Toby rapped his hands on the pull-down tray, his face and bib surprisingly free of food splatter. The choo-choo had a good engineer.
“Let’s try an airplane. Scratch that. Too ordinary. How ’bout a flying saucer? Your mouth can be a black hole. Open up.” Chase made believe the spoon was flying, then started humming the theme to X-Files.
Kelly laughed aloud.
Chase swung his head around, grinning when he spotted her watching them, yesterday’s suspicion nowhere in sight. He was already dressed in his ranger’s uniform, the light-khaki color of the shirt bringing out the tan of his skin. Funny how she hadn’t noticed what a handsome man he was until this moment.
“We’ve got company, bud. Could be the government. There could be trouble if she reports a UFO sighting.” His spoon was still hovering above Toby’s mouth. “Quick. Open up. Get rid of the evidence.”
Toby might have been obeying Chase or he might have been smiling with his mouth open. Either way, Chase put the spoon in his mouth and the oatmeal—er, the UFO—disappeared.
“Way to go, Toby!” Chase raised his palm, parting his middle and ring fingers in the Vulcan salute from the old Star Trek shows. Toby clapped with glee.
“Doesn’t that mean live long and prosper?” Kelly asked.
“Not in this case,” Chase said. “In this case it means Toby just kicked some baby butt. Didn’t you, sport?”
The baby laughed louder, making it impossible not to join in. With Chase’s face creased in a smile and laugh lines showing around his eyes, he barely resembled the man who’d questioned her with such fervor the night before. Her inability to understand Mandy deepened. The woman hadn’t left only her baby, she’d left Chase.
“I hope you slept okay,” he said.
“I did,” she said, surprised it was true. Since her arrest, a good night’s sleep had been an elusive commodity. “But you should have woken me when you got back.”
“I tried,” he said, “but you couldn’t hear me over your snores.”
Horrified, she put a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I snored.”
“You don’t,” he said, laughing. “In fact, you hardly make a sound. But you should have seen your face when you thought you did.”
Toby joined Chase’s laughter, although he couldn’t possibly have understood the trick Chase had played.
“You think that’s funny, do you, Toby?” She ruffled the boy’s blond head. “Don’t tell anyone, but I do, too.”
“Whew. That’s a relief.” Chase wiped a hand across his brow. “I’d hate to insult the woman who did me such a huge favor.”
“It was nothing,” she said.
“It was most definitely something. You stayed with Toby so I could get my dad to the hospital.”
“Your neighbor told me it was heartburn,” she said. He’d phoned the house when the results of the EKG had come back, explaining that his father’s heart had checked out fine.
“We didn’t know that at the time,” he said. “If it had been a heart attack, you might have saved his life. You were great. I panicked.”
“You didn’t panic.”
“I did.” He blew breath out his nose, his jaw clenching. After a few moments, he said, “My mom died of a heart attack not even a year ago. When I saw him standing there, clutching his chest…Well, all I could think was how much I didn’t want to lose him.”
Her own heart softened at the sorrow that laced his words. “I’m sorry about your mother, but you would have done fine even if I hadn’t been here.”
“Probably.” He met her eyes. “But I’m glad you were here.”
Toby cried out something incomprehensible, but made it understood he was less than pleased that he’d ceased to be the center of attention.
“Easy there, sport.” Chase bent over and undid Toby’s bib, smiling when the baby stroked his cheek. To Kelly, he said, “Could you watch him for a minute? I’ll wake my dad, then drive you back to town on my way to work.”
“Please, don’t,” she said, stopping him in his tracks. “Your father had a rough night. He could use more sleep. I’ll stay with Toby until he wakes up.”
He frowned, obviously reluctant to agree. Why shouldn’t he be distrustful? Kelly asked herself. He clearly hadn’t believed her story about the necklace. Despite what had happened last night, she was still a stranger.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking. Of course you don’t want to leave Toby with me.”
“That’s not—”
“I should apologize for sending your neighbor home last night,” she interrupted. “But she was so tired she couldn’t keep her eyes open, and she needs to get up early with her youngest. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“I didn’t,” he said.
“Of course we’re nearly strangers and…” She trailed off as his denial penetrated her brain. “Do you mean that? Were you really okay with me sending your neighbor home last night?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m okay with you staying with Toby now, too. I just don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“You wouldn’t be,” she refuted. “Really. I’d like to stay with him.”
“Are you sure?”
“If you are.”
He picked up his car keys, kissed Toby on top of the head and grinned at her. “Of course I’m sure. What did you think? That I’d be afraid you’d run off with him?”
“No,” she managed to choke out, imagining how he’d react if he knew the charges she was facing. “Of course not.”
“If you want, leave the necklace and I’ll see Mandy gets it when I find her,” he said. “I’ve gotta run. How ’bout you? Are you going back to New York today?”
“I, uh, haven’t decided.” She hadn’t found out all she could about Mandy, but launching an interrogation when he’d apparently abandoned his didn’t seem wise.
“Help yourself to coffee and whatever’s in the refrigerator,” he called.
