A Weaver Holiday Homecoming

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Torn between gratitude and wariness, she finally nodded. “Thank you.”

  “But when are we gonna decorate the tree?”

  Mallory ran her hand down Chloe’s tumbled hair. “You and Gram can start on the garland without me. And I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Chloe made a face. “I hate the hospital,” she grumbled.

  “Chloe,” Mallory tsked softly. “The people I work with don’t choose to make you or me unhappy.”

  But her daughter didn’t lose her gloomy expression.

  “I hated the hospital sometimes, too,” Ryan said after a moment. He turned onto the paved road and the ride immediately grew smoother. “My mom worked there when I was a kid.”

  Grumbles abruptly forgotten, Chloe looked at him. She was obviously fascinated.

  Mallory wished that her daughter was the only one.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and she found herself watching his profile as he spoke.

  “She got called out at some of the worst times,” he recounted. “Like when she was supposed to talk to my class during parent’s day and Lea Rasmussen got to take my spot, instead and brought in hamburgers from her dad’s restaurant. Hamburgers were a lot more interesting than tongue depressors.”

  “Mom was my show-and-tell last year,” Chloe provided. “But she didn’t have to leave. We made a poster board with pictures of the babies she helped deliver and hung it up on the bulletin board in my class.” She leaned closer to Ryan. “There was a lot of pictures,” she added in a loud whisper. “She put mine in the very center, but nobody knew it was me except for us.”

  Ryan looked across at her. “You delivered Chloe, too?”

  “I was doing my residency. And yes, I was there when she was born.” She could see the questions in his eyes. Questions she didn’t particularly want to address, even if Chloe weren’t sitting between them with her avid attention to details.

  She kept to the subject of Chloe.

  “She was a perfectly beautiful baby and she screamed from the moment her lungs filled with air. She also had a head as bald as a cue ball that stayed that way until she was nearly two years old.” Smiling, she gently tugged Chloe’s thick hair. Once her wispy-fine baby hair had begun thickening, it’d been a challenge keeping up with the thick, glossy strands that replaced it.

  Chloe lifted the ends of her hair. “But I don’t got curls like you,” she said with a deep sigh, seemingly unaware of the elephant that had joined them in that cozy cab. The one there to remind her and Ryan of the obvious. With the exception of his silver streaks, Chloe’s hair was pretty much the exact shade of Ryan’s, right down to the walnut-brown gloss it had in the sunlight.

  Ryan’s gaze met hers over her daughter’s head for a moment before he looked back at the road and turned the corner that would take them to the small hospital.

  There was still a visible strain in his expression and she blamed it on the doctor in her that wanted to help.

  If only she knew how. She couldn’t very well take back Chloe’s existence and, from what Mallory could tell, it was her little girl that disturbed Ryan. Whether he admitted it, or not.

  “Which door? Main or E.R.?”

  She dragged her thoughts back to where they belonged. “E.R., please.”

  With obvious familiarity, he drove around to the emergency room entrance and pulled to a stop in front of the doors right in the area reserved for ambulances.

  Mallory slid out of the truck but leaned back in to kiss Chloe’s cheek. “Behave for Grammy,” she reminded. Needlessly, because Chloe was almost always very well behaved. “And don’t forget to thank Mr. Clay for helping us find a tree,” she added softly, though she could see that Ryan heard anyway.

  She straightened and pushed the door closed, hesitating for a fraction of a second before turning to hurry into the emergency room.

  But she’d stood there long enough to see the forced smile Ryan gave Chloe as he steered his truck away from the curb.

  She was very much afraid that her desire to erase whatever torment he was carrying inside had little to do with her being a doctor.

  And everything to do with being a woman.

  “Dr. Keegan.” Courtney Clay—Ryan’s sister—was the nurse on duty at the desk. “Dr. Clay is waiting for you in surgery.” Of course she was referring to her mother, Rebecca.

