Maggie's Guardian

CHAPTER FOUR

ELEANOR AND JOE LINGERED in the doorway, both staring over Tessa’s shoulder at Noah as if he shouldn’t be there. The older woman’s animosity startled Tessa, but then her mouth trembled, deepening the lines in her shocked face. Tessa felt for her. She’d been through too much, starting with Joanna’s accident.

“Mr. and Mrs. Worth.” Noah came so close his body heat surrounded Tessa. “Good to see you again.” He curved his hands around her waist and eased her aside to make room for the other couple. “Come in, out of the cold.”

Tessa glared over her shoulder, annoyed that Noah had touched her possessively to mark himself as the host in her home.

Eleanor managed a tight smile. “We didn’t expect to see you, Mr. Gabriel.” Faint welcome warmed her voice. “I mean, Detective Gabriel—I’m sorry—I just don’t know how to treat policemen since my daughter’s death last year. After Chief Weldon took office here, he came out to our house. He tried to make us believe she was under the influence of drugs that night she died.”

Tessa started. Did the Worths know? David had told her about Joanna’s depression soon after Maggie’s birth, when he’d begun to back away from their friendship. She’d only discovered Joanna’s drug use when she’d caught David flushing his wife’s stash after the accident. He’d sworn Tessa to secrecy, to protect his family. He would never have told Eleanor.

Noah took the older woman’s hand, unexpected compassion in his gaze. Surprised again, Tessa watched him comfort Joanna’s mother.

“Police are naturally suspicious. You have to make allowances,” he said. “I’m sorry about David. He was a good friend to my—to Tessa. She counted on him.”

Tessa felt her eyes widen. An expert at reading character, he’d failed at tending frayed relationships. Had he changed or was he merely offering the Worths appropriate responses?

She rubbed her temples, trying to avoid old resentments before they bubbled to the surface. After Keely’s death, Noah had maintained his phenomenal success rate at work. Murder had claimed the largest share of his attention, as if he couldn’t be both a good cop and a good family man. He’d steered clear of the pain and regret that had swallowed her as their marriage withered, but his empathy for Eleanor now obviously touched the older woman.

Tears welled in her eyes, and pink color stained her thin face. “We’ll miss David,” Eleanor said. “I don’t know what Maggie will think, after her mother and now this.”

With heartbreaking tenderness, Joe Worth stroked his wife’s back. “We’ll make sure Maggie remembers her mother and father, and she’ll still have us and Tessa.”

Noah looked suddenly uncomfortable. Tessa knew what he was thinking. He was only a temporary part of the picture.

“Noah’s on his way back to Boston.” She’d grabbed for her hard-fought sense of detachment. Easier to do with Noah out of the way.

He obliged by moving toward the door, and Eleanor and Joe sank against the wall to give him room. But Joe grabbed his sleeve.

“You’re satisfied the police here can handle the case?”

Noah opened his mouth, but he waited too long to be convincing. “Chief Weldon and his men are qualified.”

His bland tone reminded Tessa of what he’d called the first rule. The initial twenty-four hours after a homicide were key. Almost thirty had passed.

As if his uncertainty went over her head, Eleanor changed the subject. “When do you think Maggie will wake up? I won’t feel the world is a safe place again until I can hold her in my arms.”

Tessa stiffened. Surely David deserved a moment’s remembrance. But Eleanor had lost two members of her family. Naturally she needed to see Maggie. “She just went down for her nap—”

“I’m not leaving for good.” Noah interrupted, making them all look at him.

He pinned Tessa, his gaze dark and intense. “I’ll pick up my stuff at home and talk to Baxton about a leave of absence. Maybe you should give me a key so you don’t have to wait up for me tonight.”

Hand over a key to her home? “I’ll wait up.” Pigs would fly before she’d invite him to come and go at will.

Clenching his jaw, he flicked a quick look at the Worths and then grabbed his jacket off the sofa. His broad shoulders stretched the leather as he wrapped himself in control. Skimming her face with a glance that came nowhere near her eyes, he held out his hand to Joe Worth.

“Nice to see you after so long. Mrs. Worth, again, my condolences.”

Joe shook Noah’s hand, nodding while his wife mumbled thanks. They wore the stunned smiles of the living who’ve lost a loved one. Noah opened the door, but Tessa caught it to ease it shut so they wouldn’t wake Maggie.

“Wait.” Noah grabbed the heavy door again, his greater strength shoving the cold wood against her palm. “I know you can’t get into your office to access the files, but I want you to write down everything you remember about any client who’s complained at any time in the past year.”

“I can’t, Noah. I’m their attorney.”

“Don’t start that. I’m not official, and we’ll find a way to protect privilege if we have to, but I have to know what went wrong here. I’m especially interested in the guy who wanted you to be his own private attorney.”

“I’ll just bet you are.” The words slipped out, echoing the last contentious days of their marriage.

Noah curved his mouth and the seductive fullness of his lower lip rattled her even more than his pleasure in provoking her. He spun on his heel and sauntered down the steps, in charge again, damn him. She hadn’t learned his kind of control, and she was still mad as hell at him.

She watched him walk away until she realized divorcing him hadn’t cured her addiction to the loose, sexy swing of his stride. Without another thought she slammed the door. And then cursed herself, waiting for Maggie’s shrill cry.

Which came right on schedule.

“Let me get her,” Joe said.

Tessa wavered, already used to having sole responsibility for the baby. But she had to assure Joe and Eleanor they were still important to Maggie. She might be afraid of loving enough to get hurt again, but she’d make herself trust a little for Maggie’s sake.

“She’s in my room.” She pointed up at the gallery. “That door. I’ll get a bottle in case she’s hungry.”

“I’ll come with you, Joe.” Eleanor followed her husband to the stairs. “But, Tessa?”

With her hand on the kitchen door, she looked back.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to go to a hotel?” Eleanor asked.

“You’re welcome here.” Maggie knew them, loved them and needed them. “Noah’s already taken the room closest to mine. You can have the one nearest the stairs, but I’ve been using it for storage. I’ll clear it out for you later.”

As simple as that, she began to transform her haven for one into a family dwelling. Her safe days of owing nothing to anyone were over, but she’d held Maggie without screaming in agony because she couldn’t hold Keely. Maybe she was turning a corner. Maybe she’d learn to treasure her memories instead of avoiding them.

Some of her memories anyway. The ones that featured Noah still spelled danger. He might be the one man who could find the real killer quickly, but afterward, he’d retire to his self-sufficient life. A hint of unease snaked down her spine, making her shiver.

She didn’t want to need Noah again.

“BAXTON, I HAVE TO TAKE the time.” Noah shifted in the cracked leather chair across from his angry commander. The other man glared at him from beneath bushy brows that looked more gray than Noah remembered. When had Baxton started to look his age?

More to the point, when was the last time he’d noticed anything except his own work? For eighteen months he’d made himself numb while he’d functioned on the job. He used that same detachment to focus now.

“You know Tessa’s innocent. I can’t let those village clowns nail her for something she’d never do.”

“You’re divorced. You haven’t forgotten that in some drunken stupor?”

Noah passed on responding to Baxton’s sneer. Taking a punch at his superior could end this negotiation badly, and if his boss had really thought he was coming to work drunk, he’d have been off the job months ago. “I haven’t forgotten the divorce.” He never forgot, but maybe if he did something right for Tessa, he’d learn to let her go.

“How well do you know her after all this time? When did you last see her?”

Noah wasn’t about to admit he’d sat pathetically outside her parents’ house on Thanksgiving, knowing the hour she’d walk up their steps to the door.