“Man,” he said, arching back his head with a yawn. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you. When Patti finally shows up, she’s going to catch heat the likes of which she hasn’t felt since I caught her smoking in church.”
“Bit of a wild child, was she?” Annie asked, as she fastened the last snap on Pia’s pink jammies. She found a tiny pink Velcro bow stuck to the terry cloth, pulled it off, and attached it to the baby girl’s thin tufts of hair.
He laughed. “That’s an understatement. The happiest day of my life was when she said her I Dos to Howie. Finally, I thought, she’s someone else’s responsibility.”
“You been looking after her for a while?”
“Yeah. Our folks died my freshman year of college. Patti was okay as a kid, but once she hit her teens, she was nothing but trouble. She started pulling all this rebellion crap. Smoking. Drinking. Exclusively dating guys whose gene pools were only half-full. Most times, I knew she must have still been upset about Mom and Dad. But then there were other times I swear she did every bit of it just to piss me—” He winced. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Annie said, hugging the sleeping beauty to her chest.
“So lately,” he said, “she’s been kind of depressed. Howie—her husband, my savior—got laid off from his job here in Pecan, so he took a new one that has him traveling out east a lot. The company won’t pay for the whole family to relocate, so until he can find something closer to home, this is what he’s doing to pay the bills. Patti hasn’t handled it all that well. Before this happened with Howie, she’d been a bit shaky on the whole motherhood thing—not that she hasn’t done a great job. It’s just that she gets pretty frazzled.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Annie said, starting to share Jed’s concern for his sister, this precious infant’s mother. She stroked Pia’s downy-soft hair and breathed in her innocence and lotion.
“Anyway, that’s why I offered to watch these guys for her. I figured she could use a little break, but her being gone overnight…” He shook his head. “I never agreed to that. I’ve checked her house, called her neighbors and friends. Mrs. Clancy on the end of her block saw her tear out of her driveway yesterday about twelve-thirty in my truck. Since I can only fit one baby seat in my truck, she probably thought it best to leave me with the Baby Mobile. No one’s seen her since.” He raked his fingers through his hair.
The muted sound of a running vacuum came from next door.
“When she was younger,” he said, “she ran away a few times. I’m scared she’s choosing that way out again. But it could be something else. Something bad…”
The vacuum went off.
Annie leaned forward, her stomach queasy. “Have you called the police or tried getting in touch with Howie?”
He shrugged, then pushed himself up from the sofa and began to pace. “I’ve got a couple friends down at the police station, so I’ve been calling them like every hour. They’ve entered my plates and Patti’s vitals into the national missing persons base. Anyway, the cavalry’s been called, but they keep telling me the same thing. Wait. She’ll come home. There’s been no sign of trouble. Odds are, with Patti’s history of running, the stress of the babies probably got to be too much for her and she just took off.”
“And her husband? Did you ever get hold of him?”
“Nope. His cell keeps forwarding to voice messaging—same as his office phone. Apparently, not a single real live person answers the phone at that high-tech fortress where he works. I’d go to see him, but he’s out in Virginia somewhere.”
“Sorry,” Annie said. “Wish there was something I could do.”
“You’ve already helped,” he said. He shot a glance at his nephews. “Sometimes when these guys—and girl—start on a crying jag, I get panicky. Maybe my sister felt the same and split.”
Annie’s eyes widened. “She just left her babies?”
“I don’t want to think that of her, but what other explanation is there? I mean, if there was an emergency or something, wouldn’t she have called?”
“I’d think so, but what if she can’t?”
“Oh, come on.” He stopped pacing and thumped the heel of his hand against a pasta-colored wall. A snow-capped mountain landscape rattled in its chrome frame. “In this day and age, I’ll bet you can’t give me one good reason why a person couldn’t call.”
Annie wanted to blurt dozens of comforting reasons, but how could she when Jed was right?
Chapter Two
Patricia Hale-Norwood glared at the ICU nurse manning the desk phone. “Please. I’ll call collect. I just need to let my brother know where I am. I left in a hurry, and he’d taken my triplets to the Tulsa Zoo, and so I couldn’t—”
“I’m sorry,” said the steely-eyed, middle-aged dragon disguised as a nurse. “Hospital policy. This phone is for emergency use only.”
“This is an emergency.” Heart pounding at double the rate of the beeping monitor in Room 110, Patricia clenched her fists. From the call that’d interrupted her bubble bath telling her Howie had been in an accident and was barely alive, to the hasty trek down the front porch stairs that had badly sprained her right ankle, then the endless flight and rental car drive that led her to this North Carolina hospital where her husband now drifted in and out of consciousness, this whole trip had been a horror show that just kept getting worse.
The nurse sighed. “I’m sorry, but unless you’re in need of a blood transfusion or have an organ you’d like to donate, I can’t let you use this phone. There are pay phones and courtesy phones located throughout the hospital for your convenience.”
“Look.” Patricia slapped her palms on the counter. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but over in that fancy new wing y’all are building, some yo-yo sliced the phone cables with a backhoe. So now there isn’t a single phone on this whole freakin’ square mile that works—except for yours—which, I’ve heard through the hospital grapevine, has its own separate emergency line.”
