“I’m not made of glass, Hunter. I can handle the truth.”

Before those punishing meetings at the bank and funeral parlor, he might have disagreed, based solely on what her brother-in-law had told him. But he knew better now.

“All I meant,” he said in his defense, “is that I’ll make sure Connor gets to know his dad.”

“You’ll make sure?”

“I’ll help, I mean. If it’s okay with you.”

Brooke looked up at him through her thick lashes. “Why wouldn’t that be okay with me?”

Oh, I don’t know…maybe because you believe I killed your mother?

She avoided his gaze. “Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m in no position to turn down any help that’s offered.”

She’d easily convinced both bank managers that Connor would soon become her son, legally. If Hunter didn’t have that DVD from her brother-in-law to suggest otherwise, she might have convinced him, too.

Dear Reader,

Tragedy. Sooner or later, we collide with it, head-on. It tests our mettle, and whether we pass or fail that test depends on what we do when the dust settles. Dust ourselves off and plow forward…or let it hover over our lives like a dark cloud?

Secrets. We all have a few. Some (kept to surprise a bride- or mom-to-be, or the child who finds a cuddly puppy under the Christmas tree) are good. Others are harmless, like our little trick for housebreaking that puppy, or the secret ingredient in our spaghetti sauce. Still others (that exam we cheated on in college, the time we fudged on our taxes, finding out that our best friend is cheating on her husband), not so good.

Though we go to extreme measures to guard those not-so-good secrets, life goes on. We find innovative ways of coping, so we can pretend, for a few moments at a time, anyway, that the dark cloud doesn’t exist. And we’ll do just about anything to take those ugly secrets to the grave.

But imagine how it might feel if the person you most admire already knows your darkest secret, like Hunter Stone, who thinks he’s responsible for a young mother’s death, or Brooke Wright, who agrees with him?

That question is the cornerstone of Raising Connor.

The dilemma reminds me of a line from an old song that goes something like “…into each life a little rain must fall.” When tragedy blows into Hunter’s and Brooke’s lives, they’re forced to choose: set aside more than a decade of resentment to care for an innocent, orphaned baby boy? Or allow misunderstandings to brew into a fierce storm that will destroy them all?

It’s my hope, dear reader, that you’ll never face a life storm like that, but if you do, I pray you’ll look for the rainbow overhead that will lead you from the darkness and into the soft, warm light of enduring love.

All my very best to you,

Loree

Raising Connor

Loree Lough

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LOREE LOUGH With more than four million books in circulation, bestselling author Loree Lough’s titles have earned five movie options, hundreds of four- and five-star reviews, and industry awards. She splits her time between her home in Baltimore and a cabin in the Allegheny Mountains, where she loves to show off her “Identify the Animal Tracks” skills. Loree has one hundred books in print, including reader-favorite series such as the First Responders, Lone Star Legends, Accidental, Suddenly and Turning Points. She loves to hear from readers and answers every letter, personally. Visit her at Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and www.loreelough.com!

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Raising Connor is dedicated to Larry, the real-life hero who makes it easy to write about men who make their women feel loved and respected. To my beautiful daughters, who grew up and became my dearest friends, and blessed me with loveable “gran-dorables.” To my dedicated agent Steve Laube, and my astute editor, Victoria Curran; their guidance is priceless. Last (but certainly not least), I dedicate this story to my readers, whose letters and emails inspire me to continue writing…no matter what.

Acknowledgments

Heartfelt thanks to all the helpful individuals and agency personnel who helped make Raising Connor a more realistic and believable story: Howard County Department of Social Services, attorney Harry B. Siegel, the courageous crew of the Key West Coast Guard Station and dear friend Pam Jansen, author of How I Became a Fearless Woman.

Contents

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

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER ONE

JACK STEERED THE squad car into the convenience store parking lot. “Okay, probie, fess up. How long without sleep now? A week?”

“More like three days.” Hunter frowned, wishing he hadn’t taken that extra shift so his buddy could be with his wife in the delivery room. “And I slept. Some.”

“Uh-huh.” Jack shifted into Park. “If you say so.” He turned off the motor. “I have a hankering for one of those any-way-you-want-it sandwiches.”

Hunter groaned. “You stood in line fifteen minutes last time you ordered one of those artery cloggers.”

Jack sang a verse of “If You’ve Got the Money I’ve Got the Time” as he got out of the cruiser, then leaned back in long enough to say, “You coming?”

“Better not. I have some stuff to enter into the computer.” They sure loaded down the new guys on the force with the grunt work. He only hoped he could find enough hours in the day to do everything he had to, plus sleep and survive probation.

“Coffee?”

“Nah. I’m good, thanks.”

“Okay, later,” the older man said as he ambled away.

The store’s ceiling-to-floor windows allowed Hunter to track Jack up and down the aisles, stacking junk food and Mountain Dew in his arms. If his partner wasn’t more health conscious, he’d die of a heart attack long before he reached retirement. When Jack stood under the Order Here sign, Hunter swiveled the keyboard closer and fired up the reports software. How much junk had his own grandfather and father—not to mention his uncles and brothers—choked down during their years in uniform, he wondered.

Yawning, he made note of the time...two minutes after three...then leaned against the headrest and closed his eyes. Jack didn’t know it yet, he thought, grinning, but when he returned, he’d be on the receiving end of some ribbing for a change.

Frantic shouting and gunfire startled Hunter awake. The dashboard clock was the last thing he saw as he bolted out of the car: four minutes after three. He’d fallen dead asleep in just two minutes?

He grabbed his shoulder radio, talking as he crouch-walked toward the store’s entrance. “C-four-two-one. We have a 10-10 at the farm store, 9164 Baltimore National Pike. Shots fired. Robbery in progress.” Then he drew his weapon, took a deep breath and abruptly shouldered his way inside.

Big convex mirrors, hung in all four corners of the store, helped him take quick inventory: a male clerk cowering at the register, two women—a bleach-blonde in her early sixties and a brunette of forty or so—huddled beside the ice-cream freezer, an overweight guy hunkered down near the coffeepots.

What was so important that they couldn’t wait for the safety of daylight to shop?

A skinny wild-eyed male in a baggy ski mask leaped onto the counter, shouting and waving a 9 mm Glock. Hunter, who had managed to get inside and behind an endcap display of candy bars without being seen by the guy, recognized the weapon instantly because he was holding one just like it. Unless he’d miscounted, the guy had already fired four rounds....

“Empty the cash drawer!” the masked man snarled. “Do it now.”

The terrified clerk didn’t move fast enough, and the robber shot him. Hunter had to resist the urge to charge directly into the action. Just stick to the rule book, he told himself as the clerk collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain. The robber jumped down on the other side of the counter. While he was busy stuffing money, cigarettes and methamphetamine-based cold remedies into a ratty backpack, Hunter ducked behind a rotating rack of batteries. By the book, he reminded himself. Do it by the book...

“Jack,” he whispered, creeping down the bread aisle. “Psst...Jack...”

The dark-haired woman caught his eye, gave a barely discernible nod toward the dairy case. He could see a man’s leg on the floor protruding out from behind it. Instantly, he recognized Jack’s spit-shined department-issue black shoes, unmoving and pointing at the glaring overhead lights. Hunter’s brain had barely had time to register he’s dead when the brunette made a run for the door...and another eardrum-splitting shot spun her around. Her gaze locked with Hunter’s as she crumpled like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Her lips parted, formed the word help, but even before she hit the gray tiles, the vacant stare in her big unblinking eyes told him she was dead.

Hunter, who’d turned twenty-three on his last birthday, had just completed the sixth month of his eighteen-month probation. Did he have the experience—was he man enough—to take out the gunman before he killed again? He saw Jack’s motionless foot poking into the main aisle.

“This is for you,” he muttered, steeling himself down on one knee. One of his partner’s favorite expressions came to him: If I have to shoot somebody, I want them to stay shot. Hunter took aim at the robber, held his breath and squeezed off two rounds.

* * *

HALF AN HOUR LATER, amidst the crackle and hiss of radios and the rapid-fire questions of a gap-toothed detective, his heart was still hammering against his ribs.

“Three dead,” said the grizzled sergeant, “counting the perp.” Eyes on Hunter, he added, “Great shots, rookie. Bet he fell over like a tree, huh.” He faced the suit. “You got somebody lined up to do notifications?”

Hunter didn’t hear the answer, because his brain had seized on three dead. The woman, the perp... He hung his head. And Jack.

The detective blew his breath out through his teeth and studied Hunter. “If we do things right, maybe it won’t have a negative impact on your probation.”

If he could find his voice, Hunter would have told him that his police career had ended the minute he closed his eyes in the car. Cops—his brothers among them—would never let him forget he’d fallen asleep on the job. He would never let himself forget.

If he’d gone into the convenience store with Jack, the holdup probably wouldn’t have gone down. Surely not even a strung-out thief was idiot enough to take on two armed cops.

His little nap cost his partner and a civilian their lives.

CHAPTER TWO

Fifteen Years Later

Brooke watched her father fall to his knees, sobbing. Heard her sister, Beth, wail as the surgeon said, “We did everything we could, but...” Mom had only gone to the 24/7 store because they ran out of ice cream halfway through their straight-A girls’ movie marathon. The young uniformed officer in the waiting room kept repeating, “Sorry. Sorry. Oh, my God, I’m sorry....”

IT WASN’T THE young cop, she realized, groggily coming to, but the phone ringing.

Grabbing it, Brooke glanced at the bedside clock. Who but that idiot Donald would call at ten past three?

Still reeling from the haunting images of her recurring nightmare, she hauled herself out of bed and clicked Talk as she headed downstairs.

“Are you aware what time it is?” she whispered into the handset, determined not to wake her sleeping nephew.

There was a pause, and then an unfamiliar voice said, “I, uh... Sorry to disturb you, ma’am.”

So it wasn’t Donald after all. Now she wished she’d taken a second to put on her slippers, because the tiles felt like ice beneath her bare feet. Wished it had been Donald, because no one called at this hour with good news. Her thoughts went to her grandmother. Day before yesterday Deidre had been down on all fours giving Connor a piggyback ride, but at seventy-five—

“I’m trying to reach Brooke O’Toole?”

