“Will you be okay with that?” she asked, frowning. He’d made it pretty clear that he and babies didn’t mix, but all the same, she knew that Emily would be perfectly safe with him.
“I’ll figure it out,” he said.
A flood of relief rushed over her. He was helping more than he probably even realized. She’d been so busy with the bed-and-breakfast, and now busy with the baby, and perhaps what her brothers needed most was some of her undivided attention. Lily-please...
All she’d wanted was a chance to focus on her own life, but her brothers were a part of that life, and the freedom she’d longed for seemed even further out of reach. The other girls her age got to leave town, go to college. They got to make their own mistakes, but Lily didn’t have the luxury. There were no road trips with friends, or semesters spent away from home. Just this—Comfort Creek and her family.
“Thank you, Bryce.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I really appreciate this. I’ll call you in a couple of hours.”
She did still want that freedom. It was just pushed down further, because more immediately, her brothers needed her intervention, and a baby girl in want of her love. She had a feeling that all the freedom in the world wouldn’t be half as satisfying if she knew she was letting down the ones she loved.
Chapter Eight
When Bryce got the baby back to the house—it was walking distance—he still wasn’t sure why he’d volunteered to do this. His only thought was that he’d seen the look on Lily’s face, and it was clear she was overwhelmed.
He had a feeling she was in the same position with her brothers at the moment—desperate to do something for them, but not sure what that looked like. They had more in common than he cared to admit, it seemed. Lily had needed someone to step up for her. Was it stupid of him to want to be that guy?
Babysitting Emily was the most obvious solution, temporary as it may be. Lily had family issues to deal with, and she’d be able to deal with them more effectively if she wasn’t caring for an infant at the same time. Simple.
Or not so simple. He was now responsible for a newborn for the next few hours. Alone.
“Hello.” He looked down into Emily’s face. She was awake, big brown eyes fixed on his face. “It’s you and me, kid.”
She didn’t answer. Obviously. He put the car seat onto the kitchen table and fixed her with a contemplative stare.
“This was a terrible idea,” he said. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”
She seemed as curious as he was about what was about to unfold. But he couldn’t just leave her in a car seat, and pretty soon she’d probably want a bottle or something, so he went to the cupboard and pulled down a can of formula. It had instructions on the side—finally, something with some logical directions attached—and went about preparing a bottle.
“I’m not completely useless,” he told the baby over his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out until Lily gets back.”
Those were his father’s words coming out of his mouth. His dad had said the exact thing to him when he was about five and they’d been left in the house together. He didn’t know where his mother had gone, but he still remembered his father looking down at him with a wrinkled brow saying, “I’m not completely useless, kid. We’ll probably eat. That’s something.”
Famous words, because as it turned out, his father was pretty close to being useless, especially when he left a few months later. He walked out the door and never came back. And he’d never forgiven his dad for doing that, because Bryce had needed him. But if his father had stuck around, it never would have been a Norman Rockwell painting. His father hadn’t paid much attention to him at the best of times. In fact, the only time he remembered doing anything with his dad was that one time the man had reassured him that they’d probably eat. There were a few old pictures in the family album of his father on the couch with a beer, his attention riveted to the television, and Bryce sitting on the floor in a diaper. In fact, every picture of the two of them together had his father looking in the other direction and Bryce just standing there in the general vicinity of the man who had sired him. Would he have had less to resent if his father had stayed, or just different things to resent?
Emily wriggled in the car seat and made a face.
“Okay, I’m coming,” he said, and he undid the buckles just as the smell hit him. It was strong enough that his eyes watered. “Oh wow, Piglet... Wow...”
Diaper duty already. He’d avoided it at the station, and watched Lily do the honors at her aunt’s house, but he’d naively hoped that he could avoid ever touching a diaper if he timed things right.
“Can that wait?” he asked her seriously. “I mean, do you need me to look into that, or can we just pretend it didn’t happen?”
In response, Emily’s face crumpled into a wail, and he heaved a sigh.
The actual changing of the diaper was a more traumatic event than anticipated. He used up an entire box of baby wipes and managed to get Emily’s clothes soiled, as well as three bath towels and a spot on the carpet he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get out again... In total, it took half an hour, and Emily wet on his shirt before he managed to get her into a diaper again.
He was then too uncertain of his skills to even try dressing her in something clean, so he wrapped her in a tea towel and then sank into a recliner in the sitting room, the baby propped up on his shoulder.
She was tiny, her skin so soft, and she bobbed her head up and down a couple of times before settling her cheek against his shoulder and heaving a long sigh. She smelled of baby wipes and formula, and something sweet that he couldn’t quite place. It was a nice smell, he decided.
I’m really bad at this. He knew it was true. He wasn’t looking forward to explaining to Lily how the flower-patterned rug had gotten soiled. He’d offer to pay for the cleaning—it was the least he could do.
When he looked over at Emily, he saw her eyes slowly shut, a dribble of drool soaking into his shirt and wetting his shoulder.
