Molly O'Keefe - A Man Worth Keeping

Which, of course, was ridiculous. She couldn’t tell that from a five-second conversation, from a quick glance into a pair of black eyes. And the fact that her instincts told her the compelling, handsome and mysterious man was a good guy was a pretty good indication that he wasn’t.

Her instincts were like that.

Delia turned and despite the cold and her aching hands and misleading gut reactions she crouched in front of her daughter. “Listen to me,” she said, hard as nails. The smile and spark of defiance fled from Josie’s brown eyes. The response killed Delia, ripped her apart, but she didn’t know what else to do. “When I say you stick close, it means you stick close. It means I can see you at all times. I’m not telling you again, Jos. You know how important this is, don’t you?”

Josie nodded.

“How important is it?” Delia asked. She would repeat this a million times a day. Delia would tie Josie to her side if she had to.

“It’s the most important thing,” Josie repeated dutifully.

Delia arched an imperial eyebrow—another trick from her daddy, who could act like a king despite the black under his fingernails.

“Got it?” she asked.

After a moment, Josie nodded, her lips pouty, her eyes on her boots. “Got it.”

“I love you, sweetie. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

Delia pulled Josie close, but the child stood unmoving in the circle of her arms.

She just needs more time , Delia told herself, blinking back tears caused by the cold and the unbearable abyss between her and her baby. She doesn’t understand what’s going on. She’ll come around.

That’s what all the books she’d been reading about raising children after a divorce said. Time, patience and a little control over their own lives were what children needed when growing accustomed to a new divided home life.

And if something in the back of Delia’s mind insisted that it couldn’t be that simple, she ignored that, too. No one was forking out the big bucks for her thoughts on child rearing, so what did she know?

Only that Josie was too young to comprehend what was happening, all the dangers out there that wanted to tear her away and hurt her. It was Delia’s one job—her only mission right now—to keep the dangers away.

“I want my daddy,” Josie whispered, her voice filled with tears.

Delia’s eyelids flinched with a sudden surge of anger. It was growing harder and harder to control this anger, this ever-bubbling wellspring of rage she had toward Jared.

“I know you do, sweetie,” she said, and stood, holding her daughter’s small hand in her own.

It was too bad that Daddy was the biggest danger of all.

“Are we going to stay here?” Josie asked as they approached the rear of the beautiful lodge.

“If they give me the job we will.”

“Why do you need a job?” Josie asked. “You said we were on vacation.”

Delia shrugged. “It’s a working vacation. We won’t be here very long.” Not that the Mitchell family would know that. They were looking for someone long-term and these days her version of long-term was decidedly shorter than it used to be.

She watched Josie taking in the sights with wide eyes. This was a different world from where they’d come. Snow, pine trees, the towering escarpment of the Catskills—Josie had only seen these things on television. “Do you like it here?”

Josie humphed in response.

“Where will we sleep?” Josie asked, and Delia swallowed hard the guilt that chewed at her. They’d slept in terrible places in the past week and a half. After leaving her cousin’s place in South Carolina, she’d been on a slippery slope downward. Afraid to use her credit or debit cards, she’d been forced to use the small amount of cash she had. And small amounts of cash bought them nights in places with bad odors, scratchy sheets and too thin walls.

“In there.” Delia pointed to the lodge. “We’ll have a room all to ourselves, and we’ll each get a bed. And a nice big bathroom with a huge old tub.”

And solid locks on the doors.

“How does that sound?” Delia jiggled her daughter’s arm, needing just a little help, just a little support, in the brave-face department.

“Good,” Josie said, and Delia smiled, the bands of iron that constricted her chest loosened.

“Can I call Dad tonight?”

And like that, she couldn’t breathe again.

“Not yet. I told you, sweetie, he’s still at that conference. He’s going to be there for two whole weeks.”

“That’s a long time,” Josie said, looking glum.

She wanted to comfort her daughter, kiss away the pain that had settled on her small fragile shoulders. But Delia didn’t know how.

She didn’t know how they were going to get through the day, much less tomorrow or the day after. She’d bought herself a few more days with the lie about Jared being at a conference.

But what then?

Those books she’d read had no answers about this sort of situation and all she had to go on were her faulty instincts.

“Oh, sweetie—” Delia hesitated, reluctant to add another lie to the heaping pile, but knowing she had no choice.

“What?”

“If anyone asks, our last name is Johnson.”

MAX SPENT AN HOUR after the females had left his clearing trying to stop smiling. Delia had her hands full with Josie, he thought, cinching on his tool belt then carrying the two-by-fours over to the house.

He slid the wood to the ground and hoped Josie was occupied by something. School. Dance or whatever. Because kids that smart, when left to their own devices, found other ways to occupy their time. And those other ways were never good.

Framing out the roof was a two-person job, but his dad, who had been his primary second throughout the building of all the cabins for the inn, was downstate dealing with his lawyer.

Gabe was useless with carpentry, besides being far too preoccupied acting the nervous husband over his pregnant wife and—

Again, the skin on his neck shimmied in sudden warning that he wasn’t alone and he whirled, crouched low, his hand at his hip.

But instead of his standard issue, he had a palm full of hammer.

“Old habits, huh, Max?” Sheriff Joe McGinty stepped into the clearing.

“Careful, grandpa.” Max dropped the wood and stepped out of the building, his hand outstretched. “It’s getting icy.”

“ Grandpa? Don’t make me hurt you.” Joe grabbed his hand and shook it mightily. They might have hugged if they were different kind of men. Instead they clapped each other’s shoulders and grinned.

“How you doing?” Joe asked, his thin, wrinkled face chapped by the elements. “Working on your dollhouse.” “It’s a shed,” Max said, compelled to defend his building. “Want to help me frame out that roof?”

“It’s too cold to be working out here.” Joe shuddered and rolled up the floppy fur collar on his shearling coat. “Too cold for anything but going inside.”

“You come out here to give me a weather report?” Max asked.

Joe ran his tongue over his teeth and appeared to be slightly torn about something, which was more than odd for the old law enforcer. He was like a winter wolf. Scrawny and tough and too stubborn to give up and head for greener pastures. And Max liked him for all those reasons.

“Problems with more kids?” Max asked, pulling his gloves on since it seemed this conversation might take a while.

“Nah.” Joe swiped at his dripping nose. “The afterschool program you ran out here in the summer set a lot of ’em straight.”

Max had had ten kids working here over the summer and fall. Kids who’d gotten in trouble, were failing out of school—some of the worst of them had been headed for the halfway house for teens out by Coxsackie. Two of them still worked here as full employees, no longer the atrisk kids they’d been.