Safe in His Arms (10 page)

As if she realized her comment had hit its mark, Donna reached for the pan on the stove and poured the cooked pasta into the colander in the sink. “Let's get this…dinner on the table before the child starves.”

“Did someone say dinner?” Brian said as he came into the room with Emma on his back.

“Dinner!” Emma lifted a fist into the air as her grandfather lowered her to the ground.

Lindsay's thoughts flashed back to another recent dinner, one with just as much tension, but ultimately a lot more laughter. But the fact that she remembered that dinner
now
only frustrated her more. Even after her mother had pointed out that she needed to get her focus in the right place, she still couldn't get Joe out of her mind.

“Would anyone else like to eat?” She quartered the hot dogs to avoid a choking hazard and waited for her parents' polite refusals. “Okay then. Dinner for one coming up.”

“She really was hungry,” Brian said as they watched the child eating with gusto.

“I love hot dogs,” Emma announced, waving her little fork in the air. “Mommy liked hot dogs.”

For the span of a few seconds, Lindsay and her parents exchanged looks that mirrored the pain and loss they all shared, but then the child started talking again.

“With ketchup. Yuck.”

Emma made a face to match her sentiment. Lindsay's chest squeezed, and she blinked back tears.

“You know, I didn't remember that about your mommy, but you're right.” Lindsay paused to clear her throat and forced a smile. “She did like hot dogs and
ketchup. You'll have to tell me more things about her, and I'll tell you more stories about when she was a little girl.”

“Can you tell me some stories at bedtime?”

“Absolutely. So get your pajamas, and I'll be right up to give you your bath.”

Lindsay waited, expecting Emma to argue or to ask again to spend the night at her grandparents' house, but she popped out of the chair and rushed out of the room.

“She was in such a hurry, she forgot to kiss us goodbye.” Brian smiled. “Maybe someone has her priorities in order after all.”

“I do, Dad.”

Well, if she hadn't had them in order before, this was the wake-up call she needed. Emma had to come first. And if putting her niece first meant creating distance between herself and the friend who'd come to mean so much to her in a short time, then she would do it.

Sure, she'd thought she might be able to help Joe reclaim his faith, but she was probably as unqualified to help with that as her parents worried she was to be Emma's guardian. And her plan to convince him to tell her what he was keeping from her about the accident…well, maybe her mother was right about leaving some stones where they were.

Lindsay glanced outside to the last place she'd seen Joe, and her breath hitched. If keeping her distance from Joe Rossetti was the right thing to do for Emma and for herself, then why did just the thought of it hurt so much?

J
oe pressed his ear to his phone as Lindsay's cell rang once and then a second time. She hadn't automatically sent his call to voice mail this time, but he didn't hold out much hope that she would answer, or even if she did, that she wouldn't immediately shut him down. He knew what was happening, and he had a pretty good idea why.

The phone clicked after the fourth ring, so he waited for the call to go to voice mail. What did it say about a guy that he was tempted to listen to a voice-mail greeting just to hear a woman's voice, and when had he become
that guy?

“Hello?”

His pulse leaped at the sound of her live voice. He cleared his throat. “Lindsay?”

“Oh, Joe. I didn't realize it was you.”

“Forgot to check your caller ID this time.”

“No, that's not—I mean I didn't—oh, whatever,” she said with a nervous laugh.

“Now that we have
that
settled…” He chuckled. “So how has your week been going?” He wouldn't tell her his had been the loneliest since…well…ever.

“It hasn't been a week. I talked to you two days ago.”

“Oh, you mean the time that you turned down my offer to take you and Emma out for ice cream?”

The sound she made was some combination of a cough and a laugh. “And we talked two days before that.”

“You mean the time I asked you if you wanted to go running—I mean walking—again, and you said Emma was tired and you needed to make sure she got to bed on time?”

“That's not…”

It didn't surprise him that she didn't finish her thought. Both of them knew she was kicking him to the curb, which would be a difficult job since they weren't even dating, but she was doing it anyway. What was far less clear to him was why it bothered him so much.

“You probably think I'm dense by now,” he said. “I was supposed to get the hint, especially after all of those ‘missed' calls.”

Something had changed from the moment Lindsay had come home to find her parents waiting for her with disappointment in their daughter and distrust of her friend painted on their faces.

“Come on. It isn't like that.”

He wanted to know what it
was
like, wished she would tell him what her parents had said the other night to make her avoid him, but asking her would be like begging her to hang up on him. Then he wouldn't be able to even try out his new plan. The one that just might work.

“Don't worry,” he said. “I know rejection when I hear it.” He also knew what a challenge was like. That had to be what kept him asking when he could have simply slunk away, discarded.