“That’s...me.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat and then identified himself as a deputy sheriff of Monroe County. Before she had a chance to visualize the dot that marked Monroe County on a map of Florida, he explained how a Miami-bound charter flight had gone down in the Atlantic, just off Key West. There had been no survivors, he was sorry to say, and, as next of kin, she needed to give him her okay before he could release the bodies.

Brooke didn’t hear much after no survivors. Her sister and brother-in-law had decided to end their island-hopping trip with visits to Ernest Hemingway’s favorite haunts, including Sloppy Joe’s saloon.

On Key West.

Heart pounding, Brooke squeezed her eyes shut. Before turning in for the night, she’d been online, checking her email. Wouldn’t a story like that have popped up on her search engine’s opening page?

Any minute now the deputy would realize his error and apologize for contacting the wrong Brooke O’Toole. Or she’d wake from this ghastly dream and eighteen-month-old Connor would still have his mom and dad, and she would still have her little sister, and Beth and Kent would come home tomorrow, exactly as planned.

“Ma’am? You still there?”

“Yes. Still here.”

The deputy listed all the agencies that had participated in the search—FAA, Florida Fish and Wildlife, the sheriff’s department—and had cooperated to keep their findings from the media until after next-of-kin notifications had been made.

During her years as a nurse in Virginia Commonwealth University’s shock-trauma unit, Brooke had learned that state troopers were normally assigned the sensitive task of informing relatives about tragedies. She was about to ask why the deputy had made this call instead of passing the information to the Maryland State Police when he told her that a Coast Guard diver had pulled a Ziploc bag out of the water. In it, he said, the authorities found passports, boarding passes and baggage claim tickets, a computer-generated itinerary that confirmed the Sheridans’ names on the passenger manifest...and the photograph of a young boy.

In the silence that followed, Brooke realized she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled. Swallowed, hard.

“It says ‘Connor, 14 months’ on the back of the picture,” the deputy added. “And it was paper-clipped to a list of people to contact in the event that...”

“In the event that something awful happened to Beth and Kent.”

“I, uh... Well, yes, ma’am. In that event.”

Brooke blinked back tears. She hadn’t realized she’d said that out loud.

“I know it isn’t much comfort,” the man said, “but we can be reasonably certain no one suffered.”

She shut her eyes. In other words, the impact had been such that they’d died instantly. Brooke leaned on a kitchen chair for support.

His voice cracked slightly as he asked for her email address. Was that because he was new at this “inform the families” job, or because of the grim nature of the task itself? “Is there anyone I can call for you, ma’am?”

“There’s only my grandmother. But I’d like to break the news to her myself.”

“Well...then...do you have a pen handy?”

Of course she had a pen handy, because her oh-so-organized sister—who’d gone to all the trouble of tucking important documents into a waterproof bag—had tied a dry-erase marker to a string and taped it to the whiteboard beside the phone. Hands trembling, Brooke uncapped it.

He rattled off his home, office and cell phone numbers. “If you have any questions...”

It seemed ludicrous to keep him on the line, but she couldn’t hang up. Not yet. Things just can’t end this way.

Brooke thought back to when she had helped Beth and Kent unload their suitcases at the terminal. Kent had reminded her where she could find Connor’s pediatrician’s number...in the polka-dot address book beside the phone. Their favorite plumber and electrician were there, as well as...Hunter’s number.

Hunter Stone was one of their emergency contacts. She would never understand how that man had become close to Beth and Kent. For years it had been a wedge between the two sisters, and now Beth was gone, along with any chance to apologize.

“If you have any questions,” the deputy repeated, “call me. Anytime.”

And though it seemed ridiculous to thank him for calling, that was exactly what she did.

Connor’s sleepy sigh whispered over the baby monitor as she hung up. The kitchen clock counted the seconds, and the muted chimes of the family room mantel clock signaled the quarter hour.

She noticed the notes she’d taken on the whiteboard as the deputy had explained everything she needed to do to bring Beth and Kent home. The black scrawl didn’t look anything like her handwriting. Brooke turned off the overhead light.

A shaft of moonlight slanted through the windows, painting a silvery stripe across the room and illuminating the whiteboard.

Eyes burning, she slumped to the hardwood floor and drew her knees to her chest. She hid her face in the crook of one arm and let the tears fall.

When a stiff neck roused her, the kitchen clock read 4:05. Brooke stood at the kitchen sink and splashed cold water on her face. As she reached for a paper towel, she glanced out the window, where, in a tidy brick-lined flowerbed, the blue-gray light of dawn picked up the purple shoots of Beth’s roses.

Farther out in the yard, she could just make out the yellow bucket swing Kent had hung for Connor.

Beyond that, the trio of birch trees Brooke had bought the couple as a housewarming gift had already begun to bud. She couldn’t see them now, but she’d noticed yesterday.

Yesterday.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat, remembering that when her mother was killed during a convenience store holdup, staying busy had helped.

Brooke started a pot of coffee. Threw a load of towels into the washing machine. Made her bed.

“Gram is right,” she muttered, emptying the wastebaskets. “A trained monkey could perform monotonous household chores.” It was still dark when she backed out the front door, fumbling with the garbage bag’s red drawstrings.

“You’re up and at ’em early....”

The voice—deep and vaguely familiar—startled her. She turned to find herself face-to-face with Hunter Stone.

Hunter Stone, who’d been asleep in his squad car when he should have been in the store, stopping the gunman who killed her mother. Hunter Stone, who’d spent a good part of the fifteen years since then trying to atone by playing big brother to Beth and best friend to Kent.

He held her gaze for a blink or two—long enough for her to read remorse on his face.

Hunter took the trash bag and jogged down the driveway, adding it to one of two metal cans with SHERIDAN on their sides.

He was wiping his hands on a white handkerchief when he returned to the porch. “Look,” he said, tucking it in his back pocket, “I realize I’m the last person you want to see today of all days, but I wanted to ask if there’s anything I can do.”

Today of all days? So he’d heard about the crash? When she’d only just found out an hour ago? It meant his name wasn’t just on her sister’s emergency contacts list by the phone; it had also been with them while they’d traveled. He was just that important to them. In disbelief, she reached for the doorknob.

“Have you told Connor yet?”

She stopped but didn’t look at him. “It’s four-thirty in the morning.”

He checked his wristwatch and did a double take. Seemed embarrassed. “Guess you have some tough decisions to make in the next few hours, huh?”

Starting with how to get you off this porch.

“I can take Connor off your hands while you make arrangements. He’s used to me, so...” Hunter shrugged. “But if you’re more comfortable leaving him with Deidre, I could drive you...wherever.”

I’d sooner crawl.

But he was right. She needed to set up appointments with the bank, the funeral parlor, a lawyer who’d help her protect Connor’s future. The nightmare had just begun.

“Do I smell coffee?”

Brooke couldn’t believe her ears.

Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hope you won’t take what I’m about to say the wrong way....”

Everything about him rubbed her the wrong way.

“I know you and Beth haven’t exactly been on the best of terms lately—”

She pressed her lips together.

“—so I thought maybe I could bring you up to speed over a cup of coffee.”

Fists balled at her sides, she willed herself not to react.

Obviously, he’d mistaken her silence for an invitation; Hunter made a beeline past her into the house and directly for the kitchen, to the cupboard where Beth kept the mugs. She slowly followed him. “You drink yours black, as I recall.”

On the few occasions when they’d attended barbecues or birthday parties at Deidre’s or at Beth and Kent’s, she’d stayed as far away from Hunter as space would allow. And yet he knew how she liked her coffee. Was he aware she liked to cool it with ice? she wondered, opening the freezer.

If she dialed 911 and reported him as an intruder, would he leave quietly?

One of her grandfather’s favorite maxims came to mind: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Maybe during one of her sister’s friendly sharing sessions with him, Beth had divulged something that would help Brooke find the will, so she’d know what sort of funeral to plan.

Funeral.

Beth was gone.

Brooke’s heart beat double time as the dizzying truth struck her. If she didn’t get hold of herself quickly, she’d break down. She took a deep breath, grabbing a handful of ice.

“Beth loved this time of year,” he said sadly, “because she could throw open all the windows.” Then he turned on the TV like he’d been doing it for years. Hunter tuned to Channel 13 and adjusted the antennas...

...and brought Beth and Kent’s wedding portrait into focus.

“A local church is mourning the loss of two well-loved congregants this morning,” said the anchorman.

Brooke gasped.

Hunter fumbled with the remote, and when it failed to turn off the set, he yanked the plug from the wall. “Sorry,” he said. “I just thought...background noise would help....”

Brooke couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Seeing Beth and Kent’s smiling faces—in living color on the morning news—hit her like a roundhouse punch to the gut. One by one, the ice cubes clattered to the floor.

She took a step toward the paper-towel holder, but Hunter blocked her path. “Leave it,” he said, his fingers closing around her wrists. “It isn’t going anywhere.”

She looked up into his face, seeing for the first time how haggard he looked.

Dizzying, disjointed thoughts spun in her brain. Call her new boss, ask for an extension on her start date; call the new landlord to plead for a refund of her deposit. Find Beth and Kent’s will and their checkbook; call Deidre to tell her about Beth. How would she tell Connor?

Never in her wildest dreams could Brooke have foreseen herself leaning into Hunter, sobbing.

CHAPTER THREE

GROWING UP THE youngest of four boys, Hunter hadn’t had much experience with touchy-feely stuff, but when Brooke melted against him, his arms automatically held her.

Unexpected? To be sure. Uncomfortable? Most definitely. Because the DVD in his inside jacket pocket was the only reason he’d come here today. When her brother-in-law handed it to him the week before their islands vacation, he’d sworn Hunter to secrecy. No one could know about his living-color will, not even Beth.

Listening to Kent’s vindictive portrayal of Brooke almost made him sorry he’d agreed to carry out its terms...and made him feel like a voyeur. “A woman like that,” Kent had said, “should not be allowed to raise my kid just because she’s connected by blood.”

Kent had left nothing to chance. In the note tucked into the DVD case, he had written:

In the event that something should happen to Beth and me on our trip, you, Hunter Stone, are to deliver one copy of this disc to a family court lawyer of your choice and another to my sister-in-law. You are then to immediately and permanently remove my son from her care.

Frankly, Hunter didn’t understand that level of hostility, because it seemed to him that Brooke was crazy about Connor, and the feeling was mutual. If she was guilty of anything, it was stubbornness and grudge-holding...against him.