“Please, Mrs. Norwood, lower your voice. We have critically ill patients here.”
“You’re damned right!” Patricia said shrilly. “My husband happens to be one of them. He’s hanging on by a thread, and you’re acting like he’s here for a bikini wax. Now, we’ve been through this already. My cell batteries are dead. My charger is back home two thousand miles away. My ankle’s swollen to the size of a football, making it kind of excruciating for me to get around. Please let me use this phone.”
The nurse cast Patricia a sticky-sweet smile. “Perhaps a family member of one of our other patients has a cell they’d allow you to use in the special cellular phone area on the sixth floor?”
JED SLAMMED his cordless phone on the kitchen counter.
What was the matter with those guys down at the police station? They were supposed to be his friends.
Hell, Jed had been the one who’d thrown Ferris his police academy graduation party. And now the guy was claiming there wasn’t a thing more he could do to find Patti?
He glanced at his niece and nephews, thankfully all still sleeping.
What would he have done without the help of his new neighbor? What was he going to do when all three babies woke at the same time, demanding bottles and burping and diaper changing?
Jed had earned many medals for bravery as a fireman. Yet those snoozing pink and blue bundles made him feel like a coward.
The phone rang and he lunged for it before the next ring. “Patti?”
“She’s still not back?” said Craig, one of his firehouse buddies.
“Nope.”
“What’re you gonna do? We need you down here, man. There’s a brushfire on a field by the country club, and we just got back from a house-fire call over on Hinton.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“Nah, but their kitchen’s toast.”
“Bummer.” Jed had been on hundreds of scenes like this. Witnessed lots of why me’s and crying. Crying. Occupational hazard.
Annie said the same
about her job. How she hated hearing babies cry. Jed hated hearing anyone cry. It was great that he saved lives, but the emotional toll taken by fires was every bit as horrible as the physical destruction.
Fire didn’t just ruin lives and houses, it also stole memories.
Snapshots of Florida vacations.
Golf and baseball trophies.
Those goofy little clay ashtrays kids make in kindergarten.
Little brothers.
He sighed into the phone.
“Jed, the chief’s real sorry about your sister, but we need you down here. Want me to call Marcie and ask her to watch the triplets for you?”
Marcie was Craig’s wife.
And yeah, she could come sit with the babies, but that would be about the extent of it. Those two didn’t even own a dog or a guppy. What did she know about taking care of three newborns?
But Annie…
She’d know what to do.
The way she’d calmed his niece and nephews earlier that day—it’d been a bonafied miracle.
“Jed? Want me to tell Chief when you’ll be in?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Will do,” Craig said. “Catch you later.”
Jed pressed the phone’s off button.
He hated asking for help.
After his parents had died, he’d looked after not only himself but his sister, who’d been ten. He was nineteen then, and he’d done a good job. Their folks’ life insurance hadn’t lasted long, and when it’d run dry, he’d finished college at the University of Tulsa, taking night classes. Worked his tail off during the day making sure Patti had everything a kid could want.
The bank took the house they’d lived in with their parents since after the fire, but he’d found them an apartment over the old town theater. The whole building had long since been condemned, but back then, they’d played dollar movies there on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
When Patti was still a sweet kid, he’d taken her to most of the shows. No R-rated ones, though—his mom wouldn’t have approved.
He’d come close a few times to having to sell the cabin in Colorado that’d been in their family for generations. Money had been crazy tight, but somehow, he’d made things work. That cabin was the only tangible reminder of their parents. A part of Jed felt that he owed it not just to Patti, but to his own future children to keep it in the family. No matter what the personal cost.
He’d single-handedly raised his sister. He’d gone over her homework, helped her study for tests. Gone looking for her when he suspected she was hanging with the wrong crowd. Grounded her when, sure enough, he’d caught her guzzling beer down by the river.
He’d even been there to rub her back when she’d thrown up those beers a few hours later in the apartment’s rust-stained toilet.
He’d covered college applications and tuition. Book and dorm costs.
Through all of that, he’d never asked for any help himself.
Never wanted it.
But now…
Somehow this was different.
Helping Patti study for a test? That he could do. Dragging her home from a party? Paying her student loans? He could do that, too. But figure out how to care for three babies while launching a full-fledged investigation into Patti’s whereabouts?
He groaned.
If this afternoon was any indication of the fun still ahead, his sister’s latest stunt just might do him in.
Jed sighed, resting his elbows on the kitchen counter. “Patti, where are you?”
Ten minutes later, propping his front door open with a bag of rock salt he’d found in the coat closet, Jed did the unthinkable—knocked on Annie Harnesberry’s door to ask for help.
“JED. HI.” Annie ran her fingers through the mess on her head. Ever since leaving her neighbor’s, she’d been hard at work on her guest bath, scraping the shoddily applied popcorn ceiling, making way for something grander. A nice, restful Scrabble game would’ve been more fun, but difficult with only one player. Hmm…Someday she’d have to see if her new neighbor liked to play.
“Looks like you’ve been busy.” He brushed a large chunk of ceiling from her hair.
