Книга - Daddy Daycare

Daddy Daycare
Laura Marie Altom


Bringing Up…Daddy?Fatherhood wasn't on CEO Travis Callahan's life plan, but his baby niece, Libby, needs him. He's always understood the word duty, and if his new role requires changing diapers and midnight feedings, so be it!Unfortunately, taking care of a six-month-old isn't as easy as running a corporation, and Travis is soon in over his head. Luckily for him, former flame Kit Wells is more than happy to help. As part owner of the daycares she ran with Travis's sister, Kit can teach him all about diaper duty. But can she teach him what it feels like to be part of a family?And will Kit be the one who makes it whole…?









“Your sister begged me to make sure Libby stays with us.”


“Us?” Travis gave Kit a cautious half smile that reminded her so much of when they’d been kids. Back when it had taken her a minute to breathe after he’d shyly confessed his attraction for her.

“Well…” She licked her lips. “She said us, you and me together, but I’m sure she meant me in the short-term, then you for the long-term.”

“Sure.”

“Because otherwise, she would’ve meant us as a couple, only Marlene was never really the matchmaking type. Besides, she knew I’m happy with Levi.”

“Right. And that I’m not the relationship type.”

“Of course.” Travis had stopped at an intersection, and though the cars whizzed along the paved highway they faced, flooding the truck’s cab with a much-needed breeze, for Kit, the temperature under Travis’s hooded gaze blazed as hot as ever.

“So what do you want, Travis?”


Dear Reader,

What’s more fun than a summer fling? Late-night walks, holding hands to the accompaniment of moonlight and crickets—or mosquitoes if you’re in my neck of the woods! Luckily for Kit and Travis, they live in a fictional Arkansas town, where there are no whiny bugs—just romance.

Back before I became old and married, summer romances were always my favorite. I was a “Bandie,” meaning every summer I packed up my clarinet and headed off to the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville campus for band camp. Sure, we were supposed to be practicing our instruments, but what we mostly got practice on was scoping new guys!

The best part of camp was always the dance held at week’s end. Sure, it was sad, knowing you’d soon say goodbye to all your new friends, but the poignancy of the moment seemed to add urgency, accelerating relationships that ordinarily might take all year. After a few sweet kisses, it was over, save for letter writing that eventually faded along with summer’s heat.

Travis and Kit first met the summer he was seventeen and she was sixteen. Now they’re all grown-up and it’s summer again. Will things work out any better for them this time? Hmm…Beats me. You’ll have to read the book to find out!

Happy reading,

Laura Marie ;-)


Daddy Daycare

Laura Marie Altom






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


After college (Go Hogs!), bestselling, award-winning author Laura Marie Altom did a brief stint as an interior designer before becoming a stay-at-home mom to boy/girl twins. Always an avid romance reader, she knew it was time to try her hand at writing when she found herself replotting the afternoon soaps.

When not immersed in her next story, Laura enjoys an almost glamorous lifestyle of zipping around in a convertible while trying to keep her dog from leaping out, and constantly striving to reach the bottom of the laundry basket—a feat she may never accomplish! For real fun, Laura is content to read, do needlepoint and cuddle with her kids and handsome hubby.

Laura loves hearing from readers at either P.O. Box 2074, Tulsa, OK 74101, or e-mail: BaliPalm@aol.com (mailto:BaliPalm@aol.com). Or check out lauramariealtom.com (http://lauramariealtom.com).




Books by Laura Marie Altom


HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

1028—BABIES AND BADGES

1043—SANTA BABY

1074—TEMPORARY DAD

1086—SAVING JOE * (#litres_trial_promo)

1099—MARRYING THE MARSHAL * (#litres_trial_promo)

1110—HIS BABY BONUS * (#litres_trial_promo)

1123—TO CATCH A HUSBAND * (#litres_trial_promo)


For Betty Anne Miller and Dixie Miller—There aren’t enough words to describe how thankful I am to you two for being such great temp moms to my Hannah! (Not to mention such super friends to me!) We wouldn’t have made it through middle school without you!




Contents


Chapter One (#uedccee2c-6a2a-5aef-9afb-51c5b1c8178e)

Chapter Two (#u83e6dfe0-47db-583f-80c0-31ebc707df9c)

Chapter Three (#u1a1b0380-3b82-5cf4-95a0-3d6f9159882c)

Chapter Four (#u71ba457e-09e0-5d02-9bfe-69d5bcb6c80a)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)




Chapter One


“Ouch,” Kit Wells said with a whimper, rubbing the back of her throbbing head. Never had she known such pain.

Well…at least physical pain. The emotional pain of losing her best friend in a freak car accident—that was still as crushing as it had been yesterday when Marlene died in her arms.

Focusing on the task at hand, which was fishing one of her best gold earrings out from under CEO Travis Callahan’s desk, she snatched the errant piece of jewelry, then backed up, only to slam the top of her head when she rose too early.

She was still on the floor when the office’s door creaked open. Between the stars flashing before her eyes and the ball-and-claw feet of navy leather wing chairs she spied a pair of obviously expensive black, highly polished wingtip shoes. Wearing those were long, long legs encased in creased black dress pants. As her gaze traveled up, she saw a matching black jacket, starched white shirt and red-striped power tie. After a quick gulp, Kit summoned the courage to finish her visual sweep. Precision-cut short dark hair, chiseled features and eyes the shade of fresh-ground coffee made it official—the man was gorgeous. Even better than thirteen years earlier, when he’d last visited her hometown of IdaBelle Falls.

“Um, hi,” she said with a faint smile. “Remember me? I’m Kit. The girl you, um…well, you know, under your grandmother’s backyard mulberry tree.” Though she felt like conking herself on her already swimming head for blurting that bit of inane history—despite that to date, his kisses, among other things, were still some of her best in memory—Kit yanked down the hem of her brown prairie-style skirt, then tried scrambling to her feet. In fact, Travis’s kisses had been so dreamy, his technique had even topped that of Brad Foley, the B-movie actor who’d finished the job of demolishing what had been left of Kit’s heart after Travis left town. But that was a long story best forgotten.

As of late, she’d settled into a nice, safe engagement with local hardware store owner Levi Petty. What Levi lacked in animal magnetism and flash, he more than made up for in good old-fashioned family values and stability.

“Need help?” She looked up to see Travis’s proffered hand, which she took, only to regret it. No way were her sparks for him as intense as when she’d been a gangly teen and he’d been equally handsome. Both of which were entirely inappropriate observations considering the task she’d flown all the way from IdaBelle Falls to downtown Chicago to do.

“Um, please,” she said, releasing him the instant she was back on her sturdy sandals. Never had she wished she was more the polished sophisticate like all the other women she’d seen in the building, but since she was only going to be here long enough to tell Travis her news, then be out on an afternoon flight, it really hadn’t made sense to blow much-needed cash on some swanky outfit she’d wear only once. She really shouldn’t have spent the money to come here. But when her friend Alex, who was on the IdaBelle Falls police force, said they’d intended to tell Travis the news over the phone, out of love for his sister Kit had begged Mitch to let her break the news herself.

“Thanks,” she said, brushing at her behind, then adjusting her fitted brown-and-gold shirt before moving up to secure her disastrous head full of curly dark hair, which had sprung free of its clip.

“You’re welcome. And yes, I remember you and the mulberry tree. My sister speaks of you often—at least when she’s not barraging me with amazing baby feats performed by my adorable niece.” The smile he flashed would’ve been perfect, only it didn’t quite reach his eyes. And as far as Kit knew, through Marlene, Travis hadn’t cracked a genuine smile since he’d taken this CEO gig.

At the mention of Travis’s sister—Kit’s longtime best friend—bone-deep sorrow reclaimed her. Yes, telling Travis in person about Marlene’s death was the right thing to do but also agonizingly hard.

“Not to be rude,” he asked, “but would you mind letting me in on the gag my sister no doubt put you up to that’s led to you being camped out in my office?”

Tears stung her eyes, but Kit stoically blinked them away. Now was not the time for more of her own mourning. She had to be strong. Travis would need her, as would his adorable baby niece, Libby.