For the moment, he would just sit. Very still. He’d let the baby sleep, and he wouldn’t move a muscle. There was a TV across the room, but the remote lay on a couch cushion out of reach, so that wasn’t much help.
Father, why do I feel like You’re playing a joke on me?
He believed that all things happened for a reason, and when he was sent to Comfort Creek, he’d wondered if God was going to help him address his anger. He hadn’t had his patience tested—not like it had been with Leroy Higgins. Instead, Bryce had been caring for a baby the entire time, and when he wasn’t around Emily, he seemed to be thinking about her...and about Lily. So what was God trying to teach him out here in Comfort Creek? What had been the point of all of this?
He thought he’d had everything under control until Leroy started in on him. He’d gotten over Kelly, gotten into a good rhythm with work and friends. He’d even started volunteering more with his local church. He’d been okay. He hadn’t been aching for something he couldn’t have until he got to Comfort Creek and had a family stuck under his nose.
I want more, Lord, he prayed silently. I want a wife.
He could see what he’d been missing. A wife to wake up to, to come home to, to worry if he got off late. He wanted someone to go to church with, to sit next to in the pew where he could slide his arm around her and smell that soft scent of her perfume. In that mental image, she wore a cherry-patterned dress, and he shook his head, pulling himself out of it.
Lily wasn’t the wife he needed. It didn’t matter how sweet she was, or how funny. It didn’t matter that he thought about her more than he should, or that she made him feel better about himself, somehow, just by being there. None of that mattered, because she was no different from the others—she wanted kids. That was a door closed.
Soon enough, Emily would be adopted by a family and she’d have real
parents to love and protect her. She’d have a dad, and that man would be the one to teach her how to ride a bike, teach her how to make pancakes for supper and one day walk her down the aisle. She’d have a real father, not just a stand-in like him, and she deserved the real thing.
Emily wriggled in his arms, her little mouth opening in a small circle, a pink tongue coming out. He knew that look by now—she was hungry.
Bryce eased himself up out of the chair and headed to the kitchen, where the bottle waited on the counter where he’d left it. It took some maneuvering, but he soon got her into the right position for her feeding. He hoped that her forever father would see what he saw in this little girl—spirit and sweetness...and an appetite that made him grin.
Lord, let her new dad love her like crazy and protect her from the bad stuff. Bless him. Really bless him. Pour it on, Lord. Because Emily deserves the best father she can get.
* * *
As Lily eased up the drive toward her house, she was still uncertain about how productive her talk with the boys had been. As it turned out, her younger brothers were all pretty angry at Lily for having moved out. They missed her, and they didn’t think it was fair that she got to start a new life without them. They’d never do that to her, they told her with chins quivering with rarely seen emotion. It was like she didn’t care anymore.
And she’d had to explain that she hadn’t left them, she’d just grown up. They’d move out, too, one day, and that didn’t mean that she loved them any less, but they couldn’t treat her new business like they’d treated her bedroom. She’d lose more than her investment if this bed-and-breakfast failed; she’d lose her livelihood. Her business wasn’t like a box of cookies—it wasn’t something to be shared by them all, and they had to respect that.
She thought that she’d gotten through to them a little bit, but they still hadn’t warmed up entirely. They were angry, and bringing them all together into the same room only seemed to make them angrier because they were all feeling the same way. Her mother had talked to them about the dangers of underage drinking, and even of drinking at the legal age. Lily’s grandfather had been an alcoholic, and so had Lily’s father.
“Please,” Lily had said quietly. “I love you guys. Stop with the drinking and the risky behavior. I’ll make more time for you, okay? If you want my attention, pick up the phone and call me, and we’ll make plans. I promise.”
She thought they’d made progress, but she couldn’t be sure. Teenage boys could be hard to read at the best of times. She had hugged her mother before she left and thought about the discussion all the way home. And now that she’d pulled into the driveway, she felt a little more peaceful.
Lord, show me how to help them, she prayed silently. And please protect them. Don’t let them do anything too stupid!
She got out of the car and headed up the walk to the front door. She paused, listening. All was quiet, which was a good sign...she hoped. She opened the door and came inside to find Bryce in the recliner, Emily on his chest, covered in what looked to be a tea towel.
“Hi,” she said. “Were you sleeping?”
“She is, not me. I couldn’t get her into the bassinet,” he said. “I could use a hand.”
Lily put her purse down by the door and picked up the baby in her arms. The tea towel fell aside, and she wrapped it around Emily once more, but she cast Bryce a curious look.
“It’s a long story,” Bryce said. “It involves that stain on the carpet. I’ll pay for the cleaning.”
“No need,” she said, glancing at the stain. If it was what she thought it was, it would come right out. “Vinegar and water will do the trick.”
“That’s a relief.” He pushed himself out of the recliner, and they made their way to the kitchen where the bassinet waited. Lily slipped Emily into it and pulled a blanket over her. Since Emily was sleeping, Lily would let the diaper wait. The baby let out a soft sigh and put one balled-up hand next to her face, but didn’t awaken.
