Violet woke on a gasp of air. Her heart caught in her throat as the faceless monster of her dreams vanished with the warmth of morning sunshine drifting through her grandma’s bedroom window. The beloved scent of her childhood was everywhere, on the pillows and sheets, in the curtains and carpet. She took a long steadying breath of the floral dime-store perfume before peering over the bed’s edge into her daughter’s portable crib.
Maggie grinned around a mouthful of her toes, drool running down her chubby cheek. She released her foot instantly, reaching tiny dimpled fists greedily toward her mama.
Violet scooped her daughter into her arms and rolled back onto the antique sleigh bed for a long snuggle. “Today will be a better day,” she promised. “We’ll go see Grandma, and the doctors will say good things, and soon we’ll be having breakfast with her instead of the enormous cowboy sleeping on the couch.”
Maggie laughed and slapped Violet’s cheek with one slobbery hand.
Ten minutes later, the Ames ladies were dressed in jean shorts and tank tops, prepared for another hot July day. Violet left her hair down, curling over her shoulders to her ribs, instead of pulled coolly into a ponytail. She told herself it wasn’t for Wyatt’s sake despite the already rising temperatures.
There was something about the way he’d turned those knowing brown eyes on her last night. The way he’d watched and listened to her, seeming to perceive everything, as if he could read her mind.
Given the handful of inappropriate things she’d fallen asleep thinking about, all starring him, she was thankful to be wrong about the mind reading.
Violet braced her shoulder against the curved wooden headboard and put her weight into shoving the bed away from the door. Barricading the room seemed silly by the light of day, but she wasn’t exactly the best judge of men and inviting one the size of Wyatt to sleep over had seemed questionable after she’d come upstairs.
Doorway clear, Violet popped Maggie into a baby sling and headed silently downstairs to start breakfast without waking Wyatt. Six fifteen was early for anyone. It had to be an unthinkable hour for someone who had needed caffeine to stay awake at ten last night.
The beloved scent of fresh-brewed coffee met her in the stairwell as she descended into the kitchen, and Violet hurried toward it. Could Wyatt be awake already? And have had time to make coffee?
His bare back came into view a moment later, and she stopped to appreciate the way his low-slung basketball shorts gripped his trim waist, accentuating his ridiculously broad shoulders and thick, muscular arms.
“Hungry?” he asked without a single look in her direction. It was the second time he’d seemed to magically know she was there.
Violet moved casually into the kitchen, pretending not to have been ogling him. “I thought you’d be asleep.”
Wyatt shuffled scrambled eggs around one of her grandma’s iron pans and smiled over his shoulder. “I like to run before dawn. Watch the sun rise. Clear my head for a new day.”
Violet gave a small laugh. “You’ve already been out for a run?” The only thing she liked to do before dawn was sleep.
“Sure. A run. A shower. Breakfast. I brought some aerial photos of your grandma’s land with me in case I needed them this week, so I used them as guides and went around the property’s edge. It worked nicely because I didn’t want to go far from here without letting you know I’d be out. I wasn’t sure when Maggie would wake.”
Violet worked to shut her mouth. He remembered Maggie’s name? She’d only introduced her once, and her baby had been asleep the whole time.
“Mrs. Ames has a nice setup here,” he said. “Nearly fifty acres. Some of it is being farmed on the back side. Looks like she rents that to a local farmer. Everything near the house is incredibly peaceful, and there’s a beautiful lake past the rose gardens.”
Violet nodded. The rose gardens were her grandma’s pride and joy. She raised blue-ribbon winners almost every year. The lake had always been Violet’s favorite outdoor spot, especially in the summer. There was a nice breeze under the willows and when that didn’t keep her cool, the shaded waters of the lake did.
Wyatt flicked the knob on Grandma’s stove to Off. He shoved rich, buttery-scented eggs onto a plate and ushered them to the kitchen table, already set for two. “I helped myself to the fridge.” A grimace worked over his face. “I hope that’s okay. I plan to replace everything I used when I go into town. Just thought you’d be ready to eat once you woke.”
Violet blinked. “Thank you.”
He returned to the stove and levered fat strips of bacon from a second bubbling pan, then layered them on an oblong plate heavy with napkins to soak up the grease. “I grew up on a farm like this. Ours was a horse farm, but this place reminds me an awful lot of home.”
“Good times?” she guessed by the wistful look on his face.
“Every. Single. Day.” He tossed a red checkered towel over one shoulder and delivered the bacon to the table.
Violet’s gaze traveled over his perfect chest to the jaw-dropping eight-pack abs below. A dusting of dark hair began beneath his belly button and vanished unfairly into his waistband.
