was very sick?”
With her chin on Ted’s head, Molly gave a sober nod.
“Well, the doctors did everything they could to make her better…but they couldn’t.” Eve swallowed past the knot in her throat. “She died.”
A frown swept Molly’s delicate features.
“Do you know what that means?”
“I think so.”
“You do?”
“Angela Abramson had a fish that died.”
Angela was her little friend from preschool. Eve had forgotten about the fish. “Then, you understand that when someone…or something…dies, it can’t come back again.”
Innocent blue eyes turned troubled. “Did they flush Grandma down the toilet?”
“Oh, no, honey,” Eve assured, hugging her close. “It’s different with people than it is with fish.”
“Then, where is she?”
“Well,” Eve began, wondering how to explained something so complicated. “The part of her that we can see is still at the hospital. But the part of her that made her the person we knew…her spirit…is in heaven.”
“Can we go see her spirit?”
“Heaven is where the angels are, Molly. People…living people…can’t go there. You remember me reading to you about angels, don’t you?”
Eve felt Molly nod and curl closer. Her daughter was familiar with angels from bedtime stories, and with the angel that crowned their tree at Christmas. What she knew about “real” angels, though, was that she couldn’t see them. So Eve explained that her grandma was just like those angels now. Even though they couldn’t see her, she would always be with them.
It was hard for Eve to know if her little girl could grasp such a concept. Though she tried desperately to find some comfort in it herself, intangibles provided little solace at the moment. The only thing that helped the ache in her chest was holding Molly. With her child’s warm little body snuggled securely in her arms, she slowly began to rock.
“Mommy?”
“What, honey?”
“Is your daddy an angel, too?”
Eve had never known her father, and her mom had rarely mentioned him. He’d died so long ago that she had no mental image of him at all. “I suppose he is.”
“So Grandma won’t be lonesome up there?”
“No, honey. She won’t be lonesome.”
“Mommy?”
“Hmm?”
“How come I don’t have a daddy?”
“You do have a daddy,” Eve replied, numbness buffering the jolt she might have otherwise felt at the question. “Everyone does. Some of us just don’t live with them.”
“Oh.” Molly wiggled in tighter. “We live with just us, huh?”
“Just us,” she repeated, and let herself be grateful that her little girl hadn’t pressed for more.
Eve had always known Molly would ask about her father someday, but the child didn’t need anything else to shake her little world just now. And, just now, Rio Redtree was the last person on earth Eve wanted to think about. Not that she’d been able to avoid thoughts of him. Ever since she’d decided to come home, the enigmatic man who’d once stolen her heart had been very much on her mind.
It had been six years since Eve had seen him. Six years that seemed like a lifetime. Rio was an investigative reporter for the Grand Springs Herald now. According to her mother, the most relentless reporter the paper had ever hired. Only her mother had known how close she and Rio had once been. And only her mother had known that he was the father of Eve’s child.
But Rio didn’t even know Molly existed.
Chapter One
July 15
Eve stopped in the doorway of her mom’s bedroom, packing boxes in hand and a knot in her throat. She wouldn’t think about what she had to do. She’d just do it.
The resolution made, she dropped the boxes by the lace-covered four-poster bed, whipped back the curtains overlooking the flower garden and opened the doors of a tall cherry armoire. The cubicles at eye level were filled with neatly folded sweaters. Cardigans and lightweights on one side, jacket-types and bulky knits on the other. Without letting herself recall the last time she’d seen her mother wearing any one of them, Eve put the lot in a box designated for the women’s shelter. She set the small floral sachet she found tucked behind them in a smaller box for mementos she would save for Molly.
Keeping her mind carefully blank, she turned next to the narrow drawer beneath the now empty shelves. It held scarves. Soft squares of soft periwinkle, rose and yellow lay next to lengths of poppy red, royal blue and emerald green. Patterns were separated from solids. Pastels from primaries. Each color group was separated further by size.
She’d known her mother was efficient, even admired her innate sense of order. But had she ever realized she was this organized?
At the thought, Eve’s resolve faltered. She wasn’t a strong person. A little stubborn, maybe. Independent, definitely. And that, out of necessity as much as training. But she really wasn’t strong enough to divorce herself from the ache in her chest. It was just that, after packing up most of the closet yesterday, blocking her mind to what she was doing had seemed the only way to get through the rest of the room without dehydrating herself.
She hesitantly touched a square of indigo blue. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be home in Santa Barbara. Back in her sunny apartment with the tulips she and Molly had planted struggling to grow on their tiny patio. Back at work, arguing with jerky Geoff Englebright about whether or not she could handle major accounts on her own. Back in the familiar world of shuttling Molly to preschool and day care and to T-ball or tumbling class on Saturday, and spending evenings with the sketches she hoped would someday be good enough to sell.
What did she know about filing for probate and liquidating assets and whatever else the attorney had said she needed to do? She knew color and texture and space. She knew how to design interiors that were functional, appealing, stunning. Whatever the client wanted. She knew “Disney princesses” and how to make cupcakes with smiley faces. But she still didn’t know what she was supposed to do with all the things her mother had loved.
Squares of fabric turned into a kaleidoscope of color as the scarves blurred.
Blinking furiously, Eve pulled a breath and picked up a stack of silk. Her mother’s possessions wouldn’t pack themselves, so she’d best get on with it. After all, taking care of her mother’s belongings was part of the reason she’d come back.
Shortly after the funeral, she had returned to Santa Barbara to finish what design projects she could, then turned over the rest to her boss and begged for a leave of absence from