“It looks like you survived,” she said, shooting him a smile. Whatever happened, it had resulted in a rather large pile of dirty clothes in the corner of the kitchen next to the laundry room, but she didn’t want to ask. Emily stirred in her sleep.
“Barely.” His tone was low, but the small smile betrayed more beneath the surface. He looked out the window toward the wooden framed swing. It had a bench seat that hung between an A-frame structure that served as a trellis for some errant morning glories, the flowers closed in rest as they did before sunlight coaxed them open again. Lily had spent many a morning on that swing with her Bible.
“So how did it go with the boys?” he asked.
“They’re furious with me, but I think we’re going in the right direction,” she said, and the baby let out a little grunt in her sleep.
“Should we go outside so we don’t wake her up?” he suggested.
It was a good idea, and Lily pushed open the kitchen window so that they’d hear any sounds Emily made. Then they eased out the side door into the cool night, and Lily sucked in a breath of lilac-scented air. The swing hung invitingly close. Lily sat first, and then Bryce eased in next to her, his arm brushing hers and emanating warmth against her. She lifted her feet and they hung suspended for a moment before Bryce pushed them back and then lifted his. The gentle rocking was soothing, and Lily heaved a quiet sigh. She was more tired than she’d thought.
“Thanks for watching her, Bryce.”
“My pleasure.”
Was it? She glanced toward him, and he didn’t look half as frazzled as she expected. He shrugged and cast her a bashful smile.
“Piglet is pretty cute. What can I say?”
Piglet. Why he refused to let go of that nickname, she’d never know. The chains that held the swing creaked softly, and the cool evening air whisked her hair away from her forehead with each rush forward.
“So how did it go with your brothers?” he repeated his question from inside.
She was silent for a moment, considering her response. “I honestly don’t know,” she admitted. “They’re furious with me.”
“How come?”
“I left.” She smiled sadly. “At least that’s the way they see it. I was always there for them, like a second mother, almost, and then I moved out. They feel like I abandoned them.”
“And they’re trying to get your attention,” he concluded.
“And succeeding.” She smiled sadly. “I feel so guilty.”
“Don’t.” He shrugged, and she felt the movement against her arm. “Starting your own life isn’t wrong. But those adjustments aren’t easy, either. For anyone, I guess.”
“I know...” And she did recognize that. She couldn’t just live with her mother until all the boys were grown with lives of their own. She wasn’t willing to sacrifice her own life—her own future husband and kids, her own business—for their comfort. She loved them, but growing up with four younger siblings had meant that she’d had to give up her own fair share more often than not. They weren’t her children, they were her brothers, and that made for a different dynamic, although one where she ended up equally riddled with guilt.
Bryce reached over and took her hand in his warm palm, giving her fingers a squeeze. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Thanks.” She certainly hoped that was true. “They think they know so much.”
Bryce chuckled. He didn’t release her hand, and she was glad of that, because his strong grip made her feel stronger, too.
“I was a handful, too,” he said. “And every time I took some huge risk, my mother would say the same thing to me...”
His voice trailed away, and when he didn’t finish the thought, she prompted, “What would she say?”
He glanced down at her, humor laced with bitterness in his blue eyes. “That I’m just like my dad.”
She felt the w
eight of those words, and she frowned slightly. “What did she mean by that?”
“I look like him, you know,” he said, not seeming to answer to question, at least not directly. “If you see pictures of my father at my age, we’re like twins.”
So his father was a handsome man, too. She blushed a little when she realized where her thoughts had gone. It wasn’t unheard of for a son to carry on family traits.
“Was he a real risk-taker or something?” she asked.
“Oh, definitely,” Bryce replied. “You have to be in order to be a cop, and I followed in his footsteps. It takes a certain personality to strap on your gear and head out into the night. I think that scared her—that I was my father’s carbon copy.”
“You’re half your mother, too,” Lily pointed out.
“But she and I are different as night and day,” Bryce replied. “She’s fair, like you. And petite. She worries a lot—all the time, actually. She’s serious.”
“Don’t boys want to be like their fathers?” she asked.
“Not me.” He glanced down at her again, and his face was only inches away. Those gentle blue eyes met her gaze, and a sad smile turned up one side of his mouth. “I’ve been fighting it my whole life.”
“Oh...” She whispered, and he leaned closer so that his arm pressed against hers, almost as if he found her comforting. Then he looked out into the yard, away from her, his fingers moving in slow circles over hers.
“My dad was almost charged with accepting bribes, but he quit and they dropped the charges because a witness backed out. Still, everyone thinks he did it.”
She winced. That kind of fall from a pedestal would hurt a boy. There came a time when an adult recognized that their parents were human, but no one was fully at peace with a parent being morally corrupt. That sting never got better. Still, he might not think his father was guilty.
“But what do you think?” she asked.
“I think he did it.”
She could feel the emotion in those words. She tipped her head against his strong shoulder and let out a slow breath.
Deputy Daddy Page 10
