Raising Connor

by Loree Lough

  “No, sweetie. It’s too close to bedtime for—”

  The microwave dinged, and when Hunter reached inside to retrieve the ham, the paper plate collapsed, splashing hot juice onto his hand. Not wanting to startle Connor, he stifled a yelp.

  “Good grief,” Brooke said, leading him to the sink. “It’s red already.” She turned on the faucet. “How long did you set the timer for?”

  “Only ten minutes,” he said through clenched teeth.

  She thrust his hand under the water. The cold spray felt good, but not nearly as good as having her so close beside him. Maybe instead of calling his lawyer, he should talk with a doctor, check out the possibility that he had some psychological disorder.

  “Only ten minutes? For one half-inch slice of ham?”

  “Hey,” he said, “I do hammers and miter saws, not kitchen appliances.”

  “Maybe that explains why a successful guy like you isn’t married.”

  Oh, you don’t want to go there, Brooke. You really don’t want to go—

  “If it doesn’t blister up after a minute or two, you’re out of the woods.” She reached into a kitchen drawer and withdrew a first-aid kit.

  “And if it does?”

  Brooke daubed ointment on the burn. “You’ll elicit a lot of sympathy from your crew tomorrow,” she said, “when you show up for work sporting a big fat white bandage.”

  Hunter inspected the hand. “Looks good,” he said, “but I heal fast. Trust me. This thing won’t be there in the morning.”

  She leaned against the counter. “So what did you make of Dr. Rosen’s attitude today?”

  “She talked and acted like a shrink, same as always.” He did his best psychiatrist impersonation: “‘Interesting.’ And ‘how did that make you feel?’” He looked up from his burn to see if the tension in her voice was evident on her face, too. “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Maybe after reading Beth’s journals, I’m overreacting. But it seemed she was digging. Trying to unearth something that isn’t there.”

  “Like…?”

  “Like that nonsense about a relationship between you and me, for starters.” She crossed both arms over her chest. “And what’s with all that talk about my finances? As long as her bill gets paid, what does she care about my savings account balance?”

  He’d barely heard the last part of her comment because his brain was stuck on the first part: whether she wanted to admit it or not, they had a relationship. Just because neither of them knew how to define it didn’t make it untrue. It bugged him that she’d sloughed it off, that she’d done it without giving any thought to his opinion. Again.

  Brooke grabbed his wrist, adjusted the gauze. She was close enough that he could see blond strands shimmering in her dark hair. And as the faint scent of her shampoo wafted into his nostrils, he tried to figure out why it mattered whether it was lilacs or lavender. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder, and he doubted she weighed a hundred and ten pounds. Appearances could sure be deceiving, because to the casual observer, Brooke might seem fragile and weak. He’d learned through hard experience how off beam that assessment was.

  “Does it sting a lot?”

  Not nearly as much as the way you always shut me out. “I’ll live.”

  “Good.”

  He hoped she meant it.

  “Goodness, Connor. You’ve finished your snack already?”

  “A-a-all gone,” the baby said. “More?”

  Grinning, she gave him the last few slices of cheese and apple.

  Hunter inspected his hand. He’d seen plenty of bandages in his line of work. Some wrapped by his guys, others by E.R. nurses. But none had ever looked more precise.

  “What’s wrong? Is it too tight?”

  “It’s perfect,” he admitted.

  “I’ll have you know I earned straight As in How to Bandage a Carpenter class.”

  “But I wanted to give Connor his bath tonight.”

  She shrugged. “Nope. Not tonight. Sorry.”

  Just like that. Leave it to her to turn a warm moment cold. He hoped she was enjoying every minute of riding her high horse, because if things went as he hoped they would, she’d be out of the saddle soon.

  Brooke leaned against the counter again. “Do you mind telling me something?”

  “Depends…”

  She stared at the toes of her shoes. “I’ve been thinking about Kent a lot lately. I guess because Beth wrote so much about him in her journals. I know he resented me for trying to talk her out of the marriage, for encouraging her to leave every time he got drunk and made threats. But from what I read, he flat-out hated me.”

