A Weaver Holiday Homecoming

She was staring back at him, her eyes wide. They were distinct, those eyes. A honey-brown that was oddly translucent.

And oddly familiar, though he knew for a fact that he’d never met her before.

“What about my daughter?” Her smooth voice had a faint lilt to it. And though it might have held suspicion, given the way he was showing up on her doorstep like this, it didn’t seem to.

But it held something. Something he couldn’t quite identify.

He realized she was hugging her arms across her chest; the white cable-knit sweater she wore not doing enough to hold the cold air at bay. “I want to return this.” He held out the dollar bill that Chloe had left. “And give her this.” He pulled an envelope out of his coat pocket.

The doctor moistened her lips, drawing attention that didn’t need to be drawn considering he’d already taken note of their shape. Their soft fullness. The fact that they were bare, pale pink.

The envelope crinkled softly between his fingers.

God. She was so damn familiar—

“Mom! Grammy said to tell you the water in the bathroom’s getting worse.” Chloe suddenly appeared next to her mother, sliding between the doctor’s slender body and the door. Her smile widened when she spotted him. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

Her mom’s hand slid over the girl’s shoulder, closing protectively across her chest.

He didn’t blame the woman. Kids needed protection in this world. Even in little towns like Weaver, Wyoming.

He crouched down until he was more on a level with the kid and handed her the dollar bill. “This is yours. I really didn’t need it as much as you thought.”

She didn’t take it, though her spiky black lashes lowered and her eyes shied away guiltily. “No, it’s not.”

“Chloe? What’s going on?”

Ryan looked up at the doctor. It had been easy enough to track them down to this old house in this old neighborhood. Once he’d found the office on Sycamore, all he’d had to do was visit a few of the neighboring businesses to ask about the new doctor in town, and tongues had started wagging.

Before long, he’d learned all about the house she’d rented about six weeks ago near the town park; the fact that she was friendly but not too; that her daughter was attending school and the grandmother helped watch the girl.

None of the talkative souls he’d run into had mentioned a man in the mix.

“Your daughter has a generous heart, Dr. Keegan.”

She tucked a wave of streaky brown hair behind her ear. “Mallory,” she said faintly. “And, yes. She does. But I’m afraid I don’t understand what this is about.”

“Here.” Since the kid wouldn’t take the dollar, he stuffed it into the mom’s hand instead and handed the kid the envelope, which she tore into eagerly as he rose to face the mom again. Though that was a relative term, since Mallory Keegan stood damn near a foot shorter than he did. “Your daughter and I ran into each other at Ruby’s. She thought I needed a…loan,” he settled on.

“Look, Mom!” Chloe had pulled out the gift certificate from the envelope and was waving it between them. “It’s for the new Purple Princess game! That’s what it says, right? F—r—e—e,” she spelled out.

Mallory’s brows drew together and she tugged the vivid, purple card he’d picked up at CeeVid—his uncle’s computer gaming company—out of her daughter’s grasp, looking from Ryan’s face to it. “Yes, that’s what it says.” She focused on Ryan again. Uncertainty clouded her gaze as if she were waging some internal debate.

He wasn’t sure who was on the winning side, though, when she took a step back, leaning against the open door to push it wider. Her arm was still around Chloe, the dollar crumpled between her fingers. “Maybe you’d better come in.”

He could see past them both into the warmth of the house.

He’d returned the buck. Given the kid a gift just because it was easily convenient for him, thanks to family connections, and it was time to go.

He shifted sideways a little and stepped past her, into the house.

He immediately spotted the white-haired woman from the diner, coming down the stairs. Her arms were full of bath towels. Sopping wet, judging by the water dripping off them.

Mallory pushed back her hair again and gave him an awkward smile. “Have a seat.” She waved in the general direction of a living room opening off the hallway where they stood. “Chloe, sit with Mr. Clay and introduce your grandmother. I’ll be back in a moment.”

She hurried over to the elderly woman and took the towels. Water squished out of them even more during the exchange, and she left a wet trail behind her as she disappeared down the hall.

Realizing he was watching the sway of her shapely jean-clad rear, he nearly jumped out of his skin when a small, slightly damp hand slid into his.

