If I Loved You

by Leigh Riker

  When they were all buckled in, Brig started the car and swung out of the lot. “Let’s stop at the grocery store for some dinner fixings and anything Laila will require for the night.”

  “More formula, for sure. We only brought enough for today, with a few extras. We don’t want to run out in the middle of the night.”

  There it was again, that we.

  “Truer words were never spoken.”

  * * *

  AT THE HOUSE Molly put their purchases away while Brig, as if eager to demonstrate his new parenting skills, changed the baby into her sleeper for the night.

  Molly was putting their frozen dinners in the microwave when he came into the kitchen carrying Laila. The baby looked as cute as could be in her clean night wear, with its pattern of little lambs. “Any idea where she can bunk down?” he asked.

  “Oh. Of course.” Molly thought for a minute. “How about a dresser drawer? My mother used to press one into service whenever a guest arrived with a baby. That’s why I eventually bought the crib Laila’s been using. But a drawer will work for one night.”

  Brig liked the suggestion. He grabbed a fresh bottle for Laila, then went back upstairs to tuck the baby into her new “bed” while Molly heated their meals. His parents were using his grandmother’s master bedroom, or had been until their latest vigil at the hospital. Brig and Laila would take the first of two guest rooms, and Molly would have the second to herself.

  Laila fell asleep after dinner, at least temporarily. Which meant Molly and Brig were alone, as she’d feared.

  She could hardly avoid him now. With Laila quiet upstairs and the dinner dishes cleared away, Molly went into the living room, wondering whether going to bed early would be the wiser course for her. If the weather held off, or the system shifted and Brig’s grandmother stabilized, they could leave for Liberty after breakfast.

  Outside the windows, the first flakes began to drift down. To Molly, who dealt with snow every winter, they didn’t even appear close to becoming a blizzard. Her four-wheel-drive SUV with snow tires would provide the necessary traction for driving in such weather, and if Indiana cleared roads around the city as promptly as the crews did in rural Ohio, she didn’t foresee any problem.

  In the living room Brig sat glued to the television set. He had muted the sound, probably not to disturb her or Laila, but when he saw her, he snapped off the TV with the remote, shutting down the endless cable news show.

  “More bad news?”

  “No surprise,” he said, “but there’s nothing to do about it now.” He patted the sofa cushion beside him. “Sit. I want to ask you something.”

  Obviously whatever it was troubled Brig, because he was frowning. But when he spoke, the subject surprised her.

  “Ever since we visited my grandmother, I’ve been thinking. About hospitals, in part. I know about your miscarriage...but what happened after that?”

  What on earth had made him wonder? Molly didn’t welcome another trip down memory lane, but Brig had been forthcoming about his teammate, Sean. She owed Brig the same honesty.

  “I was a mess,” she admitted. “I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t want to eat, I had no interest in the world around me. All I kept asking was why? Why did that have to happen to me? To Andrew? I suppose I had prepartum depression instead of postpartum.”

  “Did you try to have another baby?”

  Molly shook her head. “Andrew wanted to as soon as I felt physically well again. He thought we’d feel better if we had something joyful to look forward to. But I was still grieving for the little girl I would never have.”

  “You know it was a girl?”

  “From the sonogram, yes.”

  Brig reached for her hand. “Not that a new baby would have been any kind of replacement.”

  “No, and he understood that, too. As I look back on all the ‘discussions’ we had, he was simply trying to help me out of my depression. But the real cure was time. As for Laila’s colic.” She paused, feeling Brig’s finger brush over her palm. She told herself she should pull away. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. It had been a long while since a man had comforted her, as she had tried to comfort Brig that night in the kitchen.

  “You blame yourself that your marriage didn’t heal.”

  Molly had never thought of Brig as the sensitive type. But the intervening years had changed him.

  Her throat tightened, and for a few moments she sat there, letting Brig hold her hand, feeling the warmth of his skin on hers. Loving his understanding.

