Maggie's Guardian (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Adams, Anna

  Another reason to forget about counting on life being fair or normal. She’d better just tell Noah what had happened and hope he’d be able to help before he vanished again.

  “David must have interrupted a burglary. Whoever—” She stopped. David’s death grew more real each time she had to talk about finding him. She wiped her mouth. She had to function for Maggie. “Whoever hurt David also tore the office apart.”

  “You—” He sounded scared, except Noah didn’t get scared. “You found him?”

  His question confused her. “Didn’t Weldon tell you? Why are you here?”

  Noah shook his head, as if he realized he didn’t sound coherent. “Weldon told me, but I hate thinking of you seeing him like that.”

  She backed up a little, distancing herself from his concern. If David was still alive, she’d be planning to tell him about this crazy conversation. David had been the one she could rely on. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out loud.

  David would never come back again, and Noah hadn’t come to comfort her. Better count her blessings he was such a good cop. Closing her eyes on her tears, she turned away, but Noah caught the arm that wasn’t clutching Maggie.

  “You’re not all right.”

  She stared at his hand until he let her go. “I was better until I had to ask you for help.”

  “I know you called back and changed your mind, but I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know.” One step brought Noah closer. “And I know why you don’t want me around. You don’t think about…her, until you see me.”

  She resented him for never saying Keely’s name. “Do you forget her?”

  Maggie cried out at Tessa’s hostility, but Noah didn’t have to answer. Grief hollowed his eyes and his gray face made him look like the walking dead.

  Tessa scaled down her anger. She wasn’t being fair. “I shouldn’t have called you the first time.”

  She shifted the baby against her breast, and Noah stared, mesmerized by Maggie. When he looked slowly back at Tessa, he staggered. At first, she thought he was upset, maybe even drunk, if the rumors she’d heard from their Boston friends were true. But he reached behind himself, grasping for anything solid.

  “You’re sick.” He’d had so many migraines after Keely died Tessa had begged him to see a doctor. He hadn’t.

  With a grimace, he ignored her. “How can you take on that child?”

  He’d gone to the heart of her doubts. She wasn’t certain she’d make a good substitute parent for Maggie. “What choice do I have?”

  “Are you being fair to her? You can’t just give her up if it doesn’t work out. You won’t.”

  He shut his mouth in lines of pain. After Keely, they’d forgotten how to love each other, but he did still know her, and she knew him well enough to recognize his anguish.

  He backed unsteadily into the wall, and she forgot to be wary of him.

  “I’ll make it work, Noah. She needs me.” She slid her free arm around his waist. His muscles tensed against her, from her shoulder to her thigh.

  Feel nothing, she warned herself. He’s temporary here.

  “Migraine,” he muttered.

  “I guessed. Come sit down.”

  Noah shrugged off her helping hand. “Carry the baby. I’ll manage.”

  Shadows intensified the paleness of his cheek where his beard grew more sparsely. Tessa swallowed, trying to wet her dry mouth. She’d forgotten that small patch of skin she’d kissed so many times she could feel its texture now against her lips.

  “How did you get out of the police station without an attorney, Tessa?”

  “I don’t need an attorney.”

  “Weldon hinted you did, and you should pay attention when a cop talks like that.” He enunciated each word too carefully. “Don’t tell me you’re representing yourself.”

  With sudden impatience, Maggie brought the fleshy part of Tessa’s thumb to her mouth. Sharp baby teeth grazed Tessa’s skin, making her draw a deep breath. Leaning down, she grabbed the shopping bag and then headed for the kitchen. “Let me feed her and I’ll drive you to a hotel, Noah. We can talk tomorrow.”

  She switched on the kitchen light, but Noah, who’d driven at least four hours in excruciating pain, gazed at her through slitted eyes, trying to filter out the brightness. “What hotel?”

  Maggie’s protest at the lack of anything filling in Tessa’s hand left little time to argue. “You can’t stay here.”

  “Why? We don’t love each other anymore. I can’t hurt you.”