“Come on.” Chloe tugged him toward one of the sleek beige couches that nearly consumed the living room, their style screaming modern against the aged brick of the fireplace that they flanked. “Grammy, this is Mr. Clay,” the little girl called over her shoulder as they went. “Mr. Clay, this is Grammy.”

He caught the amused glint in the woman’s eyes as she followed them. “Kathleen Keegan,” the lady elaborated in a distinct brogue. “Can I take your coat?”

The hairs at the nape of his neck prickled. He suddenly felt surrounded by women.

Ordinarily, that wasn’t exactly a situation to cause him undue strain. But something about the Keegan women—all three of them—made him distinctly edgy.

He should have just let the kid give up her dollar. She’d have felt good about donating to a charity case and he wouldn’t be standing there wondering what the hell he was doing.

But as soon as the wish crossed his thoughts, what was left of his conscience smacked him hard.

So instead of keeping the coat exactly where it was—on and ready for him to make a quick exit—he shrugged out of the scarred leather and handed it over to the old woman, who beamed at him as if he were four and had just correctly recited the alphabet.

“Sit. Sit.” She waited until he’d perched on the awful couch. “What can I get you to warm yourself?”

He caught sight of Mallory crossing the hallway again and squelched the wholly inappropriate answer he could have given. “Nothing, ma’am. I’m fine, thank you.”

He could see the argument forming in her eyes even before he finished speaking, and pushed to his feet. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be nosy, but do you need help?”

He scooted around Kathleen to intercept Mallory. She was carrying a bucket and a mop, with another towel, dry this time, tossed over her shoulder. “Do you have a water leak or something?” Chloe had said something about water getting worse—he hadn’t paid any attention because he’d been too busy cataloguing her mother’s soft lips, and his unwelcome and very physical reaction to her appeal.

Mallory shook her head. “No worries. Everything’s fine.”

It wasn’t exactly an answer and he gave a pointed look at the items in her hands and her cheeks went pinker than her lips.

“Just some cleanup,” she added hurriedly, and fairly dashed around him to pound up the stairs. “Gram, fix him some of your famous hot chocolate,” she called over her shoulder.

“It’s a fine mix,” Kathleen said, behind him. “I add a little kick when it’s a strapping young man like yourself drinking it.”

He didn’t want hot chocolate. Even if it were spiked. He didn’t want to be here in this house that smelled like lemon furniture polish and lilacs. He didn’t want to be reminded of things that were good and clean and worthy.

He wanted to be away from Weaver, away from everything that he’d once known and cared about.

He closed his hand over the newel post at the base of the staircase and looked back at Kathleen. “How bad’s the leak?”

She was still holding his coat, folded at her waist. “Pretty bad,” she said. Her eyes—a color she’d passed on to Mallory—twinkled a little. “My granddaughter won’t admit it, but I’m afraid she might be making it worse.”

“Hold the kick,” he told Kathleen.

“Can I have some hot chocolate, too, Grammy?” Chloe piped as he headed up the stairs.

Finding the bathroom wasn’t difficult. All he had to do was follow the trail of wet footprints down the hardwood hall.

She was on her hands and knees, derriere to the door, furiously wielding the fresh towel over the floor. The source of the problem was obvious thanks to the opened cabinet that had been emptied of everything except a pitiful collection of wrenches and a bucket that was near to full beneath the steady trickle of water coming from one of the pipes.

“Galvanized pipe,” he said, and her head jerked around to peer at him over her shoulder.

He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and forced himself to look at the plumbing and not the very feminine shape before him.

He mostly failed, though.

“Old houses like this often still have galvanized instead of copper or PVC,” he continued. “Unfortunately, it corrodes from the inside out and you sometimes don’t even know you’ve got a problem until—” he waved his hand toward the cabinet and sink “—Niagara Falls.”

Her lips compressed and she turned back to drying the floor. “I’ve tightened again and again. It just won’t stop.”

He crouched down next to her, realizing too late just how close that would put them. “You need a repair clamp.”

She twisted around until she was sitting on her rear. Her shoulder brushed his. “A repair clamp?”

She had a tiny mole above her lip.

