by Leigh Riker
The whole time his gaze stayed on Ann. She hadn’t seen him since the night they shared fast food, when he’d said, Just don’t ask me to believe it. She had become an expert at avoidance.
Even Ernie had noticed at Little Darlings. Why do you run away when my daddy comes to get me? he’d wanted to know.
Ann had no answer for that.
Keeping her eyes now on Ernie, who was searching the tabletop for a car he liked, “the shiny silver one,” she didn’t look up as Jeff finally joined them. “You got a bunch of toys here from my school,” Ernie said. “Did you carry it all?”
“No, sweetheart. Molly and my dad brought them.” Ernie didn’t know Brig, so she didn’t mention him.
“That was a lot of work,” the little boy noted with a solemn look.
Jeff was still staring at her. He laid one hand on Ernie’s narrow shoulder, and Ann could feel her neck warm. As she sifted through the metal cars with Ernie, her hand shook.
Jeff hadn’t said a word.
Finally, Ernie gave a shout, then held up the silver roadster he wanted.
“I played with this every day!” he told his father.
Jeff grinned at Ann, or in her direction. “Leave it to him to pick a Porsche.”
Ernie glanced over his shoulder with a worried expression.
“Does it cost too much?”
“Well, let me see....” Jeff pretended to study the tag on the rear of the car. “Maybe we could swing it.”
Hope sprang into Ernie’s eyes. “Can I have it, then, Daddy?”
“May I,” Jeff corrected him, but he was still looking at Ann, one hand on his son’s shoulder. He dug in his jeans pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.
Ann couldn’t resist. She said, “You can buy even more cars with that.”
That set Ernie off again, scrabbling through the pile for a red fire truck, a blue convertible and a miniature yellow backhoe. He clutched them to his chest in his two small hands, and Ann couldn’t help thinking how excited by the world he was at only four years of age.
Ernie should have whatever he wanted.
She might wish the same for Jeff. He’d already told her about his broken marriage. Here in Liberty, taking part today in the rummage sale amid the throng of smart shoppers, with the tantalizing scents of popcorn and cotton candy, he and Ernie were making a new life for themselves. Remembering her talk with Molly, Ann felt left out. Even more, she felt small and mean for pushing Jeff away to safeguard herself. He’d been nothing but nice to her. More than patient, too.
What was she really trying to prove?
“That’s enough, Ernie.” Jeff eased him from the table, his gaze shifting from Ann. “We’d better pay for these, then go. We have lots to do.” He was still holding the cash.
“With your change, you can buy lunch at the hot dog booth,” she teased.
“We don’t need change.” He glanced at her. “This is for a good cause.”
As if he was talking about her, not the rummage sale profits for charity.
“Can I look over there at the bikes?” Ernie asked. “I see a big-boy one.”
“Sure. But stay where I can watch you. It’s crowded in here.”
When Ernie charged off but Jeff stayed, Ann wasn’t as upset as she expected to be. She put the cash in the money box. In the silence between them, without Ernie for a chaperone, she had to say something. “Looks like you may be going home with a new—or not quite new—bicycle, too.”
“Ernie isn’t ready for a two-wheeler. Maybe next year. He’s had enough ‘crashes’ on his trike.”
Jeff had told her about that, but Ann cringed at the word crash. Still, his choice of words aside, if she was honest, she’d have to acknowledge that he melted the ice around her heart. Which scared her even more.
Because baring her soul could invite his scorn, his disgust.
But had Molly been right? Ann couldn’t go on like this.
Before he could turn away from the table, she cleared her throat. And, metaphorically, stepped off a cliff into thin air.
“Jeff, wait. I was, um, wondering...if you’d like to have dinner again some night. It doesn’t matter when. If it ever fits your schedule...”
His eyes widened, and for a few seconds he just stared at her.
“I know it’s loud in here, but did I hear you right?” He smiled, a slow smile that went all the way to his eyes, lighting them with a hope that reminded her of Ernie and the toy car. “You’re asking me for a date?”
She was in it now. And falling fast to the bottom of that cliff.
“My treat,” she said. Maybe it would even be a good thing to let him know who she really was, to unload her burden. Like Molly venting over Natalie Brewster’s possible vote against the center’s expansion. Afterward Ann wouldn’t have to dodge Jeff at all. He would know.
For a moment she expected him to include Ernie in her invitation, which would have seemed safer to Ann. But Jeff shook his head as if in wonder and told her, “I’ll get a sitter.”
They quickly settled on a day—tomorrow!—and a time, then Jeff was moving toward Ernie. Halfway across the room his son was about to jump on a black-and-gold bicycle that was too big for him but obviously held some minimacho appeal. Jeff touched one finger to his temple in a small salute to Ann, then hurried off to rescue his son, having insisted he would pick Ann up at her apartment. “See you then.”
She wasn’t sure he heard her, but she said it anyway.
“I have something—bad—to tell you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MOLLY WASN’T TALKING. For the past two days she’d tried to suppress any thought of her “discussion” with Brig in the parking lot. She worked her shifts at the rummage sale and stuck to business. If she was more than normally chatty with the residents of Liberty who cruised by the Little Darlings booth, no one seemed to notice. Except Brig. The two of them were working together today.
