As he’d expected, Maggie practically snatched the baby away from him. She snuggled him against her chest, no thought, no deliberation, just more of that automatic ease that Boone kept reminding himself came only with time and practice.
Her mouth turned down. Her eyes spoke volumes, none of them in a language he wanted to learn. But after glaring at him long enough that he was pretty sure he hadn’t done a thing to change her mind—that, in fact, he had probably totally and completely blown his chances of ever getting her to accept him—she shifted Jamie so he was facing Boone.
“One arm in front around his belly. The other under his little bum and legs.” Her words were jerky, but at least they were civil. “You have to hold him tight, but give him room to wiggle a bit. Might be good to practice with a bag of flour for a while if you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing.”
It wasn’t much, but he would take what he could get.
“Thank you.” Then, because he knew that he needed to give her something, he bent to look his son in the eye. “You’re very lucky to have a grandmother who loves you,” he said. “Make sure you don’t take her for granted.”
“And you make sure you don’t let Kate overdo things.”
“I won’t,” he said, but she shook her head.
“She won’t tell you what she needs. She likes to put on a show, that one, pretend she’s fine even when she isn’t. She’s done it since we lost Allie’s father. It’s like she has to convince everyone she’s okay so no one will worry about her.” Maggie jiggled Jamie as she talked. “Don’t let her tell you she doesn’t need anything. Make sure she has food and water close by all the time. Books, too. I have some in my car for her. And a lasagna. It’s her favorite.” She jerked her head toward the car. “It’s in the back seat. I’ll hold Jamie while you take it inside.”
Glad for the momentary reprieve, Boone hurried to do as instructed. When he returned, Maggie gave Jamie a kiss on the top of his head and handed him over.
“Mind what I said. Get that porch fixed. If anything else happens to her, you’ll answer to me.”
Considering he’d been braced for much worse, he thought he’d gotten off rather easy.
Maggie marched back to the car. Boone made Jamie’s hand wave again, then made him pretend to blow kisses, the way Kate did during their Skype calls. “Well, that was interesting,” he said to Jamie. “If anything happens to me and the police say it was an accident, tell them to talk to your granny, okay?”
And then it hit him that he had juggled a baby in his arms while carrying on a conversation. Two things at once. It was almost like something Kate would do, yet here he was, just a few days in, making it happen.
Like a boss.
Like he knew what he was doing.
* * *
KATE HAD NEVER really grasped how much work was involved in being a solo parent until she was forced to sit back and watch Boone take on chores that would usually have been hers. It was one thing to live a whirlwind of laundry, feeding, cleaning, organizing and home repair; it was quite another to watch someone else juggle it. And, as Boone pointed out more than once, he didn’t have to stop and nurse someone in the middle of all the activity.
No wonder she always felt like she was just one bad cold away from disaster.
The true danger of being a little less busy, of course, was that it left her with too much time to think. To imagine. To remember. For two long days she filled her hours with writing overdue thank-you notes, overhauling the day care’s staff handbook and updating Jamie’s baby book. None of it was enough to keep her from watching Boone as he moved through the house, ever more confident, ever more appealing.
None of it was enough to make her forget that it didn’t take two good ankles to rock someone’s world.
* * *
BOONE FINALLY GOT a chance to attack the broken board three days after Kate’s plunge.
Attack was definitely the right word.
He put Jamie down for his nap, warned Kate that things might get noisy, and closed every first floor door to help muffle the sounds. He knew exactly how to make the repair pry up the remaining bits of broken board, toss them in the Dumpster, cut a new one and put it in place. Once they painted or stained the porch floor, whichever Kate decided would work best, no one would ever know that it wasn’t original.
But when he made it to the porch, the vivid memory of the moment she fell through had him lifting the crowbar over his head, taking careful aim, and smashing it into the jagged edges around the hole.
“There you go, you son of a...” He grunted the words between his teeth, seeing again the way Kate had shifted, then plunged, the shock in her fear-widened eyes. He heard again the panicked cry that had slipped out of her.
Most of all, he remembered the way her grip had tightened around Jamie. How, even though she was pitching and falling and twisting, she had never once let him slip out of her arms. How, when Boone grabbed her arm and pulled her up, her first question had been for the baby.
That was what a good parent did. Protected. Put the child first.
Wham!
A good parent would never do anything as shortsighted as bringing flowers, which could be interpreted as a prelude to seduction. Or as stupid as offering them up when the other party was holding a baby and standing on a porch he knew damned well was riddled with weak spots.
Smash!
Maybe he was being an idiot to try to keep the place for her. God knew the house had problems to spare. What if he helped her stay here, only to have something come down on her head? What if he patched up the floors only to have Jamie break through the banister?
What if he ended up making things worse?
