The Baby Trail. Karen Smith Rose

“I’ll get the clothes.”

      Her hands trembled slightly as she went to the rolltop desk and lifted the lid. Garrett followed her, obviously forgetting about cake and coffee. To her dismay, her shoulder grazed his as she turned around. He was too big, too close, and too intense. Obviously too emotionally unavailable.

      When she couldn’t find anything else to add to the mental list of reasons why she shouldn’t get involved with him, she thrust the grocery bag toward him. “Here.”

      Eyeing her as if he wanted to ask her about something, yet didn’t want to deal with her answers after the asking, he took the white grocery bag. Spilling the contents, he first examined the blanket including the tag sewn into the hem. After he laid that across the top of the desk chair, he looked over the terry playsuit. Setting that aside, he studied the tiny knitted sweater and cap.

      As he fingered them, he asked, “Do you know anything about yarn?”

      She blinked. “Yarn?”

      “This doesn’t look and feel like the usual acrylic.”

      Taking the sweater fabric between her fingers herself, she noticed that it indeed didn’t. The yarn was fine, coated by a soft cloudy fuzziness.

      “I want to take these along,” he said, stuffing everything back in the bag, plucking the sweater from her hands.

      Their fingertips brushed.

      When she looked up into Garrett’s eyes, they were turbulent and for the most part, unreadable.

      Her doorbell rang and she jumped. That was so not like her. Composure was her middle name. This man shook her up and flustered her and she didn’t like that at all.

      “Are you expecting anyone?” he asked.

      “No. But it could be Kylie or Shaye. We drop in on each other.” Then glad to put some space between them, she went to her door and opened it.

      Her father stood there.

      “Hi, Dad. This is a surprise.” She stepped back so he could come inside.

      When he did, she studied him for the telltale signs he’d fallen off the wagon. It was a habit with her.

      To her relief he was dressed neatly in jeans and a denim jacket. His eyes were clear. With his burnished red hair streaked with gray and his blue eyes, he’d once been a charmer and a very handsome man. That was before alcohol, regret and guilt had added lines to his face that had aged him at least ten years. He was fifty-eight now and selling insurance. Although he’d once been an accountant, after Gwen had left and he sobered up, he decided he liked being out and around people.

      Seeing Garrett, her dad flushed slightly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. If you want me to go—”

      Bag in hand, Garrett came over to where they were standing. “No need for that. I was just leaving.”

      The two men could have passed like the proverbial ships in the night, but Gwen felt the need to introduce them to each other. “Garrett Maxwell, this is my father, Russ Langworthy. Dad, Garrett is helping me find Amy’s mother.”

      Garrett’s brow arched as if she should have put that a different way, but she didn’t care. They were working together on this whether he liked it or not.

      “I’ve heard about you,” Russ said, extending his hand.

      Garrett shook it with a smile. “Do I want to know what you’ve heard?”

      Her father laughed. “Mostly rumors. That you live in the hills, stick to yourself, and you used to be FBI. This is Wild Horse Junction, boy. A kernel of truth gets embellished and goes a long way.”

      “What you heard is true.”

      “Besides the gossip, I remember your parents. Your dad was a commercial pilot. How are they? I heard after they divorced, your mom moved to Wisconsin and you and your dad to California.”

      “Dad passed away some years back. Mom’s still in Wisconsin.”

      “Dad, Garrett has to be going,” Gwen intervened. She suspected Garrett wasn’t the type of man to talk about his personal life easily.

      “It’s okay,” Garrett assured her, but his body was a little more rigid than it had been a few minutes before.

      “I’m sorry to hear about your dad.” After an awkward pause, Russ said, “Divorce is tough on kids. It was tough on Gwen, especially her mother’s move to Indiana,” he explained. “How old were you when your parents separated? Around fifteen?”

      “Dad,” Gwen protested fiercely before Garrett could answer.

      That wasn’t a subject Gwen wanted to discuss with either Garrett or her father. Long ago she’d dealt with the abandonment by her biological parents, but her adopted mother’s defection had been much harder. Not only had Myra Langworthy divorced her dad, but she’d divorced Gwen, too. All she’d cared about was the man she’d fallen in love with and the new family she’d begun with him in Indiana. Gwen had felt like an outsider on her few visits there, and had lived in quiet misery with her dad, wondering why her adoptive mother hadn’t loved her enough to want her in her life in a meaningful way.

      Rerouting her father’s frame of mind, Gwen said to him, “I have cake and coffee if you’re interested.”

      “I’m always interested in cake and coffee.” Letting the subject stray from Garrett, he lifted a pamphlet in his hand. “I brought a brochure about a cruise I’m thinking of taking. I’d like your opinion on it.” To Garrett he said, “It was good to meet you.” With a glance at the kitchen, he told her, “I’ll go start on that cake,” and then he left them alone while he ambled into the other room.

      “I’m sorry about the questions,” Gwen said as soon as her dad was out of earshot.

      “Your father was just making conversation.”

      “Maybe.” She never knew exactly what her dad was thinking, let alone what he’d do next.

      After studying her for a few moments, Garrett asked, “How old were you when your parents divorced?”

      Did she want to talk about this with Garrett? She only hesitated a few moments. “I was six—too young to understand, yet old enough to know my life was changed irrevocably…just like Dad’s.”

      Shaking off the melancholy she often felt when examining memories of those years after the divorce, she gestured to the bag in Garrett’s hand. “Let me know what you find out about that, okay?”

      “How do you know I’m going to find out anything?”

      “Because you already have an idea about the yarn.”

      “Were you a private investigator in your past life?” he asked sarcastically.

      “Nope, but I watch CSI.”

      When he laughed, she liked the sound of it. She liked way too much about him.

      “I’ll let you know what happens.”

      Their gazes locked for a few interminable moments and she vividly remembered everything about their kiss, about him holding her, about him backing away. The chemistry between them was so hot, it had burned away memories of Mark’s defection. Even so, in another few moments, she would have ended the kiss and backed away. At least that’s what she told herself.

      Garrett opened the door and without a goodbye, he stepped into the cloudless night. Deep down Gwen knew he was a much different kind of man than her ex-fiancé. Garrett was intense…focused…and passionate. She closed the door behind him.

      Maybe cake and coffee with her dad would help her find her equilibrium. Maybe it would help alleviate the worry that was always with her that he would fall off the wagon again.

      “We shouldn’t have come,” Gwen said. “You’re tired.”

      On