  “You know why.” She wasn’t about to admit how long she’d worked at sleeping in a house where she couldn’t even hope he’d be coming home. “We got divorced. We didn’t part on good terms. I called you because with David…gone…I didn’t know who else to turn to.” She pushed the shopping bag onto the kitchen counter.

  “I’m sorry about David.”

  “Me, too.” She couldn’t keep moisture from gathering at the corners of her eyes, but she used her forearm to wipe it away. Better get Noah out of here before the shock of David’s death finally wore off.

  She kept remembering how painful “never” was when you realized you wouldn’t see someone you loved again. Saying goodbye to David would feel something like letting Keely go. She couldn’t do that with Noah watching her.

  He’d been unable to share her pain for the daughter they’d both loved deeply. She wouldn’t expose herself to his reserve again.

  Fortunately, he had his own concerns, and he seemed oblivious to hers. “You don’t seem to understand how angry someone must have been to stab David like that,” he said. “It could have been a client. It could have been a friend. It had to be someone who knew him.” Noah’s investigative instincts were so strong he’d trained half the detectives on Boston’s homicide force. “I don’t care how you and I split up, I’m not leaving you alone tonight when someone killed David in your office this morning.”

  “What use would you be?” She softened her voice. She wasn’t out to get him, just to remind him he wasn’t at top strength. But she was used to helping him when he had a migraine. Keeping a tight grip on the baby, she eased Noah toward a chair. “You can barely stand up straight.”

  “I could throw you my gun.”

  His wry tone threw her off balance. Maggie began emitting an “aiyiyi” sound that apparently meant she was ravenous. Tessa peered from the baby to the man. Maybe now wasn’t the time to prove she didn’t need him. She just might.

  “For tonight,” she said. “Until we’re sure no one has a grudge against David that includes Maggie.”

  Unexpected wistfulness colored his exhausted gaze. “She is kind of cute.”

  “You could have met her at the christening.”

  “No.” In response to the invitation David and Joanna had sent him, he’d simply scrawled “I hope you understand” on the RSVP card. “I couldn’t,” he said now.

  Tessa wanted to think badly of his weakness, but she remembered how she’d sweated outside the church, furiously trying to force herself through those doors. Only her friendship for David and her growing concern for Joanna, whose second addiction had begun to show itself, had pulled her inside.

  The last of Maggie’s temper went up in a shrill cry that whitened Noah’s already pale skin. Tessa reached into the bag and pulled out a baby monitor. Noah stared at it, and she stared at him.

  They’d left Keely’s monitor on that last night, but it hadn’t helped. If she had to strap this one to her hip and turn up the sound until she heard ice forming on the windowpanes, this baby would survive.

  “I’ll wait in there,” Noah said, and departed the field for the safer confines of the living room.

  Tessa nodded, taking out the formula mix to refresh herself on the recipe. Maggie drank most of a bottle before her eyes drifted shut, but Tessa waited to make sure she was sound asleep. She backed through the kitchen door, clutching the baby and the monitor.

  She tried not to wonder where Noah would turn up. Had he scout
ed out a bedroom? Hardly seemed likely.

  She had to cross the living room to reach the stairs. Noah sat hunched forward on the sofa, resting his head between splayed fingers.

  “Did you take anything?” she asked in a low tone.

  He looked up. “The medication knocks me out. I was waiting for you to finish in there.”

  “We don’t have to talk tonight.”

  “You found a murder victim today, and Weldon wants me to believe he suspects you. Think of Maggie if you can’t see you’re in trouble.”

  “I’m not afraid. I didn’t hurt David.”

  “You’d better be afraid. You know how many people have been ruined because the police falsely suspected them, and you know someone hated David enough to kill him. Put the baby to bed and come back down here.”

  When he reminded her Maggie was her priority, she had no choice. She had to give in.

  She carried the baby up the stairs at the far end of the room and turned onto the gallery that led to the three bedrooms. She managed not to look down at Noah as she took Maggie into hers.

