A Mom for Callie

by Laura Bradford

  Something that needed to stay gone…

  For his sake. And for Callie’s.

  Chapter Two

  The line was dwindling. Finally. As much as Betsy loved losing herself in her work, the dog-and-pony show that followed wasn’t her cup of tea.

  But neither was the idea of her books sitting untouched on a bookstore shelf. Or, even worse, being boxed up and returned to sender.

  So she played along, attending signings and meet-and-greets at various stores around the country each year, a process she’d have been done with by now if she’d been working rather than traipsing halfway across the country in search of a bridge.

  Today’s signing was her penance, or, perhaps more accurately, her peace offering. A pathetic attempt at justifying a trip that had her editor seething and her agent sweating. Though, in all fairness, the seething and sweating had started long before her visit to Cedar Creek. She’d only made that decision forty-eight hours ago. Her inability to write had been going on for months.

  Twelve to be exact.

  She stared at a distant bookshelf, its neat row of colorful spines disappearing from view as she traveled a road she’d walked too many times during too many sleepless nights and too many unproductive days. A road littered with the kind of memories that had propelled her to drive twelve hundred miles in the hope she could finally lay them to rest. Once and for all.

  And for a few moments it seemed as if it could happen—as if the prospect of forgiving herself and reclaiming her life was not only possible but within her grasp. Meeting Kyle Brennan, though, had ripped that away once again…

  Officer Kyle Brennan.

  For ten glorious minutes she’d felt alive in his presence, smiling and laughing for the first time in a long time. It was as if the glimmer of hope she’d found in the bridge had been igniting before her eyes—relaxing her enough to coax her soul out of hiding.

  Until the call came, anyway. A call that had sent him off in a run and her heart into a panic…

  “Ms. Anderson?”

  The notion that he was running toward armed criminals had gnawed at her the rest of the morning, shrouding her in a funk of what-ifs and if-onlys. She’d never panicked when Mark had gone on a fire call. Never truly worried about his safety. He’d told her he could handle anything and she’d believed him like a naive idiot. Or, more aptly, like one half of a couple who’d stopped caring months befo—

  “Ms. Anderson?”

  A woman’s voice filtered through her pity party, snapping her back to the here and now. Betsy looked up and offered what she hoped was a warm and welcoming smile despite the regret and worry that was weighing her down. “I’m sorry, I guess I zoned out there for a few minutes.”

  “It’s okay.” The woman inhaled sharply. “I know you’re done in about two minutes, but I purposely waited until the end so I could ask a few quick questions.”

  “As you can see—” Betsy pointed around the now-quiet nook the store staff had set aside for her appearance “—your timing paid off. You have my undivided attention. So how are you?”

  “Ecstatic. I had no idea you were coming until I heard it through the grapevine at my gym this morning.” The woman hugged the hardcover book tightly to her chest. “I think my squeal may have been responsible for one guy nearly choking himself on the bench press.”

  Her mouth slacked open. “Are you serious? Is he okay?”

  The woman shrugged, her small turned-up nose flaring ever so slightly. “I imagine. I didn’t hear otherwise. And I’m fairly certain Tom would have told me.”

  “Tom?”

  “That’s my husband. He’s a police officer.” The woman waved away her words like a swarm of pesky flies. “But enough about him. I’ve been a fan of your work from the moment See Jane Land a Man hit the shelves four years ago. It was hilarious and sad and amazing all at the same time.”

  “I’m glad you liked it.” And she was. Appreciative readers made the public side of her job more bearable.

  “Liked it? I loved it. And then, when Excuse Me…Who Ordered Him? came out, I loved that even more. Probably because that was about the time Tom had finally come to his senses and realized he had a good thing. A damn good thing.”

  Betsy laughed. “So you’re happy then?”

  The woman set Betsy’s latest hardcover on the table. “I’ve never been happier. Though—” she looked from side to side and lowered her voice “—I don’t like to tell him that too often in the interest of maintaining the upper hand. Keeps him on his toes, you know?”

