“Mom, look!” Rosie rushed over to the window and pressed her face to the glass. Her breath fogged he pane. “Here comes Mr. Riley.”
“Are you sure?” Kaylee slipped in behind her. Sure enough, Riley sat behind the wheel with Ruth nestled in the passenger seat. “My goodness, it
is
Riley. His car must have four-wheel drive. An engine like that coupled with wheels so big can plow through almost anything.”
Riley honked, waved, and before Kaylee could stop her, Rosie dashed through the front door to scamper down the snow-blanketed stairs.
“Mr. Riley!” Her gleeful shouts echoed in the cold air. “You brought all the treats we made!”
Cartons peeked from the rear window of the vehicle. Kaylee’s pulse thrummed. He’d come for them—even if
them
really meant Rosie. The child had done little more during last night’s meal than gush to Riley about the Christmas party. He must have taken to heart how much the festivities meant to her—and to Ruth, as well.
“Come on, Mom.” Rosie turned back toward the house, waved. “Mr. Riley said he’ll take us to see the puppies. He must be one of Santa’s helpers, too. Let’s go!”
****
“The party was a huge success, don’t you think?” Riley asked as Kaylee poured water into the coffeemaker to brew a fresh pot. The rich aroma of ground coffee beans filled the room as he leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. The kitchen of the guest house looked the same as it had when he lived there during his short stint of thinking he was too old—too mature—to reside in the same house as Gran and Gramps. They’d indulged him, turning the house over to his keep. Summer-green paint covered the walls, accented by an earth-tone valance that Gran had crafted and hung above the window over the sink. Photos of Rosie, slipped into magnetic frames, decorated the front of the same side-by-side refrigerator that he’d filled with countless TV dinners and cartons of take-out food. “We gave away all of the treats.”
“Except for the one you ate.” Laughter bubbled from Kaylee, warming him. “And the crowd was so generous with their gifts and their homes. Ruth reported that six dogs, eight cats, and one ferret—more than half of the animals available today—were adopted out.”
“Speaking of cats…are you mad at me?” Riley kept his eyes on Kaylee as she flitted about the kitchen like a hummingbird. She riffled through the fridge for creamer and a package of cinnamon rolls.
“Adopting a kitten for Rosie certainly wasn’t on the agenda, but at least we didn’t return home with the ferret.” Kaylee set the rolls on the counter and retrieved a baking pan from the drawer beneath the oven. “Just because Rosie begged for a kitten, doesn’t mean you should cave and buy one for her.”
“I didn’t buy it, I adopted it. And you’re right—I guess I’ve got a lot to learn about kids.” He opened the rolls and placed them, one by one, onto the pan, then slipped the pan into the oven Kaylee had already set to pre-heat. Rosie’s laughter drifted from the living room. Even Kryptonite, he guessed, was powerless compared to the fervent pleas of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed cutie of a little girl. “But it helped the cause and made her happy, too. Besides, a lot of things that happen in life aren’t on the agenda.”
“Really?” The laughter fled Kaylee as frigid north winds whispered in. The change was subtle…a slight clench in her jaw, the dip of her head. “Such as you professing your love for me one moment and then shunning me the next?”
“About that, Kaylee—”
“What about it?”
“If you’ll give me a minute—”
“A minute?” The inviting scent of cinnamon did little to clip the bite from her words. “I’ve given you years.”
“For the record,” Riley lifted a hand to quiet her, “When the dust settled I wanted to talk to you. I just didn’t know how. I thought we would have more time, and that eventually the words would come of their own accord. But the longer I waited—the more time that passed—the harder it became. Then I was offered a scholarship to grad school and an internship at the law firm in Jacksonville. I figured it was best to just leave and find my future.”
“You had a future here—a family who loved you—” Something in her eyes…a slight softening…told him it was more than family who’d loved him. Did she still care for him? Could she possibly, after the way he’d treated her? “But you gave it up in your quest to save the world.”
“Somebody has to save it.”
“Maybe so. But even if you prosecute every case in the world, bring every crime to justice—it won’t bring back your mother…or my father. It won’t change what happened, Riley. I wish it would. I wish I could roll back time, rewind and do things over again—take it all back. Most of all, I wish you weren’t so…angry.”
