But no. All along, it had been the Monroes. A dynamic duo, from the sound of things.
Mallory let her gaze move from Katelyn’s earnest face up to Andrew’s. If for one moment, she’d caught him gloating, seen even the faintest hint of a self-satisfied smirk on his lips, she would have snatched that wheelchair around and dashed for the car.
Instead, she could only see patient forbearance on his face. He wasn’t angry or defensive or smug. His hands rested lightly on the wheelchair’s push bars. Suddenly, Mallory remembered how strong and comforting his grip was the night of Katelyn’s accident, before she’d gone all ballistic on him.
Wouldn’t it be terrific if she could actually believe in that quiet strength he exuded?
“Mallory?” he said now. “What will it be? Do you want me to help you get Katelyn back in the car? Or...”
She closed her eyes again, breathed in, breathed out. Weighed her options.
She was here. And Katelyn was happy and believed this place, these people, could help her. And all of their meager belongings were stacked in boxes in a tiny apartment not too far from here, and Mallory had a job here to pay the bills.
What did it matter if she let Katelyn try it? Even if she did decide to move her, at least this way Katelyn would be getting some therapy in the interim. Mallory didn’t have to fix this today.
“If this is what you want.”
Katelyn squealed with delight. “It is! Oh, thank you, Mal, for not being a pill about it!”
Already Andrew was once again pushing Katelyn toward the stables, and already Mallory was regretting her decision. Where was her resolve? What had her dad always said? “Don’t let your wishbone be where your backbone should be.”
She wasn’t giving in. She was... This was a tactical retreat, that was all. She could be the bigger person here, she decided as she followed Andrew and Katelyn down the pea-gravel path to a white door set in the end of the building.
The warmth inside wrapped around Mallory like a welcome blanket, easing the cold in every part of her save her feet. She glanced down at what felt like two ice blocks shod in her most comfortable heels and kicked herself for wearing them. Heels? To a stable? Boy, she looked dumb. She had been so anxious this morning to get Katelyn from their motel room to here that she’d thrown on her usual “uniform” of a slim skirt, a white blouse, a blazer and...yes, heels to a stable.
The room they were in was more like a living room than an office waiting room—cheery and comfortable, with rough-hewn walls like the inside of a log cabin, sprawly leather furniture, and a kitchen/dining area off to the side. Large paintings of horses and farm life graced the walls, and framed photos of disabled children with a dark-haired woman and various horses were scattered throughout the room. The windows along the back were large and looked out onto the same green paddocks that Mallory had seen earlier. Outside, the horses still ran like four-year-old kids, mindless of the cold.
She found herself drawn to the warmth from a set of gas logs in a corner fireplace, and not just because Andrew had backed Katelyn up to it, as well. Now, for the first time in months, she took the opportunity to look at the man who had left her sister to die.
He wasn’t a monster. In her mind, Mallory had made him harder, more calculating. She realized that now as she noticed how compassion seemed to soften the crisp lines of his face. Kneeling beside Katelyn, Andrew was making sure that her little sister was settled in. He tucked a throw from one of the couches around her as if she were seven, not seventeen going on eighteen.
That was reassuring, especially since Katelyn had let slip that the pair of them had been exchanging emails and text messages. Mallory switched her scrutiny to Katelyn. Was Andrew another of Katelyn’s frequent “crushes”? It would certainly explain why her sister had wanted to come here, if she’d developed feelings for Andrew. Katelyn could fall so hard and fast with such little encouragement and be convinced that this fellow, this guy, would be her Prince Charming forever.
Mallory smothered an inward snort. There were no Prince Charmings. As soon as a guy heard you were raising your little sister, he was out of there like a shot.
Andrew straightened up into a standing position, and it reminded Mallory afresh how tall and imposing a figure he made. “Hey, my sister’s finishing up a phone call. You guys look as though you could do with some coffee. C’mon, Mallory, and I’ll show you where we keep the coffeepot.”
She followed him into the kitchen area, neat and tidy, surprised to find the counters topped with real butcher block instead of the usual kind. Sliding her hand along the smooth finish, she thought of her dad and his woodshop in the garage, and how he’d been working on a butcher-block island for her mom when...
“You like? Came from trees right here on the property. My brothers and I made these counters ourselves—had the trees sawed into lumber and kiln dried.”
Mallory looked up to see Andrew holding a cup of coffee out to her. She slid her fingers along the silky surface of the counter one final time, realizing the hours of sanding that had gone into creating its satiny finish. As she took the cup from Andrew, she said, “They’re beautiful. I don’t recognize the wood. Is it some sort of maple or oak?”
“Nope, poplar. Ma would have killed us if we’d cut down any of the big oaks on the place. A stand of poplars had to go to make room for the stables, so Maegan asked us if we could use the wood in the construction. Sugar? Cream? It’s here. And how does Katelyn take her coffee?”
From the other room, Katelyn called out, “Katelyn takes a little coffee in her cream, that’s what Mal tells her. We can’t all be tough and fierce and grown up and drink our coffee black like Mallory.”
Mallory felt her cheeks heat up. “Think melted coffee ice cream, and you’re on the right track,” she agreed. “And despite what Katelyn says, I do take a little cream and sugar in mine on occasion.” She didn’t add that the reason she often drank her coffee black was to save time and money—coffee was expensive in its own right, and Katelyn could drink enough cream and sugar in her coffee for two.
“Melted coffee ice cream? That’s an atrocity to good coffee!” Andrew protested. He winked at Mallory, and Mallory found herself grinning back at him. “Especially mine— you could drink it black. Here, I can’t do it to the poor unsuspecting stuff. You’d better.”
Quickly she dumped enough cream to float a small boat and a mountain of sugar into the cup. There—exactly the sweet, sticky mess that Katelyn liked.
“Whoa! You weren’t joking... Put that in an ice cream churn, and you would have coffee ice cream.” Andrew meanwhile had filled a mug that proclaimed “But first...coffee.” True to his earlier words, he drank his coffee without fussing over cream or sugar.
His gaze met hers over the rim of the mug: his eyes bright blue, and despite the compassion she saw there, a trace of frank scrutiny still remained. She felt, impossibly, as though he were weighing her true worth against some high personal standard...and had not decided yet whether she measured up. Flustered, she let her own gaze fall to the butcher-block counter.
Once again, the memory of her dad came back to Mallory, and his cautionary quip about wishbones and backbones. That day, so many years ago, her mom and dad had left together for a weekend out of town. She’d been irritated that they expected her to look after Katelyn when what Mallory had wanted to do was go to the beach with her friends.
The last thing she remembered her dad saying as he affectionately ruffled her hair was, “I know it stinks to have to be stuck here, taking care of your sister, but you’ll do a good job, and your mom needs some time away. Besides, keeping up with Katelyn builds backbone, right?”
Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe if she could let Katelyn stay here, she didn’t have any backbone at all. Maybe letting the man who’d