“Oh.” He looked down at himself. “Sorry. Bad habits.” Wyatt disappeared into the next room and returned in a clingy black T-shirt. “Eat up. Big day.”
Violet tried to hide her disappointment at the change of scenery and discreetly checked for drool. “What’s on the agenda?” she asked, settling Maggie into the legless high chair clinging to the kitchen table’s edge.
“I’m headed into town,” Wyatt said, taking a seat beside Maggie with his loaded plate.
Violet turned for the counter and prepped a bottle of formula, then dug through her diaper bag for Maggie’s favorite yellow container of Cheerios. “Breakfast is served,” she said, delivering the pair to Maggie. Violet lifted her eyes to Wyatt. “What’s happening in town?”
“I’m going to talk to folks,” he said. “See what they have to say about your grandma and anything else that might be turning the rumor mill.” He sipped his coffee and smiled at Maggie.
She threw a Cheerio at him and missed by a mile.
Violet went to pour a cup of coffee. Clearly, Maggie could hold her own.
Maggie’s squeal of delight spun Violet on her toes.
Wyatt bit into a slice of bacon, utterly straight-faced while her daughter clapped and laughed.
“What are you doing?” Violet asked, enjoying the rush of pleasure at seeing her baby smile.
Wyatt chewed and swallowed slowly. “What?”
“Maggie squealed.”
Wyatt glanced innocently at the pudgy-cheeked princess. “She did?”
Violet narrowed her eyes in a ruse of disapproval. “You know she did. You’re sitting right beside her.” She dropped her gaze to pull out a chair, and Maggie cracked up again. This time, Violet caught sight of Wyatt’s pink tongue sticking out sideways before he pulled it back in. “Did you just make a face at my baby?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I saw you make a face at her,” Violet insisted, trying hard not to smile around the edge of her coffee mug. “You lied to me.”
Wyatt slid serious brown eyes toward Maggie. “Snitch.”
Maggie rocked and bebopped in her seat, eyes fixed tightly on Wyatt.
He wiped his mouth and set the napkin on the table beside his already-empty plate. “Okay. Truth? I’ve made several faces at your daughter this morning.”
Maggie blew raspberries until spit bubbles piled on her chin.
“Oh!” Violet giggled. “Maggie!” She wiped her baby’s chin and let the laughter grow. “I’ve never seen her do that before.” A tear slid from the corner of one eye as she dotted Maggie’s nose with the napkin. “What a nut.”
Wyatt winked at Maggie before turning back to Violet. “What are your plans today? Do you want to join me in town before we visit Mrs. Ames, or would you rather see her first, then head into town afterward?”
The words were innocent enough, but they itched and scratched at Violet’s heart and mind. She’d known Wyatt less than a day and suddenly it seemed as if they were playing house. When were they visiting Grandma? When were they going into town? They. Violet, Maggie and Wyatt.
She took a moment to absorb the scene around her.
A handsome, attentive man had made her breakfast. He’d made her daughter laugh, and he’d unwittingly made Violet think of things that were impossible. Like a cute little nuclear family of her own. She felt so incredibly stupid. The connection she imagined between herself and Wyatt obviously boiled down to him being the first man who was kind to her following Maggie’s birth and nothing more. He was simply being professional. He was there to do a job, not fulfill Violet’s fantasies. And she needed to get a grip.
Violet pressed a hand discreetly to her tummy, quashing leftover butterflies. “No. Thank you.” She couldn’t allow herself to think impossible things. It wasn’t fair to her or Maggie. And what was wrong with her anyway? Since when was she so eager to have a man in her life? Things were good already. “I think we’ll visit Grandma on our own,” she said. “You can do what you need to do, and we’ll catch up with you later.”
Violet pushed onto her feet and carried her still-full mug and plate to the sink. With her back securely facing the table, she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled herself together. Lots of people made babies laugh. Wyatt wasn’t the first or the last, and she couldn’t get attached to him because of it. Much as she wanted a traditional family for Maggie, the kind with a mommy and a daddy who kissed goodbye and held hands while they watched TV, Wyatt wasn’t that guy.
She opened her eyes and straightened her expression before turning back to the duo making goofy faces at the table. “We should probably get going.”
Wyatt tipped his head in that unsettling way, the one that made her feel as if he could see straight through her. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“Yep.” She pushed nervous fingers into the back pockets of her shorts. “We’re fine, and we don’t want to keep you from your work. The sooner we know what really happened to Grandma, the better. If she’s awake when we get to the hospital, I’ll call you so you can come by and talk with her in person.”