“I’m not angry.” Yet, the truth of her words seared a hole through his heart. He struggled to quench the inferno as she poured two cups of coffee from the sputtering carafe, handed one to him. She’d dislodged a chink from his armor, a brick from the fortress of his resolve to leave the past where it belonged—firmly in the past. Now, he felt off balance, lost as if he’d just turned onto an unmarked road and plowed through potholes. He’d meant to talk to her, to tie up loose ends and move on, nothing more. But the longing in his heart failed to come to terms with the logic in his head. It made him edgy, irritable. “I’m simply a realist.”
“Then why did you come back?” Her eyes narrowed into ice-blue bullets. “Why are you here, in my kitchen—”
“Gran’s kitchen.
My
kitchen.”
“OK, if it makes you feel better to point that out…”
“Who’s the father?” The words slipped out before he could lasso them, so he plunged forward with abandon. “Rosie’s father? Where is he? How’d you—”
“She’s my niece, Riley.” Kaylee pressed a hip into the counter as she grasped the mug in one hand, her gaze a mirror of his blazing heart. “Cody is her father.”
“Cody…your older brother?”
“That’s right.”
“But how…why?”
“It’s a long story—one I don’t wish to drag into the open at this moment, and especially not with you.” Kaylee’s eyes pooled with tears as she drew a sip of coffee and regret was a sudden, hot stab to Riley’s heart. “Suffice it to say that Cody doesn’t want to be tied down, as he so bluntly terms it, with Rosie and neither does his girlfriend—make that his ex-girlfriend, now. They tried to make it work, but Cody’s drifted for years, since the accident. He can’t seem to find his place, his niche.”
“How long…since when?”
“Rosie’s been with me almost a year. Cody dropped her off one night, said he had some things to work out and asked me to keep her for a few days. The days turned into a week, then a month, a summer. Rosie started kindergarten and by then I knew Cody had no intention of returning for her. Oh, he calls from time to time, but Rosie and I haven’t seen him since last February.”
“Wow…oh…”
“Jumped to conclusions there, didn’t you?” Kaylee shook her head as her chin rose in a gesture of defiance. “Did you really think—”
“I guess I did. It was wrong and I’m sorry.”
“Are you? Truly?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then…” She set her mug on the counter with a sigh and switched on the oven light to check the rolls. “Ruth has been an angel…so good to us. I couldn’t have made it, financially speaking, without her help, and, as you’ve pointed out,
her
house.”
“No child support? No help from Cody?”
“None, and I’m OK with that. We’re doing just fine, Riley.” Kaylee took a pot holder from the counter and drew the pan from the oven. Heat wafted, chasing the chill from the room. The aroma of cinnamon was rich enough to slice. “I believe Rosie is a gift from God himself. I love her as if she was my own.”
“Have your brother and Rosie’s mother relinquished rights?”
“I have a power of attorney to make decisions for Rosie’s welfare, but I haven’t adopted her, if that’s what you mean. I’d like to, but it’s tough to pin Cody down. Last he phoned, he was somewhere in Albuquerque, working construction. He never stays in one place very long.”
“What if one of them decides they want her back?”
“That’s not going to happen—not in this lifetime.” But the mistrust in Kaylee’s eyes as she turned back to face him told another story, one that broke Riley’s heart.
“Even so...” He’d seen biological parents change their mind for the most unexpected reasons, seen kids stripped from what they knew and those they loved—those who had dedicated months, even years, to loving and caring for them—only to be tossed back into the most horrific circumstances despite the protests of caregivers and social workers. Even worse, he’d witnessed firsthand the devastating results that followed. “I can help you, Kaylee.”
“I can do this alone.” She captured her lower lip between her teeth, gnawed nervously as she shook her head, though tears shadowed her eyes. “I don’t need your help.”
“You don’t need it, or you don’t want it?”
“Take your pick.”
Her stubbornness caused his gut to simmer with worry. She had no idea the power of the beast that might rear its ugly head. But
he
did, and all too well. If only he could make her see things through his eyes. He lowered his voice.
“You don’t have to be alone in this. I went to law school. I know how to navigate the system.”
“I’m perfectly aware that you spent years in law school. I’m sure you’re an expert at
navigating”
— She added air quotes for good measure—“the system. Yet, I’ll repeat: Your help is unwanted.”
