If I Loved You

by Leigh Riker

  “No, you need to hear this.” His face hardened. “The evening I arrived home from a lousy day at a double homicide scene and saw her about to smack Ernie, I packed his stuff and mine and called a lawyer.”

  “Do you two have joint custody?”

  “Nope. The court finally agreed Ernie is better off with me.”

  His story touched her. “You’re a wonderful father, Jeff. I see some who aren’t at the center. I’m afraid Benjamin Crandall has one of those—his dad is either on the road for business or unavailable emotionally, and if the child doesn’t get some guidance, I hate to think what will happen to him.”

  Jeff’s features softened again. “I love Ernie with everything in me. I would have had a dozen kids if Kay and I had...but we didn’t last. Leaving was the best thing for Ernie and for me.”

  “He’s a lovely little boy,” she said.

  Jeff grinned. “Don’t let him hear you say that. Lovely isn’t a word boys like Ernie care for.”

  “How about cool, then?”

  “Way cool is even better.”

  From the other room Ann heard the soundtrack for Finding Nemo. Jeff said, “That’s my cue. He probably fell asleep, and the earbuds popped out. We’d better head home so I can tuck him into bed. Morning comes early, and before I catch forty winks, he’ll be bouncing on my chest ready to get to Little Darlings.”

  “He does have enthusiasm.”

  Jeff stood, then looked down at Ann. “I realize you herded me like a sheepdog right into talking about Kay tonight. But I’m still waiting to hear about you.”

  She paused, heart beating too fast. “It’s really not that interesting.”

  “Oh,” he said, “I’ll bet it is. Once we get past that we can—”

  “Jeff, thank you for dinner. Somehow you sensed my weakness for junk food. And thanks, too, for dinner that one night. I had a good time when we hiked with Ernie. But you’re wasting your time if you think this—whatever it is—can go any further.”

  “Further than what?”

  “Being...well, acquaintances. Tonight was for Ernie,” she said. “He’s one of my favorite kids at the center. And maybe there is some spark between you and me, but that’s all it is. All it can be. So you should really—”

  “Don’t tell me what I should do.” He kept looking at her in that way that both fascinated and scared her.

  By now her pulse was hammering triple time. She drew herself up, her words brittle as she tried to protect herself. “Don’t make anything of this just because you have a cute little boy. I was acting in my official capacity tonight. Call it a parent conference if you like.”

  To her surprise, Jeff only laughed.

  “Tell yourself anything you want, Annie. But don’t expect me to believe it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MOLLY WAS IN her room that night editing her still-balky presentation for the zoning commission when she heard a cry from across the hall. Laila was up again.

  She could hear Brig talking softly to the baby as he paced. But Laila only cried harder.

  Molly wasn’t in the mood to give another lesson on caring for an infant—as if there was a cure for sleeplessness at this age—but she was out of bed before she realized what she was doing. Her mind was still whirling from the ladder incident that morning, so it didn’t take much to break her concentration tonight. Besides, Molly was a caregiver, not a writer.

  She opened her bedroom door, stepped into the hall and ran smack into Brig. At the brief contact with his solid chest, she jerked away.

  He gave her a drowsy smile, Laila nestled in the crook of his arm.

  “Guess who doesn’t want to sleep?”

  “She’s definitely clock shifted,” Molly agreed. She reached out to smooth the baby’s damp hair but drew back when her fingers brushed Brig’s hand. She didn’t need to see Laila’s red face to know she was working herself up into a real state. One tiny fist smacked Molly on the cheek. “She must think midnight is time to get up.”

  “Well, it is morning over there,” he said. “The problem is how to get her turned around.”

  Molly peeled aside the blanket and took another look. Immediately the baby kicked out her legs, then wailed even harder.

  “I don’t think the clock is her only issue. Maybe we’ve been missing the obvious. With most babies who cry at the same time every day or night, it’s colic.” She didn’t stop to ponder her use of the word we.