After Natalie Brewster had collared her father to make him rest, Pop had refused to join Molly again. Ann had begged off this morning, too, saying she had “things to do,” but would try to come by later. That had left Brig to volunteer while Pop babysat Laila after vowing he wouldn’t take his eyes off her. Molly had already called him twice.
She couldn’t deny Brig was a big help. Carrying the day care center’s donated porta-crib out to the new owner’s car would have taxed Molly’s strength, but Brig toted it effortlessly. What she did try to deny were the looks he kept giving her, part exasperation, part amusement.
“Okay,” he finally said, “enough of this silent treatment.”
Molly disagreed. For the moment no one seemed interested in the items remaining on their table. She decided it was time to inspect and do her usual trade-off with other people’s leftover offerings, a tradition started by her mother, and that many others also observed on the last day of the sale. Without asking Brig to keep an eye on the booth, she stepped from behind the table.
But he caught her arm. “No way. Let’s have this out, Molly.”
“There’s nothing to—”
“You’re right. There’s nothing to be angry about.”
“I’m not angry.” Her tone said the opposite.
Because Brig wouldn’t let go, she all but dragged him to the table across the aisle—not that she could budge him if he didn’t want to be budged. Brig couldn’t very well continue their discussion when the vice chairman of the rummage sale was standing there in front of a display of hand-decorated linens.
Giving the woman a smile, he stuck his hands in his pockets while Molly examined a baby-size pillowcase embroidered with flowers.
“Everything is half price now,” the woman said. “So many people are leaving, already taking down their things early.”
Molly murmured
her agreement. It was always like that on the last day. Business had been slow for the past hour, making the time with Brig close at hand seem even more difficult. But he was wrong. She was more disappointed than angry. He’d stated his position about his military career. Why be surprised?
The truth was, she couldn’t blame him. Molly held up the pillowcase.
“Isn’t this pretty? It would be perfect for Laila when she’s a little older.”
As if he and the baby would be here then.
He drew out his wallet to pay for the item as though he and Molly were a couple. “Let me. She needs to start collecting girlie things.”
“No, Brig.” Molly tried to hold on to the linen, but he pulled it from her.
“Done,” he said.
With the air of command that was so much a part of him, except of course in his earliest attempts at child care, he handed the paper bag with the pillowcase to Molly, then walked her farther along the aisle.
Playtime, her main competition for day care in town, boasted a huge play area and six more classrooms, and had manned a booth near the door during the sale. It had been all but cleaned out by now, but Brig had a mission in mind.
“What do you think? For Laila, too?” He bent to check out a used stroller. “With some cleaning and chrome polish, this would be great. Spring will be here soon, and you’ll need your center’s stroller.” He glanced at Molly. “This even has a rain shield. And plenty of storage space.”
“Sold,” Molly said weakly. Didn’t he hear what he was saying? This was another reminder that he and Laila wouldn’t be here by spring. Pop wouldn’t be taking the baby anywhere. Yet wherever Laila went, she would need a stroller. Or whoever cared for her would.
That was the last she and Brig said to each other before Molly closed out her cash box an hour later. By then the community center looked like the aftermath of a storm, with litter everywhere, empty tables with torn paper bunting hanging from them, fallen popcorn crunching underfoot, its stale smell lingering in the air, and a general forlorn look that echoed Molly’s mood. The scene reminded her of one of her parties. Brig carted the unsold items out to her car.
“I won’t unload these,” she said, still trying to maintain her business-only attitude with Brig. “Tomorrow they can go to Goodwill.”
At that moment another car pulled up behind hers, and Molly saw Ann in the passenger seat. “Hi,” she said. “I brought a few more things from the center. Are we too late?”
Molly said they were. But she didn’t miss the look Ann gave her or her sister’s pointed glance at Brig. He nodded at her, said a few words to Ann’s friend, then stepped back, but his gaze stayed on Molly, whose face soon warmed. And he stood too close. There was no telling when Ann had first seen them now or what she might make of the obvious tension in the air between them.
Brig waited until Ann had left with her friend. Then, by the tailgate of her SUV, he turned her to face him. “I meant what I said before inside. The other day, too. I don’t like you giving me the cold shoulder. You need to understand that I don’t have a choice right now. When the order comes, I’ll have to leave. That’s how I earn my living.”
“I understand. Perfectly,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, obviously you don’t. I’m not an insurance agent or an engineer, a car mechanic or a teacher. I never will be—because as right as those jobs are for other men, they aren’t right for me.”
“I know.” She started around to the driver’s-side door, but Brig was right with her.
“Molly, I need your help. With the baby.”
They might have been the only words that would stop her. Molly had her mother to thank for her caring gene, but even sometimes-grumpy Pop had a soft spot for others. Especially Laila.
She gazed into Brig’s eyes. “Forgive me. I’m being a...” She shrugged. “You know.”
He took her face in his hands. “Why are we fighting?”
