from around here, he decided. Not even close. Survival tactics of a big city woman. Her voice was intriguing. It wasn’t sweet, like her face. It had a little raspy edge to it.
“Why aren’t there any motels? There were ‘No Vacancy’ signs on every motel for the last fifty miles it seemed.” She wiped impatiently at her eyes with the back of her sleeve, and then wiped the baby’s face, and kissed her on the nose.
A magical effect. The baby, an exact replica of her mother, except with blonder hair that was, wildly curly and unruly, ceased howling. The girl turned her head enough to look solemnly at him out of the corner of one eye, but apparently the glance failed to reassure, and she began to cry again, louder than before.
“There’s a major resort going up on the edge of town. We have contractors, carpenters, plumbers…you name it they’re here.”
He doubted there was a room to be had anywhere this night.
Unless you counted his empty house. Three bedrooms. One up, two down. The place had been a duplex until a few months ago when, with his landlord’s permission, he had turned the upstairs kitchen into a workroom.
Don’t, he told himself.
But he did, feeling slightly put out that he’d frightened her so badly, but even more put out that the baby was going to wake up the whole bloody neighborhood.
“Look, maybe you better come in for a minute.”
He reached past her for the door. Which was locked. The baby’s crying was affecting him so badly, he considered a well-placed kick to the old wood, but contained himself.
“No,” she said, firmly, her suspicion leaping back in her eyes. “I’m leaving. It’s all right. Really. I’m tired. I drove too long. I must have the wrong address.”
She went to move by him and then stopped, the porch opening onto the stairs too small for her to squeeze by without touching him. It was when he saw the delicate blush rising in her cheeks that he remembered he was in a state of undress.
“Wait right here,” he said sternly, using his no-nonsense cop voice, a man to be taken seriously, even in his underwear. Boxers, thank God. The plaid kind that could be mistaken for a pair of gym shorts in a thick fog. Maybe.
She was scared still, it was written all over her face.
Scared that if he was not a pervert that had been hiding in the bushes, she had accidentally knocked on the door of Miracle Harbor’s only axe-murderer.
“I’m a cop,” he said reluctantly, “Retired.” He knew she’d see it. The stance, the look in his eyes, the cut of his hair.
Her eyes wide on his face, she nodded, then as soon as he stepped back, she flew by him, and scurried down the walk. He let her go, listening to the snap of the locks on her car doors when she was safely inside it.
Then he listened to the unhealthy grind as she turned the ignition.
Not his problem, he thought, at all. Thank God.
He went back down the sidewalk, and in his back door. He ordered himself up the steps and into bed. He made it up the steps, but his mind, never disciplined at this time of night, listened for the sound of the car pulling away. Nothing.
He opened his window, took a look out, and heard again the grind of the starter.
“Hell,” he said, and picked up a pair of jeans off the end of his bed. “Double hell.”
Despite a shin that should have told him otherwise, the woman had a vulnerable quality in her eyes. He wanted to leave her to her fate, and couldn’t. She wasn’t dressed warmly enough to be sitting out there in a freezing car, and the child probably wasn’t either.
Minutes later, snapping up his jeans, he turned on the porch light and flung open the front door.
She could come in if she wanted to.
But she didn’t.
Stubborn. That was written all over her face. Beautiful, yes, but stubborn, too. He snuck a glance out the door.
The wind lifted the fog enough for him to see her. She had her forehead resting against the steering wheel. She was probably crying. But she wasn’t going to ask for his help. Not him. The pervert.
Sighing, he pulled a jacket over his naked chest. He’d taken an oath, years ago, to protect and serve. And retired or not, that oath was as much a part of his makeup as anything else. It ran through his blood, and he found himself almost relieved at the discovery that his personal tragedy had not stolen that part of his nature from him.
He was not capable of leaving her out there in the cold.
She didn’t see him coming, and started when he tapped on her window. There, he’d managed to scare her again, which should warn him to give up any notion of a new career in the damsel-in-distress department.
She opened her window a crack. “Yes?”
“Do you want me to call somebody for you? Have you got road service?” Old habits died hard. Her license plates said Illinois. There was a parking sticker on her windshield for a lot in Chicago. He’d been right when he guessed this woman was a long way from home.
“I’ll be fine,” she said proudly. “In Chicago this is picnic weather.”
“Yeah,” he said. She was shivering. “I can see that. Is that baby as cold as you are?”
She gave the child a distressed look, and turned back to him. “Are you really a police officer?”
“I was, yes.”
“Have you got a badge?”
“Not anymore.”
“Why aren’t you a policeman anymore?”
His aggravation grew. It occurred to him it was the most he’d felt of anything for a long, long time. He actually felt alive. Aggravated, but alive.
“Lady,” he said, “are you going to make me beg you to come in?”
She seemed to mull that over, then with a resigned sigh, she undid the lock and reached for the baby. She followed him up the walk.
He held open the door for them. The baby was nestled into her mother’s chest now, sucking her thumb. When she glanced at him, she scrunched up her face again, and opened her mouth so wide he could see her tonsils.
The baby was wearing a knitted sweater with a little pink hood and pom-poms.
A memory niggled, so strong, so hard, he nearly shut the door.
Their baby was going to be a girl. The amniocentesis
had told them that. Stacey had begun to buy pink things. Little dresses. Booties.
“Are you all right?” the woman asked him.
No. He wasn’t. Two years, and he still wasn’t. He had accepted it now. That he was never going to be all right. That time would
