by Leigh Riker
To Molly’s relief, the Colliers soon came stomping in the back door, shedding jackets and gloves, their faces red from the cold. Even the short trip from the garage into the house had chilled them. Molly was glad to see them. Now she and Brig were no longer alone.
“What do I smell?” Joe asked with a look of rapture.
“Beef stew. Biscuits,” Molly said. “Blueberry pie.”
“And what are the rest of you having for dinner?”
Brig laughed. “I’d fight you for it if I had to. Sit down. Let’s eat.”
In the cheery dining room they gathered...like a family, once again reminding Molly that years ago she had expected the Colliers to become her in-laws.
“How’s your mother doing tonight, Joe?”
“I think she’s turned the corner. Her doctor reminded us that at her age people get fragile—not only that hip—and they can sink, then rally on a dime.” He paused. “When she gets released from rehab, she’s coming with us to Liberty. I’ve had enough of her ‘I can manage on my own’ nonsense, let me tell you. If I have to, I’ll clean out this house myself—”
“And toss out everything she loves?” Bess put in. “No, you will not, Admiral Collier.” The fictional nickname suited him. “Don’t be stubborn. We’ll all sort her belongings together. Then you can put the house on the market,” she said.
“If Grandma agrees,” Brig added.
“Oh, she’ll agree,” Joe said. “Believe me.”
Molly focused on her plate. If she did say so, the stew was delicious, and they finished it all. The biscuits, as well. The pie vanished, too, along with a half gallon of vanilla ice cream. The blizzard seemed to increase appetites.
“A magnificent dinner, Molly,” Bess said with a smile. “And doing the laundry plus putting fresh sheets on our bed? If I’m ever snowbound again, I know just who to call.”
She and Joe did the dishes while Brig checked on the baby upstairs and Molly folded the last load of wash.
All in all, the day had been a breather of sorts from Molly’s usual routine, and in the evening she collapsed contentedly on the living room sofa to stare at the fire. She could get used to this, even when she knew having it was impossible.
To pass the time tonight she might find a good book on Mrs. Collier’s bedroom shelves to read and curl up right here on the sofa with a cozy blanket, nowhere she needed to go and nothing else she needed to do.
How long had it been since her last break? The week she’d had a strep throat and Andrew had done all the cooking and cleaning and caring for her?
Tonight she was content to look into the fire or out at the falling snow, hear the silence on the street, feel cocooned in white as long as she had the warmth inside.
She rose to get a book, but Brig clattered down the stairs right into her path. He gave Molly a grin and a thumbs-up. “Mission accomplished,” he said. “Laila’s out like a light. So far, so good.” He grabbed Molly’s hand. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Out,” he said. “I was going to shovel the walks again—and I will—but first—” He opened the front door, letting in a blast of cold air. Brig handed Molly her boots and her coat, then shrugged into his own. “Come on, Mom. Dad!” he yelled toward the kitchen. “Snowball fight!”
* * *
THE SIGHT OF four adults building opposing forts in the front yard, then piling up their weapons made Molly grin. It had been years since she’d participated in a good snowball fight. At Little Darlings, it wasn’t allowed. Someone might get hurt, the current thinking went. But, oh, what fun everyone was missing.
“Hey!” Brig called when the first snowball hit him in the chest. His father had fired one before the agreed-upon signal to begin. “You wanna fight dirty?”
The next landed on his father’s head. Bess laughed, her breath frosting in the night air as the snow continued to drift down around them.
“Incoming!” Joe shouted, lobbing another ball at Molly this time. She retaliated with the biggest one in her arsenal.
Bess joined in, slamming Brig in the back before he could pick up more ammunition. In no time he and Molly had exhausted their stash. There was a brief time-out while he went inside to check on Laila, who was still sleeping. Then, with a fresh supply of snowballs, the fight resumed, even fiercer than before.
In the heat of battle, Brig’s eyes—his father’s, too—were alight with something Molly couldn’t even name. Excitement, of course. Determination, maybe. Focus? She wasn’t entirely sure. But adrenaline and testosterone were obviously flowing. For Molly, peace was more her thing.
Brig’s gaze held another, different spark when the truce was finally called.
“We’d better get the walks cleared now,” Joe said, “or by morning we won’t be able to open the doors.”
“In a minute, Dad.” He stalked toward Molly with that light in his eyes. She took a step back, lifting her arms as a shield.
“Oh, no, you don’t.”
“Oh, yes, I do.” He closed in, one hand behind his back. Brig caught an arm and, with his parents watching nearby, moved to push the last snowball into Molly’s face.
“You!” she cried in mock outrage.
But at the last minute, Brig lobbed the snowball away from her like a live grenade. Molly was laughing, too. After evading Brig, she scooped up more snow, packed it into the tightest ball she could and chased after him, but he was already running across the lawn, having guessed her intention. “Stand still,” she called, gasping as she ran.
When she caught up—because he let her, most likely—Brig wasn’t even breathing hard. Through his coat his forearm felt steely in her grasp, but she didn’t get the chance to deliver her missile—not that she really meant to. Brig tumbled her back into the snow. He straddled her, his lower body weight on her, leaning on his elbows, his broad shoulders blocking everything from view. Then he framed her face and looked into her eyes. Not smiling at all.
