from his bare feet to his equally faded T-shirt. He thought she looked both wary and apprehensive. His mouth quirked slightly when he noticed that the little girl, who had moonlight-pale hair but Mommy’s soft brown eyes, had an identical expression on her face. Her clutch on her mother’s thigh tightened.
“I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” the woman said.
He actually did know hers, he’d realized yesterday even before being handed the program for the service. Enid had mentioned it a couple of times. It had caught in his memory only because Rowan was an unusual name.
“Niall MacLachlan,” he said. “I assume you’re Enid’s granddaughter.”
“Yes. Rowan Staley.” She had a beautiful voice. The trill of laughter he’d heard earlier had to have been hers. “These are my children, Desmond and Anna.”
The boy piped up, “Hi.” The girl only stared, her eyes narrowing.
Niall had the thought that he could develop a soft spot for her.
“Hello,” he said and then waited, meantime keeping a cautious eye on the dog who had made an enthusiastic, tail-wagging circuit of the yard and was now closing in again. The damn thing looked as if he’d been put together with spare parts. Niall had seen garden art in which rusting springs, trowels and what-not were welded together to form fantastical animals. The dog was even rust-colored.
“We’ve moved into the house,” Rowan said.
No shit. He nodded then couldn’t resist saying, “Pretty quick.”
Her eyes narrowed, increasing the resemblance to her tiny daughter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I was surprised, that’s all.”
“I’m Gran’s sole heir. There’s no one to object and no point in the house sitting empty while the will goes through probate.”
His answering stare was deliberately bored. She flushed, giving her a rosy-cheeked look. No elegant cheekbones here. She wasn’t plump, but she had a lot of curves packed onto a frame that couldn’t possibly top five-foot-two or -three.
“I’m now your landlady,” she said sharply.
The dog sprang forward, forcing woman and children to stagger aside, and flung himself happily at Niall.
“Sit!” he snapped. Apparently surprised, the animal dropped to its haunches. Equally surprised, his family stared at him. Niall said, “Have you looked into that ugly dog contest? There might be prize money.”
“That’s not nice!” the boy exclaimed. “Super Sam is…is…”
Something like a chuckle was welling up in Niall’s chest. He suppressed it.
Rowan looked as indignant as her son. “How can you say that? Sam’s…cute.”
The cute came out kind of weak. Niall let his silence speak for itself.
The little girl said in a sweet, high voice, “We love Sam.”
The dog leaped up, ran a wet pink tongue over her face and bounded off. After a small sigh, Rowan said, “Speaking of Sam. One of the things I came by for was to ask that you keep the gate closed. He doesn’t have an awful lot of common sense, and he, er, likes to dig holes, which some of the neighbors might not appreciate, so we really need to keep him confined.”
That was a nuisance, but not unreasonable. Niall nodded. “I can do that.”
“Thank you.” She was trying for crisp sarcasm, but couldn’t quite pull it off. Not her style, Niall thought.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“I haven’t yet had a chance to study the rental agreement,” Rowan said. “Once I have, perhaps we can talk about it.”
“What’s to talk about? Unless one of us doesn’t intend to honor it?”
She didn’t look away. “And which one of us would that be?”
“Depends on how things go, doesn’t it?”
Her lips compressed. “Yes. It does.” She backed up a step, taking her children with her. “Mr. MacLachlan…”
“Detective. I’m with Stimson P.D.”
He saw the moment she made the connection. “I read about you in the paper.” And, clearly, hadn’t liked what she’d read. She opened her mouth to say more, glanced down at Desmond and changed her mind. “What a pleasure it’s been to meet you,” she said, and this time the sarcasm worked better. So well, in fact, that he couldn’t help smiling.
His new landlady looked momentarily startled, then mad. She gave a nod that made her ponytail bob and her bangs swing, then steered her kids off the porch. Both their heads were turning to look back as she marched them across the lawn.
Still smiling, Niall closed the door. With luck, his all-too-close neighbors wouldn’t come calling again in the near future. The kid—Desmond—was right. Niall wasn’t very nice. He reflected that he’d been inspired by the hot pepper stuff orthodontists gave parents to apply to their kids’ thumbs when they wouldn’t quit sucking on them. A preventative measure.
His smile died, though, at the memory of overhearing his sergeant grumble about how his five-year-old had developed a taste for the damn pepper, and was sucking her thumb even more now.
Okay, not foolproof, but worth a try.
CHAPTER TWO
THE GUILT WAS GETTING him down.
He’d expected to struggle with some complex emotions regarding the shooting. Niall didn’t question his decision to take down the bank robber, who’d been doing his damnedest to kill Niall and very possibly would have shot the poor teller once he didn’t need her. The adrenaline kept surging, though, at unexpected moments. That was okay; he knew from experience that this was a problem time would cure.
It was the sight of the toddler in the car seat that was haunting him, waking and sleeping. Two days ago, Duncan had called to let him know that the bloody bullet embedded in the car door beside the little girl wasn’t Niall’s. Relief had dropped him into a chair with a thud. Thank God, was all he could think. He already knew she’d gone home after only a two-night stay in the hospital. The bullet had barely creased her skull.
Not my bullet.
But, damn, it had been a close call. He’d known how high risk a shoot-out was in the middle of town with civilians all around. People often sat waiting in a parked car—although he was still infuriated at the father who had left a child that age alone while he went into the bank. Niall couldn’t seem to stop asking himself whether he’d done the right thing. If he’d backed off somehow, given the guy space to make a getaway… But he couldn’t figure how he could have done that. And then there was the hostage.
In the week since the incident, he’d gone around and around a million times, never arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. Unfortunately, Niall had had an abundance of time to brood, since he was on routine leave following the shooting. Instead of doing desk work, he had chosen to use vacation days. He had a hell of a lot of them saved to use.
And now he felt like crud over being so rude to a woman who was probably perfectly nice and had been well-intentioned. Two little kids, too, who’d stared at him with shocked eyes by the time Mom hastily bore them away. No, he wasn’t the friendliest guy on earth, but he knew he’d have been more civil if he hadn’t been sleep-deprived and on edge.
He finally ventured out two days after that initial meet-and-greet to ease his conscience. Rowan and the children were in the backyard. She seemed to be happily setting pink flowering geraniums into pots on the porch. A green plastic sandbox shaped like a turtle had appeared yesterday, and the girl sat in it with a shovel and bucket. The boy and dog both had crawled beneath the giant