  He groaned. “That doesn’t sound good. You mean, like a horse?”

  “Similar, I suppose. In either case, belly pain hurts.”

  The dark circles under Brig’s eyes stood out like bruises.

  “What’s the treatment?”

  “I hate to say this, but time. She’ll outgrow it as her body develops. Usually by four months.”

  “I thought the new formula would do the trick.”

  “That helps. Her digestive system has been better, don’t you think? But for now...” Molly gave a little shrug.

  Brig sighed. He was jostling the baby in his arms, trying to comfort her with the motion. “Guess I’ll head downstairs so as not to wake the—”

  He didn’t even finish before Pop emerged from his room, a worried frown on his face, his hair sticking up in spikes, his bathrobe tails flapping. “Is she sick?”

  “Not exactly,” Molly said. “Go back to bed, Pop. No sense in everyone losing sleep.” She turned to Brig. “Let me take Laila. She can help me with my presentation,” she joked, “and you need rest.”

  “Molly,” he began, shaking his head, but she deftly slipped the baby from his arms to cradle her close.

  Perhaps not the wisest decision she’d ever made, but it was either that or watch Brig become ever more sleep deprived. Then there was Laila. That first night in the spare room when she’d gazed down at this baby and loved her on sight had been a cautionary moment. She’d done her best ever since, even during their lessons, to keep from any too close contact, using the excuse whenever she could that Brig needed to be hands-on so he could care for Laila on his own. But she’d been fighting a losing battle.

  “Put a pillow over your head—you, too, Pop—and I’ll see you both in the morning.”

  Which soon left Molly in her room again, sitting in the rocking chair she liked to read in, holding a bundle of blanket and baby and giving up another piece of her soul. Well, she’d volunteered—again—hadn’t she?

  Alone with Laila for the first time, Molly sang to her, but the lullaby didn’t help. Nothing did. Molly tried every trick she used at Little Darlings, but Laila continued to kick and squirm and scream. She screwed up her little face until it looked like an angry prune.

  So they just walked. The metronome tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway seemed to soothe the baby’s wails, and Molly soon dared to plant a soft kiss on Laila’s hair, like the soft kiss Brig had given Molly in the kitchen. A kiss Molly had done her best to forget.

  “It’s just you and me tonight, babe,” she murmured. “I know you don’t feel well. It will be all right, though. You and me,” she added, settling back into their nest in the rocking chair.

  Molly’s room was warm and cozy, a retreat, with her treasured things. The comforter from the bed in the house she’d shared with Andrew. His favorite shirt, still hanging in her closet here because it smelled of him, woodsy and masculine and...safe. Her favorite wedding picture of her and Andrew, and next to it the silver-framed sonogram of their unborn child.

  What if their child had been born healthy and alive like Laila? And Molly had been given the chance to hold her baby and walk the floor on colicky nights like this. That wasn’t meant to be. She had to accept this reality.

  She wouldn’t feel sorry for herself.

  Laila had finally quieted and, exhausted, fallen asleep. But Mo
lly wouldn’t take her across the hall to her crib and Brig, and be reminded of so many years ago when she had loved him and thought he loved her, too.

  Now they were both different, and after all he’d seen and done in war, he might not even be capable of love. She wondered if she was, either.

  They both cared for Laila, though.

  Molly smiled down at her, rocking, rocking. In the darkness, she held the baby close, this latest borrowed child, one body warming the other, warming her inside.

  What if...

  * * *

  BRIG HAD JUST waved at Jeff Barlow’s retreating cruiser the next morning when he spied Thomas rounding the corner of his house with Laila in a stroller. He grinned at the picture they made, the small baby wrapped in a lavender bunting, an extra blanket tucked around her, the older man with his neck swaddled in a bright red plaid scarf and wearing a navy blue parka.

