Cara Colter - Husband By Inheritance

Her mouth fell open, and then her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

He could see what she was thinking: that perverts were damnably clever. But he could also see the confusion in her face, her eyes searching for and finding the black iron house number over the wall-mounted porch light.

He was not sure he’d ever been quite so insulted. A pervert? Him? And she didn’t seem really deranged. Just exhausted. He could see dark crescents bruising the skin under those beautiful eyes.

She studied him a moment longer, and then he could see some finely held tension ease slightly.

“Oh, God,” she said. “I’ve made a mistake. I’m very tired. I—”

To his horror, little tears were slipping down her cheeks now, too. She wasn’t wearing any mascara, which he liked for some foolishly irrational reason. Her shoulders were shaking under a jacket that looked too thin to offer any kind of protection from the penetrating chill of the night.

The baby’s howls intensified when she saw the tears dribbling down her mother’s cheeks.

Striving for dignity, the woman pulled back her shoulders, lifted her chin. The gestures wrenched oddly at a heart that he would have sworn, only moments ago, had been cast in pure iron.

“Could you just direct me to a motel?”

“I could, but you won’t have any luck.” This did not seem to surprise her. “Why fire?”

“Pardon?”

“You yelled fire,” he reminded her. “Are perverts scared of it? Like holding a cross up to a vampire?”

She laughed nervously. “I read once that nobody listens when a woman calls for help. But they will if someone calls fire.”

She wasn’t from around here, he decided. Not even close. Survival tactics of a big city woman. Her voice was intriguing. It wasn’t sweet, like her face. It had a little raspy edge to it.

“Why aren’t there any motels? There were ‘No Vacancy’ signs on every motel for the last fifty miles it seemed.” She wiped impatiently at her eyes with the back of her sleeve, and then wiped the baby’s face, and kissed her on the nose.

A magical effect. The baby, an exact replica of her mother, except with blonder hair that was, wildly curly and unruly, ceased howling. The girl turned her head enough to look solemnly at him out of the corner of one eye, but apparently the glance failed to reassure, and she began to cry again, louder than before.

“There’s a major resort going up on the edge of town. We have contractors, carpenters, plumbers…you name it they’re here.”

He doubted there was a room to be had anywhere this night.

Unless you counted his empty house. Three bedrooms. One up, two down. The place had been a duplex until a few months ago when, with his landlord’s permission, he had turned the upstairs kitchen into a workroom.

Don’t, he told himself.

But he did, feeling slightly put out that he’d frightened her so badly, but even more put out that the baby was going to wake up the whole bloody neighborhood.

“Look, maybe you better come in for a minute.”

He reached past her for the door. Which was locked. The baby’s crying was affecting him so badly, he considered a well-placed kick to the old wood, but contained himself.

“No,” she said, firmly, her suspicion leaping back in her eyes. “I’m leaving. It’s all right. Really. I’m tired. I drove too long. I must have the wrong address.”

She went to move by him and then stopped, the porch opening onto the stairs too small for her to squeeze by without touching him. It was when he saw the delicate blush rising in her cheeks that he remembered he was in a state of undress.

“Wait right here,” he said sternly, using his no-nonsense cop voice, a man to be taken seriously, even in his underwear. Boxers, thank God. The plaid kind that could be mistaken for a pair of gym shorts in a thick fog. Maybe.

She was scared still, it was written all over her face.

Scared that if he was not a pervert that had been hiding in the bushes, she had accidentally knocked on the door of Miracle Harbor’s only axe-murderer.

“I’m a cop,” he said reluctantly, “Retired.” He knew she’d see it. The stance, the look in his eyes, the cut of his hair.

Her eyes wide on his face, she nodded, then as soon as he stepped back, she flew by him, and scurried down the walk. He let her go, listening to the snap of the locks on her car doors when she was safely inside it.

Then he listened to the unhealthy grind as she turned the ignition.

Not his problem, he thought, at all. Thank God.

He went back down the sidewalk, and in his back door. He ordered himself up the steps and into bed. He made it up the steps, but his mind, never disciplined at this time of night, listened for the sound of the car pulling away. Nothing.

He opened his window, took a look out, and heard again the grind of the starter.

“Hell,” he said, and picked up a pair of jeans off the end of his bed. “Double hell.”

Despite a shin that should have told him otherwise, the woman had a vulnerable quality in her eyes. He wanted to leave her to her fate, and couldn’t. She wasn’t dressed warmly enough to be sitting out there in a freezing car, and the child probably wasn’t either.

Minutes later, snapping up his jeans, he turned on the porch light and flung open the front door.

She could come in if she wanted to.

But she didn’t.

Stubborn. That was written all over her face. Beautiful, yes, but stubborn, too. He snuck a glance out the door.

The wind lifted the fog enough for him to see her. She had her forehead resting against the steering wheel. She was probably crying. But she wasn’t going to ask for his help. Not him. The pervert.