He was halfway out of the kitchen before he hesitated, turned around and retraced his steps, not stopping until he stood directly in front of her. She tipped her chin, her gaze focusing on his mouth. His lips were lush, a tantalizing contrast to his masculine features. Her breath caught and for a crazy moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. But then he stuck out a hand.
She took it, and a bizarre sensation hit her like tiny fingers dancing over her skin.
“I’m sorry about all those questions last night,” he said. “If I don’t see you again, thanks. For everything.”
He was dismissing her, she realized. He held on to her hand for a few moments longer. Or maybe she was the one doing the holding. Then he let go and she felt…bereft. And guilty as hell for convincing him she’d told the truth about Mandy.
When he was gone, she attached the suction toy she found on the kitchen table to Toby’s high chair, taking in his oatmeal breath and the lingering smell of baby powder.
“What do you think, Toby?” she asked him while he played with the colorful toy’s spinning, sliding, blinking shapes. “Am I a terrible person? And did you see me almost drool when he shook my hand? I mean, he’s hot, but really.”
“I don’t think you’re a terrible person because you think my son’s hot.” Charlie Bradford said, grinning at her from under the archway that led to the kitchen.
Kelly’s face suddenly felt so warm it was as if she’d fallen asleep under a tanning lamp. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“You can find out the darnedest things by eavesdropping on people talking to themselves,” he said, obviously unaware he’d misinterpreted at least one of her comments.
“Chase just left.” She changed the subject, hoping he’d let what she’d said drop. “I offered to stay so you could sleep in.”
“Thanks, but my alarm spoiled that plan.” He walked over to Toby and stroked his blond head. “’Morning, buddy.”
“How are you feeling this morning?” Kelly asked.
“Foolish.” H
e went to a cupboard and pulled out two mugs. He held one up to her. “Coffee?”
“Please.” She added that she liked it with cream but no sugar. “And don’t feel foolish. I think it’s a common mistake.”
“That’s what they told me in the E.R.” He poured the coffee and added the cream. “But I still can’t help feeling my son is a heartbreaker while I’m a heartburner.”
So much for trying to change the subject.
“I’m too smart to get my heart broken by a man who’s involved with someone else, Charlie.”
“Chase isn’t involved with anyone else,” he denied.
“Not even the mother of his son?”
“Toby’s not Chase’s son.”
“But the clerk at the B and B said…” Kelly’s voice trailed off, trying to remember exactly what the friendly woman had said after Kelly asked for directions to Chase’s house. “She said Mandy moved in with Chase when she got pregnant.”
“She didn’t mean pregnant with Toby.” Charlie carried both coffee mugs to the kitchen table, then sat down beside her. Toby was happily occupied with the toy. “Chase and Mandy met earlier this year. She lived with us until her miscarriage.”
Kelly shoved aside the momentary guilt that she was about to ply Chase’s father for information about his son. “So he’s not in love with her?”
“Never was. But you’ve got to understand something about my boy. He always tries to do the right thing. So when Mandy told him she was pregnant, he stepped up. I’m sure he would have asked her to marry him.”
Kelly drank her coffee, thinking about Chase doing the honorable thing. She couldn’t quite believe he didn’t have feelings for Mandy.
“If he doesn’t love her, why is he looking for her?”
“To get her to sign over custody of Toby,” Charlie answered. “I’m praying she turns up soon because otherwise he’s got this fool notion that he needs to go to DPW and do everything nice and legal. It seems his conscience gets heavier whenever anybody asks about Mandy.”
“But you and Chase don’t have any blood ties to Toby,” Kelly said. “If you go to DPW, you could lose him.”
“That’s what I told him,” Charlie said. “God knows he loves that boy, but I think the only thing stopping him from going to DPW is we can’t be positive Mandy’s not coming back. Not after three weeks.”
“What has Chase done to try to find her?” she asked.
“Everything but poll the community, but that probably wouldn’t help anyway,” he said. “Mandy didn’t socialize much. She didn’t talk about out-of-town friends, she doesn’t have any family Chase knows of and Smith is probably the most common surname in the United States. He didn’t have a whole lot to go on until you showed up.”
Guilt spiraled through Kelly for not revealing everything she knew, but she couldn’t afford to trust anybody when a mistake could land her in prison. “I’m afraid I haven’t been much help.”
“I know. Chase told me about it last night. On the way back from the hospital,” he added wryly, “not on the way there.”
“Did she have any friends in town? Maybe they know something.”
“She took a dislike to Indigo Springs right off the bat, so she didn’t try very hard to fit in,” Charlie said. “About the only effort she made was getting that waitress job.”
Kelly’s heart started to pound. If Mandy had held down a job, her employer would have records for tax purposes, maybe even references. If Kelly got names, she might find somebody who knew where Mandy was.
“Where was she a waitress?” she asked.
“Angelo’s. Serves the best food in Indigo Springs, if you ask me,” he said.
“Was that the only place she worked?”
“Only place I know of,” he said, “although she did apply for a job with the new lawyer in town. I remember because she was mad as a hornet when Sara didn’t hire her.”
“Mad?” Kelly thought that was strange. “Not disappointed?”
“Definitely mad. She went on and on about something or other. References, I think it was. Yeah, that’s it. Something about her references.”
