Adam killed the engine in front of his cottage and collapsed on the steering wheel. What a day. It had started out with a case of public disturbance on the outskirts of town, then a case of DUI on the road that led into town, and had escalated into the massive car crash on the highway. Reinforcements had come in from Gold Beach and Brookings, and he hadn’t been surprised to see Cayden and his colleagues show up ten minutes after Adam, Glen, and Clay had been called on the scene.
And all when his whole family was unavailable to look after Sophie.
He’d hated asking Ellie for help, but she was the only one outside his family he’d trust around his daughter. Even though he loved his cousins deeply and knew they were way more responsible than other fourteen-year-olds, there was just no way he’d let two teenagers look after his precious baby girl.
He took a long, fortifying breath before getting out of the car, knowing he couldn’t walk in looking like a zombie, especially since he knew his little girl would want him to know all about her exciting day, while all he wanted to do was fall face-down onto his bed and sleep until next year. Hopefully Ellie had been wise enough not to feed her too much sugar. He’d missed his baby, and he couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms and hear her cheerful giggles, but tonight he just wasn’t prepared to deal with a kid on a sugar high.
He knocked on Ellie’s front door, and when it opened, the smile that greeted him nearly knocked him off his feet.
“Hi, Deputy. You made it out alive, I see.” She took a step aside to let him in and closed the door behind him. Today her plastic headband was a bright pink, and with a baggy sweatshirt and a pair of yoga pants she looked young and beautiful and… so sexy his brain failed to put two words together. He just stood there like an idiot, unsure what to say. What was wrong with him?
“Daddy!”
Mercifully, his daughter saved him from himself, bounding all the way to the front door, where she flung herself at him. Even though his back was killing him and he was exhausted, he caught her in his arms and lifted her up, placing loud kisses all over her face.
“Hi baby girl, have you been good?”
She nodded and squeezed her arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you, Daddy. You were away for a long, long time.”
“I’ve missed you, too, angel. So, so much.”
Movement to his right caught his attention, and he saw a man standing up from his cross-legged position on the floor. His heart sank. She had a man in her living room. A burly guy who seemed very much at ease in Ellie’s living room. Damn. She has a boyfriend.
“Oh no, you had plans for tonight. I’m sorry, I should’ve asked before I dumped my daughter on you, I—”
“Adam?” The man was now standing at his full six-foot-something height, his eyebrows high on his tanned face. “Adam Cavanagh, is that you?”
Adam narrowed his eyes, trying to put a name to the face staring at him with a wide grin. Nope, he didn’t know the guy who was now approaching him with his right hand extended.
“I’m Ethan. Ethan Hawthorne. The summer after your graduation?”
Adam’s eyes widened as his brain put together all the pieces. Now he knew why those eyes and that grin looked so familiar, even though the rest of him in no way resembled the skinny kid who’d hung out with Adam and his gang back when they were teenagers.
“Well, I’ll be…” Adam smiled and took Ethan’s hand, nearly flinching at his strong squeeze. He’d definitely built up some muscle in the last eleven years.
“You two know each other?” Ellie asked, frowning at the two men shaking hands.
Ethan nodded. “Remember the summer before our senior year? I used to hang out with the kids in town, while you stayed at home with grandma, doing your nerdy things, and I ended up joining Adam’s clique.”
Adam laughed. “You make it sound like we were the town mafia.”
“Well, yeah, in a way you were. The Irish mafia family.” Ethan grinned, then his smile faltered, and his face turned serious all of a sudden. “So, uh… Ellie said… she told me your wife died. Was it… was it Hannah?”
Adam’s heart stuttered as reality crashed upon him. Every now and then he managed to forget his pain and pretend he was a normal guy who could laugh and enjoy life. Until someone or something reminded him that his life was anything but normal, that his wife was dead, because of him, and that his daughter would never get to have a mother figure in her life because of her coward of a father, who’d hesitated just a second too long and lost it all in the blink of an eye.
He nodded, and Ethan let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry, man. It must’ve been… devastating.”
Adam nodded again, a gigantic lump in his throat making it impossible to speak. Would it ever feel easier to talk about his wife, about that day, without his heart shattering into a million shards?
He instinctively squeezed Sophie closer to him, and she took his face in her soft, tiny hands, forcing him to stare at her.
“Daddy, you smell. And your face is scratchy.” Her tone was so serious and so matter-of-fact nobody moved or said a word. Ethan was the first to burst into a throaty laugh, followed by Ellie, and lastly by Adam. Sophie looked at the grown-ups with a frown, probably wondering what she’d said that was so funny, then she grinned too when Adam ruffled her hair and placed a kiss on the top of her head.
“You could cut your old dad some slack, you know? Especially after the kind of day I’ve had.”