So no, he didn’t understand Kent’s attitude, but after fifteen years of dodging Brooke at every O’Toole function, it would probably feel good to have the upper hand for a change.

At least, that was what he’d thought until he saw her on the porch, damp-eyed and rumpled, and couldn’t bring himself to deliver it. Finding out that her sister was dead, seeing the video, losing Connor all in the same morning? Only a heartless heel would do that to her.

So he’d left the DVD in his jacket pocket, told himself there would be plenty of time after the funeral to hand it over. Plenty of time to get a handle on his own grief at losing the friends who, for eight of the past fifteen years, had been more like family than neighbors. Time to find ways to support Brooke any way he could, because it was what Beth would have wanted.

He searched his mind for a word, a phrase that might comfort her, that wouldn’t sound phony or trite. Ironic, he thought, that his contractor’s toolbox was full of gadgets and gizmos, yet he didn’t know how to fix the brokenness in Brooke.

She spared him by stepping back. Way back.

“Sorry for soaking your shirt,” she said, plucking a napkin from the basket on the table.

Those eyes, sad and scared, looked so much like her mother’s that he could scarcely breathe.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he said, meaning it.

“Next time you come over, bring it with you—”

Even her hair, illuminated by the fluorescent ceiling fixture, reminded him of that night.

“—so I can wash and iron it. It’s the least I can do after blubbering all over it.”

Brooke blew her nose, hard, then tossed the napkin into the trash can and got busy cleaning up the floor. “I’ll bet imitating Canada geese wasn’t on Beth’s ‘My Sister Isn’t All Bad’ list.”

No, but plenty of other things were. For starters, Beth had assured him that despite the way Brooke had always treated him, she was a good and loving person; her bitterness, Beth insisted, was proof that her sister’s loyalty ran deep. “Give it time,” she’d said. “Brooke will come around, just like I did.”

He hadn’t believed it then. He didn’t believe it now. Still, he got onto his knees to help her sop up the melting ice cubes.

When they finished, Brooke stood at the sink and lathered her hands. “I have to email my electronic signature to Florida before Connor wakes up.”

A hint that he should leave? He could hardly blame her for sounding less than enthusiastic about spending time in his company. Besides, he’d been in her shoes when his dad died a year ago and knew that after emailing her signature to the deputy, she’d have her hands full making appointments and searching Beth’s office for documentation to bring to the meetings.

The DVD was out of sight, but hardly out of mind. It didn’t seem fair that with it, he had a virtual arsenal of ammunition to shoot down her attempts to keep Connor, yet she had to make all the final arrangements.

“Guess I ought to go. Call me if you need any—”

He didn’t understand the anger in her eyes. Especially since, not five minutes ago, she’d soaked his shirt with tears.

If she thought he’d gotten off easy after her mother’s death in the convenience store shootings, she was wrong: he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than two hours at a stretch or a night when his dreams weren’t filled with the sounds and images of the shooting. Beth had been wrong, too: Brooke would punish him with her dying breath.

As she’d stood crying in his arms, a weird thought had crossed his mind: Give her the disc. Don’t fight her for Connor. Tell her you’ll help her raise him...to prove how rotten you feel about that night. But in this moment of lucidity, he realized how wrong that would be, because Connor deserved better from life than to spend it under the thumb of a woman so consumed with hatred and bitterness.

He took a few steps closer. “You might not believe this, but I don’t blame you for hating me. I hate me for what happened that night,” he said, meaning every word. “But, Brooke, can’t you set it aside, even at a time like this?”

He prepared himself for a scathing retort.

“A time like this,” she grumbled, putting her back to him. “Connor hates eggs,” she said, grabbing oatmeal from the cabinet. “He’ll be up soon, so I need to get his breakfast ready.”

He stood, gap-jawed, wondering what any of that had to do with what he’d just said.

“I’m not the least bit hungry,” she continued, “but I’ll eat...to stay sharp. For Connor.”

She riveted him with an unblinking stare, and he felt like a bug, caught in a spider’s web. He’d been a fool to come over here; should’ve taken the disk to a lawyer, like Kent told him to, and let the chips fall where they may.

“Eat. Don’t eat,” he said. “It’s none of my business.” And he meant that, too.

“Your coffee’s getting cold. Have a seat, will you?” she said. “Because I need to get something off my chest, and I prefer to do it eye to eye, without you towering over me like Goliath.”

Oh. Great. Hunter exhaled a ragged sigh. He had a good idea that what she needed to get off her chest was about her mother and his incompetence, and he’d take it on the chin. After the funeral, he’d take off the gloves and do everything in his power to get Connor as far from her spiteful influence as possible. Unlike her sister, Brooke apparently had no understanding of forgiveness and generosity.

He sat, then looked up at her and met her steady gaze blink for blink. “Okay. I’m sitting,” he said. “Hit me.”

She leveled him with a look that made him think she might just do it.

“I thought you said you wanted to be eye to eye?”

For the second time in as many seconds, it seemed as if she might clean his clock. Then she shook her head, sat across from him and folded her hands on the table. Eyes blazing, she opened her mouth to speak...

...and the phone rang, startling her so badly that she nearly overturned her coffee mug. Too early for a social call, he thought as she got up to answer it.

“Yes, this is Brooke O’Toole....” Shading her eyes with one hand, she walked toward the sink. “So that’s it, then. You’re absolutely sure.”

He heard the catch in her voice and resisted the urge to go into the living room and pick up the extension to find out what had caused it.

After she hung up, Brooke continued facing the wall, cupping her elbows, shaking her head. Finally, she returned to the table.

“I asked for fingerprint identification,” she explained, though he hadn’t asked who had called or why. “More proof it really was them. Since Beth is a teacher, I knew hers would be on record. But it seems Kent had a record of his own.” She stared at some unknown spot on the wall behind him. Then, rubbing her eyes, she added, “The deputy thought it might be a good idea to speak with a lawyer in case Kent’s former burglary victims have a mind to sue the estate for restitution.” She held her head in her hands. “Estate. What a joke. I haven’t even had a chance to look for a will, if there is a will.”

His heart pounded out an extra beat as he thought of the disc.

“I wouldn’t worry,” he said. “That trouble Kent got into...it happened a long, long time ago, and he paid for it with months in juvie and years in the Marines. I didn’t know him back then, but I’d bet my entire business that time served is what turned him around. The military has a way of turning boys into men.”

She aimed a guarded look his way. “And you know this because...?”

“Because fifteen years ago I enlisted in the army.”

He watched as she did the math, realized what he’d just admitted.

“And Kent was in the Marines.” She harrumphed. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“Such as...”

“Such as why Kent couldn’t tolerate a mess of any kind and went ballistic when the news reported stories about kids who broke the law.” She frowned. “And why he was so tough on me when my stupid choices came to roost at his door. I was never his favorite person.”

That, Hunter already knew. But he’d only heard things from Kent’s point of view. “Why?”

“Because I tried to talk Beth out of marrying him. And more than once, after he got drunk and threatened her, tried to talk her into leaving him. That’s why he looked for ways to discredit me in Beth’s eyes.”

Admittedly, life had dealt Brooke a pretty bad hand; hopefully, whatever she was about to tell him wouldn’t force him to lay down the card that would make her fold, here and now.

She ran a finger around the rim of her mug. “Wish I’d known he had such a rough childhood.”

“Why? It wasn’t any harder than yours and Beth’s. Different kind of hard, but no harder.”

Focusing on the spot behind him again, she winced.

Her actions and attitude told him she hadn’t yet fully absorbed the reality of her loss. He’d felt the same way after his dad died. Helping his mom make the grim plans and cope with financial concerns in addition to the shock of losing her mate had allowed Hunter to sideline his grief. If he hadn’t stepped up, any one of his brothers would have. But Deidre and Connor...they were the extent of Brooke’s family now. She couldn’t lean on a seventy-five-year-old or a toddler. And his presence wasn’t making things easier for her.

Hunter turned toward the door but her quiet words stopped him.

“Guess it’s true what they say.”

Two feet of tabletop—and fifteen years’ worth of bitter memories—separated them. He had to remind himself that Brooke wasn’t some untested teenager but a full-grown woman who’d survived disappointments and losses. She didn’t need him to protect her. So how did he explain his odd desire to do just that?

“‘Be careful what you ask for.’”

“What did you ask for?”

“Proof.”

Remembering the whole fingerprints explanation, Hunter nodded.

“Well, I got it, and then some, didn’t I?”

She seemed on the verge of tears. He could walk around to her side of the table, take her in his arms, and this time, he could take a little comfort while giving it.

It was a stupid, crazy, dangerous thought, and he squelched it by reminding himself how much she loathed him...and why. Listening to his heart instead of his head had led to his downfall more times than he cared to admit. This time, it could cost him in ways he couldn’t predict. Worse, it could cost Connor.

As if on cue, the baby’s voice crackled through the monitor.

Brooke was on her feet in an instant.

“Oh no. He’s up early....” Halfway to the hall, she stopped, leaned on the doorjamb and hid behind her hands.

And I have no idea what to tell him, he finished for her.

If Connor were already in his care, how and when would he deliver the news? It didn’t seem fair to let Brooke deal with it alone considering that in a few days, a week, maybe, he’d pull the rug out from under her.

“What would you say to seeing an expert,” he began, “before we break the news to Connor?”

When she didn’t disagree, he added, “Just so we’ll know the right way and the right time to tell the poor kid that...about...you know.”

She was silent, which made him wonder if she was gearing up to blast him for saying we.

“Yeah,” she said, “that’s not a bad idea.”

Relief sluiced over him. Why couldn’t she be this calm and rational all of the time?

Hunter decided he wouldn’t follow her to Connor’s room; soon enough he’d be with the boy pretty much 24/7.

She met his eyes, a vacant, disconnected stare that, for a blink in time, took him back to the convenience store. Again. Right now he’d give anything to be as far away from her as he could get. This up-close-and-personal stuff was downright unnerving.

She left the room without a word, heightening his uncertainty.

If he knew what was good for him, he’d step up his boxing skills...because something told him that once she saw that DVD, he was in for the fight of his life.

CHAPTER FOUR

DEIDRE FROWNED. “First chance I get, I’m sending Felix over here to do something about this lawn before your neighbors start complaining.” She shook her head. “That handyman of mine is an artist with hedge shears. I’ll bet he can do something with that boxwood hedge. It was Kent’s pride and joy. If he saw the mess it’s in, he’d roll over in his grave.” She clucked her tongue. “If he had one.”

