She deserves a man she can count on

Eight years ago Brigham Collier broke their engagement, and Molly Darling’s heart, when he put the military first. Now Molly is a childless widow, and the returning soldier’s back in town…with the most adorable baby she’s ever seen. He needs help looking after Laila, left in his care by a fallen teammate. But time is running out. Who will keep Laila when duty calls again?

Molly can’t turn her back on an orphan, but Laila reawakens her longing for a family of her own. And her feelings for Brig. If he shared her dream—instead of living for the next dangerous mission—she might dare say yes to him again. But he’ll never leave his post, and she won’t trust him with her heart a second time.

“So much has happened since then, for both of us…since you left.”

But Brig had pulled her off the path into the shelter of the big sycamore tree by the front porch. Surprised by his movement and her own lack of resistance, Molly gazed at him, trying to read his expression. In the soft glow of light from the living room, she could barely make out his eyes, so dark and…dear. The years hadn’t changed that.

“We were finished long ago,” she said to save herself. “There’s nothing—”

“There’s something,” he insisted. “Ever since Indiana at least.”

Molly couldn’t deny that. “But those were a few days out of time,” she murmured. “I can’t go back—”

The rest was never said. As Molly stood there, unmoving, he grasped her shoulders to draw her closer, and then Brig’s mouth was touching hers.

Dear Reader,

I love a good reunion story! I always have.

It’s not as if, in my “real” life, I’m still pining for the one that got away. The only guy I do remember who twisted me into knots years ago came nowhere near being Mr. Right for Me. In other words, I don’t yearn for another reality, for what might have been. I like my life just the way it is.

Still. There’s something about first love revisited—in fiction anyway—that always gets to me and touches my heart. That relationship history intensifies both conflict and emotion.

In this book Molly and Brig were engaged once and headed for the altar, but their wedding never happened. Since then Molly has had other losses in her life; she’s not taking any more chances. Besides, some things never change, and for her Brig is one of them. In his military career he is still all about risk. He’s a true daredevil whose life is filled with danger. Just what Molly doesn’t need.

But, well, you know that old saying about the best-laid plans. In spite of the years and the distance between them, neither of my characters has forgotten the other. When romance knocks at the door once again, Molly and Brig must face their long-unresolved feelings for each other after all. Add an adorable baby to the mix and even more second chances begin to seem at least possible.

And yet having all Molly’s dreams come true at last won’t be easy for her or for Brig. They have some difficult choices to make. First, they both must learn to let go of the past—including loss—before they can find their own happily ever after.

I hope you enjoy their roller-coaster ride in these pages as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Happy reading!

Best,

Leigh

If I Loved You

Leigh Riker

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LEIGH RIKER

like many readers and writers, grew up with her nose in a book, and to this day she can’t imagine a better way to spend time than to curl up with a good romance novel—unless it is to write one! When not at home on her small Southern mountain, the Ohio native and award-winning author likes to travel with her husband, the model hero (of course) for her stories. With added inspiration from her mischievous Maine coon cat always perched on her desk, she is at work on a new novel.

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To the memory of

Virginia Helen Riker,

the best mother-in-law ever…

Somewhere out there, I know you’re still dancing

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“HOW DO WOMEN ever manage?”

Brig Collier had no clue. In the past twenty-four hours, through seven and a half time zones, he had seen females nowhere near his size juggle crying infants, fussy toddlers and screaming five-year-olds without breaking a sweat. He figured it had something to do with different elbow joints and pelvic structure.

Even getting out of a cab was a major ordeal. Worse, now he was talking to himself. After fumbling for his wallet, his brain fogged from travel, he paid the fare, then heaved himself from the taxi’s rear seat into the pouring rain.

He reached back in for the overstuffed diaper bag and, finally, for the baby. He lifted her out of the mandatory car seat she’d been sitting in, but Laila just didn’t fit in the crook of his arm. One tiny leg insisted on poking out from her blanket. Poor kid.

Brig felt like a total failure. Never mind his expertise with the black-ops stuff that was his bread and butter. He was still trying to deal with the shock of becoming all too suddenly a stand-in father.

He waited while the driver unloaded their bags from the trunk. One for him, three for Laila. By the time she reached kindergarten, they’d probably be traveling with a U-Haul.

The cabbie couldn’t hide his smirk. “Good luck, mister.” He probably had a dozen kids and could handle six at a time. As he pulled away in his cab, he called out the window, “The first one’s always the hardest.”

Brig frowned. Could it be more obvious that he didn’t know what he was doing? He always knew what he was doing. His life depended on it...and so, unfortunately, did the lives of others. As if he needed that reminder, now he had Laila, and Brig meant to do right by her.

He gazed around, but for one jet-lagged second he couldn’t remember where he was. Oh, yeah, not in Wardak province, Afghanistan. No bullets whizzed past his head here. This was Liberty Courthouse. Small-town America in the heartland of Ohio.

His heartbeat settled. He was looking straight at his parents’ neat suburban house, the safe place he needed for Laila.

The baby whimpered. Cold water dripped from Brig’s hair, making him shiver. And he realized he was standing in the rain like a turkey with its mouth open. Laila was getting wet, too. Brig hurried up the walk to the modest house he’d once called home.

It looked...empty?

Alarm flashed through him. How could that be? After he leaned on the doorbell a third time, he realized no one must be inside.

Brig hadn’t been here in a while. He had no door key to the house.

What to do?

Laila would have to have a bottle soon, dry clothes, a clean diaper.

Other than his absent parents, he had no relatives in town. His friends had moved away. As for the neighbors...he’d burned that bridge long ago, especially with her.

Nonetheless, the next minute he was picking a path across the sodden lawn anyway with Laila in his arms. He’d left her car seat and most of their luggage on his parents’ doorstep to lighten his load, but the insistent memory of a brown-haired girl with laughing green eyes weighed him down at every step. Molly. He’d be lucky if she didn’t kick him across the street.

The very picture of a desperate man, he carried Laila up the sidewalk to Molly’s house. She probably no longer lived here, either. But no doubt her dad still did, except the man would likely greet him with a shotgun.

Brig climbed the steps, one foot slipping on a wet slate tile. Startled, he lost his balance, nearly tossing Laila and him into the rain-flattened peony bushes that flanked the porch.

He grabbed the railing to steady himself at the same time a blast of noise from inside the house assaulted his eardrums. A party? Not in his honor, for sure.

Maybe he shouldn’t have come back to Liberty.

But he had to consider Laila’s welfare now, not that of the men under his command. Not his own.

* * *

MOLLY DIDN’T BELIEVE in bad omens. As if there were any other kind, including the rain that now slashed the windows. She was already running late, and even the red-and-white banner stretched over the dining room archway didn’t bring her usual smile. The party guests in the living room, ranging in age from six months to sixty years, had begun arriving early, well before midday—had she put the wrong time on the invitations?—and most of them seemed to be talking at once. Every minute or two, the doorbell rang again.

Normally Molly loved parties. At least, she had loved them when there was something to celebrate with that special someone. Now, in the midst of her annual Valentine’s Day bash, she was merely going through the motions for other people.

What else could go wrong?

Maybe the romantic holiday itself had unsettled her.

February was no longer her favorite month, and except for her dad, Molly had loved only two other men in her life. The first she’d rather not think about. The second, sadly, was gone, too.

Determined not to slide further into a slump, she turned to finish with the decorations, hoping no one would notice her disorganization. She should have stayed up later last night, but then, she hadn’t expected the horde to get here this soon. She stuck another heart-shaped decal on the back of a dining room chair. And gave thanks for the blessings she still had.

Her friends. Her family. Her widowed father. Thomas—also known as Pop—was already in his element, riding small children on his knee, telling corny jokes to the teenagers, ignoring his diet to drink a beer or two with the men. Molly wouldn’t spoil his fun.

The family—most of all Pop, who still mourned her mother—relied on her. She was great at holding them together, and proud of it. If this was her fate in life now, instead of a house full of babies to care for and a husband to love, so be it. Molly didn’t expect to find love again. Her family and her day care center, Little Darlings, had to be enough.

And they would be. Molly already needed to expand the center. If all her current plans went well, she could take in more children, hire more assistants to improve her already good teacher-to-student ratio and enhance her program.

Still, she couldn’t shake this stubborn foreboding, her feeling that something was about to happen that would change her life again.

And as if someone had just been cued, the doorbell chimed once more.

In a last attempt to alter her mood, she dabbed one remaining shiny red heart decal at the corner of her mouth, like a beauty mark. Then she shoved the now-decorated chairs back under the table and went to greet her newest guest, determined to enjoy herself if it killed her.

But when she plowed through the crowded living room and opened the front door, her smile vanished. Molly froze. She knew exactly why she had felt such foreboding.

In the doorway stood a tall, all-too-familiar man. His piercing blue eyes met her gaze of recognition, equally shocked.

Molly’s heart tripped on itself as too many memories flooded her mind. She tried to focus on his rain-dampened hair, dark and sleek against his head, but his gaze kept drawing hers back. She had to admit he was still the most attractive man she’d ever seen.

Molly exchanged a glance with her sister, who stood on the other side of the living room, a party hat in one hand. Ann lifted her eyebrows, and Molly stifled the urge to flee. She was no longer a naive twenty-two-year-old. He might still be handsome, but at thirty and a widow, she was immune, she reassured herself. Why let his abrupt reappearance shake her?