Maybe he should just back away. Withdraw the loan application, do what he could to rescue the place, then let her sell it as planned so she could move someplace newer. Safer. The last thing she needed was to be saddled with something so damaged. Even if she did love it, it could only lead to trouble down the—
He stopped in midswing, his actions halted by the glint of light reflecting off something beneath the porch.
He grunted and scowled. Probably trash. Something an animal had dragged in at some point over the last century.
Still...
Given how long the house had been in her family, he should probably have a look.
He set down the crowbar, hit the flashlight app on his phone and shone the light into the hole.
Even with the beam from the phone, it took him a few seconds to understand what he was seeing. Lots of glass...curves and corners...
“Bottles?”
Huh. He could imagine the scenario now. Dear old Nana had been such a teetotaler she hadn’t even tasted the mock champagne he and Kate had used to toast their marriage. Boone would bet good money he’d stumbled across Kate’s Poppy’s secret stash.
Though it wasn’t in what anyone would call a convenient location. And...he leaned down, shone the light again, peered around and whistled. That seemed like an awful lot of bottles for a stash.
He pushed to his feet and went in search of Kate, finding her in the kitchen, in front of the open fridge.
“Hey.” He frowned, temporarily distracted. “You’re not supposed to be on that ankle for longer than it takes to get to the bathroom.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was in the office. The kitchen is closer to my desk than the bathroom is. I used my walking stick.” She pointed to the stick Boone had brought in for her that morning, now resting against the counter. “I’m grabbing an apple, and I’ll be back at the desk in about thirty seconds. Less than that if I don’t have to waste time arguing with you.”
It seemed she was feeling better. “Fine.” He reached past her, grabbed two apples from the bin and nodded toward the door. “Get yourself back in there. I’ll be the delivery boy.”
She muttered something under
her breath and hobbled away. He grinned behind her back, washed the apples and snagged a box of crackers for good measure.
“Here you go, m’lady.” He bowed as he entered with his offerings.
“I don’t need that much.”
“The crackers are for future snacking. The other apple is for me.” He set the plate on the desk, grabbed his apple, and glanced toward the bedroom. “Any sounds from Jamie?”
“Nothing.”
“And you swear—”
“Yes, I cross my heart and promise I won’t try to go in there and get him myself. You can stop hovering anytime now, Boone.”
Well, no. He couldn’t. Especially since he was the one who—
Enough already, Boone.
He bit into the apple, forcing himself to stop the cycle of blame. He was channeling the past again. It wasn’t healthy and it wasn’t helpful, and he knew from experience that it wouldn’t do a bit of good. Someday he would remember that before he let himself get sucked in the way he had out on the porch.
On the other hand, if he hadn’t been so busy destroying the board, he might not have seen the bottles.
“So, I have a question,” he said. “By any chance did your grandfather have a drinking problem?”
Oops. Her sudden choking cough made him realize, too late, that he probably should have eased into that.
“What the hell?” She punctuated the question with one last cough.
“Sorry. But when I was working on the porch, I found a bunch of bottles under there. Too many to be random trash.”
“Bottles?” Her brow furrowed, and then her eyes opened wide. “No way.”
She reached for her walking stick. He grabbed for her wrist, but she was moving fast and his hand slid higher up her arm in something terrifyingly like a caress. In a flash he remembered lying in bed with her, grabbing her wrists and raising them over her head while she laughed up at him, his palms flattening against the soft skin of her arms as he slid them lower and he hovered above her and she arched up to meet him and...
The bottles.
“You’re not going out there.”
“Boone, I promise to be careful, okay? This could be important.”
“There’s a giant hole in the floor.”
“Yeah, I know. But I also know how to go slow and use my stick and let you lead the way.” She breathed in slowly, then gave him a smile that was so obviously fake he almost burst out laughing. “I can even resist the temptation to push you through the hole if you don’t stop acting like I lost what little sense you think I have when I fell.”
He remembered when Craig and Jill had returned to the office after Craig’s illness, when Jill had offered up what seemed like a mild reminder to take things easy and Craig had practically snapped her head off before storming out of the room. Jill had waited until he was well out of hearing distance before letting out a quiet but enthusiastic, “Yes!” Perplexed, Boone couldn’t help but ask why she was so happy to be snarled at.
“Because,” Jill had said, “grumpiness is a sign that he’s getting better.”
In truth, Kate was standing straighter. And as far as he could recall, she hadn’t winced once all day.
“Okay.” He rolled his shoulders to ease the need to reach for her. “You’re right. Sorry. But at least tell me why you’re so eager to see them. I mean, it’s probably just the spot where the guys who were building the place tossed their empties, but—”
“But that’s just the thing.” Kate had already grabbed her stick and was clomping through the house with far more speed than he thought safe. Not that he was going to mention it. He was pretty sure the stick would really hurt if she decided to whack him with it. “My great-uncle was the first owner of this house. My great-grandfather helped build it.” She stopped and looked back at him, eyes glowing. “You know. The one who was a rumrunner during Prohibition.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
KATE FORCED HERSELF to sit obediently in the swing while Boone tied a slipknot in a length of rope and used it to try to lasso one of the bottles that lay just beyond his reach. To be honest, she wasn’t sure which part was more frustrating—needing to wait for him to do the work, or watching him stretch out on the boards, reaching and straining and practically begging her to admire the long, muscled length of him.
