All he could smell now was the scent of Celeste’s perfume. “Abby likes flowers so I asked Mom’s gardener to plant a few. If we’re lucky and the cold holds off, they could last through September.”
“I don’t miss the winter snow,” Celeste said with a laugh. “But I do miss the green. I prefer firs to saguaros.”
“Where are you staying while you’re in Miners Bluff?”
“In one of the guest suites at Mikala’s aunt’s. The Purple Pansy Bed and Breakfast doesn’t have a lot of rooms, but I think it’s still one of the most hospitable places to stay in town.”
“How is Ms. Conti?” He should have guessed Celeste would be staying near Mikala—one of her best friends from high school—but he thought at this time of year, the B and B might not have a vacancy.
“Anna doesn’t seem to let anything get her down.”
“I hear good things about Mikala’s music therapy practice. I took a family sightseeing who’d driven up from Sedona so their daughter could spend a week in sessions with her.”
“She never discusses her clients.”
“No, but her clients discuss her, and you know how gossip makes the rounds in Miners Bluff.”
“Oh, yes,” Celeste murmured as they climbed the porch steps, then stood at his front door. “Quicker than a high-speed train.”
Celeste’s mother had been a target of the whispering chain around town. There had been rumors about her morals and the kind of life she’d led. She supposedly spent afternoon to midnight at the bar, drinking with the clientele, and slept with men who were patrons. She left her daughters alone too much of the time. Yet Clay knew rumors never told the whole truth. Clay had liked Ms. Wells. She’d raised Zoie and Celeste on her own the best she could. Her death when the twins were in their twenties had hit them both hard.
After Clay took out his key, he cast a glance at Celeste and saw she was biting her lip. She was nervous. Nervous about not knowing what to expect with Abby? Or nervous about seeing his mother again? She’d spent Christmas with them all the year before Abby was born. She hadn’t been back here since.
Clay opened the door, stepped back into the life he knew, the life he liked … the life he was satisfied with now.
Celeste was right behind him.
He realized little had changed from the way the house had looked a few years ago. He had exchanged the outlandishly colored sofa Zoie had wanted for a more muted blue plaid one. The gleaming hardwood floors, the dark rafters across the ceiling, the stone fireplace with its mantel, had remained the same.
“Great TV,” Celeste joked with a smile.
He had to admit, yes, that was new, too. “Multipurpose. Not only does it allow Abby to watch her movies in almost life-size proportions, but I can run my footage of trips and wilderness treks, really seeing what I’ve got.” He gave her a wink. “I could do my email on here, too, if I really wanted to.”
She just shook her head. “I’m having trouble keeping up with technology and it’s part of my business. Sometimes I wonder—”
A child’s cry sounded down the left hall off the great room.
“Abby!” Clay called and hurried down the hall to the wing of bedrooms. In that moment, when his daughter needed him, he forgot about Celeste and why she’d come.
Clay’s mom, who must have been sitting in the rocker reading—her book lay open on the chair—sat on Abby’s canopy bed, holding her arms out to her granddaughter. But Abby huddled near the pale pink wall, crying as if her heart were breaking.
“She had another bad dream,” his mother said.
Abby had been having bad dreams on and off ever since Zoie had left two years ago. She couldn’t possibly remember her mother, but he understood when a child’s world changed, everything went topsy-turvy no matter how resilient they were supposed to be.
Clay crossed the room quickly, sat on the bed and gathered Abby into his arms. “Hey, ladybug. What’s wrong?”
Abby shook her head and hiccupped, tears running down her chubby cheeks.
Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of Celeste in the doorway. He saw his mother’s frown and knew she was aware of her, too. He couldn’t deal with Celeste now. In fact, he wished she’d leave.
But Celeste didn’t leave. She looked uncertain—as if she might get thrown out—but she crossed the room slowly … as if she couldn’t stay away. She knelt down before Abby and said in a soft voice, “That must have been a very bad dream. But your daddy’s here now. He can protect you.”
Abby glanced up to look at Clay, but then ducked her head down again, almost as if she were trying to crawl into herself. “Daddy’s not always here.”
“I’m here, honey, when your daddy’s not.” Violet Sullivan’s voice sounded disappointed that her granddaughter didn’t know that.
As if Celeste recognized that children didn’t employ reason to come to a conclusion, she delved into Abby’s world. “I’ll bet your very favorite stuffed animal could protect you. I bet he could hold your hand all night if you wanted.”
Sniffling, Abby peered up at Celeste. “Granny says I shouldn’t sleep with my bears.”
Clay glanced at his mother, then asked Abby, “Why is that?”
Abby explained, “She says they get dusty on the shelf.”
Clay cleared his throat, unaware that conversation had ever happened. “If you think you’d like to sleep with one of your stuffed friends, we can make an exception tonight. Sometime soon maybe we can give them all a bath, then you’ll be able to choose any one you want.”
Abby removed her little arms from around her dad, swiped her wrist across her nose and studied Celeste for what seemed like an eternity. Then she squiggled to the edge of her pretty pink sheets and asked, “Will you come back and help me give them a baf?”
Clay could see that Celeste felt caught between what she wanted to do and what he might allow her to do. She answered, “I’ll talk to your dad about that.”
Abby just kept gazing into Celeste’s face as if she were trying to figure something out. Clay knew what. This woman wasn’t Zoie … but she was close.
Suddenly Abby held her arms out to Celeste, and without hesitation, Celeste took his little girl into her embrace. She sat on the edge of the bed, not far from Clay, and held Abby, her eyes shining with emotion, reverently brushing her long brown hair from her brow and cuddling her close.
The silence in the room seemed awkward to Clay, but Celeste and Abby didn’t appear to notice. They were looking at each other again.
Suddenly Abby asked her, “Can you sing a song?”
When Celeste’s gaze met Clay’s, he gave a resigned shrug.
Tentatively at first, Celeste began singing a song about favorite things—roses and kittens—and Clay’s stomach clenched. As Celeste’s voice grew stronger, he realized it was the song Zoie had hummed to Abby after she was born. She hadn’t sung it often, only on those rare times when she’d seemed to want to form a bond with her daughter. Did Abby remember? She wasn’t saying whether she did or didn’t. She was just cuddling into Celeste’s body, letting herself be soothed and rocked, letting her eyes close.
After a short while, Celeste bent her head to Abby’s and asked, “Do you think you’re ready to go back to bed now, little one?”
His daughter nodded.
Sliding closer to Celeste, Clay was ready to take his daughter. But Abby shook her head and held on to Celeste tighter. Celeste looked