  She wished she did. But she really didn’t. Whatever spark had drawn her and Mark together in the beginning had started to die out shortly thereafter.

  Forcing her focus to remain on the present, she smiled up at the woman. “Shall I sign this to you?”

  “Please! My name is Angela. Angela Murphy. Though just write ‘Ang’ if you would.”

  “Ang, it is.” She lifted the silver pen and opened her most recent book to the title page, her hand gliding across it in flowery movements. When she was done, she closed the book and handed it back. “I hope you like it.”

  The woman laughed, a loud boisterous sound that turned more than a few sets of eyes in their direction. “I already read it. I came in and got it last fall when it first came out. But I’ve never had a signed copy of a book before so I decided to buy another one today. Tom will just have to deal with it.”

  She liked this woman. Liked her confidence and her easy laughter. “You could have brought in your copy, I’d have happily signed that for you.”

  Angela shook her head as she tightened her arms around her newly signed book. “So when’s the next one coming out? Soon, right?”

  “You sound like my agent. And my editor.” Betsy looked down at the pen between her fingers and shrugged, the lightness of the past few minutes giving way to the heaviness of her heart once again. “I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

  The woman’s eyes widened in surprise. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to overstep. I know from your Web site that you’ve—” she stepped around the table and squatted beside Betsy’s chair “—been through a lot this year and I imagine that makes it hard to write.

  “Please know how sorry I am at your loss,” Angela continued. “You’ve given so much to me the past few years.”

  “I’ve given you so much?” Betsy fiddled with the pen in the hopes of warding off the tears she felt forming behind her eyes.

  “Your books—they bring me happiness. They make me laugh. They make me cry. And they teach me things about myself that I’m too busy to see sometimes. Tom likes them because—for the few hours it takes me to read each one—my mouth is actually silent.”

  “You said your husband is a police officer, right?” She stared up at Angela, the nagging question she’d carried around in her head for the past few hours needing an answer once and for all. Angela nodded.

  “Have you talked to him today?”

  “I talk to him every day.”

  Betsy shook her head softly. “No, I mean, have you spoken to him in the last hour or so?”

  The woman gave her a curious look. “I called him from the parking lot before I came in to see you.”

  “Is he…is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. He sounded adrenaline-ized but good.”

  “Adrenaline-ized?”

  “Pumped up. He said they’d had an exciting day at the department and that he had lots to tell me when he got home.”

  Pumped up was a good sign. A very good sign….

  A whoosh of pent-up air exhaled through her mouth as she opened her eyes and reached for Angela’s hand. “Thank you.”

  A smile spread across the woman’s face as she rose to her feet and leaned against a bookshelf. “I’m not sure why you’re thanking me but you’re welcome.”

  She wasn’t really sure why, either. Other than the fact Angela’s words had quieted the fear that had taken hold of her heart the moment Officer Brennan had run off. A
fear she wanted to believe stemmed purely from a flashback and not from the undeniable attraction she’d felt to the man himself. “Can I ask you a question? A personal one?”

  “Sure. Shoot.”

  She looked down at the pen, resisted the urge to play with it once again. “How do you do it? How do you watch your husband go off to work each morning and not worry about his safety?”

  Angela shrugged. “Tom has wanted to be a police officer since he was two years old. Almost every photograph I’ve seen of him in his childhood has him wearing a police hat or a gun belt. It is, and will always be, his passion in life. Knowing that gives me comfort.”

  Comfort…

  “He knows I love him. And even though it probably sounds corny…we truly are each other’s better half. Do we argue? All the time. But even when we do, I know he loves me and he knows I love him. No silly disagreement over the remote control or the way my books seem to cover every inch of the house can or will change that. True love is true love. Knowing that gives me peace.”