  Mentally preparing herself to make their talk quick, she recounted each second of her morning. Noah had despaired more than once about witnesses who’d kept “inconsequential” case-breaking information to themselves.

  She glanced at Maggie, who suckled in her sleep. “We’ll find the guy who did this to your daddy. I won’t let you forget him and your mom. I promise you.” Her voice broke under the strain of holding on to her grief, but she kept her mind on getting Maggie to bed and seeing Noah once more tonight.

  She searched her room for a safe bed for a nine-month-old. The armchair wouldn’t do, and neither would her bed. She wasn’t used to sleeping with a baby, and she didn’t want to risk rolling over on Maggie. Maybe a dresser drawer?

  Tessa positioned pillows on the bed and eased the baby into the center. Then she opened her dresser’s bottom drawer and emptied it. She fished a quilt out of her closet and lined the drawer before adding a blanket. Then she checked Maggie’s blessedly dry diaper.

  The baby whimpered when Tessa laid her in her makeshift bed, but after one strong stretch, Maggie burrowed into the little nest.

  She might manage to crawl over the side, but she’d only slither onto the floor. Just in case, Tessa surrounded the drawer with a comforter from the hall linen closet and then set up the monitor by the baby’s head. Tomorrow she’d find a crib, but for tonight, Maggie would be safe.

  Tessa took a scarf from another drawer and settled it over the lamp shade to dim the light. Cupping the monitor’s receiver in her hand, she tiptoed from the room. She paused to pull the door, but when she leaned over the gallery rail, Noah seemed to have fallen asleep.

  With one arm angled over his eyes, his other hand flattened on his belly and one knee bent so his foot rested on the floor, he looked peaceful.

  Sleep was the only sure cure for his migraine. Why wake him when they couldn’t solve anything tonight? She reached for her door again, but stopped, swearing under her breath as she stole another look at him. He might get cold if he slept there till morning.

  She snatched another comforter and a pillow from the linen closet and negotiated the quiet stair treads. She set the pillow and the monitor on the floor beside her former husband and then made herself spread the comforter over his long body.

  He shifted one lean leg, and the past exploded in her head like Fourth of July fireworks. Noah’s legs, naked and strong, wrapped around hers, his back curved protectively as he covered her.

  Tessa bit her lip, trying not to whimper the way Maggie had. She’d better forget those days. And the nights. The lovely, loving nights. They were all over. Lost. Unshared grief had destroyed her marriage.

  “I’m not asleep.”

  She jumped back, tripping over the coffee table, but Noah caught her hands.

  “Don’t break your neck. Sit down beside me.”

  He still looked pale enough to pass out at any moment. Those treacherous memories tempted her to curl her body into his and pull his head onto her shoulder, but she perched on the opposite arm of the sofa. He didn’t suggest she come back.

  “Tell me what you saw.” He pushed the comforter off. “From the moment you stepped inside your office.”

  Horrible images flooded back. She tried to distance herself. She’d had enough practice, getting through the days after Keely’s death. “The main door was locked. I had to open it with my keys. I didn’t notice anything at first. I worked for half an hour in my own office.” She shuddered. If only she’d gone to David’s office. Had he still been alive? “Whoever—the killer must have already gone. I left my door open and anyone who tried to leave would have had to walk past.”

  “You have a receptionist?”

  “She comes at nine o’clock, but I got there around eight because I had to finish some research for a meeting today.” She’d never called to cancel that appointment.

  “You changed your routine so you could go in early. That’s why Weldon thinks you arranged to meet David. He thinks you might have killed him and then pretended to find him.”

  She began to breathe fast. She hadn’t taken Weldon seriously.

  “Are you all right?” Noah leaned forward and cupped her nape. While she stared at him, startled that he’d touch her, he made her bend down. “Put your head between your knees before you faint.”

  She put her head down because goose bumps radiated from the place where he’d pressed his fingers against her skin. “You think Weldon really suspects me?”