“We’re not.”
“Sure feels like it to me. The only thing that matters right now is Laila.” He paused. “I’ve made arrangements with Sean’s cousin. I’ll see how that goes,” he said, not looking happy about it. “What I need to ask is, will you be there with me when she arrives?”
Molly frowned. It was one thing to know he and Laila were leaving. It was quite another to help make it happen. “I don’t think—” I can do that, she thought.
“You have experience with kids,” he said. “You’ll know the right questions to ask. Laila’s well-being depends on my choice of caregiver. I don’t think Sean’s cousin will be anything like his father. She sounded nice on the phone. I’ve talked to her twice now, but I need your input, your advice—”
“Yes,” Molly said, unable to refuse. Unable to hear any more. “Yes, I’ll be there. For Laila.” That was always her rationale. “I’ll help in any way I can.”
* * *
WITH THAT PROMISE ringing in her ears, Molly hadn’t been home more than a few minutes when she heard the doorbell. Thomas had the TV on so loud he didn’t seem to hear—or was he hiding again? When Molly opened the door, she saw Natalie Brewster.
Today their newest neighbor was wearing a silvery jacket and pants. Purple feathers were woven into her hair, and her eyes danced with excitement that almost knocked Molly over in the doorway.
“The rummage sale earned more this time than ever! As soon as we finished counting the money from the cash boxes at each booth I had to come thank you for your contributions.” She swept inside without waiting for an invitation. “Thomas, we couldn’t have done it without you.”
An exaggeration in Molly’s view, but she smiled. Her dad was already twitching in his chair, trapped as he had been at the community center. He didn’t meet Natalie’s gaze. “Bunch of junk, if you ask me. Why would anyone pay for someone else’s clutter, then drag it home instead of to the dump? I never understood why Molly’s mother kept going year after year.”
“I’m told she was one of our most dedicated volunteers.” Natalie stood over him like a teacher scolding an unruly student. “I’m glad you decided to take her place this year.”
His eyes lifted, and Molly thought she saw him assess Natalie.
“No one could take her place.”
“Well, that’s not exactly what I meant,” Natalie backpedaled. “It must be very difficult to lose someone. I’ve been an independent single woman all my life, so I don’t have a family of my own and I wouldn’t know, but—”
Thomas looked past her.
Natalie followed his glance to the television set. The Cleveland Cavaliers were playing the New York Knicks. Her eyes lit up again. “A classic rivalry! And I’m blocking your view. But who could miss it?” She plunked herself on the sofa beside his chair. “What’s the score?”
He waved toward the screen. “Read it and weep.”
The Cavs were behind by twenty points. “Pop,” Molly murmured, afraid he was going to say something rude to Natalie. Even after so obviously checking her out, he couldn’t be relied on to keep the peace.
His gaze shot to Natalie. “I’d like to watch this game.”
Natalie didn’t move. “So would I.”
“Please, stay. Would you like something to drink?” Molly asked her. There really was no polite reason to kick her out. And Molly had her own reason for the invitation to stay.
“I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea.” Natalie settled into the sofa and plumped a pillow behind her back as if to tell Thomas she meant to stay awhile.
“Pop, let’s have a basketball party,” Molly said. There hadn’t been an occasion since Valentine’s Day, and that had put all of her current problems in motion. “Give me a minute. I’ll get some food together.”
She went to the foot of the stairs to call Brig. Molly would give Ann a ring, too. Maybe Molly would be able to forget
her earlier wrangle with Brig, not to mention her agreement to sit in on the interview with Sean’s cousin.
To her satisfaction, the house felt lively again before long. Even without Ann, who, to Molly’s amazement, had a date tonight with Jeff. In spite of Pop’s first efforts to ignore Natalie, she kept the conversation going, and soon he was joining in. Molly served wings and chips with onion dip, cheese and crackers, even rice cereal for Laila, who’d gotten the go-ahead from her pediatrician to start solid food. She was cranky, but it wasn’t colic.
“The baby had her vaccinations, too,” Brig said, “and I think she’s feverish. I just gave her a baby painkiller.”
Molly could have smiled. Maybe child care wasn’t Brig’s forte like black ops, but he certainly looked and sounded now like a fully involved father. Fortunately, the pill and the cereal seemed to help Laila’s mood.
Nothing could soothe Molly, though. With Brig and Laila in the room, she was reminded all over again that they would be gone too soon, probably in different directions and for good this time.
At halftime she refilled the spicy wings platter. When she came back her dad had Laila on his lap. To her surprise Natalie was shoveling more cereal into the baby’s mouth. Without warning, Laila spewed a mouthful into the air, which hit them both. She actually giggled at her new trick, but to Molly’s relief and delight, her dad and Natalie laughed. Both of them. Together. Who would have thought?
“Looks like a bonding moment to me,” Brig murmured, then raised his voice to be heard above the TV. “Thomas, Natalie, if you’re willing to watch Laila for half an hour, I’m going out for some fresh air.”
“Of course we will,” Natalie said. “Thomas and I have it covered.”
