was his grandfather, in his everyday flannel shirt and jeans, staring out the window while holding a ceramic angel they’d set on the mantel yesterday. As Jason watched, Papa set it down and moved over to a framed Christmas photo of Jason and Kimmie as young kids, visiting Santa. Papa looked at it, ran a finger over it, shook his head.
Jason’s chest felt heavy, knowing there was precious little he could do to relieve his grandfather’s suffering.
But whatever he could do, he would. He’d been a negligent grandson, but no more.
Mistletoe leaned against his leg and panted up at him.
He gave the dog a quick head rub and then walked into the room just as Papa set down the photograph he’d been studying and turned. His face lit up. “Just the man I want to see. Come get some coffee. Got an idea to run by you.”
“Yeah?” Jason slung an arm around his grandfather’s shoulders as they walked into the kitchen. He poured them both a fresh cup of coffee, black. “What’ve you got in mind?”
Papa pulled a chair up to the old wooden table and sat down. “Got someone coming over to do a little investigating about our guests.”
“You, too?” Jason was relieved that he wasn’t the only one who felt suspicious. In a corner of his mind, he’d worried that it was as Renea had said: he couldn’t trust, couldn’t be a family person. “I can’t figure out why Kimmie left the farm to her. What were they to each other?” As executor of the estate, he needed to know.
The mere thought of there being an estate—of Kimmie being gone—racked his chest with a sudden ache so strong he had to sit down at the table to keep from falling apart.
“I’m thinking about those babies, for one thing,” Papa said unexpectedly.
“What about them?”
“Something’s not right about them, but I don’t know what it is. So I’ve got Ruthie Delacroix coming over this morning. There’s nobody knows as much about babies as Ruthie.”
Jason remembered the woman, vaguely, from visits home; she’d always had a child on her hip at church, and he seemed to recall she ran a child care operation on the edge of town.
“And that’s not all I’m wondering,” Papa said darkly, “but first things first.”
Jason grinned. Papa conniving and plotting was better than Papa grieving.
“I figure I have to take the lead on this, since you haven’t shown a whole lot of sense about women. When you brought home that skinny thing—what was her name? Renea?—and said you were going to marry her, your grandmother had a fit.”
Jason wasn’t going to rise to that bait. And he wasn’t going to think about Renea. He got up and started wiping down the already-clean counters.
No sooner had his grandfather headed upstairs to his bedroom than Jason heard the sound of babies babbling and laughing, matched by Erica’s melodic, soothing voice. A moment later, she appeared, a baby in each arm.
Even without a trace of makeup, her fair skin seemed to glow. Her hair wasn’t styled, but clipped back, with strands already escaping.
His heart rate picked up just looking at her.
As she nuzzled one of the baby’s heads—was that Mikey or Teddy?—he was drawn into her force field. “Want me to hold one of them?”
And where did that come from? He never, but never, offered to hold a baby.
“Um...sure!” She nodded toward the wigglier baby. “Take Teddy. But keep a grip on him. He’s a handful. I just need to get them some breakfast.” As she spoke, she strapped Mikey into the old wooden high chair.
Jason sat down and held the baby on his knee, studying him, wondering what Papa saw that made him worry. But the kid looked healthy and lively to him as he waved his arms and banged the table, trying to get Erica’s attention.
Which seemed perfectly sensible to Jason. Even in old jeans and a loose blue sweater, Erica was a knockout. Any male would want her attention.
Nostalgia pierced him. Erica moved around the room easily, already comfortable, starting to know where things were. It made him think of his grandfather sitting at this very table after a long day of farmwork, his grandmother bustling around fixing food, declining all offers of help in the kingdom that was her kitchen.
Papa was grieving the loss of his wife now, but his life had been immeasurably enriched by his family. In fact, it was impossible to think of Papa without thinking of all those who loved him. And when Jason and Kimmie had needed some extra parenting, Papa and Gran had opened their arms without a second thought. They’d been the making of Jason’s childhood.
Unfortunately, Kimmie had seen more neglect before Papa and Gran had stepped in. She’d never quite recovered from their parents’ lack of real love.
“Would you like some oatmeal?” Erica asked a few minutes later, already dishing up four bowls, two big and two small. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked rather than assuming. The twins love oatmeal, and so do I, and it’s about the most economical breakfast you can find.”
“That would be great.” He shifted Teddy on his knee. “Put his down here and I’ll try to feed him. No guarantees, though.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem. You had the care of them all night. At least you ought to get a minute to eat a bowl of oatmeal yourself.”
“That would be a treat.” She placed a small bowl beside his larger one and handed him a bib and a spoon. “Go to it.”
Trying to get spoonfuls of oatmeal into a curious baby proved a challenge, and as Erica expertly scooped the cereal into Mikey’s mouth, she laughed at Jason’s attempts. How she managed two, as a single mom, he couldn’t fathom.
“Hey now,” he said when Teddy blew a raspberry that spattered oatmeal all over himself, the high chair and Jason. “Give me a break. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“Teddy! Behave yourself!” A smile tugged at Erica’s face as she passed Jason a cloth. “When he spits like that, he’s probably done. Just wipe his face and we’ll let them crawl around a little.”
Mistletoe had been weaving between their legs, licking up the bits of oatmeal and banana that hit the floor. Jason reached down to pat the dog at the same moment Erica did.
Their hands brushed—and Jason felt it to his core. “Nothing like a canine vacuum cleaner,” he tried to joke. And kept his hand on the dog, hoping for another moment of contact with Erica.
“I know, right? We totally should have gotten them a dog back in Arizona.”
And then her hand went still. When he looked up at her face, it had gone still, too.
“Who?” Jason asked. “You and their dad?”
“I should have gotten them a dog,” she said, not looking at him. “I meant, I should have.”
The detective in him stored away that remark as relevant. And it was a good reminder, he reflected as they both scarfed down the rest of their breakfast without more talk. He couldn’t trust Erica, didn’t know what she had been to Kimmie. Getting domestic with her would only cloud his judgment. More than likely, she’d been a bad influence, dragging Kimmie down.
Beyond that likelihood, he needed to remember that he was no good at family relationships. He was here, in part, to see if he could reset his values, and he’d vowed to himself that he wouldn’t even try to start anything with a woman until he’d improved significantly in that regard. It wasn’t fair to either him or the woman.
* * *
Just moments later, as Jason finished up the breakfast dishes, there was a pounding on the door. Mistletoe ran toward it, barking, as Papa came out of his room and trotted down the