There were so many things wrong with her grandmother’s statement that Brooke didn’t know where to begin. First, this wasn’t her neighborhood. Second, she’d tried starting the lawn mower during one of Connor’s afternoon naps, but her arms had been too short for the pull cord. And that crack about Kent’s grave! Brooke would blame it on advancing age...if Deidre hadn’t always been so proud of her bluntness. Like during last year’s Christmas service when Deidre spotted a sorority sister sitting with her new beau: “Do you think those two are having sex?” When heads turned to see who’d made the loud crude comment, Brooke said, “Gram! We’re in church!” And Deidre, being Deidre, blurted, “Oh, fiddlefarts. God invented sex!”

Now Deidre pointed at the ankle-deep grass beneath her Mary Jane–style sneakers. “You know what it means when dandelions bloom in March, don’t you?”

What Brooke knew about dandelions could be summed up with a word: weed.

“This happened a few years ago. We had a terrible, fierce spring. Thunderstorms, derechos, tornadoes—”

Just what Connor needs, Brooke thought, weather-related storms in his life, too.

“—and a long humid summer that broke every weather record in the book.” She turned toward Brooke. “Remember?”

No, she didn’t, because she’d spent the past five years in Richmond, where every summer seemed endlessly sticky. But admitting that would only inspire another “if you had stayed home, where you belong...” speech. Her grandmother meant well and probably had no idea how upsetting it was to hear the list of hardships Brooke’s move south had caused: she hadn’t been there when one of Deidre’s tenants left the garage apartment in shambles, when another forgot to close a window before a long business trip, and hornets built a basketball-size nest in the closet. She wasn’t there to see Deidre’s directorial debut in the little-theater production of Our Town and had never gone with her to place flowers on Percy’s grave. Once, out of frustration, Brooke had suggested that Beth would probably love helping out. “Beth,” Deidre had said, “has a family to take care of.” Translation: Brooke had no responsibilities.

Well, she had her share of them now.

“Yeddow,” Connor said, pointing at a dandelion. He squatted and picked the flower, then carried it to Brooke. “Yeddow?”

It was the closest he’d come to smiling in two days, and she felt like celebrating. She bent down to kiss his forehead. “Yes, yellow. And pretty, too!”

“Pitty,” he echoed, toddling into the backyard.

His pronunciation of the word seemed beyond ironic, because losing his mommy and daddy at the same time was a pity.

He tripped on a clump of weeds and landed on his diapered rump. Ordinarily, he’d giggle, get right back to his feet and continue on as if nothing had stopped him. Not today. He cried for nearly ten minutes straight, quieting only after Brooke tossed aside the lid to the sandbox so he could play.

“Poor li’l guy,” Deidre said.

“He senses something is wrong,” Brooke agreed. “He just doesn’t know what. It’s as though he knows somehow that Beth and Kent should have come home before yesterday.”

“You need to tell him. And soon.”

“Tell him what, Gram? That his mom and dad are gone? He’s only one and a half. Kids his age have no concept of death.” She remembered Hunter’s suggestion about talking with an expert who could help them explain things in terms Connor would comprehend. The idea was sounding better and better.

Deidre stared at Connor furiously banging his blue plastic shovel on a red fire truck. “I suppose you’re right.”

Once the funeral was behind them, she’d call Connor’s pediatrician. Surely he could recommend a good child psychologist. For now, she’d just have to exercise patience as Connor expressed his confusion in the only way he could: tantrums.

“You look tired,” Deidre said.

No surprise there. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since before the deputy’s phone call. Connor hadn’t slept well since that night, either. If only she could blame a cold or the flu for his grumpy behavior.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard. You need healthy food and a couple good nights’ sleep.”

“Once Beth and Kent are home and...” It might have been easier to say “once they’re buried” if she knew that was their preference. Brooke had rifled through every drawer and cubby in the house searching for their will. With nothing but good intentions and guesses to go on, burial had won out over cremation. “Things will be over soon, and then I’ll sleep.”

“Soon, my foot. You’re his mother now, like it or not, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and start acting like one. You’ll have to learn to organize your time better so that you don’t wear yourself out, because if you keep up at this pace, you’ll topple like a tree in the woods.”

The “If a tree falls, would anyone hear it?” adage came to mind, and for a moment, Brooke thought back to her critical-thinking class: if philosophers, poets and scientists like George Berkeley, William Fossett and George Ransom Twiss hadn’t been able to solve the riddle, surely she never could. But...like it or not? Sorry for herself? Brooke hated the tragedy that put them all in this position, and she loved Connor more than life itself. What had she said or done to make her grandmother think she wasn’t up to the job?

Deidre took her hand and led her to the sandbox. “Sit down before you fall down. I’m pretty spry for an old gal, but I’m not strong enough to pick you up.”

Fourteen years ago Gram and Gramps opened their home to her and Beth after their father’s death. It couldn’t have been easy having his children underfoot, reminding them that they’d lost him forever, especially under such tragic circumstances, but they’d done it. Respect and gratitude kept Brooke from snapping back.

Deidre picked up a tiny blue shovel. “What time is your appointment with the bank manager?”

“Two o’clock. And at four I meet with the funeral director.”

Sprinkling sand into a matching bucket, she said, “I’m glad you’re not bringing this munchkin with you....”

“No one could expect him to sit still and keep quiet, least of all men in suits talking about balance transfers or coffins.” Brooke scooped up a handful of sand, watched it slowly rain from her fingers. “Hunter volunteered to stay with him while—”

“Hunter?” Deidre leaned closer. “Hunter Stone?”

That had pretty much been her reaction, too, when she’d said yes to his offer.

“I didn’t know you two were even on speaking terms.”

Memories of the way she’d fallen into his arms like a Victorian damsel in distress made her grimace, but Brooke put it out of her mind. “He stopped by the other morning. I’m not sure why. To offer his condolences?” She shrugged again. “We got to talking. One thing led to another. And when he offered to help with Connor, I decided to let him.”

Smiling, Deidre raised an eyebrow.

Good grief, Brooke thought. She loved her grandmother to pieces, but her notion that having a man in your life could right every wrong, well, that wasn’t so easy to love.

Connor sighed and tossed his truck aside. “Look at those big sad eyes,” Deidre said. “Why, it really is as if he knows. Did you tell him his uncle Hunter is staying with him? That might put a smile on his face.”

At the mention of Hunter’s name, Connor crawled over to Deidre. “Huntah?” And when she didn’t answer fast enough to suit him, he leaned into Brooke’s lap. “Huntah?”

“Yes, sweetie, he’ll be here soon.”

It had never sat well with her that Beth allowed Hunter to get close to her, and then to the baby. But as Beth had once pointed out, “Even you can see that they’re crazy about one another. If it makes Connor happy...”

Being around him had made Beth happy, too.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Deidre observed.

“I was just thinking. Guess Hunter finally figured out how to stay awake on assignment. Otherwise Beth and Kent wouldn’t have let him spend so much time with Connor.”

Deidre aimed a bony forefinger. “Shakespeare wrote that sarcasm proves a lack of wit, you know. I’m paraphrasing, but you get my drift.”

Would Deidre be less sarcastic, Brooke wondered, if she hadn’t memorized all those savvy lines during her years on the Broadway stage?

“I used to call them the Three Musketeers,” Deidre continued, “because they were like siblings...until Beth came to her senses and married Kent.”

The not-so-veiled hint wasn’t lost on Brooke.

“Frown all you like. It’s the truth and you know it.”

It seemed her grandmother was determined to pick a fight. She blamed it on the fact that, just as Brooke had lost a sister, Deidre had lost a granddaughter...one she’d raised as her own child.

“These past years haven’t been easy on Hunter, either, you know.”

“They shouldn’t have been easy!” And Deidre of all people should know why.

“Have you ever considered all that Beth gained when she forgave him?”

Brooke huffed. “A babysitter who lives just two doors down?”

“Tsk. Listen to yourself.”

“I almost forgot. She got a babysitter who minds Connor for free. And someone who knows how to hammer nails into plaster walls without cracking them, fix leaky faucets, hang storm doors. Oh. And wait. Beth also gained a confidant. A genuine friend.”

“You sound as though you think those are bad things.”

“They are...if you have to trade them for self-respect.”

Deidre’s eyes widened. “Is that what you think? That by letting go of the anger and bitterness, Beth and I handed over our dignity?”

Yes, that’s exactly what Brooke thought. And it should come as no surprise to her grandmother, because they’d had this conversation no fewer than a dozen times over the years.

“If you knew the whole story, you wouldn’t feel that way.”

“I know enough. I know he couldn’t stop that gunman in time because when the robbery began, he was asleep in the squad car.”

Deidre harrumphed. “You talk as if you’re the only one on the planet who ever suffered a loss.”

Brooke didn’t know how to respond to that. Deidre had buried two husbands. And when Brooke’s dad couldn’t face life without her mom, he’d closed himself in the garage and turned on the car. And now, Beth.

“But Hunter did stop that gunman, Brooke, permanently. And he’s had to live with that, too, all these years. That’s the truth, like it or not.”

She did not.

Brooke glanced at her watch. “Well, I have just enough time to feed Connor and put him down for a nap before Hunter gets here.”

“Aw, let him play. He’s having fun for the first time in days. I’ll keep an eye on him. You go on inside. Touch up your lipstick and mascara, run a brush through your hair. And if you have any of that dark-circle concealer in your makeup bag, you might want to use it.”

“Wow. Aren’t you good for the ego.”

Deidre shrugged. “I calls ’em as I see ’em. Now go. Make yourself presentable for Hunter.”

“I honestly don’t care what Hunter thinks of my appearance. And since the bank manager and the funeral director are only interested in money, they won’t even notice that I look like a worn-out old dishrag.”

“Man,” said a smooth DJ-like voice, “Beth hit the old nail on the head....”

Hunter...

“You really are too hard on yourself.”

How much of the conversation had he heard? It annoyed her that Deidre hadn’t given her a heads-up, since she’d been facing that direction. Traitor, Brooke thought as her grandmother wrapped Hunter in a welcoming hug. In reality, she was far more annoyed with herself: she’d come home from Richmond at least once a month. Had she really been so centered on her own trifling matters that she hadn’t noticed how deeply he’d embedded himself into her family?