He shifted slightly. Put a few inches between them.

He didn’t need hot chocolate.

He needed a cold shower.

“Tightens around the pipe with a rubber gasket,” he said abruptly.

She looked back at the pipe. Her waving hair slid over her shoulder. Brushed her cheek. “And it stops the leak?”

“Yeah.” He shoved to his feet, edging back out of the doorway. Into the hall. Where breathing in didn’t mean breathing in the scent of her. “Hardware store’ll have them. Doesn’t solve the corrosion, though. You’ll want a plumber to look into that soon or you might end up with a few more waterfalls before you’re through.”

She tossed the towel over the leak, pulled the large bucket out to empty into the bathtub, replaced it beneath the leak again and spread the towel out on top of the sink to dry. “I should have rented an apartment in that complex on the other side of town,” she muttered, turning to face him. She dusted her hands down her thighs. “I’m used to apartments. I like apartments. They come with building superintendents to deal with all of this sort of stuff.”

“Then why choose this old place?” She’d have been across town, instead of practically around the block from the Sleep Tite, if she’d have gone the apartment route. “I grew up in this town. The houses in this neighborhood were old when I was a kid.”

She tilted her head back a little, looking up at the ceiling. “Because I’m a sucker for my family. And both Chloe and Gram loved it on sight. Gram because of the enamel doorknobs and crystal chandelier and Chloe because of the park down the street.” She sighed a little and looked back at him. “It seemed the least I could do since it was my decision to uproot them from New York.” Her eyes narrowed a little. “I’m sorry. You’re not interested in all that. Why did Chloe give you a dollar?”

Like it or not—and he pretty much was squarely in the not camp—he was interested in “all that.”

Maybe because there was that nagging familiarity about her. Or maybe it was just because every time he looked at her, his blood stirred in a way that it hadn’t in a very long time. Or maybe it was because his own existence was so freaking pathetic that he was dreaming up excuses to prove otherwise.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. Above her head, he could see his reflection in the ancient mirror above the sink. Lines around his eyes. More gray in his unkempt hair than had been there a year ago. A jaw that hadn’t seen a razor in too many days.

“She didn’t so much as give it to me as pretend it was mine,” he said. “She seemed to think I was more in need of her dusting money than she was.” He couldn’t think of an earthly reason why he was telling her the details. Knowing he’d looked derelict enough to elicit pity from her daughter wasn’t exactly something for him to feel proud of.

She was looking at him again. Her amber-colored eyes measured. “Mr. Clay—Ryan—there’s something about Chloe you need to know.”

He knew enough. She had a tender little heart that he hoped she never had reason to toughen. But, of course, she was only six years old. Life would add calluses sooner or later. “A dollar’s not much, I know—”

“It is to her.” Mallory moistened her lips again. “And it was very kind of you to return it. I already put it back in her piggy bank. The gift certificate wasn’t necessary, though.”

He shrugged it off. “She talked about the game at the diner. My uncle owns CeeVid.”

She looked blank.

“The company that produces the video game.”

“That’s here?” Her eyebrows shot up. “In Weaver?”

“You really haven’t been here long at all, have you?” She couldn’t have been if she didn’t know about the company. Aside from the hospital, it was basically the major employer in the area that, until Tristan established it, had been more traditionally comprised of primarily ranchers and farmers.

“We still have boxes to unpack in the bedrooms,” she admitted. “But still, regardless of your family connection, it’s a much too valuable gift for her. And I don’t want her thinking that a person should be rewarded like that for trying to do a good deed.”

No good deed goes unpunished, he thought cynically. “She’d have bought it herself at some store in Braden if she’d had enough money left from whatever it was she bought you.”

Her lips twisted a little. “All right.” Her voice lowered. “If you must know, I’ve already gotten her the game for her birthday.”

“Then let her use the gift certificate on something else from CeeVid. If you want to take her over to them—you can’t miss it. It’s the multistory building out near the highway if you were heading to Braden. Anyway, she can shop for something on their Web site if you don’t want to go to the store there. Consider it a birthday present if you have to, because I’m not taking it back.”

She sighed hugely. “For crying in the sink,” she muttered.

At the phrase, something inside Ryan’s head clicked into place.