Yet the bluish circles of fatigue under those eyes threatened to undo her. If only she could hide behind the red heart pasted at the corner of her mouth, cool the heat that rose in her face. The last person she’d expected to see was the man she had once loved to distraction, the man who hadn’t wanted to make that final commitment to Molly on their wedding day. Brigham Collier. Her ex-fiancé, the first terrible loss in her life, had come back.

Holding a baby!

* * *

THE PARTY WENT downhill from there. After Brig walked in, Molly was definitely not in a festive mood. The good thing was, nobody noticed except Pop, whose back went rigid with disapproval as soon as he spied Brig. Apparently he hadn’t forgotten, either, what had happened eight years ago.

“Look at this adorable baby,” one of Molly’s cousins cooed, crossing the room with her arms outstretched. “Take off that soaked trench coat and give this poor child to me.”

Looking disoriented, Brig didn’t move except to relinquish the baby. Like Molly, he seemed numb. He was an only child, and his smaller family never had get-togethers of such utter chaos. Then, too, he wasn’t a homebody like Molly, who had never been out of Ohio. No. Brig had left Liberty Courthouse right after he’d run out on her. To this day, according to his worried mother, he preferred flying around the world, getting in and out of trouble on behalf of some quasimilitary outfit no one was supposed to know about. Trying to get himself killed.

Brig was all about risk.

Molly, who had suffered enough loss, hated the very thought of risk.

For years, she reminded herself, she and Brig had literally been worlds apart. The last she’d heard, he was somewhere in Afghanistan.

If he expected her to welcome him warmly, he had some nerve. She peered behind him but didn’t see a wife, which didn’t mean he didn’t have one somewhere. Before she had all her defenses in place, Brig walked right toward her, his gaze as piercing as a laser.

His deep voice sent an unwanted shiver down her spine.

“Hey, Molly.” He bent as though to kiss her cheek, but Molly stepped back to avoid contact. Seeming to sense her rejection, Brig glanced away. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said. “Or that you’d still be putting on this show every year. Sorry to burst in—”

“No, really, it’s a party. The more, the merrier.” She pasted a smile on her face but folded her arms across her chest. “Actually, I haven’t been here,” she went on, “but things change...life changes...and now I’m back.”

Apparently so was he. But why? And for how long?

Not that it mattered to Molly.

“My parents weren’t exactly expecting us,” he said, then explained about new locks and the key he didn’t have. “Do you know where they are?”

She hesitated. “No, but since your dad retired, they come and go all the time.” Unlike Thomas, Molly thought, who stayed home way too much. She paused again, wishing Pop had other interests besides the house and, above all, Molly. “We invited them to the party. I thought they were coming, but maybe they made other plans.”

Brig frowned. “Do you or Thomas have the new key to their house?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Last summer Molly had watered the Colliers’ garden while they were on vacation, but that hadn’t involved her going inside.

She risked a peek at the baby in her cousin’s arms and felt a familiar, deep ache. Surely Brig’s parents would have spread the word about their first grandchild. If that had been Molly’s baby, Pop would have trumpeted the news.

As for Brig, she hadn’t heard a word about any wedding, either.

“I didn’t know you were married,” she murmured, unable to stop herself.

“Me? In my line of work? No, I’m not.” He shifted, looking uncomfortable at the reminder that he’d once left Molly. Across the living room the baby, who was being passed around and admired, began to cry. Brig quickly retrieved the tiny bundle and picked up a bulky diaper bag. “Long story,” he said with a harried glance toward the kitchen. “I’ll tell you later. She’s hungry. I need to fix her a bottle. May I—?”

“Follow me,” Molly said with a sinking feeling.

She didn’t usually turn away from people. Right now that meant Brig.

And, to Molly’s utter dismay, a tiny, helpless infant she couldn’t bear to even look at full-on.

* * *

BRIG STOOD IN the kitchen doorway, the diaper bag weighing down one shoulder and Laila fussing in his arms. Two laughing teenagers sat at the table, and Brig watched them swipe red frosting from a lopsided cake.

“Stop that, you two,” Molly said, but her tone was laced with affection. “I’m no gourmet chef, and you’re not helping my cake appear any better.” She smiled. “My cousins,” she told Brig. “Second cousins.”

Crooked or not, the cake made Brig’s mouth water. The whole room smelled of comfort foods: fried chicken, baked beans laced with brown sugar and onions, and, if Brig wasn’t mistaken, his favorite macaroni and cheese.

Red heart decals—the same kind Molly wore on her face—skipped gaily across the kitchen chairs, and in the dining room on his way through, a green balloon had bounced from the ceiling on his head.

He didn’t belong here. This was like all those birthday parties he’d gone to as a kid but had never felt part of. As though he’d forgotten to bring a present. With a father in the military, he and his parents had lived all over, and making friends became harder and harder as Brig grew older. It was the only life he knew and one reason he’d followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps. Now, after hearing Dari and Pashto being spoken every day in Afghanistan, even the cadence of English sounded foreign to him. Brig kept losing words in what was being said.

Molly, on the other hand, fit right in. She handed the boy and girl a bowl of potato salad and a relish tray from the fridge. “Set these in the dining room, please.”

When the giggling pair vanished, she waved Brig toward a chair.

“Sit. You look like you need to.”

Brig put down the diaper bag but stayed on his feet, gently rocking Laila in his arms. His head ached.

All he wanted was sleep. All Molly wanted, he guessed, was to avoid him. She hadn’t taken one real good look at the baby, either, and like a cat, Molly maintained a deliberate space between herself and him. Obviously, she hadn’t forgiven him for breaking their engagement years ago. Not that she should. Not that he expected her to.

At the same time he couldn’t seem to stop staring at her. The instant he’d seen her, his memories and his guilt had overwhelmed him. His gaze traveled now from her blunt-cut brown hair—shorter than he remembered—to her trim sweater, her fitted jeans and her feet in scarlet socks. But the red heart by her mouth was what kept his eyes riveted. Thick honey seemed to flow through him. And what kind of jerk am I? Molly, with her warmth and openness, had always deserved more.

“Do you have formula?” she asked, still keeping her distance.

It took Brig forever to find a can in the overloaded bag, a clean plastic liner for the bottle and one fresh nipple. Juggling Laila, he managed to put the whole contraption together. Then, Molly eyeing him with obvious suspicion as he walked past her, he opened the microwave and stuck it inside. One minute should do it. He hoped.

Right behind him, Molly almost stepped on his heel.

“You can’t warm a baby’s milk in there.”

“Why not?”

“The bottle might feel cool to the touch, but the milk could be too hot in spots and burn a baby’s mouth and throat.” With an efficiency he could only admire, she took the bottle to the sink and held it under the water. When she seemed satisfied with the temperature, Molly thrust the bottle at Brig. “Shake some on your inner wrist before you give it to her—to make sure.”

He sat down at the table, tried to nestle Laila into a good position, then watched her latch on to the nipple. He could hear the party noise swell from the living room, and the teenagers in the dining room were still giggling. When he glanced up, Molly was all but tapping her foot at his incompetence.

He knew she adored children, but how did she know about babies?

Brig guessed it was time to explain what he was doing with one. Or try to.

“This is Laila,” he began. “She’s two months old.” He smiled down at the baby’s intent expression as she drank, her dark eyes fixed on his face. He cleared his throat. “She isn’t mine, in case you’re wondering....” He trailed off, reluctant to call up the painful memories.

Molly waited for him to go on.

After a long moment Brig tried again. “I was on duty overseas. Hush-hush stuff, flying under the radar, the kind of thing we always do.” It was one reason he’d left Molly. He hadn’t wanted to worry about her worrying about him. At least, that was what he’d told himself then. “Long story short, Laila’s dad was one of my men, one of the team. Sean...fell in love there with a local woman.”

“And they had Laila,” Molly guessed.

Brig nodded, still gazing down at the baby. Her tiny hand closed around his little finger, and his heart melted, which happened about ten times a day.

“They had Laila,” he echoed, his tone husky. “Then, while she was still in the hospital with her mother after the birth, a bunch of insurgents hit the place. Boom. In the bombing, Laila’s mom died instantly.” He paused. “Her name was Zada. You know what that means?”

“No.”

“The lucky one. But that day she wasn’t so lucky...and Sean lived just long enough to make sure Laila was okay.”

Molly’s eyes had softened. “This must be hard to talk about. You don’t have to go on, Brig.”

Why was he surprised at her words? Molly had always been sensitive to other people. Once, she’d even been sensitive to him. Now he swallowed the pain that sometimes threatened to consume him. His anger over Sean and Zada was easier to feel and just as hard to forget.

“But I ask you, Molly—what kind of thing was that? A man goes to see his wife, his new daughter, the happiest kind of day for a young couple in love—a family for the first time—and he ends up dead. They do,” he added.

Molly seemed to be holding her breath. “What about the baby? How did Laila survive that ghastly explosion?”

“The nurses claimed they wanted to give Sean and Zada some time together. They took the baby back to the nursery at the other end of the building minutes before the device went off. She didn’t get a scratch, which is a miracle in itself. I spent the past two months entangled in red tape before I got permission to bring Laila to the States.”

