had to admire Holly’s baby-sitter. The kid looked only about fifteen or sixteen, but he seemed very protective of her. This was obviously the first time Holly had ever come home from work earlier than planned, or brought company with her, and the boy eyed Alex suspiciously.
Neither of the rowdy little boys the teenager had been watching appeared to like the idea of a strange man coming home with Mom, either. Holly paid the sitter, and Alex could hear her reassuring him at the doorway that everything was okay. While that was going on, he sat down on the lumpy brown couch in the living room. The little boys stared at him in silence.
“Who are you, anyway?” One of them broke his silence and stepped half a pace closer to Alex. There was still a coffee table between them to keep the kid brave. Alex could see a bit of Kevin Douglas in this one. His brown hair looked as if it had a mind of its own, and his challenging posture made him seem much taller than he was.
“I’m a friend of your dad’s. My name is Alex Wilkins.”
“Okay.” The answer didn’t seem to satisfy the child totally. “I’m Conor. This is Aidan.” He motioned toward his silent brother, who was slightly taller.
Alex could hear the baby-sitter ask a question, and then Holly closed the door behind him. Alex was happy to see that she locked it securely. “So you’ve introduced yourself?”
“I have. Just the basics. I told them my name, and that I was a friend of their dad’s. Anything else I should add?”
“Only that you won’t be here long, and that it’s still time for bed, whether we have company or not,” Holly said firmly. Conor seemed about to protest, but one look at his mother made him think better of it. If he’d gotten that look from a woman, Alex thought, he wouldn’t argue, either. Holly started hustling the two boys toward the hall.
While she was putting the boys to bed, Alex took in his surroundings. Everything was as neat as he’d expect a home with two five-year-olds to be, and under the clutter it was all very clean. Other than the boys’ toys and the basics, there wasn’t much to see.
Holly’s couch wasn’t the most comfortable thing Alex had ever thought about sleeping on. It beat sitting straight up in a car seat, or slouched over in one doing a stakeout, but that was about the nicest thing he could say about it. The couch was far from new, and there had obviously been a lot of kid feet bouncing on it over the years. That would account for the sagging springs, anyway.
The room was warmer than his car would have been, and it was quiet enough. Once Holly had put the kids to bed she came out of their room quietly. She went to a linen closet, got supplies, handed him a pillow and blanket and pointed out the remote for the television. “If you turn on the TV, keep it quiet. Conor’s a light sleeper. Aidan would sleep through a hurricane, but his brother hears mouse footsteps, I swear.”
“I’ll keep it low,” he promised. Holly went to bed at that point. Without another word she disappeared into the other bedroom, and Alex didn’t see her again. He wondered what kinds of thoughts were rolling through her mind.
He knew what was going through his. How could he do his job, help Holly without messing up her life, and get out of this town as quickly as possible?
In the morning he could feel someone watching him before he opened his eyes. The instinct to react was so strong that he thanked God for the foresight he’d had in locking up his automatic in the gun safe built into his car trunk.
He opened his eyes to see a short, freckle-faced figure standing in front of him, regarding him seriously. Without seeing both twins, he wondered who he was looking at. “Good morning,” he said, wondering if a kid this young knew where his mom kept the coffee. He was definitely going to have to find out.
“Hi. I’m Conor,” the boy said, ending Alex’s confusion over that point, at least. “What’s your name again?”
“Alex. Alex Wilkins.”
“Oh, yeah. You said you were a friend of my dad’s, right?”
“Right.”
Conor seemed to think about that. “From before or from now?”
That had him stumped. “From before, I think. What do you mean?”
The kid wrinkled his brow. “Well, Mom says Dad’s in heaven with Jesus and the angels now, and you’re sure not Jesus and you don’t look like any angel.”
Alex didn’t know whether to laugh or be stunned by the depth of the kid’s thoughts. “Trust me, I’m not an angel.”
“I didn’t think so. That’s too bad. We could sure use one.”
This was interesting. Maybe Holly wasn’t as independent and “okay” as she had portrayed herself. “Oh, yeah?”
Conor apparently trusted him enough to sit down on the edge of the couch next to him. “Yeah. Mom’s always talking to God and Dad when she thinks we don’t hear her. And she’s sure asking them for help a lot lately.”
Alex felt a lump in his throat. How did he answer this? “Well, like I said, I’m not an angel. But maybe I can help out some while I’m here. For right now, you could help me out.”
“Me? How?” Conor didn’t look as if he believed that for a moment.
“You could go into the kitchen with me and show me where your mom keeps the coffee. Who knows, maybe I could even fix breakfast for both of us while I’m there.”
“I’ll try. But I think we’re out of coffee. And I think we’re out of the right kind of cereal, too. I think that’s why Mom was talking to God and Dad so loud yesterday while she was getting ready for work.”
Great. Alex hadn’t talked to this kid for ten minutes yet and already he knew a lot more about Holly’s personal life than he cared to know. “Well, maybe we can do something about that. Let’s go out in the kitchen and look anyway, okay?”
“Okay. But don’t make any noise. I’m not supposed to make any noise until Mom’s alarm goes off. And no touching anything glass, or knives, or opening the refrigerator….”
“I get the picture, Conor.” If Holly was really out of coffee, he might have to break a few rules around here before the lady of the house even got out of bed.
Walking into the kitchen and having Conor show him around made Alex wary somehow. The space reminded him of something, brought a memory from his past almost to the surface. Whatever it was lay just beneath where Alex could access it as he searched the clean, bare countertops and looked briefly in the cabinets.
“Well, you’re right, Conor,” he said after his foray. “There is no coffee here, not even in the freezer. And unless the right kind of cereal is plain corn flakes, it isn’t here, either.”
Conor made a noise of disgust. “Corn flakes. Nobody but Mom likes corn flakes. And we all had them for breakfast yesterday. There weren’t even any bananas.” He wrinkled his nose and sat down on one of the worn kitchen chairs. “Mom said she was going to the grocery store after work last night. I bet she forgot.”
“If she did, it’s because of me. I kind of came in where she works and surprised her.” He sat down at one of the other chairs,