“You do want your way, don’t you,” Mallory was still muttering as she slipped past him into the hall.

“Cassie,” he realized aloud. “That’s who you remind me of. Cassie Keegan. Hell. You’re related to her, aren’t you? No wonder you seemed familiar.”

Mallory went still at his words.

She’d come to Weaver for the express purpose of meeting Ryan Clay. She’d continually debated the decision until she’d convinced herself she was doing the right thing.

So why was she practically shaking in her boots now?

She’d never expected to meet him and feel anything…well…like what she was feeling.

The wrinkle in his forehead that had been there every time he looked at her was gone. “We worked together for a while. She didn’t talk much about her family, though.”

Ryan couldn’t know that he’d just confirmed another piece of the puzzle that had been her sister’s life. “Cassie was my sister.”

The wrinkle returned. In spades. “Was?”

She hesitated. The sound of the leaking water dripping into the bucket under the sink seemed loud. From downstairs, she could hear her grandmother and Chloe talking in the kitchen, along with the clatter of pots and the squeak of Kathleen’s sturdy shoes on the creaking hardwood floor.

She also could hear in her head Ryan’s mother’s voice. And the pleas as well as the caution when it came to her son’s state of mind. Rebecca Clay was desperate to help her son and believed that Mallory could help him find his path again. Rebecca had also gone to great lengths to assure Mallory that no matter what, her position as Chloe’s mother would not be threatened in any way.

“Mallory,” Ryan prompted.

She swallowed again. “I didn’t expect this to be so hard,” she admitted, as much to herself as to him. “Cassie…died.”

He frowned. Muttered a soft oath. “On a case?”

“You mean work?” She shook her head, thinking of the strange company that her sister had worked for. And how difficult it had been to glean information from HW Industries about her sister and her coworkers. “No. She died in, um, in childbirth.” Her mouth felt dry as she gave him the barest of explanations. “With Chloe.”

His eyes were already a sharp blue. But his gaze went even sharper. “I thought you were her mother.”

“I am.” She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “Legally.” Emotionally, too, which was something Mallory truly hadn’t expected when everything she’d planned for her life had taken a ninety-degree turn courtesy of a four-pound, twelve-ounce infant. “But she’s my niece by birth. She…well, Chloe knows Cassie was her birth mother. I’ve never kept that a secret from her.”

“Her birthday is soon.”

“Next Saturday,” she confirmed.

“She’s going to be seven?”

Her throat tightened even more. She nodded silently. Willing him to get to the finish line before she did, but afraid in a way, too, that he would.

“I worked with Cass nearly eight years go.”

“I know.” Her sleeve was beginning to unravel. She shoved the long thread up inside the knit and folded her hands together, only to pull them apart again. “She mentioned it.” Only his first name, though, which had added to her challenge considerably.

He was watching her closely, his face oddly pale. “What else did she mention?”

The muscles in her abdomen were so tight they ached. “She said you…that you worked together once. That you were friends. And that you were a good man.”

But his lips twisted at that. And his eyes were suddenly consumed by a hollowness that was painful to witness. “And did she tell you that we slept together, too?”

Lying was out of the question. “Yes.”

Even beneath the dark, unshaven haze blurring his jaw, she could see a muscle flex there as he absorbed that. “Why, exactly, are you here in Weaver, Dr. Keegan?”

Mallory pulled in a steadying breath. He already knew. She could see it in his face.

But it had been a long haul for Mallory to reach this point. A journey that had taken years and more turns than she could have dreamed of.

She had to say the words.

She looked up at him. Meeting that shocked, hollow gaze with her own. “So that my daughter can meet her father.”

Chapter Three

Even braced as Ryan thought he was, hearing Mallory’s husky words was like taking a blow straight to the solar plexus. “No,” he said flatly. “Can’t be.”

He and Cassie had slept together—what? A handful of times? His brain searched through memories. Sifting. Discarding.

Even less than a handful, he thought.

Twice.

The first time when she’d gotten his tail out of a sling by maintaining his cover that had been about to blow during an identity-theft sting, and the second time a few weeks later after they’d shared a few drinks following a debriefing they’d both attended.