  “Thanks.” Feeling surrounded by Ryan’s family at every turn, Mallory quickly headed through the double doors leading to the examining rooms and the corridor beyond. She stopped off in the locker room to twist her hair back into a ponytail, wash up and change into a pair of drab green scrubs and then elbowed through another doorway to the scrub sinks.

  Above them was a window that overlooked the two operating rooms that the hospital possessed. In one, she could see the E.R.-dedicated physician, Dr. Jackman, and his staff laboring over a heart patient. In the other, she could see Rebecca Clay directing another team in their setup for the obstetric patient who had not yet arrived.

  When Mallory was scrubbed in, capped, masked and gowned with the assistance of one of the technicians, she joined Rebecca. They’d barely had time to discuss the case coming in when the near-term patient arrived. And then there was no room for thinking about anything but saving not only the life of the critically ill mother, but the distressed baby as well.

  The entire team worked quickly, efficiently, and with every speck of the skill Mallory had been accustomed to in New York. Rebecca took charge of the infant the moment he was delivered. Mallory continued her work with the mother and it was only afterward, when the patients—both of them—were transported to recovery with every expectation of a long future and Mallory had spoken with the woman’s understandably frantic husband in the waiting room, that the stuffing finally went out of her legs.

  She returned to the empty locker room, where she sank down on the hard bench between two short rows of lockers and peeled the ponytail holder from her hair, raking her fingers through the sweaty strands.

  She’d shower and dress again and look in on Mrs. Olsen, her cesarean from the day before, and then figure out a way to get home.

  She’d call Gram to come pick her up if she had to, but the day had already dwindled away until it was evening and it was near Chloe’s bedtime. It’d be easier if she could bum a ride from one of the nurses going off shift.

  “Good work in there today.” Rebecca entered the small room and headed straight for a locker at the end of the row. She, too, still wore her scrubs, and she slipped the long white lab coat she pulled from a locker on over them. “I wasn’t sure for a while there if we were going to be able to save them both.”

  “We were lucky,” she murmured.

  “Rhonda Danson and her baby were lucky to have you in there,” Rebecca countered. “Your administrators in New York weren’t exaggerating when they sang your praises. Weaver is benefitting a lot from your presence here.” She closed her locker and leaned back against it. “How is…your family?”

  Mallory looked down at the palms of her hands. Rebecca Clay was a beautiful woman who didn’t look anywhere near old enough to have a son Ryan’s age. And she was being inordinately tactful in her references to Chloe, whom they both knew was her granddaughter.

  “Chloe’s fine.” She bit her lip and looked up at the woman who’d exhibited nothing but kindness toward her, even before she’d ever seen Chloe. “She met Ryan yesterday, at Ruby’s,” she offered bluntly. “Since then, we, um, he’s been spending some time with her.”

  Mallory had to give the woman credit. Rebecca looked shocked but managed to contain it well. “Yesterday,” she repeated faintly. “I…see.”

  “I told him about Cassie and he seems to believe she’s his—”

  “Of course he believes it,” Rebecca inserted with some spirit. “She’s a miniature, female version of him.”

  There was no denying that. It was seeing Chloe with her own eyes that had made Rebecca realize what was behind Mallory’s interest in lo
cating her son. “Anyway, when we were out cutting a Christmas tree today, I’m afraid I had to tell him that you already knew about Chloe when he wanted us all to go to your house for Sunday dinner.”

  “Ah.” Rebecca absorbed that. Her throat worked for a moment before she spoke again. “He was going to bring you for dinner.”

  Mallory nodded. “Of course that was before I was paged.” Her hands spread. “And you obviously weren’t there doing any cooking, either. I hope nobody had to go hungry as a result.”

  The older woman looked bemused. “There’re enough able-bodied cooks to fill in for me. And produce much more appetizing results.” A faint smile touched her lips. “To be honest, I don’t know which surprises me more. The dinner part or the Christmas tree part. But it proves what I’d hoped. That Ryan would be unable to resist Chloe once he met her.” She moved suddenly and sat down beside Mallory, closing her cool hands over Mallory’s. “I don’t know how to thank you enough,” she said quietly. “You don’t know what you’re bringing back to my family.”

