Maggie's Guardian (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Adams, Anna

  Noah dropped his police persona. “You baby-sat?”

  “Occasionally. More over the past few months. As I saw less of David, I saw more of Maggie.” She shook her head. “You’ve got me suspicious of every conversation we had.”

  “Could he have been afraid something was going to happen? Maybe he wanted you to be comfortable with the baby, and today was what he expected.”

  “He would have told me that, Noah.”

  “I’m wondering why he didn’t.” He glanced up at her room. “You seem comfortable with her.”

  She’d felt way out of her depth. “She was David’s daughter before now. I could like her, but I didn’t have to give her much of myself. You know?”

  “More than anyone.” His gentle tone offered the kind of comfort she’d once needed, but then he detached his feelings and became a suspicious cop again. “Where are Joanna’s parents?”

  “I haven’t heard from them yet, but Weldon called them.” She glanced toward the phone. “They might have tried to reach me.” Taking a deep breath, she plunged on. “I wonder if they’re going to change their minds about leaving Maggie with me.”

  “Why did they agree in the first place?”

  “They’re both in their late sixties. I’m young enough to be a mother figure to Maggie, and that was what David and Joanna wanted for her. We drew up the papers just after Maggie was born, and Joanna asked them to sign a consent, but I don’t know how I’d fare in court.”

  “They’re probably concerned if they’ve heard David was murdered at the office.”

  Her breath caught, but she made herself think of good times with David—when they’d dangled off her roof, cleaning the gutters, the way he’d hounded her about not using the alarm system. He’d been her best friend. “Maybe I should call the Worths.”

  “Yeah. David wasn’t so much killed as slaughtered.” At his blunt statement, she pulled back from him, and he grimaced. “They’ve lost him, too, Tessa.”

  “You’re right. I didn’t think of that.” She stood, already looking away. “I’ll call from my bathroom. I can take the phone in there without waking the baby, and I know you need to sleep. Can I get you some water?”

  “I’ll get it.” He rose, too, apparently as anxious to have her out of his way as she was to leave him on his own.

  “I have a guest room upstairs.”

  “I’ll take a look at it later.”

  At his rueful tone, she picked up the monitor and left him. This was the way they should be together. Except for those first few moments, when they’d absorbed each other like two lost souls who’d wandered in from a desert, they’d treated each other as acquaintances.

  She put their first reaction down to unfinished business, but she was happier being Noah’s acquaintance. He’d guide her through any pitfalls the Prodigal Police Department could throw in her path. He’d keep her from making a mistake that would hold their attention on her.

  Upstairs Tessa carried the phone into the bathroom and eased the door shut. She called Information for Eleanor and Joe Worth’s phone number. Eleanor answered on the first ring.

  “I’m so glad you called,” she said as soon as Tessa greeted her. “Where’s Maggie? That idiot police chief said he’d had Child Services pick her up from day care, but they wouldn’t tell us—”

  “I have her.” Tessa waited for Eleanor’s reaction.

  “Thank God.” Her gratitude sounded heartfelt. “Why don’t you bring her to us? She needs familiar faces around her, and we’d love to have you both.”

  “Thank you,” Tessa said, a touch uneasy. Maggie knew her face. “But I have to arrange for the funeral and take care of the office.” And Weldon might not let her travel forty-five minutes beyond his jurisdiction until after he had cleared her.

  “Oh.” Eleanor’s voice faltered into silence.

  Her disappointment pricked Tessa’s conscience. “You could come here.” The second she offered she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Now was not the time to confuse Maggie about who would be taking care of her. Eleanor and Joe might not be able to keep themselves from interfering if they had any second thoughts about the guardianship.

  “We should come. Maggie’s too young to go to her father’s funeral. We’ll look after her.”

  Eleanor’s excitement felt inappropriate at a time when Tessa couldn’t get David’s broken body out of her head, but the other woman and her husband were all the family Maggie had left. Tessa didn’t want to alienate them. Maggie would need her grandparents, and naturally, they wanted to see her.