“Simple,” Kit said, forcing a deep breath. “We need to talk. And…” She fumbled her hands at her waist. “Well, it’s one of those conversations best held in person.”

“Sure,” he said, scratching his head. “Makes perfect sense.” Glancing around as if he expected someone else to pop out at any moment yelling Surprise! he asked, “So? Where is she?”

“Marlene?” Kit’s heart raced and her mouth went dry. She couldn’t tell him his sister was dead like this. Not while standing around his office, shooting the breeze. Forcing a half smile, she replied, “She’s not here. How about we sit, then I’ll tell you all about her.”

“Sure,” he said, eyeing her as if she were a three-headed alien fresh off the ship from Mars. “But first I need to take care of business.” He gestured toward a private bath she hadn’t before noticed.

“Sure.” Reddening from the coral-painted tips of her toes to the top of her head, Kit stumbled into the nearest chair. “I’ll, uh, wait.”

“Thanks. That’d be great.”

WITH THE RESTROOM DOOR closed, for the first time since grasping Kit’s hand, Travis Callahan breathed.

On the outside he might seem as if he had life by the balls—at least he hoped that was how he came across—but on the inside it was a whole different beast. Not that he wasn’t one hundred percent at the top of his game, but the international electronics world kept changing. Growing evermore high-staked. Though he happened to be damned good at what he did—supervising the design and manufacture of an array of electronics ranging from flat-panel TVs to personal MP3 players—that didn’t mean Travis liked his job.

What he did, in the simplest of terms, was done out of respect for the paternal grandparents who’d raised him. The company had been his grandfather’s baby since a time when phonographs had been all the rage. So when, on his deathbed, Mitchell Callahan handed the reins to Travis days before his twenty-second birthday, what else could he have done but graciously accept, then carry on the family tradition? Up until five minutes ago he’d been mindlessly numb doing just that. Which was why being faced with this fresh-faced, pretty blast from his past had caught him off guard. Reminded him of secret hopes and dreams best forgotten.

After taking care of business, then washing and drying his hands, he stood at the counter for ten long seconds, staring at himself in the mirror. Maybe, with any luck, when he stepped outside that door, his security team would’ve gotten their heads out of their behinds enough to realize the woman who looked better dressed for a relaxed day at the county fair didn’t belong at Rose Industries.

Forcing a deep breath, he squared his shoulders, knowing most folks found his six-three height intimidating. Why, he didn’t pretend to know, but that’s how he wanted Kit to feel—intimidated. Because, dammit, that’s what she’d done to him. He’d once felt comfortable around not only her but other women, like Natalie—the college coed he’d fully planned to marry after getting out of Notre Dame. But then he’d caught her in bed graduation night with his supposed best friend and frat brother. Ever since, he’d sworn off women in favor of business. Oh, sure, he enjoyed long-legged companionship as much as the next guy—assuming she left his Lakeshore Drive penthouse long before sunrise—but for the most part he preferred avoiding the fairer sex altogether.

“Better?” she asked when he emerged from the bathroom.

He cast her a half grin before landing behind his antique mahogany desk. Oddly enough, that one small step went a long way toward regaining the control that’d only briefly been lost in his head. Suddenly Travis did feel better. In control.

He cleared his throat. “It’s been great catching up, but as you can see—” he gestured to the foot-high stack of paperwork threatening to topple “—I’ve got a full plate. So, what’s the problem? My sister need more shopping cash or lost her ATM card? Where is she, by the way?”

Even though it’d been over a decade since Travis had last seen Kit, her grass-green eyes were still piercing, her smile still pretty—at least until it faded like the sun blanketed by clouds. She then began fidgeting, rummaging through a purse that looked more like a small picnic basket until she found a tissue. Next came a slight hiccup before a full-force gale leading to a teary monsoon.

“Hey, whoa…” he said, walking out from behind his desk to slip his arm around her—in a strictly brotherly way. Nothing remotely like the way he used to hold her all those years ago. Not sure what else to do, he gave her a few awkward pats. “I’m, uh, sure everything’s going to be okay.”

“No,” she said, “not ever. Oh, Travis. Marlene, she’s—”

Travis’s intercom buzzed. “Mr. Callahan, Steve Ford from Kline and Foster is holding on line three. He says it’s urgent.”

Crap. Torn between the sobbing beauty in front of him and the make-or-break deal awaiting him on the phone, Travis weighed his options. Door number one: do the decent thing and help his sister’s gal pal through whatever crisis had her down. No doubt boyfriend or money trouble. Temporarily frustrating but ultimately fixable. Door number two: get the kinks worked out of a merger he’d been setting up for close to a year that would net Rose Industries a cool fifty million.

“Sorry…” he said to the woman who might as well have been from another lifetime. One in which he hadn’t been the jaded, world-weary soul he was today. “I’ve got to take this call.”

She nodded and sniffled.

He gave her back another pat.

Five minutes later, back behind his desk, he hung up the phone. “You any better?”

“No,” she said, even though she’d nodded.

“Well, if it’s love that’s got you down, no doubt Marlene and her big mouth have let you in on the fact that I don’t get it—the whole institution—so I won’t be of much help to you there. However, if you’ve got creditors on your back, I’d be happy to see what I can do.”

“Th-thank you,” she said, “but neither of those scenarios apply. I wish they did, but—”

“Mr. Callahan, Helena Liatos with Vamvakidis Shipping is on line two. She says it’s urgent.”

“Go ahead,” his sister’s friend said. “The news I have will wait. Your sister’s already dead.”

He’d been on the line a good two minutes when he said to the woman Kit presumed was Helena, “I’m going to transfer you to my money man for your answer.” Ten seconds later, his intense dark gaze focused on her, he asked, “What did you say?”

“I’m sorry, Travis. I’d planned to break it to you gently, but—”

“Look…” He shook his head. “I know I haven’t visited Marlie like I should. And as for you, well, what we shared was amazing. But I really don’t see how that gives the two of you the right to barge in here, mucking up my day with sick practical jokes when—”

“Trust me,” she said, swallowing hard. “This is no joke. I’m sorry, Travis. So very sorry. But your sister’s dead.”

“What?” Travis lurched forward in his chair. Surely he hadn’t heard Kit right? But the grim set of her once-smiling mouth had him thinking otherwise. She dug in her picnic basket of a purse again and pulled out a press clipping, which she handed to him. Under a heading that read “Fiery Crash Destroys Young Family” were two photos. One of a mangled car, the other the most recent photo Marlene had had taken of Libby when a traveling photographer had been at the Hartsville Wal-Mart four weeks ago. Travis knew when it’d been taken because Marlie had sent him a copy. Logically, he thought, if she was still around to send pictures, making him feel guilty about already having missed so much of Libby’s small life, then this visit from Kit was no doubt another ploy to get him to—

“It was sudden,” Kit said. “I was babysitting and she and Gary were driving home from Joe’s Tavern—you know, that old two-step place out on Highway 14? Marlene loves—loved—to dance. Anyway, Gary hadn’t had a drop to drink all night, but you know how foggy it gets on Bald Mountain. A truck driver cut that sharp curve by the abandoned gas station. G-Gary—he died instantly. But Marlene hung on long enough to—”

“No,” Travis said with a firm shake of his head. Pushing his chair back, he stood. Paced before the stunning floor-to-ceiling view of glistening Lake Michigan. It was a breezy day and the shoreline was alive with sailboats. Travis had always wanted to learn to sail—not that he didn’t already know the basics from back when he’d taken lessons as a kid, but he now wanted to know the exhilarating sport inside and out. Just hadn’t yet had the time. Maybe when Marlene finally moved back home to Chicago they could pick a boat together. Something with a safe spot for Libby and landlubber Gary, who was a great guy.

G-Gary—he died instantly. But Marlene hung on long enough to—

Travis pressed the heels of his hands to stinging eyes.

The intercom buzzed. “Mr. Callahan, Helena Liatos is back on line two. She says it’s crucial that you—”

“Hold all my calls,” Travis barked into the system’s microphone.