As if to underscore his importance in their lives, Connor ran to him. “Up,” he said, clutching at Hunter’s pant legs. “Conner up?”

Oh, how she’d love to tell Hunter that he had a lot of gall using feigned friendship with her loved ones to ease his guilty conscience!

But in the time it took to pick the baby up, his stance, his smile, even his voice changed. Caring was the only word she could think of to describe it. Which raised an important question: If someone else’s child could incite such a transformation, why didn’t he have children of his own?

“How’s my li’l buddy?” he said, scrubbing his whiskered chin across Connor’s palm.

The baby snickered, and envy coursed through Brooke. She’d done everything but imitate a monkey swinging from the chandelier and hadn’t roused so much as a giggle. Jaws clamped and fists clenched at her sides, she stared at her shoes, remembering how Beth used to say that people could read her moods just by looking at her. She took a deep breath, then met Hunter’s eyes.

“You’re early.”

He checked his watch. “You want me to go out the gate and come back in again?”

Beth had occasionally accused her of pettiness, but for all she knew, Beth had shared that with Hunter, too, and Brooke had no desire to prove it to him.

“My watch must be slow, then.”

“So tell me, Hunter,” Deidre began, smiling sweetly at him, “what prompted you to offer your babysitting services today?”

“When my dad died last year,” he said, propping Connor on one hip, “I was the only son who wasn’t working swing shifts. So I made all the arrangements. Dad hadn’t left a will, which put my mom in a tough position, legally and financially. It was hard for her.” He caught Brooke’s eye. “I just want to help.”

Deidre nodded. “I seem to remember your sister-in-law telling me at your dad’s memorial service that if it hadn’t been for you, your mother would have lost everything.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, cheeks reddening.

Bearing in mind how boldly he’d invaded the O’Toole world, his humble attitude surprised her. What invited it, Brooke couldn’t say, but just as surprising was the way she remembered him, crawling around on all fours to help scoop up melting ice cubes. If Beth and Deidre knew of other messes he’d cleaned up, no wonder they had fallen so easily for his nice-guy routine.

Connor snuggled closer to him and whimpered.

“Aw, what’s the matter, kiddo?”

It was all Brooke could do to keep from groaning out loud. She resented Beth for starting the “forgive and forget” ball rolling, resented Kent for keeping her at arm’s length while letting Hunter get so close, resented Deidre for not understanding that she couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him off the hook as easily as they had.

Connor yawned, and like an indulgent dad, Hunter began rocking side to side. “I don’t want you to worry about him,” he told Brooke. “He’ll be fine.”

She only nodded.

“And don’t worry about anything else, either. What you’re facing is hard and painful stuff. But you’ll get through it. And the sooner you put obituaries and grave markers and bank statements behind you, the sooner your life—and more importantly, Connor’s life—can get back to normal.”

“Normal? When I’ve lost my only sister? And the man I was going to marry deceived and humiliated me? When Connor and Deidre—the only family I have left—think you hung the moon? There’s nothing normal about any of that!”

Hunter’s eyebrows shot up and her grandmother gasped.

And she could hardly blame them. Even in her own ears, she sounded like the whimpering, self-centered women who’d always driven her mad; if they’d spent as much time counting their blessings as they did cataloging all that was wrong with their lives...

Maybe you should take your own advice. Deidre, still mentally sharp at seventy-five, was healthier and more active than people half her age. Brooke couldn’t remember the last time Connor had suffered so much as a head cold, and the same was true for her. Thanks to years of scrimping and saving, Brooke had enough in her savings account to make a year’s worth of mortgage payments on Beth’s house. And moving in here meant she could sell the furniture she’d put in storage, adding to her account. So life had thrown her another curve. She’d survived the others; she’d survive this one, too. For the time being, anyway, it made more sense to meet Hunter halfway. That wouldn’t just be good for Connor; it would please Deidre. And if they were happy, she’d be happy.

She took Connor from him. “If you’re still here after I’ve fed him lunch and put him down for his nap,” she said over her shoulder, “maybe you can share some of what you learned helping your mom.”

“Why wouldn’t I be here?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Deidre answered. “Maybe because Brooke just talked to you as if—”

“Deidre,” he said, holding up a hand, “it’s okay. Really. She’s going through a lot. I get it.” He faced Brooke and said, “I’ll be here.”

She did her best to block him from her mind as she carried a squirming, whining Connor into the house.

The baby wouldn’t eat, not even when she offered his favorite, macaroni and cheese. Well, he wouldn’t starve skipping just one meal; he needed a nap more than food anyway.

But it took half an hour to get him to sleep, and once she did, Brooke rifled through Beth’s desk. The funeral home would need pictures. She found fat envelopes stuffed with photographs: Beth alone; Beth with Kent; Beth as a little girl; Beth with Connor on her shoulders. Should she bring one? All of them?

Every day as a nurse at VCU’s trauma center, Brooke had made snap decisions on behalf of patients, and more than a few had been literally life-and-death. She should be well equipped to handle the decisions that lay ahead, so why was selecting a few snapshots proving to be so difficult!

The overwhelming sense of dread reminded her a bit of the ski trip Donald had surprised her with just over a year ago. On the first lift up the mountain at Crested Butte, he’d crooned, “I love you for going along with this.” On the second lift, it was “Of course the brochure made it sound scary—that’s what draws so many tourists here!” And when he shoved off, howling like a madman from the third stage of their ride up the mountain, she’d stared down the 275-foot vertical drop, trembling and praying that she wouldn’t find out the hard way why extreme skiers called the bottom “Body Bag.” Terrifying as it had been, dodging the pines and ice-covered boulders on her way down paled in comparison to the responsibility of becoming Connor’s substitute mother.

She dreaded the prospect of making decisions—about grave sites and headstones, bank accounts and deeds—that would impact her nephew for the rest of his life.

“Ah, here you are.”

Brooke lurched and hoped he hadn’t seen it.

“Deidre made a good suggestion just now, and I thought I’d run it by you.”

If her grandmother was involved, Brooke shuddered to think what he might say.

“Connor’s naps usually last an hour or two. He hasn’t slept well these past few nights, so he’s probably good for twice that. I figure your meetings will last an hour each, if that.”

She almost told him to get to the point when he said, “So maybe I could drive you.”

“Drive me? That’s...very neighborly of you, but—”

He held up a hand to preempt her rejection. “Just hear me out, okay?”

Brooke sighed and slid a dozen photos into an envelope. As soon as she got rid of Hunter, she’d find frames and place them around the funeral parlor’s viewing room.

She swiveled the desk chair so that it faced him. He pocketed both hands, shrugged one shoulder. “I know you’re smart enough to figure this stuff out on your own, but since I went through it all just a year ago, it’s real fresh in my mind. You’d be surprised how many ways those funeral guys have of trying to guilt-trip you into things you don’t need or can’t afford. I promise not to say a word unless you have a question.”

Brooke’s exploration of Beth and Kent’s records made it pretty clear they couldn’t afford anything pricey, and she wouldn’t risk charging more than she could afford, because who knew what expenses might come up down the road. Besides, it would be a relief to put all of this behind them.

Standing, she shoved the chair under the desk. “Just so you know,” she said, grabbing the envelope, “I intend to hold you to your word...about being quiet unless I have a question.”

She couldn’t decide if he looked more relieved than perturbed or the other way around, but as he followed her from Beth’s office, she hoped she hadn’t just made a huge error in judgment.

CHAPTER FIVE

HUNTER SHIFTED UNCOMFORTABLY in the too-narrow tweed chair facing the funeral director’s desk, unable to escape the blinding ray of sunlight glaring off the man’s polished brass nameplate.

“Sorry, pal,” he said, turning it to face the guy, “but I left my welder’s mask in the truck.”

Turner shot him a puzzled glance, then went right back to yammering about granite versus bronze grave markers, available visitation parlors and background music, and the cost of opening the grave. Through it all, Brooke sat stiff-backed and unsmiling, alternately scribbling notes and pecking numbers into her pocket calculator.

The manager did some scribbling, too, before sliding a contract across his desk. Brooke took a moment to review it, and the minute she sat back, crossed her legs and cleared her throat, Hunter knew the guy was in trouble.

She pointed at the bottom line. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Turner, but you can provide a tasteful funeral without bankrupting me, can’t you?”

Without missing a beat, Turner withdrew a fresh form from the file drawer of his desk and, after jotting down new services and prices, handed it to her.

“You’ll see that I’ve reduced the total by a substantial sum,” he said, looking very pleased with himself.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she muttered absently.

Brooke had conducted herself the same way with the bank manager earlier, making sure the woman understood that while Brooke would assume all responsibility for the mortgage, insurance and taxes on Beth and Kent’s property, the name on the deed should read Alexander Kent Sheridan. She quoted from Maryland’s Uniform Transfers to Minors Act and informed the banker that her actions had been suggested by a reputable attorney. Had she been bluffing? If not, when had she found time to discuss all that with a lawyer? Hunter had pictured the DVD, tucked into a folder marked Connor in his filing cabinet, and an uneasy sensation had settled over him as he admitted the real reason he was with Brooke....

“You need to know that Connor was born with a heart murmur,” Brooke had said to the bank manager. “If he needs medical attention, I’ll need access to the accounts and proof of guardianship to get him the very best care, quickly.”

Not surprisingly, the banker had given her word to rush the paperwork.

And just now Turner made the same promise.

“My next stop,” she told Turner, “is the newspaper. So I’ll need to know exact dates and times of the memorial service so that I can—”

“Oh, but we’re more than happy to take care of that for you, Miss O’Toole.” He flashed his best “the customer is always right” grin.

“For a fee,” she said, pointing to a line on the contract that addressed obituaries.

Hunter had been on the receiving end of Brooke’s hard-nosed inflexibility enough times to feel a little sorry for the guy. Where had Kent gotten the idea that she was scatterbrained and self-centered? Every smart decision she’d made, every astute word she’d spoken, had been on behalf of Connor, not herself.

Turner ran a finger under his collar, and Hunter was tempted to do the same.

“Of course we’re happy to perform that service,” Turner said, drawing a line through that charge on the contract. It was easy to see as he initialed it that the man wished he could lay his “To Serve As We Wish to Be Served” plaque on its face.

Brooke got to her feet. “If there’s nothing more we need to discuss, we’ll be on our way.”

