Deputy Daddy

by Patricia Johns

  Clarisse and Aaron both nodded sagely, and he had the distinct impression that they had the exactly wrong idea of who he was to Lily, and convincing them otherwise wasn’t going to be simple. As he headed down the hallway, he touched the notebook in his front pocket. If this didn’t count as pretending to be someone he wasn’t, he didn’t know what did.

  Lily was in a guest bedroom—the second door on the right—and she’d managed to find a towel and had the baby lying on the bed. She looked up in relief as he held up the diaper bag.

  “Oh, perfect,” she said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve taken care of a baby. I feel out of practice.”

  “You seem like a pro to me,” he said. He pulled out the notebook, clicked his pen, and jotted down,

  Pretending I’m not investigating a potential con.

  He thought for a moment, then added: Pretending I know anything at all about baby care.

  He closed the notebook and tucked it back into his pocket.

  “What’s that?” Lily asked as she set to work on the diaper.

  “Part of my punishment,” he said drily. “I’m supposed to write down every time I pretend to be something I’m not.”

  Lily shot him a curious look. “And what did you write down this time?”

  He could have added, Pretending that I don’t feel anything for this woman, but he didn’t. Some things weren’t the chief’s business, and this crush he was developing on the B and B hostess was one of them.

  “Oh, baby care,” he said, trying to sound offhand. “I’m faking it here.”

  “Everyone does,” she said, pulling another wipe from a plastic package.

  “Tell that to the chief,” he said wryly.

  “So—” She glanced back as she reached for a clean diaper. “What do you think of him?”

  “Aaron, you mean?” he asked, lowering his voice. “So far he’s the one suspicious of me.”

  “What?” Lily laughed. “How so?”

  “He’s convinced I’m here as more than your boarder,” he replied. “I kind of threw you under the bus. I used your line that you’re terrible with professional boundaries.”

  Color tinged her cheeks, and she shook her head. “Well, it’s true. What can I say? Did it work?”

  “Nope.” He shot her a grin. “They both still look pretty convinced that I’m your secret beau.”

  “There are worse rumors to go around, trust me,” she said blandly, and she scooped the baby back up and bent at the knees to pick up the diaper and wipes. She turned to face him. “Pick one.”

  “What?” Bryce looked at her in confusion.

  “The baby or the diaper. Take one, would you?”

  Given a choice between the two, he chose the baby, and she shot him an amused smile, grabbed the diaper bag, and headed back out of the room. Bryce followed, and he looked down at Piglet in the crook of his arm. Was it his imagination, or had she grown a little bit already?

  He could pretend he came from a better family than he did, or that he wasn’t too much like his father. In fact, right now he’d really like to pretend that he had a different makeup, different baggage, and that having a family like this was even a possibility. But pretending would only hurt more in the end—it would hurt him when he was forced to face facts, and it would hurt everyone else who would start to rely on him.

  Like Lily. Or was it just wishful thinking that she’d ever entertain those ideas about him? While Piglet was a short-term situation, he could see that mothering came naturally to Lily. She wasn’t jaded the way he was. No, it was best to keep all of these lines very firmly drawn. No faking it. The truth might be less attractive, but it was still the truth—he wasn’t dad material.

  They emerged into the living room once more, and Lily headed off toward the kitchen to find a garbage can, and he nodded at Aaron and Clarisse who turned their attention to him with their curiosity on high beams.

  What was it with this town? Comfort Creek just refused to melt into the backdrop of rural Colorado. And two weeks here wasn’t going to be quite as forgettable as he’d hoped.

  * * *

  Lily glanced out the window to where the men stood in her aunt’s backyard in front of the grill. The backyard was large, a massive maple tree looming over half of it, long limbs spreading luxuriously over the shade-dappled grass. She used to climb that tree as a kid—back when Uncle Earl used to hammer pieces of wood up the side to help them keep their footing. Half the time, one of the uncles would have to come up the tree to help them down again, and Lily had always suspected that those pieces of wood were meant to help the adults more than the kids.

