Thunder rattled the little cottage around six, booming so loudly that it woke up the kids. First Jayden’s boisterous welcome to the day to make sure everyone knew he was awake. And then Delaney, who wanted out of her crib to run after Jayden.

Simon stumbled into the kitchen---stepping over Jayden zooming around the floor with his little cars and Delaney crawling after them---only to find Gilly had already put on coffee and was cracking eggs into a bowl. “I wondered how she got out of her crib.”

“I heard her shortly after Jayden stormed right past her door.”

He eyed the coffee pot again. “Great idea. How’d you sleep?”

“Like a rock. My head hit the pillow and that’s all I remember.”

“You needed it.”

“My head was so full of worry about my mom that I drank way too much wine. Sorry. I don’t usually do that.”

“Don’t apologize to me. I’ve done the same thing. Lots of times.”

“But I have a toddler to look after.”

He poured himself a cup of coffee. “Stop beating yourself up for letting your hair down for one evening.”

She blew out a breath. “My shift starts this afternoon at four.”

“You have to head to work in…” he glanced at his watch, “nine hours?”

“Less than. But yeah. I don’t even know if my mom should continue to watch Jayden. And the church doesn’t provide daycare on a Sunday for my benefit, so I can’t drop him off.”

“How does this thing work with your mom and babysitting? Because I’ll be honest, the way you explained it to me, it’s confusing.”

“I work four p.m. to four a.m., three nights a week beginning Sundays. On those nights, I’ll drop him off at her house around three, get him settled in, and then head to work. When four a.m. comes around, I go home to catch some sleep, usually three to four hours. It varies. Down the street, my mom gets Jayden dressed, fixes his breakfast, and then runs him back over to my house around eight-thirty before going to the office.” Her shoulders drooped. “I guess it is confusing.”

“No, no, I get it now. You’re off four days, but those three when you work are hectic as hell.”

“Yep. But now…I don’t know if Mom can handle it. What if she forgets the routine, forgets about Jayden? What if she forgets just one of those necessary steps?”

“Maybe I could do it.”

“What?”

“I’m serious. You could drop him off this afternoon. He could sleep here. I have to fix breakfast anyway for Delaney. What’s another mouth to feed? And tomorrow Jordan’s booked a hiking tour. She texted me late last night. I can’t take Delaney on an all-day hike, so I’ll have to drop her off at daycare before I head over to the B&B. Early. That means I’m headed to town anyway. Jayden might as well tag along for the ride until you feel like picking him up.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered.”

“I…I don’t know what to say. That’s incredibly generous of you. I could pay you.”

“Please. Don’t insult me like that. I’m happy to help out a friend, especially one parent to another, especially one who’s so beautiful.” Simon swallowed hard. “Maybe that came out wrong. Or it’s inappropriate. These days, I’m never sure. Bottom line is, Jayden’s welcome to stay here. Delaney seems to like him. Only thing is, I don’t have a car seat for him, but I could ask Jordan if she has a…”

“I’ll get one,” Gilly said quickly. “You think I’m beautiful, really?”

Simon smiled. “Incredibly.”

Because she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had called her beautiful, her blush spread to her neck. “We’ll get out of your hair after breakfast.”

“No need to rush.”

“There kinda is. I should probably go check on my mom,” Gilly stated. “And if Jayden’s coming over here, I have to figure out a way to explain why. Something else we need to think about, if we’re picking up and dropping off at the daycare for each other, we probably want to sign permission slips, authorizing each other to have access.”

“Good thinking.” He saw the troubled look on her face. “What’s wrong? Having second thoughts already?”

“Only about telling my mom.”

“It’s been my experience that honesty is the best way to go. Explain to her that until you know what’s going on with her medical situation, maybe taking away the little guy will ease some of her stress issues.”

“That’s actually not a bad approach. You’re a genius.”

“I wish. A genius would’ve held on to his Amazon stock.”

She roared out a belly laugh. “You’ve really picked my spirits up since I got here yesterday. Thank you for that.”

“Same here. It’s lonely being the only single father who doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time.”

“You know who else is a single father? Malachi Rafferty. And he likes to play guitar. You two should meet.”

“Malachi Rafferty? Surely you aren’t referring to the Malachi Rafferty?”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“By any chance is this guy from L.A.?”

“I think he used to live there. Yeah. Why? Who’s Malachi Rafferty?”

