the dresser reflected most of the bedroom behind her. But she didn’t see the stack of packing cartons in the corner next to the sleigh bed that she’d found years ago in a junk store and refinished with Kathleen’s help.
What she did see were her own eyes staring back at her. Pupils wide, irises a thin brown. So very different from those deeply penetrating blue ones that consumed her mind’s eye.
What had he seen when he’d looked at her?
Who had he seen? Mallory, or Cassie?
Mallory closed her eyes, turning away from the mirror and the thought. She wasn’t in competition with her beloved sister. She was only trying to make sure that Chloe’s life had what hers and Cassie’s had lacked.
A father.
She yanked off the ivory sweater that she’d taken far too long to choose that morning in the first place and replaced it with a gray one, yanking it down over the waist of her blue jeans. In the connecting bathroom, she filled the sink and submerged the coffee-stained scarf in it. Mentally collecting herself seemed fine in theory, but sad to say, she still felt shaky when she went back downstairs.
Kathleen was standing alone in the foyer.
“Where’s Chloe?”
“Outside with Ryan.” Her grandmother’s expression was frank. “Are you certain you know what you’re getting into, Mallory?”
She crossed her arms. Fighting her own uncertainty was hard enough without adding her grandmother’s into the mix. “In life, can anyone ever really know what they’re getting into?”
Kathleen’s lips thinned. “Pretending to wax philosophical won’t wash with me, child.” She pointed at the closed front door. “You’re messing in a lot of lives because of this fixation you’ve got about Chloe and her father.”
“It’s not a fixation.”
Kathleen’s white eyebrows climbed. Ire filled her eyes. “Really, now. It’s been your obsession since Chloe was born. When you should have been finding a man of your own, you were focused only on him.”
“I’m a working single mother,” Mallory returned. “I’ve never had time for a man.” Ergo, the exit of Brent. The fact that she hadn’t been left brokenhearted at the time had seemed to prove that it had been for the best. She’d never been tempted to put a man before her career. “And we’ve talked about this many times.” She’d never made a secret with her grandmother about the reason behind their temporary transplant to Weaver.
“Aye. We have. Yet you’re still determined to do it your way.”
“If I had my way, Cassie would still be here,” Mallory pointed out, struck with pain that was only slightly dulled by the passage of time. “Raising the child she loved enough to die having.” But, of course, Cassie—adventurous, go-with-the-moment Cassie—hadn’t believed she’d ever face that most final result despite Mallory’s warnings. “And choosing what to do about Chloe’s father would have been her decision.”
“She made the decision,” Kathleen reminded. Her face had softened, but her voice was still firm. “She had nearly the entire duration of her pregnancy to contact him. She chose not to.”
“I believe she would have changed her mind.” And arguing the point with her grandmother was as fruitless as the internal debate that had gone on for years inside Mallory about that very point.
She grabbed her coat off the coat tree and shoved her arms into the sleeves. “You seemed to like Ryan just fine, yesterday when he was here. So what’s bothering you about him now, anyway?”
“It’s not me that he’s bothering,” Kathleen said pointedly.
Mallory focused on working her hands into the gloves she pulled out of her coat pockets and tried not to blush. “All I care about is Chloe. Once I’m certain she’s ready for it, I’ll tell her about him and we’ll take it from there.”
“Right. And then it’ll be time for us to go back to New York. And how do you think Chloe’s going to handle being taken away from the father she’s just met, then?”
It wasn’t a new concern, nor was it one that Mallory hadn’t already given plenty of thought to. “She’ll still be able to talk to him. To see him during school breaks.” She pushed her pager and her cell phone into the breast pocket of the wool coat. “I knew before we got here that if…everything worked out…it would ultimately mean coming up with some sort of visitation agreement.” She reached for the door.
“What if you’re the one who ends up on the visiting side?”
“That’s not going to happen,” she said surely, and pulled open the door.
Ryan and Chloe were bent over an enormous snowball, pushing it together across the yard. The expressions of concentration on their faces were nearly identical.
Mallory swallowed the unease that whispered through her and stepped outside. Chloe had on her coat, her mittens, a scarf and a cap that Kathleen had knitted for her. Usually, she managed to forget the scarf or the hat. “Gram’s going to be popping the corn soon for garland,” she called out to them, “so we’d better come back with a worthy tree.”
Ryan looked over his shoulder. His head was bare. He wore no scarf tucked around his neck. His only concessions to the cold were the gloves on his hands and the scarred-up leather jacket zipped halfway up his chest. “Popcorn garland?”
Chloe straightened away from the snowball that was easily as tall as her knees and held her hands wide as she bounced around, full of energy. “We use Grammy’s needles on long string. It’s fun.”
Ryan continued pushing the snowball toward the house. “If you say so. Where do you want your snowman, Chloe?”
“Right here.” Chloe dashed over to a spot near the steps. “I asked him if he’d ever made one and he said he did, and so we’re getting one now,” she provided needlessly. “I never had a snowman before.” She beamed at Ryan when he nudged the ball to a stop. “Can I have a carrot for his nose?”
The delight in Chloe’s expression would have been impossible to resist, even had Mallory wanted to. “I imagine we have a carrot to spare,” she assured. “But your snowman still needs a little more body before he needs a nose, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Ryan scooped up a large handful of snow before straightening, and packed it between his gloved palms until it was the size of a healthy grapefruit. “Might as well finish it now, kiddo.” He cast an eye toward the sky. “It’s going to be snowing by the end of today—tomorrow at the latest—judging by the sky and then it might be a while before the snow is wet enough again to pack well.”
“What about the tree?”
His gaze skated over Mallory, leaving heat in its wake. “We’ll get to it. Here.” He tossed the snowball toward her and she didn’t react quickly enough to catch it.
It landed harmlessly against her chest and burst into a spray of clumps.
“Mo-om,” Chloe groaned. “You were s’posed to catch it.”
“Sorry.”