  A squeak in the floor made her glance toward her bedroom door. Noah must have decided to use her extra room.

  Used to old habits, she stood, on the verge of asking what he thought about having the Worths stay, but she came to her senses.

  “Let me tell you how to get here from David’s house. It’s on your way.” Again she held back sorrow to take care of business.

  “We have a few things to do first, but we’ll drive over late tomorrow morning.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  HOURS LATER, Tessa lay staring into the darkness. A bony limb scraped at her ice-etched window. Wind seemed to lift the eaves with each sudden gust. The house settled, making familiar snaps and clicks. The only thing she couldn’t hear was the sound of Maggie breathing.

  And at last, she couldn’t stand not knowing. She turned on the lamp and knelt beside the baby in her makeshift bed. On her side, with one small hand across her face, Maggie looked ridiculously older than she was. Her terry sleeper lifted and sank with lovely regularity over her chest.

  Tessa eased a relieved sigh between her lips. She slid to the floor and cushioned her own elbow beneath her head.

  Before long, she began to shiver. The pine floor transferred the cold, despite being insulated by another layer of house downstairs. She crawled back and yanked down a pillow and her own comforter. Then she burrowed into a warm nest beside Maggie on the floor.

  Tomorrow night, maybe she’d be able to sleep in her bed. If she found a crib and pulled it near enough.

  She closed her eyes. Maggie’s rhythmic breaths became her own. She felt each in-and-out exchange of oxygen that fed Maggie’s blood and hers. Until finally, by some miracle, she stopped thinking at all and fell asleep.

  NOAH OPENED ONE EYE to the morning sun. The anvil player in his head had slowed the tempo enough to make life bearable. He turned over, but the familiar scent of the sheets beneath his face startled him. He lifted his head.

  Until this second, he hadn’t noticed his own sheets no longer smelled like this, fresh and something floral that made him remember lying with Tessa. He pressed his face into the bed and breathed in.

  In the scented darkness, he could almost pretend the past eighteen months hadn’t happened. Any second now he’d hear his baby cooing the odd, off-key songs that had tugged at his heart as Tessa sang back to her.

  Punching a hole in his fantasy, a sharp screech erupted from the next room. Noah pulled a pillow over his head, but it couldn’t muffle Tessa’s confused response.

  He’d never known her to face the morning with pure joy. Maybe if he’d had twenty years with her, he would have gotten sick of her bad humor in the a.m. He’d only lived with her five years, just long enough to find her morning temper endearing. She’d hidden it from their baby, and even now, she spoke lovingly to Maggie.

  He shoved the pillow away. Tessa had less reason than ever to welcome a new day. Memories of finding David’s body would probably hit her harder this morning.

  She’d never seen such violence. Tessa’s family tended to be detached. She’d grown up on her own for the most part, in a nice safe, upper-middle-class environment. But her parents had protected her from anything resembling David’s death.

  A sudden spurt of anger surprised Noah, twisting out of the depths of his apathy. Loss of life pissed him off, but David’s death mattered even more. After his and Tessa’s divorce, he’d backed away from his friendship with David in c
ase the other man felt he had to choose between them.

  Since then, they’d shared exactly two beers on two separate occasions when David had come to Boston for business. They’d never talked about Tessa, and they’d never discussed David’s personal life. Noah figured David had chosen which friend he wanted to keep.

  But he’d be damned if he’d let anyone get away with killing David Howard, and he’d be damned again if he’d let anyone think Tessa could hurt their friend.

  He got out of bed, and a whole anvil chorus tuned up for a more complex piece. Pressing his fists to his temples, he staggered to the chair where he’d left his clothes.

  He dressed and then opened the door just in time to stumble into Tessa, carrying small brown-haired Maggie. His ex-wife’s glance flickered over him. Despite the percussion in his head and his need to maintain a professional distance, interest rode his nerve endings along the path Tessa’s gaze had taken.