“You remember a band called Moss Radley, a grunge band in the 90s?”

“Um, sure. Everybody I knew was inconsolable when they broke up.”

“Over a woman,” Simon supplied. “Or so the story goes. The lead singer and guitarist was a guy named Malachi Rafferty.”

“Wow. No way. It can’t be the same guy. This Malachi’s wife died right after they moved here and ever since he sticks pretty close to his T-shirt shop. He has two teenage daughters.”

“Then it probably isn’t him. Just in case, though, I’m gonna make a point to find out.”

After a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs and frozen waffles, Gilly got up to clear the table.

He stood up with a couple of plates. “You cooked, I can handle clean up.”

“You sure?”

“Go. Check on your mom before you crack a bone. I can tell you want to.”

She threw her arms around him and kissed the corner of his mouth.

But he didn’t let her get off that easy. He glided his lips down to meet hers. Together, they slid into a quiet and desperate euphoria, building up to a lust neither could act on. When Jayden made a booming noise with his car hitting the baseboard, they broke apart like they’d been shot out of a cannon.

But the kids were oblivious, playing and laughing.

Simon noticed Gilly was still clinging to him as if unwilling to let go.

“What time do you want Jayden back here tonight?” she whispered, her words still breathless from the kiss.

Simon took hold of her chin. “Whatever time works best for you.”

“Three o’clock okay?”

“That’ll work.”

“Thanks for doing this. It won’t be for long, just until I find out what’s going on with her. Three nights tops.”

Ten minutes later, when Delaney figured out Jayden was leaving, she started bawling.

Simon scooped her up. “Don’t worry, doodle-bug, he’s coming back this afternoon. He has to go home and get his stuff to spend the night.”

Gilly took hold of Delaney’s hand. “It’s okay. I think someone’s ready for her nap already.”

Between the crying, Simon helped Gilly load up the car as the steady rain continued to beat down. “Maybe one day we can spend a rainy day together.”

“We just spent a rainy night together. Will you still go on the hike tomorrow if it’s raining?”

“I checked the forecast. This storm will be gone by tonight.”

She leaned in to kiss him again, but just as she was ready to tilt her head for better access, Brent Cody pulled up in his police cruiser. Instead of a smoldering goodbye, she lowered her voice, “I’ll see you at three.”

Simon waved goodbye and turned to Brent, who seemed to be bursting with news.

“You want the long version of what I discovered or the short?” Brent asked.

“What do you think? Come on in and I’ll make a pot of fresh coffee.”

“Make it strong. You’re gonna need it. You were right about some of what you suspected. But in order for you to get the full gist of it all, I need to start at the very beginning.” Brent followed him inside and took a seat at the kitchen table. He stared at Delaney who was crawling around on the tile floor. “She seems to be settling in just fine.”

“She is. So far. Tomorrow’s her first time at day care. I’m a little nervous.”

“No need to be. My kids go there all the time. Ophelia has taken a good program and made it better.”

“I keep hearing good things about it,” Simon remarked. “I’m hoping it lives up to the glowing reviews.” He turned from the counter as the Cuisinart coffeemaker began to gurgle to life. “What have you got for me?”

Brent cleared his throat. “The woman you knew on Cape Cod didn’t start out in life as Amelia Langston.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I wish I was. She was born Muriel Bondurant in Gallentine, Louisiana.”

Simon dropped into one of the chairs across from Brent. “Louisiana? That explains the hint of a southern drawl I detected when she’d drop her guard every now and again. It wasn’t obvious, but it certainly came through at times when she wasn’t trying so hard. What else?”

“Her family practically owns the little town where she grew up. They’re deep into politics, father was mayor twenty years ago, now the brothers take turns running the place. The Bondurants own real estate, businesses, have a hefty portfolio. It seems Muriel was the black sheep. Got into trouble early on, at the age of fifteen when she was picked up for shoplifting. After that, she bypassed anything petty and went straight to the high dollar stuff, stealing a convertible on her sixteenth birthday and driving it off the showroom floor before wrecking the thing on the highway.”

Simon frowned. “Are you sure you have the right person?”

“I’m sure. Photo verified. Amelia Langston was just one of the many aliases Muriel Bondurant used over the years. The car theft happened to be the first time the family covered up her misdeeds and paid her way out of trouble for the rest. Her rap sheet includes fifteen other arrests for various thefts between Louisiana and Massachusetts. And I’m not talking about the incidental taking gum at the convenience store. Not this woman.”

