Collin was not having a good day. In fact, the last two had been lousy.
He pushed the barn door open, stopping in the entrance to breathe in the warm scents of animals, feed and the ever-present smell of disinfectant. He went through gallons of the stuff trying to protect the sick animals from each other.
Since the night he’d let himself hope, only to be slapped down again, he’d battled a growing sense of emptiness.
After work tonight he’d gone to the gym with Maurice and true to form, his buddy had invited him home for dinner and Bible study. For the first time, he’d wanted to go. But he always felt so out of place in a crowd. And a Bible study was a whole different universe.
Not that he hadn’t given God a lot of thought lately. Every time he showered or changed shirts and noticed his shamrock, Mia’s words rang in his memory. She had something in her life that he didn’t. And that something was more than a big, noisy family. Maurice had the same thing, so Collin figured the difference must be God.
One of the horses nickered as Collin moved down the dirt-packed corridor. These animals depended on him, regardless of the kind of day he’d had. He could take care of himself. They couldn’t.
As was his habit, he headed to Happy’s pen first. The little dog’s attitude could lighten him up no matter what.
Mitchell, whom he hadn’t seen since the smoking incident, was already inside the stall.
Irritation flared. The little twerp had some nerve coming back around the animals without permission.
Collin was all prepared to give him a tongue-lashing and send him home when the boy looked up.
What he saw punched him in the gut.
The kid’s face was bruised from the eyebrow to below the cheekbone. A sliver of bloodshot eye showed through the swelling.
“What happened?” He heard his own voice, hard and angry.
Mitchell dropped his head, fidgeting with the dog brush in his hands. “I won’t smoke anymore, Collin.”
“Not what I asked.”
Mitchell jerked one narrow shoulder. “Nothing.”
With effort, Collin forced a calm he didn’t feel. “Home or school?”
The boy was silent for a minute. Then he blew out a gust of air as if he’d been holding his breath, afraid Collin would send him away. “Not my mom.”
The stepdad, then. Collin had run a check on Teddy Shipley. He had a rap sheet longer than the road from here to California, where he’d spent a year in the pen for assault with a deadly weapon and manufacturing an illegal substance. A real honey of a guy.
Collin hunkered down beside the boy, rested one hand lightly on the skinny back. “You can tell me anything.”
Mitchell developed a sudden fascination with the bristles of Happy’s brush. He flicked them back and forth against his palm. “I can’t.”
And then he dropped the brush and buried his face in Happy’s thick fur. Happy, true to his name, moaned in ecstatic joy and licked at the air.
The kid was either scared or he knew something that would incriminate someone he cared about. And the cop in Collin suspected who.
He sighed wearily. Life could be so stinking ugly.
“If he hits you again, I’m all over him.”
Mitch’s head jerked up. His one good eye widened. “I never told you that. Don’t be saying I did.”
Compassion, mixed with frustration, pushed at the back of Collin’s throat. He clamped down on his back teeth, hating the feelings.
“Did you go to school like this?”
Mitch shook his head. “No.”
So that’s why he’d shown up here this evening. Things were out of hand at home.
“Does he hit your mom, too?”
Tears welled in the boy’s eyes. “She’d be real mad if she knew I told.”
“Why?”
“She just would.”
What Mitch wasn’t saying spoke volumes. Collin had seen this scenario before. He’d also lived it.
Violence. Codependence. Drugs. A mother who preferred the drugs and a violent man to the safety and well-being of herself and her child. He wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Teddy was cooking meth again, a suspicion that deserved checking into.
The sound of a car engine had Mitchell scrubbing frantically at his face. Collin turned toward the interruption. He’d know that Mustang purr anywhere. Mia. Just who he did not want to see. A social worker who’d stick her nose into something she couldn’t fix. He was a cop. He could handle the situation far better than she could.
Mitch leaped up, recognizing the car, as well. His one good eye widened in panic. “Don’t say anything, huh, Collin?”
Like she wouldn’t notice an eye swollen shut.
“Go brush down the colt and give him a block of hay,” he said, giving the kid an out. If Mia didn’t see him, she wouldn’t ask questions, and no one would have to lie.
Mitch shot out of the pen, disappearing into the far stall.
Collin picked up an empty feed sack and crushed it into a ball.