Molly’s gaze brightened, as if a light had been turned on. “Your friend...asked you to keep her. If anything happened to him.”

Brig nodded again. “We all make wills,” he said, “before we deploy. Kind of a downer, wouldn’t you say? But necessary when you think about it. I’m officially Laila’s guardian now. Not the best choice of ‘parent’ for her in my opinion, but, yes, I promised Sean. Who would have guessed that he and Zada would both...that Laila...” How was Brig going to care for the little girl, though? She could stay with his folks when he was in the field, as they’d already agreed, but that arrangement would be temporary, and now he had to find them first.

Molly briefly touched his arm. “You’ve had a really bad time.”

“Not just me,” he said, wanting to change the subject before he totally fell apart. “I’m sorry about your husband. Mom told me.”

There was another long silence while Molly appeared to gather herself, and Brig wondered if she felt as uneasy talking about this as he had about Sean and Zada.

“Thank you,” she said at last, her voice husky. “Andrew was a great guy.”

And I wasn’t. She had a point, even unspoken. Brig couldn’t fault her for not wanting to dredge up her sorrow. But still he went on.

“I remember Andrew Darling from school,” Brig said, “but I didn’t know him very well. He was a couple of years ahead of me. Two, I think. He always seemed quiet, but he was friendly. A serious kind of guy.”

“He had this laugh, though,” she said. “It always surprised me—when he wasn’t the type for surprises. We were a lot alike, really, I guess. He was so steady, settled...”

Not like me.

The next words almost stuck in his throat. “Were you happy, Molly?”

He needed to hear her say yes, so he wouldn’t continue to feel guilty for leaving. Yet he dreaded hearing her say just that.

“We were,” she said at last, “but not nearly long enough. While we were together, yes, we were happy. Can we stop talking about this now?”

She fell silent, as if lost in her memories, and Brig knew again that the topic would have been better left alone. Like Sean and Zada. Still, this was his and Molly’s starting point. A crazy sort of catching up.

In the next second Brig stiffened. Warmth had spread through his sleeve. But not from the touch of Molly’s hand, which had dropped from his arm. He held out Laila and saw a widening stain on the fabric.

“She’s wet,” Molly noted with that little frown he remembered so well. “When was her diaper changed?”

Already feeling guilty, Brig checked his watch. “About five hours ago.”

“Five hours?”

“On the hard floor in the customs area at JFK while we waited for our bags. I never had time between planes to buy more diapers, and at Frankfurt we ran low. I’ve been rationing Laila’s changes.”

Molly’s soft eyes had turned steely, and her face appeared pale under the festive red heart stuck to her face.

Both he and the baby must look like dirty laundry, wrinkled and thrown together. Now they were both damp and not getting any drier. To Brig, that meant he was losing his grip on the situation—which had happened the first time Laila had screamed on the military cargo plane out of Bagram airfield near Kabul.

“Overseas,” he said, “a local woman took care of Laila while I took care of business. Guess I’m not doing so well now.”

Molly raised an eyebrow. Her expression challenged every one of his insecurities.

“You can use the spare room upstairs to change her.”

Brig could hear the doubt in her tone, and his male pride kicked in. Their brief rapport—if it had even been that—was over. And here he’d thought he and Molly were doing okay as long as they avoided any mention of his betrayal of her.

“You think I can’t change a diaper?” he asked icily.

That was pretty close to the truth.

Not waiting for her answer, he took Laila, the half-finished bottle, and stalked out of the room.

* * *

“WONDERFUL,” MOLLY MUTTERED. “Why not just give a lecture or four or five to a man who’s already half dead on his feet?”

And clearly hurting. The loss of his teammate and the orphaned child had shaken Brig. Just as Brig’s questions about Andrew and Molly’s marriage had shaken her.

She had noted the weary slump of his broad shoulders, and how he held the baby to him like a security blanket.

But Molly pushed aside the observations. There was a party going on, and for the next few hours she had to play hostess. With the rain still falling, she supervised the younger children’s game of indoor tag. She refereed a fight over a TV basketball game. Pop should have known better than to get involved. She comforted her teenage cousin’s angst and soothed toddler tears.

She taught four-year-old Ernie Barlow how to play pin the tail on the donkey—or, rather, on a SpongeBob SquarePants poster—then pretended not to see how her sister, Ann, ignored Ernie’s dad, a new local sheriff’s deputy who seemed to have a thing for her.

And Molly tried not to notice that Brig never came back downstairs to eat or to show off the baby.

By evening, when the festivities wound down, the house resembled a giant trash basket filled with broken toys and exploded balloons. As her guests prepared to leave, every child under the age of five was crying—a sure sign in Molly’s experience of too much stimulation and total but happy exhaustion. For everyone but Molly, the party had been a huge success.

After all the guests left, she hurried upstairs. She found Brig in the spare room, where her offer to heat a late supper for him died on her lips. Brig lay sprawled on the double bed, sound asleep. Clearly he was down for the count. His face told her nothing, which was probably what he wanted after Molly’s earlier criticism. Lying beside him, with Brig’s arm over her like an anchor, the baby stared wide-eyed at the overhead light, flinching each time thunder rumbled in the night sky.

Now at last Molly gave in to the urge churning inside her during the party and slipped to her knees next to the bed. Brig must have dozed off in the midst of dressing Laila for the night. Her right arm was in one sleeve of an aquamarine sleeper, the other, still bare, waved in the air. Half the snaps on the sleeper were undone.

“You giving your old man a hard time?” Molly whispered.

At the sound of her voice, Laila turned her head as if searching for her. Molly reached out, brushing Brig’s arm without meaning to, and quickly touched the baby’s silky hair. Laila’s gaze, dark as a midnight sea, met hers.

Molly’s breath caught. She was a beautiful baby, another victim of the senseless violence that had taken both her parents. “Oh, sweetie,” Molly murmured.

Blinking, she eased Brig’s arm aside and heard him grunt in his sleep. She could hardly wake him and make them leave. Where would they go? A glance out the window told her Brig’s parents were still gone. Not a single light glowed in the house next door. She tucked Laila into her sleeper, then snapped the garment all the way. The little girl’s skin felt like velvet, and she smelled, as only a baby could, of sheer innocence. A baby like the one Molly had always yearned for, and lost.

Children were the best, yet the hardest, part of her job. She got to spend so much time with them, yet they were other people’s, not her own.

On impulse she peeled the red heart from her face and leaned closer to stick it on Laila’s chest, then nuzzled the infant’s small belly.

And, against every instinct to protect her heart, Molly fell in love.

Like the rain that pounded against the windows and the thunder that still grumbled overhead, the feeling seemed to Molly another omen.

CHAPTER TWO

BRIG AWOKE THE next morning fully clothed with no memory of having gone to bed—and no knowledge of where he was. Disoriented, he checked his watch, then made a quick calculation. It was six-thirty in the evening in Kabul, but eleven in the morning was late enough here. He’d overslept.

For another moment, he lay yawning in the sun-splattered bedroom—then recognition dawned. Ah, right. He was in Molly’s house. Almost immediately, he heard a snuffle. Brig shot upright and spotted the baby nearby in a portable crib. Laila! Some guardian he made.

“Hungry, cupcake?”

He tucked in the shirt he’d worn all night, fighting a growing sense of parental neglect, and picked up the baby, who was swaddled in a pastel-striped receiving blanket that smelled of fresh air. He didn’t recognize it as one he’d crammed into their suitcases, which he assumed were still on the porch next door. Molly must have donated the wrap. Wearing yesterday’s socks, he carried Laila downstairs. She needed more milk, and Brig needed coffee.

At the bottom of the steps in the front hall, as if running into an ambush, he met Molly’s father. Thomas Walker turned from the door with the newspaper in hand. He didn’t smile, and Brig remembered his stiff manner at the party. He imagined that Molly, not her dad, had let him stay the night—as if they’d had an option once he’d fallen asleep, one hundred ninety pounds of deadweight.

“The Reds are in trouble,” Thomas said, reading the headline on page one.

For a second Brig thought the Russians were stirring up trouble again.

The older man gave a snort of disgust. “Barely into spring training and already headed for the bottom of the standings. Would you believe? Just traded their best pitcher for some rookie.” He glanced out the front door’s side window. “Look at that,” he muttered.

Again, Brig missed the connection. “What?”

“Nosy woman across the street. Every time I get the paper, she’s peering out.” Without missing a beat, he said, “Doesn’t look to me like your folks are home yet. Didn’t see anyone next door. You get any rest, Brigham?”

Brig nodded his head. “Passed out as soon as I got horizontal.” He still felt drained and his eyes were grainy, but his stomach growled. Or was that Laila’s tummy? And where had his parents gone, if not out for the evening?

“Molly said you never ate dinner.”

“Wasn’t hungry.” And where was she now? “My stomach’s off schedule, still in central Asia.”

“Well, there’s coffee in the kitchen.”

But Thomas sounded begrudging.

Brig shifted Laila from one arm to the other. Dark haired, dark eyed and oblivious to the undercurrents between the two men, she sucked on a fist.