“It's just that, well, I really have been busy.”

“Washing your hair?”

She cleared her throat. “No, Joe. I'm been busy being Emma's guardian.”

“I know. How's she doing?” He felt as if he was speaking in code, asking about the child, when his real questions were about her aunt.

“She's fine. Really.”

“I miss her.”

“She misses you, too,” she answered, in a quiet voice.

Something tightened in his throat, but then it struck him that he was the only one talking in code about the two of them, and she was probably
really
referring to Emma. Silence stretched between them so long that he wondered whether the call had been dropped, but then she sighed loudly into the receiver.

“Look. Thanks for calling, but it's getting late and I'd better—”

“It's only eight forty-five on a Saturday night, and you probably already have Emma in bed.” He paused long enough for her to tell him he was wrong, but when she didn't, he started again. “I have a question to ask you anyway.”

“Joe, are we going to keep doing this?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said lightly. “Here I was, just trying to invite you and Emma to church, and you seem to think I have some ulterior motive.”

“Church?” Her voice dripped with skepticism.

“I know you already have your own church, and this would be a little bit more than services, I guess, but—”

“Joe.” Lindsay spoke in the same warning tone she used when Emma tried to sneak a cookie before dinner.

“Now, just hear me out. You see, it's just that my friend Brett from the Brighton Post and his wife, Tricia, keep bugging me about coming to their church in Milford and then to lunch at their house. Their pestering is excruciating, believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you,” she answered in a tone that suggested she was at least smiling.

“Anyway, this time they broke me down. I told them I would go with them tomorrow under one condition.”

He waited for her to bite, but she was quiet for so long that he worried she wouldn't even nibble.

“What condition?” she said flatly.

“That you and Emma would come with me.”

“
We
were your condition?”

“With Brett and Tricia, the condition was that I be allowed to bring guests. A specific two to be exact.”

“Are you saying that you'll only go if Emma and I go?”

“Of course not. That would mean I was using guilt to convince you, and that wouldn't be right.” He smiled into the receiver. “But if you were to
volunteer,
then that would be different.”

“Oh, that really
would
be different.”

“So?” As he waited, her hesitation was telling. His disappointment was just as revealing.

Then she cleared her throat. “Joe Rossetti, Emma and I would very much like to escort you to church and then to lunch at your friends' house.”

“I would be delighted to attend with you.” But he didn't feel all that much
delight
over his victory. Now,
manipulative,
that was exactly how he felt.

Lindsay was the first to break into a chuckle, and he joined her, even if he had to force it.

“You missed your calling on the other end of the
legal system,” she said when she stopped. “You're good at persuasion. You should have been a defense attorney.”

“Now I'll need to wash out my ears to get rid of that grimy thought. That's like suggesting that the Lone Ranger should pop down off Silver's back and join up with a gang of bank robbers.”

She laughed out loud this time. “I wouldn't have thought it was that extreme.”

“Believe me, it is.”

“Joe.”

Her small voice signaled that the time for levity was over. He braced himself. Was she going to back out now? He couldn't blame her. It was a cheap shot, using her concern about his faith to convince her to go somewhere with him, not to mention a big hint that he should be more concerned about his faith himself.

“Yeah.”

“Have you asked yourself why you're trying so hard?”

“A couple of times.”

“Did you give yourself any answers?”

“Not any good ones.” Or answers he was prepared to share. And he refused to read anything into the fact that this would be the first time he'd brought a woman around his friends. He hoped Brett and Tricia had the good sense not to mention it to Lindsay.

“And Joe?” she said, as though she recognized that his thoughts had drifted. “Thanks for asking.”

His pulse was pounding in his ears as he ended the call. What had just happened? Like the sand in an hourglass, its center slipping through the narrow gap and leaving the sides to collapse in upon themselves, something had shifted between them. He'd been the one
helping her—at first to find answers and then to find her way.

But something had changed. Did Lindsay recognize it, too? He hadn't felt compelled to find some way to be with her because she needed him. It was because he needed her. Lindsay was proof positive that hope and faith could survive tragedy, that there would be tomorrows, even after the worst possible today. Then a thought crossed his mind that he'd never considered before: perhaps it was he who'd needed her all along.

 

The next morning, the benediction at Hickory Ridge Community Church had barely been spoken before a young couple with a whole brood of children hurried their way. Lindsay steadied herself, feeling as unsettled as she had since Joe picked her and Emma up that morning. Or, if she was being completely honest, since she'd hung up the phone the night before.

There were so many grinning faces that they blocked off the end of the pew. If Joe hadn't already told her that his friend had married a widow with three children, and the couple had two more together, Lindsay would have been surprised by the age span from teenager to toddler.

