Jake handed Tyler a couple of bucks. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy. Why don’t you go to the snack machines and buy something to eat and drink while Holly and I talk about this?”
“Adults never let you hear anything good,” Tyler groused.
Jake stared out the window, waiting until Tyler left. “Jenny said she mentioned the idea to you,” he murmured. “You can’t keep on at the Crawley place. You’ve got no heat other than a woodstove, and this time of year it’s too risky.”
When he glanced at her, Holly’s lips were pressed together, her gaze on the baby rather than him. Crap. She was going to refuse. Time to fight dirty.
“There’s another reason, too, Holly. Doc’s practice got a call not long before you went into labor. We think somebody’s fishing for information about you.”
Her eyes widened. He had her attention now. “What did Doc tell you?”
“Only that you had a protective order in place.” Jake took a deep breath. “The rest I found out on my own.” It might piss her off, but he had to be honest. “I guess it’s the cop in me. I got the basic info on you and Tyler. So I know you were engaged and your fiancé broke it off when he found out you were pregnant.”
Her eyes snapped. “You checked us out?”
He grabbed his cap and popped it against his thighs. “It’s my job, Holly. You were running from something, and I just wanted to know if it was something you’d done, or something someone was trying to do to you.”
“And what did you find out?” She eyed him warily. Trust was such a fragile thing, and her doubts hurt.
“I discovered what I already knew. You were trying to do the right thing for your brother and your baby. Damn it, Holly. Let me help. Not every guy’s out to hurt you.” Especially not him.
“I’ve been burned once,” she whispered. Yeah. He hated that, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to burn her again. “I just wish you would’ve asked me before you did a background check.”
“I should have. Can we agree we’ll both keep that in mind?”
“Yes. Things will get better now. I can take care of Tyler and Noelle. I can still work on the pallet company’s books from home. I couldn’t pay you much.”
Jake sat in the chair next to the bed. “I won’t take your money.”
Holly stared at him. “And I won’t stay for free. People will talk enough as it is.”
“Let them.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I sure as hell do.”
“Don’t swear.”
“Shit, Holly…”
“Jake. I’ve got my little brother to look out for. I don’t need him to have the potty mouth of the fifth grade. Look. This just feels weird, you know? Spence…my ex-fiancé…things didn’t go well. He made threats, called me at all hours, and showed up at the house. It’s why I left. So I want us to understand each other. I’m not looking for a relationship, not looking for a baby daddy. I’ll cook and clean. Then when I get paid again, I’ll pay rent.”
And he wasn’t looking for a quick lay. He needed to say something. Reassure her. He met her eyes again, his voice reserved. “Call me old-fashioned, but I believe relationships between men and women must be built on trust and equality, not on one person taking advantage of a position of power. I don’t take advantage of anyone. I won’t deny I find you attractive, and I refuse to close my mind to the idea we could have a relationship. But I happen to believe intimacy should be reserved for a committed relationship. Besides, as I understand it, that’s out of the question right now anyway.”
Holly stared at him. “Are you for real? Do any men think about things like honesty and honor anymore?” Tears sprang to her eyes, but she blinked them away.
Jake once again slapped his cap against his thigh. Her tears were like bullets to him. “I won’t abuse your trust,” he muttered. “I would never ask you to do anything you didn’t want to.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad. It’s just. M-my ex-fiancé…he was my first, and…”
“And he burned you,” Jake finished for her, feeling a knot in his chest.
“Yeah, so I’m gun-shy…or guy-shy I guess I should say. Can we just be friends?”
He wanted her in his house. And the more he learned of her, the more he wanted to know. “Friends, yeah. I can do that.” Please let that be true. “So, will you move in?”
She nodded. “On two conditions. First, you let me take care of the house and the cooking.”
He stopped slapping the cap against his leg. “Count me in, as long as you take it slow. What’s the second condition?”
“You’ll figure a fair price for rent, and I’ll pay as soon as I can.”
