If I Loved You

Molly’s breath caught. She was a beautiful baby, another victim of the senseless violence that had taken both her parents. “Oh, sweetie,” Molly murmured.

Blinking, she eased Brig’s arm aside and heard him grunt in his sleep. She could hardly wake him and make them leave. Where would they go? A glance out the window told her Brig’s parents were still gone. Not a single light glowed in the house next door. She tucked Laila into her sleeper, then snapped the garment all the way. The little girl’s skin felt like velvet, and she smelled, as only a baby could, of sheer innocence. A baby like the one Molly had always yearned for, and lost.

Children were the best, yet the hardest, part of her job. She got to spend so much time with them, yet they were other people’s, not her own.

On impulse she peeled the red heart from her face and leaned closer to stick it on Laila’s chest, then nuzzled the infant’s small belly.

And, against every instinct to protect her heart, Molly fell in love.

Like the rain that pounded against the windows and the thunder that still grumbled overhead, the feeling seemed to Molly another omen.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ed28ad57-65eb-5cec-a3f0-6c299f59b9fa)

BRIG AWOKE THE next morning fully clothed with no memory of having gone to bed—and no knowledge of where he was. Disoriented, he checked his watch, then made a quick calculation. It was six-thirty in the evening in Kabul, but eleven in the morning was late enough here. He’d overslept.

For another moment, he lay yawning in the sun-splattered bedroom—then recognition dawned. Ah, right. He was in Molly’s house. Almost immediately, he heard a snuffle. Brig shot upright and spotted the baby nearby in a portable crib. Laila! Some guardian he made.

“Hungry, cupcake?”

He tucked in the shirt he’d worn all night, fighting a growing sense of parental neglect, and picked up the baby, who was swaddled in a pastel-striped receiving blanket that smelled of fresh air. He didn’t recognize it as one he’d crammed into their suitcases, which he assumed were still on the porch next door. Molly must have donated the wrap. Wearing yesterday’s socks, he carried Laila downstairs. She needed more milk, and Brig needed coffee.

At the bottom of the steps in the front hall, as if running into an ambush, he met Molly’s father. Thomas Walker turned from the door with the newspaper in hand. He didn’t smile, and Brig remembered his stiff manner at the party. He imagined that Molly, not her dad, had let him stay the night—as if they’d had an option once he’d fallen asleep, one hundred ninety pounds of deadweight.

“The Reds are in trouble,” Thomas said, reading the headline on page one.

For a second Brig thought the Russians were stirring up trouble again.

The older man gave a snort of disgust. “Barely into spring training and already headed for the bottom of the standings. Would you believe? Just traded their best pitcher for some rookie.” He glanced out the front door’s side window. “Look at that,” he muttered.

Again, Brig missed the connection. “What?”

“Nosy woman across the street. Every time I get the paper, she’s peering out.” Without missing a beat, he said, “Doesn’t look to me like your folks are home yet. Didn’t see anyone next door. You get any rest, Brigham?”

Brig nodded his head. “Passed out as soon as I got horizontal.” He still felt drained and his eyes were grainy, but his stomach growled. Or was that Laila’s tummy? And where had his parents gone, if not out for the evening?

“Molly said you never ate dinner.”

“Wasn’t hungry.” And where was she now? “My stomach’s off schedule, still in central Asia.”

“Well, there’s coffee in the kitchen.”

But Thomas sounded begrudging.

Brig shifted Laila from one arm to the other. Dark haired, dark eyed and oblivious to the undercurrents between the two men, she sucked on a fist.

As if he couldn’t help himself, Thomas studied her. And Brig studied him. Molly’s dad was still a solid-looking man. Retirement had added a slight paunch to Thomas’s stomach, but even so, except for his brown hair with touches of gray at his temples, he didn’t look his age.

Thomas gestured at Laila. “Baby sleep okay?”

“I never heard her,” Brig confessed, knowing that wouldn’t win him any points. “Thanks for finding her a crib.”

“Molly keeps one here,” he said in what sounded like a wistful tone. A condemnation of Brig for leaving Molly practically at the altar?

A dozen questions ran through his brain, but he didn’t ask them. They were for Molly to answer, although maybe he had no right to ask. After the loss of her husband, she should find another man and have the family she’d always wanted, the family she and Brig had planned until he’d thrown a wrench into things and hightailed it out of Liberty.

Better for her, he had tried to think.

And if he’d stayed...he wouldn’t have Laila now.

“And Molly must have dressed the baby for bed,” he said.

Thomas eyed him like a bug he wanted to squash.

“Must have.”

Which meant she’d seen Brig asleep, lying down on the job. He glanced toward the kitchen. Inhaled the lingering smells of bacon and toast, and that freshly brewed coffee.

“Molly’s not here,” Thomas said. “You can fix yourself anything you like. She was up at six cleaning the mess from yesterday, made me breakfast, then took her second cup of coffee to the office.” Thomas waved toward the backyard.

Office?

Thomas’s casual statement told Brig just how little he knew of Molly these days. All he remembered seeing was an old carriage barn at the rear of the property. His mother, the neat freak, had complained it was an eyesore.

Laila squirmed in his arms and Brig’s shaky parental confidence took another nosedive. Mano a mano with Thomas, he’d nearly forgotten his original mission in coming downstairs.

“I’d better grab some of that coffee, then get going. I heated the last of Laila’s formula yesterday. Hope I can find the same brand in Liberty. Fast.” If he bought the wrong stuff or used whole milk instead of the prepared infant kind and the baby got sick, Molly would likely be on him in a second. And how had Laila made it through the night without waking him to feed her?

Thomas took another, longer look at the baby. For an instant Brig was sure he saw yearning cross the older man’s face.

“Molly went to the corner store for you last night. She fed the baby around eight, at midnight and four, and again this morning. She left another bottle ready on the stove.”

Wow. Surprised by the information, Brig didn’t know whether to feel guilty because Laila must have kept Molly up most of the night, grateful that she’d let him sleep or relieved that she’d done both. Actually, he felt all three.

“Thanks,” Brig said, which seemed inadequate.

“Don’t thank me.” Thomas had turned away and was taking his newspaper into the living room. End of discussion, or so Brig thought. But Thomas wasn’t finished. “Oh. Molly said to tell you her sheriff friend brought your bags and the baby seat from next door before he left the party.”

Then, as if his feelings had built like a volcano set to erupt, he spun around again.

“I’m not going to ask why you’re here, Brigham. I guess this baby is answer enough. For now.” Thomas pointed the rolled-up paper at him. “But don’t think I’ve forgotten what happened between you and Molly. She and Ann are the best daughters I could ever have, and Molly’s had enough grief in her life. I swear, if you hurt her—”

“I don’t intend to hurt her.”

“—like you did before, you’ll answer to me.”

Brig had no reply. He’d been a “father” himself for a short time and he was still all thumbs at the job, but, like Thomas with Molly, he knew he would protect her to the death from any threat.

To Thomas, Brig must represent six feet plus of threat.