Sophie frowned again. “But you said lying is a bad fing, Daddy. So I was telling you the truf.”
Ethan laughed harder and raised his palm in front of Sophie. “Way to go, little one.” She high-fived him and grinned.
“Why don’t you leave Sophie here while you get changed?” Ellie stepped closer to Adam, and for the first time since walking in, he felt a little self-conscious about his appearance. He’d longed for a shower way before his ultra-honest daughter mentioned it, but now he really couldn’t wait to get away and wash the day off. “That way, you won’t have to worry about what she’s up to while you’re in the shower. I wasn’t sure what time you’d be back, so we already had dinner. I can heat up some leftover mac and cheese, if you’re hungry.”
“Hungry? I was hungry ten hours ago, now I’m plain famished.” As if on cue, his stomach growled loudly, making Ellie laugh.
“Her makkincheese is yummy. It’s better than the one you make, Daddy.” Sophie was all smiles as she delivered the last punch to his already bruised, single father ego. Ethan laughed and patted Sophie’s head affectionately, as Adam hung his head.
“Well, maybe it’s because her mac and cheese doesn’t come from a box.”
“So what do you say: should I heat it up for you?” Ellie asked. “Unless you prefer to go eat the one from the box, that is.” She looked at him with a cute smile, and even though he didn’t want to impose on her any more than he already had, his stomach couldn’t refuse the offer. Especially if he considered going back to an empty house, with nothing but frozen food. Besides, he wouldn’t mind catching up with Ethan, hear what he’d been up to.
Yeah, right. As if that’s the only reason.
“I hate being such a burden, but I really can’t find the strength to say no. You’d be saving my life. Again.”
Ellie smiled, and the frown on his face slowly eased. This woman made him want to break the promise he’d made to himself, the promise to never forget that the love of his life had died because of him and he didn’t deserve to ever be happy or loved again. Being around her was just so easy—too easy.
“Take all the time you need,” she said. “I’ll put the pasta in the oven and it’ll be ready when you come back.”
Adam nodded, put Sophie on the floor and thanked Ellie once again, before walking out and to his house. Five minutes later, while he was in the shower scrubbing away the grime and exhaustion of the long day, he prayed the sudsy water would wash away the inappropriate thoughts that crowded his mind whenever Ellie was around.
* * *
As soon as the door closed behind Adam, Sophie decided she’d make a drawing for her father, so she sat on the carpet in the living room and got busy with crayons. Ellie busied herself in the kitchen, heating the leftover pasta and putting together a bowl of mixed salad with croutons and fresh cherry tomatoes.
“Don’t fall for him, Els.”
Ethan’s voice from behind her caught her by surprise, and she nearly dropped the bowl of salad. She whipped her head around and frowned at him.
“What?”
“You heard me.” His tone was serious, so serious it worried her. It had been a while since he’d used that somber tone with her—and the last time had been when he first met Greg. She glanced past him to make sure Sophie was out of earshot.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You can’t walk into my life and tell me what I can and can’t do. I’m not fifteen anymore.”
She hadn’t meant for her reply to sound so harsh, but his patronizing comment had made her already low self-control snap. Was it so plain she’d started feeling a little more than just neighborly friendship for the handsome deputy? She didn’t want to like him, let alone feel anything stronger, but even though she’d chided herself at least twenty times a day since that trip to Cape Arago, she was a hot-blooded woman who would naturally be attracted to a man like him—a man who wasn’t just a treat for a woman’s eyes, but was adorable with kids and had a heart as big as Oregon.
Ethan’s hand on her shoulder made her flinch, pulling her out of her musings. “Ellie, he’s gonna hurt you. You never saw the way he looked at that girl, as if nobody else was around, as if she was the very air he breathed. He’ll never be over his wife, he’ll never love anyone else like that.” He squeezed her shoulder, and she resisted the urge to pull away. He wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already guessed, was he? “We saw firsthand what losing your one true love can do to a person. You know Mom would have never been able to love anyone else after Dad died.”
“Are you saying Mom did the right thing by killing herself?” She spun around so fast she gave herself whiplash. He steadied her when she wobbled, and she glowered at him. “Because let me tell you something: suicide is the most selfish thing a person can do. Don’t come telling me otherwise. When she killed herself she proved she didn’t care about us, about what her loss would do to us. Our love wasn’t enough for her, so she just took the easy way out, leaving us knee-deep in grief and guilt.”
He frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but she raised a hand in front of him, and he closed it.
“Yes, I felt guilty. I felt like it was my fault, because I hadn’t seen the signs. Because, despite all the psychology classes I’d taken in college, I hadn’t been able to see that she’d been thinking about killing herself. Because I wasn’t there when she needed me.” She hung her head and shook it, fighting back the tears that pricked her eyelids. “So don’t come telling me now that I don’t know what losing the one you love can do to you, because at the time I felt cheated by Greg, by Mom, by you—even by God for letting all those things happen to me.”