Lips pressed tight, he shook his head. “I just talked to Marlie—what?—last week? So this can’t be right,” he said in reference to the press clip’s date. He tapped it. “I remember because she’d been yapping at me about coming down to Arkansas for the Fourth of July, but with this merger and everything I—”

“At the time of her death, police were going to call you, but I thought it’d be better—kinder-—to tell you like this. Face-to-face. She loved you very much.”

“Our grandparents always wanted her to come back. Her place was here.”

“She always said she had no head for business. You have to know she loved Gary—and her life in IdaBelle Falls—very much. She was happy. Working alongside you at Rose Industries wasn’t for her.”

“Nice she had a choice,” he thundered, turning to slam his fist on the desk. Out of a sense of duty he’d taken over the business, while, after inheriting their maternal grandmother’s place two years after graduating from Michigan State, Marlie had run off to Arkansas to play on the farm. He’d told her he didn’t mind, but deep inside he’d wanted her here. He’d missed indulging her rebellious streak since her every whim had shown him glimpses of what a less-structured life might be like. Her free spirit had filled him with just enough crazy urges to run off to Tahiti to make him see how asinine such a step would be. “Where does she think the money comes from to fund her laid-back country lifestyle?”

“I know you’re upset,” Kit said, “but that doesn’t give you the right to put her down. And, for the record, she never spent a dime of the money you sent her—well, not after we had the initial investment we needed to get the daycares rolling.”

“She’s not dead.”

She rose, tried awkwardly to slip her arms around him, but Travis shrugged her away before resuming his pace across the large room.

“This isn’t happening,” he said.

“I know. I mean, I know how you must feel. I was pretty out of it myself for a while. But there was Libby to consider, and—”

“Where is she? How is she?” he asked, staring out the windows. “My niece.”

“She’s fine. With Gary’s parents, but—”

Turning, Travis strode across the office to throw open the door. To his secretary he said, “Mrs. Holmes, please see if the corporate jet is available.”




Chapter Two


Oppressive July heat shimmered off a runway barely long enough to accommodate the plane. The terminal consisted of what was essentially a fancy shed boasting a sign that read IdaBelle Falls, USA. Rolling green hills lined with forest flattened into valleys of prime grazing pastures. Travis had been to IdaBelle Falls once since his sister up and moved to their maternal grandmother’s home. While her inheriting it hadn’t been a surprise, her leaving Chicago to live there had.

Though the gentleman that’d been drummed into Travis since he’d been a small boy offered his hand to help Kit down the plane’s short, steep flight of stairs, his mind was on matters other than how small and fragile her fingers felt in his. As Marlie’s best friend, Kit must be hurting. But part of his problem was how could he be of comfort to her when a large part of him still didn’t believe it was true—that his sister was really gone?

Marlene always had been trying to get him to come for a visit. So he could see how her “kinder, gentler way of life” was presumably so much better than his. She’d wanted him to be “real.” One thing he’d never gotten her to understand was his all-too real sense of duty to keep the family business in the family. More times than he could count, she’d urged him to cash out and spend the rest of his life having fun. Pursuing his own dreams—whatever they may be—not his grandfather’s. Sounded good in theory, but responsibility was so deeply ingrained in Travis, how was he supposed to turn beach bum now? Or, for that matter, take up a slower paced life here in the town Marlene had so loved?

Just thinking her name sent a pang ripping through him.

She can’t be gone, he thought, using every shred of willpower to keep his composure.

He’d watched out for her since they’d been kids. Their chronically battling folks had died young. Their adventure-seeking dad broke his neck while hang gliding off Baja. Travis had been thirteen. Marlie ten. Their mom died three years later from a drug overdose backstage at some Goth concert she’d been attending with her latest boyfriend, who had been twenty years her junior. Yes, their parents’ deaths had been rough. But as cold as it might seem, since he and Marlie essentially had been raised by their paternal grandparents and an endless succession of servants, they hadn’t missed their parents all that much.

They’d had each other. Yeah, a lot of times Marlene had been a pain in Travis’s ass, but most times she’d been a cute mascot he and his friends had enjoyed having around.

“There’s Levi,” Kit said, quickening her pace to the tall, lean man standing, arms crossed, beside a mud-splattered red pickup.

Travis inwardly groaned. Levi was Kit’s fiancé. During the hour-long flight, Travis had learned the apparently perfect man owned the town’s only hardware/lumber store and had helped renovate the big red barn Marlie and Kit purchased to house the latest of their six daycares, which were in neighboring small towns. Kit traveled to each center, acting in a managerial position and occasionally filling in as needed while Marlene had done the books.

Travis couldn’t fathom why, but it irked him seeing Levi hold Kit proprietarily close, planting a brief kiss on her lips before settling in for a long hug.

Kit had tried giving Travis a hug back in his office, but he’d sidestepped the affection. Now, alone on a hot runway that reeked of jet fuel, Travis could’ve very much used a hug. So far from his desk, he didn’t feel like a powerful CEO but like the kid who’d arrived at this same airport well over a decade earlier, about to meet his maternal grandmother for only the second time.

He remembered his grandmother as a warm, simple woman. Her home a barely standing two-story, three-bedroom hodgepodge of additions. A day into his and Marlie’s visit, their grandmother had introduced them to the neighbor girl, Kit. From that moment on he’d been smitten by the long-legged brunette’s many charms.

For an endless summer he’d been part of the small town community. Felt as if he’d genuinely belonged.

If he were brutally honest, Kit had been his first love. Hell, maybe his only real love. And his feelings hadn’t been about the physical—the making love—that had drawn him to her. Everything about her from her cute accent to her casual clothes to her unabashed belly laughs had been miles from his stuffy, painfully polite upbringing. Her carefree spirit had reeled him in from her first friendly hello.

On a sweltering August Sunday, at this same airport, saying goodbye to Kit and her uncluttered way of life had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Sure, they’d promised to write, but after a couple letters apiece, as much as he’d still cared for her, the guys at his private school had ribbed him mercilessly for his summer fling with an Arkie. And so, bowing to peer pressure—something that still deeply shamed him—he’d put Kit, their magical summer and an unobtainable longing to be part of a real family from his mind.

Until now, when Kit was the only tangible link to anything he’d once known. Sure, there was Libby, but she barely knew him. And yet, from this moment on, due to a tragic twist of fate, he was to be her father. Father. How could he be good for Libby when half the time he wasn’t all that sure he was doing such a hot job raising himself?

“Hey,” said Levi, dressed in faded jeans, a red T-shirt and white Razorbacks cap. He held out his calloused hand for Travis to shake. “You must be that hotshot CEO brother Marlene was all the time talking about.”

Travis winced. Was that how his sister saw him?

With a partial smile, Travis returned the man’s handshake.

“Sorry about Marlene and Gary,” Levi said, taking Travis’s lone black bag and setting it in the truck’s bed. “They were a great couple. Everyone loved them.”

Travis’s throat tightened.

Thankfully, after a few awkward moments of silence, Kit said, “Well, guess we should get going.”

“Yeah.” Levi opened his door. “I left old Ben in charge, and you know how he is about getting so wrapped up in his afternoon soaps that he forgets we even have customers.”

On the way to the passenger side of Kit’s fiancé’s pickup, Travis asked the obvious. “Why not get rid of the TV? Or old Ben?”

“Simple,” Levi said, climbing behind the wheel. “The women who come in watch TV while their husbands shop, and I give them popcorn popped with the special coconut oil I sell. Since adding the TV and snacks, plus a few shelves of girlie knickknacks, my overall sales have gone up thirty percent.”

“Sweet,” Travis said, removing his suffocating suit jacket and rolling up his sleeves before climbing into the too-small cab beside Kit.

“Where to first?” Levi asked.

Kit said, “Travis wants to see Libby.”

“You’re evidently a very brave or a very stupid man,” Levi said, starting the truck, then putting it into gear.

