In Safe Hands

“What did your father have to say? Did he explain?”

Well, he’d been the one to start this. He had no choice but to finish the tale.

“My father was a broken man without her. He lived another fifteen years, but he was never the same. We never spoke of my mother again. But I could see the hurt in his eyes every time he looked at me.”

“Looked at you? Why?”

“I have my mother’s eyes,” he answered as he shifted under his seat belt. “So does…did…John. My father and I would speak of John often during those years. John wrote to me, you see, wrote all about his activities and asked about mine. The two of us carried on a grand correspondence throughout school. He was smart and funny in his letters, but we never spoke of Mother.” Colin exhaled deeply. “After graduation I suddenly became too busy to bother with a brother I barely knew and wouldn’t recognize. And then, while in the army, I lost track of him.”

“You’re too hard on yourself. I think it’s normal for young people to want to find themselves for a few years. I know both of my brothers did the same thing.”

Colin had the distinct impression Maggie’s family would never be able to completely lose track of her.

“But I don’t understand why you two didn’t try to see each other,” she continued. “After you were adults, I mean. Y’all are family.”

Not much of a family, he thought. But he wouldn’t say so. He had already said more than he should.

“We were never in the same hemisphere at the same time,” he told her dismissively.

Maggie apparently understood his need to end the discussion of John for now. But that didn’t mean she was done prying.

“Did you confront your mother about leaving? Did you ever see her again?”

“Once.” The word exploded from his mouth before he could drag it back. “I saw her once. At Father’s funeral. But that was no place for…she had no place there, dressed in mourning.”

After a long pause, Maggie nodded for him to continue.

He finally found the strength to go on. “John didn’t come,” he started. “Not to his own father’s funeral.” The idea still astounded him, but things were becoming clearer, the more he’d found out about John’s situation.

“I had to take leave from my unit to attend. Come down from the mountain passes and turn my back on my mates in their battles, in order to say goodbye to my father.” He rubbed at his temple, trying to shake the images out of his head. “I only discovered a few weeks ago that, by then, the SIS had recruited John for an international drug sting in Mexico. John was deep undercover, and couldn’t attend Father’s services.”

“I see,” Maggie said with a catch in her voice. “And now you’ll never be able to talk with your only brother about any of it again. That might be one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.”

Stunned at her words, he stared over at her profile as she swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. He reached for her, brushing his fingertips across her hair.

“Maggie…” His own voice cracked, reminding him that he’d promised himself not to touch her again. He needed to come away from this experience whole and strong, and falling under Maggie Ryan’s spell could destroy him.

He dragged his hand back to his side, and she never gave any sign that she’d known he’d been stroking her hair. Furious with himself over his lack of control, Colin slumped lower into his seat and closed his eyes.

The next morning in soft gray light and under overcast skies, Maggie tightened her grip around eight-month-old Emma and stared down at the grave belonging to the baby’s father. For months she and Emma had been coming here regularly, to place flowers on the two lonely graves. But before today, Maggie had spent her time in the cemetery, wondering about the people buried beneath the headstones. This morning she knew a little more about one of them.

She glanced over at Colin. He’d bowed his head, but his jaw remained tight and set. He suddenly reminded her of her father. She well remembered being at her grandfather’s funeral six months ago in this very same cemetery. When her father had stared down into the grave of his own father, whom he also hadn’t spoken to in many years, his expression had appeared equally sad and distant. She sighed, blinked and turned her face away.

Colin had been too quiet since they’d arrived at home last night. He’d barely said two words, except for asking to come here to see his brother’s grave this morning. On the other hand, she’d been eager to pick up Emma from Lara, her friend and neighbor who’d been babysitting, and couldn’t help babbling about the baby. But they’d gotten in to town well after midnight, and she had forced herself to wait until this morning to retrieve the baby.

Snuggling Emma closer, Maggie breathed in the fresh, sweet smell of baby powder and no-tears shampoo and felt the tension leaving her shoulders. So far, Colin had been conspicuously quiet about his niece. It was torture not knowing what he intended to do about Emma.

Maggie wanted to ask him but was still too afraid to know the answer. Rather than just come out with it, she decided to wait until the timing felt right.

Before he made any rash decisions, his spirit needed healing. The guilt he felt about his brother was written all over his face, and in the way his shoulders rounded as he stuck his hands in his pockets. She had the knowledge to help him heal, if he would let her. Despite her trepidation about how incredibly attracted she was to him, she still hoped he would stick around long enough for her to help him.

Emma must have suddenly come to the conclusion that no one was paying enough attention to her. She squealed and lifted a pointed finger toward Colin.

“Ba! Ma!”

Colin turned to look at the baby without smiling. “She looks like my mother.”

Maggie glanced down at the child in her arms. “I think she looks like you. Do you want to hold her?”

He shook his head and edged back a step. “I know what her father looked like, but what about the mother?”

“I never met her, of course,” Maggie began as she bounced Emma in her arm. “But her driver’s license picture showed a pretty woman with dark, golden hair and fair skin. Which is a little strange, because their neighbors in Alexandria say she spoke with a heavy Spanish accent.”

“You think my brother met her while he was in Mexico?”

“It’s possible. But if so, that would mean she probably came from a wealthy family. The richest and most powerful families there take pride in being descended from fair-skinned Spaniards. My own mother’s family comes partially from those Spaniards and partially from the original native Indians—related to the Mayans.” She stopped talking for a second, waved her free arm widely across her body and smiled, hoping to get a smile in return. “Thus, the stark but beautiful differences you may notice in my own coloring.”

No smile came back at her. Colin kept his features straight and his mouth immovable.

“We’ll probably never know for sure.” She hurried to fill up the silence, as Emma had already quieted down. “I don’t see any way that we’re going to be able to trace Emma’s mother. I suppose she will always be a woman of mystery.”

Colin nodded sharply, as though he agreed. Then he turned to stare at his brother’s headstone again.

Maggie heaved a heavy sigh. Once again, she was dying to ask him what was in the back of his mind about the baby’s future. But he hadn’t let himself get to know Emma at all. Maggie wanted him to do that much before he made any final decisions.

“When we get back to the house, you can contact your mother to tell her about your brother’s accident.” And that she has a granddaughter she has never met.

“No,” he said without turning. “I told you. I haven’t spoken to my mother in years. I understand she knew full well my brother had an undercover assignment that kept him from coming home at my father’s death, but she didn’t bother to tell me that when I saw her at the funeral.”

Maggie wondered if he’d really given his mother a chance to get a word out at all back then, or if he’d run over her with his pent-up anger. “Maybe she was told not to say anything. Aren’t undercover operations supposed to be…uh…secret?”