“Damn, Els. I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was how you felt.” He reached for her and pulled her in for a hug. She resisted at first, but when his strong arms gave a tug, she abandoned herself to the embrace she very much needed right now. “You don’t have to feel guilty. Nobody could’ve saved her because she didn’t want to be saved. She loved Dad too much to live the next thirty-something years without him.”
“She had us, and she could’ve had grandchildren who’d love her one day. I still needed her.” A sob escaped her lips, and she bit on her bottom lip hard to stop others from following the first. She didn’t need this right now. Adam would be here at any minute, and she couldn’t open the door with red, puffy eyes and a running nose. Which brought her back to the very start of this discussion: her feelings for Adam—or, actually, the feelings she shouldn’t be having and would never admit to a soul she had.
“And back to Sophie’s dad—there’s nothing going on between us. I’m not falling for him, and I have absolutely no intention of being anything but a friendly neighbor. I’m happy to help out when he needs me, just like I’m sure he would if I ever needed help. That’s about it. And yes,” she pulled back and turned her back to him, putting the ceramic oven pan in the oven and setting the timer, “I know he’ll never be over his wife. We’ve talked a few times about her, and it’s as clear as day that she was his one and only. I don’t want to take anyone’s place, thank you very much.”
“You deserve love, Els. You deserve to be someone’s one and only. And he’d never be able to give you what you need, through no fault of his own.” Ethan reached around her and stole a cookie from the tray sitting on the counter. He winked and placed a kiss on her cheek, before biting off half of the cookie. “Although, I can see why you might want to fall for him. He’s quite handsome, I’ll give him that.”
Ellie chuckled and swatted him with a rolled up towel. “Stop it. I’m not going to fall for the father of one of the kids in my class, handsome or not. I’ve had enough trouble alr—”
She winced, squeezing her eyes shut in a silent prayer that her brother had somehow been too distracted munching on his spoils to hear what she said. She inhaled deeply and kept it in for one, two, three…
“What do you mean, you’ve had enough trouble already? What happened?”
The air left her lungs in a whoosh, and she braced herself against the cold marble, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. She’d been so good at keeping it all a secret for all these months, knowing her brother would want to find Spencer Boren and kick his behind from San Francisco all the way to Oregon. But with the emotions the chat had brought up, she’d let her guard down and blabbed the one thing she shouldn’t have shared with her brother.
Well, too late now. She could play dumb, pretend it had been a slip of the tongue, or even make up a stupid story—and maybe someone else would believe her. Not her twin though. What they said about twins’ telepathy and symbiosis wasn’t just some stupid theory: it had always worked for her and Ethan. Lying would be useless.
She swallowed the shame and guilt, and keeping her back to him, told him how Spencer Boren had ruined her life in San Francisco, as well as her career.
“If only you’d told me, I would’ve come and taught him a lesson.”
She laughed. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t need you ending up in jail, especially since only a couple of weeks afterward I received the call from Grandma’s attorney and found out about the position in Spring Bunnies. It all turned out well, eventually.” The timer pinged, and she used an oven mitt to pull out the pan. “So, you see, I love my job here too much to risk losing it because of a man who’s clearly not over his wife. Not that I’m interested or anything. He’s a good man, but we’re just friends. Got it?”
A knock on the door interrupted their discussion, and she was grateful for Adam’s perfect timing. A little less grateful when she opened the door, and he stood there, looking delicious in a gray sweater and a pair of jeans, his hair still a little wet from the shower and a smile brightening his tired face.
“I’ve just pulled the pasta out of the oven. Come on in.”
He took a step, and before Ellie had even closed the door, Sophie had come and flung herself into his arms again. He picked her up, and she showed him her drawing, earning a lot of praise and a couple of kisses. Ellie loved the way he always showed his daughter she was the center of his universe. He was probably ready to collapse onto his bed, but he never once let it show, not when Sophie insisted on sitting on his lap while he ate, or when she recounted her whole afternoon in detail, or when she kept interrupting him while he caught up with Ethan. He smiled, nodded, or complimented her accordingly, and never seemed annoyed.
Ellie hated her treacherous heart right then, and even more when Adam finally left, with a sleeping Sophie in his arms and thanked Ellie with a beautiful smile that all but knocked her out.
She could lie all she wanted, but her feelings for Adam had gone way beyond a neighborly friendship. She had to find a way to block out her emotions, if she didn’t want to make a fool of herself. With those deep brown eyes staring at her, right into her, it was close to impossible though, and she felt in no way prepared for the task.