His world had been orderly and uneventful until Mia had come barging into it, hounding him, talking until he’d said yes to shut her up. And then her family had gotten in on the deal. First the birthday party. Then Adam’s help with the lawsuit. And now Leo, Mia’s father, found daily reasons why Collin had to stop by the bakery. Try as he might, Collin couldn’t seem to say no.
Man. What had he gotten himself into?
The colt whickered. One of the dogs started barking. And the whole menagerie began moving restlessly.
Collin didn’t rush out to greet his visitor. He needed some time to think. Still baffled by Mia’s stubbornness over something as simple as looking into a file, he wasn’t sure what to say to her.
They didn’t share the same sense of justice. He believed in obeying the law, but there was a difference in the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. To him, opening his own brothers’ adoption files, if they existed, would fall under the spirit of the law. It was the right and just thing to do.
But he had to be fair to Mia, too. She’d gone above and beyond the call of duty in searching those moldy old files in the first place. And even if she was a pain in the backside sometimes, having her around lightened him somehow, as if the goodness in her could rub off.
After a minute’s struggle, Collin decided to wait her out. Mia knew where he was if she had something to say. He’d known from the start he didn’t want the grief of some woman trying to get inside his head. He had enough trouble inside there himself.
He went to work scrubbing down a newly emptied pen. The last stray, hit by a car, hadn’t made it. He’d been hungry too long to have the strength to fight.
Fifteen minutes later, when Mia hadn’t come storming inside the barn, smiling and rattling off at the mouth, Collin began to wonder if he’d heard her car at all. He dumped the last of the bleach water over the metal security cage and went to find out.
Sure enough, Mia’s yellow Mustang sat in his driveway but she was nowhere to be seen.
Mitch came to stand beside him, one of Panda’s adolescent kittens against his chest. “Where is she?”
“Beats me.”
At that very moment, she flounced around the side of the house, her sweater flapping open in the stiff wind. She wasn’t wearing her usual smile. Almond eyes shooting sparks, she marched right up to Collin.
“I don’t stop being a friend because of a disagreement.”
That didn’t surprise him. The sudden lift in his mood did. Renewed energy shot through his tired muscles. He hid a smile. Mia was pretty cute when she got all wound up.
She slapped a wooden spoon against his chest.
“I brought food. Home-cooked.” She tilted her head in a smug look. “And you are going to love it.”
He fought the temptation to laugh. Normally, when a woman pushed too hard, she was history, but with Mia he couldn’t stay upset. That fact troubled him, but there it was.
Unmindful of the sparks flying between the adults, Mitch stepped between them. “Food. Cool.”
Mia started to say something then stopped. Her mouth dropped open. She stared at Mitchell’s bruised face, expression horrified. “What happened to you?”
Mitchell shot Collin a silent plea and then hung his head, averting his battered face.
“I got in a fight.”
“Oh, Mitch.” And then her fingers gently grazed the boy’s cheekbone in a motherly gesture. The tension in Mitch’s shoulders visibly relaxed, but his eyes never met Mia’s.
Collin let the lie pass for now. Whether Mitch liked the idea or not, a cop was mandated by law to share his suspicions with the proper authorities, and that was Mia. If there was any possibility that a child was in danger, welfare had a right to know. The policeman in him accepted that regardless of his personal aversion.
“I’m starved,” he said, knowing his statement would be an effective diversion. Mia’s respondent smile washed through him warm and sweet, like a spring wind through a field of flowers. “Cleaning pens can wait until after dinner.”
“Not mad at me anymore?” she asked.
Quirking one brow, he started toward the house and left her to figure that out for herself. He wasn’t sure he knew the answer anyway.
The early sunsets of November were upon them and the wind blew from the north promising a change in weather. Leaves loosened their tree-grip and tumbled like tiny, colorful gymnasts across the neatly fenced lots housing the grazers. The deer with the bad hip had healed and now roamed restlessly up and down the fence line longing to run free. Collin and Doc had decided to wait until after hunting season ended to give the young buck a fighting chance.
When they reached the house, Collin opened the door and let Mia and Mitchell enter first. The smell of Italian seasoning rushed out and swirled around his nose.
