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as if the sudden silence between them made her nervous. He felt a rush of pity he couldn’t quite hide, and her expression shifted from vulnerability to a hard, cool mask of indifference. She edged away from him, readying herself to stand. “It’s getting late,” she began. “I need to go home and pack for tomorrow.”
His cell phone interrupted, the shrill sound jolting his spine like an electric shock. He fished it from his pocket. The display showed an area code he didn’t recognize.
“Cooper,” he answered, slanting a quick look at Kristen, who sat very still, watching him.
A low, vibrant voice greeted him. “Hi, Sam. It’s me.”
Norah. He’d left a message for her to call, but he hadn’t expected to hear from her tonight. “Thanks for calling back.”
Kristen gave him a curious look, but before he could tell her who was on the other line, the bedroom door opened and Maddy stumbled out, her hair wild and her eyes damp with tears.
“Daddy?” she mewled.
Torn between dealing with Norah and comforting his daughter, Sam shot Kristen a pleading look. For a second, her eyes widened and she looked ready to bolt, but she regained control quickly and crossed to Maddy’s side.
“Sam, are you there?” Norah’s voice drew his attention back to the phone.
Sam watched Kristen crouch by Maddy and begin talking to her in a soft tone. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. Maddy woke up.”
“Your message said you had something important to tell me.” He heard a hint of impatience in Norah’s voice, probably because he’d mentioned Maddy. She didn’t like to hear about Maddy. Must be easier to believe she did the right thing when she didn’t have to think about a little girl growing up without her mommy.
Too bad. What he had to tell her had everything to do with Maddy. And this time, she was going to listen.
KRISTEN COAXED MADDY BACK into the bedroom, though she wished she could stay and listen to Sam’s end of the conversation. He hadn’t said the caller was his ex-wife, but Kristen could tell from his defensive body language and the immediate tension in his voice that he was talking to someone with the power to hurt him. She assumed Norah Cabot was such a person.
“Can you read me a story?” Maddy asked.
Kristen looked at the sleepy little face staring up at her from the pillows and her heart shattered. She struggled to stay focused, to keep her mind in the present as it began to wander helplessly into the nightmarish past.
Read the little girl a book, Kristen. You can do that.
She picked up the book lying on the small bedside table. Dr. Seuss. Her heart squeezed.
Seuss had been Julie’s favorite. Kristen had read Green Eggs and Ham so often she had it memorized. Sometimes, usually late at night when she was tired and couldn’t fight off the memories, the rhymes and rhythms of the child’s book flitted through her mind, interspersed with the image of Julie’s limp body lying at the foot of her bloodstained bed.
Kristen closed her eyes and took a deep breath, clutching the book against her chest.
“Can’t you read, Miss Kristen?”
Her eyes snapped open. Maddy Cooper gazed up at her with wide green eyes full of sweet sympathy.
“I can read it for you,” Maddy added, patting the bed beside her in invitation.
Kristen stared at the tiny hand thumping lightly on the pale pink sheet. Another image of Julie fluttered through her mind, surprisingly sweet. Like Maddy, her little sister had also owned a favorite pair of pajamas—bright yellow with black stripes, inspiring Kristen to nickname her Julie Bee. Julie used to “read” to Kristen, too, flipping through the pages as she recited her favorite books by memory.
Blinking back the tears burning her eyes, Kristen sat beside Maddy, releasing a pent-up breath.
The little girl edged closer, her body warm and compact against Kristen’s side. She took the Dr. Seuss book from Kristen’s nerveless fingers and flipped to the first page, where Horton the elephant sat in a bright blue pool, happily splashing himself with water.
As Maddy began to recite the familiar story in her childish lisp, Kristen closed her eyes and relaxed, not fighting the flood of sweet memories washing over her.
Julie had been an adorable baby, the youngest of the five Tandy kids and the one Kristen had reared almost single-handedly as her mother’s break with reality had widened those last few years. Kristen hadn’t shared a father with her two youngest siblings, but she hadn’t cared. Her own father was long gone, and neither of the men who’d fathered baby Julie and six-year-old Kevin had stuck around long enough to see them born. It was just Kristen, the younger kids and their mother, and for most of Kristen’s memory, her mother had been undependable.
Realizing Maddy had fallen silent, Kristen opened her eyes and found the little girl gazing up at her with solemn green eyes. “Don’t cry, Miss Kristen.” She patted Kristen’s arm. “Horton will find the clover. You’ll see.”
Kristen dashed away the tears, forcing a smile, even as she struggled to hold back a stream of darker memories. She hadn’t had a sweet thought about her brothers and sisters in a long time. She didn’t want to lose it now.
Before Kristen found words to let Maddy know that she was okay, the bedroom door opened and Sam entered. His gaze went first to Maddy, a quick appraisal as if to reassure himself that she was still there and still okay.
When he shifted his gaze to Kristen, his eyes widened a little, no doubt with surprise at finding his daughter’s bodyguard weeping like a baby. She looked down, mortified, wiping away the rest of the moisture clinging to her cheeks and eyelashes in a couple of brisk swipes.
Sam crossed to the bed. “Horton Hears a Who,” he read aloud. “Excellent choice, ladies.”
As Maddy giggled up at her father, Kristen scrambled off the bed, waving for him to take her place. “Maddy was reading to me. We left poor Horton in a precarious place.” She was pleased by the light tone of her voice. Maybe he’d buy that she’d been crying tears of laughter.
“But it’s okay,” Maddy insisted, her tone filled with childish urgency, apparently afraid Kristen was still worried about Horton and his tiny friends. Kristen felt an unexpected rush of affection for the little girl, touched by her concern.
“I’m sure Miss Kristen knows that,” Sam assured Maddy, but Kristen heard a hint of puzzlement in his voice. She guessed he hadn’t fallen for the “tears of laughter” attempt.
“Did your call go okay?” she asked.
He caught her meaning and gave a nod. “Let me finish reading this with Maddy and then we’ll talk.”
She settled against the door frame, watching Maddy cuddle close to Sam as he finished the story. By the time the jungle animals pledged to protect the imperiled Whovillians, Maddy’s eyes had drooped closed. Sam bent and kissed her pink cheek, lingering a moment. Kristen had to look away, a dozen different emotions roiling through her. She’d never shared those kinds of moments with her father, who’d left the family when she was just six years old, and who’d been distant long before then.
Sam finally eased himself away from Maddy and joined her at the door. “Outside,” he whispered, opening the door for her.
He guided her away from the door, stopping in the middle of the living room. “I don’t want Maddy to overhear.”
“Overhear what?” Kristen asked.
“That her mother’s booked a flight to Alabama, arriving tomorrow,” he answered grimly.
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