  The truth was, Mallory wasn’t sure she knew what she was doing at all. Particularly with the tormented expression that Ryan carried much too often haunting her mind. “I’m not telling Chloe, yet,” she admitted. Or maybe warned.

  But that didn’t seem to shock Rebecca at all. “You’re her mother. You’ll know when the time is right. Regardless of what anyone says, it is your decision.”

  “And Ryan’s,” Mallory felt compelled to add.

  Rebecca’s gaze was steady and thoughtful. “Yes. And Ryan’s.” She squeezed Mallory’s hands again before pushing to her feet. “Are you heading out now?”

  Mallory stood, also. “I promised to look in on Mrs. Olsen this evening. Then I’ll find some way home.” She turned to her locker and pulled out a clean towel. “I don’t have my car with me because Ryan dropped me off.”

  “I’ll give you a ride,” Rebecca offered immediately. “Will an hour do? I’ll meet you outside.”

  “I wasn’t hinting—”

  “I know.” She headed toward the door, sending back a little smile as she pulled it open. “This is what family is for, my dear.”

  Mallory clutched her towel, watching the door swing shut after Ryan’s mother.

  Mallory had family. Even though she’d had no father, she’d had a mother until she’d been taken by breast cancer much too early. And after that, she’d had Gram. She had Chloe.

  But she couldn’t help the warmth she felt knowing that there were other people who cared, too. It might be only because of Chloe, but it still felt good.

  That sense carried her right on through her visit with Mrs. Olsen, who was nursing her newborn and looking well. The only reason Mallory decided not to release her until morning was to give her another night of relatively peaceful sleep before she returned to her much more lively home and the demands of the two young children she and her husband already had.

  But when she went out to the parking lot, it wasn’t Rebecca Clay who was waiting for her.

  It was Ryan.

  He was sitting in his truck, parked beneath one of the tall lights that illuminated the modest-sized parking lot and was obviously watching for her, because the moment the hospital doors slid shut with a soft whoosh after her, he got out and stood by the side of his truck.

  That oddly congested feeling climbed in her chest again, making it hard to breathe in any sort of normal fashion.

  She was much more comfortable in her scrubs, dealing with some emergency, than she was dealing with the uncertainty she felt every time she saw him.

  Blowing out a breath, she held the collar of her coat more closely around her neck and crossed the parking lot toward him. “Your mother’s giving me a ride,” she greeted.

  He pushed away from his slouch against the truck. “I saw her a few minutes ago. Told her I’d take care of it.”

  She’d have felt a lot safer with his mother. “I really didn’t want to put either one of you out. I could have called Gram—”

  “Chloe’s already in bed.” He cut her off, confirming what Mallory had expected in the first place.

  But the fact that he knew that Chloe was in bed did surprise her.

  “Once I managed to wrestle the tree into a stand and into your living room—it takes up half the room, by the way—I strung popcorn garland with them until she was practically falling asleep over the popcorn bowl,” he said.

  Something inside her melted at the image that immediately bloomed inside her mind. “How do you do that?” she asked. “Read my mind the way you do?”

  “It’s not difficult.” He walked around the front of the truck with her and opened the passenger door for her. Then he took her arm and helped her up to the running board, and inside. “Everything you think or feel shows as plain as day in your eyes.”

  She hesitated and looked at him. The advantage of the seat’s height put her head almost at the same level as his. “I’m not sure I like the idea of that.”

  A wisp of a smile drifted over his lips and her gaze dropped to them and clung. They were fuller than she’d realized.

  Which was a realization she should not be having.

  She carefully kept her eyes averted and settled more squarely in the seat. But when she blindly reached for the seat belt behind her right shoulder, her hand knocked into Ryan’s and her gaze flew up to his all over again.

  His thick lashes dropped slightly but she could still see a thin gleam between them. He pulled the seat belt out another few inches and looped it over her palm. Her fingers curled around it, but she didn’t finish pulling it over herself to fasten.