Turner stood, too, and handed her an elegant black folder. “I’ll be here for the afternoon viewing day after tomorrow. But if you have any questions or concerns between now and then, please feel free to call me.”

She opened the file and finger-walked through pamphlets and brochures in the left pocket and checked the signature line of the contract in the right.

“Thank you, Mr. Turner. You’ve made these difficult decisions much easier.” And just like that, she excused herself to use the ladies’ room.

“That’s some woman you’ve got there,” Turner said, watching her walk away. “Quite a head on her shoulders.” He stuck out his hand. And as Hunter grasped it, he added, “You’re one lucky man.”

Hunter had sat mum as a mime throughout the meeting. For all Turner knew, he was Brooke’s brother, uncle, an old college friend, here to lend support. What gave the guy the impression they were a couple?

Yeah, he thought, heading for the door, lucky me.

He stepped into the hushed vacant hall and looked for the restrooms. A calligraphed sign pointed toward the curved plush-carpeted staircase. Hunter helped himself to a cellophane-wrapped peppermint, glanced at a few brochures, read the white-lettered blackboards that directed visitors toward the proper parlors. Nearly ten minutes passed before he saw her rounding the top step. Puffy red-rimmed eyes made it clear she’d been crying, and that surprised him a little. She’d seemed so in charge and unruffled through both meetings. But then, as a guy who’d spent years pretending he was okay with the past, he had no business criticizing her tough-girl facade.

He was hiding behind a facade of his own: once the miserable preparations were behind her, and her sister had been laid to rest, he could deliver the disc with less damage to his conscience.

“You did great in there,” he said, falling into step beside her.

Brooke only harrumphed.

She kept her head down as they crossed the parking lot. Idle chitchat seemed stupid and inappropriate, so he revived his mime routine. They got into the car and traveled a mile or so in complete silence before he said, “Hungry?”

“Not really.”

He’d no sooner braked for a traffic light than his stomach growled.

“Mind if we make a quick stop to shut this thing up?”

“Suit yourself.” She glanced over her shoulder. “What’s with the car seat?”

“It’s Connor’s.”

She plucked a French fry from the console’s cup holder.

“That’s Connor’s, too. He loves fries. Rita’s ice cream. Donuts...”

“Our grandpa used to tease Beth, saying she had a nose like a bloodhound. How did you keep her from sniffing out all that junk food?”

“Pure dumb luck,” he said, parking in the Kelsey’s lot.

“When you said a bite to eat,” she said, pointing at the restaurant’s sign, “I thought you meant fast food, not a sit-down meal.”

“Haven’t had a decent meal in days, and this place serves the best corned beef cabbage for miles.”

He parked beside a top-down convertible, and Brooke pointed at it. “They’re rushing the season a mite.”

“Maybe the owner is an Inuit.”

She was already standing next to the truck when he went around to open her door.

“How’s a guy supposed to earn any gentleman points around you?”

“I guess you can’t.”

Oh, he wasn’t touching that one, not even wearing flameproof gloves. Hunter pushed the big brass handle and opened door to Kelsey’s.

“Long as we’re here,” he said as she passed, “you might as well have a bite, too. As you pointed out the other morning, you need to stay sharp for Connor.”

She was silent as the hostess led them to a table near the fireplace. “Jenna will be your server today,” the girl said. “She’ll be right with you.”

Hunter picked up a menu. “Kind of a shame they didn’t build a fire.”

“Why?”

“Can I help it if I like a warm atmosphere?”

Brooke looked behind him. He was about to turn to find out what had captured her attention when a husky female voice said, “I’m surprised you even know what that means.”

Jenna.

If he’d made the connection earlier, Hunter would have told the hostess, Sorry, we changed our minds. He hadn’t seen Jenna since she’d hunted him down at a job site to ask why he’d been avoiding her. He’d almost told her the truth, that she reminded him too much of Brooke. During their short time together, he’d tolerated the verbal abuse Jenna had regularly dished out, put up with her erratic behavior. But on the night her car fishtailed away from his house after yet another tantrum, he had decided to call it quits.

She glared at him now the way she had in the construction trailer. It would no doubt make her day if he admitted that his guys still razzed him about the beating she’d given him that day...using the roses she’d brought as a so-called peace offering.

“Well, don’t just sit there passing judgment,” she said, unpocketing a pen. “Order something.”

Passing judgment? She’d been a paralegal back when they were dating. Had her volatile temper forced her to swap legal pads for an order tablet? He glanced at Brooke expecting to find disapproval—or worse—on her face. Instead, he saw the hint of a smile. Would she pick up where Jenna left off?

“Waiting tables is good honest work,” he said. “Did it myself in high school.”

“Where was diplomacy like that when you were kicking me to the curb!” She’d barely finished her sentence before tossing her order tablet onto the table. “So how long have you two been an item?” she asked Brooke.

“Jenna,” Hunter said, “maybe it would be best if you—”

But she ignored him. “Did he tell you that he was a cop before he took over his grandfather’s big-bucks contracting firm?”

Brooke nodded.

“Did he tell you why...that his partner was killed in a robbery when he fell asleep on the job?”

Hunter couldn’t decide where to direct his anger: at Jenna for behaving like a stereotypical scorned woman, or at himself for being fool enough to trust her with his shameful secret. He’d made a half-baked offer to help Brooke at the bank and the funeral parlor to make the process easier for her. Failed at that, he told himself, but I can spare her this.

He got up as Brooke said, “Hunter and I go way back, so there isn’t much you can tell me about him that I don’t already know.”

Brooke stood, too, and met his gaze. “Ready to go?”

He watched her stride calmly toward the hostess station, where she turned and frowned at him, as if to say, Well? What are you waiting for?

He was tempted to tell Jenna to purge herself of hard feelings or she’d end up like Brooke...angry, spiteful, alone. But one look into his ex’s eyes told him it was already too late. He peeled a five-dollar bill from his money clip and dropped it onto the table.

“That should cover the cost of changing the tablecloth and putting out fresh silverware,” he said.

Jenna picked it up. “Wish I could say it was nice seeing you again. But I’d be lying.”

Halfway to the door, he muttered, “Ditto.”

When he caught up with Brooke, she said “So. You kicked Jenna to the curb, did you?”

Yeah, but only because she reminded me too much of you.

“Was it serious?”

“Thought it was.”

“How long before you knew it wasn’t, um, a match made in heaven?”

He unpocketed his keys, hit the alarm button by mistake. It took a moment of fumbling to silence the horn, and when he did, Brooke repeated the question.

“Too long,” he said, opening the passenger door.

She waited until he slid in behind the steering wheel to say, “It’s kind of ironic, don’t you think?”

“What is?”

“Well, that scene wasn’t exactly the fire you were hoping for, but you sure got your share of heat!”

Beth had told him her sister had a great sense of humor, but until this moment, he’d never experienced it personally.

“If you ever get bored with nursing, maybe you can try your hand at stand-up comedy.”

She didn’t respond. In fact, she didn’t say another word for the next five minutes. As they sat at the traffic light at Route 40 and Rogers Avenue, his mind wandered. Why had she agreed to let him come with her if she wasn’t going to ask him for help or advice even once? And why let him drive her to and from the meetings if she intended to stare out the window, silent as a stone? Just as confusing, she’d more or less stuck up for him when Jenna had pounced.

A horn blared behind him, startling them both. Hunter uttered a mild oath and took his foot off the brake.

Brooke glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t let him get to you,” she said as he blended into traffic. “Looks like a grumpy old poop to me. Hardly worth the breath it takes to insult him.”

Man, but she was an enigma. Couple of hours ago in the Sheridans’ yard, she’d blasted him with reminders of past mistakes...yet twice in fifteen minutes, she’d come to his defense. Sort of.

He wanted to do right by Connor, too—wanted that more than anything—but he hadn’t seen any examples so far that backed up Kent’s belief that Brooke wasn’t capable of mothering the boy. If this kind of evidence kept stacking up, that DVD might never get delivered.

Maybe insomnia was a good thing after all, he thought as they rode along in silence, because he could put those hours of sleeplessness to good use...

...trying to figure out what really was best for Connor.

CHAPTER SIX

DEIDRE, CONNOR AND BROOKE were the only relatives in attendance at the funeral service. That might have been a sad fact if not for nearly a hundred others—coworkers, neighbors, folks from Beth’s church—who crowded first into the funeral home and then into the tiny chapel. It touched Brooke to see how many people now stood under the green canvas tent that shaded twin graves, shivering in the raw late-March wind.

When the praying and singing ended, the pastor invited the congregants to step up and share memories of Beth and Kent. It amazed Brooke to see how quickly a line formed. As the first man started speaking, Deidre grabbed Brooke’s hand. “Did you know about this?”

Brooke shook her head. During their brief meeting the day before yesterday, the preacher had promised to handle the services, in the church, at the funeral home and here at the cemetery. And since Beth had always refused to discuss anything even remotely related to death or dying, Brooke had quickly agreed to let him.

“I’m trying hard not to make a scene,” Deidre said, “but I don’t know how I’ll hold it together if all these people share fond memories of Beth and Kent.”

Brooke gave her grandmother’s hand a gentle pat as the man at the podium cleared his throat.

“For those who don’t know, I’m Isaac Nelson. Kent and I met when we were seventeen,” he began, “and ended up in the same attic room at the Kardens’ house. It was my first foster home, but Kent had been in the system for years...and had the scars to prove it. He taught me which rules I could bend and which would earn me a swift kick in the pants.” He pressed a palm to the nearest casket. “This guy saved my bacon on more than one occasion. Yes, he did. He’d give you the shirt off his back and go without himself, he would. I loved this big galoot like a brother.” He put his hand in his pocket, meeting Deidre’s gaze, then Brooke’s. “He was good people,” he told them, “so I’m sure you’ll miss him even more than I will.” Then, head bowed, he quickly walked away.

Brooke recognized the young woman who took his place—Ivy McDaniels, her sister’s across-the-street neighbor.

“Sorry,” Ivy said, rummaging in her purse. “I would have sworn I put my notes in here....”

Amid the quiet laughter, Ivy searched her coat pockets...and Brooke remembered the day when Beth called to share the news that Kent had proposed. “You’ve just got to come home,” she’d gushed, “so you can meet him. I know you’ll love him as much as I do!” Beth had spent the next half hour telling Brooke all about the man she planned to marry, but not a word was said about his years in the foster-care system.