  Bryce and Aaron were grilling steaks, the scent of which came wafting inside through the screen door. Bryce’s hands were in his pockets, and Aaron stood with a pair of tongs in one hand—master of the grill.

  “He’s nice,” Clarisse said, looking down into Emily’s little face. She tugged down the tiny pink dress.

  “Aaron does seem very nice,” Lily agreed. “I admit that. It’s just, how well do you know him after a few months online?”

  “I mean Bryce.”

  Lily whipped around and shot her aunt a wry smile. “Now you’re deflecting, Auntie.”

  Clarisse chuckled. “You still think that Aaron is only with me for my money?” She spread her hands. “This is all I’ve got—this house. I don’t have piles of money in the bank. I have your uncle’s pension that keeps body and soul together. If Aaron were after money, he could have found a wealthier woman than me.”

  “I’m not saying that you aren’t a catch.” Lily sighed. “I just worry.”

  “Well, stop worrying. He’s a good man, and he loves me. That’s not so easy to come by, you know.”

  Lily nodded and turned back to the salad she was making at the counter. “Don’t I know it.”

  “Which brings us back to Bryce,” her aunt said, her tone exaggeratedly casual.

  Lily laughed. “It really doesn’t.”

  “I saw the way he was looking at you—”

  Lily glanced up. “Oh?” How exactly had Bryce been looking at her? She’d been busy with the baby and her aunt, and she’d assumed that Bryce’s attention had been firmly on Aaron—his reason for being here.

  “He’s smitten.”

  “He’s a boarder!” she exclaimed. “You’re imagining this.”

  “He’s here.” Her aunt raised her eyebrows to make her point. But her aunt didn’t know the real reason why Bryce was here, and it wasn’t because of fond feelings for Lily, either. He was doing her a favor and trying to ride out his time here before he headed straight back to his real life in Fort Collins.

  “He’s a cop, Auntie, and I have four brothers who are out of hand. I don’t think that’s a great combination right now.”

  “Oh, you can’t let those boys hold you back from living your life,” her aunt countered.

  “They tried to break into my new place,” Lily said. “They were working at my kitchen window with a crowbar. Luckily, Bryce had just arrived and he stopped them before they did too much damage, but still, he’s a police officer, and he could have arrested them right there—” Her mind went back to that night, and all those old feelings of resentment, fear and anxiety bubbled up again. “I’m going to try to keep them in line, but I’ve got my own business now, and I need to focus on it. Do you have any idea how scared I was that Burke and Randy would end up with criminal records?”

  Emily squirmed and let out a whimper.

  “Trade?” Clarisse suggested, and Lily smiled, holding her arms out for the baby. Clarisse took Lily’s place at the counter and reached for some tomatoes. “You deserve your own life, dear. You pitched in after your dad passed, and you did more than anyone could have expected from you, and you’ve made that old house into something really fine. I’m proud
of you.”

  Lily didn’t hear those words often, so they meant something. She’d worked incredibly hard on renovations. She’d done half the work herself, and hired contractors for the rest of it. She’d used up every penny of her award and then some, and while she was pleased with how everything had come together, she wasn’t in any position to relax. She was in debt up to her ears, and she needed to start making some money now. But her brothers couldn’t grasp that. She’d come into cash, and they figured she should share.

  Lily put the baby up onto her shoulder and swung her weight gently from one side to the other. Emily snuggled in against her neck. This baby was such a perfect fresh start—a tiny bundle of squirms and burps, and she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to raise her as her own. It wasn’t fair to even entertain the thought, though. This was why she made terrible temporary foster care—while she had ample experience in taking care of children, she had a lot less experience in letting go.

  “I get so tired of taking care of everyone...” Lily felt tears mist her eyes. “I’m so tired, period.”