  Nor did he move his hand away.

  “What am I thinking now?” The thought unconsciously emerged in a whisper that made her cheeks go hot.

  He was silent for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. And even though it would be better and easier if he didn’t, if he pretended he hadn’t heard what she hadn’t meant to say—aloud, anyway—she badly wanted to know.

  “You’re not thinking.” When he finally spoke, his tone was even deeper than usual.

  Her chin angled upward. She gave him a sideways look. “Is that so?”

  His fingers slid from the seat belt and grazed her throat above the collar of her coat. They should have felt cold against her skin. It was cold outside. He wore no gloves.

  Instead, his fingertips seemed to leave a trail of fire in their wake.

  She held herself very still, afraid to even draw a breath when his fingers finally stopped, right beneath her chin.

  His fingers nudged slightly, pushing upward. “You’re feeling.” Inches separated them and his conclusion whispered over her lips. “You wanted to know what bothered me yesterday if it wasn’t Chloe?”

  She made a faint sound of agreement. It was all she could manage.

  “This.” He closed the distance between them and covered her lips with his.

  The kiss was brief. Searing. And when he lifted his head a moment later, she was quaking right down to the toes curling inside her boots.

  “I’m feeling it, too,” he said. His voice was still low. But a hardness had entered it. “And feeling is one thing I’m never going to do again.”

  He straightened, letting the cold air sweep between their bodies again in the moment before he slammed the door shut.

  But the air was no colder than the shivers caused by his words.

  Chapter Six

  Ryan saw the tall, white-haired man the second he left J.D.’s barn.

  He was standing near the back porch of the house, easily visible across the open distance and the various pickups and horse trailers parked there. Which probably meant he was coming down from the house and his cousin would have had no reason not to tell Coleman Black where Ryan could be found.

  On top of the weekend he’d just had—not just learning about Chloe, but that monumentally unwise kiss he’d given Mallory the evening before—the sight of his onetime boss did nothing to improve his afternoon.
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br />   He left the barn door open behind him and started crossing toward the house and the man who was closing the distance even more rapidly.

  Cole removed the thin cigar clenched between his teeth. “It doesn’t make my day having to traipse out here,” he greeted flatly. “I assume you got the background report you requested.”

  Ryan just nodded and walked past him. He dumped the tack, which he intended to take into town for some repair work, into the back of his truck.

  “You haven’t returned my calls,” Cole continued. “Haven’t answered my letters. My e-mails.” The dossier Cole had provided had proved every word that Mallory had told him. It had also made Ryan feel cold inside that he’d even ordered it. But trust didn’t come easily. Not after all these years.

  “Most people would get a clue.” Ryan eyed Cole’s cigar, but it wasn’t lit so he had no reason to tell him to get rid of it. Ryan didn’t smoke around J.D.’s place—mostly because his cousin tended to get pretty pissy about a habit that was never a good idea around a barn, anyway. And he didn’t see why Coleman should have the pleasure, if he didn’t.

  Too bad Ryan’s fingers fairly itched right now to pull out a cigarette and light up. “Just because I called in a favor for the report doesn’t mean anything more. There’s nothing else to say and nothing I want to hear,” he told Cole. “So instead of bugging me, why don’t you go spoil someone else’s day?”

  Cole could call on Ryan’s uncle, Tristan, who was still deeply involved in the agency despite his highly successful company, Cee Vid. Or he could drive down to visit Ryan’s cousin, Angeline, who was married to Brody Paine, though he figured Angel would be more welcoming than Brody. Brody might be Cole’s son, but from what Ryan had heard, that surprising relationship was anything but easy.

  “You can’t walk away from our biggest case like you did and expect us to just forget about it.”

  “I turned over everything I knew,” Ryan countered. He’d sent the few shreds of evidence he’d managed to collect during those three hellish years, along with his notes, through a secure channel before he’d deliberately and carefully dropped below the radar.