  Brig was feeling pretty good this morning, thanks to Molly’s offer to sit up with the baby last night. He’d actually gotten a solid seven hours of sleep. His stubborn jet lag, which usually didn’t bother him, was finally easing. The air didn’t hold quite the chill it had for the past few days, and he didn’t see a snow cloud in sight. The sun was even shining in a blue sky.

  If he could ignore the news in the paper and on TV, he’d be fine.

  Thomas, stroller in hand, joined him on the sidewalk. “I saw the sheriff’s car,” he said as if urging Brig to explain.

  Brig decided to hold off on that subject. He was still pondering his team’s tight-lipped response to his query about intel. “Where’d you get the stroller?”

  “From Molly’s center.”

  “Good thinking.” He fell into step beside Thomas. “I like Jeff,” Brig said when they were rolling along the sidewalk. “He’s a solid guy. I couldn’t help thinking he’d make a good fit for my team.”

  “He’s a good man. As I keep telling my daughter Ann.” He paused. “One of these days she’ll have to let go of the past. Until then, that accident has ruined her life.”

  Brig bit back the words that wanted to come out. He knew about her accident years ago, and he’d wondered more than once about Ann’s lifestyle now—staying to herself, always walking everywhere, refusing a lift the time he’d offered on his way back from the pediatrician’s office with Laila in the car he’d borrowed from Thomas. But Brig knew better than most people that sometimes keeping quiet was the right thing to do. Certainly he had his own demons. And Ann had made her opinion of him clear.

  “Sorry to hear that,” he said instead. Then, “Jeff came by this morning to ask about my parents—and offer some help. He said he could probably put out an APB, but I doubt my father would appreciate being pulled over somewhere by the cops.”

  In the stroller Laila was cooing to herself. She stared up at the bright sky, kicking and waving in obvious approval of the outing.

  “My grandmother in Indiana also seems to have disappeared. I can’t help feeling that the two things must be connected. I know Mom worries about her. She says every time the telephone rings, she jumps, concerned that something has happened to her mother-in-law or something has happened to me.”

  “That’s what parents do,” Thomas murmured. Brig could almost see him thinking about Ann, then Molly. “I have to say I was mighty relieved when Ann started to work at Little Darlings and Molly left Hyde Park to live here with me. It’s easier to keep tabs on them,” he said with a smile.

  Brig could relate to that. He watched Laila like a hawk, like his parents watched his grandmother. “My folks want Grandma Collier to come live with them, but she’s still active and in good health as far as I know. She’s not ready to give up her independence and sell her house. Four bedrooms, three baths plus a walk-up attic full of things from the past fifty years. Weeding out stuff and packing up would seem daunting.”

  “Joe told me they’ve met with some major resistance.”

  Brig bent to straighten Laila’s blanket, which had come loose and now threatened to trail on the sidewalk or get caught in the wheel. She gave him one of her new, perfectly sunny smiles.

  It occurred to him that her night with Molly might have done her some good, too. Molly had a way of calming her that was all her own.

  It also occurred to him that he and Thomas had never held such a lengthy conversation, especially without Thomas snarling or Brig feeling guilty for every transgression committed years ago.

  “Thomas, I appreciate you standing up for me yesterday.”

  Thomas grunted. “No sense you getting run in to jail, leaving Molly to care for this child and her center at the same time.”

  And you, Brig thought, but didn’t say that, either. He’d watched Molly pick up after her father, cook his meals and do his laundry. It irritated him that Thomas let her, without offering to help.

  “Nice touch,” Thomas said, surprising Brig again. “Bringing my car back with a full tank and shiny to boot.”

  “You’re welcome.” By now they had made a full circuit of the block. Considering their temporary truce, Brig ventured the rest of his latest theory. “So what if my folks are in Indiana right now? With Grandma Collier? Which doesn’t explain why they wouldn’t answer the phone.”

  “Maybe they took her with them somewhere else.”