  “If only I had relented about becoming pregnant again just after my miscarriage, but I felt too sad. I couldn’t see why we needed to rush. I wasted the time we had left on senseless arguments,” Molly admitted. “Allowed our growing tensions to overwhelm our love for each other.”

  Brig said with a sigh, “Sean didn’t have much time, either. He and Zada were together for slightly less than a year. There we were in the midst of that disaster of a war, cold and miserable and often undersupplied, and all of a sudden Sean was in love.” Brig smiled. “Together, they just lit up the place. I stood up for them when they got married. How they managed that, I’ll never know, considering the military’s regulations. Probably the JAG office had to help—and then Laila was coming and Sean’s future wasn’t a hardscrabble mining town any longer. He was a husband, a father-to-be....”

  Brig shook his head and gazed down at their joined hands. He and Molly had both been talking about the same thing, really. About love and loss, about regret.

  “But that’s not something for tonight,” he said.

  Molly disagreed. “I’m a pretty good listener. And I owe you one. You listened to me.”

  He glanced up. “You wouldn’t want to be around when my head gets that messed up. Still, you have a point.” Shaken, he took a deep breath. “I guess you heard my grandmother today.”

  But he didn’t go on. That conversation threatened to become far too personal. She guessed what he almost said: that they, too, had squandered time.

  “She’s a wise woman,” Molly murmured.

  “I hope she hasn’t run out of time.”

  Molly started to withdraw her hand from Brig’s, but he held on. His next words surprised her all over again.

  “What an idiot I was back then,” he said. “Thinking I could do my thing for a few years, then come back to Liberty—and find you waiting.”

  “I did wait,” she admitted, “for a while.”

  He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you didn’t wait for too long. I’m glad you met Andrew, got married, bought a house, planned that family.” He paused. His voice was husky when he spoke again. “I’m glad your marriage was mostly happy.”

  She had no idea what to say after that.

  “You’re way ahead of me there,” he added.

  His gaze fixed on hers, and something dangerous passed between them.

  “Molly,” he whispered in his thick tone.

  At the same time, Brig tugged at her hand to pull her forward. And despite her instinct to retreat, she felt herself leaning toward him, looking into his eyes with a message of her own, one that she shouldn’t even think of delivering.

  Gathering the remnants of her courage, Molly moved back just in time.

  Without initiating the kiss she expected, as if he’d come to his senses also, he released her hand. The tense moment drifted away like stale smoke, leaving behind the too-well-remembered ashes of their long-ago engagement. Molly never wanted to hurt like that again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE SNOW HAD sifted down all night, but by morning it was falling in thick, heavy flakes and piling up fast on his grandmother’s back lawn. Brig stood at the window with a mug of hot coffee in his hand and stared out at the endless blanket of white. He could barely make out the neighbor’s house, no more than fi
fty feet to the rear. The sky was murky gray. The snowfall would not abate soon. He yawned again.

  “Baby all right?” his father asked, sitting at the table with his morning bowl of cornflakes.

  “She’s had colic for the past few nights. Hope we didn’t keep you awake.”

  “We slept like babies ourselves. We got home from the hospital around 2:00 a.m. and just fell into bed. Did you get any sleep?”

  “Here and there.”

  “I hope you aren’t thinking of driving back to Liberty today, Brig. The roads are a mess and the plows can’t keep up. Why not wait until the snow stops?”

  He smiled a little. “In Afghanistan the snow never stops until almost summer—such as it is there. I’m used to snow, plus I’d like to get Molly home. She’s short staffed at the center.”

  Before he could ask about his grandmother, Molly walked into the kitchen. Avoiding Brig’s gaze, she helped herself to coffee, then sat across from his father. “Ann has taken care of all that,” she said. “She stayed overnight with Pop, too. But what about your mother, Joe?”

  He grunted, reminding Brig of Thomas. Neither man was a morning person. “Bess and I will head for the hospital soon. I’ve phoned, and the nurse said my mother had a ‘restful’ night. Her fever’s down a little, but she’s weak and achy.”