  He stepped back into his borrowed room, realizing a retreat probably exposed his response to her innocent gaze. Fortunately, she had her eye on Maggie.

  “I forgot how often they want to be fed.” She broke off, looking stricken.

  He knew. She didn’t want to forget their baby, even the small, everyday functions of caring for her. He lifted his hand to comfort her, but second thoughts held him back.

  He’d come to make sure no one charged her with murder, not to resurrect a relationship they’d failed at. Nevertheless, he cleared his throat and tried to sound like the kind of man she’d once needed him to be. “It’s all right to talk about our daughter. Maybe we’d both be happier now if we’d talked about her.”

  Over Maggie’s head, Tessa’s green eyes lit with—reproach? Anger? He couldn’t tell which.

  “I feel guilty when I think of being happy, and you can’t even say her name.”

  Obviously she still blamed him. He took a stern grip on his temper when he really wanted to hurt Tessa back. Maybe he’d chosen a touchy word, but something was sure as hell wrong with both of them after eighteen months of grieving. How was he supposed to say their child’s name when thinking of her tore him apart? If he said her name out loud, that morning would unfold all over again.

  And now, since Tessa seemed to be saying his pain wasn’t as bad as hers, he eyed her, unable to put the truth in words.

  “What?” She stepped up, small and furious, spoiling for a fight.

  Being angry got them nowhere. He concentrated on his own failure. She’d suffered, and he’d let her. He hadn’t meant to, but he hadn’t known how to bridge the gulf between them. “It’s too late to say this, but I wish I’d been a better husband to you.”

  All emotion drained from her face, and she walked away. “It is too late to talk about our marriage.” The baby’s head bobbed over her shoulder as they reached the stairs. Even Maggie seemed to accuse him.

  He stared at Tessa’s hair sprouting from an untidy ponytail, at the wrinkles in the short, tight T-shirt that hugged curves he’d loved and she’d loathed. The left leg of her sweats climbed halfway up her calf, and she should have looked a mess.

  With her stiff neck and her disinterest, she just looked as if she didn’t want him here.

  “I have to drive back to Boston and pick up some clothes. I came without packing.” His only thought had been to straighten Weldon out about Tessa. He forced himself to march down the gallery behind her. He matched her indifference. “First I’ll check around here, see what I can get out of Weldon. Maybe one of the traffic cops noticed someone hanging around David’s house. Will you need help with the arrangements?” For David’s funeral. He didn’t have to specify. Tessa would know what he meant, and she was the only one left to set it up. David’s parents had passed away years ago.

  Still, she didn’t look back. “I’ll take care of everything. He wanted a memorial service.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, he caught up, taking her elbow to make sure he had her attention. “While I’m gone, I want you to be careful, Tessa.”

  She shrugged lightly to release herself. “I won’t take chances.”

  She was thinking of David’s daughter, not of her own safety. “I’m not just talking about the baby. You might be in danger, too.”

  “I get it.” She made an obvious effort to keep her tone civil. “I won’t go out after dark, and I’ll set the alarm. The second I see anything suspicious, I’ll dial 911.”

  “Keep your cell phone in your purse or your pocket, wherever you can get to it in a hurry. We should ask Weldon for protection until we’re sure whether David interrupted a robbery.”

  The baby muttered, a slight edge to her voice that even Noah already recognized.

  Tessa turned toward the kitchen. “I don’t want the police tossing my house.”

  He almost laughed. “The police search. Criminals toss.” He followed them, and when Tessa turned, he nodded at the baby before he went on. “Remember you have her before you turn down protection.”

  Again she relented. “If I had to let them in because of Maggie, I would, but couldn’t Weldon leave someone outside?”

  Truth was, neither he nor Tessa had charmed Weldon so far. “We’ll be lucky if I can browbeat him into having someone drive by.”

  “Which does us no good unless the cop and the bad guy happen to show up at the same time. Let’s drop it.” As the hungry little girl arched her back and mouthed a furious complaint, Tessa soothed her with the same sounds that had calmed their own baby.