  “Maybe.” But Brig had a bad feeling. His grandmother wasn’t the most enthusiastic traveler. Although she had a dozen activities in her hometown, she tended to not stray far. “Barlow’s going to make some calls to local law enforcement there. See what he can learn.”

  Thomas turned in at the front walk. By now Laila was beginning to fuss. Either she was wet or she needed a bottle. Certainly she couldn’t be cold. The temperature was rising, the sun warming the air, and Laila was bundled into so many wrappings that she had a too-rosy pair of cheeks. And would you look at him? Postulating what the baby’s trouble might be. He’d even managed to diaper and dress her earlier without a hitch after Molly left for work without more than a good-morning to him and a quick acknowledgment of Brig’s “thanks for last night.”

  “I’ll take the stroller back to Molly,” Thomas announced.

  “Let me have Laila,” Brig said. “Come on, cupcake.”

  “Why don’t you heat her bottle? I’ll carry the baby home after I return this rig.”

  Brig hid a smile. The old guy was crusty, all right, but he sure liked Laila. His intention was as clear as the morning sky. Brig had noticed how he liked to hold her whenever he got the chance and talk nonsense until she punched the air with a fist or flung out her legs in delight. His growing love for Laila showed in his eyes.

  “Okay, I’ll go heat her bottle,” Brig said.

  He had started toward the back door of the house when Thomas stopped him. And their pleasant walk ended with the words that brought Brig back to reality.

  “You think they’re in trouble? Bess and Joe?”

  “I hope not.”

  * * *

  HOPING SHE HAD half a chance of securing the town zoning commission’s approval for the expansion at Little Darlings, Molly frowned at the papers on her desk. At half past eight she was still at the center, profiting from the weekend quiet there to do more work on her presentation. But Molly wasn’t getting far with her editing.

  Her thoughts kept returning to the house. To Brig and Laila, and last night when she’d rocked and sung to the baby she was coming to care about far too much. The man, too, she had to admit.

  And where could that possibly lead?

  The TV news kept getting worse and worse. The president was scheduled to speak right now about probable military intervention because of human rights violations, but Molly didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Sooner rather than later, Brig would leave for wherever in the world he was needed.

  Squaring her shoulders, she shuffled papers until
she found the page that most needed work. She was still pleased with how the original renovation had turned out. The character of the carriage house remained, but now the place had new and larger windows, more safety features.

  The play yard, though, could use new equipment; for example, a base of recycled tires to cushion falls from the slides or swings. Molly had also added a small climbing wall to the new design. If the commission approved her plans, she’d be able to open more new classrooms, plus enlarge the nursery. Her architect had carved out space, too, for another much-needed bathroom, with kid-size sinks and toilets.

  One more if, she thought with a sigh. The commission—specifically Natalie, who Molly hadn’t even known was a member until she’d objected to the expansion—might be a big stumbling block.

  She covered her face. All she could do was hope for the best.

  “Molly?” Brig’s voice brought her head up. “Am I interrupting?”

  “Please, do.” She sat back in her chair. “Trying to make this presentation for the zoning commission into something peppy they can’t resist is driving me crazy.”

  Brig was holding his cell phone. “News,” he said. “Good and bad.”

  For a second she feared it was his next foreign assignment.

  “Jeff Barlow tracked my parents down. Good thing we met when he almost arrested me yesterday. I needed his help on this after all.”

  For an instant she held her breath. “Where are they?”

  “Indiana. Staying at my grandmother’s. That’s the good part.”

  “Then why didn’t they answer her phone?”

  “I don’t know. My grandmother doesn’t have a machine, so they weren’t getting messages, either.”

  Molly leaned forward. “What about your parents’ cell phones?”

  “You won’t believe this—but yesterday when I checked their house, I saw my dad’s cell sitting on the kitchen counter. I guess they left in a hurry—and if I know him, he was cracking the whip over Mom’s head to get on the road. She doesn’t have a phone of her own. One of Dad’s economy measures after he retired. He still likes to be the guy in charge.”