Kimberly Van Meter - Kids on the Doorstep / Cop on Loan

“I’ll go down with you,” Renee volunteered, even though she was a little leery of the whole idea of flying down the hill with nothing more than her feet for brakes.

Renee settled into the back and John placed Taylor in front. With a gentle push, they started the descent, which at first was pretty sedate but then it was like being on a Disneyland thrill ride without the benefit of being strapped in. Taylor squealed in delight and within seconds Renee was doing the same.

Who knew hurtling headlong down a monster hill could be so thrilling?

“Let’s go again!” Taylor exclaimed, pulling impatiently on Renee’s hand as she dragged the toboggan back up the hill.

“You bet!”

And so they spent the better half of the day slipping and sliding, laughing and giggling until they were winded and exhausted and barely able to drag their bodies back to the house for some much needed hot apple cider and hot chocolate.

And Renee couldn’t remember when she’d had so much fun with such an unlikely partner. She slanted a short look at John as he walked beside her, pulling the toboggan with Chloe riding on his shoulders. Maybe there was more to John Murphy than immediately met the eye.

Just maybe, she might be in a mind to find out.

WHILE JOHN WORKED ON the hot cider and chocolate, Renee helped the girls out of their wet and snow-caked clothing and into soft pajamas and slippers.

“These look warm,” Renee observed casually of the girls’ pajamas. “Did you pick these out?”

“Yep. On the ’net,” Taylor said, wiggling with delight into her horse-patterned top. “Mr. John said there’s no mall anywhere near here and he hates to deal with the people so Mr. John had Grammy buy our stuff on his computer.”

“That was nice of him to buy you girls some pj’s.”

Alexis nodded but it was obvious she wasn’t going to elaborate for Renee’s benefit. Thankfully, Taylor wasn’t exactly a locked box when it came to safeguarding information.

“We didn’t have any clothes ’cept for the ones that we was wearing the night we came and Mr. John said they weren’t fit to line a dog’s bed. My jeans had holes in them,” Taylor said. “But now, I got lots of jeans with no holes and I love my new shoes.”

Renee made a mental note to talk to John about the purchases made thus far. It wasn’t right for him to foot the bill. She’d have to find out how much he’d spent so she could make arrangements to pay him back.

But for the time being, the girls were running from the room toward the kitchen, squealing and laughing as they called out for their warm drinks.

Renee hung back a moment as she gazed about the room that her girls had taken over. It was much like the rest of the house, masculine in its decor, but somehow her girls had put their stamp on things with small accents. A Little Mermaid lamp here, a pink throw blanket tossed casually on the bed over there, and lots of clothes strewn about that were certainly the sign of little girl territory. It was the nicest place they’d ever lived and it hurt that Renee hadn’t been the one to provide it for them.

Smoothing the wrinkles from the comforter, she wondered if John would let her buy some girly sheets for their bed. But as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she discarded it. There was no sense in buying sheets for a bed they were only going to be in temporarily. Swallowing a sigh at the fight she’d have on her hands the day the girls had to say goodbye to the ranch and to their Mr. John, Renee shelved the unhappy thoughts and pasted a bright smile on her lips for her daughters’ benefit.

They weren’t leaving today. Her aunt used to tell her, don’t borrow trouble from tomorrow when there was happiness to be found in today.

Good advice, Renee realized, for she really didn’t want to think about that day, either.

LATER THAT NIGHT, AFTER copious amounts of hot chocolate, cider, a dinner of steak and potatoes, games of Uno, and after the girls had been tucked into bed exhausted from the day’s activities, John felt himself reluctant to say good-night to the one woman in the world he ought to steer clear of.

Funny how those things work.

“I guess I should turn in, too,” Renee said, although she wasn’t making a move toward the door just yet. He took that as a sign that she was hesitant for her own reasons and much to his shame, he jumped at it.

“Come sit a minute,” he suggested, gesturing toward the crackling fire in the hearth. The dancing light threw soft shadows into the living room that offset the eerie glow from the snow-packed window. “There’s no need to run off just because the girls aren’t here. I don’t bite.”

She smiled. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure that I don’t bite or am I sure that I wouldn’t mind some company?”

“Um, both.”

He chuckled and followed her to the sofa. “I think the girls had a really good day and I want to thank you for making that effort for them. I get the feeling that playing in the snow isn’t your idea of a good time on most days.”

“It’s not but I didn’t realize it could be so much fun, not to mention one heck of a workout. I think muscles I never knew I had are going to be protesting tomorrow morning.”

He smiled but his overactive imagination had already snagged the opportunity to be distracting and the effort was forced. Stop thinking about her curves, he instructed his brain, searching wildly for something else to fill the space in his head. Think of taxes, the fence that needs mending— anything! “Tell me a bit about yourself,” he suggested and she faltered, the light fading quickly from her eyes. “You don’t have to. I’m just a little curious about the woman—”

“Who left her kids behind?” she interrupted sharply, moving to leave but he stopped her with a firm hand.

“No, that’s not what I was going to say. Are you always in a habit of jumping to conclusions?”

She bit her lip. “Lately. I guess. What were you going to say?”

“Just that I’m curious to know more about the woman who is nothing like I thought she was.”

Renee settled back on the sofa as she said, “What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re a bit of a wild card, if you know what I mean. Unpredictable. What I knew about you was that you left your girls behind for reasons I don’t know but then you’ve shown your fierce determination to get them back. To win their love. Something tells me that there’s more to Renee Dolling, deep down. Tell me about that woman.”

She blushed, and in the soft light with her wind-chapped lips and burnished cheeks, she bloomed into an incomparable beauty right before his eyes. He resisted the pull, the urge to sample those lips, to nibble along her collarbone and taste the silken skin, but the effort cost him.

She cleared her throat and glanced away. “You give me too much credit. I’m just a mother who made a terrible mistake who’s trying to fix it. Contrary to what it may look like, my girls mean everything to me. They’re all I have. I married Jason right out of high school. We were big dreamers with even bigger plans. Unfortunately, neither one of us had the wherewithal to figure out how to make those dreams a reality. And then, I got pregnant.”

“So Alexis wasn’t planned I take it.”

“None of the girls were planned,” Renee said drily. “But they were the joy of my life. I was just too…” she drew a deep breath “…too drunk most of the time to realize it.”

“Drunk?” An echo of her admission in court about rehab came back to him.

She met his stare. “Yeah. Drunk. I was…I mean, I am an alcoholic. That’s why I left.”

He digested her admission in silence, taking a moment to let it sink in. “What did you ex-husband think about you wanting to get sober?” he asked.