“Wouldn’t you if you’d come up against that crowd? Besides, he just didn’t want to intrude,” Maddy explained. She saw the look on Bill’s face. “And you can save the raised eyebrows for later.” She kissed each brother in turn as they filed by her bed and smiled at her mother. “I’ll see you later tonight.”
“Count on it,” Lorraine told her just before she slipped out the door.
J.T. arrived twenty minutes later, a skeptical expression on his face as he entered the room after knocking on the door. From the looks of it, she’d been ready for a while, a suitcase by her feet and the baby dozing in a blue-and-white infant seat.
He’d come because he said he would, but he still hesitated.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have someone from your family bring you home?”
“I’m sure,” she told him brightly. Now that he was here, she rang for the nurse who’d promised to show up with the mandatory wheelchair. “They’d only fuss unbearably and make me feel like an invalid.” Her eyes teased his. “Something tells me you don’t fuss.”
“Don’t see the need.” J.T. looked around. There was a profusion of flowers on every available flat surface in the room. The thought occurred to him that maybe he should have brought her flowers yesterday, but they probably would have gotten lost in this floral sea. Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d initially come to visit a friend. She was, after all, just a woman he’d helped all in the line of duty, nothing more.
If she wasn’t a friend, how did he pigeonhole her? he wondered.
Rather than tax his brain and have it go places he didn’t want it to go, J.T. decided to drop the whole matter and just concentrate on getting through it.
Like everything else in his day.
“You want to take any of these with you?” He indicated the flowers just as the nurse entered with the wheelchair.
Maddy smiled a greeting at her as she sank down into the chair, Johnny safely tucked into her arms. It was left to J.T. to pick up her suitcase.
“No, I’ve already told the nurses to distribute them around the hospital to people who don’t have any. Flowers cheer things up, don’t you think?”
There were flowers on Lorna’s grave. There was never any cheer there.
“No,” he replied grimly.
The look in his eyes warned her not to continue on that route.
“Don’t forget the infant seat,” she cautioned as he fell in behind the nurse who was pushing her out the door. He retraced his steps and picked up the seat.
“Did your captain mind?” she asked as he came out into the hall. They headed to the elevator. The nurse, he noticed, had mercifully chosen to be quiet.
J.T. pressed the Down button. “Mind about what?”
“You taking time off to bring me home.”
The doors opened and he moved his hand in the way of the beam, allowing the nurse to push Maddy and the baby into the car safely.
“This is my own time.” J.T. got in beside them, pressing the button for the first floor. “I work the night shift, remember?”
“So those were your regular hours?” She smiled. “Lucky for me.” Twisting around, she looked at the nurse. “He delivered my baby. I was in labor and my car stalled out in the middle of the road.”
The nurse looked at him with genuine appreciation. “Lucky for you he came along,” she echoed Maddy’s sentiment.
He’d never taken well to attention, either good or bad. J.T. shrugged at the observation. “If I hadn’t happened along then, the cop patrolling in my place would have.”
The elevator stopped on the second floor and two people got in, shifting to the left of the wheelchair. Maddy looked up at J.T. “You see the glass half empty, don’t you?”
He didn’t see how it was any of her business how he saw anything, and he didn’t particularly like the fact that she was asking him in front of an audience. Because he knew that ignoring the question would only make her ask it again, he played along with her assessment. It wasn’t really far off anyway.
“Half empty, dirty and cracked.”
Instead of saying anything, Maddy nodded to herself. It looked as if she had a lot of work cut out for her. But then, she’d already surmised as much and, at any rate, she felt equal to it.
He’d been in her driveway the day before, but hadn’t really taken account of the place until now. She lived in a large two story building, the kind that housed a family with multiple children, all of whom had their own rooms. Pulling up the hand brake, he scrutinized the place she’d resided in for over five years. Ever since she’d gotten married.
“You live here?”
She thought it a strange question, seeing as he’d parked her car for her yesterday. “Yes.”
He looked at her. “Alone?”
She had, she thought, until now. “Why? Don’t you like it?”
She loved the house, loved every corner of it. There were special memories tucked away in every room and it bore her mark from top to bottom. Knowing that all his taste was in his mouth, Johnny had given her free rein to decorate as she chose.
He shrugged, knowing he’d get lost in a place like that. Having sold the house he and Lorna had bought together, he lived his days out in a bare apartment. It held a refrigerator, a table, a bed and a bureau, more than enough for him.
“Just seems like a huge house for one person, that’s all.”
“One and a half now,” she corrected, glancing toward the back seat where her son dozed.
It was time to get him inside. Maddy couldn’t wait to see him sleeping in the frilly bassinet her mother had insisted on buying for her. She began to open the passenger door, but J.T. reached over and placed his hand over hers to stop her.
“Wait a second,” he ordered. She looked at him quizzically. “Don’t just go jumping out of the car. You’re still weak.”
He didn’t strike her as the type to play Sir Galahad. “You don’t know me very well, do you?”
The smile she gave him told him that she intended on correcting that.