  “I know.” Clarisse paused in her chopping and gave her niece a tender smile. “It’s not easy. That’s part of why I took ten years to myself after Earl passed. I was tired.”

  Her aunt did understand this part all too well. Uncle Earl had been sick for a long time with kidney failure. She’d shuttled him around for dialysis, taken care of him at home, and kept their home around them. Earl had some decent insurance, so she’d been able to be there for him, but for the last six or seven years of their marriage, Clarisse had been dedicated to a sick husband.

  “Well, I don’t get to just take a break,” Lily said with a sigh.

  “What if you could?” Clarisse said. “What would you do?”

  Lily smiled wistfully. “I’d put in a big garden, and I’d grow all my own fresh produce. I’d can and pickle and freeze every bit I could, and I’d feed my guests homegrown food.”

  “Sounds nice,” Clarisse said, nodding.

  “And I’d make homemade candy, too. I’d make chocolate truffles that I’d never sell commercially, but I’d make little baskets of candy and chocolate for every holiday. Like for Thanksgiving, I’d make maple brittle and hazelnut truffles, and for Christmas I’d make peppermint—” She stopped and laughed. “But who has that kind of time?”

  “It’s still nice to dream,” her aunt said. “And don’t give up on that. You might do it yet.”

  “My brothers would only sneak in and take it.” The smiled slipped, and Lily sighed, a mental image of all that hard work being gobbled up by greedy mouths. “They’re out of control.”

  Clarisse nodded. “We all know it.”

  And that seemed to be how every dream of hers faded—with the realization that her brothers would ruin it if she let them close enough. Except for her business—she’d started that up anyway, and she was determined to find a way to make this work. She was constantly protecting the boys, or protecting everything else from them.

  “But while we’re talking about crazy, impossible dreams,” Lily added quietly, rubbing gentle circles on the baby’s back, “I’d keep Emily.”

  “You would?” Clarisse stopped chopping and came around the counter. “Are you serious about that?”

  “Like I said, crazy and impossible,” Lily said quickly. “But I’d love to raise a little girl of my own.”

  “And you can,” Clarisse said. “You’ll get married and have kids of your own someday.”

  Kids of her own. She’d always wanted a family—even with her exasperation with her brothers. She leaned her cheek gently against that downy head, and she realized it wasn’t just “a baby” that she wanted, it was this baby. And that was a dangerous thing to even admit to, because it would only make it harder when her time with Emily was up.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lily said. “I have four little brothers and a business to run. I’ve got to keep my feet on the ground, especially with Bryce around. I don’t know what I’m going to do—the visiting officers are my bread and butter.”

  Clarisse was silent for a moment, and then she put a hand on Lily’s. “You are too young to stop dreaming, dear. They won’t be boys forever. They’ll grow up eventually, and you’ll be mad as a hornet if you put off your dreams for that ungrateful lot.”

  Outside, the men loaded the steaks onto a plate, and their footsteps clomped along the deck as they got to the screen door. The aroma of barbecue-charred meat wafted through the kitchen as they came in. Aaron cast Clarisse a boyish grin, and her aunt blushed. Whether Aaron was a con man or not, one thing was certain—her aunt was in love.

  Bryce brushed past Lily to put the plate of steaks on the table. His hand skimmed along her back as he edged by.

  “Excuse me,” he said, his voice low. He glanced back at her after he’d passed, and her heart gave a squeeze.

  Feet on the ground, Lily, she reminded herself. Her aunt might believe in hopes and dreams, but Lily was a little more pragmatic. Distraction wasn’t even an option.

  Chapter Five

  As they drove back home later that evening, Bryce breathed in the scent of fresh grass from the open windows. The moon was high and full, spilling silvery light over the fields they passed, the shadowy shapes of cows rising like mounds in the grass. A few clouds stretched across the sky—a soothing night drive.