As if he couldn’t help himself, Thomas studied her. And Brig studied him. Molly’s dad was still a solid-looking man. Retirement had added a slight paunch to Thomas’s stomach, but even so, except for his brown hair with touches of gray at his temples, he didn’t look his age.

Thomas gestured at Laila. “Baby sleep okay?”

“I never heard her,” Brig confessed, knowing that wouldn’t win him any points. “Thanks for finding her a crib.”

“Molly keeps one here,” he said in what sounded like a wistful tone. A condemnation of Brig for leaving Molly practically at the altar?

A dozen questions ran through his brain, but he didn’t ask them. They were for Molly to answer, although maybe he had no right to ask. After the loss of her husband, she should find another man and have the family she’d always wanted, the family she and Brig had planned until he’d thrown a wrench into things and hightailed it out of Liberty.

Better for her, he had tried to think.

And if he’d stayed...he wouldn’t have Laila now.

“And Molly must have dressed the baby for bed,” he said.

Thomas eyed him like a bug he wanted to squash.

“Must have.”

Which meant she’d seen Brig asleep, lying down on the job. He glanced toward the kitchen. Inhaled the lingering smells of bacon and toast, and that freshly brewed coffee.

“Molly’s not here,” Thomas said. “You can fix yourself anything you like. She was up at six cleaning the mess from yesterday, made me breakfast, then took her second cup of coffee to the office.” Thomas waved toward the backyard.

Office?

Thomas’s casual statement told Brig just how little he knew of Molly these days. All he remembered seeing was an old carriage barn at the rear of the property. His mother, the neat freak, had complained it was an eyesore.

Laila squirmed in his arms and Brig’s shaky parental confidence took another nosedive. Mano a mano with Thomas, he’d nearly forgotten his original mission in coming downstairs.

“I’d better grab some of that coffee, then get going. I heated the last of Laila’s formula yesterday. Hope I can find the same brand in Liberty. Fast.” If he bought the wrong stuff or used whole milk instead of the prepared infant kind and the baby got sick, Molly would likely be on him in a second. And how had Laila made it through the night without waking him to feed her?

Thomas took another, longer look at the baby. For an instant Brig was sure he saw yearning cross the older man’s face.

“Molly went to the corner store for you last night. She fed the baby around eight, at midnight and four, and again this morning. She left another bottle ready on the stove.”

Wow. Surprised by the information, Brig didn’t know whether to feel guilty because Laila must have kept Molly up most of the night, grateful that she’d let him sleep or relieved that she’d done both. Actually, he felt all three.

“Thanks,” Brig said, which seemed inadequate.

“Don’t thank me.” Thomas had turned away and was taking his newspaper into the living room. End of discussion, or so Brig thought. But Thomas wasn’t finished. “Oh. Molly said to tell you her sheriff friend brought your bags and the baby seat from next door before he left the party.”

Then, as if his feelings had built like a volcano set to erupt, he spun around again.

“I’m not going to ask why you’re here, Brigham. I guess this baby is answer enough. For now.” Thomas pointed the rolled-up paper at him. “But don’t think I’ve forgotten what happened between you and Molly. She and Ann are the best daughters I could ever have, and Molly’s had enough grief in her life. I swear, if you hurt her—”

“I don’t intend to hurt her.”

“—like you did before, you’ll answer to me.”

Brig had no reply. He’d been a “father” himself for a short time and he was still all thumbs at the job, but, like Thomas with Molly, he knew he would protect her to the death from any threat.

To Thomas, Brig must represent six feet plus of threat.

Brig headed for the kitchen, duly warned.

He would need more caffeine than usual to get through the day in this close-knit family, which he understood even less than he did taking care of Laila. Far less than he might the workings of the Taliban.

But before Brig exited the room, he got in the last word.

“I’ll work on finding a key to Mom and Dad’s house. Move Laila next door as soon as I can. That would be best for you—and for Molly.”

* * *

MONDAY WAS NOT Molly’s favorite day of the week at Little Darlings, or anywhere else, and sometime between last Friday and this morning she had lost her equilibrium.

Oh, who are you kidding, Molly? She knew exactly when.

Around her, toy trucks clashed, the laughter of children shrilled and someone pounded on a drum. She couldn’t term the noise unusual, yet her jangled nerves wanted her to shout surrender. Today her day care center’s proximity to Pop’s house seemed way too close. That was, way too close to Brig.

She hadn’t been herself since she’d spied him yesterday standing in the doorway with Laila, like a broken dream come back to haunt her.

No, make that a nightmare.

At least the rain had finally stopped last night. The clouds had disappeared as if someone had rolled up a rug, and by midnight the sky had been full of stars. Holding Laila, feeding her while Brig slept, Molly had watched the weather improve even as a storm still roiled inside her.

Fortunately, for the rest of the day, she wouldn’t have another chance to dwell on the situation. Which was a good thing, because without half trying, she could summon the image of Brig’s lean, fit body and handsome, serious face.

Too bad for her, but he looked better than ever. Any remnants of boyishness in his face were now gone. In their place was an uncompromising set of male features with interesting planes and angles.

It wasn’t every day that an old love walked back into her life, and when she added Laila to the picture, Molly felt shaken anew. Better to keep her mind on business.

At the end of the afternoon, many of “her” children had left by the time Jeff Barlow, little Ernie’s dad, arrived dressed in his tan sheriff’s deputy uniform. At the same time, her sister, Ann, who helped with the babies in the nursery, reached the front door from outside after walking baby Ashley Jones and her mother out to their car. Under a darkening sky, she stopped cold.

Her expression told Molly that her sister’s timing couldn’t have been worse for her. The distinct chill in the air didn’t just come from the freezing wind.

Molly bit back a sigh. Jeff was one of her favorite people, and she wished her sister would stop giving him the cold shoulder.

As if he hadn’t noticed Ann’s frostiness, Jeff held the door open for her, but Ann took care not to brush against him as she came inside. She hurried down the hall with just a murmured “Thank you.”

Jeff raised an eyebrow at Molly. “Hello to her, too,” he said.

“I don’t know what gets into her,” Molly said, hoping to soothe his feelings.

But of course she did.

He looked glum. “I called twice last week to ask her out. Once, for dinner, and then to see a romantic comedy playing in town—don’t most women enjoy a good chick flick?—but she said no. Both times.” He paused. “Not that I’ve been dating enough to be up on what a woman might like.”

Molly had heard about Jeff’s bitter divorce. Clearly he was wounded. But when he and Ann had started dating a few months ago, Molly had hoped that their relationship would take root and grow, and that Ann could be happy again, as well. Then, all at once, to Molly’s dismay, Ann had pulled back like a turtle withdrawing into its shell.

“I know she wanted to see that movie,” Molly said without thinking.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Just not with me.”

She eyed him sympathetically. Jeff was just the latest example of romance gone awry in her sister’s life. Ann didn’t date often or, when she did, for very long. Molly had no idea what—if anything—she should do about that.

“Ann’s a good-looking woman,” Jeff added, “and she can be very funny when she lets her hair down. We like the same kind of books, Mexican food, sunsets... I don’t understand what happened. I thought we had clicked,” he went on. “I mean, she seemed to enjoy the one dinner we had together. We found a lot to talk about. And we went hiking one weekend with my son—”

“Daddy! Guess what I made?”

As if on cue, Jeff’s four-year-old son, his spitting image, raced up to them, his mop of sandy hair flopping into his blue eyes. He thrust a green construction-paper triangle studded with spiral pasta dyed a fluorescent pink into Jeff’s face.

“Whoa, buddy.” Jeff dodged the pointed artwork that threatened to put out an eye and gathered Ernie up with a grin. A blob of glue dripped onto Jeff’s clean uniform. “This is one great-looking...” He scrambled for a word.

“You know. It’s a tree!”

“Ah.” Jeff shot Molly an amused glance. “Ernie, I’ve never seen a better one.”

Ernie beamed. “I did it all by myself.”

Jeff’s plain-to-see love for his son caused Molly’s throat to tighten. Her Andrew would also have made a good dad, and Ernie was like the child they’d never had.

“Molly, do you like it, too?” the little boy asked.

She ruffled his hair. “I love it. Your father is an excellent judge of art.”

Smiling, Molly walked them to the outer doors. A couple of homeward-bound little stragglers ran past them, scuffling and laughing. Benjamin Crandall, a pint-size troublemaker of late, made sure to knock against Ernie on his way. But Molly focused on her more pressing problem. As she said goodbye to each child and parent, she could sense the tension still radiating from Jeff’s broad-shouldered body.

Her smile faded. He was a nice man. A decent man. A solid man.

And it wasn’t as if men like Jeff Barlow grew on trees, including pink ones like Ernie’s collage.

“I’ll talk to Ann,” she said, following Jeff’s glance toward the nursery.

“I don’t know that you should, Molly. But is it—” he nodded toward his small son “—you know. Because if that’s her problem—” His voice had hardened in Ernie’s defense.

“I’ll talk to her,” Molly repeated.

As if she was an expert on romantic relationships.

Jeff didn’t wave goodbye when they left, but Ernie gave Molly an exuberant flip of one chubby hand. He was the most lovable four-year-old at the center.

Once Jeff had buckled Ernie into his car seat in the back of the cruiser and pulled out of the lot, Molly took off for the playroom adjacent to the nursery.