Not sure whether to feel flustered or flattered by his unexpected touch, Annie fidgeted with the brass door-knob. “One of the reasons I chose this condo was its great bone structure. Redecorating is a hobby of mine.”
“Great. Maybe you could tackle my place when you’re finished. We could talk tile over pizza.”
“Maybe.” Though his tone had been teasing, something about the warmth in Jed’s eyes led Annie to wonder if he might be at least a little serious about wanting to see her again. Was that why he was there?
To ask her out?
Wow. She’d just made this big move designed to steer her clear of all men, yet here she was, faced with another one. Even worse, the old optimist in her, the one who so badly wanted to find that elusive pot of gold at the end of the dating rainbow, had almost said yes. After all, the guy was movie-star gorgeous.
Not that appearance mattered in the scheme of things. Look what had happened during her first go-around with a good-looking guy. Her ex-husband, Troy, had been gorgeous. He’d also turned out to be her worst nightmare.
“Do you like Scrabble?” she blurted, not sure why. Both Troy and Conner had hated the game that was her family’s passion.
“Love it,” Jed said. “Sometime, when my life calms down, we’ll have to play. I warn you, though, I’m pretty good.” He winked.
Her stomach fell three stories.
No. No matter how handsome her new neighbor happened to be, she wasn’t—couldn’t be—interested. Yes, she’d date again because she couldn’t bear the thought of ending up alone. But not yet. Her head and heart just weren’t ready.
“Well—” He shuffled his feet.
From across the breezeway, Annie noticed his propped-open front door, and beyond that, the corner of a blue bassinet. “Your sister’s still not back?”
“No. I’m really starting to freak out.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said, squelching the urge to comfort him with a hug. At work, she hugged parents and students and co-workers, but in this situation, a hug might imply a certain affection she shouldn’t want to share.
“The reason I’m here,” he said, shooting her a beautiful smile that did the funniest things to her breathing, “is that all hell’s breaking loose down at the station and they need me ASAP. So, anyway, I was wondering if you could hang out at my place for the next twenty-four hours? That’s the length of my shift—but I’m sure Patti’ll be back way before then.”
“You mean you want me to babysit?” Handsome Jed Hale wasn’t here to ask her on a date but to care for his sister’s triplets.
She should’ve been relieved, so why did Annie’s heart sink? Why didn’t men see her for her, but only for her knack with kids?
Worse yet, why did she care?
Hadn’t she just established the fact that she had no current interest in any man?
“Yeah. Babysit. Oh—and of course I’ll pay. What’s the going rate?”
Bam. Annie’s ego took another nosedive.
Now the guy was even bringing money into it?
Why couldn’t he just offer to take her out for a nice friendly steak dinner once his sister finally showed up?
“Annie? What do you say? Can you help me out?”
Noooo, she wanted to scream.
Hanging out with kids was her day job.
At night, she did grown-up things like scraping ceilings and glazing walls and sipping wine and playing Scrabble.
And if she was honest…
Dreaming of what her life might’ve been like had she met a guy who didn’t hit or take advantage of her ability to move an infant from screaming to sleeping in twenty seconds.
What were the odds of a woman being so cursed in love?
“I know it’s short notice and stuff,” he said, those intriguing brown-gold eyes of
his eloquently pleading his case. “But I really could use your help.”
“Okay,” Annie finally said, hating herself for being so easily drawn in by Jed’s puppy-dog sadness. She had to remind herself she wasn’t doing this for him, but for the babies.
If she’d learned anything during her years with Conner, it was that guys with ready-made families were only after one thing. And it had way more to do with heating up formula than anything that went on in the bedroom. “What time do you want me over?”
He winced. “Would now be too soon?”
ANNIE LOOKED UP from her seat at the end of Jed’s black leather sofa and came uncomfortably close to keeling over in an old-fashioned swoon.
Wow.
He stood at the base of the stairs, dressed in plain uniform navy cotton pants and a bicep-hugging navy T-shirt with a yellow Pecan Fire Department logo on the chest pocket. His choppy, short dark hair was damp from the shower.
He’d shaved, and the scent of his citrus aftershave drifted the short distance to where she sat. The mere sight of him, let alone his smell, implied clean, simple, soul-deep goodness. He was a fireman, charged with keeping helpless grandmas and grandpas and babies and kittens safe from smoke and flames.
It probably would’ve sounded crazy had she tried to explain her sudden reaction to the man. But in that moment, she knew he would never hurt her—at least not physically, the way Troy had.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this for me,” he said.
“Sure. It’s no big deal.”
“Yes, it is.” He walked the rest of the way down the stairs. “You hardly know me, yet you’re giving up your time to help me out. In my book, that makes you good people.”
His words returned the warm tingle to her belly. She stood, not sure what to do with her flighty hands or dry mouth. “I already told you,” she said. “It’s no biggie.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then peered down at his black uniform shoes. “To me, it’s a very big deal. Don’t discount the value of what you do.”
The urge to hug him came back. In those opulent eyes of his she’d caught a glimpse of sadness. Fear for his sister? Or something more?
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