“Smells great. What is it?” Not that he cared—a home-cooked Italian dinner was too good to pass up. Especially one cooked by Mia.
“Lasagna. Wash your hands. Both of you.” She shooed them toward the sink. “Food’s still hot.”
Along with Mitchell, he meekly did as he was told, scrubbing at the kitchen sink. If anyone else came into his house issuing orders and rummaging in his cabinets, he would be furious. Weird that he wasn’t bothered much at all.
While Mia rattled forks and thumped plates onto his tiny table, he murmured to Mitch, “A lie will always come back to bite you. Better tell her.”
Mitchell darted a quick glance at Mia and gave his head a slight shake, his too-long hair flopping forward to hide his expression. Collin let the subject drop. For now.
Moments later, they dug into the meal. Collin could barely contain a moan of pleasure.
Lifting a forkful of steaming noodles and melted mozzarella, he said, “If this is your idea of a peace offering, I’ll get mad at you more often.”
Mia sliced a loaf of bread and pushed the platter toward him. Steam curled upward, bringing the scent of garlic and yeast.
“There are still things I can do to help, Collin. Unlike foster-care files, many of the adoption files have been computerized. I started searching the open ones today.”
He took a chunk of the bread and slathered on a pat of real butter. “Are the sealed files on computer, too?”
There was a beat of silence, and then, “It doesn’t matter.”
She wasn’t budging from her hard-nosed stand.
“After all the years I’ve searched and come up empty, I think the adoption files are the answer. They have to be.”
Mitchell was already digging in for seconds. “Why are you trying to get into adoption files?”
Collin started. He never spoke openly about his brothers or his past. He’d never before said a word about them in front of Mitchell. Was this what hanging around with a chatterbox did for a guy? He started to lie to the boy, and then remembered his words only moments before. A lie would always come back to haunt you.
“I’m looking for my brothers,” he said honestly. “We were separated in foster care as kids.”
Saying the words aloud didn’t seem so hard this time.
“No kidding?” Mitch backhanded a string of cheese from his mouth. “You were a foster kid?”
“Yeah. I was.” He held his breath. Would the knowledge lessen him in Mitchell’s eyes?
Mitch’s one unblemished eye, brown and serious, studied him in awe. “But you became a cop. How’d you do that?”
And just that simply, Collin experienced a frisson of pride instead of shame. Mia had been right all along. Mitch needed to know that the two of them shared some commonalities.
“A lousy childhood doesn’t have to hold you back.”
By now, the boy’s mouth was jammed full again, so he just nodded and chewed. He chased the food with a gulp of iced tea and then said, “So where are your brothers? Can Miss Carano find them? Can’t the police find them? I’ll help you look for them. How many do you have?”
His words tumbled out, eager and naive.
Collin filled him in on the bare facts. “And Miss Carano’s helping me search, too. Even though I’ve been a pain about it.”
He gave her his version of an apologetic look. He wasn’t sorry for asking her to bend the rules a little, but he was glad to be back on comfortable footing with her. The last couple of days had been lousy without her.
“I’ve started a hand search of the old records in the storage room of the municipal building,” Mia told him. “That’s where I found that address the other day.”
The police records were warehoused the same way, and he knew from experience that hand searches were tedious and time-consuming. And often fruitless.
“I appreciate all you’re doing, Mia. Honestly. But you can’t blame me for wanting to investigate every available option.”
“I don’t blame you.” She pushed her plate aside and said, “Anyone for dessert?”
“Dessert?” Both males moaned at the same time.
“You should have warned us.” Collin put a hand over his full belly. He looked around the tiny kitchen, spotted a covered container on the bar. “What is it?”
Mia laughed. “My own made-from-scratch cherry chocolate bundt cake. But we can save dessert for later.”
“You made it yourself?”
“Yep. The bread and lasagna, too.”
The sweet Italian bread must have come from her parents’ bakery. “No way.”
“Way. I didn’t grow up a baker’s daughter for nothing. All of us kids cut our teeth on the old butcher-block table in the back of the bakery where Mom and Dad hand-mixed the dough for all kinds of cakes and breads and cookies.”
She got up and started clearing the table. Collin grabbed the glasses.
“Let me help with this.”
“I can get the dishes. Didn’t you say you still have work in the barn?”
“Work can wait.”