She swallowed hard and concentrated on telling him the story of her great-grandparents.
“So he was a rumrunner, and she was the daughter of rich Americans who summered in one of the big houses on the Thousand Islands. Classic Romeo and Juliet story.”
“Your family specializes in those, don’t they?”
“What do you... Oh, right. Mom.” Funny, she had never put that together. “Anyway, they tried to sneak away one night—”
“Trying to elope before summer was over?”
“Trying to get away from her family before she started showing.”
He raised up on one elbow to peer at her. “You mean your great-grandmother, your mother and you all got pregnant without being married?” He shook his head. “And to think I was always jealous when the other kids talked about their family traditions.”
“Shut up, you. So Daisy and Charlie were making a run for it. They thought they would be safe because Charlie had made a deal with the American authorities. He said if they gave him and Daisy safe passage, he would tell them where to find the treasure.”
Over at the hole, Boone ceased swearing at the rope and the bottles and rolled over to stare at her. “Hang on. What treasure?”
“I never told you about that?”
“I can’t swear on a stack of Bibles that you didn’t. But I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that.”
“Well, that’s good. It’s proof that you didn’t marry me for my money.”
The look he gave her before rolling back onto his stomach and returning to the rope made it all too clear that her so-called joke had fallen flat. Better give him the whole story.
“As you can imagine, one of the requirements for being a successful rumrunner was a detailed knowledge of the Saint Lawrence. The riverbanks, the islands, the whole shebang. So when Charlie wasn’t busy building houses or hiding from the Feds, he was out scouting the water. The story goes that on one of those outings, he stumbled across some kind of treasure.”
“Come here you son of a—what was it?”
“Well, that’s the thing. Nobody knows. He didn’t even tell Daisy. All he told her was that he had given a piece to the Americans.”
“Why would he do that?”
She used her good foot to push against the floor, setting the swing gliding slowly. “No idea. There’s a ton of shipwrecks out there on the river. My best guess is he found something from the Revolutionary War. Or maybe the War of 1812. There were a few fights out on the river, not to mention the Battle of Crysler’s Farm. That was just down the road, near Morrisburg.”
“Wait.” He leaned back for a moment, head tipped in apparent surprise. “The War of 1812 happened here, too? I thought it was mostly in New York, and down around Lake Ontario.” He lowered himself into position once more. “And the whole bit about burning down the White House, of course.”
“Boone, Boone, Boone. You make it sound so barbaric. First the British sat down and ate the meal that was already set out on the tables. Then they torched the place.” Seriously, did he have to make those low breathy noises when he stretched? It sounded way too much like the sounds he used to make against her ear when—
“Of course, that’s assuming he was telling the truth,” she said.
“You suspect your own great-grandfather of lying?”
“The man was a rumrunner, Boone. A smuggler. I highly doubt he would have been bothered by telling a lie.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Honor among thieves?”
He pushed up and
grinned. “Han Solo was a smuggler.”
Want curled low and hot in her belly. Did he have any idea how he looked—slightly sweaty, more than a little rumpled, all hot smile and inside jokes? And did he have to mention Han Solo?
Boone must have figured out he’d crossed into forbidden territory because he dropped back down and resumed his quest. Kate breathed in deep and decided she had better do the same.
“Well whatever it was, even if he only found one thing, it was enough to do the trick. The Americans agreed to Charlie’s terms. He and Daisy picked a night and everything was set.”
“Except?”
“Except, something went wrong. Either the Feds changed their mind or someone from Daisy’s family found out what was up. That part was never clear. All we know is that it was night, and there was a shootout on the water, and Charlie died protecting Daisy.”
“Not exactly the fairy-tale ending I was rooting for.”
“Since when did you start believing in fairy tales?”
“I like ’em. I never said I believe in them.” He sat up, a smile of triumph on his face and something clutched in his hands. “Though right now, I might make an exception.”
Kate sat up straighter, cursing both her stupid ankle and the fact that if she stood up, Boone would probably punish her by refusing to hand over his finding. “What is it?”
“A bottle, just like I suspected.” The swing dipped as he sat beside her. He handed it to her and swiped his forehead with the back of his arm.
It was indeed a bottle, rectangular and heavy, the glass thick and clouded by time. It bore no marks to indicate where it might have come from or how it had landed beneath her porch.
“Oh, wow.” She ran her fingers over the sides, brushing away the dirt that clung to it. “Charlie, was this yours?”
“Nice to think it might have been.” Boone leaned in closer, peering at the bottle. “So you say he built this place?”
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