“Brigham, let the poor girl up,” she heard his mother say.
“We’re just playing,” he murmured. “Molly needs to play. So do I.”
Their closeness lasted only a minute, even less, but for Molly it was a time-travel moment into the past when she and Brig had laughed like this so freely.
No wonder she had avoided Brig all day, avoided anything that stirred the daydream of being part of his family again, part of his life.
“You’ve been in black ops way too long,” she whispered.
Then, needing to end the moment, as if to fire, she raised the snowball she held close to Brig’s neck. He howled.
“That does it.” He bounded to his feet. With a strength that always astonished Molly, he pulled her upright.
As if they were on a parade ground, Brig marched her across the yard, away from their forts, to a big patch of virgin snow. She could sense his parents behind them, wondering and perplexed as they gazed at Brig and her.
“Get down, recruit,” he ordered in a mock growl, as if also pulling himself from that other moment. But he didn’t bark out an order to do push-ups, as Molly had expected. “Give me...a snow angel.”
Brig flopped beside her on his back. Limbs moving in a wide arc, they made twin angels, something Molly hadn’t done since she was ten years old.
His head now turned toward her, Brig grinned like one of her boys at Little Darlings. Like Jeff Barlow’s Ernie. In that one instant, Brig’s war was gone. Their time to play had freed him for now from his memories of Sean.
Smiling, yet strangely moved, Molly gazed into his eyes. She saw the more carefree Brig she’d once known. And yearned for what they both had lost of each other.
* * *
THE SNOW STOPPED by dawn. At noon the angels he and Molly had fashioned were melting. Brig again left Laila with his parents to take Molly to the hospita
l. Miraculously the little girl had slept half the night and swung the rest until six in the morning. He and Molly would visit with his grandmother one last time before they had to leave for Liberty. Joe and Bess seemed more than happy to play with the baby and get a brief respite from all the stress.
Molly carried a bright bouquet of yellow prespring tulips into his grandmother’s room. She was sitting up in bed. To Brig’s relief her face showed some color again, and her eyes had their normal sparkle.
“Thank you, dears. April can’t be far away, but isn’t this snow something?” She glanced toward the window that looked out onto the parking lot. “Makes a person want to go skiing. What are you two doing here when you could be having fun?”
“We did,” Molly said. She told Grandma Collier about their snowball fight and the angels. “I wish you could have joined us. Now we’re bringing some fun to you.”
Brig stood back as Molly pulled an old Parcheesi game from her bag. She’d found it, she’d told him, on his grandmother’s bookshelf.
For the next hour they played the game his grandmother had always loved, and the color in her cheeks grew even brighter. Then Brig showed her the pictures of Laila he’d snapped on his phone that morning. In his favorite one, Molly was holding her with a Madonna-like smile on her face. And not Madonna the singer, either.
His grandmother studied the photos, her gaze occasionally swinging from Molly to Brig and back again. He could almost see her thinking, What a good match these two make. Which, as she hadn’t hesitated to let everyone know, she’d always thought so.
Molly, he was sure, had another opinion. And why wouldn’t she after he’d walked out on her years ago? So what had he done last night? Stepped way over the line. Trapped her beneath him in the snow, all but kissing her right there with his parents looking on. No wonder she once again wasn’t talking to him except when she had to.
“She’s lovely, Brig.” His grandmother’s voice called him back, but she wasn’t referring to Molly. “Laila you said her name is?”
He smiled. Meeting Laila even secondhand had raised his grandmother’s spirits more than his and Molly’s visit. “Right. You’re a great-grandmother now.”
She straightened, setting the lid back on the Parcheesi box. She’d won, of course. She always did. “As soon as I get out of here, I’m coming to visit. I know a thing or two about babies.”
Brig didn’t dare mention her possible move to Liberty this time. Leave that to his father. Instead, he leaned down to kiss her. “You behave yourself now. I’ll be getting regular updates from Mom and Dad. See you soon, Grandma.”
A promise he wasn’t sure he could keep.
She reached up to take his face in her hands. Her eyes held his. “I love you, Brigham. The only thing I want in this world before I depart it is to see you happy.” Her gaze shifted to Molly, who was packing away the game box. “You know what would make me happy,” Grandma Collier said. “I wonder if it isn’t the same thing we both want.”
Dream on, Brig thought. He couldn’t mistake her meaning.
Too bad he didn’t have a chance at being more than friends—if that—with Molly. “We need to go,” he said. “The snow has finally stopped and the roads weren’t bad on the way over here. I want to be in Liberty before dark.”
“I only have one grandson, you know,” his grandmother murmured, and looked toward the television perched on a wall mount. “I see the news. And I’ll worry about you. Please, stay safe, Brigham.”
“Yes, ma’am. I plan to.” For now, I am safe and so is Laila, he thought. He’d had an overwhelming sense of peace last night and all day yesterday. Chopping wood, shoveling the driveway, going to the store with Molly. Simple tasks with no threat involved. Like today’s visit at the hospital. Not like that day with Sean.