“Even if it will protect Rosie?” He took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. “Your anger is going to get the best of you, Kaylee.”
“
You’re
the one who’s angry, the one who can’t seem to forgive something from the past that I had no control over—something that hurt me as much as it hurt you.”
“You didn’t lose your mother.”
“Maybe not that same day as you lost yours, and maybe not in the awful, horrible way, so quick and unexpected, that you did. But I lost her nonetheless, slowly and painfully. You’re not the only one who got hurt, Riley.” She snatched her hand back as if his touch scalded. “You can’t even imagine what it’s like to go into town and have everyone whisper as you pass by, have them dissect your every action and field loathing glances or—worse yet—glimpses of pity.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Those are empty words, Riley. They don’t mean anything—not while that glower still shadows your eyes.”
“Glower?” He slipped into a chair, drew a sip of coffee as he fought to steady his voice. What good would it do to argue here, now, with an innocent child in the next room? “I didn’t realize I had a
glower
.”
“Well, you do.” Kaylee rummaged a spatula from a side drawer and lifted the rolls, one by one, onto a plate. “Do you know what it’s like to have to hug your father at the prison, through a Plexiglas barricade while guards stand watch? To see him sob with grief when it’s time for you to go and he can’t leave the building with you?
“I can’t say I do.” But Riley could picture it now, after all these years, and suddenly his heart broke for Kaylee. He’d spent days in the courtroom, listening to testimony that recounted the accident, and felt certain the penalty doled to her father wasn’t nearly enough punishment to compensate for the death of his mother. Riley remembered how he’d vowed to study law and find his way to the courtroom—to see that every criminal was eradicated from society. Back then, at the age of eighteen, he felt certain he could change the world. Why, then, after countless cases, did he still continue to be left unfulfilled by the victories?
Kaylee’s voice drew him back.
“And to hear your mother, in the dark of night, weep into her pillow over what she’s lost—over the fact that she can’t even grocery shop without people tossing sideways glances and murmuring snide remarks?”
“Your father killed my mother, Kaylee.” Sweat pooled along the small of Riley’s back; his pulse kicked into a sprint. The reality couldn’t be denied. It was what it was—nothing more and nothing less. “In his senseless rage, he ran her off the road. Her car sank into the river; she struggled alone and in a panic.” That thought singlehandedly sent tremors through him. “No one was there to hear her screams, to rescue her. Your father never even slowed his truck. He left her to die as if she—her life—didn’t matter at all.”
“I know exactly what my father did. I’ve lived with it every day of my life. My mother lived with the knowledge, too, until it finally sent her to her grave. But, point it all out again, Riley, just in case I overlooked something that the courts, the press, the people in town had to say about it. My entire family was dismantled in one fell swoop. And then, to top it all off, I lost my best friend—you.”
Riley froze as the words registered. A chill coursed through him, and suddenly he felt embarrassed over his outburst. They had once shared so much, and he hadn’t arrived with the intention of hurting her. Maybe that’s why, though his heart continued to beat all these years, it felt little beyond a deep, searing pain whenever he thought of her. “I didn’t think—”
“No, obviously you didn’t. Plunge the knife in deeper.” Tears turned Kaylee’s eyes to emerald pools, spilling over to stream down her cheeks. “Eventually, the words won’t hurt anymore.”
“I…Kaylee, please.”
“What do you want, Riley?” She pressed her palms to the counter, doubled over for a moment as sobs quaked through her. “Why did you come back here—now—at Christmas?”
“To see my grandmother. She’s all I have. I never expected to find you here, too.”
“But now that you
have
found me, what are we going to do?”
“What is there to do? What happened, happened. There’s no going backwards, no changing it.”
“I know that, but if we can’t move forward then don’t you think the past should stay where it belongs…in the past? Don’t I deserve even the slightest measure of peace—through the holidays, at least? Don’t you?”
“Yes…no.” Riley stood to pace the tile floor. “I don’t know.”
“Well, when you figure it out, send out a newsflash because, despite the heartache, life goes on.” Kaylee turned away, but not before Riley’s heart crumbled at the way she struggled to catch her breath. She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser, wadded it and swiped at her face. “If I have to—if it will make things easier for you—I’ll take Rosie and leave. I’m not sure where we’d go, but I’ll figure it out.”