Nicole had given the girls the same information in the car last night, but she answered the questions again in a mix of curiosity, appreciation and good humor. They were sweet kids who obviously wanted to help bring Roscoe home. So Parker’s query if they could stop by and lend their services for the next round of searching didn’t surprise her in the least. Even as she thought the words Thank you, but no, what came out of her mouth was “Yes, if you’re sure.”
Probably, Parker’s reason for extending his hand yet again had more to do with his daughters’ excitement than it did from any true desire of his own. And that was fine. It, in fact, mirrored her primary reason for accepting their assistance. How could she let down two little girls whose hearts were in the right place? She couldn’t. Add in the zing and the intoxicating quality of his voice, and she didn’t even want to decline.
But waiting around for them to arrive while her dog was still missing and running loose somewhere was beginning to take a heavy toll.
Sickness lurched in her stomach, kicking her hard and solidifying into a seemingly impenetrable mass, at the prospect that perhaps Roscoe wasn’t running loose. Because he wasn’t able to. Because he’d been hit by a car and was hurt or... No. Her dog was smart, agile and fast. She refused to go to worst-case scenarios. He hadn’t even been missing twenty-four hours yet.
Glancing through the window a second time and still not seeing any sign of Parker and his daughters, Nicole sighed in pent-up frustration and worry. She’d give them ten more minutes before sending Parker a text with her apologies and the explanation that she couldn’t wait any longer. Yes, Erin and Megan would be disappointed, but they were intelligent and compassionate little girls. They would understand and she’d make it up to them somehow.
For the next seven and a half minutes, Nicole paced her sparsely furnished living room and tried to direct her thoughts away from Roscoe’s whereabouts. She’d sold or gotten rid of most of her secondhand furniture when she moved to Steamboat Springs from Denver, knowing she would live with her parents until she found a house to purchase. She had done so in the middle of the summer and had settled in here only about a month ago. As of yet, she hadn’t finished replacing all she’d sold, preferring to go slowly in order to enjoy the process.
Her house, built in the style of a Craftsman bungalow, was a spectacular deal. The owners were relocating and had been motivated to sell fast at a below-market price; otherwise she likely would’ve had to pass. And that would’ve been a shame, as the second she walked through the front door, she had fallen completely in love.
Coming in at close to 1,700 finished square feet, the house was larger than what Nicole had been looking for, and the lowered sale price, while a great bargain, still pushed hard at the limit of her budget. But her gut had insisted she’d found her home. She trusted that instinct and, in the end, swallowed her nerves and took the plunge.
The exterior of the house featured dark blue siding with a sturdy gray brick foundation and, to her delight, a lovely screened-in front porch where she could sit and drink her tea before getting ready for work. And the interior of the house was perfect.
Every inch of the living space existed on the first floor and included three bedrooms, a cozy dining room that sat directly next to the eat-in kitchen, a laundry nook that more than suited Nicole’s needs, a spacious living room and two full bathrooms. In addition, the house boasted a second floor that had a single room, which was large but unfinished. The prior homeowners, before having to relocate, had planned on turning the upstairs room into their master bedroom.
They never had, and Nicole doubted she’d ever go to the trouble. She didn’t require the extra living space and it worked well for storage. Plus, when the home was originally built, the second floor hadn’t even been wired for electricity. Why go to the hassle and expense for an unnecessary addition, especially when she had yet to finish filling the rooms she did use?
At the moment, the only furniture in the living room was the pair of comfy, overstuffed chairs Nicole had bought at a going-out-of-business sale, a stand-up lamp she’d shoved in the corner and her television. The lamp wasn’t even hers, as she’d borrowed it from her parents. Before Roscoe’s getaway, her plans for today had included furniture shopping.
She’d hoped to find a sofa and maybe even a couple of end tables or, if she had no luck there, a few knickknacks for the brick fireplace’s mantel. A vase or—
The slam of a car door, followed quickly by another, woke her from her musings. They were here. Thank God! Nicole went to the front door and opened it without waiting for a knock or the doorbell to ring. She was instantly greeted with three voices—that of two little girls, still talking excitedly, as well as their father’s deep, resonating tone—and out of nowhere, her heart picked up an extra beat and what felt like a million goose bumps coated her skin.
What a gorgeous family these three made. The man—tall and lean, sexy and strong, with a warm smile in his sky blue eyes and on his rugged face—and those two adorable little girls by his side. Erin, with her golden-highlighted coppery-red hair gleaming in the morning sun and her pixie-like features—her softly pointed chin, small turned-up nose and finely etched cheekbones—and Megan, whose hair fell to her slim shoulders in a swoop of silky pale gold, with her expressive, friendly brown eyes and eager, happy-to-be-me grin.
Yes. They were a striking trio, and as they approached the front porch, Nicole wondered about the girls’ mother. She must have been a stunning woman. Red haired, possibly, like Erin, and almost certainly brown eyed, like both of her daughters. And Nicole then thought of the illness that had taken this mystery woman’s life, the illness she herself had fought with such vehemence, and her heart went out to these two little girls. To Parker.
Not only for the crushing, devastating loss of a mother and wife, but for the unbelievable hell that came before. The consuming fear when the diagnosis was first delivered, the slender strands of hope that couldn’t truly be grasped onto because of the overriding terror, the misery—oh, the horrible, horrible misery—of chemotherapy. Losing her hair, losing her identity, trying to have a positive attitude and keep it all together for her girls, for her husband, for herself.
Nicole didn’t have to imagine the terror or the hard-to-find hope or the god-awful misery. She was well acquainted with how it felt to watch your hair fall out, to look in the mirror and not recognize your own reflection, and to, well, to feel so ill that at times the possibility of losing the battle, of dying, came as almost a salve to the soul. Those struggles, those emotions, those realities she had experienced and would never, for the rest of her life, forget.
But she did not have children or a husband who had so needed her to survive, who depended on her and loved her, to worry about. To fear for or to try to remain strong for. Nicole could not put herself fully in this woman’s shoes, could not fathom how much courage and strength she’d been forced to find or the deep, desperate sorrow she must have felt when she knew that death was coming and that she couldn’t do anything but wait for the end.
Yes, Nicole had worried for her parents and her brother, and yes, she’d absolutely attempted to remain resilient and optimistic for their benefit, if not her own. And that wasn’t nothing. But it wasn’t the same, either. Did not, could not, hold an intensity equal to looking at your cherished children and hating the fact that you wouldn’t be there for them as they grew.
The weight of unshed tears appeared behind Nicole’s eyes. She pushed them down deep and forced the depressing thoughts into submission. They’d be there, she knew, to later pick apart and once again consider everything she had already considered so many times: the wisdom of purposely attempting to have a child without a husband in the wings ready to take over if her life ended, whether by a stupid accident of fate or the recurrence of her deadliest and most feared enemy.
Except now, along with the scary what-ifs—if she became pregnant, if she became ill again, if she didn’t survive—she would see this family in her mind’s eye. She would think of Parker and Erin and Megan, and the undeniable facts