  Molly looked guilty. “Flu?”

  He shook his head. “No, they’re calling this a ‘fever of unknown origin,’ possibly a reaction to her medication or to the new hip. Hope it’s not infected. She’s not contagious,” he finished, “as far as they know.”

  Still at the window, Brig watched a house sparrow on the lawn, leaving bird tracks in the fresh snow. Molly still wouldn’t look at him, and for the hundredth time he wished he hadn’t moved toward her like that last night, spooked her with a near kiss—as if that could ease things between them. What could he say now to make amends?

  Molly spoke. “We can’t possibly leave today, Brig. As badly as I want to help Ann and the rest of my staff, I don’t think we should leave your parents here alone. Even if your grandmother seems better this morning, is she really out of the woods yet?” She paused, daring a glance at him. “I heard you up with Laila for most of the night. There’s no way you should drive, especially with the roads getting slicker. I could, but what if the highway shuts down when we have Laila in the car?”

  She had voiced Brig’s concern. “You don’t mind staying another day?”

  “It’s what we should do,” she said, though she didn’t sound wild about the prospect.

  “I agree,” Joe added. “Your mother would have a fit if you tried to leave. The Weather Channel says we could get a foot of snow before dark, and the storm’s heading for Ohio. You’d be taking it with you.” He looked at Molly. “My wife has her son back for a little while. I’d hate to see her waving you off so soon.”

  And that ended that. Brig turned from the window. The little bird had disappeared between the two houses, possibly without the food it had been searching for in the snow-covered grass. Brig made a mental note to fill his grandmother’s empty bird feeder.

  “All right,” he said, “but we need a plan. Can you stay here a little longer this morning, Dad, and watch Laila? Molly and I could run to the store again and stock up more before the shelves are stripped. It won’t take us long. Then maybe you’d like to borrow Molly’s SUV to drive to the hospital—if she’s okay with that.”

  “Of course.”

  Brig noticed she still wasn’t looking at him. The thought of spending time alone with him obviously didn’t appeal, even when keeping Laila safe did.

  They left his parents to dote on the baby, and ventured into the storm. His father and Molly had been right. The roads were already treacherous. Brig had agreed to let Molly drive—he really was too tired, as she’d pointed out—but even though she handled the SUV with skill, it took them twice as long to make the short trip to the store.

  Molly had prepared a list, the better to shop quickly, she claimed. She tore it in two and handed Brig one half. Split up, she and Brig could get the shopping done even faster. The place was crowded with folks eager to buy batteries and bottled water and all the other things people judged essential to have on hand in a storm. There was an air of camaraderie, a coming-together mood, but the aisles were tight and the shelves were rapidly becoming bare.

  Brig threw a two-pack of cinnamon rolls into his cart. Molly, cruising past him toward the cereal aisle, spotted them. “Not on the list,” she said, gaze fixed on the packages, not him.

  “Feel-good food. You can’t be snowbound and not have these.”

  Brig turned his cart into the baby section. The store was family owned, not big box, but with a wide selection of goods for its size. He tossed in several packs of diapers for Laila, then startled when Molly moved in beside him. She must have had the same idea, list or not.

  She noticed a wall display of packaged onesies and other baby clothing. “Laila is already growing out of the things you brought with you. Do you want to get a few new items?” Her face lit up. “Oh, look. Isn’t this sweet?”

  “Sweet,” Brig agreed, though it wasn’t a word he’d use. He watched Molly slip the beige-and-cream outfit printed with giraffes into her cart. Then in a corner he spotted a collection of plastic baby baths, booster seats, mesh security gates, and...

  Molly saw it the instant he did. Their eyes met—the first time this morning she’d allowed it—and two lightbulbs went off in their brains. “A baby swing!”

  Brig inspected it. Sturdy enough, and it even played music.