Sighing, he pulled a jacket over his naked chest. He’d taken an oath, years ago, to protect and serve. And retired or not, that oath was as much a part of his makeup as anything else. It ran through his blood, and he found himself almost relieved at the discovery that his personal tragedy had not stolen that part of his nature from him.

He was not capable of leaving her out there in the cold.

She didn’t see him coming, and started when he tapped on her window. There, he’d managed to scare her again, which should warn him to give up any notion of a new career in the damsel-in-distress department.

She opened her window a crack. “Yes?”

“Do you want me to call somebody for you? Have you got road service?” Old habits died hard. Her license plates said Illinois. There was a parking sticker on her windshield for a lot in Chicago. He’d been right when he guessed this woman was a long way from home.

“I’ll be fine,” she said proudly. “In Chicago this is picnic weather.”

“Yeah,” he said. She was shivering. “I can see that. Is that baby as cold as you are?”

She gave the child a distressed look, and turned back to him. “Are you really a police officer?”

“I was, yes.”

“Have you got a badge?”

“Not anymore.”

“Why aren’t you a policeman anymore?”

His aggravation grew. It occurred to him it was the most he’d felt of anything for a long, long time. He actually felt alive. Aggravated, but alive.

“Lady,” he said, “are you going to make me beg you to come in?”

She seemed to mull that over, then with a resigned sigh, she undid the lock and reached for the baby. She followed him up the walk.

He held open the door for them. The baby was nestled into her mother’s chest now, sucking her thumb. When she glanced at him, she scrunched up her face again, and opened her mouth so wide he could see her tonsils.

The baby was wearing a knitted sweater with a little pink hood and pom-poms.

A memory niggled, so strong, so hard, he nearly shut the door.

Their baby was going to be a girl. The amniocentesis

had told them that. Stacey had begun to buy pink things. Little dresses. Booties.

“Are you all right?” the woman asked him.

No. He wasn’t. Two years, and he still wasn’t. He had accepted it now. That he was never going to be all right. That time would not heal it.

But he lied to her. “Sure. Fine. Come in.”

She stepped hesitantly over the threshold. The baby craned her neck and looked around.

“I’m Abby Blakely,” she said, and freeing a hand, extended it. She was small, but in the full light, she looked older than she had outside. Mid to late twenties. Not the teenager the Cubs cap had suggested. Her figure was delectable—slender, but soft in all the right places.

He took her hand, noting for a hand so small, it was very strong. “Shane McCall.”

“And you really were a policeman?”

“Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

“It’s not the policeman part I find hard to believe. It’s the retired part.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t look very old.”

The mirror played that trick on him, too. He looked in it and saw a man who looked so much younger than he felt.

“Thirty,” he said.

“Surely you’re a little too young to be retired, Mr. McCall?”

“Shane. Uh. Well. Semi, I guess. I’m a consultant on police training, now. Look, do you want to come in and sit down?”

Her eyes found his ring finger, and he saw her register the band of soft, solid gold that winked there. “Are we going to wake your wife?”

“No. I’m a widower.”

“I’m sorry.” After a moment, “You seem young for that, too.”

“Tell God.” He heard the bitter note in his voice, and would have done anything to erase it. “Look, are you coming in or not?”

She hesitated, looked like she was going to cry again, wiped at her face with her sleeve. “I don’t know what I want to do. I’m so tired.” She brightened. “I know, I’ll call one of my sisters.”

He liked the way she said sister, somehow putting so much love into the word that he knew her sister wouldn’t mind her calling at this time of the night. But why hadn’t she thought of that before?

She thrust the baby at him and bent to undo her shoes. It seemed to him he’d been in a better position when she didn’t trust him. He wasn’t good with babies.

He held the chubby body awkwardly, at arm’s length. “Uh, just leave your shoes on.”

“On these floors. Are you crazy?”

He looked at the floors, not sure he’d ever noticed them before. Wood. In need of something. Tender loving care.

The baby was regarding him with a suspicious scowl. Like mother, like daughter. “Me, Belle,” she finally announced warily.

“Great. Hi.” He still held her out, way far away from him.

She wiggled and he could feel the lively energy, the strength in her.

Abby straightened, and he went to hand the baby back. “Could you just hold her for a minute? Just until I use the phone?”

It would seem churlish to refuse. “The phone’s through here,” he said, leading the way, past the closed door that went into the empty main floor suite, and down the hall to the kitchen. The baby waggled away on the end of his held-out-straight-in-front-of-him arms.

“She won’t bite you.”

“Oh.” He made no move to change his position. Belle wiggled uncomfortably.

“Does she smell?” Abby asked.

“Belle no smell,” the baby yelled indignantly.

“Uh,” he managed to unbend his arms a little, draw the baby into him. Sniffed. She did smell. Of heaven. Something closed around his heart, a fist of pain.

And whatever emotion it was, it telegraphed itself straight to the baby, because she stared at him round-eyed, then touched his cheek with soft fingers, took the collar of his jacket in a surprisingly strong grip, and pulled herself into him.