She could intend whatever she wanted, he thought, that didn’t change anything. After he brought her inside her home, his responsibility, even by the wildest stretch of interpretation, was at an end. He’d go his way and she’d go hers. End of story.
“No, but I don’t believe in taking chances. Sit.” It was a sternly worded command, not a request. Getting out of the vehicle, he rounded the hood and came up to her side. “Okay, now you can get out.”
Her grin grew wider. “Yes, sir.”
But the grin faded just a little as she gained her feet and the brisk, cool world around her shifted just a little out of kilter. Stunned, Maddy automatically grabbed his shoulder. She felt his arm close around her, pulling her to him as he steadied her.
A warmth spread through her that had less to do with her near faint than with the man who had prevented it. Taking a breath, she looked up into his face. “I guess you were right.”
His expression was stoic. “I tend to be.”
She smiled, making no move to regain her footing without him. “I’ll try to remember that.”
He shouldn’t be holding her like this, no matter what the reason. It was too familiar. And felt too good. “Can you stand up?”
If she hadn’t felt so nice against him, she would have felt foolish. But she didn’t. Testing them, she found that her knees felt far less rubbery than they had a minute ago. “Yes.”
He had every intention of releasing her then. He didn’t mean to go on holding her. And he knew he didn’t mean what he did next. He had no idea what came over him. Maybe it was her nearness, or maybe it had to do with the fact that she looked so much like Lorna.
Or maybe it was because he’d been alone for so long. He absolutely refused to believe it was because of the woman herself.
But whatever the reason, whatever the explanation, what happened still happened.
Bending his head, he brushed his lips against hers.
Chapter 7
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His instinct for self-preservation warred with desire. The former told him to back away, the latter wouldn’t allow it. Before he could stop himself, the kiss flowered, then deepened. Something leaped up and seized his gut, wrenching it so that he could hardly breathe.
There was an unbearable sweetness about the kiss, about her. If he let himself go, he would have gotten lost in both. The temptation to do just that was enormous. It had been so long since he had felt anything, so long since his life had done anything but cast empty shadows on the wall.
He touched her face with his hand, her skin heating beneath his. He remembered another lifetime, when things were different.
What the hell was he doing?
Like an explosion of cold air, reality hit. He was kissing a woman he was just doing the most casual of favors for. He never behaved rashly, never led with his feelings, didn’t even have feelings, for crying out loud. And he never, ever, acted on impulse.
But he’d done all three just now in the space of a heartbeat.
Shaken, trying to get his bearings, and angry at himself beyond words, J.T. dropped his hand from her face and backed away.
“Hey, I’m sorry—” He had no idea what to say. Any apology seemed utterly insignificant.
He’d stirred something within her, reminding her that she hadn’t always been a widow, that it wasn’t all that long ago that she’d been a desirable woman. He looked flustered, she thought. Like someone caught with his hand in the cookie jar, knowing that he wasn’t supposed to be there.
Her eyes smiled a beat before her mouth curved. “Why? Do I taste like onions?”
J.T. stared at her for a second before he realized that she was using humor to get them through what had to be an awkward moment for her as well as for him.
“No, I mean—I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Unless she missed her guess, John Thomas Walker never did what he didn’t want to do. And, right now, he didn’t like the fact that he wanted to kiss her. It was a guilt thing. She could understand that. She’d gone through it herself. It was the first step to making peace with the cold, hard fact that you were alive and the person you loved wasn’t.
“Sometimes acting on impulse can be a good thing.” He was still uncomfortable, she thought. She didn’t want him to be. “And you have nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t exactly pin me against the car.” Her eyes held his for a moment. “And if I hadn’t wanted you to kiss me, you wouldn’t have.”
He laughed shortly. Was she kidding? “You don’t have enough strength to wrestle a flea, you just proved that.”
She realized that he didn’t understand what she was telling him. What she sensed about him. “I didn’t need strength. You’re not the type to force yourself on a woman.”
He frowned. The woman was too damn trusting for her own good. No wonder her family hovered around her. She needed to be protected.
“You haven’t even known me for more than a couple of days, how do you know what kind of a man I am? Just because I wear a uniform—”
But she shook her head. He was on the wrong trail again. “It has nothing to do with your uniform, John Thomas. I can see it in your eyes.”
He tried not to let the warm familiar feeling overtake him. He reminded himself that she was a stranger, barely an acquaintance.
Yeah, an acquaintance you just kissed, an inner voice mocked him.
J.T. snorted, dismissing her naive assessment. “Is that anything like reading palms or tea leaves?”
She knew what he was doing and she wouldn’t let him. “It’s a great deal more accurate. Eyes are the windows of the soul.”
And he had beautiful eyes, she thought. Maddy smiled up into them to make her point.
A soul. He didn’t believe in all that anymore. Didn’t believe in anything, except that pain was endless. “I don’t have one. I lost it over two years ago.”
She looked at him for a long moment, at the sadness she saw just beneath the anger. “Then it’s about time you found it again.”
