Hometown Honey. Kara Lennox

Cottonwood had ever seen. And though he was adept at solving crimes—the few there were in their little town—his main priority had always been helping kids, keeping them in school, keeping them off drugs. He volunteered a ton of hours at schools and churches and rec centers, organizing after-school sports programs and homework study groups.

      “I’m sorry, Luke,” she finally said. “This whole thing has just thrown me so off balance. I feel like a stray mother cat, hissing and clawing at anyone who comes near, even people trying to help.”

      She reclaimed her seat on the banquette, opened the jar of cereal and quietly began to feed Adam. Just recently he’d started grabbing the spoon on his own, trying to shove food into his own mouth. Today she didn’t have the patience to clean up the results of such efforts, so they both held on to the spoon, managing to get most of the cereal into Adam rather than onto his shirt. He had bibs, but she didn’t know where they were.

      “You can’t just ignore me and hope I’ll go away,” Luke continued. “You have to start dealing with the reality of your situation.”

      She sighed. “I know.”

      “I have an idea. There’s a carriage-house apartment behind my house. It hasn’t been used in years, but if memory serves, it has a bathroom and a kitchenette.”

      “No.”

      “Why not?”

      “I can’t afford rent.” It was the first excuse that came to mind. What she really couldn’t afford was to install herself so close to Luke. She was not immune to his appeal, despite all the years that had passed since they’d been lovers. Eight years of marriage, a baby plus her whirlwind affair—what else could she call it?—with Dex/Marvin, and she’d never once gone to sleep at night without at least a fleeting thought to her first love and what might have been if they’d wanted the same things out of life.

      She didn’t need that right now. Lord knew, the last thing she could use in her life was a man, even if he was promising to help her out of a jam. Anyway, she didn’t trust herself. She had the good judgment of a fungus, given her recent history.

      “Did I say anything about rent? Come on, Cindy, the apartment’s just sitting there. It’s not much, and it’ll have to be cleaned out and fixed up a bit, but it should make Social Services happy.”

      “I really wish you’d just leave me alone.”

      He stared at her, challenging, for a few seconds before dropping his gaze. “Yeah, I’ll go. But you’ll have to answer a few questions, first.”

      “Whatever.”

      “What should I tell Beverly Hicks when she comes calling tomorrow or the next day?”

      “Tell her we changed our minds.”

      “Uh-huh. And when she comes back here? She will, you know. It’s her job. You might think she’s a nitpicking pain in the butt, but she cares about children or she wouldn’t be in that line of work. And she’s not going to sweep this under the rug. She’ll be back, and next time she will take Adam. And if you won’t give him up willingly, she will summon the law—me—to enforce her decision.”

      “Can she do that?” Cindy asked, feeling truly afraid for the first time.

      He nodded grimly, his fists so tight he could feel his skin tightening over the knuckles. “It happens all the time. It happened to me, Cindy. And my mother never got me back.”

      Chapter Four

      Luke didn’t like bringing up his past. In all the time he’d known Cindy, even when they’d been in love and inseparable, he’d revealed little about his life before arriving in Cottonwood at age fourteen. Whenever she’d prompted him, he’d found a way to avoid giving her any real information.

      As far as Cindy knew, Luke’s life had begun at age fourteen when he’d landed with Polly Ferguson, the only foster parent who’d known how to handle him—the only one he’d ever stayed with longer than six months. He considered her his real mother now, and his foster brother, Mike Baskin, was as close as any flesh-and-blood sibling.

      So, no, he didn’t like dredging up the more painful memories. But that had seemed the only way to shake Cindy out of her complacency. And it had. She’d agreed to move into his carriage house, though he could tell it had galled her to accept what she saw as charity. But better that than losing her son, even temporarily.

      He’d needed to take care of some sheriffing business, but he returned to the marina later that afternoon with a horse trailer. He and Cindy loaded up her meager belongings in about five minutes.

      “Adam will need a crib,” she said, breaking a long silence. “Do you think that awful Ed LaRue will let me get the old one from my—from his house?”

      “He put all your furniture out in the street,” Luke said. “I drove by your place earlier, just to check on things.”

      “I guess I don’t blame him. He was probably madder than a cornered javelina hog to find all that junk I left behind.” She actually grinned at the thought. “I probably should have put it in storage or something,” she admitted. “It was just garage-sale stuff, nothing good, but I might need it.”

      “Let’s go see what’s there.” Luke was encouraged to hear Cindy actually thinking ahead more than ten minutes. She’d always been a girl with plans—big plans. To see her in survival mode, refusing to think about tomorrow, much less next month or next year, was painful.

      Luke was relieved to see Cindy’s furniture still lined up at the edge of her yard—Ed’s yard—with a big sign stuck to her dining room table that said Free Stuff.

      “I don’t see the crib,” Cindy said. “Probably somebody took it already. And my bed isn’t here, either. Damn, what was I thinking?”

      “Nobody really expected you to be thinking clearly after what happened to you. It’s okay. I bet Polly has an extra crib. Which of this stuff do you want?”

      “All of it,” she said decisively, rolling up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “Whatever I can’t use, I’ll sell.”

      “That’s the spirit.” It was wonderful to hear that determination in her voice and see a sparkle in her eye. They loaded up a table and chairs, some bookshelves, a sofa, nightstands, a couple of lamps and pictures and a TV cabinet.

      “I guess the TV and VCR are gone,” she said wistfully as they pushed and shoved the furniture so it would all fit. “What was I thinking?”

      “Stop questioning yourself so much, honey.” The endearment slipped out, and Luke resisted slapping his hand over his mouth. Her eyes flashed at him, but that was all. “Cut yourself some slack, okay? Focus on the future.”

      “Yeah, the future,” she murmured.

      She was going to have to make some major readjustments in her thinking. Nowhere in her wildest imaginings had she pictured herself broke and without a source of income. She’d always worked—always. And though she’d never been exactly wealthy, she’d never wanted for anything basic, even those years she’d lived in a truck. Of course, she hadn’t had a baby in tow.

      “So, do you have any plans?” Luke asked, forcing the question to sound casual.

      “I haven’t thought much about it,” she admitted as he closed the tailgate on the trailer. They got back into his Blazer. Adam was snoozing in his car seat in back, and not even the slam of the tailgate had awakened him.

      He would be such a great traveling companion, she thought for the umpteenth time. And dammit, she wasn’t giving up on the idea of traveling with him. She just had to figure out how. “I guess I’ll have to get a job.”

      “In a restaurant?”

      “Maybe, though I can’t think of any place around here that’s looking for help.”