Simon mulled that over. “Then I take it her family got the dealership to drop the charges.”

“Yep. That happened dozens of times. By the time she reached eighteen, they even shipped her off to some fancy rehabilitation school in Canada, hoping they could break her of the habit of stealing. It didn’t take. She spent a little more than a month there before taking off. When she tried to contact her family, they told her they were done with her and that she was on her own.”

“Ouch. When did she become Amelia Langston?”

“I’ll get to that.”

“Was she ever a travel photographer?”

“Sorry, she did work at a studio once, picked up a camera fetish, took lots of pictures, but never sold anything other than a few online photos. She worked a lot of low-paying jobs because with her record she couldn’t get anything above minimum wage. She did settle down once, after meeting a man willing to put up with her shoplifting. That happened when she was around twenty-five. Hearing the rest may hurt. According to her friends in the Boston area, she wanted a child. Badly. This particular man did not share her feelings about kids. At all. I tracked him down and he admitted they broke up sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas four years ago because he was adamant that having kids for him was off the table. After that, she made several inquiries into adoption but got turned down every time because of her arrest record.”

“This must be where I come in, some stupid, horny ex-soldier spending the summer on Cape Cod.”

“Not so fast. I’m getting there. I’m told she went in search of a wealthy benefactor using all kinds of social media apps to find the kind of guy she wanted. She signed up on all the dating sites and finally hooked a fish, a guy named Houghton Wellington, who was a Wall Street banker in his prime. Wellington routinely summered on Cape Cod.”

“Oh jeez. I wonder. She did disappear for more than a few afternoons and didn’t come back until the evenings.”

“Interesting. Since Wellington was almost forty-six years older than she was, maybe she had to put him to bed before she came back to you.”

“She swore she was mailing photos to the magazine. She’d come back with dinner, so you’re probably right.”

“From what I understand from the Wellington family, he would have given her the moon.”

“But not a baby,” Simon stated, beginning to catch on.

“Nope. Turns out, Houghton’s second wife insisted that he get a vasectomy back in the 80s, so Wellington couldn’t have given her a child.”

“I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. So she spent the summer with me, trying to get pregnant, all the while she was with this rich old guy?”

“That about sums it up.”

“Did this Wellington fella dump her or what?”

“Not that. By this time, she had officially changed her name to Amelia Langston, living life as Wellington’s mistress. During her pregnancy, the old guy had a heart attack, leaving her a sizeable chunk of his estate, not all of it, according to his kids, but enough that Amelia would be comfortable. She probably thought she was fixed for life. But I guess karma has a way of coming around and making things right again, dues to pay and all that. There’s a price to pay for deception. The day of the accident, Muriel…”

“Amelia,” Simon corrected.

“Yeah, okay, whatever. Amelia was coming back from her yoga class when a delivery truck ran a stop sign in the heart of Boston and T-boned the driver’s side door. She was dead on arrival at the hospital. She’d taken a blow to the left temple and it apparently caused an immediate cerebral hemorrhage. She never made it to the ER, died en route.”

Simon looked over at Delaney, playing with her blocks. “She could’ve been in that car.”

“She could have been, but she wasn’t. The strange thing is Amelia was only a few blocks away from the townhouse Wellington had given her.”

“What a fraud, nothing she told me was true.”

“Well, I doubt you’d have dabbled in an affair if she’d admitted up front that all she wanted was your man juice.”

Simon couldn’t hold back the laughter. “I suppose you’re right. Well, like an idiot I got played.”

“You aren’t the first guy who was duped and used for a sperm donor.”

“If that’s supposed to make me feel less stupid…”

“No, but it might explain how desperate she was. You crossed paths with her at a time in her life when she very much wanted a kid, wanted it enough to do anything to get one. That’s how I see it. It’s less about tricking you and more about getting what she wanted. Anything else or are you satisfied with the outcome?”

“Part of me wanted to verify I’d been played. And then I suppose I wanted to make sure no one else was out there who might lay claim to Delaney down the road.”

