Anna Adams - Maggie's Guardian

“More than anyone.” His gentle tone offered the kind of comfort she’d once needed, but then he detached his feelings and became a suspicious cop again. “Where are Joanna’s parents?”

“I haven’t heard from them yet, but Weldon called them.” She glanced toward the phone. “They might have tried to reach me.” Taking a deep breath, she plunged on. “I wonder if they’re going to change their minds about leaving Maggie with me.”

“Why did they agree in the first place?”

“They’re both in their late sixties. I’m young enough to be a mother figure to Maggie, and that was what David and Joanna wanted for her. We drew up the papers just after Maggie was born, and Joanna asked them to sign a consent, but I don’t know how I’d fare in court.”

“They’re probably concerned if they’ve heard David was murdered at the office.”

Her breath caught, but she made herself think of good times with David—when they’d dangled off her roof, cleaning the gutters, the way he’d hounded her about not using the alarm system. He’d been her best friend. “Maybe I should call the Worths.”

“Yeah. David wasn’t so much killed as slaughtered.” At his blunt statement, she pulled back from him, and he grimaced. “They’ve lost him, too, Tessa.”

“You’re right. I didn’t think of that.” She stood, already looking away. “I’ll call from my bathroom. I can take the phone in there without waking the baby, and I know you need to sleep. Can I get you some water?”

“I’ll get it.” He rose, too, apparently as anxious to have her out of his way as she was to leave him on his own.

“I have a guest room upstairs.”

“I’ll take a look at it later.”

At his rueful tone, she picked up the monitor and left him. This was the way they should be together. Except for those first few moments, when they’d absorbed each other like two lost souls who’d wandered in from a desert, they’d treated each other as acquaintances.

She put their first reaction down to unfinished business, but she was happier being Noah’s acquaintance. He’d guide her through any pitfalls the Prodigal Police Department could throw in her path. He’d keep her from making a mistake that would hold their attention on her.

Upstairs Tessa carried the phone into the bathroom and eased the door shut. She called Information for Eleanor and Joe Worth’s phone number. Eleanor answered on the first ring.

“I’m so glad you called,” she said as soon as Tessa greeted her. “Where’s Maggie? That idiot police chief said he’d had Child Services pick her up from day care, but they wouldn’t tell us—”

“I have her.” Tessa waited for Eleanor’s reaction.

“Thank God.” Her gratitude sounded heartfelt. “Why don’t you bring her to us? She needs familiar faces around her, and we’d love to have you both.”

“Thank you,” Tessa said, a touch uneasy. Maggie knew her face. “But I have to arrange for the funeral and take care of the office.” And Weldon might not let her travel forty-five minutes beyond his jurisdiction until after he had cleared her.

“Oh.” Eleanor’s voice faltered into silence.

Her disappointment pricked Tessa’s conscience. “You could come here.” The second she offered she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Now was not the time to confuse Maggie about who would be taking care of her. Eleanor and Joe might not be able to keep themselves from interfering if they had any second thoughts about the guardianship.

“We should come. Maggie’s too young to go to her father’s funeral. We’ll look after her.”

Eleanor’s excitement felt inappropriate at a time when Tessa couldn’t get David’s broken body out of her head, but the other woman and her husband were all the family Maggie had left. Tessa didn’t want to alienate them. Maggie would need her grandparents, and naturally, they wanted to see her.

A squeak in the floor made her glance toward her bedroom door. Noah must have decided to use her extra room.

Used to old habits, she stood, on the verge of asking what he thought about having the Worths stay, but she came to her senses.

“Let me tell you how to get here from David’s house. It’s on your way.” Again she held back sorrow to take care of business.

“We have a few things to do first, but we’ll drive over late tomorrow morning.”

HOURS LATER, Tessa lay staring into the darkness. A bony limb scraped at her ice-etched window. Wind seemed to lift the eaves with each sudden gust. The house settled, making familiar snaps and clicks. The only thing she couldn’t hear was the sound of Maggie breathing.

And at last, she couldn’t stand not knowing. She turned on the lamp and knelt beside the baby in her makeshift bed. On her side, with one small hand across her face, Maggie looked ridiculously older than she was. Her terry sleeper lifted and sank with lovely regularity over her chest.

Tessa eased a relieved sigh between her lips. She slid to the floor and cushioned her own elbow beneath her head.

Before long, she began to shiver. The pine floor transferred the cold, despite being insulated by another layer of house downstairs. She crawled back and yanked down a pillow and her own comforter. Then she burrowed into a warm nest beside Maggie on the floor.

Tomorrow night, maybe she’d be able to sleep in her bed. If she found a crib and pulled it near enough.

She closed her eyes. Maggie’s rhythmic breaths became her own. She felt each in-and-out exchange of oxygen that fed Maggie’s blood and hers. Until finally, by some miracle, she stopped thinking at all and fell asleep.

NOAH OPENED ONE EYE to the morning sun. The anvil player in his head had slowed the tempo enough to make life bearable. He turned over, but the familiar scent of the sheets beneath his face startled him. He lifted his head.

Until this second, he hadn’t noticed his own sheets no longer smelled like this, fresh and something floral that made him remember lying with Tessa. He pressed his face into the bed and breathed in.

In the scented darkness, he could almost pretend the past eighteen months hadn’t happened. Any second now he’d hear his baby cooing the odd, off-key songs that had tugged at his heart as Tessa sang back to her.

Punching a hole in his fantasy, a sharp screech erupted from the next room. Noah pulled a pillow over his head, but it couldn’t muffle Tessa’s confused response.

He’d never known her to face the morning with pure joy. Maybe if he’d had twenty years with her, he would have gotten sick of her bad humor in the a.m. He’d only lived with her five years, just long enough to find her morning temper endearing. She’d hidden it from their baby, and even now, she spoke lovingly to Maggie.

He shoved the pillow away. Tessa had less reason than ever to welcome a new day. Memories of finding David’s body would probably hit her harder this morning.

She’d never seen such violence. Tessa’s family tended to be detached. She’d grown up on her own for the most part, in a nice safe, upper-middle-class environment. But her parents had protected her from anything resembling David’s death.

A sudden spurt of anger surprised Noah, twisting out of the depths of his apathy. Loss of life pissed him off, but David’s death mattered even more. After his and Tessa’s divorce, he’d backed away from his friendship with David in case the other man felt he had to choose between them.

Since then, they’d shared exactly two beers on two separate occasions when David had come to Boston for business. They’d never talked about Tessa, and they’d never discussed David’s personal life. Noah figured David had chosen which friend he wanted to keep.