Now Brooke looked around her at the dozens of friends gathered to mourn his passing. Had they seen a side of him that Brooke hadn’t, or tolerated his brusque behavior for Beth’s sake, as she had? Sadly, neither scenario freed her from the ugly truth: if she hadn’t been so wrapped up with work, with her on-then-off love life, she’d know the answer.

Finally, Ivy found her notes.

“I can’t tell you,” the young woman said, “how many times I showed up at the Sheridans’ house unannounced. No matter how busy she was, Beth always, always, made time to listen to my troubles, to deliver pep talks, to let me cry on her shoulder.” Ivy bit her lower lip before continuing. “She’d set aside whatever puzzle she was working on—oh, how that girl loved word search!—or put down the newspaper and distract me with a news story, a weather alert, a recipe. And no matter how poorly the Orioles or Ravens were performing, Beth never said a bad word about them. Or about anyone else, for that matter, because that’s just the way she was.”

Half a dozen more speeches followed Ivy’s, but Brooke barely heard a word. Her thoughts had turned to the days when she and Beth shared the back bedroom at Deidre’s, whispering in the dark across the space between their twin beds about homework and chores, the latest movies, and the cute counselor at summer camp. When had Beth become a fan of puzzles and sports?

Tears pooled in her eyes as Brooke thought of all the time she’d wasted caught up in her own self-interests and mired in loathing Hunter Stone. It’s time you thought about someone other than him...other than yourself for a change. Deidre and Connor were counting on her, she thought, swiping angrily at the tears, and she was no use to them this way.

And where was Connor? Last time she’d seen him, he’d fallen asleep in Hunter’s arms...after crying nonstop for half an hour straight. How Hunter had quieted the baby, Brooke couldn’t say. But Beth had been right when she’d said that Connor and Hunter shared a one-of-a-kind bond.

Brooke hadn’t wanted to bring Connor here today, but Deidre had been unbending: “When he’s old enough to ask questions, he’ll never forgive us if he finds out we kept him away from one of the most important days of his life.”

Brooke caught sight of Hunter and Connor standing side by side on the ornate little bridge across the way. Hunter pointed out a row of mallards bobbing beneath them on the water’s surface, and for the moment, the ducks held Connor’s attention. But the minute they floated out of sight, he began to wail again. Squatting, Hunter placed big hands on tiny shoulders and said something that captured the baby’s full attention...and immediately calmed him.

Hunter looked up just then, caught her staring. She looked away quickly as Deidre jabbed an elbow into her side.

“Honestly, Brooke. I’ll be long gone when Connor is old enough to ask what happened here today, and he’ll be counting on you to tell him. Pay attention!”

Like an obedient child, Brooke faced front as those assembled near the coffins took turns at the podium.

“He was the most honest man I knew.”

“She had a heart as big as her head.”

“He was generous to a fault.”

“Oh, how she loved her family, especially her big sister!”

The only way the woman in the red hat could know a thing like that was if Beth had told her. Brooke held her breath, determined not to cry.

A strong, warm hand rested on her shoulder.

Hunter....

He leaned near her ear. “I know you’re holding it together for Deidre and Connor,” he whispered. “Admirable.”

When he straightened and walked away, regret throbbed in her heart. And right behind it, exasperation. She was behaving like a fool, unable to make up her mind whether she despised the man who’d let her mother die...or liked him.

She blamed exhaustion. Grief. Her constantly growing list of regrets. Blamed Hunter, too, because after thousands of bitter thoughts about him, she’d allowed a few kind words and gestures to soften her resolve.

The pastor led the mourners in song. Deidre gave Brooke’s hand a tiny squeeze, the signal that had meant “behave, or else” since she and Beth were children. Connor wrapped his arms around her knees. “Conner up?”

She picked him up. “Shhh. It’s okay,” she murmured. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

He bounced in her arms, pointed at the closed coffins, where photos of Beth and Kent reminded everyone of happier times.

“Conner see Mommy?”

Her heart lurched as she realized what he was asking. “Aw, sweetie,” she said around a sob, “how ’bout we go home instead, get you some lunch and a nap.”

“No nap,” he insisted. And pointing again, he repeated, “Conner wants Mommy!”

Even if she could get her feet to cooperate, Brooke wouldn’t know what to say or do once she got him over there.

She felt Hunter’s warm hand on the small of her back. “Want me to take him?”

Brooke thought of Deidre’s earlier comment, that someday Connor would ask about this day.

“No, I’ll do it.” She could do this. Had to do this.

“Open,” Connor said once they reached the front of the tent.

He looked away from the photos, and when he met her eyes, it felt as though he were looking straight into her heart, reading every memory and fear and regret written there.

He tilted his head slightly. “Aw, Brooke cry?”

“No, sweetie.” Brooke blinked back the sting of fresh tears. “I’m not crying.”

Connor touched a tear, then showed her the tip of his glistening fingertip.

She buried her face in the crook of his neck. No more lies...not to you, not to myself.

That seemed to satisfy him, and as Brooke prepared to walk away, he pointed over her shoulder. “No nap!” he cried. “Conner see Mommy! Open...open!”

Brooke looked up at Hunter. If he’d told Connor that his mommy and daddy were in these boxes...

“I didn’t say a word,” he told her, hands up as if in surrender.

She followed his gaze, saw that the wind had toppled Kent’s picture.

Hunter righted it, and when he spoke, a fog of grief and confusion tinged his voice. “How does he know?”

Funny. Brooke wondered the same thing.

“Open,” Connor repeated.

Brooke wrapped her free hand around his. “We can’t open it, sweetie. It’s...it’s broken,” she fibbed.

He looked up at Hunter, who agreed with a shrug and a slow nod. “Sorry, buddy. Broken.”

For the longest time, Connor stared at the coffins. At the wind-rattled photographs atop the gleaming lids. At fluttering flower petals. As he stuck his thumb into his mouth, tears puddled in his eyes. He blinked, and one tracked slowly down his cheek. Then he inhaled a ragged, shuddering breath and quietly laid his head on Brooke’s shoulder.

“Oh, look!” Ivy said, tilting her face to the slate-gray sky. She caught a snowflake on an upturned palm and showed it to Brooke. “You remember how much Beth loved the snow....” Looking heavenward again, Ivy smiled past her tears. “It’s a sign,” she whispered. “She’s telling us that she’s up there.”

“Snow,” Connor said, trying to grab a fat flake.

Yes, Beth had loved snow. And Kent had, too. Brooke remembered the big glass pickle jar where they’d tossed loose change, money they’d spend on a winter vacation at Wisp, where they hoped to teach Connor to ski.

“Snow,” he said again.

She pressed a kiss to his temple. “Don’t worry, sweet boy. I’ll teach you—”

“Teach him what?” Deidre asked.

“Nothing, really, just—”

“If you’ll let me,” Hunter said, “I’ll help.”

Deidre piped up with, “Help with what?”

You don’t have to explain was the message he sent Brooke by way of his hazel eyes.

Brooke couldn’t have explained even if she’d wanted to as she swallowed over the lump in her throat. But since pretending that she’d accept his help—teaching Connor to ski—was the same as telling a lie, she couldn’t do that, either. She’d made a promise to Connor and aimed to keep it.

She faced Hunter. “Thanks, but we’ve already imposed on you enough.”

Hunter flinched as though she’d slapped him. In a way, Brooke supposed she had...with a dose of reality.

“Wish I could have done more.”

Brooke had no reason to doubt his sincerity. “You did more than most neighbors would.”

“Good grief, Brooke,” Deidre said. “He’s far more than a neighbor, and you know it.” She linked her arm through his. “Let’s go back to my house. I think we could all use a good strong cup of coffee.”

Frowning, Hunter shook his head. “Maybe some other time. I have a punch list to check for a job that finishes tomorrow.”

Deidre clucked her tongue. “All work and no play,” she said, wagging her forefinger like a metronome. “Have you forgotten that you drove us over here in my car? You have to take us home, pick up your truck anyway.”

Brooke held her breath, hoping he’d remember something else he needed to do.

“Okay,” he told Deidre, “but just one cup.” Then he faced Brooke. “I’ll take Connor.” And he did. “It’s an uphill walk from here to the car, and he’s a hefty li’l fella.”

“I need to write your mother a thank-you note,” Deidre said before Brooke had a chance to reply.

“Thank-you note?” He grinned slightly. “For what?”

“For raising such a bighearted, thoughtful young man.” She looked at Brooke. “Isn’t that right, honey?”

“Yes. Thoughtful.”

As she and her grandmother trudged up the hill behind him, Brooke glanced over her shoulder. Two workmen were already busy disassembling the big green tent while another fiddled with the controls that would lower the coffins into the ground. The sight stopped her in her tracks.

“What’s wrong?”

Brooke patted Deidre’s hand. “Oh...nothing. Just tired, I guess.”

“Don’t give me that. You’re having a hard time, same as me, leaving our girl here alone, aren’t you?”

“She isn’t alone, Gram.” Brooke gave the graves one last glance. “Her husband is right there beside her.”

By the time they reached the car, Hunter had buckled a kicking, screaming Connor into his car seat. Standing beside the open door, he shook his head. “First thing Monday morning,” he said, “maybe we can make that phone call.”

“What phone call?” Deidre wanted to know.

“To find someone who can help us explain things to Connor in language he’ll understand,” Brooke explained.

Deidre slid into the backseat beside her great-grandson. “That,” she said, “is the best idea I’ve heard since this dreadful ordeal began.”

“Hopefully,” Hunter said, closing the rear door, “we won’t have to wait too long for an appointment.”

A week ago Brooke might have lashed out, told him in no uncertain terms that he could drop the we. Things were different now—though she didn’t quite understand why. Earlier she’d admitted to herself that Connor adored him, that he felt the same way about the baby. She’d also admitted that it was time for her to start putting others first.

And she’d start, right now, by setting aside her resentment, just far enough to make room for Hunter in Connor’s life.

CHAPTER SEVEN

DEIDRE CAME IN from the kitchen and groaned. “Sorry, but we can’t have coffee after all. My cupboards are as bare as Mother Hubbard’s.”

“How’s that possible, Mrs. Hollywood,” Hunter said, “when your pantry is bigger than my entire first floor?”

“Mrs. Hollywood?” she echoed. “Brooke, will you please tell this handsome rascal the difference between Tinseltown and Broadway?”