She organized paint cups in the art cupboard for the next day. Within a moment, Ann appeared.

“Don’t say a word,” she warned. “I don’t need the big-sister act.”

Molly faced her, intent on speaking her mind anyway. “I can’t believe how you treated Jeff. I’m disappointed in you.”

Ann tossed honey-brown bangs out of her eyes. They were a rich hazel, their mother’s color. “Maybe I just like being an old maid.”

“Don’t be smart. There are no old maids these days.” Molly tried to lighten the mood. “Not since Aunt Tilly went to her heavenly reward still ‘intact,’ as she always said, at the age of ninety.” They shared a weak smile before Molly went on. “You’re only twenty-seven, Ann. You can’t seriously want to be alone for the rest of your life.”

“Why not? You are.”

Ouch. The words echoed in the silence.

“I’m sorry,” Ann murmured. “That was an awful thing to say. But I should never have gone out with him, and the sooner Jeff Barlow realizes I’m not interested, the better. With Ernie here at the center, I can hardly avoid him.”

Molly’s eyes still stung from Ann’s earlier words. “You sure try.”

“Yes, and my new best friend is caller ID.”

The throwaway tone didn’t sit well with Molly. She bustled around the room, gathering stray blocks, stacking them and trying to wrestle the remnants of her own fresh pain into some sort of order.

She didn’t have a choice about being alone, but in Molly’s view, Ann was throwing away her potential for happiness with both hands—if not with the sheriff, then with someone else.

Molly shut the cupboard doors for the night and turned to find Ann with tears in her eyes. And Molly’s shoulders sagged. “Is it because of Ernie?” she asked, echoing Jeff’s earlier concern. “He’s a great little kid.”

Ann sniffed. “I know.”

“And I know you like children. You’re wonderful with the babies here. You like them so much you just had to carry Melissa Jones’s diaper bag to the car so you could spend one more minute today with her little Ashley.”

As if caught committing some terrible crime, Ann flushed.

“Well, you are good,” Molly said. “Would I have hired you if not?”

Ann rolled her eyes. “You hired me because you were shorthanded, and I had my degree in education and no other job.”

Which was only part of the reason. Yes, Molly had needed to fill that staff position, but was she simply enabling her sister to avoid dealing with the long-ago tragedy that had changed her life?

For years Ann had not only kept to herself, but she refused to go more than a mile or two from home. Her apartment was just blocks away from Little Darlings, and every day she walked to work. Ann owned a car, which she maintained, and for which she renewed her registration and driver’s license. But she never got behind the wheel. She hadn’t driven once since the accident.

Just as Molly rarely drove past the house she and Andrew had shared in Cincinnati’s Hyde Park neighborhood—and always told herself it was out of her way now. She’d been living with Pop since shortly after Andrew died.

Molly softened her tone. “I also hired you because I love you,” she said. “And to keep you close,” she added with a teasing grin, “so you can take over when Pop gets to be too much for me. In the meantime...I honestly thought you and Jeff were going somewhere. Why not give him—”

“A chance?”

“If it doesn’t work out, you can move on.”

“Like you?” Ann asked.

Another barb for Molly.

“That’s enough,” Molly said, barely holding her temper in check.

“Or maybe I’m wrong.” Ann hesitated, frowning. “Maybe I’m not the only one here with man trouble. I’ve talked to Dad. What is Brigham Collier doing in the house?”

“Waiting for his parents,” Molly said.

The image crossed her mind again before she could stop it. Brig, his dark hair tousled, his blue eyes unable to hide his exhaustion. Brig all but asleep on his feet, holding Laila in his arms.

“Really? Waiting? That’s all?” Ann said. “You’re sure?”

Molly looked away. She could feel her cheeks coloring. “I’m sure.”

Ann was no fan of Brig’s, she knew. From the moment he’d canceled his wedding to Molly and Ann had returned her bridesmaid’s dress to the store, she’d kept him at the top of her personal blacklist. Molly reminded herself that she and Ann were sisters. How could she blame Ann for caring about her?

“You don’t have to worry,” she said, hating that she was justifying herself. “You won’t have to pick up the pieces again. And may I point out that Jeff Barlow is a very different guy?”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Ann said, turning toward the door.

“Just something for you to think about,” Molly murmured, but Ann was gone, leaving her alone with her unhappy awareness of her sister’s increasingly isolated existence. Like Pop. Then she thought of herself.

Hadn’t she learned her lesson years ago? Brig wouldn’t stay long in Liberty Courthouse now, either. Well, she had no intention of letting him into her life again. Even if he did have the most adorable baby on earth.

CHAPTER THREE

Hey, Collier. Trip go okay? How’s the little lady? The guys already miss her. Bet your mom and dad like her, too, huh? Off to find some bad guys. H.

BRIG READ THE email again from his teammate, but his smile didn’t last. His thoughts were elsewhere. He had meant what he told Thomas. He had no intention of hurting Molly.

At her kitchen table he punched another number into his cell phone. And frowned. After his earlier run-in with Thomas, he’d double-checked next door again, but Thomas had been right. Still no one was home. His parents’ mobile number kept telling him they were unavailable and sending his calls to voice mail. Their landline didn’t help, either. Right next door, behind a lock he couldn’t access, their answering machine announced their voice mail was full.

Many of those messages were probably from him. He hung up one last time. Molly was home and in the kitchen before he could get out of her way.

“It’s freezing out again.” She bustled around the kitchen, taking off her coat, shaking out her wind-whipped hair. “Where’s Laila?”

“Still napping. I hope. I’ll see in a minute.” He closed his phone, determined to clear the air. “Molly, I didn’t mean to crash on you like that yesterday. Thanks,” he said, “for giving us a room last night. And feeding Laila for me. You’ve been more than generous, considering...” Then he couldn’t find the words he really needed to say.

“What?”

“Well, you know. For one thing...” He looked past her toward the dining room, the front door. “My running off like that years ago—as if I couldn’t get away fast enough.”

“You did appear to be in a hurry.” She attempted a smile, but it didn’t come. “Of course, watching a hometown girl walk down the aisle in a long white dress can’t be as exciting as trying to save the world.”

Brig felt as if she’d punched him in the stomach. Her tone was blithe—deliberately so?—but she made him sound petty. He deserved that, too.

Molly pushed up her sleeves and started to fix dinner. His gaze tracked her movements as she took hamburger from the fridge, a package of buns from the bread box. She flipped on a burner, formed patties from the meat, slapped them into a skillet. Who knew a woman’s efficiency in the kitchen could be a turn-on?

“Well,” she said, just as he had, “now we’ve gotten that off our chests...”

“Have we? Molly. I didn’t want to leave you then. I just wanted—”

“To leave,” she finished for him. “No, let’s not go there. That’s all water under the bridge,” she said, “and we’re not kids, Brig. Eight years is way too long for me to hold a grudge. But last night, I admit, I was a little—a lot—shocked to see you.”

“And Laila, certainly.”

“And Laila,” she agreed. “I doubt Pop’s very keen on having you here, but—”

“No, he’s not. He already warned me not to make another mistake.”

She quirked an eyebrow, then opened the pantry door. Brig studied her slim figure and the way she fit her jeans, but with Thomas’s words in mind, he knew he had no business ogling Molly.

“Your dad’s a hard case,” he said to distract himself. “Kind of like my dad. So I’m used to that. When I was a kid and my father was still on active duty, he could be a real force to contend with.” He paused. “But then, so was I.”

“No wonder Pop and Joe are friends as well as neighbors.”

“Yeah, and a good thing Dad’s mellowed over the years.”

Have you? But Molly didn’t pose the question.

Brig looked down at the cell phone in his hand. “Sorry to still be sticking around. I’ve tried all day to reach my parents.” He could have kicked himself. “This is my own fault. The last time I spoke to them, I told them not to phone me again. Communications are never the best over there, and I was busy making arrangements to bring Laila to the States. I said my next call would be to let them know when we’d arrive.”

“So your coming back wasn’t a surprise.”

“No, but too bad I couldn’t give them a firm date. I don’t know who else to call now,” he said. “Another locksmith just told me he can’t open the door to a house that isn’t mine. No surprise there.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah, I knew better than to ask. It was a desperate move on my part.” Another one, he thought, and stood. He could have picked the old lock—one of his many warrior skills—but the new dead bolt was a more difficult obstacle. So was the alarm system, assuming his father had remembered to set it.

Molly emerged from the pantry. “I wish I could think of someone...”

“Don’t worry. As soon as Laila wakes from her nap, I’ll phone for a cab and we’ll be out of your hair.” And Thomas’s. He flipped open the phone again. “I’m sure we can get a hotel room for tonight. My folks are bound to turn up soon.”

That sounded pathetic even to Brig, and deepened his frown.

“And miss seeing them when they pull in the drive?” Molly hesitated a bit too long, then said, as if she’d surprised herself, “I’ve forgotten my manners. You have the perfect vantage point from here to see when they get home.”

The warm air in the cozy kitchen carried the aroma of seared beef, and Brig’s mouth watered. Or was it the sight of Molly’s green eyes dark with concern?

She’d always been pretty, but at thirty she had an inner beauty to match. Too bad he’d blown his chance with her long ago.