Mitchell, who looked as if he’d rather be anywhere but in a kitchen with unwashed dishes, piped up. “I’ll do the rest of the chores outside. I don’t mind.”
With a knowing chuckle, Collin gave him instructions and let him go.
“Did you see the look on his face?”
“And to think he prefers mucking out stalls to our esteemed company.” Mia feigned hurt.
In the tiny kitchen area, they bumped elbows at the sink. Collin didn’t usually enjoy company that much, but over the weeks and months he’d known Mia, she’d become a part of his life. Sometimes an annoying part, but if he was honest, even when they disagreed he depended upon her to see through his anger to the frustration and still be his friend.
He’d never expected to call a social worker “friend.”
At times, he could be brooding and moody, and admittedly, he wore a protective armor around his heart. Trouble was, Miss Mia had slipped beneath it at some point and discovered the softer side of him. The idea unhinged him.
“Thanksgiving’s coming soon,” she said, her voice coming from above a sink of soapy hot water. “We always have a big to-do at Mama’s. Turkey, dressing, pecan pie. The works. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on TV and then a veritable marathon of football games afterward.”
He knew what was coming and didn’t know what to do. Nic’s birthday party had stirred up something inside him, a hunger for the things missing in his own life, and he wasn’t sure he could go there again.
Mia rinsed a plate under the hot tap. As he reached to take the dish, she held on, forcing him to look down at her.
Green eyes, honey-sweet and honest, held his. “We’d love for you to come. Please say you will.”
Steam rose up between them, moist and warm. Her eyes, her tone indicated more than an invitation of kindness to a man who had nowhere else to go. She really wanted him there.
Like most holidays, Thanksgiving was a family occasion. The time or two he’d accepted an invitation, he’d felt like an intruder. “I usually volunteer to work so the officers with families can be off that day.”
“Then I’d say you’re due a day off this year. Wouldn’t you?”
“I’d better not.”
Disappointment flashed across her face. Unlike him, she could never hide her feelings. They were there for the whole world to see. And what he saw both troubled and pleased him. Mia liked him. As more than a friend.
She let go of the plate and went back to washing. The air in the kitchen hung heavy with his refusal and her reaction. He didn’t want to hurt her. In fact, he couldn’t believe she was disappointed. Couldn’t believe she’d be interested in him. He didn’t belong with her all-American perfect family.
Mia, true to form, rushed in to the fill the quiet, and if he hadn’t known better, her chatter would have convinced him that she didn’t really care one way or the other. But now he knew her chatter sometimes covered her unease.
Then she mentioned some guy she’d met during the 10-K charity walk last weekend, and his mood turned from thoughtful to sour. If she was attracted to him, why was she having Starbucks with some runner?
He interrupted. “Wonder what’s keeping Mitchell?”
Mia stopped in midsentence and gave him a funny look. “He hasn’t been gone that long.”
“Long enough.” He tossed his dish towel over the back of a chair that served as a towel rack, coat rack, whatever.
The water gurgled out of the sink. Mia dried her hands. “If you’ll stop scowling, I’ll go check. I need to get something out of my car anyway.”
“I can go. He’s my responsibility.”
“Mine, too. You stay here and slice the cake. I have a book in the car for you.”
“A Bible?” he asked suspiciously.
Tossing on her sweater, she laughed and opened the door. “You’ll see.”
Halfway out, she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “I want coffee with my cake.”
The door banged shut and Collin found himself grinning into the empty space. Tonight Mia had made this half-finished, scantily furnished, poor excuse for a house feel like a home.
He turned that thought over in his head and went to make the lady’s coffee.
Four scoops into the pot, a scream shattered the quiet. Coffee grounds went everywhere. His heart stopped.
“Mia.”
He was out the door, running toward the barn before he realized the previously dark sky was lit with bright light. Fire light.
“Mitchell!”
He heard Mia’s cry once more and this time he spotted her, running toward the burning barn. Before he could yell for her to stop, to turn back, she disappeared inside.
Collin thought he would die on the spot. Adrenaline ripped through his veins with enough force to knock him down. He broke into a run, pounding over the hard, dry ground.
