“Are you on a diet, princess?” he asked casually.
She shrugged. “Not really. I just like my clothes to fit loose. You know. Grandma’s no lightweight, either. When I get older, if I already eat right, I won’t have to worry that I’ll look like her. And I can look like the models in Pizzazz and Mystique.”
Matt sighed. America—a plastic surgeon’s paradise! Where men were supposed to be over-muscled and women were starting to look the same except for their out-of-proportion breasts.
“You know all those women don’t really look like that naturally, don’t you? Some have surgery and most of their photos are retouched.”
That got Leslie’s attention. Her head snapped up. “You think so?”
“Oh. Yeah. I saw it on a TV show about special effects. A graphic artist trims thighs, arms, hips, whatever the photographer wants slimmed down with the computer. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Your mother never dieted. She just ate healthy and let the good Lord take care of how she looked. And she looked wonderful. You will, too.”
Leslie tilted her head and frowned, clearly thinking about what he’d said. “You thought Mom was pretty?”
He could think of Diane now and remember her before the cancer. He smiled and knew it had a wistful quality. But that was okay. He’d never hidden his grief from the kids. They knew he missed their mom as much as they did. “She was perfect. Didn’t you think so?”
Her eyes shone and she nodded. “She was. Wasn’t she? Thanks, Daddy,” she told him with a sweet broad smile.
Matt gave a sigh of relief. Leslie was going to be fine. Justine had just panicked. Now all he had to do was apologize to the pretty minister for putting her in the crosshairs of his insecurities over single parenthood. He couldn’t believe how he’d spoken to her. And all because she cared about his daughter.
Chapter Four
Justine heard footsteps in the hall coming toward her office. She looked up from the lesson she’d prepared for her newly instituted Wednesday night youth service. While she was ready for a visitor, she wasn’t ready to find Chief Matthew Trent and his wide shoulders filling her doorway.
The quickened beat of her heart told her a forewarning probably wouldn’t have helped, anyway. To see Matt was to—and oh, how she hated admitting this even to herself—desire him. That he was in uniform didn’t help. What was it about men in uniform? And why didn’t being a minister exempt her from those kind of thoughts? They were entirely inappropriate, and besides that, embarrassing and inconvenient!
“Got a minute?” Matt asked, and Justine felt immediate contrition. The man was clearly troubled.
“Come in. What can I do for you?”
“A couple things, actually,” he said, sinking into the chair across from her desk. “I’ve been meaning to get over here to see you ever since Friday but, with one thing and another going on, my time’s been a little tight.”
“I noticed the girls weren’t at Sunday school. Frankly, I worried that I’d chased you all away.”
“Of course you didn’t chase us away. Gina was up sick all night Saturday, so we slept in. The reason I wanted to see you is to say I was wrong to snap at you on Friday. I’d like to apologize. You were just concerned for Les, and I overreacted instead of being appreciative that you’d worry about her.”
He raked a hand through his shock of dark hair. “I’m afraid I’m a little sensitive about the girls. I made the mistake of leaning heavily on my in-laws after Diane died. Then, when Cindy was taken—”
“Taken?”
Matt sat back and crossed his ankle over his knee. “I assumed you knew what prompted our move here. Cindy was snatched from the playground at school last spring.”
Justine’s hand flew to cover her heart. “Oh dear Lord. That’s horrible.”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds as if to banish the horror, then opened them and nodded. “We got lucky. A teacher who’d had Cindy in a previous grade happened to be leaving for a doctor’s appointment. She saw Cindy in the car crying. She knew me, and since I wasn’t the driver, she decided to make sure everything was all right. She drove her car across the street and blocked his car in. Better safe than sorry, she thought, and, of course, she was right. One of the male teachers saw what was happening, saw the vehicle turn around, and chased it on foot, hoping to get the plate number, at least. When the car had to stop, he managed to get the door open with Cindy’s help and pulled her out. The perp fled on foot, but the police had him in custody within the hour.”
“You must have been terrified for her.”
Matt nodded. “And that’s why I decided to move somewhere safer. My in-laws weren’t so understanding. They live about an hour the other side of Green Bay. Seth’s seventy now. He was never much of a driver, but now he hates driving through the city or on high-speed highways. And, of course, they’d gotten used to stopping in every day. I know this is a long drive, but they acted as if Safe Harbor were the dark side of the moon. I’d asked their opinion on so much for so long, they must have begun to think they had a right to dictate how and where I should raise the girls. They wanted me to keep my job with the FBI and have the girls live with them, visiting on weekends. I couldn’t even consider that.”
“After losing their mother, that would have been disastrous for them.”
Matt moved in his chair, visibly restless and tense. “That’s how I felt. Anyway, Ray called about the job in Safe Harbor, and I decided the move here would be better for all concerned. My in-laws objected and even told the girls their alternative solution without consulting me.”
“I can’t think that was right, and I, for one, think you made the right decision. As I said, the girls didn’t need to lose you as well as their mother.”
“Not to hear their grandparents tell it. They don’t think I’m capable of raising three girls alone.”
Justine could hear the hurt in his voice.
“Well, anyway,” he continued, “I’m proud of my relationship with my kids. We’re close. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them. Nothing’s more important to me than they are. I’m a good father.” A note of uncertainty entered his voice.
“Of course, you are. I never doubted that for a moment,” she assured him.
“Right now, I am. Doubting me, I mean. Sort of, anyway.” He shook his head and sat straighter, dropping the relaxed cross-legged posture. “I don’t know. I thought I’d solved any problem with Leslie’s eating on Friday night. She admitted to watching her diet so she wouldn’t gain weight in her adult years. Diane’s mother is a little on the plump side, and I think it may have had Les worried. But then we had a long talk about dieting and the reality of retouched fashion magazine photos. She seemed to understand. Then last night, I caught her tossing her dinner in the trash.
“I confronted her about it, and before I knew it we were in a raging, door-slamming battle. She hates it here. Hates me for bringing her here. She should have stayed with Seth and Mary. She called me ‘stupid’ and ‘selfish’ among other things, the kindest of which was ‘dictator.’ She apologized later but…” He grimaced.
The man was heartbroken. “But you thought you were her hero and it hurts that she’s coming to see things about you she characterizes as faults.”
Matt blinked and stared at her. “How did you know that?”
“I’m smarter than the average minister because I’m a woman,” she teased, shooting him a grin.
The