“And you know something else?” The child’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“What?”
“Promise me you won’t tell my dad yet?”
Oh, God. What now? Get Kelsey’s confidence, to keep her safe and happy? Be honest and tell the child she couldn’t make that promise without knowing what she was going to say? Listen and keep her mouth shut regardless of what she’d promised Mark?
She finally came up with, “As long as what you’re about to tell me isn’t illegal or going to hurt you, I think I can make that promise.”
“I’ve been wishing for a mom and asking for a mom in my prayers every single night since I can remember, which is a really long time. And that means I might get one soon.”
Meredith’s melancholy smile was lost in the darkness. Susan and Mark were almost home free. She was relieved, grateful, honestly happy for her friends. And uneasy at the same time.
Life for someone like Meredith was never entirely easy.
CLIMBING THE STEPS to Meredith’s vintage three-bedroom home, Mark tossed his keys and caught them again, grinning. Life had its ups and downs and nothing was going to be perfect, but still there was enough good to keep a man happy.
Ignoring the old-fashioned doorbell, he pulled open the screen and rapped his knuckles against the solid wood. Meredith’s house might be old, but it looked great—freshly painted white siding and black shutters, smooth floorboards on the porch, even the windows and screens were clean and in good repair. This was one woman who didn’t need a man to take care of her.
She was also a woman who wasn’t opening her door. He knocked again, glanced toward the windows on each side of the house. Had they gone out for breakfast? Her garage door was closed, so he had no way of knowing if her car was here or not.
One more knock and Mark was ready to sit it out on the porch. They hadn’t set a specific time for him to be there….
The door opened a crack and through the darkness beyond he saw some strands of hair covering most of the face peering out at him. “Yes?”
And then, before he could say a word, “Oh, my God. Mark! What are you doing here?”
The door remained closed except for the original inch.
“Susan got called to the hospital,” he said. “And since Kelsey never sleeps past seven on Saturdays, I thought I’d spare you….”
“What time is it?”
He couldn’t help grinning, although he suspected it might make her mad. “Nine.”
“Did you say nine?”
“Uh-huh.” The woman was cute first thing in the morning. And he’d only seen an inch of her.
“I haven’t slept this late since college,” she muttered, sounding confused. “Hold on. I’ll go wake Kelsey.”
“She’s probably parked in front of your television,” he told her. “She’s good about amusing herself quietly on the rare occasions I get to sleep in.”
“She’s still asleep,” his unusual babysitter told him.
“You probably just didn’t hear—”
“Mark! Would you please stop being so cheerful and chatty?” So the woman had a temper in the morning, too. Why didn’t that surprise him?
“I know she’s still asleep, because she’s in my bed. She woke up in the middle of the night and we were up for a while.”
His grin faded. “Was something wrong? Is she sick? You should’ve called.”
“Everything’s fine.” Her voice was back to its usual calm, if perhaps a bit tired-sounding. “I had a coughing fit that woke her up and then she couldn’t get back to sleep. Probably because she was in a strange house.”
His heart settling back into a more normal pace, Mark had a vision of his daughter in Meredith’s bed. Which led him to thoughts of Meredith in Meredith’s bed.
A place he absolutely did not belong. “So, is everything okay with her? Anything I need to know?”