And yet he all but champed at the bit to get back in the action.
No need to tell Molly that. She already knew.
So did his grandmother. Reminded of an issue he hadn’t settled with his parents, he gave Grandma Collier one more kiss, then hustled Molly from the room.
In the car on the way home, Brig worried himself into a headache. On duty he missed his family. And, always, he missed Molly.
She seemed to occupy some part of his mind no matter where he went. The day his mom had told him about her wedding to Andrew, Brig had punched a hole in the mess hall wall. Not that he’d had any right to object. Brig had given her up. She belonged to another man.
He jerked his thoughts back to the present. “I need to get Laila’s care figured out fast. I have to talk to my folks as soon as we get home.”
As if waiting for Brig to return, his mother sat in the living room when they got back. Laila swayed in her swing to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and Bess watched the baby’s every motion.
“There you are,” she said to Brig. She was wringing her hands, a habit when she felt tense, and that worsened his headache. “We’ve had a wonderful time with the baby.”
“Will you think so at four in the morning when she’s screaming?”
Bess cast another longing glance at Laila. “You don’t think you used to yell loud enough to wake the dead yourself?”
His father wandered into the room carrying another load of firewood. He deposited it on the hearth, then brushed off his hands, as if ridding himself of some problem. “Roads pretty good by now?”
“Yeah. Molly and I need to leave.” Brig took a breath. “But I wanted to see first about Lai—”
“Joe.” His mother glanced at his father, who, when Brig spoke, had squared his shoulders as if he was about to address a unit of his men facing some terrible firefight.
“Your mother and I have been talking. About your grandmother. We wanted her at a rehab facility near us in Liberty, but she won’t hear of it.”
“She wants to stay close to home,” Bess said, “at least for now. She’ll have a faster recovery if her friends can visit here and keep her spirits up.”
“It’s not likely,” Joe said, “that they’d make the trip to Ohio.”
His mother looked at the baby. “We’ve had a great visit with Laila...she’s everything we could want in a grandchild....” She didn’t finish.
Brig’s pulse began to thud. The grandchild he had never given them. Because of all the emotion underlying the arrival of a baby in his parents’ lives, he had hated to ask them to care for Laila even for a short time, but they had agreed.
“I know the situation has changed since Grandma’s fall,” Brig said, but couldn’t go on, either. By then, he already knew.
Molly was still standing by the front door. In the silence she cleared her throat and said, “I’ll go upstairs to pack. For you, too, Brig.”
She left them alone to talk. Brig didn’t want to hear the rest.
“This whole thing has made us think. We’re not getting any younger.” His mother picked up the speech she and his father had obviously rehearsed while he and Molly were gone. He’d been half expecting it since he arrived in Liberty and found them missing. “If there was any way, believe me, we’d be happy to...but with your grandmother’s condition still uncertain, and considering her age, the extra care she may need...moving her eventually....”
She was on the verge of tears. Yet Brig couldn’t stop her. He was as frozen as Molly had looked by the front door.
“Mom, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. But, please, honey. I hope you can understand. We’re part of the sandwich generation, and having an elderly woman who will struggle to adjust to that new hip for months, plus a small baby in the house...” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Brig.”
“I know this puts you in a real bind. But even for a few weeks—” his dad delivered the final blow “—we just can’t take Laila.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT HAD BECOME ever harder for Molly to resist Laila, and after their trip to Indiana and Brig’s parents’ decision, she’d all but stopped trying. Her fresh memory of making snow angels with Brig told Molly, too, that she and Brig were in a different place emotionally. What to do about that?
Dressed for success—she hoped, because tonight was the dreaded zoning commission meeting—she walked into the kitchen. To her surprise, Brig and her father sat cross-legged on the floor with metal objects scattered between them that seemed to have something to do with the sink. Both men had greasy hands, and Pop sported a matching streak across his forehead.
“What kind of plumber are you?” he asked.
“Not even an apprentice,” Brig answered, frowning at the plumbing parts. He glanced at Molly in her go-to-a-meeting outfit, and his eyes widened. “Wow. On a scale of one to ten, you’re over the top. That’s a killer dress.”
“I hope so.” Molly ignored her father’s sour glance at Brig and took a deep breath. She really wasn’t looking forward to this. Still unsatisfied with her presentation, she wanted to stay home. Like Pop. “If Natalie Brewster isn’t happy with what I have to say...” Reality in the form of their neighbor and her place on the zoning commission had intruded again. “And with the blizzard and those few days away, I haven’t begun to get my donations to the rummage sale in order. I’m sure she’s aware of my oversight.”
Pop grunted. “I’ll drag ’em over to the community center tomorrow. Tell her I said so.”
Brig grinned at Molly. Aware of Natalie’s interest in her father, he handed him a wrench. “I can help, Thomas. Provide cover,” he said. “Together we’ll have the stuff there in no time. Then you can help me move the baby gear next door.”
Pop didn’t reply. For the past few days he’d shied from any mention of the baby leaving this house.
“What’s wrong with the sink?” Molly asked.
Brig shrugged. “We started with a clogged trap and went from there.”
