A Weaver Holiday Homecoming

Some things hadn’t changed in Weaver. And some things had. But Ryan was willing to bet that he’d be able to find Chloe Keegan by the time the afternoon was out.

He’d spent three years trying—and too often failing—to save girls not all that much older than Chloe from being sold off to the highest bidder. The last thing his conscience needed right now was the additional weight of some little kid with a soft heart.

“Mom!”

Mallory Keegan lifted her head at the hollered greeting, only to smack it smartly against the inside frame of the cabinet she was presently tucked halfway inside. She muttered an oath even as the wrench slid out of her hand, clanging loudly against the water pipe.

The pipe that she had just managed to get to stop leaking.

So much for that.

She swiped her hand over the fine mist of water that spurted anew from the pipes, spraying her right in the face and backed out of the cupboard.

“Upstairs,” she yelled back down to her daughter as she grabbed the bath towel off the rack on the wall behind her. She dashed it down her face and then tossed it over the thin but copious spray.

She collected Pap smears and delivered babies.

She did not fix plumbing of this sort at all.

Which meant she’d have to add a plumber’s repair bill to the budget that month. A budget that was already tight, particularly with Chloe’s birthday and Christmas looming.

She could hear her daughter’s boots clomping rapidly up the stairs but the long day—an unexpected cesarean for a third-time mom and a miscarriage for a first-timer—had her tiredly sitting back on her heels and just waiting.

It didn’t take long.

Chloe careened around the corner of the bathroom, a small pink bakery box clutched against the midriff of her purple sweatshirt. Her boots slid a little, squeaking against the hardwood floor that still bore the dampness that Mallory hadn’t succeeded in wiping away.

The sight of her daughter’s face, wreathed in smiles, was enough to counter her exhaustion, though, and she opened her arms just in time to stop Chloe’s momentum in a hug. The feel of her daughter’s strong, sturdy little body was enough to melt her frustration.

The bakery box knocked against Mallory’s head as Chloe’s arms wound around her neck. “Didja have any babies today?”

Long used to Chloe’s bursts of speech, Mallory laughed a little. “I delivered a baby today,” she said, and caught the box that was in danger of being crushed altogether. “What’s this?”

Chloe straightened. “Pie.” She stuck her head under the sink. “Is it fixed?”

“Don’t move the—” Mallory could tell the moment Chloe’s curiosity prompted her to move the towel from the pipe, because she squeaked and jumped back out of the indoor sprinkler “—towel,” she finished.

Her daughter wasn’t a large fan of water in her face. She tolerated her baths out of necessity, but anything more—swimming, splashing in a sprinkler on a hot, summer day—was mostly out of the question.

But Mallory hadn’t temporarily uprooted her family from New York to settle in this small Wyoming town for the purpose of getting Chloe over her fear of water.

Her reasoning had been much more involved.

“Here.” She pushed aside the disquiet that was all too willing to coil anxiously in her stomach these days, and handed Chloe another towel off the towel rack.

She dropped the wet towel back over the leaking pipe and pushed to her feet. “It’s going to take a person who actually knows what they’re doing to fix it, I’m afraid.”

She steered Chloe out of the bathroom toward the stairs and peeked into the bakery box at the enormous pecan-laden wedge of pie. Her mouth watered. Between the hospital and the leaking pipe, she hadn’t managed to find time for a decent meal. “Looks delicious.” She leaned down and kissed the top of Chloe’s nut-brown hair, spotting her grandmother when they reached the foot of the stairs and turned to the kitchen. “Thank you,” she told them both.

“Thank her.” After less than two decades in the United States, Kathleen Keegan’s voice still held plenty of her native Ireland as she waved at Chloe. “She paid for it out of her allowance.”

Mallory set the pie on the narrow breakfast bar and found a fork in the drawer. “Did you have fun shopping before you stopped for lunch?” Kathleen was notorious for finding bargains in the oddest of places.

She looked up as she sank the fork into the rich dessert and caught the secretive glance Chloe and Kathleen shared. “All right, you two. What’d you buy?”

“Nothing.” Chloe’s voice was innocent, but her eyebrows were riding an inch above normal, hiding beneath the tousled bangs covering her forehead. “I found a Purple Princess game, though. The new one. It was only twenty dollars!”

Mallory hid a smile and tried not to groan in pleasure as she swallowed the forkful of gooey pecan. Chloe adored Purple Princess video games and could endlessly wax eloquent about the reasons why she just “had-had-had” to have each new one when they came out. And usually, the games came at a much higher price tag. “Why didn’t you buy it, then? I know you had more than twenty dollars in your wallet when you and Grammy started out this morning.” And Mallory could have returned the unopened game that she’d already purchased and hidden high in the closet.

Chloe’s gaze darted to her grandmother again. Her round cheeks turned rosy. “I gotta go to the bathroom,” she suddenly announced, and darted out of the kitchen.

Mallory eyed Kathleen. “Well?”

“Aye, don’t be looking at me, child.” Kathleen waved her hand in a shooing motion. “I’m not going to blab on her secrets.”

Mallory’s smile broke loose. “Christmas shopping, perhaps?”

“I’m going to have to hire a plumber,” Mallory said, returning to the most pressing issue when Kathleen merely smiled.

“Call your nice Dr. Clay and ask her to recommend someone.”

Mallory gnawed the inside of her lip. Prevailing on Rebecca Clay was something she wanted to avoid and not merely because Mallory could guess who the woman would recommend for the job. It was because of the other woman that they were in Weaver at all.

She could hear Chloe’s footsteps from overhead.

Well, it wasn’t precisely Rebecca Clay that was the reason Mallory and her crew had come to Weaver six weeks ago. Rebecca had just facilitated it.

The real reason was Chloe.

The anxiety inside Mallory swamped her hunger, and she covered the remainder of the pie and rinsed her fork at the sink. “I’ll find someone,” she murmured as she headed to her office at the back of the house. But the squawking sound of the ancient doorbell had her changing course.

She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater, which were damp from the water leak, and yanked open the heavy door without any of the caution she would have normally used in her apartment building back in New York.

The tall, broad-shouldered man standing there on the porch staring at the ground raised his head as the door swung open, and she found herself looking into a pair of deeply blue eyes.

A strikingly familiar blue.

She froze. Her lips parted, but no words could emerge, since her mouth had gone bone-dry. No amount of mental preparations had been enough, she realized. Meeting the man in person had been her plan. Her goal. Yet faced with him now, she felt unprepared. Not at all ready.

His heavy, dark eyebrows quirked together for a moment, but he was still the one to break the silence, his voice deep and slightly gruff and definitely in keeping with his rough, unshaven jaw and the tousled, dark hair on his head that looked in need of a good barber. “You’re Dr. Keegan?”

She swallowed. Nodded.

His gaze was sharp. Studying. Almost as if he were memorizing her appearance before he stuck out a bare, long-fingered hand. “I’m Ryan Clay,” he introduced with spare brevity.

Her hand seemed to lift of its own accord and settle against his square palm for the briefest of moments.

The contact still managed to leave her feeling shaky.