“How’s that?” Travis loosened his tie, wishing he’d had Mrs. Holmes look into a rental limo and driver from Little Rock. Sitting this close to Kit wasn’t good. Even sweaty, she smelled intriguing. Earthy. Like the meadow where she’d taken him on a surprise picnic the afternoon after the night they’d first kissed.

Oblivious to his discomfort, Levi and Kit shared a laugh.

Kit patted Travis’s left thigh, causing still more inadvertent grief. “In meeting Gary’s parents—most especially his mother—you’re in for a real treat.”

“LIKE HELLYOU’RE TAKING my only granddaughter one foot outside city limits.” Beulah Redding, Marlene’s mother-in-law, was indeed turning out to be a treat. Five-eight and weighing a good three hundred pounds, she had a huge mass of Dolly Parton-style blond curls and a vast collection of windmills of every conceivable shape and size, including three real ones on the expansive front lawn and five out back. All that aside, the woman’s house was immaculate, as was six-month-old Libby, who was dressed in a cute pink jumper with her dark curls smelling of a recent washing and her skin scented with that baby-pink lotion Marlene had constantly been rubbing all over her.

“Be reasonable,” Travis said, helping himself to a seat on a blue velveteen sofa in the peach-colored room. “According to my sister and your son’s will, which Marlene had sent me a copy of for safekeeping in the event of…well, you know…” Travis couldn’t even bring himself to yet say the words. “Anyway, in the event we now find ourselves in, Marlene specifically named me as Libby’s guardian.”

Beulah switched off Jerry Springer, then settled into the recliner opposite the sofa. Kit, who sat on a brown floral sofa on the opposite wall beside a gurgling windmill fountain, looked every bit as uncomfortable as Travis felt. Lucky Levi had been dropped off at his store to supervise old Ben.

“I don’t care what the will says,” Beulah said, smacking the copy she’d been carrying around ever since plopping Libby into one of those baby activity seats bursting with knobs and squeakies for tiny fingers to explore, “I know in my heart he wished for me and his father to be Libby’s guardians. That way she can be raised right here with us. Learning our values—not your big city ways.”

As if he were negotiating a difficult business arrangement, Travis counted to ten in his head, then calmly cast Beulah the same always-in-control smile he’d used for his last magazine cover shoot. “While I appreciate your unique interpretation of the will’s true intent, as well as your fine home, you must know I can give Libby things—show her things—that would never be possible here in IdaBelle Falls. The Eiffel Tower. The Great Pyramids. Broadway.”

Beulah notched her chin higher. “I can show her how to can my prizewinning bread-and-butter pickles. How not to get snookered when buying windmills off of eBay.”

Travis cleared his throat. “That’s all well and good, but I’ll provide a world-class education.”

Sitting straighter, Beulah said, “You implying our teachers here in IdaBelle Falls are somehow lacking? Because if you are, you can go right back to that big city of yours and ask how many of their schools had a record thirty-five students out of a graduating class of fifty go on to college. And most all of them on scholarships, I might add.”

“While that’s an impressive statistic,” Travis noted, fixing the woman with his best boardroom stare, “I’ve faxed the will to my corporate attorney, and he assures me that no matter your objections, I have the legal right to pack up Libby and take her wherever I please.”

“No offense to your high-and-mighty corporate attorney, but in case you’ve forgotten, I’m contesting that will,” Beulah fired right back with a saccharine-sweet power smile of her own. “My legal counsel filed a court order barring you from taking my granddaughter outside county lines until a judge has time to hear both sides of our dilemma. Meaning, my granddaughter will remain with me until a formal decision is made.”

“Look…” Clenching his jaw and trying his damnedest to remain even-keeled when what he really wanted was to blow, Travis stood and walked the five feet to Beulah’s recliner. “I have no wish to make this ugly, but apparently on her deathbed my sister told Kit that she wanted me to raise Libby. I loved my sister very much and want nothing more than to abide by her wishes.”

“Oh,” Beulah said, also rising to her feet. “And seeing how you loved her so much, is that why you’ve only seen Libby once since she was born? And that was only because Marlene and my son brought the baby to you. Libby doesn’t even know you, yet I’m with her several times a week. Now, logically speaking, who do you think is best suited to care for her? Me, her loving grandmother who’s already raised one child of my own? Or you, Mr. Callahan, a bachelor so selfish and concerned with his own agenda that he didn’t even have time to pencil in the occasional visit to his supposedly beloved sister. And another thing—have you ever in your whole life even changed a diaper? Let alone fixed a bottle or done a load of wash? We’re Libby’s family. With your history, do you even know the meaning of family? Why, I’ll bet—”

“That’ll be enough,” an older man said, stepping into their not-so-happy group. Extending his hand to Travis, he said, “I’m Frank Redding, by the way. I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but truthfully I’ve had better times meeting cottonmouths.”

Likewise. Travis clenched his fists along with his jaw.

Not that he’d ever come face-to-face with one of the supposedly nasty snakes, but he damn sure took offense at being compared to one of the mean little bastards. What bothered him most, though, was how much Beulah’s verbal attack stung. He knew damn well what a family was. And in his heart he also knew it hadn’t been selfishness keeping him away from his sister and IdaBelle Falls all these years but an uncomfortable, far deeper emotion.

Libby started to cry.

Both Travis and Beulah lunged for her, but Kit did, too, and seeing how she was closest, she won. “Listen to you, Beulah, going on about how you’re an expert on family and babies, yet raising your voice right here in front of poor little Libby, who’s already been through so much.”

“Sorry,” Beulah said. “I just…well, when I think about this stranger here, running off to Chicago with the apple of my eye, raising her with no one around but nannies, I can’t stand it.”

“It’ll be all right,” Gary’s father said, putting his arm around Beulah’s quaking shoulders.

Libby was still fitfully crying.

“Here’s what I propose,” Kit said, easing up beside Travis with the baby. He suddenly wanted to hold both girls. Libby represented his only flesh-and-blood link to his sister. And Kit, as Marlene’s best friend, would always hold a special place in his—what? Had he been about to think heart? Because if so, that was screwy; he hardly knew the woman. He was only feeling abnormally close to her because of his sister’s sudden death. Certainly not because of one hot summer he’d gotten over a long time ago. “Why not let Libby choose?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Beulah said with a put-upon sigh.

“Is it?” Gary’s father asked, looking intrigued.

“Whose side are you on?” she asked her husband.

“Libby’s,” the man said. “Until the judge has his say, I think it’s only fair the little gal has her own.”

“Fine,” Beulah said. “Hands down, I’ll win. But if this showdown makes y’all feel better, so be it.” She held out her arms to Kit. “Pass her over.” Cradling Libby, Beulah crooned and coddled, but no amount of talk calmed her.

“My turn,” Travis said a few minutes later.

“Be my guest,” Beulah said. “But when she gets like this, there’s no comforting her.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Travis took Libby into his arms, then headed for the rocking chair he’d earlier spied on the glassed in, air-conditioned front porch. Comfortably seated in the chair, tears stinging his eyes, he recalled a late-night phone call he’d had with Marlie when Libby had been two months old. The baby had been going through cranky spells in the middle of the night, and Marlene had said the only way she’d found to calm her was by rocking her, rubbing the small of her back and singing the Oscar Mayer wiener song—a ditty she’d accidentally discovered the baby enjoyed when it’d soothed her while Marlene had been up watching TV.

Humming the familiar strains, Travis clutched his niece as if his life depended on her. Hell, maybe his life did depend upon her. Ever since hearing of Marlene’s death, he’d been so wrapped up in the logistics of getting to IdaBelle Falls and making sure Libby ended up with him that it hadn’t even sunk in that his funny, opinionated, cute, talented sister was gone.

With Libby sound asleep against his chest, her slight weight and warmth bringing unfathomable comfort, Travis looked up to find Kit swiping at a few tears of her own.

“We have a winner,” she softly said.