Another avenue to explore if Kelly couldn’t find the information she needed at the restaurant.
“Are you hungry?” Charlie asked. “I could get you some breakfast.”
“No, thanks,” she said, her mind already plotting ahead. If Angelo’s was open for lunch, somebody should be at the restaurant as early as ten or eleven o’clock. “I’m staying at the Blue Stream B and B. Breakfast comes with the room.”
Considering she hadn’t used her room last night, she might as well get something for her money.
“Let me finish my coffee and I’ll drive you back to town,” he said.
“Oh, no. That’s not necessary. It’s such a beautiful morning, I can walk.”
“A gentleman doesn’t let a lady who spent the night on a sofa because of him walk back to her hotel,” Charlie said. “Isn’t that right, Toby?”
Toby looked up from his toy and grinned, then said something in a language only he could understand.
“See,” Charlie said. “Toby says I’m absolutely right.”
“In that case, how can I refuse?” Kelly said, but guilt laced her smile.
One Bradford male was just as charming as the next—and she was lying to all three of them. The fact that she didn’t have a choice was small comfort.
A DRAWBACK TO LIVING IN a town known for its surrounding mountains was that there weren’t many flat places to push a baby stroller.
Charlie Bradford and his late wife hadn’t considered the terrain when they bought a vacation home in a hilly, tree-lined neighborhood. Neither had they looked for a place with sidewalks. But then Charlie hadn’t anticipated ending up spending his retirement from the post office as a widower with primary care of a baby.
He didn’t mind looking after Toby. He did mind that the only place relatively level enough to stroll him, weather permitting, was downtown Indigo Springs’s sidewalks.
Especially because his lack of options had enabled one of the most beautiful women in town to find him.
“I hate that you didn’t call me last night,” Teresa Jessup said, keeping step beside him as he carefully navigated the stroller over a stretch of slightly uneven sidewalk.
At sixty-two, Teresa was five years younger than Charlie but could have passed for a decade younger than she was. Not that she tried. She had classic features, blond hair that made it difficult to see the gray and an aversion to cheating the aging process. Teresa was that much lovelier because she was completely natural.
“You know why I couldn’t call you.” Charlie lowered his voice to a whisper so Toby wouldn’t hear, which he realized was silly. The baby had drifted off and wouldn’t understand what was going on even if he was awake.
“So, if you had been having a heart attack and, God forbid, you’d died, I wouldn’t know about it until I read your obituary in the newspaper?”
He usually loved the way her mind worked. She took a situation and zeroed in on what was most important, which was why she made such a good insurance agent. But in this case, she was exaggerating.
“Indigo Springs is still a pretty small town,” Charlie said. “Somebody would have mentioned me dying before you saw it in the paper.”
He couldn’t be sure if she stamped her foot because they were, after all, walking. “You know what I mean, Charlie Bradford.”
“I know you’re making a big deal out of nothing,” he said. “Have a little compassion, woman. Do you know how embarrassing it is to go to the emergency room for heartburn?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Although I’ve gotta tell you the doctor was pretty understanding,” he continued as though she hadn’t interrupted. “I had my heart checked out after Emily died, but he said you can never be too careful about these things.”
“Are you all right?” She laid a hand on his arm, her blue gaze searching his face. He was reminded that six ye
ars ago her husband, Bill, had also died of a heart attack. “Is there something wrong with you that you’re not telling me?”
“I scheduled a physical Monday just to be sure, but the E.R. doc said it was nothing that laying off spicy foods won’t cure,” he said. “But, you know, my blood pressure would be lower if you used that pretty mouth of yours to smile at me instead of arguing with me.”
She smiled, just as he hoped, but it was a grudging smile. “I don’t know why I put up with you, Charlie Bradford.”
“Because I’m hands-down the sexiest man you’ve ever known,” he suggested.
She laughed.
“I don’t like the sound of that laugh. Who do you know sexier than me? Anybody under sixty doesn’t count.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“You make it really hard to stay mad at you,” she said.
“Then don’t stay mad,” he suggested. “We’re still on for tonight, right? Eight o’clock.”
“Yes, we’re still on,” she said. “But don’t think for a minute that we’re not going to hash this out.”
They had been walking in the area of town where pedestrian traffic was lightest, but now more people were on the sidewalk. Most of them were tourists paying attention to the businesses lining the street rather than to Charlie and Teresa, but he couldn’t be too careful.
“We can hash it out when there aren’t so many people around,” he said in a soft voice.
She huffed out a breath, loud enough that he heard it. “I suppose you’re not crazy about us walking through town together, either.”
He didn’t reply, because she knew very well his position on the subject.
“Fine,” she said. “But one way or the other, we’re settling this tonight.”
He nodded, already trying to think of ways he could distract her when tonight came. She picked up her pace, putting distance between herself and the baby stroller. The rigid set of her shoulders gave away her displeasure.
She looked like a woman who’d had enough.
A touch of what felt like last night’s heartburn returned, making his chest hurt. This time the reason wasn’t spicy food, but a sick feeling that she might have run out of patience.
The Stranger's Sin Page 5