  “True love is true love,” Betsy repeated quietly. Perhaps that’s why her heart hadn’t been at peace in twelve months. Longer if she was honest with herself about the state of her marriage before the fire…

  “I’m not sure I know what that feels like.” She heard the words as they left her mouth, felt the instant regret at sharing them aloud. In front of a fan, no less.

  Angela offered a half smile, her gaze locked gently with Betsy’s. “True love feels different…both physically and emotionally. When I met Tom, I had tingles every time I looked at him.”

  Tingles?

  “My palms got all sweaty.”

  Sweaty palms?

  “I thought about him all the time. I worried about him every time he went on a call.”

  “But I thought you said you didn’t worry,” Betsy interjected.

  “Initially I did. And sure, sometimes I still do. But I know him better now. I know his work is important to him. That eases the worry most days. But if I didn’t focus on that…then yeah…I could worry myself sick. The thought of never seeing Tom again, the though of never being held in his arms again, the thought of not being able to tell him I love him, the thought of not trying to turn him into a reader one day…it’s unfathomable.”

  Betsy simply nodded. It was all so much to absorb. She’d never felt those things with Mark, not really, anyway. In fact, the only time she’d experienced tingles and sweaty palms and true worry was that very morning with—

  “You’ve felt it before, haven’t you?” Angela asked with a knowing rise of her eyebrow.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Can it happen in less than ten minutes?”

  The woman’s smile nearly cracked her face open. “It happened in five for me.”

  “Maybe for other people love happens like that. But for some of us I think it…” Her voice trailed off as her mind began picking apart her statement, dissecting and following it for plot potential as a familiar excitement bubbled up inside.

  She finally had it. A story she could sink her teeth into. A story that would call on the experiences her editor was so gung ho on, yet grow forward in each subsequent page. A story about finding hope and learning how to live again.

  Glancing at her watch, Betsy began stacking the fanned out bookmarks the store had placed on the edge of her signing table, her fingers anxious to return to her keyboard. “Angela, you have no idea how much you’ve helped me. When you asked about the next book, I didn’t have an answer. Because, at that moment, there was no next book. But just as your true love happened in five minutes, I suddenly have a book I need to write. Now.”

  “Seriously?” Angela gripped her book, her eyes sparkling as she watched Betsy gather her belongings. “Talking to me helped?”

  “More than you can know.” Stuffing her things into her tote, Betsy stood and hugged the woman as an indisputable reality grew in her mind.

  For months she’d struggled to pull herself from the funk she’d been in since Mark’s death. Yet, in less than a day of being in Cedar Creek, she’d experienced the first ray of hope she’d felt in a year and had the makings of another book growing in her mind. So why tempt fate by going back to New York prematurely?

  The copper-haired woman squealed as Betsy stepped backward. “Can you give me a hint? You know…about the plot?”

  “I can do even better. If you’re willing…perhaps I could pick your brain at various points throughout the book.”

  Angela’s mouth dropped open yet no words came out.

  “Maybe we could even meet over lunch.” It was an offer she hadn’t thought of initially, but now that she’d made it, she was glad. Angela was about her age, maybe a few years older. But she was a firecracker and Betsy needed a little spark in her life.

  “But you live in New York.”

  “Not anymore. Not for the next few months, anyway.”

  “What are you saying?” Angela asked.

  “I’m saying I’m going to write my book here…in Cedar Creek. I just need to find a small house to rent.”

  Angela grabbed Betsy’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “Oooh, I know just the place. It’s really cute—almost looks like a beach bungalow if you can picture something like that in the middle of Illinois. It’d be perfect for you. And it’s in a really quiet neighborhood.”

  An undeniable surge of excitement coursed through her body as she realized what she was about to do. For the first time in a year she was finally moving forward. By her own doing. “Sounds perfect. Who should I call to take a look at it?”

  “You’re looking at her.”

  “You’re a Realtor?” Betsy asked.

  “No, but I know one and we can call him on the way. The house isn’t far from here and it happens to be right next door to my husband’s partner—who, by the way, is extremely cute.”

