Anna Adams - Maggie's Guardian

“They’re in England. He’s at a seminar.”

“Good. Their comfort is the last thing you need.” At her affronted glare, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “My mother always asks me if you’re ever going to speak to her again.”

She’d avoided Lucy Gabriel since the divorce. Not that she was mad at Lucy. She just hadn’t wanted to poach on Noah’s property. Lucy, whose independence was her greatest possession, next to her son, would be annoyed that Tessa could consider anyone property, but that happened during a divorce.

“She blames me,” Noah said. “She thinks I told you to stay away from her.”

Tessa planted the baby monitor on one hip and the phone on the other, forgetting she had them in her hands. “I never said so. I just didn’t want to come between you. She was your mother first.”

“But you still belong to her, too. She doesn’t like to lose anyone she loves.”

His unaccustomed frankness made her feel contrite. And that bugged her. “Why don’t you handle her? Tell her not to worry about me.”

“Handle my mom?” His eyes crinkled, making the irises seem darker than she remembered.

“I don’t know how to be friends with her now.” She wasn’t about to admit Lucy reminded her too much of Noah.

His gaze intensified. Palpable unease and one of Maggie’s breaths filled the silence. He tossed his coat at the couch. “Don’t tell me to ‘handle’ her. You care more for her than that.”

“I do.” Hot shame raced across her skin. “But she tries to talk about you. I know I hurt you both, but I had to go. I couldn’t stay in that house when we were both so alone.”

He spoke through tight lips. “Why did we have to be alone? We lived together.”

“We didn’t.” Her solitary grief swept her with familiar emptiness. “You wanted nothing from me, but I needed someone to make me want to live again.”

He tilted his head, eyeing her with an incredulous question. “How can I make you want to live?”

“I don’t know.” She cleared her throat. “And I don’t need that now, but I couldn’t get through to you. We left each other, and then I finally moved out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

“I told you over and over, but you refused to hear.”

He nodded suddenly, and the light picked out silver strands in his black hair. “I didn’t want you to go. I think—I thought—you should have given me another chance.”

As if she owed him? They looked back at the end of their marriage just the way they’d lived it—miles apart in perception.

She glanced toward her future, asleep behind her bedroom door. “Maggie’s the last chance I have in me. You and I stopped owing each other anything the day our divorce became final. I just have to do right by her now.” She twisted the kinks out of her shoulders. “About your mom, what do you say to her?”

“That you’ll call when you’re able to talk to her again.”

Which made it sound as if there was something wrong with her. She started to get mad again.

He saw. “Just call her.” His tone, almost defeated, reminded her he rarely recovered from a migraine in only twenty-four hours. “Mom keeps insisting she didn’t need to deal with a divorce.”

She’d spent a lot of time trying not to miss Lucy. Noah’s mom had made her believe in unconditional mother’s love. With bright copper hair, bloodred faux nails and a legion of suitors, Lucy had been the worst example Amanda could imagine for the daughter she’d considered a failure as a woman. Amanda had admired the quantity of Lucy’s suitors, but she’d lectured long and hard that a woman should more subtly display her attributes.

To Tessa, Lucy had always been…Lucy. What you saw was what you got. She’d only turned her back on her borrowed mother because she’d loved her so much. She’d sworn she wouldn’t come between Noah and his mom.

“I’ll call,” she said with dread. Lucy probably still considered the divorce a temporary measure because Noah had told her he didn’t want it. His signing the papers hadn’t convinced her he’d lied, and Lucy would never stop trying to piece her family back together.

“I don’t mean just for today. Call Mom because you’re a daughter to her, as much as I’m her son.”

Tessa walked around him. “Don’t take yourself too seriously in this ex-husband-to-the-rescue role. I need you because you understand the way Weldon thinks, but I’ve learned how to run my own life again.”

“Maybe I’m more worried about my mother than about you.” He said it so quickly she knew he meant it, that he hadn’t planned the one answer that would make her wonder if she’d made a mistake.

Surely he knew her well enough to see she still loved his mom. “I’ll call her,” she said again. Continuing toward the kitchen, she tried to step back onto last night’s impersonal footing. “Did you talk to Weldon? What are you doing back here anyway?”

“I wanted to check in before I left town.” He followed her lead. “Weldon has nothing on you. He just doesn’t have any other suspects. I talked to the patrol officers who work David’s neighborhood.” He paused as she took out bottles and the formula mix. “What are you doing?”

“Making formula for later. She’ll be hungry again any second. How much longer do you suppose she’ll drink this stuff?” She made a mental note to schedule an appointment with Maggie’s pediatrician.

“I don’t know. Can I help?”

She nearly slammed the formula onto the counter. A cozy suggestion, but unthinkable. “No, thanks.” She tried to sound as if his help didn’t matter in the least. “What did the patrolmen say?”

“No one’s been hanging around David’s house, or here, either.”

“Good.” She hadn’t wanted to believe she and Maggie might be in trouble.

“Weldon wants you to search your office records again to make sure nothing’s missing.”

“I’ll have to ask Emily, our receptionist, to help.” She glanced at him. Bracing his hands on one of her kitchen chairs, he looked big and completely at home. As soon as they switched to business, he shucked off the discomfort that felt like her second skin. “Emily does a lot of the filing.”

“I’d like to talk to her, too. She might know more about David’s office than you.”

He was right. “Does Weldon want to see me again?”

“He didn’t say so, but he knows I’m on your side, and I’m afraid I all but called him a small-town idiot.”

“That should help.” He didn’t answer and the silence stretched. She began to spoon formula into tonight’s bottles. “Noah?”

“Yeah?”

His voice warned her he was coming around the table to look her in the eye. “Why are you so sure I’m innocent?” Following his earlier approach, she asked it quickly. A healthy divorced woman didn’t care what her ex-husband thought of her.

“Are you kidding? I know you.”

“Not now. You knew me before.” As in before she’d lost him and Keely.

“Nothing we’ve been through turns a loving woman into a murderer.”

She nearly dropped the bottle again. If he thought her loving, why had he said no to the divorce but then signed the papers?

“Why are you helping me?” She turned to watch his expression as he answered her.

He looked away. “I let you down. And maybe I should have been able to save our daughter.”

Terrifying compassion swayed her toward him. “Don’t say that.”

“You don’t believe it’s true?”

“Not at all.” She couldn’t force her voice above a whisper. She’d felt the same guilt all this time.

“Then why did you leave?”

“Because you didn’t love me anymore, and I had to learn not to love you.” She brushed away her tears. “Why are you helping me now?”