She wouldn't have had any trouble figuring out that the man was a police officer if she hadn't known that. His commanding presence and straight posture as he scooted down the pew gave him away. With a little blonde girl close to Emma's age propped on his right hip, Brett reached out to grip Joe's hand with his free left hand.

“Hey, buddy. We thought you were going to bail on us after all.”

“We were just running a little late,” Joe told him,
pulling Emma up into his arms. “Anyway, have I ever bailed before?” As soon as his friend released his hand, he held it up as if to stop Brett's response. “Oh. Forget it. Don't answer that.”

“Little ones definitely make it tougher to get out the door in the morning,” Brett said.

Joe gestured to the children surrounding the woman at the end of the pew. “You and Tricia should know that better than anybody.”

The simple image that struck Lindsay then—of that large family greeting the small one she, Joe and Emma made—was so powerful that her breath caught. She turned away to retrieve her purse and Bible to cover her reaction. She couldn't allow herself to keep daydreaming about Joe.

Wasn't it enough that she'd been imagining his face all week on the ultrasound screen at work, though she hadn't seen him in person? One time, while she was performing an ultrasound for two excited parents-to-be, she'd even imagined herself as that expectant mother, with Joe cast in the role of the husband holding her hand.

Those were solid reasons she should have declined Joe's invitation last night. Reasons she'd ignored. She never would have been able to tell him no thank you, anyway. She'd fallen into the deep end of a pool, and it was becoming clear that she couldn't swim.

“I'm Brett Lancaster. You must be Lindsay.”

She turned around to find Joe's friend extending his free left hand. After he shook her hand, he turned to the child.

“And you must be Emma. I've heard a lot about you.”

Lindsay definitely couldn't say the same about Joe's friends. Everything she knew about the Lancasters,
she'd learned during the ten-minute drive from Wixom to Milford.

Brett stepped back again to his family and gestured toward the petite brunette holding a toddler who looked just like her.

“Lindsay and Emma, this is my wife, Tricia, and that's our youngest, Claire, with her. Then we have Lani, Rusty Jr., Max and—” he paused and looked down at the preschooler in his arms “—this is Anna.”

“There will be a test after lunch,” Joe said.

“But we promise we'll let you cheat.” Tricia assisted her with a warm smile. “I still don't know how you got Joe to come. He's been to our church exactly twice in the six years I've known him. One of those was our wedding, and he was obligated to come that time because he was the best man.”

“Then I'm glad I could help out,” Lindsay said.

She sneaked a look at Joe, but Brett caught her doing it and gave her a knowing grin. What did Joe's friend know that she didn't? And for that matter, she couldn't understand why it was important enough to Joe that she and Emma attend church with him that he'd ruined a good track record of turning down his friends' invitations.

She wanted to explain away his determination as the response of a guy who wasn't used to rejection, but that excuse didn't hold up any more than her explanation that she'd come today for Joe's spiritual well-being alone. That was her story, and she wanted to stick to it, but the pile of rejected outfits on her bed this morning and the butterflies flitting madly in her belly were making it difficult to hold her ground.

“Did you enjoy the service?” Tricia asked her, un
aware that Lindsay had taken a hiatus from the conversation.

“Yes, it was really welcoming,” Lindsay said. “And the ‘Parable of the Talents' always makes for a good sermon.”

Lindsay figured at least Reverend Bob Woods hadn't spoken on the Ten Commandments and mentioned that she should be honoring her mother and father because she would have been squirming in her seat over that one. She'd told her parents she and Emma would be visiting a new church closer to home, but she'd neglected to mention who would be joining her. If she really believed she was an adult who didn't have to report to her parents, then why was she being so secretive about it?

“I don't know about you, but I can't help relating to that last servant, burying his cash in the ground to keep it from disappearing.” Tricia tilted her head to indicate her family. “Especially with all these guys around.”

“I'll second that,” Brett said.

Tricia started for the door with the others following closely behind her. She stopped and turned back to Lindsay.

“This is going to be fun,” she said. “I'm sure all the kids will be friends by this afternoon.”

“That sounds great, doesn't it, Emma?” Lindsay felt the same thing about herself with Tricia and Brett, and she couldn't help feeling excited over the prospect. Aside from Joe, they would be the first friends she'd made since she and Emma had become a family.

“Are we going to play?” Emma wanted to know.

“We sure are,” the older daughter, whom Brett had introduced as Lani, told her.

As they stepped outside and started for their cars, Lindsay finally began to relax. She even smiled when
Joe galloped toward the truck with Emma on his back, leaving the rest of them trailing behind.