  “A police officer?” she repeated as her mind traveled back to Paxton Bridge and the memory of Officer Brennan running in the opposite direction. “Uh-huh.”

  She shot her hand—palm outward—into the air and shook her head. “I’ll have to take your word on his cuteness, Angela. I’ve got a book to write, remember? And besides, if and when I’m ready to date again, I think I’ll stick to someone safer. Like maybe an accountant. Or a pharmacist.” Betsy pushed a strand of hair from her eyes and flashed a grin at her new friend. “As for the rest, you really don’t have to spend your afternoon touting me around. Your husband has stuff to tell you over dinner, remember?”

  Angela laughed. “I remember. But he can wait. The faster we get you settled, the faster you’ll finish your book. And trust me, Tom is supportive of anything that will give his ears a break for a few hours.”

  FROM A PURELY AESTHETIC standpoint, Tom Murphy was nothing to envy. His hair, which had begun receding when he was a recruit, was now nonexistent. His short stature, set off by a tendency to gain weight at the drop of a hat, resembled that of a bulldog. And his inability to tuck in a shirt or polish his shoes had been a thorn in the chief’s side for as long as Kyle Brennan could remember.

  But it was Tom.

  And after five years of working side by side, Kyle knew better than anyone what the disheveled package held inside. It was why, even as he listened to his partner talking animatedly into his cell phone, he couldn’t begrudge him the happiness he’d found. Begrudge? No.

  Envy to the point of jealousy? Yeah, sometimes.

  It was a fact he wasn’t proud of, but it was what it was. Tom had been blessed to find a true one-in-a-million in Angela. Kyle, on the other hand, had quite obviously found Lila in the dime-a-dozen camp—a group of women who were entirely too self-absorbed to think of anyone else’s needs, least of all their own child.

  Hindsight sucked. It really did. Because it came too late. Too late to save him from the anger, disillusionment and wariness that had settled around his heart like a comfortable and well-worn blanket.

  Then again, if it hadn’t been for Lila, he wouldn’t have Callie. A
nd Callie made every kick in the gut from her mother worth it a million times over.

  “Man, is Ang pumped right now.” Tom snapped his cell phone closed and tossed it into the empty cup holder between their seats as he made a right onto West Fall Avenue and an immediate left onto Creek Bed Drive. “Not only did she get to meet this hotshot writer but they hit it off. They’ve apparently spent the past hour hanging out together and now we’re taking her out for pizza tonight to celebrate her birthday.”

  Kyle pulled his gaze from a group of little boys playing kickball in a side yard and peered at his friend. “You lost me. What hotshot writer?”

  “Elizabeth Lynn Anderson. Ang has read every one of her books.” Tom yanked the car to the right to allow a delivery truck to pass on the narrow road flanked by parked cars. “Every time she reads one she gets all emotional. You know, giggly…weepy…horny.”

  He raised an eyebrow at his partner. “Horny?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “If reading this chick’s books gets Ang horny, what’s meeting her going to do?”

  “I don’t know, man, but I can’t wait to find out.” Rising up off the seat, Tom peeked into the rearview mirror, a mischievous smile spreading across his face. “Seriously, wouldn’t this mug make you horny?”

  “Truth?” Kyle shook his head as his laugh echoed through the car, a sound he rarely made unless he was with Tom or Callie. “Hey, I really appreciate you giving me a lift today. Callie had a scout meeting after school today and my mom’s car is on the fritz.”

  “No prob, you know that. Besides, it just builds Ang’s anticipation,” Tom replied with a self-satisfied smirk.

  “So, this writer is famous?” Kyle shifted in the passenger seat in an effort to stretch his legs as far as possible despite the cramped quarters of a car made for a short man like Tom. “What’s she doing in Cedar Creek of all places? Shouldn’t she be holding court in more worthwhile locales like New York or L.A.?”