In the back seat, the baby began to whimper. “What it’s time for is to get you and the baby inside.”
Because it was at least true in part, Maddy offered no resistance.
Leaving her house less than half an hour later, J.T. made himself a silent promise that he wasn’t going to see her again. After all, there was no reason to.
And, except for driving by her house once on the pretext of patrolling the area, one that wasn’t in his route, he’d kept his word to himself.
The temptation to drop in on her the afternoon he’d driven by had been great. But what could he do? Just show up on her doorstep and mumble something inane about seeing how she and the boy were doing? She would have seen right through that and he would have opened the door to further involvement. He’d already told himself he didn’t want that. Didn’t want to be involved with anyone.
So when a call was patched through to his squad car near midnight a week and a half later, no one was more surprised that he was to hear her voice.
He’d forgotten how melodious it sounded. Snapping out of it, he demanded, “How did you get through?”
She’d waited as long as she could for him to come around. When he didn’t, she’d decided to take matters into her own hands. The man couldn’t be allowed to regress into his cocoon again.
“I told the woman at the dispatch desk that it was an emergency, that I was your sister.” Maddy didn’t have to see his face to know that J.T. was far from pleased. But it was all for a good cause. “I’m sorry if I violated protocol, but I wanted to reach you and you haven’t come by.”
J.T. sighed, deliberately ignoring the look that he knew Fenelli was giving him, the one that was sported by proud fathers when their late-bloomer sons finally took their advice and plunged into life.
“All right, you reached me. So what’s the big emergency?”
“I want you to be Johnny’s godfather.” Grateful that he didn’t cut her off, Maddy took advantage of the silence to hurry through the rest of what she had to tell him. “The ceremony’s taking place this Sunday at St. Mark’s on Alton at two o’clock. I guess I’d better get off now. Call me.”
J.T. stared at the two way receiver in his hand as static took the place of her voice. The woman was unbelievable. Swallowing an oath, he replaced the receiver as little more forcefully than was really necessary.
Fenelli shifted in his seat, a grin wide enough to do the Cheshire Cat proud on his florid face. J.T. could sense it before he even saw it. “So, what haven’t you been telling me?”
J.T. stared straight ahead into the inky darkness. “Nothing.”
Fenelli chuckled. “Nothing’s got a really sexy voice.”
He’d been partnered with Fenelli for four years. When he’d opted to take the night shift, Fenelli had made the switch with him even though he’d told the older man it wasn’t necessary. Now that he thought of it, that gave Fenelli a great deal in common with Maddy, J.T. thought. “It’s a long story.”
The streets were long and dark, slumbering like the residents in the houses they passed. “Hey, we got time and I like long stories.”
J.T. snorted. “Yeah, I know. You tell them all the time.”
Fenelli had grown up the next to youngest in a family of seven. He had a hide like a rhino and never got insulted. “Turnabout is fair play.”
J.T. knew his partner wasn’t going to let up until he told him. After deliberating, he gave him the story in a nutshell.
“I helped her deliver her baby. It was the night you were out with the stomach flu.” He looked at his partner accusingly. “If you had been on patrol, you would have been the one to deliver it.”
Fenelli refused to rise to the bait. He was as optimistic in his views as his partner was pessimistic. He insisted that was why they got along. He was also a great believer in fate. “Hey, there’s a reason for everything. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be on duty that night, ever think of that?”
“No,” J.T.
snapped. But he did. He’d thought about it a lot this last week and a half. Thought about it every time his thoughts turned to Maddy which was a lot more often than he was happy about. The bottom line was that he knew his life would have been less complicated if Fenelli hadn’t called in sick.
The next morning, J.T. went to Maddy’s house to tell her that she was simply going to have to find someone else to be the baby’s godfather. The words were right there, on the tip of his tongue. He’d rehearsed them on the way over, just in case he forgot.
But when she opened the door and he looked at her, the words somehow became lost.
She was standing there, wearing a blue cotton dress that would have seemed shapeless on anyone else. On her, it accented curves that hadn’t been there just a week and a half ago. Other than the baby she had tucked into the crook in her arm, there seemed to be no evidence at all that she had given birth recently.
He realized that one of the little white buttons on her dress was open, allowing him a view of full, firm breasts he shouldn’t be been privy to. He also realized he was staring and quickly lifted his eyes.
She’d just finished feeding the baby and congratulated herself on her timing. She opened the door wider in silent invitation.
“I was hoping you’d come by.”
Finally finding his tongue, J.T. got right to the point as he walked in. “Why me?”
She closed the door behind him, flipping the lock. “Because you were there to help me through a difficult time. Because yours was the first face that Johnny saw and I’d like to find a reason for him to see it again every once in a while.”
No way, sorry. Uh-uh. Nope. He shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling oddly powerless in the presence of this petite woman. “So exactly what’s a godfather supposed to do?”
This was actually easier than she’d anticipated, Maddy thought. She shifted Johnny to her shoulder and began to pat his back, waiting for the tiny telltale burp. “Technically or really?”
A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Page 14