Not even hearing what she’d said, he carried on with his line of thought. “In the meantime, who knows where my parents are?” he said. “Or with whom? Most of the landline numbers for their friends have gone to new phone company customers because Mom and Dad’s gang have all moved to Florida or Arizona. The couple I remember best,” he went on, “is living in Mexico. If my folks went to visit one of their old friends, I wouldn’t know where to even start a search. As for any new people...”

He looked hopefully at Molly, who only shook her head.

“I really don’t know who might be in their circle now. Your parents are more social than Pop. Since he retired, he sticks close to home. He golfs occasionally with your dad, but that’s all.”

“Well, my folks are for sure not in town. No activity I can think of would keep them away this long.”

“You didn’t call them from...wherever on the way home?” Molly asked.

Brig shook his head. “When I finally got a military flight out, it was either jump on the plane with Laila while we had the chance or miss out and have to wait until whenever the next hop came.” He paused. “I called home from Frankfurt, from my home base on the East Coast and then from JFK, even from here in Cincy. But I had to leave messages....” He trailed off. “The folks must have already gone. And then Laila was being a handful with the time change.”

“I’m sure you did the best you could,” Molly said.

Not exactly, Brig thought. He was always hard on himself—partly because he was the son and only child of a military family with strict discipline and even stricter expectations.

He knew his best wasn’t always good enough. To prove it, he said, “Doesn’t take most people I’ve seen twenty minutes to change a diaper. That was false bravado you saw last night.”

“Practice,” Molly murmured. “That’s all you need.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And about fifty books on child care.”

She was rinsing potatoes at the sink, chopping them, then dropping the pieces into a pot of water. For whipped potatoes? Another of his favorites. He hadn’t had them in months.

She pointed a paring knife at the backyard. “There’s a library out in the center—my day care business behind the house. You’re welcome to borrow any of those books, or all of them.”

Which was another of his problems. Time to read—time to do anything. Brig’s gut tightened. His emergency leave couldn’t last forever. He needed to find his parents and get Laila into their temporary care before he had to take off again for parts unknown. Once he got that call, time would be off the table. He sure couldn’t take Laila back with him into the danger that had ended her parents’ lives.

He studied the play of light on Molly’s hair as she set the pan of potatoes on the stove, then turned on the burner. Her vulnerable nape tempted him.

Brig shifted in his seat. “I, uh, appreciate the offer. About the books,” he added. “But as I said, Laila and I had better clear out. We’ve taken up enough space here, and I don’t want to rile your father.”

“Nonsense. Stay for dinner,” she said. “Just...stay. I’ll handle Pop.”

The words had slipped from her mouth as naturally as they might have years ago before Brig had left her. How many times had Molly or her mother invited him to dinner? Made him feel like part of their family? Thomas was right again. She had been so welcoming, when he didn’t deserve it. She looked so good, he wondered how he had left in the first place.

Yet what else, really, could she say?

Molly had the biggest heart of anyone he’d ever known.

Which only made him feel worse, as if he was taking advantage.

Her father’s warning echoed in his mind. Brig had brought Laila home with only one thought: find a safe place for her with his parents. He realized he needed a long-term solution, but that would require some hard thinking about what was best for the baby and for him. What he hadn’t planned on was seeing a widowed Molly again, being attracted to her after all these years.

With a warrior’s sense of danger, Brig knew he was in trouble. Staying in Molly’s house did seem more practical than staying in a hotel, but his proximity to her would only exacerbate the memory of their broken engagement, and renew the tension between them. She was now the girl next door all grown up, and she offered the brief haven a war-weary Brig badly needed. But...

He would not hurt her again, even as he wondered how to keep his hands off her. Before he left, as he would have to again, he needed to win Molly’s forgiveness.

Maybe staying for another night could help accomplish that goal.

* * *

“WE HAVE A guest room,” Molly reminded her father after dinner that night. “Brig might as well use it.”

Molly had second thoughts of her own, but she’d already blurted out the invitation. She could hardly turn Brig and that sweet baby out into the night. The temperature had started to drop at noon. By the time her kids had gone home, the sky was black with clouds. It was already sleeting outside, and soon the roads would turn icy. The thought of Brig in a taxi, sliding along slick streets, then trying to cope with Laila in some cramped hotel room kept playing through her mind.

Yet how could she convince Pop it was all right for Brig and Laila to stay when she wasn’t that sure herself?

As if to prove her point, Thomas cast a sour glance at the ceiling. Upstairs, Brig was struggling to get the baby to sleep, and Molly suppressed a fresh wave of frustration. She was still worried about Ann, but Pop wasn’t helping her mood.

“What kind of son doesn’t have a key to his family home? I can answer that,” he said, not waiting for Molly to reply. “A man who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

“That’s not true,” Molly shot back, quick to defend him. Too quick, perhaps, but she could see he did care about Laila. “It’s not Brig’s fault his parents have apparently left town.”

“Humph.”

His mouth a grim line, Pop followed her into the living room. Molly sat opposite his faded blue wing chair and attempted to coax a smile from her dad. She knew he wasn’t happy that Brig had breached his nightly routine with Molly: dinner, an extra helping of dessert that she wasn’t supposed to notice on Pop’s plate, his help with the dishes afterward, then their usual talk before he went up to bed. Sometimes they watched TV or a movie together, or he watched a sporting event while Molly pretended to enjoy it, too. She didn’t mind keeping him company. But now...

She couldn’t blame Pop for resenting Brig. It wasn’t easy for her, either, to have him in the house. She’d really offered for Laila’s sake, and as long as Molly kept her distance she’d be okay.

“Another day or two,” she said, “won’t hurt us. The baby doesn’t belong in some stark hotel room, Pop, not when we have a good crib right here. And if she requires anything, the nursery in Little Darlings likely has it. Brig needs access to a kitchen for her, too.”

“Huh,” Thomas said. “So he stays and that little mite wraps her finger around our hearts. Then what?”

Molly felt his concern, his hurt, because they echoed her own. He had once wanted grandchildren just as badly as she’d wanted children. They would have been good for him. Ever since her mother had died, he’d been like someone lost in a wilderness, and Molly often felt helpless at easing his sorrow when she was still struggling with her own.

“About Brig’s key...” She felt the need to explain, just as Brig had. “His parents changed the locks after his last visit.” No, that didn’t sound right. “I mean, remember they had that break-in a while ago and upped their security? New door included. They wanted to give him a key, he said, but he was overseas, and they never know quite where he is really.” They had known about Afghanistan, though. And all that red tape. “I imagine they expected to be here when he arrived with Laila.”

Thomas’s features tensed. “I never heard a word about that baby. Maybe Joe and Bess aren’t as good-hearted as you are, Molly. Maybe they decided to take off—go on a cruise—or maybe they just don’t want to raise someone else’s child.”

Shocked, Molly leaned forward. “That’s a dreadful thing to say. You sound like Ann when she talks about Jeff Barlow. What’s with the two of you?”

Thomas seized the opportunity to shift the conversation.

“Ann?” He snorted. “You ever notice how she looks at him?”

“Yes, but...I notice more how she avoids him.”

“Well, look again.” The piercing glance he sent Molly made her squirm.

Did her dad also see how she looked at Brig when she thought no one would notice? She should just ignore his dark hair, his blue eyes, his broad shoulders and strong body. A body honed for war, she reminded herself, not love. Not her.

Eye candy, she tried to tell herself. Why not look if she did only that?

“We were talking about Brig’s family.” She hesitated. “There was a time when the Colliers wanted grandchildren as much as you did.”

Thomas drew a breath. “What business does a man like that have with a baby? He’s never home. He certainly doesn’t have a wife....”

Ah. So that was it. Still.

“Pop. Don’t.” She paused again. “By the way, Brig told me you issued him some warning about me.”

“Of course I did. You’re my girl.”

“I understand how you feel, but you don’t need to worry.”

He gave her another skeptical look, and Molly held his gaze until he had to avert his eyes. Lately, his protectiveness, his dependence upon her, had started to wear thin.

“I will worry,” he said.

“I’m not interested in Brig. That’s over.”

Even Brig’s mother had once told Molly that being married to a military man meant one long separation broken by short reunions. It meant moving again, often without much notice, just when you’d put down roots somewhere. And it meant always taking second place to duty. Maybe it was a good thing Brig had left and Andrew had stayed.

Her husband’s steady devotion had suited her.

“Andrew and I had our differences, especially toward the end, but I’m not about to tarnish his memory.” She took a breath. “Especially with a man who ultimately couldn’t commit to me. I had Andrew,” she said softly. And for a few months at least, they’d almost had the baby they’d wanted, that first grandchild for Pop. “I don’t need anyone else,” she added.

“You have me.”

Molly tried to let his remark pass. But Pop looked afraid of losing her—or did she imagine this? And that troubled Molly even more. All at once she regretted her offer to let Brig and Laila stay. Not that she had any other humane choice, but her father’s words only made her feel more unsettled.

You have me.

What kind of daughter was she? She loved Pop. Yet, sometimes, more often of late, she felt unsatisfied. As if he and Little Darlings and all her friends and family were not enough after all.

Frankly, she felt a little bit...trapped. Molly sure hoped Brig Collier’s sudden reappearance in her life had nothing to do with that.