Beulah snorted. “No one told me we could use the rocking chair. Oldest baby trick in the book. He clearly cheated. But seeing how I’m a God-fearing woman, I won’t be one to go back on my word. Long as you keep an eye on him, Kit, Travis’s welcome to take my grandbaby to her home. But if he so much as breathes a word about heading back to Chicago…”

“THANKS FOR YOUR HELP back there,” Travis said from behind the wheel of Levi’s truck. Libby was buckled into her safety seat on the passenger side, leaving Kit in the middle to care for her. Travis had to admit—out of Beulah’s earshot, anyway—he knew just enough to be dangerous when it came to caring for an infant.

When Marlene and Gary had named Travis as Libby’s godfather, he’d taken the title seriously, but it’d never occurred to him he’d actually wind up one day becoming the girl’s substitute father. In fact, the couple had often teased him that eventually, once he had kids of his own, he’d see there was more to life than business. Laughing, he’d always said, Yeah, yeah, that day’ll never come. Yet look at him now. An instant father halfway wondering if maybe Libby would be better off living with her grandmother.

“Not a problem,” Kit said. “I was winging it, hoping like the devil you’d remember Marlene’s wiener-song trick.”

“She never told Beulah?” Coming to a four-way stop on the dirt road, he cast a sideways glance at Kit. Back in the blazing heat, her skin glowed. She’d had her dark hair up all day, but sweat-dampened tendrils escaped. She’d raised her skirt above her knees, baring endless tanned legs that, on countless sweltering nights in Foster’s swimming hole, she’d wrapped around him, giving him teenage hard-ons so intense they’d hurt. Then, one thing had led to another and he was burying himself deep inside her. She’d made everything better. Good. Whole.

Why had he never told her how much she’d brought to his life?

With a sharp laugh, Kit said, “To say the two didn’t get along would be the understatement of the century.”

“Yeah. On a few of her calls, Marlene intimated as much. Said Beulah didn’t approve of her cooking.” Even as Travis had spoken, he couldn’t take his eyes off the elegant column of Kit’s throat. He should’ve told her. Maybe before returning to Chicago he would. Assuming he found the right moment or—

“Um, Travis?” She glanced at him curiously. “You forget how to use the gas pedal? I’d like to get Libby out of this heat.”

“Oh, sure.” He checked the intersection again and pressed the gas.

Truth be told, Kit thought, who she really wanted out of the heat was herself—only the rising temps in the truck’s cab had nothing to do with Mother Nature and everything to do with the boy she’d once fancied herself in love with who’d turned into one heckuva hunk of man. Not that she found him more attractive than Levi, just that she felt an unexpected familiarity with Travis and, in the same breath, a rush of city excitement and attraction she’d thought forever gone. On many lonely nights, wished forever gone.

She’d worked hard to get over what her mother and friends had considered a high school crush. So hard that after graduation she’d fallen right into another impossible relationship with Brad Foley, a B-movie actor in town filming a period piece about moonshining. After being burned twice by city guys looking for a temporary good time, Kit had learned her lesson and was now glad for her long-standing engagement to a local who had no plans to leave IdaBelle Falls and had been there for her for as long as she could remember. He was her rock. Solid. Dependable. Like the big brother she’d never had—only kissable! Levi hadn’t wanted to set a wedding date until he’d built a proper nest egg, which he’d promised would be soon six months ago.

Heading down the dusty road, Kit was relieved to get her thoughts back to the current matter at hand when Travis asked, “What do you make of Beulah contesting Gary and Marlene’s will?”

Kit shrugged. “I don’t for a second believe she’ll win. Levi and I used to double date with your sister and her husband at least once a week, and as far as I knew, Gary thought his mother was sweet but smothering. Well-intentioned but hopelessly controlling.”

“Think the judge will toss her case?”

“Don’t know,” Kit said. “I can’t imagine Marlene ever wanting this. As she was dying, she begged me to make sure Libby stays with us.”

“Us?” He cast her a cautious half smile that reminded her so much of when they’d been kids. Back when it had taken her a minute to breathe after he’d shyly confessed his attraction for her.

“Well…” Kit licked her lips. “She said us, you and me together, but I’m sure she meant me in the short term, then you for the long term.”

“Sure.”

“Because otherwise she would’ve meant us as a couple, only Marlene was never really the match-making type.”

“No. No, she wasn’t.”

“Besides which, she knows I’m happy with Levi.”

“Right. And that I’m not the relationship type.”

“Of course.” He’d braked for another stop sign, and though cars whizzed along the paved highway they faced, flooding the truck’s cab with much-needed breeze, for Kit, the temperature under Travis’s hooded gaze blazed as hot as ever.

His dark eyes were beseeching. As if he desperately wanted, needed something from her, but wasn’t sure what.

So she gave him a nudge when she asked, “Beyond losing Marlene, what’s hurting you, Travis?”




Chapter Three


“Excuse me?” Travis squinted at Kit, making her feel about as needed as a pesky fly. Obviously, as in her disastrous fling with Brad, she’d totally misread the current situation. Travis most likely didn’t need or want for anything but a refreshing, cool shower and a light meal. Least of all, he didn’t want her, making her feel silly and stupid and sentimental for even having asked the question. Most of all for the brief flash of wanting something from him—namely the comfort of just being near him. Of knowing that, in his own way, he’d loved his sister every bit as fiercely as she had.

“Nothing,” Kit said, fussing over the lace trim on Libby’s jumper. Why did she always want to fix not only things but people? Especially people who didn’t need to be fixed. Travis was the embodiment of success. He was one of the top CEOs in the country. He had brains, talent and immense wealth. What could he possibly want from her?

“You as bone-tired as I am?” she asked, blaming exhaustion on her odd mood.

“Yep.” He pulled onto the highway, heading toward the airport.

“Did you forget that Marlene and Gary’s new house and our latest daycare are a few miles in the other direction?”

“Nope.”

“Then where are you going?”

“Home.”

“What do you mean home?” she asked, angling on the cramped seat as best she could to face him. “As in Chicago?”

“Come with me. At least for a little while. I’ll need help with Libby for the first few days. Hell,” he said with a swipe of his hair, “make that the first few years. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, but I’ll—we’ll—figure it out.”

“Hello?” she said, flashing her hand in front of his deadpan gaze. “Marlene and Gary’s funeral is in two days. And what about court order don’t you understand?”

He snorted. “We’ll fly back for the funeral. And my lawyer got his degree from Harvard. Beulah’s no doubt got his on the Internet. Who do you think’s going to win?”

Lips set in a grim line, Kit shook her head. “Not that it’s any of my business, but I think you’ve sorely underestimated the power of your adversary.”

“You can’t be serious? The woman collects windmills and cans pickles. How tough a foe can she be?”

“Have you ever canned pickles in the heat of summer?”

“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

“And that seemingly derelict windmill alongside Beulah’s weeping willow? It’s fifteenth-century. She had it shipped over from England. Reassembled it piece by piece all on her own. Trust me, the woman’s tougher than you think.”

“Yeah,” Travis said with a wink, “but I’ve got deeper pockets.”

“True. But seeing how decades ago Beulah’s family moved to IdaBelle Falls to start a thorough-bred cattle business, after having already made a fortune off Oklahoma oil, I wouldn’t be so sure her lawyer isn’t also a Harvard grad—or at the very least, Yale.” Kit sent him a wink of her own, grinning at his incredulous expression.

AN HOUR LATER, AFTER Kit had changed his mind about leaving, Travis wandered through the stuffy gloom of his sister and brother-in-law’s closed-up house while Kit changed Libby’s diaper—she’d insisted, arguing there’d be time enough for him to take a turn—it finally hit him. Marlene was gone. She wouldn’t be back to use the hairbrush set on the bathroom counter. Or to complete the to-do list tacked to the fridge door with a cookie-shaped magnet.

His sister had been fiercely proud of this place, and he tried seeing it as the hopeful fixer-upper she would’ve imagined instead of as the run-down wreck it truly was. Two miles outside of town, the place was, according to his sister, one of the oldest brick homes in the county.

Though the two-story, white-columned abode looked grand from the outside, on the inside the place was a cramped, shoddy lesson in how not to restore a historic home. Plenty of cheap paneling over crumbling plaster walls and brown shag carpet hiding scratched wood floors. In the year Marlene and Gary had lived here, the only rooms they’d tackled were Libby’s pink fairy tale of a room and what Marlene called the master bedroom suite—an oasis of modern comfort in an otherwise depressing hellhole.