“Obviously, without Cassie, I’ve had to speculate some,” Mallory allowed. “But a test would confirm—”

“No,” he said again. He stretched out his arm. Some portion of his mind recognized that he was backing away from her, as if to keep her and her impossible claim at bay. “I don’t need any tests. I’m not—you don’t want me to be her—” Christ. He couldn’t even say it.

Her eyebrows were pulling together but the only thing he could see in her amber eyes was concern. And—oh, hell. Compassion.

He didn’t want it. Didn’t deserve it. “I’ve got to go.” He turned on his heel and was halfway down the stairs before she could react.

“Ryan, wait. I’m not expecting anything. But please stay.” Her shoes sounded on the stairs behind him. “Let’s at least discuss it.”

He passed Kathleen, who was holding a round tray filled with mugs, and Chloe, who was carrying a plate of Christmas-tree-green frosted cookies. He took in the details as he reached the door, even though their faces were almost a blur.

A second later he was outside. On the porch. Down the snow-covered walkway that bore dozens of footprints heading both to and from the house. This time, his were spaced more widely apart.

He knew he’d left his coat inside but he didn’t hesitate. Just yanked open the squeaking door of the pickup truck and twisted the key that he’d left in the ignition. He gunned the engine and shot down the narrow street.

Yeah, he was running.

So what?

If the women in that house knew what he was—who he was—they’d thank him for it.

With only a bare regard for the stop sign at the corner, he turned at the end of the street. The Sleep Tite parking lot was half-full when he passed it. The parking lot lights that were draped with metal Christmas tree figures were just flicking on to glow against the lengthening afternoon.

He had no destination in mind, other than away, but when he passed the hardware store, an oath blistered his tongue and he swung the truck around and parked it.

The Christmas shoppers were out in force. Even the aisles of the hardware store were crowded when he went inside. It was either the expression on his face or the purpose in his stride that fortunately kept the more familiar faces from trying to stop him to shoot the breeze. He found the repair clamps, bought a couple and headed back out to his truck.

“Ryan!”

He jerked to a stop, recognizing his father’s voice even before he turned to see Sawyer Clay walking along the sidewalk, Ryan’s mother on his arm.

Another downside of small-town living.

Running into people when you weren’t prepared, every time you turned around.

“Dad. Mom,” he greeted when they reached him.

“Where’s your coat?” his mother asked, after she’d tugged his head down to plant a kiss on his cheek.

He had no intention of explaining that one, so he just held up the small plain brown paper sack from the hardware store. “Was just running in and out.” It wasn’t a lie, so meeting his gray-haired father’s gaze wasn’t entirely impossible. “What are you two doing in town?”

“What everyone else in town is doing,” Sawyer drawled. “Taking their wives shopping. It’s either Christmas presents or a dress for that shindig in a few weeks.”

Rebecca made a face at him and batted his arm with her leather-gloved hand. “You said you wanted to come with me.”

“Only to keep your spending in check.” But there was a smile in his voice and an amused tick at the corner of his lips that belied his words. “Haven’t seen you for a few days, son. How are things out at J.D.’s?”

J. D. Clay was his cousin whom he’d been helping out. Or maybe he should say that she was helping him out, by giving him something productive to fill the endless days. She’d moved back to Weaver a few months earlier and started up her own horse-boarding operation, and rather than stare endlessly at the walls of his motel room every day, he’d offered his assistance. So far, he’d begun repainting her old barn, fed and groomed horses and shoveled a mountain of horse manure out of their stalls. Tasks that were a million miles away from the career he’d left behind.

“Between Jake and his boys and Latitude’s recovery, I’ve hardly seen her,” he admitted. Latitude was an injured Thoroughbred that J.D.’s brand-new fiancé, Jake Forrest, had owned until he’d signed over ownership to her barely a week ago.

“Her shoulder is doing well,” Rebecca inserted. She would know since not only was she still practicing, but she ran the hospital where J.D. had gone when she’d dislocated her shoulder after a tumble from a horse. “Doesn’t hurt that she and Jake are clearly head-over-heels for each other.” She dashed her hand over Ryan’s shoulder. “Is everything all right? You look…distracted.”