  She took a bottle from the fridge while Noah watched and marveled. Every step she took was sure.

  “Joanna’s parents are coming over.” Tessa put the bottle in the microwave and set the timer. “They’re staying here, so if you need to take care of business in Boston…”

  “How far away are they?”

  “Only about forty-five minutes, but they want to see Maggie, and she needs all the love she can get. I don’t mind if they stay.”

  “I’m glad someone will be here with you.” He’d remind Weldon that no matter how annoying he found Tessa, she remained his best witness. That should insure some extra police interest, and three adults ought to be able to work dead bolts and the telephone.

  As for him, he needed clean clothes, and Baxton would force him to fill out paperwork for a leave of absence. They needed to talk about a case the two of them had been working in their free time, an abusive husband who seemed to be on the verge of hurting his wife and children.

  However, that old saw about murderers showing up at their victims’ funerals was sometimes true, and Noah intended to get back to Prodigal in time to attend David’s service.

  Tessa took baby cereal and a small jar of fruit from a shopping bag on the counter.

  “Do you have everything you need for her?” He should offer to hold the baby, but he couldn’t move the impulse from his mind to his mouth. He didn’t want to hold her, to risk being reminded of the child who’d been, along with her mother, his greatest joy.

  “I don’t have anything,” Tessa said, unaware of his cowardice. “Do you think Weldon will let me go to David’s house to get her clothes and her crib?”

  A crib? He hadn’t even thought about one. “Where did she sleep last night?”

  “In a drawer.” The last word came out around the baby’s fingers as Maggie tried to plunge her hand into Tessa’s mouth. Laughing, Tessa ducked out of the grinning little girl’s reach. Their smiles made the floor drop from beneath Noah’s feet.

  He grabbed the table’s edge, wanting, needing, craving one more impossible second with their baby. One morning spent just this way, preparing her breakfast, enjoying the destruction she’d wreaked in their kitchen with her curiosity.

  “How’s your head, Noah?” Tessa planted the baby-food jar between her arm and her body and twisted off its lid. “You don’t look as if you’ve recovered yet.”

  “I’m fine.” Dizzy with unexpected sorrow, he looked anywhere except at her and pretended his most vital interest was the growth of b
eard on his chin. “Do you mind if I take a shower before I visit Weldon?”

  She stared at him over the baby’s head as if she heard something in his voice. She might not want to care for him anymore, but concern cut a frown across her forehead. He had to be more careful. He faced her until she turned back to her task.

  “The guest bath is next door to your room.” She spooned some of the fruit into a bowl. “Toward the stairs. You can take a disposable razor from the cabinet beneath my sink.”

  Right. He was dying to rummage through her personal belongings. Annoyed daily at the sight of his own bare bathroom counter, the last thing he wanted to see was the face cream and toothpaste and perfume he still expected to shift out of his way.

  “Why don’t you take out a razor after you finish with her and leave it by the guest bathroom door?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” His pathetic need to maintain their separate lives made her laugh. “Just get a razor. Everything else you’ll need is either in the bathroom or in the linen closet. That’s the door between our rooms on the gallery.”

  Her apathy taunted him. His life should have grown easier after she’d left. He no longer owed her the emotional outlay loving required. Facing the back of her head, knowing she considered him a failure at emotional outlay, he wanted badly to prove he could still make her feel anything at all.

  But what if he couldn’t? He’d learned enough about his weakness from Tessa. Why risk any more self-knowledge?

  He pushed away from the table and exited the kitchen, slowing only as he all but burst through her bedroom door. The clutter pushed him back a step.

  Her room was a muddle of her clothes, Maggie’s makeshift bed and stacks of books. To hell with perfume. He swallowed a groan as the books took him back eighteen months in less than a second. He knew Tessa’s stacking method as well as she did. Just looking at the piles, he knew to the book which ones she’d already read.

  A bone-deep ache drove him into the small bathroom where Tessa’s sweet, sexy scent pervaded everything, the curtains, the shower, the cabinet whose door he yanked open.