“Fair enough. You owe Crawley anything?”
“Next month’s rent. I agreed to thirty days’ notice.”
“Did you give him a month as deposit?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll talk to him. He can keep it for next month if he insists.”
Holly looked at Noelle’s sleeping face. Gently she detached her nipple from the baby’s little rosebud mouth. She put her to her shoulder and patted her until she got a burp.
“Here,” Jake murmured. “I’ll hold her while you fix your gown.”
He rocked the newborn, feeling as if he’d done it all his life, and said, “My house has five bedrooms and three baths. I rattle around in it like I’m lost sometimes. I could use the company.”
Jake handed the sleeping baby to her, then retreated to the window again.
Tyler walked in with a bag of chips and a Coke. “So are we gonna live with you, Jake?”
Jake smiled, a little nervous. He could just picture their reaction the first time he woke up screaming. “Looks like it.”
“Yes!” Tyler exclaimed, punching the air with his fist. “Can I pick the room I want?”
Jake laughed. “Within limits.”
* * * *
At nine the next morning, the phone in Holly’s room rang. Thinking it was Jake, she picked it up.
“Ms. Morgan? This is Amanda Brown, the staff writer for the Messenger. I’m working on a series of stories about hometown heroes, you know, people who’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty.”
“So how does that involve me?” Holly asked, already steeling herself to say no. Publicity carried too much risk that Spence could find her.
“Well, I heard Lieutenant Allred delivered your baby during the ice storm. Would you be willing to do an interview about it?”
Holly hesitated. Jake deserved recognition, but for her the attention was like putting out a welcome mat for Spence…or worse, like waving a red flag. Right on the point of giving the reporter a straight-up no, Holly remembered the look on Jake’s face as he held Noelle in his hands.
“Miss…Brown, right?”
“Yes.”
“This is just the county paper it would run in, right?” Spence couldn’t know for sure where she was. The call at the clinic could have been anything.
“Yes.”
“Well, okay then. Noelle and I get out of the hospital around noon, though.”
“I can be there in a half hour if that’s okay?”
“Sure.” Holly hung up the phone, not entirely comfortable with the idea, but thinking it would be a nice surprise for Jake. She did the interview with the reporter and let her take a picture of her holding Noelle. The blonde, just a year or two older than her, had been gone about fifteen minutes when Jake arrived. His brow was furrowed as he walked into the room.
“I had a call from Amanda Brown with the Messenger wanting to talk to me about delivering Noelle. Did you talk to her?”
“Yes,” she replied. “She said it was just a story for the local paper. That’s not a problem is it? I thought it would be nice if people knew how you’d helped us. How—how did the paper find out?”
Jake laughed without humor. “Welcome to small towns. The hospital
gossip line leaped into overdrive as soon as we walked in the door. According to the county dispatcher, Nancy, the nurse in ER told the story of Noelle’s birth to Josh, a county EMT. He passed it along to his wife whose sister is married to a highway-patrol dispatcher. He passed the story to the staff writer for the county paper when she made beat calls late in the day. So there you have it.”
Holly blinked. “That’s a little frightening.”
“Tell me about it.” Jake crossed the room and twitched the curtains at the window. After just a moment, he asked, “Tell me the truth, Holly. What is Spence Dilby up to?”
“What do you know about it already?”
“Whatever you choose to tell me is what I know, and it will never go any further than this room.”
They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. She could decide to trust him or not. It would shape where they went from here on. Holly’s fingers plucked at the blanket. There were no answers there. She would simply have to go with her gut.
“My ex-fiancé was pressuring me to let him have the baby,” she began, “but I knew he didn’t want her. When I first told him I was pregnant, he got angry and walked out. He claimed I was trying to trap him. He wanted me to abort.” Holly halted. She had to. Spence’s request was even more incomprehensible now than it had been when he initially made it. She met Jake’s steady gaze as she whispered, “How could I trap a man who’d already asked me to marry him…?”