  Brooke looked up then, directly into his eyes.

  “You two were close,” she continued, “so I was wondering…did he ever say anything that will help me understand why? Not that I’m letting myself off the hook, mind you, because certainly I didn’t go out of my way to ease tensions between us. I only ask because the better I understand it, the better parent I can be for Connor.”

  Parent. Right.

  “You can tell me the truth. I can take it.”

  He didn’t want to tip his hand, but it couldn’t hurt to drop a hint or two. “Just so you know, I don’t agree with most of this,” he said.

  “Okay…” She’d already crossed her arms over her chest. Now she crossed her ankles, too.

  “He said you were the wrong guardian for Connor, and…”

  “And?”

  “And I wish you hadn’t opened this can of worms.”

  Brooke inhaled a ragged breath, let it out slowly.

  “He wasn’t an easy guy to understand.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  She dampened a paper towel and cleaned the high-chair tray. Connor yawned as she wiped his face. “You know what, cutie pie? I think maybe that bath can wait until morning.”

  The baby must have noticed that something was bothering her, because he hadn’t taken his eyes from her face since she picked him up.

  Brooke walked right up to Hunter. “Tell your uncle Hunter good-night,” she said.

  Connor held out his arms. “Up?”

  And so Hunter took him, heart thumping with an undercurrent of trepidation. “G’night, buddy,” he said, kissing both plump cheeks. “Happy dreams.”

  The baby started to fuss when Brooke retrieved him, but he quieted as she carried him down the hall. “Go straight to sleep,” Hunter said, “and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The last thing he saw before she rounded the corner was Connor’s sad-eyed face, his tiny dimpled hands reaching for him. His heart told him, Get in there, pack up the boy’s stuff and take him out of here now. But his brain reminded him that patience was the better part of valor. Yeah, Brooke confused him, annoyed him, hurt his feelings. But this was about Connor, not him.

  Hunter threw away the overcooked ham, and as he sopped up the drippy mess on the counter and floor, he couldn’t help but wonder…

  If his skim-the-surface answers to her questions about Kent had the power to send her into a near tailspin, how much more would it shake her watching the man’s scorn…in living color?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WHEN BROOKE TIPTOED from Connor’s room, the last thing she expected to see was Hunter in the easy chair reading the newspaper, socked feet propped on the footstool, sneakers on the floor beside it…like a husband relaxing at home after a long, hard day at work.

  Standing quietly in the hall, she tried to make sense of the conflicting emotions the scene provoked. Brooke decided to concentrate on their cease-fire, designed and tolerated to provide a peaceful, loving environment for Connor. Because, to quote Hunter, she’d do anything for that kid.

  Hunter didn’t look up as she padded into the kitchen or as she held the teakettle under the faucet. Brooke tried to come up with a polite way to tell him to hit the road, that unless Connor was awake, he had no valid reason to be in her house.

  You’re such a h
ypocrite, she thought, adjusting the flame beneath the kettle. It seemed beyond wrong to accept his help—with moving, repairs on Beth’s house, Connor’s care, letting him drive her just about everywhere—when it made life easier, yet want to boot him out the door when it didn’t.

  Even when there had been a man in her life, Brooke spent most of her off-duty hours alone. Since the plane crash, she’d had precious little time to herself, and she yearned for some solitude, to accept her losses and count her blessings and make sense of the impractical, affectionate thoughts she’d been having about Hunter. How could she resent his interference one minute and miss his quiet strength the next?

  Brooke brewed them both a cup of tea.

  “Oh, thanks,” he said, barely looking up when she sat his mug on the table beside the chair.

  “Welcome.” Sitting on the love seat across from him, she picked up a magazine, hoping it would distract her from Kent’s hatred, which appeared in so many passages of Beth’s journal. Something told her Hunter knew more, that he’d held back to keep from hurting her, and she added it to the growing list of reasons to like and admire him. Maybe Beth and Deidre had been right about him.

