Home At Last. Deborah Raney

he was a slacker, and his sisters would remind him at every opportunity. Mom would do worse. She’d already tried to set him up with some great-niece of a friend of a friend of a friend.

      No thank you. He could find his own woman. And he’d do it when he was good and ready.

      He gave a little snort. Who was he kidding? He’d been good and ready for a long time. But he wasn’t going to settle for the first pretty thing that came along. He had standards. Standards too high, according to his sisters.

      Well, they’d be happy to know he was on a mission today. A mission involving a woman. He didn’t think Mom suspected anything when he’d jumped at the chance to make a bakery run for her this morning. But a certain girl who worked there had caught his eye.

      He’d actually met Shayla first at the homeless shelter in Cape Girardeau. He and some buddies from work had done a couple of volunteer projects there last summer, getting the shelter’s Internet and office computers set up. He’d pulled into the parking lot at the same time as Shayla and had helped her carry in a stack of boxes from the bakery.

      Listening to her snarky banter with the other volunteers and a crazy client they were dealing with, he’d fallen in love with her a little bit that day. Then more than a little, once he got up the courage to talk to her the following week. And the week after that. And the one after that. The shelter’s computers had never run so seamlessly. And since he was volunteering his time, he felt only slightly guilty for making excuses to keep “tweaking” their system on the days he knew Shayla would be delivering. And he had made things work better each time he was there. But if someone—say his sisters, or Shayla—wanted to make a case against him for stalking her, they wouldn’t have to look too far for evidence.

      He didn’t care. The more he’d gotten to know Shayla, the more he liked what he saw. Not that she was making it easy. Over bad coffee, compliments of the shelter, they’d practically solved the problems of homelessness, world hunger, and the recent city council elections. They’d also agreed on best doughnut—sour cream cruller—and which houseplants were the easiest to kill—maidenhair fern and fiddle-leaf fig, which Shayla knew from experience and Link could discuss semi-intelligently thanks to his sisters. But he had yet to learn anything really personal about the mysterious Shayla. Unless you counted that she hated her hair—thick, wild curls that weren’t quite an Afro, but close . . . and cute as all get out, in his opinion. Which she hadn’t asked for and he hadn’t given.

      He’d flirted with her the last couple of times he’d been in the bakery. And if he knew anything at all about women, it seemed the feeling might be mutual. Shayla. He was still working on getting her last name. His mission today: get that name and talk her into a real date. Just coffee. He didn’t want to scare her off.

      His cell phone chirped from his pocket, and he fished it out. Mom. He tapped the brakes again and answered. “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

      “Have you already left the bakery?”

      “Nope. Just got into town.”

      “Oh, good.” She breathed a relieved sigh into the phone. “Could you also see if they have any cinnamon rolls? Or maybe a coffee cake? Anything that would feed four guests in the morning? We got a last-minute reservation and I have too many other irons in the fire to be baking.”

      “Sure. But don’t you feel guilty putting the Chicory Inn’s reputation on the line like that?” he teased.

      “Not one bit. And don’t you go trying to change things.”

      “Don’t worry, I’ll bail you out. It’ll cost you though.”

      “Ha ha.” She tried to sound irked, but Link heard the smile beneath her tone.

      “I’m here now,” he said as the Coffee’s On Bakery came into view. “See you in about twenty minutes.”

      “You’d better not show up here in twenty minutes. There is no way you can do all that and get back here in twenty minutes, and I happen to know you don’t need another speeding ticket.”

      “What? How did you find—”

      Something—a dog? a coyote?—darted into the street in front of him, a blur of brown against the dirty snow paving the street.

      He slammed on the brakes, spewing a word his mom would not appreciate.

      “Link? What happened? Link?”

      His brakes squealed as the pickup skidded, and he held his breath as two tons of steel careened directly toward the anim—Wait! That wasn’t a dog. It was a kid!

      The brake pedal was already pressed to the floor, but he pushed harder then gave the pedal a frantic pump, his pulse screaming in his ears. Please, God! No!

      Somehow his cell phone had ended up in the passenger seat, and he could hear his mother’s distant frantic cries. But he had bigger things to worry about. The kid stood frozen in the middle of the street staring up at him through the windshield, mouth agape, her wild curly hair blowing in the wind. She needed to move! Now!

      The pickup was in a slow-motion, sideways skid now. There was no time to lose! Adrenaline gushing, he slammed the gearshift into park, threw open his door, and half ran, half slid toward the girl. He scooped her to his chest and rolled with her out of the path of the front fender.

      Heart slamming, he watched the truck come to a full stop, tires grinding against the curb. When he could finally catch a breath, he scrambled to his feet with the girl in his arms. She scarcely weighed more than a feather, but she started screaming like a banshee, kicking at his knees with her little brown boots. Sharp-toed boots. Ouch! And while she might be a featherweight, fear had given her the strength of a cornered doe.

      “Oww!” He grabbed her legs with his free hand and tried to hold them still while also remaining upright—no easy feat considering the ice.

      About that time, a woman came flying out of the bakery, wailing. She stepped off the curb—and instantly bit the dust. Link watched, open-mouthed, as she rolled over and scrambled on all fours on the icy street, looking frantically to where Link was trying to stay on his own feet on a thin sheet of sleet and ice. With this little spitfire still flailing in his arms.

      “Stay there!” he yelled, his breath forming puffs of steam in the cold November air. The next vehicle to come by might not see her, and she definitely wasn’t taking time to look both ways before crossing the street.

      “Portia! Baby? Are you okay?”

      He knew that voice. It was Shayla! Her gaze didn’t leave the child in Link’s arms.

      He shifted the little girl to face outward so Shayla could see she was in one piece—despite the blood-curdling screams pouring from the tiny creature. Tucking the girl under one arm like a football—or more like one of those crazy bouncy balls his nephews had—he half skated across the street.

      He helped her to her feet with his free hand and started to transfer the little girl to her arms when Shayla began pounding her fists on his chest.

      “You could have killed her! You could have killed her!”

      He stumbled backward, trying to fend off the mama bear’s blows while baby bear continued to thrash in his arms. “Hey, stop! She’s okay. She’s going to be okay!”

      Seeming oblivious to the fact that he held the little girl, Shayla continued screaming at him, then, without warning, she wilted into a puddle at his feet.

      He didn’t think she’d recognized him yet. She was, understandably, a little out of her mind. It seemed a petty thought considering what had just happened, but he hadn’t known she had a kid. Did that change things? Not that it mattered now. Nearly running over a woman’s daughter probably wasn’t his best pick-up line.

      Shayla wept gulping sobs that might have scared him a little more if he hadn’t been raised with three drama queens for sisters. Not that Shayla didn’t have cause to be upset, but her little girl was obviously fine.

      He