CHAPTER FOUR

ANN WALKER STARTLED at the first ring of the phone, though she should be used to it by now, since the phone had been ringing off and on all night. She had no intention of answering. In her darkened living room, she curled into her favorite chair, the TV set glowing but the sound muted. After the fourth ring she prepared to listen instead to her machine.

Jeff Barlow was finally leaving a message:

“Ann, if you don’t want to see a movie—then we can do something else. Take a walk along the river. Go bowling. Drive up to Columbus...”

Drive? He couldn’t have said anything worse. Frustrated, Ann snatched up the phone and launched right in.

“No,” she said. “To bowling or a walk or anything else. Maybe—just a thought here—you should give up.”

“Nope.” She actually heard a smile in his voice. He went on in that same unhurried manner, as if he meant to stay on the line until she surrendered. “You know, we have a new K-9 recruit in the department, and he reminds me of you.”

She tightened her grip on the phone.

“How flattering to be compared to a dog.”

The smile-by-wire broadened. “No, see, he’s this great-looking dog with honey-brown fur and big eyes that are kind of beige but gray, too, and a nice doggie smile, and he loves M&M’s, his favorite treat.”

Clearly Jeff was talking about her. “I don’t eat candy,” she reminded him pointedly.

“But sad to say,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “he may wash out of the program, which would be a shame—” here Jeff moved in for the kill “—because he has PTSD.”

Ann said nothing.

“You know what that means?”

“Yes. He suffered some sort of mishap—and now he has nightmares.”

“He’s a dog,” Jeff said. “Who would know?”

Her pulse was racing now. “He probably twitches in his sleep. His legs move as if he’s running away from something.”

“What are you running from, Miss Walker?”

“You,” she said without even thinking.

“I understand that.” She could almost see him lying on his sofa, the phone to his ear, that lazy “gotcha” smile on his face. Somewhere in his house or apartment or wherever he lived, his little boy would be fast asleep, the place quiet. Like Jeff. “What I want to know is, why?”

“How about because I don’t like cops.” Not true, except that they served as a reminder. She had her finger on the off button.

“Strange, because nothing showed up in your file. No arrest for resisting, or threatening an officer of the law—”

Her pulse lurched. “You looked at my file?”

“No,” he said. “I was flushing you out. So there is a file?”

“That’s none of your business! And if you call again—”

“Annie, don’t hang up. I was kidding. I wouldn’t hunt up someone’s file just to get a date—even with you,” he added.

She almost smiled. He was charming. And Ann couldn’t resist.

“Then you don’t know about the police brutality.”

Obviously surprised, Jeff Barlow laughed. He had a nice laugh, rich and full and hiding nothing about him, which was more than Ann could say for herself. She envisioned his sandy hair and blue eyes and, yes, that uniform. And that was only his outer appeal. If the situation were different, she would want to go out with him again, test the waters at least. But Ann didn’t dream anymore about love and marriage, or having a family of her own—the dreams she and Molly had once shared.

That night nine years ago, the worst night of her life, had changed everything for her. Jeff wouldn’t learn about that, though, because they would never get that far. So it would do no good to let herself like Jeff Barlow too much. Which was why she’d decided to end this relationship now.

“Thanks for calling,” she said drily, finger poised again on the off button, pulse still thumping as if she were a felon about to get nabbed, “but you’re wasting your time. Goodb—”

“Is it because I’m a cop? Really?”

She froze. “Not you, personally, no. It’s a general thing.”

“Ah. I see. And it’s not because of Ernie?”

“Ernie?” She had an instant image of the little boy, small and chubby and full of life. He scared her more than Jeff did: Ernie was even easier to like.

“My kid,” he explained, as if she didn’t know. “You have something against kids? That a ‘general thing,’ too? Or is it mine in particular?”

She heard the edge in his tone, his instinctive protection of Ernie. Jeff never came into the center without swinging Ernie into his arms and smacking a kiss on his cheek. It was clear the boy worshipped him, too.

“I work with children every day,” she said. “Why would I have something against them?”

“I don’t know,” he drawled. “Why would you?”

“Look. If I needed a counselor, I’d get one,” she said. Over the years she had seen a number of shrinks. None of them had helped.

“I like psychology,” Jeff said. “I like to learn what makes people tick. You intrigue me.” That smile in his voice was back again. “And I don’t see how we can come to some agreement here unless we get everything out in the open. So what is it, Annie?”

“Stop calling me Annie.”

“Uh-uh. I like it. Takes some of the starch out of you. Makes you seem more approachable. Like Molly.”

“Then ask my sister for a date.”

He whistled softly in her ear. “You are a tough nut. Molly’s a great person, but it’s not her I’m interested in.” Then he homed in on her again, his voice soft and soothing. “Who hurt you, Annie?”

Her breath hitched, and to her horror the words popped out.

“It was quite the reverse.”

Had she shocked him? But the long silence ended with “We’ll have to get to the bottom of that. Another time,” he added. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“No you won’t—” she began, but Jeff had already ended the call.

If only... But Ann didn’t finish the thought. She wasn’t talking, because once he knew the truth, he would certainly change his opinion of her. Nobody wanted a guilt-ridden emotional cripple for a girlfriend.

Blinking, not sure whether she was sad or angry or afraid, Ann shut off the TV, doused the living room lights and at ten o’clock crawled into bed, where she struggled not to pull the covers over her head.

In her dark dreams she must have been twitching like a dog.

* * *

“HELP.”

Molly was in her room that night, intent on keeping to herself and brainstorming ideas for the presentation she would have to make to the town zoning commission about the center’s proposed expansion, when she heard Brig’s voice. Her mind still on an earlier meeting with her architect, she realized belatedly how frantic Brig sounded. Now he loomed in her doorway.

“What is it? Is something wrong with Laila?”

His face was paper white, and his mouth was drawn at the corners. There was no sign of the baby. He shifted from one foot to the other. “She, uh, had an...accident.”

Adrenaline surged through Molly. She had already started toward the phone to call 911 when his voice stopped her again.

“Not an accident-type accident,” he said, catching Molly’s arm. “She, uh, well, she’s a mess. So is her crib, the sheets—” Brig held his nose.

“Oh. I see.” It didn’t take much imagination to get the picture.

But Brig obviously felt the need to explain. “I guess I didn’t put her diaper on right before she went to bed. She woke up screaming, and when I looked...” He made a face filled with distaste for the situation.

“No problem,” she said. “I must deal with this at least three times a day. Where is she?”

“Still in the bed.” He appeared guilty. “I should have picked her up, but...”

“I understand.” So much for her plan to stay clear of Brig and the baby. Now that wasn’t possible. “She needs a bath. I’ll get my work clothes on. You wrap Laila in something warm—we’ll wash that, too—and we can meet at the center. I have several baby baths there just for this purpose. She’ll be good again in no time.” Molly smiled. “And so will you.”

The problem for Molly was that meant being alone with Brig in the nighttime Little Darlings with no hovering moms or staff to act as chaperones.

Moonlight washed the changing room with silvery light. The small space seemed that much tighter with Brig in it, too, but Molly appreciated that he didn’t back out when she uncovered the baby and, indeed, discovered a mess. Molly fought the urge to cover her own nose.

“She probably hasn’t adjusted to that new brand of formula,” she said, a fistful of baby wipes in hand. “My fault for buying it. Poor little girl,” Molly crooned. “Her system is in an uproar. I can imagine the digestive changes she must be going through after leaving a foreign country and doing all that travel.”

“Now she’s one of your Little Darlings,” he murmured, standing close to Molly’s shoulder.

Neither his comment nor his nearness helped her equilibrium. All at once she felt as unsettled, as much in alien territory, as Laila was. His next question only made her discomfort worse.

“I’m curious. Did you and Andrew ever want kids?”

Molly tossed a soiled baby wipe into the nearby trash bin kept solely for that purpose, then went back for another. She focused on cleaning Laila’s small body with a light touch.

“I—we—wanted a big family,” she said, trying to force a smile into her voice, though it wouldn’t come. “But a few months before Andrew...before I lost him...we also lost our first—and, as it turned out, only—child.” She took a breath. “I had a miscarriage.”

He touched her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not upset,” she lied. “Of course, at the time it was dreadful—as you might imagine.” But then, he couldn’t. Brig had chosen adventure over her, and the six babies they’d planned on had been relegated to her dreams. If Andrew hadn’t come along, if she hadn’t loved him, too... Molly struggled to lighten her tone. “One day we were picking out baby furniture, planning what color to paint the nursery, which until then had been Andrew’s home office, and the next we were putting back his desk and chair...” She trailed off. She hadn’t been able to keep the tears, or the memories, from her voice after all.

“Did you own Little Darlings, then?” Brig asked.

“I didn’t open this center until after Andrew... And before that Mom had died, too, and I decided to sell the house in Hyde Park and move back in with Pop. It was the right decision,” she said, and aimed the last baby wipe at the trash. “I used my husband’s insurance money to renovate this carriage barn. It’s Andrew’s legacy, really.”

