cart five children around in it. “We’ll use my car,” she suggested.
“Why?”
She jumped a little. He’d stepped down the porch and stood next to her. Towering over her. “Car seats.” Four of them. Regan was old enough to use a seat belt. It would be a close fit, particularly since Garrett Cullum was broad in the shoulder and long in the leg. He was easily as tall as her brother, and Dane cleared six feet by a good two inches.
There was nothing brotherly about Garrett Cullum, though.
“Mr. Cullum.” Laura Malone had finished her call and was holding out a business card. “Darby can take you back to the center. I’m sure she’ll help as much as possible in seeing the children settled with you. She’s been very helpful today, even fending off some reporters. If we weren’t shorthanded already, I’d accompany you myself. I’ll contact you when we’ve got a date to meet with the judge who will finalize the matter of the children.”
Garrett slowly took the card.
“It probably won’t be for a week or so,” Laura warned. “We’re just backed up all over the place with people going away for summer vacations. You’ll be assigned a permanent caseworker, too. But if you need anything in the meantime, my number is on the card, plus on the back you’ll note the name and numbers of the psychologists working with our department on cases such as this. You’ll probably want to talk to—”
He pocketed the card, but his expression was closed. “Thanks.”
The social worker nodded, then paused before walking toward her car parked at the curb. Her stoic expression softened for a moment. “Mr. Cullum, Garrett, I know you don’t remember me, but I knew your mother. We went to high school together. And I knew Elise and Marc. Not well, but…well, I am very sorry for your loss.”
Then Darby and Garrett Cullum were alone.
She looked down at her hands, twisted together, as the evening silence seemed to thicken. No amount of training, of schooling, of experience had equipped her for a moment like this. “Perhaps we should go,” she finally suggested. Then frowned at the desperation she heard in her own voice. That wouldn’t do. Not at all.
Her keys jangled when she pulled them from the pocket of her pleated shorts and she started toward her car. The green paint was beginning to peel and the engine occasionally backfired, but the tires were sound and it held more passengers than the cab of his pickup truck.
“Darby.”
