“Sorry.” Hugging her aunt, Alex finally seemed genuinely repentant.
“Then right around to the back, young lady, and hose off at the outside tap while I talk to your father.” Emily looked as if she wasn’t going to let Sean get away as easily.
Alex trotted around the corner of the house, a tiny smile turning up the corner of her lips, obviously already imagining she was on her way to water some trusty safari animal.
“She didn’t mean any harm,” Sean offered.
“She never means any harm.” Sighing, Emily smoothed the tent-like dress over her swollen form. “She’s in her own little world without consequences. A world you give far too much encouragement.”
“She saw the yard-sale sign down the street.” Sean stopped himself. Emily looked as if her physical strength and emotional patience had run out with her pregnancy. She didn’t need one more person challenging her. Not now, anyway. “She wanted to see if there were any books.”
“Books.” Emily rolled her eyes. “If it’s not books, it’s lobstering. If it’s not lobstering, it’s those wild travel fantasies you cultivate. Candace says Alex needs to focus more on—”
“I’m sorry she caused you grief.” He didn’t want to pick a fight with the woman who’d tried to do him a favor, but he didn’t need yet another lecture on child rearing. He was doing the best he could.
“You need to nudge her in the right directions,” Emily said gently. “Help her make more grounded choices.”
“Are you saying I’m not a good role model?”
“Mud wrestling with Kit Darling in public…?”
“I wasn’t mud wrestling.”
“If you say so, but…Candace was devastated.” Emily’s shoulders sagged. “And I can understand why. She has Alexandra’s best interests at heart. Yours, as well. And she has some expectations for her own.”
“Don’t go there, Emily. It was one dinner. A fix-up.”
“You didn’t give her a chance. She’s still hoping—”
“Candace isn’t my type.”
“Oh, but Kit is?”
“Look. I found Alex with Kit. When the rain started, Alex and I helped bring the yard sale stuff under cover. It was slippery. We fell. My eight-year-old happened to think it was funny.”
“Funny! Two adults down on the ground, groping each other in the mud. One of them a single father and the other…the other trashy Babe Darling’s daughter, no less.”
“Would it have made any difference if I’d been mud wrestling with, say, Libby Fisk? Or Heather Abernathy? Or Candace Simmons?”
“Oh, Sean.” Emily gave him a pitying look as if he were a lost boy. “All I want is for you to be happy.”
“I’m happy enough.”
“You know what I mean. I want you to have what Brad and I have. I want Alex to know a mother’s love.”
So did he, but finding the right woman for Alex—and for him—wasn’t just an easy search on eBay. “I don’t need a matchmaker, Em,” he said as gently as he could.
“If this afternoon’s any indication, I think you do.”
“So we’re back to Kit.”
“I don’t think she’s…your type.”
“I don’t know what kind of woman Kit is,” he admitted, keeping his tone even. “She hasn’t been back to town in nine years. She claims to be a travel writer.”
“Then she won’t be staying. You need a woman who’ll—” With one hand Emily grabbed Sean’s arm. With the other she clutched her belly.
“What?” He knew without asking.
“It’s time!” Emily gasped. “This is labor.”
“Are you sure?” Had he and Alex precipitated this?
“Of course I’m sure!” Emily said through clenched teeth. “I’ve had three children. Oh—” Reaching into her dress pocket, she withdrew a cell phone and thrust it at Sean. “Call Emergency Response.”
“I’ll call Brad.”
“There’s no time!”
He punched in 9-1-1 and requested the Emergency Response Unit, then turned his attention to his sister-in-law.
“I need to sit,” Emily pleaded, breathless.
As he helped her to the step, he tried not to think about Jilian’s difficult delivery. “Can I do anything for you?”
“Yes!” She clutched his arm. “Promise me you’ll see Candace tomorrow. Explain about this afternoon. She deserves an explanation.”
Emily was right. Candace did deserve an explanation. Maybe even an apology. She was a good person. Just not the woman for him.
Another contraction almost doubled Emily over. Still, she clung to his arm. “Promise.”
“I promise,” he said quickly to alleviate her obvious distress.
Looking up, he saw a dripping Alex standing at the corner of the house, fear etched on her face.
“It’s okay, punkin,” he said, extending his free hand to her. “Aunt Emily’s about to have her baby.”
“Here?” Alex squeaked, running to him, throwing her wet arms around his leg.
Emily let out a short laugh. “You two adventurers would appreciate a front-yard delivery, wouldn’t you?” She began to pant.
Sean put his arm around her and soothed her.
Within minutes the Emergency Response Unit arrived. Fortunately, the paramedics performed their duties seamlessly. Sean, with Alex plastered to his side, wouldn’t have been much help. He assured Emily he’d wait for her children to get off the bus, that he would bring them to the hospital. He’d also get in touch with Brad. Yes, he knew his pager number.
As the paramedics began to close the doors to the unit, Emily caught and held his gaze.
“Let me call Uncle Brad,” Alex chirped, patting the back pocket of Sean’s jeans. “Hey! Where’s your phone?”
With a sense of dread, he felt his empty pockets.
“It must have fallen out when you fell in the mud. At Kit’s.” Alex’s eyes lit up. “We’ll have to go back to look for it.”
“No.” He didn’t like that idea. “Not now. We can use Aunt Emily’s.”
Alex made a beeline for the phone abandoned on the front step. “But we’ll have to get yours sometime,” she declared with a grin. “And when we do, I’m bringing my books for Kit to autograph.”
Sean’s stomach dropped.
He’d thrown himself into Alex’s fantasy of travel and adventure because it was only pretend. And, therefore, safe.
Then Kit blew into town. A real traveler with iconoclastic baggage. He didn’t so much envy her travels as fear what she represented. She was the siren. Luring his daughter and enticing him with her song.
CHAPTER THREE
KIT SAT IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM cubicle, waiting for a nurse to return with her release forms. The stitched-up gash in her right forearm throbbed as the local anesthesia wore off. Biting her lower lip against the pain, she tapped the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other. It had been one long, frustrating day—starting