Molly O'Keefe - A Man Worth Keeping

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Title Page A Man Worth Keeping Molly O’Keefe www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author Molly O’Keefe has written eleven books. When she isn’t writing happily-ever-after she can usually be found in the park acting as referee between her beleaguered border collie and her one-year-old son. She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband, son, dog and the largest heap of dirty laundry in North America.

Dedication To the person at Webster University who assigned Jennifer Kavanaugh to the dorm room across from mine. Whoever you are, you changed my life. Thanks. You’re not too shabby either, JK.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Copyright

Molly O’Keefehas written eleven books. When she isn’t writing happily-ever-after she can usually be found in the park acting as referee between her beleaguered border collie and her one-year-old son. She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband, son, dog and the largest heap of dirty laundry in North America.

To the person at Webster University who assigned

Jennifer Kavanaugh to the dorm room across from

mine. Whoever you are, you changed my life. Thanks.

You’re not too shabby either, JK.

WAS THAT…a frog?

Max Mitchell tried to clear his vision, but the pain and blood made it impossible. But the frog—if that’s what the green blur on the ceiling was—seemed to sway and scream in time with his charging heartbeat.

He was dying, his blood pumping out of his body beneath a flying, screaming frog.

Is this shock?

His brain sent the message to his nerves to lift his hand so he could wipe the blood from his face.

Come on, hand, lift. Here we go.

But it didn’t work. The nerves didn’t respond.

He spit out the blood that pooled, coppery and hot in his mouth, and groaned from the effort.

The screaming, he realized when his ears suddenly popped, wasn’t from the frog. It was from the baby in the crib under the frog. The frog mobile, blood spattered and cockeyed.

Nell picked up the baby and the screaming stopped.

Relief rattled through his body, slowing his heart rate.

Or it could be loss of blood. Either way Nell had lived and he was so tired.

“Mitchell!”

Someone called his name and he made the effort to turn his head, but agony screamed through his neck and the black edges of the world closed in.

“Mitchell, can you hear me?”

The frog was replaced by the bearded face of his partner.

Good—Nell, the baby and Anders are still alive.

“You’ve got a bullet in the groin and it looks like another one creased your neck and cheek.” Anders was putting a good face on it, trying to smile, but Max could feel his partner using both hands and all his weight to stanch the blood pouring out of Max’s body.

“Hurts.”

Anders laughed. “I should think.”

“Groin?”

“It’s bad, lots of blood. But you’ll live to love another day.”

“Where—” The blood made it difficult to talk, but he spit out more and tried again. “Where’s Tom?”

“Tom?”

“The dad. Adult male.”

Anders glanced briefly behind him, where blue shapes and the screaming and the frog all lingered just out of Max’s focus.

“The wife is hurt, but not bad. The infant is fine, but we were too late for the dad. The first bullet was right through the chest. He died instantly.”

Justice, Max thought, is too damn complicated.

Medics approached, pushing Anders out of the way. But Anders wasn’t a man easily pushed and he hovered over a medic’s shoulder.

Max was glad. He didn’t want to die alone.

“The teenager?” Max asked as the medics lifted him onto the stretcher. Hot shards of pain, like glass, like blowtorches and firebombs, blazed up his body from his leg. He screamed, warm blood spilling into his mouth and he choked.

“Jesus, guys. Careful,” Anders barked, and the medics ran to get Max out of the nursery room that had turned into a bloodbath.

“The teenager?” he cried, pushing against the black edges that lingered and taunted him with sweet relief.

“You got him,” Anders said, pride and regret in his voice. “He’s dead.”

Max had done his job. He let go and the world went dark.

Two years later

MAX MITCHELL SLID the two-by-four over the sawhorses and brushed the snow off his hand tools, but more fat flakes fell to replace what he’d moved.

It was only nine in the morning, and the forecast had called for squalls all day.

Winter. Nothing good about it.

Of course, spending every minute of the season outside was a surefire way to cultivate his dislike of the cold. But lately, walls no matter how far away—and ceilings—no matter how high—felt too close. Like coffins.

The thick brown gloves didn’t keep out the chill so he clapped his hands together, scaring blackbirds from the tree line a few feet behind him.

Even the skeleton structure he’d spent the past few months constructing seemed to shiver and quake in the cold December morning.

He eyed his building and for about the hundredth time he wondered what it was going to be.

It wasn’t one of the cottages that he’d spent last spring and summer building for his brother’s Riverview Inn.

Too small for that. Too plain for his brother, Gabe, the owner of the luxury lodge in the wilderness of the Catskills.

Max told everyone it was going to be an equipment shed, because they needed one. But it was so far away from the buildings that needed maintaining and the lawns that needed mowing, he knew it would be a pain in the butt hauling equipment back and forth.

Still, he called it a shed because he didn’t know what else to call it.

Besides, the construction kept his hands busy, his head empty. And busy hands and an empty head stymied the worst of the memories.

The skin on the back of his neck grew knees and crawled for his hairline and he whirled, one hand at his hip as if his gun would be where it had been for ten years. But of course his hip was empty and, behind him, watching him silently beneath a snow-covered Douglas fir, was a little girl.

“Hi,” he said.

She waved.

“You by yourself?” He scanned the treeline for a parent.

She nodded.

Talkative little thing.

“Where’d you come from?” Max asked.

The girl jerked her thumb toward the inn that was back down the trail about thirty feet through the forest.

“Are you a guest?” he asked, although it was Monday and most guests checked in on Sunday. “At the inn?” She shrugged.

“You…ah…lost?” Max asked.

She shook her head.

“Can you talk?”

She nodded.

“Are you gonna?”

She shook her head and smiled.

His heart, despite the hours in the cold, warmed his chest.

“Do you think maybe someone is worried about you?”

At that the girl stopped smiling and glanced behind her at the buildings barely visible through the pines.