Travis sent Marlene thousands every month. Why hadn’t she used the money to hire contractors to do the work in a timely manner? Why had she insisted she and Gary do the work themselves? Didn’t make sense.

“You okay?” Kit asked him, Libby in her arms as she descended the staircase that split the entry hall into equal halves.

“Sort of,” Travis said with a sigh. “The way Marlene described this place, you’d have thought it was Gone With the Wind’s Tara, but…” He kicked a piece of drywall at his feet.

“They were happy here,” she said, glancing up at the stained-glass skylight lending the space an otherworldly bluish glow.

“If she’d wanted an old house, the mansion we grew up in would’ve been sufficient. Hell, aside from the servants who maintain the place for corporate retreats, it’s sat empty for years.”

“Ever stop to think,” Kit said from the bottom of the stairs, “that it wasn’t so much an old house she wanted but her own house? One that she and Gary worked on together.”

“Whatever,” Travis said, taking the baby, kissing the top of her sweet-smelling head. “I still don’t get it.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Travis asked, chasing Kit down the long, dark hall leading to the kitchen.

Yellow light from the open fridge silhouetted her before spilling into the gloom. “Think about it,” she said. “Everything Marlene wanted had been handed to her by your grandparents or servants or you. But she wanted more than material things. She wanted not just to love her family and job but to create something with her own hands. To be able to sit back at the end of a long, exhausting day and think, with a satisfied smile, I did that. I made it, I painted it, I mowed it—whatever. She had to know her life mattered. That she hadn’t spent her days like some pampered lap dog but as a contributing member of society.” She grabbed a few items from the fridge, then slammed it shut.

“So what you’re essentially saying is that Marlene felt she was in danger of wasting her life? Like me?” Travis switched on a harsh overhead light.

Kit rolled her eyes, slapping a sealed package of bologna, then mustard, on the worn white laminate counter before taking a bread loaf from the freezer. “Libby’s formula is in the third cabinet on the left. Mind opening a can while I make us a couple sandwiches? And for the record, no—Marlene never once said or even implied you were wasting your life. She just had no interest in big business. She wanted to be more hands-on.”

“Whatever,” Travis said, too tired to even conceive of the luxury of having a choice. What if he’d up and told his grandfather he’d had no interest in running Rose Industries? What would’ve happened to their thousands of worldwide employees? All of their families and their families? Thinking of how many lives would have been affected by such a decision made Travis sick. He kept at it day after day because he’d had no other choice. It was as if his life had been preordained to be this way. And who knew? Maybe he’d get a kick out of occasionally plastering or painting a wall, but the sad fact of the matter was that he didn’t have time for anything but work. When Libby would fit into his schedule he wasn’t sure. He was taking this fatherhood gig minute by minute. “Where are Libby’s bottles?”

“Here,” Kit said, picking up the plastic kind that used disposable liners from a basket on the counter. “It’s tricky getting the liners in the first couple times, so pay attention.”

“Don’t,” he said, his voice dangerously low.

“What?”

“Treat me like I’m ignorant. I have spent time with Marlene and Libby.”

“Sorry,” Kit said. “It wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to share a few helpful pointers. You forget—while your business is wheeling and dealing, mine involves a little managing and a lot of hugs.”

The doorbell rang.

They both looked to the entry hall, but it was Kit who ultimately bustled off to answer the door.

Travis had been on the verge of telling Little Miss Know-It-All to take her advice elsewhere, but then she’d added that bit about hugs and stolen his fire. He could use a hug from Kit right about now. Even back when they’d been teens she’d always known the perfect thing to say.

“Long time no see…” Levi strode across the room, tan leather work boots clomping on the kitchen’s ripped and stained navy linoleum floor. “How’s it going?”

“Great,” Travis lied, finishing up Libby’s bottle by popping the nipple into the cap, then screwing on the lid before dropping the whole thing into a bowl of hot water.

“How was the rest of your day?” Levi asked Kit, pulling her in for a proprietary hug and kiss.

Travis looked away. The last thing he needed was a front-row seat to Kit and her fiancé’s afternooner—especially when he fought a keen craving for one of Kit’s hugs for himself.

“Mmm…” Kit said with a giggle. “It’s looking up now.”

Blech.

As Marlene had taught him, Travis took the bottle from the water, then squirted some onto his forearm to check the temp. Just right.

While the lovebirds kept up their cooing, Travis took Libby from her high chair, then headed for the living room rocker.

“Sorry you had to see that,” he said to the munchkin in his arms once he’d settled into the comfortable wood chair.

Libby’s big brown eyes widened as she suckled, her tiny fingers tightly gripping the bottle.

“I know,” he teased, tickling the underside of her chin. “If you weren’t so hungry, seeing them kissing would be enough to ruin your appetite, huh?”

She giggled, and a stream of formula trickled out of the corner of her mouth and down her cheek. Travis mucked it up with his tie.

“Looks like you’ve got Libby thoroughly charmed.” Kit wandered into the room, taking a seat on a lumpy floral sofa opposite the rocker. The left sofa arm looked as if a bite had been taken out of it. White stuffing escaped the hole.

Travis shrugged. “Where’s your sidekick?”

“Levi? He’s out back feeding the dogs. They usually stay in the house, but when she’s left alone, Cocoa gets cranky—hence the hole in the sofa.” She grinned, pointing to the chewed spot Travis had already noticed. “All three dogs have been in the shed since…” Her smile faded. “Anyway, now that you’ll be staying here, I imagine the pampered mutts will be glad to get back inside—although I can’t say it’s much cooler in here than it is in the shed. We should open some windows.”

“No need,” Travis said. “I was thinking of packing up Libs here and getting a motel room.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He laughed. “Look at this place. “It’s hardly the Taj Mahal. And if I don’t get some relief from this heat, I’m liable to—”

“Figuring you wouldn’t be used to our weather,” Levi said, perching on the sofa arm beside Kit, “I brought a couple window units from the store. Marlene and Gary already put one in Libby’s room and the master, but once we get others in the living room and kitchen, it should be more doable.”

“Thanks,” Travis said, “but a motel will be fine. I’ll take the dogs to the pound on my way to a realestate office to put this old place on the market.”

“You’re joking, right?” Kit held her hand to her throat. “Your sister and Gary loved this house and their dogs. And with the barn housing the daycare on the same mortgage, a large portion of the down payment was mine. Seeing how much Marlene wanted to fix up this place, I let her take the house.”

Travis rolled his eyes. “No big deal. Just buy out my sister’s share and we’ll call it yours.”

“It’s not that easy,” Kit said. “I couldn’t possibly raise that much cash.”

“Fine.” Travis rose. Libby had long since fallen asleep, so he planned on putting her down for a nap before tackling the job of hiring the army it would take to get the place ready to put on the market. However, if he turned the house over to Kit, then all he’d have to do until the judge ruled in his favor was hang out in a motel watching ESPN, holding Libby with one arm and working from his laptop with the other. “I’ll give the house to you.”

“G-GIVE IT TO ME?” KIT gulped. “No way. I couldn’t possibly accept a gift that large.”

“Why not? If Marlene loved this house as much as you say, she’d want you to have it.”

“I agree,” Levi said. “And, babe, I know we haven’t set a wedding date yet, but if we’re even thinking of starting that family you always talk about, this place would be a great place to do it.”

“That’s a good point,” Kit said more softly than she’d intended. What Levi didn’t realize was that if Travis was unable to unload the house easily, then…what? He might stay? The thought returned her to the night Marlene died. The desperation in her raspy voice.

He needs you. Save him, Kit. No matter what he says…Keep him in IdaBelle Falls long enough for him to learn there’s more to life than—

More to life than what? What had her friend been trying to say? And why, of all places, was Kit supposed to keep Travis in IdaBelle Falls to find out?

Perhaps the even bigger question was did she even want him to stay?

No.

Yes.

Maybe.