Flames licked the sky. Sparks shot fifty feet up, fueled by the still wind. The horses screamed in terror. Dogs barked and howled. Several had managed to escape somehow and now scrambled toward him. A kitten streaked past, her fur smoking.
A horrible sense of doom slammed into him, overwhelming. Mia and Mitchell were inside a burning barn along with more than a dozen helpless, trapped, sick and injured animals.
He darted toward the outside water faucet, thankful for the burlap feed sack wrapped around the pipes to prevent freezing. Yanking the sack free, he dipped the rough cloth into the freshly filled trough then rushed into the barn just as Mitchell came stumbling out.
Collin caught him by the shoulders. “Where’s Mia?”
Mitchell shook his head, coughing. “I don’t know.”
With no time to waste, he shoved Mitchell out into the fresh air. “Call 911.”
He could only hope the boy obeyed.
And then he charged into the burning building.
Smoke, thick and blinding, wrapped him in a terrifying embrace.
“Mia!” he yelled as he slung the wet sack around his face and head.
Eyes streaming, lungs screaming, he traversed the interior by instinct, throwing open stalls and pens as he called out, over and over again. The animals would at least have a chance this way. Locked in, they would surely die.
He stumbled over something soft and pitched forward, slamming his elbow painfully into a wall. A familiar whine greeted him. When he reached down, the dog licked his hand. Happy.
With more joy than he had time to feel, he scooped the little dog up and headed him in the direction of the open doorway. Even a crippled dog would instinctively move toward the fresh air.
A timber above his head cracked. Honed reflexes moved him to one side as the flaming board thundered to the barn floor. If he stayed too long, he’d never make it out.
Another board fell behind him and then another. Common sense said for him to escape now. His heart wouldn’t let him.
“Mia.” His voice, hoarse and raspy, made barely a sound against the roaring, crackling fire. Heat seared the back of his hands. His head swam.
If something happened to her. If something happened to Mia.
Suddenly, he heard her coughing. And praying.
Renewed energy propelled him forward.
“I’m coming.”
Keep praying, Mia, so I can find you.
With his free hand, he felt along the corridor wall. No longer could he hear animal sounds, but Mia’s prayers grew louder.
In the dense darkness he never saw her, but he heard her and reached out, made contact. She frantically clawed at his arm.
“I’ve got you.”
“Thank God. Thank God.” A fit of harsh coughing wracked her. “Mitch,” she managed.
“He’s safe.”
Without a thought, Collin stripped the covering from his face and pressed the rough fabric against Mia’s mouth and nose. Her breath puffed hot and dry against his fingers.
“This way.”
With his knowledge of the barn, he guided them away from the falling center toward the feed room. There, a small window would provide escape.
Though the seconds seemed to drag, Collin knew by the size of the fire that they’d been inside only a few minutes. Thankfully, the flames had not reached this section of the barn yet, but they were fast approaching.
“Hurry,” he said needlessly, pushing and pulling her stumbling form.
Inside the feed room, he felt for the window, shoved the sash upward, then easily lifted Mia over the threshold and to safety on the ground.
A roar erupted behind him. The flames, as if enraged by Mia’s escape, chased him. Licking along the wall, they found the empty paper sacks and swooshed into the room.
Collin scrambled up and out the window, falling to the ground below. What little air he had left was knocked out in the fall.
Mia grabbed his hand and tugged. “Get up. We have to get away.”
Hands clasped, they stumbled around the side of the barn to an area several yards out from the flames. Mia fell to her knees, noisily sucking in the fresh air.
Collin went down beside her, filling his lungs with the sweet, precious oxygen.
“You okay?” he asked when he could breathe again.
“Fine.”
But he couldn’t take her word for it. By the flickering light of the fire that had nearly stolen her, he searched her face for signs of injury and found none.
“If anything had happened to you—”
And then before his reasonable side could stop him, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
She tasted smoky and sweet and wonderful. Emotion as foreign as an elephant and every bit as powerful coursed through him. His world tilted, spun, shimmered with warning.
He pulled back, suddenly afraid of what was happening to him. It was only a kiss, wasn’t it? Given out of fear and relief. That was all. Only a kiss.
But he knew better. He’d kissed other women before, but not like this. The others he’d kept at a distance, outside of the armor. Mia was different. Way different.
And the truth of that scared him more than the barn fire.