  Noah didn’t speak, so she looked up as he considered his answer. He’d become a cop because he’d seen his father die making an almost routine traffic stop. His intuition had been born that day, and Tessa trusted it.

  “I don’t know.” Weariness strained his tone, and he looked more haggard by the second. “He even mentioned Joanna’s accident. He said she was using drugs because of you.”

  “What?” Her promises to David meant more than her own reputation. She’d vowed she wouldn’t let anyone else find out about Joanna. “Weldon got his training at the movies. Joanna had an accident.”

  “Weldon thinks you wanted David for yourself.”

  She sprang to her feet, flustered. No matter where they stood now, she didn’t want Noah thinking there’d been something between her and David. It was hard enough to live with the fact Joanna had thought so. “He was my friend.”

  Noah drew his mouth into a brief, tense line. “I have to ask you—as much as I don’t want to—did your feelings for David change after you left me and Joanna died?”

  The man had to be blind. She hadn’t left him until he’d made sure they were living separate lives in the same house. And David had welcomed her here. They’d always been close, but their losses had created a shorthand that had strengthened their friendship until Joanna became ill. “We were friends, the same as always.”

  She couldn’t explain the truth about Joanna without betraying David. She looked down at her hands. A tear splashed just above her thumb, horrifying her. The last thing she needed was to cry in front of Noah.

  She tried to clear her throat. “If anything, we weren’t as close after Joanna died. David was distracted with Maggie.” And they’d both felt guilty that their innocent friendship might have hurt Joanna.

  “Weldon said you’d argued.”

  “Who told him that?” She couldn’t explain to Noah. He’d want to get all the way to the bottom, and she couldn’t tell him the truth about Joanna. “I thought David was preoccupied, raising Maggie alone.”

  “But now?”

  “Now? Nothing,” she said. “He was preoccupied with Maggie. We had a couple of troublesome clients, one who sort of harassed me.”

  “What?” Noah was instantly razor sharp.

  “David and I handled it.” She felt and sounded defensive, but she couldn’t help it.

  “The guy what—called you?”

  She nodded. “Last time was about two weeks ago.”
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  “Did he ever come here? To your house?”

  She blinked in surprise. It was odd to hear him talk about her house. Once, she’d assumed she’d always share a home with him. “Once or twice. I never encouraged him.”

  “You should have told me about him the second I arrived. Did you tell Weldon?”

  His brusque question sealed their new, impersonal relationship. In Noah’s eyes, she’d become a witness.

  “I only told him what I saw this morning.” Her quavering voice gave her grief away, but again Noah didn’t notice.

  “Someone wanted David to suffer. The rage that kind of murder takes—who knows if it’s dissipated? When you found him you must have been—”

  “I was terrified,” she admitted.

  “This guy you’re talking about—do you think he’d be capable of stabbing David?”

  “I don’t know.” She truly didn’t. “He also thought David and I were more than friends.” She denied it again with a shake of her head. “Eric gives me the creeps, but I can’t imagine anyone doing what I saw.”

  “Eric?” He reached inside his pocket for a notepad, but Tessa held out her hand, mindful of his pain.

  “Don’t. I’ll write it down for you in the morning.”

  He nodded a terse thanks. “Your other clients—the ones who were unhappy—did you solve their problems?”

  “Yes, or we’re in the process. Hugh Carlson was rebuilding his factory after a fire, and we argued with him about following code. We’re also defending a lobsterman’s daughter against a breach of promise by her former fiancé.” She thought about his assumption that the killer’s rage might spill over to someone else in their office or onto David’s child. “Do you really think someone might try to hurt Maggie?”

  “Or you.” He rubbed his temples. “When I thought about it, I was almost glad Weldon wanted to keep you. I stopped at the station.”

  “I walked out,” she said. “I haven’t done a lot of criminal law, but I knew he couldn’t keep me.” She lowered her head again. “Wouldn’t I know if someone were that angry with me?”

  “Did David?”

  “He never said anything.” Because of the distance that had crept between them? “I keep thinking he’ll call, that I’m baby-sitting for him tonight.”