Hunter tensed when Brooke pointed. At him. It had been a demanding day, physically and emotionally, and he had no idea how she might respond.

“He’s right there,” she said, smiling softly. “Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

Earning straight As had been easy for Hunter until his English teacher added Yeats, Joyce and Whitman to the mandatory reading list. Allegory, hyperbole, onomatopoeia... Deciphering poetry wasn’t easy, and he’d steered clear of it since high school. But when Brooke spoke just now, something clicked, and he understood what the poets meant when they described the music of a woman’s voice.

“He’s heard it all before, right, Hunter?”

“Too many times to count.”

Deidre pulled Connor into her lap, and he quickly snuggled close. “Did I also tell you about the band I used to sing with—before my Broadway days?”

“That’s a new one,” he said, wondering how she’d connect the information to his retort.

“The drummer had a sign on his base. ‘Nobody Likes a Smart Aleck,’” she said, drawing quote marks in the air. Smirking, she added, “Billy used a more colorful word, but I think I’ve made my point. Think about that next time you decide to sass an old lady.”

“Guess I saved you the bother of writing that thank-you note to my mom, eh?”

She leaned back in her chair. “Silly goose.” Turning toward Brooke, she asked, “How many people do you think showed up today?”

“I’m not sure. Ninety? A hundred? I’ll have to ask Pastor Daniels when I drop off the check on Monday.”

“The check?” Deidre asked, stroking Connor’s rosy cheek.

“For the pastor. And the organist.”

“How can they in good conscience take money at a time like this?”

Brooke shrugged, and Hunter said, “They gave up a big chunk of their Saturday to help us say goodbye to Beth and Kent. The church has bills to pay, too, don’t forget.”

Deidre harrumphed. “I thought that’s what the dough people throw into the collection plate was for.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brooke close her eyes. To block out another of her grandmother’s inappropriate comments? Or to hide the misery and sadness of the day?

He watched her straighten already-straight doilies on the arms of her chair, adjust the folds of her gauzy skirt, finger the chunky turquoise pendant buried in the soft ruffles of her blouse. Then she crossed her cowboy boots at the ankles. What Hunter knew about fashion he could put in one eye, but he knew this: he liked what he saw.

“What will they do with all those beautiful flowers?” Deidre wondered aloud.

“I arranged to have them delivered to Howard County General,” Brooke told her. “Mr. Turner told me the volunteers will give them to patients who haven’t received any.”

“That’s so sweet. I remember walking the halls when Percy had his stroke, passing some rooms that resembled florist shops, others that were bare as...as my pantry.” She looked at Hunter. “Isn’t Brooke just the most thoughtful little thing?”

“That she is,” he said. “Wish I’d thought to do something like that after my dad died.”

He half expected Brooke would react with self-depreciating humility, shyness, anything but wide-eyed alarm. Hunter followed her gaze to Deidre’s face. The woman had passed out. No wonder her last few sentences hadn’t held their usual punch.

He crossed to her side of the tiny parlor in one long stride and eased the sleeping Connor from her lap. “Think she skipped breakfast again?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.” He sat in the nearest chair. “How ’bout if I keep an eye on this li’l guy while you fix her a sandwich or something?”

First she frowned. Then she stood. “Skipping meals at any age is a bad idea, but all those medications Gram takes? On an empty stomach?” She groaned quietly.

“I’m hungry and tired,” Deidre said, “not deaf...no thanks to our mini-human siren over there. So don’t you dare wake him, because—much as I hate to sound like a grumpy old crone—the peace and quiet is a blessed relief.”

Connor started fussing, as if on cue. But thankfully, he wasn’t fully awake yet.

“Deidre, keep your voice down, will ya?” Hunter said, rocking back and forth, rubbing soothing circles on the baby’s narrow back as Brooke disappeared into the kitchen.

“Remember what I told you about Billy’s drum,” Deidre said.

“Sorry. No disrespect intended. It’s just—”

“Oh, no need to apologize. Or explain. These past few days have beat us all up pretty well. I can’t wait until the black cloud that’s been following us around fizzles out. I’m sick of all the moping and frowning!”

Hunter assumed she must have forgotten how long it had taken her to get back into the swing of things when Percy died.

Five minutes later Brooke returned carrying a snack-laden tray. “I made extra,” she said, handing a plate to Deidre, “in case you’re hungry....”

Hunter eased out of the chair. “Think I’ll see if I can get him into his crib without waking him.” He started for the stairs. Wish me luck.”

“While you’re up there,” Deidre said, “give a thought to changing your pants, why don’t you.”

“Why?”

“Because somebody’s diaper leaked. You’re about Percy’s size. Help yourself to a pair of his jeans. They’re in my closet.”

Odd, he thought, but he hadn’t noticed the dampness until she mentioned it. On the way upstairs, Hunter pictured Deidre’s third husband—the only one of three who’d earned Love of My Life title. He pictured himself wearing the man’s trademark bib overalls and considered the possibility that he wasn’t wet and Deidre needed comic relief.

As he eased Connor into the crib, Hunter felt the cold, clammy proof that the diaper really had leaked. He grabbed a fresh one and got to work. When the kid was fast asleep like this, nothing short of a shotgun blast would wake him. But just in case, Hunter took his time. As he cleaned up, the baby’s eyelids fluttered. “Daddy?” He sighed. “Daddy-Daddy-Daddy.”

If anyone had told him that a simple two-syllable word could hit him like a blow to the jaw, Hunter would have laughed it off. But the stark, quiet reminder of Kent’s death hit hard. Leaning on the crib rail, he hung his head.

“Nothing would make me prouder than to call you son,” he said, smoothing soft bangs from Connor’s forehead. “But it won’t be easy filling your dad’s shoes.” The admission made him wonder why Kent worked so hard to give some people—Brooke in particular—the impression that he didn’t have a heart when in truth he had an immeasurable capacity for love.

“I’ll do my best to fill your daddy’s shoes, buddy.”

Satisfied that the boy was safe, Hunter covered him with a light blanked and walked across the hall. Draped in gauzy lace, Deidre’s four-poster bed was piled high with heart-shaped pastel pillows, and on the night tables, china dolls garbed in ruffly ball gowns wore lampshade hats. Ornate perfume bottles sparkled from the marble top of the mahogany makeup table, and in the closet, dresses of every fabric and hue hung in order by length. Beneath them a multi-tiered rack sagged under the weight of four, maybe five dozen pairs of shoes.

Up against the far wall, separated from the other clothes, one pair of coveralls had been draped over a padded hanger. Why had she discarded all of Percy’s other clothes and kept these? A quiet reminder, perhaps, of happier moments spent with her husband, the former stand-up comic.

Hunter tucked his soiled trousers into a plastic bag found on the floor of Deidre’s closet, then changed into the overalls and went back to check on Connor, who had turned onto his side and was cuddling a fuzzy teddy bear. Except for twin dimples—Beth’s contribution to his facial features—Connor was the spitting image of Kent. Had he inherited his dad’s “do everything by the book” nature, too, Hunter wondered as tears stung his eyes, or his mom’s easygoing personality?

What was wrong with him lately? Seemed like every time he turned round, tears threatened. Connor sighed, and Hunter knuckled his eyes. “Don’t be in too big a hurry to grow up, okay?”

“That’s what I told him,” Brooke said, stepping up beside him, “when I tucked him in on the night of the crash. I guess it’s a blessing that he’s so young, because he won’t remember how he lost his mom and dad.”

“Yeah, but we’ll make sure he knows what sort of people they were.”

For a moment, Brooke stood, content, it seemed, to watch Connor sleep.

“So how’s Deidre?” he asked.

“She’s fine. I told her if she didn’t eat that ham sandwich, I’d make her take a nap.”

He chuckled as Brooke sighed.

“It won’t be easy,” she said, “admitting to Connor that I didn’t know his dad very well.”

It seemed she was thinking out loud, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “Kent wasn’t an easy guy to get to know.”

“I’m not made of glass, Hunter. I can handle the truth.”

Before those punishing meetings at the bank and funeral parlor before the graveside service, he might have disagreed, based solely on what Kent had told him about her. But he knew better now.

“All I meant,” he defended, “is that I’ll make sure Connor gets to know his dad.”

“You’ll make sure?”

“I’ll help, I mean. If it’s okay with you.”

Brooke looked up at him through thick lashes. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Oh, I don’t know...maybe because I killed your mother?

She avoided his gaze. “Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m in no position to turn down any help that’s offered.”

She’d easily convinced both managers that Connor would soon become her son legally. If he hadn’t had that DVD to tell him otherwise, she might have convinced Hunter, too.

Connor had kicked off his blanket. “You did a pretty good job,” she said, pulling it up again, “diapering him.”

Hunter hooked his thumbs into the pockets of Percy’s overalls and puffed out his chest. “Yep, that’s me,” he drawled, “Old Put ’Em to Sleep Stone.”

“No need to be modest.” She raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure Jenna lost a few night’s sleep over you, because...” She exhaled a groan of frustration. “Let’s just say Connor seems very much at ease with you and leave it at that.”

In the past, it seemed she’d worked at putting him in his place. This time, it seemed, the opposite was true. If she hadn’t looked so uncomfortable, he might have kept her on the hook a little longer.

“I’m glad, because I couldn’t love him more if he were my own.”

A strange expression—something between regret and annoyance—flitted across her face, and he didn’t know what to make of it.

“Well, in any case, I hope you’ll feel free to visit him anytime.”

Soon, I won’t need your permission.

Connor stirred slightly, and Hunter said, “Guess we’d better get out of here before we wake him. And that would be a shame—the poor kid’s plumb tuckered out.”

He followed her toward the hall, and as he pulled the door shut, his stomach growled.

“Talk about good timing,” Brooke said, jogging down the stairs. “I made extra sandwiches, so—”

His stomach rumbled again.

Brooke turned and looked up at him. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” She grinned, but quickly suppressed it. “Just like I’ll pretend that your pants aren’t two inches too short.”

Hunter peered down and realized if he’d worn white socks today, his ankles could have lit up the landing. He might have shared his absurd observation if she hadn’t already disappeared around the corner. Just as well. In the weird mood he was in, he might blurt out something reckless and stupid, like, It isn’t nice to poke fun at a guy who’s starting to like you...

...maybe a little too much...

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