“You seem to manage pretty well.” He paused. “I’m not managing with Laila at all. Her dad was not only one of my men but one of my best friends, and at times I just can’t believe Sean is really gone—that he and Zada—”

Saying the words seemed hard for Brig, too, but clearly he understood loss. Since he’d left her years ago, they had both suffered, and certainly she couldn’t help but admire him for accepting responsibility now as Laila’s guardian. Maybe he wasn’t as selfish as she had wanted to believe. Molly patted Laila’s just-cleaned bottom, all the while whispering calming words to the baby to stop herself from giving in to tears. In front of Brig? No way.

Her voice was husky. “I know what you mean. I still expect Andrew to walk in the door. But he was too eager that night after work to get home—that’s what I tell myself—and jumped a light in what passes for downtown Liberty. A truck hurrying through the intersection on the yellow hit his car broadside.” The freak accident had robbed Molly of her dreams, all of them, for a second time. She no longer had the husband she had loved even during the worst of their bad weeks after her miscarriage.

But she didn’t want to dwell on that now.

Not with Brig, no matter what his losses had been.

The little room was beginning to seem even smaller, tighter. Brig stood so close she could hear him breathing.

“That’s sad, Molly,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, “but—as quickly as with Sean and Zada—that’s what happened.”

What if Andrew had convinced her to try for another child when Molly hadn’t felt ready? What if she had a boy now like Ernie or a girl like Laila?

Straightening her shoulders, she reached down for the now-bare Laila. The little girl lay quietly in Molly’s arms, her dark gaze searching the room and the overhead lights. “Let’s get her into the bath. Babies usually love water.”

“She didn’t like it when I tried last time. Maybe I did too quick a job. I was afraid she might drown even in a few inches of water in your bathroom sink.”

Molly didn’t point out that such a tragedy was all too possible. But he hadn’t asked her how to bathe Laila. She supposed he had his pride, too. It must be strange for him to admit he was inept at caring for a ten-to twelve-pound infant. Another thing they needed to do tonight: weigh Laila so Brig could chart her growth.

She moved to fill the plastic bath at the sink. Juggling Laila, she dribbled her favorite baby wash into the warm water, and finally lowered Laila gently into the bath. Her motions came as second nature, and Brig’s gaze widened as he watched.

“Amazing.” Laila was already cooing her delight.

“She likes feeling as if she were still inside her mother, where it was always warm and safe.” Molly’s baby hadn’t been that lucky. But then, neither had Laila, who’d lost her mother almost at birth. “And again, it’s only practice. Think of half a dozen like Laila, all squalling and ready for a bath at the same time. Good thing I have staff, especially Ann, to help.”

“Maybe one of you would like to volunteer for nanny duty.”

He was only half kidding, but Molly shook her head with a teasing smile. “You’re on your own, soldier.” Against her better instincts, she gestured for him to come closer. “Trial by fire,” she murmured. “Just be sure to support Laila’s head and shoulders.”

“She’s so slippery,” he said, eyes filled with fresh panic the instant he touched her.

To Molly’s relief, however, the baby was now looking up at Brig, her gaze roving from his hair to his eyes to his mouth as if she liked what she saw. The only daddy she knew. When she kicked her legs and water flew everywhere, Brig’s shirt got soaked but he laughed and didn’t let go. A good sign.

“She’s strong. I’m always surprised by how strong she is.”

“It’s a survival thing, I’d say. She holds her head up really well for her age.”

He shook his head. “Yeah, but I could deal with a raw recruit much easier—and I’m talking about some ‘kid’ who weighs two hundred pounds.”

“Then Laila should be a piece of cake.” She couldn’t resist teasing him some more. “Don’t tell me you’d let this little girl get the best of you?”

Brig glanced over his shoulder, keeping a steady grip on Laila.

“She already has.”

But Molly knew he didn’t mean her bath. The baby had definitely captured him. By the time he finished washing, then rinsing her, Laila was half-asleep.

Molly handed him a clean diaper and fresh clothing.

“No, please. You do it,” he said. “I’m at my limit for tonight.”

He stood over the changing table again, his sleeve now and then brushing Molly’s bare arm and making the hairs on her skin rise, while she diapered Laila and slipped her into a clean sleeper. Then Molly stood back, forgetting how near Brig was, and bumped into him, their bodies touching. Instantly, she turned away so Brig couldn’t see her flushed face.

She had to get out of there. The small room had become suffocating, and if she stayed any longer, there was a very real danger that she’d be tempted to slip into his arms. So much for her promise just to look.

Briskly, she bustled around the room, rinsing the plastic tub and shutting down lights until, to her dismay, they were standing in the now-dark space, and Brig was whispering, as if he felt the same temptation, “Molly.”

Her name went through her like a welcome breeze and cooled her pink cheeks. No way would she let herself be lulled once more by Brig’s good looks and the newer, more tender side of him that she’d never encountered before. Soon enough she’d be seeing the back of him. Laila, too. So instead...

“I offered you some books on child care,” she said, walking toward the door, “but you’ll need more than that. Hands-on experience. If you’d like to avoid another mess in the crib, or at least lower the possibility, I could...give you a few lessons—for Laila—in diapering and so forth.”

“And so forth,” he echoed, following her out the door.

Molly hurried back to the house, to the light she saw still shining in her bedroom. She had to do at least some brainstorming before she went to sleep. She had to remind herself that too many years had gone by, with too many losses.

And she wasn’t about to risk another.

* * *

“THERE SHE IS AGAIN.”

At her father’s voice Molly turned the next afternoon from plumping the sofa cushions in the living room. He had just awoken from his nap—a new habit of his that worried her, when he’d always been full of energy—and for some reason was staring out the side window at the Colliers’ house next door.

The still-empty house, as far as Molly could tell.

Which was worse luck for her. Because after last night in the changing room at the center, she was trying to ignore her memory of Brig’s closeness and her foolish urge to glide into his arms.

She’d decided then that any baby-care lessons from her would be given during daytime hours with her entire staff present.

“That woman,” Thomas said. He was now looking out at the yard, taking care to stay out of sight, one hand pulling the curtains back just enough so he could see without being seen. “She’s a friend of Bess Collier’s.” He peered harder at their neighbors’ house. “Look, she’s ringing their bell again like some town crier. Maybe they stood her up like they did Brig.”

“Maybe,” Molly said, “but she might not know they’re away. Why don’t you go out and say something?”

His hand dropped from the curtain as if he’d been burned. “I’m not stepping foot out of this house. Every time she spots me, she comes over to talk.”

“Really,” Molly said, wishing he might welcome some company.

But Pop was on a roll. “Last month she tried to get me to some potluck dinner at the community center. The Colliers were going, she said, so I wouldn’t be a stranger—a ding dang double date, as if I couldn’t see that coming a mile away.” Molly noticed an odd expression on his face that looked to her a lot like...yearning? “Then only a week ago she had some notion I might like to join her senior bowling league.”

Molly grinned. “You’re a good bowler. I think she’s sweet on you, Pop.”

His face turned red. “That’s all I need.”

Molly wanted to say, Maybe that’s exactly what you need. But that hadn’t gone over well with Ann about Jeff Barlow. Molly was out of the matchmaking business.

Thomas eyed her as if she’d spoken anyway and didn’t get his point. “Your mother was the closest thing to a saint I ever knew. She had a gentle way about her. Never said a bad word about anyone.”

“I know, Pop.” Molly’s eyes stung. “I assume you said no to the potluck.”

His frown deepened. “You were making your special meat loaf that night. I bet that woman’s a terrible cook. She talks too much to pay attention to anything else.”

Molly bit back a smile. “What if she has hidden depths?”

“You think this is funny? What if she’s nothing but a man-hunting busybody?” he said, then stomped off into the kitchen for his afternoon snack.

Molly followed him. Unable to push just a little, she waited until he looked at her. “Pop, I know how much you loved Mom, but I don’t want to see you bury yourself in this house.”

“Hardly any chance of that,” he said, rooting in the fridge and coming up with a block of his favorite cheese. “Not with Brigham here, too, and that baby that’s not his.”

“Now you’re being unkind.”

“Well, I don’t see the good of it, Molly. If his parents aren’t coming home anytime soon—”

“We don’t know that.”

“Then why doesn’t he find an apartment or something?”

“For just a short stay?”

“And why isn’t there someone else who can take care of that child? Makes no sense for a man who’s little more than a drifter, a man who will likely head off tomorrow or next week for who knows where to play shoot ’em up.”

Molly’s stomach sank. She didn’t like to imagine Brig in a firefight somewhere, in danger far from home. Not that home was high on his priority list. But to imagine Brig wounded, or even gone like his teammate, Sean...?

“That’s Brig’s business,” she said, “not ours. All I can do is help him learn how to care for Laila properly—which I’ve promised to do while he’s here—and keep my ears open for any news of his folks.”

“Huh,” Thomas muttered. “Well, I’ve been keeping my eyes open with him, and I doubt baby care is the only thing on his mind.”

“Don’t you dare say it,” Molly cautioned him.

She was trying hard not to think about Brig, just as her father was trying hard not to acknowledge any interest in the woman still ringing the bell next door.

But, no. A glance out the window told Molly the woman was now steaming across the yard to Pop’s front door.

“Uh-oh. There’s no escape,” she told him.

And went to answer the bell.

Unlike Pop, Molly welcomed the chance to distract herself.

She could only hope she wasn’t occupying Brig’s mind.

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