  It had been an interesting evening, and seeing Lily with her relatives had been eye-opening. Normally, if he was meeting a woman’s family, there would be an added pressure on him to fit in or impress them, but with Lily, since their association was purely professional—whether her aunt believed that or not—he had the pleasure of simply observing.

  Lily and her aunt seemed especially close, and Lily relaxed in a different way when they talked. She trusted Clarisse, that much was clear, but Lily’s distrust of Aaron was equally obvious. If Aaron noticed, he didn’t let on. They slowed to a stop for an intersection, and he glanced over at Lily. If he weren’t here being disciplined, he’d ask her out...but not like this.

  “So what did Aaron say about my aunt?” Lily asked, breaking the easy silence.

  When Bryce and Aaron had stood outside with the barbecue, Aaron had talked more openly than when they were around the women. Mostly, he’d told Bryce that Clarisse was protective of Lily, and by extension, so was he. They didn’t want to see Lily get hurt—or at least that was the image Aaron had adopted. After Bryce went through the motions of reassuring him that he wasn’t involved with Lily in any way, Aaron had relaxed somewhat and talked about his relationship with Clarisse.

  “He said he’d met your aunt in a chat room on a Christian dating site, and he hadn’t realized her age at first. But the more he got to know her, the more he knew he was falling for her. So when they did discover the age difference, they had to have a serious talk about it.”

  Lily made a turn onto a paved road, her gaze flickering toward him only for a moment. “So he admitted that the age difference was...odd.”

  “Not really,” he said. “He did say that they understand each other in a way that no one else seems to. He says she can really make him laugh.”

  Lily was silent.

  “Sounded like love to me,” he said quietly.

  Bryce had dated a few women over the years, and he’d gotten serious with one of them—Kelly. She had been a volunteer at the station, working with women caught up in domestic abuse. They’d dated for a couple of years. She’d known from the beginning that he didn’t want kids, and he’d thought that she was okay with that. And then one Christmas he’d bought her an engagement ring. She’d been hinting about wanting to get married, and when she opened the tiny box that Christmas Eve, her eyes lit up, and then she froze.

  “Before I say yes,” she’d said softly, “I just need to know that you’re open to having kids one day.”r />
  That was when it crumbled. They broke up that Christmas, and they’d gone their separate ways to nurse their broken hearts. But before it all ended, he’d experienced what it felt like to be in love. He also knew what it felt like to let a woman down.

  So while Bryce could be sympathetic to someone being in love, he hadn’t exactly lost his cynicism. Feelings only took a couple so far.

  “So you’re done investigating?” she asked.

  Bryce laughed softly. “Didn’t say that. I just said that it sounded like love, but if he is a con man, he’d know how to fake that.”

  From the backseat, the baby started to cry, and Lily immediately tensed. She glanced in the rearview mirror, then tried to look into the backseat, but wasn’t able to. Emily’s thin wail filled the car.

  Bryce stretched to get a better look at the baby. Her little eyes were scrunched up and her bottom lip quivered in despair. Obviously, he couldn’t just pick her up, so he looked around for an alternative. Her pacifier lay on the seat beside her, and he gave it a quick wipe on his sleeve and popped it into her mouth.

  The result was silence, and he felt a wave of victory.

  “What did you do?” Lily asked.

  “Pacifier.” He glanced back at the baby again, and her eyes were shining in the darkness, the pacifier bobbing up and down in a soft staccato.

  “You’re better at this than you admit,” she said. “You said you weren’t good with kids, but you seem to have a special touch with Emily.”

  Kelly had thought the same thing, and it was better to shut this down than to let Lily keep thinking something that Bryce knew was impossible. He was the spitting image of his father in more ways than he was proud of, and while he might be able to handle some basic child-related duties from time to time, he wasn’t good for kids.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you saw me in my natural habitat.” He meant to sound more joking than it came out, but it was hard to jest about the flat truth. He didn’t know how to relate to kids, and he already knew that kind of ability couldn’t be learned.