  Maybe…

  When the magazine’s recipes and decorating tips failed to hold her attention, she tossed it aside and grabbed the diary, turned to an unread page. Surely that would get her mind back on track.

  Kent and I intend to make the most of this vacation since it’s probably the last we’ll take for a long, long time. Six months from now, our precious little boy will have a baby sister. I can hardly wait to see my sister’s face when I tell her we’re naming our little girl after our mom.

  Eyes closed, Brooke held her breath and pressed a palm to her chest. She’d barely accepted the fact that her sister was gone, and now this?

  She heard the newspaper rattle and opened her eyes as Hunter got up.

  “What’s wrong?” He sat beside her, leaned in close and read Beth’s words over her shoulder.

  Brooke tensed. If he said, Oh yeah, I heard about that, it would break her heart, knowing that Beth had shared something that intimate with him but not with her.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I had no idea.” He took the journal from her. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Shocked, but fine.”

  His hands shook slightly as he closed the book and placed it on the coffee table. His voice trembled, too, when he said, “I can’t…I can’t believe it.” He sat back, looked deep into her eyes. “How far along do you think she was?”

  Brooke had only read the passage once, but she’d never forget what it said.

  “Three and a half months?”

  “Wonder why she didn’t tell anyone.”

  “The miscarriage,” Brooke whispered, remembering how brokenhearted Beth had been, telling her about the baby she’d lost just eight months ago.

  “She didn’t tell me about that, either.”

  So much for her theory that Hunter and Beth were as close as siblings.

  “Well, you know how superstitious she was,” Hunter said. “Beth probably convinced herself that if she talked about the pregnancy too soon…” His expression said what words needn’t. “Still…” After a long, somber silence, he added, “Y’just had to love the girl, quirks and all.”

  “You can say that again.” Brooke frowned. “What you can’t say is that I was a good sister,” she said, mostly to herself. “Stubborn, judgmental, critical…and now that she’s gone, I can’t apologize. Can’t make things right or tell her how much she meant to me.”

  Brooke hid behind her hands. “I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but nothing that made me ashamed of myself. But I’m ashamed of the way I treated Beth.”

  He took her hand, and Brooke didn’t fight him.

  “Aw, c’mon. You were a great sister. She said so all the time.” He gave her fingers a little squeeze. “This will sound corny, but I believe she’s up there,” he said, aiming a thumb at the ceiling, “watching everything you’re doing for her little boy.”

  Brooke didn’t know if she believed in heaven, but if it existed, her sister—who’d never done a cruel or selfish thing in her life—certainly deserved to spend eternity there.

  “She knew you loved Connor. That you loved her, too.”

  “I don’t know if I believe that, but it’s nice of you to say. Thanks.” And then she yawned.

  He cupped her chin in one hand and, squinting, turned her face left, then right. “I don’t see anything here that a good night’s sleep won’t fix.”

  Well, she thought, staring into his blazing brown eyes, it finally happened—you’ve completely lost your sanity. Would a sane, rational woman want to press her lips to his just because he was close enough to kiss?

  Hunter blinked as a furrow formed between his dark brows. He licked his lips and moved forward a fraction of an inch, froze, then abruptly stood. Had he read her mind?

  He crossed the room and, one hand on the doorknob, said, “I’m just a phone call away, remember, if you want to talk…”

  He’d said the same thing on the night Donald made his surprise visit.

  “I’m a habitual insomniac, so don’t worry about waking me.”

  She had a pretty good idea why he had trouble sleeping. Small consolation, she thought, but tonight you’ll have company.

  “Lock up good and tight now, hear?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I’ll stop by on my way home tomorrow, give you a report on the house. Spend a little time with Connor.”

  “Okay.”

  Pocketing one hand, he leaned on the doorjamb. “I’m having a hard time leaving.”