His thick black brows knit together. “All right.”
Violet pulled Maggie into her arms and posed her on one hip, then gathered her bottle and Cheerios in the other hand. “Have a good day.”
* * *
VOICES OF HAPPY children rang through the speakers inside Violet’s little yellow hatchback. The CD of nursery rhymes lightened her heavy mood as she fought through a fresh bout of worry for her grandma.
Sunlight streamed over the hills to her left, dashing the street in shards of amber and gold light. Puffy white clouds sailed in the brilliant blue dome above. It was a perfect day for a drive, and Violet had desperately needed to clear her head.
Putting some distance between herself and the sexy soldier guarding Grandma’s home was just a bonus. She recalled seeing him pull up in his big black truck, check out the house and shuffle through papers on his dashboard. When he’d climbed out and stood as tall as a house, complete with cowboy hat and boots, her heart had given an irresponsible thud.
“Dumb,” she muttered, taking another look at the rear-facing car seat in back. Maggie didn’t need a daddy any more than Violet needed a boyfriend or husband.
The two of them were doing just fine on their own.
She smiled and returned her eyes to the road ahead. Flyers for the county fair waved and rippled on passing telephone poles, stapled beside missing pet posters and garage sale signs.
A half heartbeat later, her thoughts swept back to the shirtless man making her breakfast. Surely that wasn’t part of his contract.
The gentle hum of an approaching engine edged into Violet’s thoughts, erasing the memory of Wyatt seated beside Maggie at the breakfast table. The sound grew steadily louder, and Violet searched in every direction for the source of the aggressive hum.
Her little hatchback hugged the next curve, dropping low over a hill and into a valley just two miles from the county hospital. She forced her attention back to the road, but her roaming eyes returned to the rearview mirror with a snap.
A battered blue-and-white demolition derby car roared earsplittingly into view behind her as she crested the next hill.
Maggie’s car seat rocked in frustration.
“Thanks a lot,” Violet muttered at the mangled car racing closer in her rearview. She removed her foot from the gas to let the lunatic pass before they reached the next uphill curve and crashed. Violet’s current speed was nearly fifty in a forty-five, and the sharp sway ahead was marked as fifteen miles per hour.
The wrecked car revved closer with an ominous growl. This time, the driver laid on the horn.
Beep!
The seemingly endless blast sent Violet’s heart rate into a sprint. She stuck her hand out the window and waved the guy to go around.
He didn’t.
Instead, the attacking car roared closer until its entire front end was invisible in her mirror. Beeeep! Beeeep!
Maggie stirred, then began to wail at the continued horn blasts and growling engine.
Violet returned her foot to the gas pedal, pressing a little harder than necessary in an effort to put space between the other vehicle and herself. “Sh-sh-sh,” she hushed Maggie, hoping to return her to a gentle sleep.
Maybe she could drive the speed limit as far as the next turnoff, then get away from the road-rager behind her. Or maybe he’d just pass her and move on when she used her signal.
Violet sipped oxygen and concentrated on the narrow two-lane road ahead.
The offending car dropped back a few inches, then charged forward once more, its hood half disappearing in the rearview.
Violet pressed the gas pedal and prayed.
Her death grip on the steering wheel grew painful as her little hatchback floated over the asphalt with a psychopath on its tail. Her fingers were snow-white and sore from lack of circulation.
The fifteen-mile-per-hour curve was coming up fast, and Violet was losing faith in her plan. She had to be able to slow down to take the next turn or pull over, but the beast behind her wouldn’t allow it. She realized with a punch of fear through her chest that this could be the end. She could wreck her car with Maggie strapped helplessly in the back seat. The idea was almost too much for her to bear.
Maggie’s desperate wails echoed through Violet’s heart and ricocheted off the walls of her racing mind until her vision blurred with fear and regret. They were trapped.
Beep!
Violet watched in horror as the assailing car dropped back, then lurched forward one last time. The reduced-speed sign flew past them, and Violet jerked her wheel.
Her little hatchback careered off the side of the road moments before reaching the steep bend and went skidding through the grass and gravel of a tiny church lawn and empty parking lot.
Beside them, the little white church stood alone at the base of the perilous curve.
The demolition derby car barreled onward, flying into the curve at high speeds and squealing its tires and brakes for several long seconds before the dreaded engine noise faded into the distance.
Violet pulled her keys from the ignition, then climbed out on shaky legs and unlatched Maggie from her car seat. Together, they moved to the church steps and sat, embracing and crying for so long Violet thought someone might find them and wonder if she’d lost her mind.
Maybe she had.
Frighteningly, she and Maggie had nearly lost so much more.