“If you tell me she has cancer, I’m going to need a hanky.”
“It’s not that. She’s my godchild and I’m her guardian. After months of searching, I’ve finally got a lead on the man who’s supposed to be her father. I don’t know if he knows Hannah exists. She’s never met him. I had to hire a private investigator just to find him. And I don’t know if he’s really her father, because...” Talk about truths making someone despise you. “...I was Erica’s best friend and I never met him.” Oh, what a cop-out.
Mandy was still. Mannequin still. She didn’t even push the glider with her foot. “I can’t imagine turning a little girl over to a stranger is in any way healthy or safe for a child.” Her hands rested on her thighs. They were the unadorned hands of a hardworking woman—no rings, no polish. “Are you going to do a background check? Are you going to meet him first and see what kind of man he is? What if Erica didn’t want this guy to raise her child?”
“Those are all valid points, but...” And here the cold hard truth arm wrestled its way out. “I’m not the man to raise her. My dad wasn’t around a whole lot when I was growing up. He was either at the fire station or being called to the fire station on a holiday or birthday or needing to go to the fire station because there was a meeting or a dustup.” At her inquisitive look, he added, “Don’t get me wrong. I love my dad, but it’d be ten times worse for Hannah to have a single father who’s a fireman. Is that fair to Hannah?”
Mandy dragged her foot, slowing the glider to a stop. “You think you’d be a bad father because of your long hours and dedication to the job?”
“Think about it. I took driver’s training before I was allowed to drive a car. I went to the fire academy to learn how to fight fires. I’ve studied to be a fire investigator. It’s not just the hours or that I’m single. I don’t know how to be a dad.”
“I doubt that. She dotes on you.” Mandy leaned forward. “You think you’ve had no training? Everything I learned about raising Olivia, I learned from the post office.”
“Oh, this I’ve got to hear.” Ben stretched his arm across the back of the glider.
She shifted her shoulders as his hand slid past. “Raising kids utilizes the same skill sets you need to fight fires. It’s all list, sort and prioritize. You can’t do everything at once, and kids don’t need everything at once.” She kicked the glider back into action. “After Olivia’s diagnosis, I felt overwhelmed. But I made a list, including ideas of what I thought was best for Olivia and what Olivia wanted to do. And then I worked through the list. I made appointments with experts. I got answers. And then Olivia and I talked through everything and sought treatment. Her job was to stay positive. Mine was to make sure we were always moving forward.”
She hadn’t convinced him he’d be a good father. In fact, just voicing his concerns reaffirmed why he wasn’t the right man to raise Hannah. But one thing Mandy had said stuck in his mind. “You asked Olivia?”
“Absolutely. No matter your age, it’s the not knowing that’ll drive you crazy. It’s like being stuck in slow-moving traffic with no idea how long it’ll take to reach your destination. You feel helpless and then you feel overwhelmed and then...” Mandy leaned back, so caught up in the conversation she seemed unaware she rested her head on his arm. “And, well, if there was a match while you were stuck, you’d probably start a fire just looking for a release of all that tension.”
She shot him with a zinger in the midst of a serious discussion? It seemed natural to curl his arm around her shoulders and draw her nearer. “I’m never going to live that arson comment down, am I?”
“Nope.”
“I’m glad.” Ben brushed an imaginary lock of hair behind her ear and let his palm rest on her cheek.
She dragged her foot, which sent the glider twisting recklessly.
Ben felt the momentum as if he was riding a roller coaster for the first time. He was losing his balance. He was free-falling. He rested his thumb on her lips to steady himself. Or maybe to reassure himself this wasn’t a dream. She was in his arms.
“Ben?” Mandy whispered against his thumb, sounding unsure.
Ben was suddenly very sure. That he wanted to get to know her better. That he wanted to take her to dinner. That he—
Ben closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to hers, letting the glider add to the momentum of the moment—the kiss, the discovery, the knowing that this was right. His hands moved to the curve of her neck and the strength of her shoulder. Her skin was soft. And she tasted of salsa, and something he couldn’t quite name, not with the glider making his stomach do flip-flops and his brain short-circuited by the unexpected rightness of this kiss.
This kiss... It was a first. His first kiss on a glider. His first kiss in Harmony Valley. The first time he’d kissed Mandy. It felt the way a first kiss should be.
He drew back and stared into her dark eyes, into her unsmiling face. “Lori Caldwell who?”
Mandy flopped back in the corner of the glider as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. She opened her mouth to speak, but Olivia beat her to it.
“I probably wasn’t supposed to witness that.” She opened the slider screen door, and Mandy fled through it, sending the glider on a crazier ride than that kiss. “And Ben, note to self,” Olivia continued. “The first words out of your mouth after kissing a girl shouldn’t be the name of some other girl.” She shut the slider and locked it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MANDY SHOULD’VE KNOWN Ben would be waiting for coffee at four twenty the next morning. She should’ve known her heart would swoon and flutter over him in his uniform backlit by bakery lights with a soundtrack provided by chipper birds in the town square.