  I noticed, she thought, swatting at a moth, lured through the open door by the living room lamps.

  One shoulder lifted in a slow shrug. “I hate leaving you this way.”

  “What way?”

  “Looking like you’re gonna burst into tears any second.”

  “I’m not. I won’t.” At least not while you’re here. “I’m fine. Honest. Now close the door, will you, or I’ll be up all night, whacking moths.”

  “Remember, if you want anything—anything…”

  “Well, I’ve always wanted a red convertible,” she said. “Stick shift, white leather interior, chrome hubcaps….”

  His expression of concern became amusement.

  Now it was Brooke’s turn to look puzzled…as he closed the interior door and returned to the easy chair.

  “Didn’t finish my tea,” he said, lifting the mug.

  Hunter put the cup back onto its coaster. “Tell me,” he began. “Why did you choose nursing over following in your grandmother’s footsteps?”

  “Me? An actress?” Brooke laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks.” The June breeze wafted through the screen door that led to the deck, and tousled his sandy-brown curls. Brooke didn’t know why, but she had to fight the urge to finger-comb them from his forehead.

  “I got my fill of the stage at the tender age of fourteen,” she said, tucking her fingertips under her knees. “Gram talked me into playing Wendy in her little-theater production of Peter Pan.”

  The inexperienced director, she told him, put her into an ill-fitting harness that broke loose from the Kirby wire as she soared high above the stage. “The fall caused compound fractures,” she said, patting her left thigh. “Beth called me Humpty Dumpty because it took four surgeries to put me back together again.”

  Hunter winced. “Sorry I revived that memory.”

  “Don’t be. The accident was destiny, in more ways than one.”

  He glanced at her shorts-clad legs. “Guess I never noticed because you don’t limp.”

  “That’s what four weeks of rehab will do for a girl. The only lasting effects are weather related.” She patted the thigh again. “This baby is a better forecaster than that guy on Channel 13’s morning show.”

  “Marty Bass?”

  “Yeah. Him.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t kno
w the name by heart. He’s been with the station for as long as I can remember.”

  “Gram is a Channel 2 girl. Always has been. And I spent five years in Richmond, don’t forget.”

  Why was she encouraging conversation when she wanted him to leave?

  “So tell me…why ‘destiny, in more ways than one’?”

  “I’m sure Gram has told you all about her single-girl days, when she worked with the likes of Ethel Merman and Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey…”

  “Only a couple hundred times,” he said, grinning.

  “Well, before anyone knew who Kathleen Nolan was, she played Wendy in the Mary Martin version of Peter Pan, and Gram was her understudy. So she’d done it all by the time she tried her hand at directing…and got the harebrained idea that I might follow in her footsteps. After the fall, she never put Brooke and acting in the same sentence again.”

  Chuckling when she yawned again, Hunter got to his feet. Again. And headed for the door. Again.

  “Remember, call if you need me.”

  She nodded as he closed the door behind him, wondering where she’d find the inner strength, as sleep eluded her tonight, not to dial his number.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “BUT HONEY,” CONSTANCE insisted, “you just have to come. We’re all talking about how it seems you’ve been avoiding us lately, and we miss you!”

  Hunter couldn’t help but grin. His mom—who loved telling anyone who’d listen that she was still tiny enough to fit into her size-four wedding gown—referring to herself as we. She knew as well as he did that he and his brothers touched base at least once a week, even if only for a minute or two. He knew they were fine, and they knew the same about him. So he’d already heard about Rafe’s not-so-surprise party.

  “Surely you can spare an hour to celebrate your brother’s fortieth.”

  Had she paused to give him time to remember that Rafe’s wife had recently sewn sergeant stripes onto her husband’s sleeve, or that the department had just awarded him the Medal of Honor? Only way a cop earned that one, a lifetime around policemen taught him, was by risking his life in the line of duty.

  “You don’t want to be the only Stone who isn’t here, do you?”