Jake didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to; the tightness around his mouth said it all.
“Then all of the sudden he was engaged to someone else, and he wanted my baby. I said no and he started putting on the pressure. When he started threatening Tyler,” she continued, “I decided to leave.”
Jake eased a hand around the back of his neck. “The phone call to the clinic worries me. I think we should be careful. Someone’s nosing around. They might be doing it blind, but I don’t want to take that risk with you.” Jake flushed. “With you and Tyler and Noelle.”
“Do you think the newspaper article could be a problem?” Holly persisted.
Jake shrugged. “Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive. Just to be safe, I’ll call Amanda, see if she’ll scrub using a picture of you and Noelle.”
Holly’s exhale was ragged. “Thanks. I should have thought, but she said it would be a local story. I mean, what are the chances Spence would stop in Mountain Meadow?”
Jake touched her hand, his work-roughened fingers as reassuring as a warm blanket, and for just a fleeting second, their eyes locked and her nerves tingled. Did he feel it? Lord, she hoped so.
“Cut yourself some slack, Holly. Just helping you exhausted me. I can’t imagine being the one going through giving birth. You’re tired. We all are, and maybe we’re not thinking as clearly as we could be. So, let’s get out of here, get you to my place, and you can rest.”
* * * *
Jake let the conversation go amid the details of checking out of the hospital and taking Noelle home, but he would have to get on Amanda fast. The chances he could talk her out of the story altogether were nil, but the picture? Maybe.
Jake found his mouth dry as he turned off onto the quiet side street where his house was. Would she like it? The wood trim wasn’t to everyone’s taste. Would she be mad when she discovered he’d furnished a nursery? He and Tyler had set it up last night and had a blast doing it. He pulled into the drive and switched off the engine. He stole a glance at her, worried because she hadn’t said anything. She hated it.
“Oh, Jake. What a beautiful house. It’s like something out of a Currier & Ives print. This is yours?”
He grinned, heart lifting. “Yeah. I wanted something to feel like home. My parents sold our farm, and I figured it would be better to live in town anyway, so I used some of my savings to buy it.”
When he glanced at her, a tear shimmered on the tip of her eyelash. “Holly? What’s wrong?”
She wiped her eye and sniffed. “You’re so nice,” she choked out. “I wish…”
Okay, nice was a little vanilla. He’d hoped for more. “What do you wish?”
Her eyes softened. “I wish I’d met you a year ago.”
Better. A lot better. He touched her cheek. “You know me now. A year ago I wasn’t even here. So what do you say we just start where we are?”
Holly laughed. “Okay. Can we go in? I’d like to see the house before I have to nurse again.”
“Right.” Jake swallowed.
After carting in Noelle and all her paraphernalia, he began the tour of his pride and joy. Since Tyler was still at school, Jake showed her the room the boy had picked on the third floor with its dormer windows and a ceiling in line with the pitch of the roof. He saved her room and the nursery adjoining it for last. Jake didn’t tell her it was the master suite or that he had moved all his stuff into the room across the hall. He gauged her reaction as she walked into the room.
“This is great…so airy, but are you sure? I love the curved bay window with the bench seat beneath, the king-size bed and the thick carpeting, but we’ll have to get a crib or something for Noelle.”
Jake tapped his cap against the side of his leg as he crossed the room silently and opened the door to the nursery. “This room’s for her.” He held his breath while he waited for her reaction.
She stopped dead in the doorway, her bewildered gaze swiveling to find him. “It’s a nursery. How…when…why?”
He shifted his weight, not sure how to explain it to her. He spread his hands helplessly, then jammed them in his pockets. “You needed it. Think of it as a gift. Tyler and I set it up.”
Holly took in the crib, the changing table, a chest of drawers, and a platform rocker with a stool, then brushed her fingers beneath eyes now welling with tears. “It’s beautiful, but Jake…it’s too much.”