She still couldn’t quite reconcile him kissing her. They’d just been talking. And yes, he was gorgeous and it was a bit exciting to have all that gorgeousness directed her way, but no way had she been reading the signs of a kiss. No way had her earlier hero worship been translated to doe eyes and kiss-me signals. Okay, maybe he’d held her hand, but she’d just confessed her sins regarding her mother. That should have been a huge turnoff.
Nonetheless, he’d been supportive, offering her a shoulder to lean on. When Ben talked, he made her forget responsibilities and worries. He made her forget accusations of arson. He made her forget everything but two people shooting the breeze and getting to know each other on the path to friendship.
And then he’d leaped over the friendship guidepost and kissed her.
Sad to say, it was an excellent kiss, too. The man did not disappoint in that department.
This morning, she was determined to remember what she had going on, not what Ben did. “In case I didn’t say it yesterday, I’m not civil before my first cup of coffee.” Especially when the man who’d kissed her so tenderly had pulled back afterward, gazed into her eyes and murmured another woman’s name. “There will be no talking about last night.”
“What will you do if instead of us talking, only I do?” Despite his grin, he was in command mode, standing tall and looking her directly in the eye.
Was it fair that the man’s grin made her insides tango?
She rejected dancing and brain-numbing memory wipes with a swipe of her hand. “If you talk about last night, I’ll go to work without coffee.” She bared her teeth in what felt nothing like a smile and watched Tracy scurry around the bakery getting it ready to open. If Mandy was lucky, she’d open early.
“I had an interesting night,” Ben said, earning Mandy’s glare. “I was part of a midnight kidnapping.”
Mandy’s glare morphed into openmouthed surprise. Even the serenading birds went silent.
She’d expected an apology-filled monologue, which she’d reject. What kind of an example would she be to Olivia if she forgave him such a transgression? Besides, forgiveness implied there’d be more kisses.
<
br /> “This kidnapping...” he continued.
Mandy suspected Ben of a lot of things, including being passionate about his work and being annoyingly honest. But kidnapping? “I suppose nothing about you should surprise me.”
He grinned at her as if that kiss last night meant something. How could it when he’d been thinking about another woman? “Midnight kidnapping is a term we use for a specific type of call.”
Mandy didn’t want to be curious. She sighed. “While I wait for my coffee, I have time for you to explain.” She sat on the wrought iron chair and thrust her hands into her windbreaker pockets. “But only about the kidnapping.”
He took a step closer, blue eyes magnetizing hers. “There are calls where we can’t rouse a breathing patient. Protocol is to let the ambulance take them to the hospital. And sometimes when the patient wakes up in a place that isn’t their home or their bed...”
“They feel as if they’ve been kidnapped.” Mandy scraped her heel across the pavement, hating that he was being charming. Hating that she liked that he was being charming. Hating the sound of his deep, soothing voice and that he’d managed to take a few more steps in her direction.
Had he no shame?
“It’s a little disconcerting for everyone involved when something unexpected happens.” Make no mistake. They weren’t talking about 911 calls anymore. His grin didn’t apologize. It found humor.
In their kiss!
Mandy slapped her hands on her thighs and stood.
An arm’s reach away, Ben cleared his throat and toned down his grin from triumphant to merely charming. “Your sister looked good yesterday.”
He was playing the family card? Two could play at that game. “Your dad’s color was better yesterday, too.”
“I got him to lay off the sushi.” He wasn’t to be baited. Ben’s gaze drifted toward the coffee machine inside, drawing hers along with it. “And he did eucalyptus breathing treatments yesterday. Who knows what he’ll try today?”
“Some of those natural therapies work wonders,” Mandy said before thinking better of it. It was the natural therapies that had gotten them into trouble financially, because insurance didn’t think they were justified.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, nearly touching.
“It’s the little things that make a difference, isn’t it?” Ben said. “Lori Caldwell tried to suck my face in the eighth grade. The experience scarred me.” He didn’t turn. He didn’t look at her, but his fingers found hers. “And you, Mandy Zapien, are no Lori Caldwell.”
Mandy’s heart did the swoony, fluttery thing. “I would’ve bet money you couldn’t earn my forgiveness.”
“Honesty is a double-edged sword,” he said simply.
Mandy was muted by the tender way he held her hand, the warmth of his shoulder and the mind-boggling possibility that Ben might want to kiss her again. That he might want to go out to dinner sometime or come over and watch a movie. His mother would gloat and Olivia would huff and—
Mandy put the brakes on the runaway relationship train.
Friends. Relationships began with friendship. Where had they left off last night? Er...before that kiss. “You’ll give Hannah a good home.” The way he worked a conversation to mend fences and diffuse tension, how could he not?
“About that...” Ben glanced down at her with the apologetic face she’d expected to see first thing this morning. “I mean, she’s great. But after sleeping on it, I realized she’d be better off elsewhere.”
The sharp pain of her mother’s leaving sliced Mandy’s insides. She extricated her hand from his and put some space between them. “You’re giving her up?”
He flinched. “Try to understand. I don’t have a nine-to-five job like you do. I’m gone twenty-four, forty-eight or seventy-two hours at a time.”
Tracy opened the door. “Morning, peeps. Coffee’s ready.”