  “This could do the trick. Maybe cut down on some of those nighttime marches with Laila.”

  “A genius idea.” With room left in her cart, Molly let Brig stow it. She stepped back as he did so, clearly to avoid the possibility of touching him. “Get this baby bath, too. She needs a wash, and a warm bath might help relax her. Make her sleepy.”

  “Aren’t we smart?” he said.

  “Let’s hope Laila thinks so.”

  Brig chose more food items to leave with his parents when he and Molly went back to Ohio, and by the time they shoved both piled-high carts through the freezing slush in the parking lot to her car, he felt much better than he had earlier that morning.

  Even considering Molly’s reluctance to engage with him today, he grinned to himself as he loaded the SUV. He felt like a pioneer, a hunter. And hadn’t his parents loved the idea of spending time with Laila while they were gone?

  More alert now, he took the wheel, not wanting to let Molly navigate the increasingly icy roads. He looked forward to being indoors, warm and dry, and there was nothing better, in his view, than getting snowbound in a house with a pretty woman. Later, Brig decided, he would chop some wood for a fire to add to the coziness—and his own macho sense of being a provider.

  * * *

  LIKE BRIG IN his more masculine way, Molly spent the whole snowy day being domestic. It wasn’t often that she got time off. Normally, she took care of food and laundry and cleaning for herself and Pop while he carried out the garbage, mowed the lawn in summer and ran the snowblower in winter. Theirs, she had to admit, was a conventional division of labor along traditional gender lines. But with her duties at Little Darlings and the myriad problems that cropped up there every day, she rarely had time to herself or time to bake.

  That afternoon, after Brig’s parents had plowed their way through the storm to see his grandmother, she whipped up a double batch of brownies, then slid a fruit pie into the oven and finished off with mountains of chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. The former was Joe’s favorite; the latter was Brig’s. Along with his cinnamon rolls, she guessed they were set for the duration, however long that would be. At least they had plenty of carbs on hand.

  Done with her baking, she made all the beds and ran several loads through the washer a
nd dryer. Joe and Bess hadn’t found time to launder what clothes they’d brought with them. Not expecting to stay last night, Brig and Molly had packed only some changes for Laila, so at the store earlier Molly had bought a few basic outfits plus a big T-shirt to sleep in. Brig had added jeans and flannel shirts to his cart, plus some for his dad. He’d thought to buy his father underwear, while Molly chose tops and jeans for his mother, guessing at her sizes. Both of them, plus Brig and Molly, were the owners of new boots, scarves and hats. None of them had come prepared for a blizzard.

  Finished at last with her chores, she sat down in the living room with Laila and smiled at her. The baby had been a dear all day.

  “She loves this swing.”

  Brig glanced over from reloading the fireplace with more wood. Molly was thrilled—nothing like a crackling fire to lift her spirits. But she looked away quickly from the sight of his strong back and shoulders as he piled logs on the hearth, added extra kindling and poked at the leaping blaze.

  “I have a good feeling about tonight,” he said. “I’ll position the swing right by the bed, and every time she gets up, I’ll just crank the mechanism, and she’ll be off to dreamland again.”

  He and Molly exchanged quick smiles before he took Laila and the swing upstairs. The wind was howling now, and as darkness descended, the snow picked up even more, big, moisture-laden flakes falling from a leaden sky. A late-winter storm always dropped this kind of heavy, wet stuff that would be hard to shovel. Brig had already cleared the walks and porches twice.

  The silence when he came downstairs made her search for something to fill it with.

  “Have you heard from Joe and Bess?”

  “Not in the past few hours. Dad said earlier that my grandmother’s doing well enough, but her hip hurts and so do the rest of her joints. He and Mom will likely head home soon. Dad didn’t want to get stuck all night at the hospital.” Brig jabbed at the fire, looked out the window at the snow and pulled his cell from his pocket. “He won’t be able to see the street from her hospital room. I’d better give him another call. Tell them to start out before this gets any worse than it already is.”