It wasn’t even close to what he would do for them, but he couldn’t say that. Way too soon. Instead, he swallowed and cupped his wide palm around Noelle’s head with its little pink cotton hat. Somehow, he needed to find a way to lighten the mood. There were too many emotions swirling around.
“We could always pull out one of the dresser drawers in your room and bed her there if you’re determined, but I didn’t want my littlest guest to have any reason to complain. Think of it as Noelle’s first Christmas gift. I’m not creeping you out, am I?”
Holly shook her head, seemingly at a loss for words, then stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Jake. I feel like I keep saying that.”
He blinked, feeling a flush once again stain his cheekbones. What would she do if he turned his head, let their lips meet instead? “No problem. Uh…if you want to get settled in, I need to go to the station for a while. I figured we could go out to the Crawley place this evening and get your stuff. Evan, my friend who lives next door, said he’d help with any heavy lifting, and I’ve got a garage where we can store whatever doesn’t fit in the house.”
“Okay.”
He set his cap on his head. “Right. I’ll just go to the station. You can call there if you need anything.”
* * * *
Holly nearly called him back. He was incredibly sweet. She thought again about the blush she’d witnessed. She never would have guessed from their first meeting he was shy. He seemed too much the local football hero type. What would her life be like had she met Jake Allred before Spence Dilby? As she crossed over to the rocker and sank onto its padded seat, she fantasized.
While Noelle nursed, Holly imagined the baby was Jake’s. They were a family—her, Tyler, Noelle, and Jake. He’d make a wonderful dad. She’d seen how patient he was with Tyler, yet he never talked down to him or treated him like he couldn’t do things. Then he was so careful with Noelle, but so natural, like the way he’d rocked her in the hospital room yesterday.
Holly sighed. His offer tempted her, and not just for security. Just thinking about Jake made her heart beat faster in ways it never had fo
r Spence. Where Spence had always scared her just a little, as soon as she’d gotten past Jake’s uniform, his presence had made her feel safe. And now? She had no doubts about her safety, but she there were plenty of unsafe things she’d like to try with him. She needed to be careful not to read too much into Jake’s actions. What he was doing for her, he’d do for anyone. He was just that kind of guy. She’d said friends and he’d agreed.
* * * *
No matter how Jake tried to mask it, he knew his voice held an edge of irritation as he spoke to the reporter from the Messenger. “Look, Amanda, there are facts you don’t know, things I can’t tell you. Isn’t there any way you could just forget the story and replace it with something else?”
“Jake, we go to press tonight. This is a major feature this week. My editor would fire me if I told him the story needed to be pulled.”
Jake drummed his fingertips on his desk. That was a no, so he tried a different tack. “Would you at least consider using a picture of me instead of Holly and Noelle? After all, the premise is supposed to be hometown heroes,” he pointed out.
“May I ask why?” she asked and Jake went on the alert. He had to remind himself the woman was first and foremost a reporter.
“No. It’s not my story to tell.” Jake waited her out. He’d been around enough to know she would be reluctant to burn a possible source for future stories.
“I’ll swing by and take your picture, but I can’t promise anything. Rick has the final say.”
“Fair enough.”
There was a pause on the other end. “You know, I appreciate the fact you didn’t threaten to go to him over my head.”
Jake drummed his fingers. “That doesn’t do either one of us any good. You burn me, you lose. I burn you, I could lose.”
Chapter 5
Almost home. Just a couple of minutes and he’d see Holly again. It scared him to realize how much he looked forward to that. Jake pulled his truck into the driveway just as Tyler bounded up the walk. No doubt the kid had stopped off at Tarpley’s store. Evan was standing on the porch, leaning against one of the pillars. Jake exited the truck, keeping one eye on Tyler. Evan intimidated a lot of people, let alone a kid. The boy’s steps slowed as he noticed Evan. Jake hung back next to his truck to watch.
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