Mandy held up a hand that shook when Ben would have gone inside. “You make it sound as if there’s never been a fireman who’s a single parent. You make it sound as if Hannah is disposable, like a cat you take home from a shelter and then decide you don’t want and give back.” Mandy knew all too well how that felt.
“I didn’t ask for her,” he said carefully.
“But you don’t even know...” Her voice was shaking now, too. And Tracy was listening. She lowered the volume to a whisper. “You don’t even know what kind of man her biological father is. I thought you wanted to do what was right.”
“I said I wanted to do what was best for Hannah.” He wasn’t looking at her. He couldn’t see how disappointed she was in him.
Tracy backed into the bakery with a follow-me gesture. “Hot cinnamon twists, people. You know you want one.”
Mandy did, but she also wanted to hear what Ben had to say. “We’ll be there in a minute.” She stood in Ben’s way. “Don’t break her heart.” Her palm pressed over her own. “At least wait until you’ve met this guy. Last night you were open to the possibility of keeping her. What happened between then and now?” She gasped and took another step back. He’d complimented her on how she raised Olivia. “Were you thinking that we...that I... Did you kiss me because you were looking for someone to raise Hannah?”
“No.” He grimaced. “I kissed you because I wanted to. I...I needed to.”
Five minutes ago his admission would’ve had Mandy floating on air. “What changed?”
“While I was talking to you last night, it became clear to me,” he said slowly. “Here in town I have a support system, but once I leave—”
“Leave? You just got here.”
“I want to investigate fires.” He pushed past her. “And I can’t do that here.” He tossed some bills on the counter. “You said something about cinnamon twists, Tracy.”
“Fresh out of the oven,” she chirped, as cheerful as those darn birds in the town square. “How many?”
“One.” Ben’s face was a cold blank mask. “And black coffee.”
Mandy ordered a black coffee, too, and hurried out the door behind Ben. “You’re brushing Hannah off because you wanted to pursue a different career?” Mandy would never choose her dreams over the fate of a child. “What would Erica say?”
“She’d tell me to go for it because I’m not Hannah’s father.” He stared across the street to where he’d parked the fire truck over several spaces. “If I was Hannah’s father, she would’ve put my name on that birth certificate. Erica was honest.”
Disappointed at his attitude, Mandy hung on to her smile for dear life. “I can’t be with someone who puts their needs over that of a child in their care.”
“Understood.” Ben handed her the bag with the cinnamon twist. “Try not to start any fires today.”
* * *
“WHY ARE YOU and my grandpas firefighters?” Hannah sat at the firehouse kitchen table. She had a box of new crayons and a firefighter-themed coloring book.
“Because we like rescuing people and keeping them safe, kind of like the way you like helping animals.” Ben sat at the table with her with his laptop out. He was checking prices and availability of equipment and turnout gear with the hopes of suiting up several volunteer firemen someday. But his attention kept drifting to Mandy. To her passionate defense of Hannah. Her caring smile. The accusation in her eyes that he was a disappointment. The declaration that she couldn’t be with him.
“Why don’t you have a fire dog?” Hannah turned the coloring book so Ben could see the Dalmatian riding shotgun in a fire truck. “It says right here. Every fireman needs a dog.”
“Before we can get a dog,” Ben said, allowing a small smile, “we have to have the proper equipment to fight fires and stay safe. We need the essentials.”
“A dog is...what you said.” She grinned, looking a lot like her mother right before Erica said, “I told you so.�
�� Hannah turned the book back around.
“A dog comes after helmets, turnout gear and oxygen masks.” He clicked on the next website. “After trucks and hoses and radios.”
Hannah pushed her rectangular glasses up her nose and glanced around. “You’ve got all that.”
“We’re adding firefighters. They’ll need gear, too, including radios and pagers.” Shoot. He hadn’t thought of pagers. He added them to his list.
Hannah colored the fire truck green with broad strokes that went far over the line. “There’s more to being a fireman than helping people.”
“You’re right. You have to buy stuff, manage inventory, screen applications...” Shoot. He needed to print some applications for the meeting tonight.
“No,” Hannah said in her ultrapatient voice. “I mean, you do more than rescue people. The lady at the bakery said she feels safer after you ’spected her. And a man in front of the restaurant said the sun was shining because you’d put out a fire.” She looked up at him with Libby-blue eyes.
Ben’s heart clenched. How could he deny she was his?
“What did that man mean?”
Ben needed more than a moment to compose himself. By that time, Hannah was back to coloring. “It means we were lucky.” He was lucky to have spent this time with her. Ben took her small hand in his. “Han, do you ever think about John Smith? Your father, I mean. You won’t see us...me as often when you go live with him.”
“I think John Smith should come live here. That way I won’t have to move again. Granny Vanessa just learned how to make macaroni and cheese the right way. And Grandpa Keith just learned how to read Goodnight Moon.”
“And me?” He hardly dared ask. “What did I learn how to do?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You learned how to be the best godfather ever.”
* * *
“I HAVEN’T SEEN that raccoon of yours.” Utley sat in a webbed folding chair on the post office’s loading dock. His shirt today was neon yellow with hula girls.
Love, Special Delivery Page 16