None of which got her any closer to figuring out how to handle her first love’s abrupt reentry into her life.




Chapter Four


After spending an hour helping Levi install three window air units, Travis parked himself back in the living room rocker and was about to take his first bite of that sandwich Kit had long since fixed him when a god-awful racket erupted from the kitchen.

The clacking of claws against linoleum preceded barking, then the nose-wrinkling stench of wet fur.

“Yep,” Kit said, clapping her hands while three blurs of varying colors ran in a barking circle around the living room, then out into the entry hall, through the kitchen, back into the living room, only to start the whole process again. “I’d say they’re happy to be out of the shed. Levi, hon? Do they have any canned food inside?”

“Already dishing it out, sweetie!” he sang from the kitchen.

Rubbing his forehead, Travis groaned.

Libby didn’t know how fortunate she was to be tucked away upstairs taking a nap.

Planting his sandwich on a side table, Travis stood. Hands on his hips, he said, “This isn’t going to work.”

“What?” Kit asked.

“What do you think?” he said, eyeing the dogs, which were running slowly enough now that he could at least discern specific shapes and sizes. No way he could figure out what breed each dog was, seeing how not one of them had less than three distinct breed characteristics. The smallest, with a coat of rusty gray, looked part dachshund, part toy poodle, part Yorkie. The medium—Travis was hardly a dog expert—was probably a beagle-basset-Yorkie mix. The largest and by far oddest most closely resembled a black Lab, but the hair was shaggy like a Yorkie’s and he sported a bulldog’s flat nose. “They’ve got to go.”

“Go where?” Kit asked. “This is their home. The smallest is Cocoa, then Gringo, then Priscilla.”

“I thought the big one was a boy.”

“Does she look like a boy?” Kit asked, kneeling beside the butt-ugly mutt, touching her cheek to the dog’s.

Shaking his head, grinning, Travis said, “What she looks like is rabid. You might want to slowly step back, then run get a few shots.”

“Don’t listen to the mean man,” she said to the dog, covering her shaggy ears. “He’s cranky because of the heat.”

Among other things, Travis thought, too exhausted to do much else besides stare incredulously as Gringo helped himself to the bologna sandwich.

“Oops,” Kit said, back to giggling. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to eat it. No doubt it was a reflex thing.”

“No doubt,” Travis said, marching into the kitchen to fix a duplicate.

Kit followed. “I’m sure in a week or so you’ll love the dogs as much as Marlene and Gary did.”

“Yeah,” Levi said, deep-sixing three large cans of Alpo into the under-sink trash. “Gary always had a soft spot for strays. Used to tease Marlene about being his best find.”

Travis choked on his first mustard-soaked bite. “He compared my sister to a stray dog?”

“Lighten up,” Kit said, slipping her arm around Levi’s waist. “It was a joke. Used to make Marlene howl.”

Levi kissed the top of Kit’s head.

Travis looked sharply away.

Along with the dogs, the lovebirds needed to go. On top of his sister’s death, he was in no way ready to deal with feelings for Kit he’d thought long gone.

“What’re you doing for supper?” Kit asked. “If you want, Levi and I could get you some takeout.”

“Thanks,” Travis said, “but I’m good. I might hit town later for a few essentials, though. Speaking of which, do you know where Marlene might’ve left the keys to her car?”

“Here,” Kit said, walking the short distance to a wall-mounted key rack currently holding more leashes and reusable plastic bags than keys. “It’s not fancy but gets the job done.”

Travis rubbed his forehead.

In light of the surprises he’d already encountered, he didn’t even want to imagine what his sister had found to be an acceptable ride.

“Now,” Kit said, taking Levi’s hand, leading him to the back door, “mothers start arriving at the daycare by five-thirty, so I’ll need you to be up and alert by then. Candy Craig’s usually the first one here, but she’s having car trouble and her ride can’t get her here till six. The two of you will have three children—and Libby—until seven-thirty, and I’ll be in to help around eight-thirty, so you should be fine until—”

“Whoa,” Travis said, shaking his head. “I don’t do children—as in multiple kids. Libby’s about all I can handle along with my regular workload.”

“Sorry,” she said with her usual grin, not looking remotely apologetic, “but until I find a replacement for Marlene, I was hoping you’d pitch in at the daycare. I meant to broach the subject earlier, you know, how it might be fun and educational for you to get practice with kids, but the dogs got in the way. My role these days is mainly managerial, stretching myself between all six franchises, but I’ll spend as much time as I can helping you learn the ropes. From Libby you already know baby basics, and Marlene told me you’re up to date on CPR through your company’s course. Trust me, for the short time you’re on your own, you’ll do fine.”

Travis growled.

“Oh, come,” she said. “It’ll be fun. Please?”

Lord help him, but in his already weakened emotional condition, Travis was unable to resist her charm. “I’ll only be alone thirty minutes?”

“Tops.” She shot him a toothy grin. Coincidentally the same one she used to wield when flirting him out of the last few M&M’s back when they’d been an item.

Knowing full well he wanted his sleep as much as he’d wanted that candy, he must have been temporarily insane to blurt, “Give me a little more instruction and I’ll do it.”

FRIDAY AT 4:48 a.m., Travis tried putting a pillow over his head to block what felt like the third eight-point-oh earthquake of the morning. Why had he agreed to work at the daycare for even thirty minutes? And while he was asking questions, why hadn’t Marlene mentioned her house being five feet from a railroad track?

Gee, probably because she knew he’d have told her to nix the deal—which, Marlene being Marlene, upon hearing his objections, would’ve only made her that much more determined to go through with a real-estate transaction only a train buff or a masochist would love.

Knowing he had to be up soon anyway, he grabbed his cell phone from the nightstand, putting in a call to this right-hand man to explain that his trip would take longer than expected. With a grunt he rolled out of the surprisingly comfortable black wrought-iron canopy bed. Though a little lacy for his taste, Travis would’ve given Gary a high five for allowing his sister to have her girlie way with the majority of the room that’d been finished in a sumptuous blend of old and new.

Antique dressers and side tables held both modern and vintage picture frames. The majority of smiling shots were of Marlene and Gary hamming it up. Newer ones included Libby. Quite a few were dog shots. Cocoa wearing a pumpkin suit for Halloween. Gringo begging. All three lounging on the front porch, tongues lolling on a sunny day.

Dark walnut floors covered in Oriental carpets laid at crazy angles shouldn’t have made sense but did. The walls were covered in four varied patterns—stripes and florals and dots and checks—of pale green paper, but even this somehow worked in the atticlike room with its five dormer windows and angled ceilings.

In the bathroom, decked out in more dark walnut with an antique white porcelain claw-foot tub, it looked as if Gary had had his way with the high-tech stand-alone shower with its assortment of buttons and nozzles.

Under streaming spray Travis braced his hands against the green-brown-and-black mosaic wall, letting the water ease kinks in his neck. Being early to work was no problem, but in his office he was king. He knew what to expect.

At his sister’s daycare he didn’t have a clue what—or even who—might crop up. Yesterday afternoon, while Kit had still been there, he’d asked her about the kids he’d be watching, but she’d been so animated in her descriptions that all he’d focused on was her. Her and the painful memory of how and why he’d ever let what they’d shared slip away. It wasn’t a topic he cared to dwell upon, leading him to rush her and Levi on their way so he could get those mangy mutts back out in the shed and himself into comfortable clothes—meaning boxers and nothing else.

The only way he’d gotten the apparently spoiled dogs outside was by flinging bologna onto the back porch as bait, then shooing them outside and shutting the door. Technically he wasn’t sure whether they’d made it to the shed or not. But they were dogs. What was the worst that could happen if they spent a summer night outside?

His mind’s eye flashed on those dog pics.

Then guilt settled in. The night was over now. No sense in rushing downstairs to let them in. But assuming they didn’t chew anything, maybe they could come inside on probationary terms.

Travis reluctantly finished lathering and rinsing, then dressed in navy slacks, starched white shirt and red tie. In deference to his casual setting, he skipped the suit jacket. Always one step ahead of him, his receptionist had phoned his housekeeper and asked her to pack Travis a week’s clothing, then meet him at the airport.

