A Man Worth Keeping

The girl tugged on her mother’s hand and Delia wrapped an arm around her.

“And this is my daughter, Josie.”

Josie waved a finger at Max and he smiled.

“We’re acquainted.”

Delia didn’t like that. Not one bit. Her lips went tight, and her pale skin, no doubt cold, went red. “We’ll head on back. Don’t bother yourself showing us the way.”

He nodded, knowing when he’d been told to stay put.

They turned toward the trail and Max forced himself not to stare at the woman’s extraordinary behind as she walked away.

“What did I say about talking to strangers?” Delia asked.

“I didn’t say a word, Mama,” Josie said, her voice a quiet peep with enough sass to indicate she knew what she was doing.

Max couldn’t help it, laughter gushed out of his throat, unstoppable.

Trouble, the two of them.

DELIA DUPUIS’S mother was French, her father an oil rigger from the dry flatlands of West Texas. Depending on the situation, Delia could channel either of them. And right now, her daughter, her eight-year-old girl who was way too big for her britches, needed a little sample of Daddy’s School of Tough Love.

“This isn’t funny, Josie,” she said. “I don’t know that man and he could have been dangerous.”

“He was nice,” Josie protested.

He was. He was more than nice, and her instincts echoed Josie’s statement. But Delia was not on speaking terms with her instincts these days. She had to shake off the strange sensation that she knew Max. Really knew him. For a moment there she’d felt a spark of something, like being brushed by electricity, and when she looked into his eyes all she’d thought was, I can trust this man.

She’d seen such sadness in his eyes, manageable but there, like a wound that wasn’t healing. That sadness and the way he held his head and how he talked to Josie, the way he didn’t crowd Delia, the way he had shown her more respect in those five seconds than she’d received in the last year of her marriage, had her whole body screaming that he was one of the good guys.

Which, of course, was ridiculous. She couldn’t tell that from a five-second conversation, from a quick glance into a pair of black eyes. And the fact that her instincts told her the compelling, handsome and mysterious man was a good guy was a pretty good indication that he wasn’t.

Her instincts were like that.

Delia turned and despite the cold and her aching hands and misleading gut reactions she crouched in front of her daughter. “Listen to me,” she said, hard as nails. The smile and spark of defiance fled from Josie’s brown eyes. The response killed Delia, ripped her apart, but she didn’t know what else to do. “When I say you stick close, it means you stick close. It means I can see you at all times. I’m not telling you again, Jos. You know how important this is, don’t you?”

Josie nodded.

“How important is it?” Delia asked. She would repeat this a million times a day. Delia would tie Josie to her side if she had to.

“It’s the most important thing,” Josie repeated dutifully.

Delia arched an imperial eyebrow—another trick from her daddy, who could act like a king despite the black under his fingernails.

“Got it?” she asked.

After a moment, Josie nodded, her lips pouty, her eyes on her boots. “Got it.”

“I love you, sweetie. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

Delia pulled Josie close, but the child stood unmoving in the circle of her arms.

She just needs more time, Delia told herself, blinking back tears caused by the cold and the unbearable abyss between her and her baby. She doesn’t understand what’s going on. She’ll come around.

That’s what all the books she’d been reading about raising children after a divorce said. Time, patience and a little control over their own lives were what children needed when growing accustomed to a new divided home life.

And if something in the back of Delia’s mind insisted that it couldn’t be that simple, she ignored that, too. No one was forking out the big bucks for her thoughts on child rearing, so what did she know?

Only that Josie was too young to comprehend what was happening, all the dangers out there that wanted to tear her away and hurt her. It was Delia’s one job—her only mission right now—to keep the dangers away.

“I want my daddy,” Josie whispered, her voice filled with tears.

Delia’s eyelids flinched with a sudden surge of anger. It was growing harder and harder to control this anger, this ever-bubbling wellspring of rage she had toward Jared.

“I know you do, sweetie,” she said, and stood, holding her daughter’s small hand in her own.

It was too bad that Daddy was the biggest danger of all.

“Are we going to stay here?” Josie asked as they approached the rear of the beautiful lodge.

“If they give me the job we will.”

“Why do you need a job?” Josie asked. “You said we were on vacation.”

Delia shrugged. “It’s a working vacation. We won’t be here very long.” Not that the Mitchell family would know that. They were looking for someone long-term and these days her version of long-term was decidedly shorter than it used to be.

She watched Josie taking in the sights with wide eyes. This was a different world from where they’d come. Snow, pine trees, the towering escarpment of the Catskills—Josie had only seen these things on television. “Do you like it here?”

Josie humphed in response.

“Where will we sleep?” Josie asked, and Delia swallowed hard the guilt that chewed at her. They’d slept in terrible places in the past week and a half. After leaving her cousin’s place in South Carolina, she’d been on a slippery slope downward. Afraid to use her credit or debit cards, she’d been forced to use the small amount of cash she had. And small amounts of cash bought them nights in places with bad odors, scratchy sheets and too thin walls.

“In there.” Delia pointed to the lodge. “We’ll have a room all to ourselves, and we’ll each get a bed. And a nice big bathroom with a huge old tub.”

And solid locks on the doors.

“How does that sound?” Delia jiggled her daughter’s arm, needing just a little help, just a little support, in the brave-face department.

“Good,” Josie said, and Delia smiled, the bands of iron that constricted her chest loosened.

“Can I call Dad tonight?”

And like that, she couldn’t breathe again.

“Not yet. I told you, sweetie, he’s still at that conference. He’s going to be there for two whole weeks.”

“That’s a long time,” Josie said, looking glum.