“You might get some interest from the Bondurant family if they knew about the baby. But I don’t think they have a clue. I didn’t tip them off. I’m almost certain they didn’t even have an idea where Muriel ended up. Boston authorities saw you listed as next of kin and that was it. For Muriel that had to be like thumbing her nose at the Bondurants. Pretty sure they don’t care. That’s my impression.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“The day I talked to them, my questions were strictly on a law enforcement basis. I just wanted to know what they knew. And they were reluctant to talk. Period. In fact, one brother pretty much told me to never call him again.”

“I can handle never. Thanks, Brent. Want that coffee now?”

“Nah. I’ll pass. You drink it. What’s with you and Gilly Grant?”

“We’re friends. A single dad. A single mom. We need someone to talk to.”

Brent’s mouth quirked up. “Friends. Yeah. Right.”

“I met her the same day I met Delaney. It’s all new.”

“Want my opinion?”

“Sure.”

“You couldn’t ask for a better person than Gilly Grant. Having said that, have you noticed anything strange about Connie, her mother, lately?”

Simon lifted a shoulder. “Something’s off there. That seems to be the consensus. How do you know about it?”

“Because last night Eastlyn got a call from the neighbors. Connie was out walking around in her nightgown at ten-thirty. Eastlyn had to go over, corral her, and coax her back into the house.”

“Wow. Gilly was here last night. Why didn’t Eastlyn call Gilly?”

“Don’t know. But I can make a notation in her file to call Gilly if it happens again. Is Connie looking at an Alzheimer’s diagnosis?”

“Sure sounds like it to me. But she doesn’t know anything yet. She’s trying to get her mother in on Wednesday for a checkup.”

“I’ll note that in the file, too.” Brent stood up. “I gotta go. River has some proposal she’s working on, due tomorrow, and I have to watch the kids.”

Simon stuck out his hand. “Thanks for doing all the background.”

“No problem. I didn’t much like the lawyer from Boston either.”

“That makes two of us.”

After Brent left, Simon fed Delaney lunch and put her down for a nap, then texted Gilly.

How’s your mom?

Seems fine today. She’s spent the last hour not bashing anyone so that has to count for something, right?

Did she tell you Eastlyn found her wandering around the neighborhood in her nightgown?

OMG. No! Why didn’t Eastlyn call me?

Brent put it in his notes to do that next time. Have you told her Jayden’s staying here tonight?

Not yet. I know, I know. I’m chicken.

Tell her.

I will. I’ll use that wandering around in her nightgown thing as the reason.

Gilly fixed her mother a grilled cheese sandwich and sat down on the back porch with a glass of tea. She decided it was better if she simply ripped off the Band-Aid quickly. “Mom, I’m not bringing Jayden over here tonight.”

“Really? Did you get the night off?”

“No. He’s staying overnight with someone else.”

“Why? You mean like a sleepover?”

“No. Mom, I found out about your late-night foray into the neighborhood wearing your nightgown. And it worries me. I have second thoughts about leaving a three-year-old in your care when I’m not convinced you can take care of yourself. You do have to admit your weird behavior is getting worse. Fast.”

“I don’t remember unlocking the door and going outside.”

Gilly laid a hand over hers. “Wednesday can’t come soon enough for me so that I can find out why you’re acting like this. It’s scaring me, Mom.”

“It’s scaring me, too.”

“Okay, then we agree that until we know what’s happening Jayden will stay with someone else?”

“I suppose it’s for the best. It won’t be the same around here without him.”

“It’s not like I’m hitting the road and you’ll never see him again. He’s still right down the street whenever you get to feeling better. Are you still having headaches? Does anything else hurt?”

“A little pain in the top of my head now and then. It’s the shaking I don’t like. I tried to crack an egg this morning and couldn’t.”

Gilly let out a long groan. “I have to be at work in three hours, is there any way I could talk you into coming into the ER before then?”

“I’m fine. I’m sure it’s just a bug I picked up from all the patients that come into the clinic. After all, I work around sick people, you know. Sometimes you catch what they have. How was your date last night? Did that Simon behave himself?”

“That Simon has a funny sense of humor. And I think you’d be surprised just how good a dad he is. I hope, at some point, you’ll give him a chance to show you.”

But Gilly realized Connie wasn’t listening. Her mother had found something to stare at in the corner of the kitchen. Eyes fixated on whatever it was, Connie couldn’t seem to focus on anything else. Not even the sound of her daughter’s voice.

Gilly put her head in her hands and felt like crying. Wednesday couldn’t get here fast enough.