Libby had woken only once during the night, and after a quick feeding and diaper change she’d fallen right off to sleep.

In her nursery he flicked on the crystal lamp topping the dresser, then crept to her ultragirlie crib. She looked so content amongst the fuzzy pink blanket and pink gingham sheets and crib bumper that he hated waking her. He’d been surprised to see the bumper and blanket, as they’d been gifts from him. Picked from a catalogue and shipped with a brief note, maybe they hadn’t held as much sentimental value as, say, a gift Marlene had received at her shower, but he was glad all the same that she’d at least liked them enough to have put them to use.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” he crooned, scooping up his niece only to tuck her against his chest. How come he didn’t smell this great in the morning? The scent of her pink lotion and the no-tears shampoo he’d used for her bath the previous night was still strong.

She gurgled, then fell right back asleep against him.

For a split second, unsure what to do, he vacillated between calling his secretary or, even better, Kit. But in the end he knew he’d have to start figuring out how to be a parent sooner rather than later. Besides, what if he’d called the emergency number Kit had left and Levi answered? The guy was nice and all. But Kit was one of those women who was hot but in a squeaky-clean, Mother Goose sort of way. Travis didn’t much approve of her being in bed with any man—let alone a hardware store owner. Even if the guy was her fiancé.

Okay, then, he thought, gingerly heading down the stairs. Who would he approve of Kit being in bed with?

Offhand, no one.

He didn’t have a clue why, but part of him felt proprietary where she was concerned, as if he’d had dibs on her under that mulberry tree all those years ago, and again at the swimming hole and even on her own bed the time her folks had gone to Little Rock for their anniversary weekend. Bottom line, if he couldn’t have her, then no one else should.

Ridiculous, but there you have it. As if any of the rest of his current life made the slightest sense.

In the kitchen he switched on the light, then eyed his sleeping charge. What was the protocol on morning feedings? Did he wake Libby to feed her? Or once he scoped out the daycare, would he find a spare crib for her to crash in? Even if there was a crib, would there be a blanket?—an appropriately soft and fuzzy one?

Shaking his head, he tromped back up the stairs for the pink one from Libby’s crib, then tucked it around her chubby bare legs and arms.

Back downstairs, it occurred to him that sometime during the day she’d probably need a diaper change. And what if it got cold? Sure it was June, but you never knew.

Back upstairs, he shoved a few diapers and the wipes in an oversize pink canvas tote dotted with dancing hippos. In case of sudden frost, he grabbed a mini coat and sweater from the cedar-lined closet. From the dresser he snagged three pairs of white socks. All of his finds in the bag, he repositioned Libby to his left shoulder, slung the bag over his right, then took off again for the kitchen.

Okay, back to the food issue. Now or later?

Taking a peek at Libby under the blanket—save for a small airhole, he’d put it over her head, since all those blowing air conditioners had made the house chilly—he didn’t think she looked all that hungry, so he just grabbed a few bologna slices for himself.

After adding three cans of formula, a can opener and a handful of bottle liners to the diaper bag, he was almost out the door when he figured the actual bottles might also be a good idea.

He took the key ring labeled Barn from the rack, then aimed for the door, when the phone rang.

He jumped, as did Libby, who then started to cry.

“Crap,” he said, picking up the phone. “Yes?”

“I take it you’re not a morning person?” Kit asked, her chipper tone a disgustingly happy cross between sunshine and daffodils.

“Sure I am,” he said, jiggling a still-whimpering Libby back to sleep. “After a gallon of coffee and a six-mile jog.”

“Six miles?” she whistled. “Impressive.”

Why did he get the feeling she was mocking him? “There a reason you called?”

“Just wanted to make sure you’re up. And to apologize for you having to work the early shift. Or, for that matter, having to work at all. I promise to find you a replacement ASAP.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said. “If I can handle million-dollar mergers, I can handle a few little kids.”

WAAAAAAAAAAA!

“I want Mooooom-meeeeee!”

Waaaahuh! Waaaahuh!

“That’s not the way you do it,” said eight-year-old Lincoln Groves, who would, with any luck, march his know-it-all behind onto the IdaBelle Falls day-camp bus at seven-fifteen. As for Candy Craig, she’d called at six-ten to say she wouldn’t be in at all. Travis had then phoned Kit, but she was at a center in the next county.

“Okay, then,” Travis bellowed above the racket caused by two howling babies and a freaked-out preschooler. Pausing before slashing the entire top from the packet of toaster-strudel icing, he asked, “How about telling me the right way to open this before your little sister blows her last gasket?”

The freckle-faced kid with Batman glasses took the blunt-nosed scissors and the icing, calmly clipping the corner off the package before returning it to Travis. “Now you can draw her stupid hearts and flowers. Otherwise it would’ve gushed out in a big globbery pile.” Shoving his glasses up his nose, he added, “She won’t eat it if it doesn’t have hearts and flowers.”

Eyeing the packet, then the kid, Travis figured Lincoln had a point on the smaller hole making for a more efficient drawing tool. Hmph. Learn something new every day. “Thanks.”

“Uh-huh.” Lincoln patted his little sis on her back.

A few seconds later Travis had drawn some semblance of a heart and a flower on Clara’s pastry, then plopped it on a paper plate and handed it to her.

For an all too brief instant she looked down at it, then up at him, then started screaming all over again. “This isn’t right! I want Mooooooom-meeeeeee!”

Apparently Clara’s show was so impressive even Libby and her pal, four-month-old Mike, stopped screeching from their high chairs long enough to look.

Sighing, Travis asked his assistant, “What now?”

“She has to sit there before she can eat. Rule number eight.” He pointed toward a pint-size booth, then at a large colorful sign mounted alongside a white marker board. Sure enough, right after No Biting, was rule number eight—Always Eat at a Table. For those who couldn’t yet read, pictograms got the points across.

Travis took the plate from Clara, then guided her to the booth. She calmly sat. Then, once he’d landed the pastry in front of her, she gave him a glare before digging in.

“You haven’t been doing this long, have you?” Lincoln inquired.

“No. Today’s my first day. But I’m getting better, don’t you think?”

After fixing himself a bowl of Cheerios, Lincoln perched alongside his sister and quietly munched.

All of a sudden, the big red barn with its cow-chicken-horse-and-pig-themed wallpaper and bright white-and-red interior grew suspiciously silent.

“Everything okay?” Travis asked Clara, who’d frozen with the pastry hanging from her mouth. “Are you choking?” In case the word was too big for the little girl, he held his hands to his throat and made gagging noises.

She shook her head.

Mike and Libby giggled.

“You’re funny,” Lincoln said.

“Thanks,” Travis said, shoulders proudly straightening. This was a tough crowd. “Any idea what’s bugging your sister?”

Frowning, the boy nodded.

“Well?” Travis asked, wrinkling his noise at the sudden foul smell. Had Libby or Mike dropped a bomb in their diapers?

Clara started wailing again, and apparently not wanting to be left out, Libby and Mike joined in.

“What’s the matter?” Travis shouted above the racket to the little girl.

“She prob’ly pooped in her pants,” Lincoln said. “She always gets that look and cries when she does ’cause she can’t chew and poop at the same time. Plus, she’s s’posed to be potty trained, so she thinks Mom’s gonna be mad.”

Sure. Made perfect sense. If you were nearly three.

“Clara, sweetie,” Travis said, “let’s somehow get you cleaned up.”

“I want Mooooom-meeeeee!”

“Waaaaaa huuuuh,” wailed Libby.

“Argh waaaaaaaa,” cried Mike.

“You’re supposed to do somethin’,” Lincoln oh-so-helpfully pointed out, looking bored with his hands flattened over his ears.

Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!

Travis had to look twice to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. But sure enough, as if he didn’t have enough going on already, all three dogs bounded into the room.

“How did they get in here?” Travis asked, scooping Libby, then Mike, into his arms while trying to shoo the dogs back out the open rear door. “And how did the door get open?”





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