Home At Last. Deborah Raney

it back.

      “Thank you.” She couldn’t quite meet his eyes and seemed anxious to get rid of him. Nothing like last time when he’d flirted, and she’d flirted back, offering him a sample of a new sticky bun recipe they were testing.

      Those warm, gold-flecked eyes flashed at him. Only today they flashed defiance, not the intense interest he thought he remembered from before.

      The back door opened and a tall black man stepped through. He nodded in Link’s direction. “Mornin’.” He looked at Shayla then back at Link. “Everything okay here, baby?” He came and put a protective arm on her back, his hand cradling her neck.

      Great. He’d been flirting with a married woman. He squelched a sigh. And now she’d probably tell her husband that he’d almost killed their daughter. He’d checked for a wedding ring the first time he met her. He was positive there’d never been one. But then, it probably wasn’t a good idea to wear a ring when you worked in a bread-dough factory. That’d teach him to assume.

      “Everything’s fine.” Shayla looked over to where Portia was coloring, then wriggled out from under the man’s embrace. She tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. But a second later, she crumpled back into the guy’s arms.

      He leveled a glare in Link’s direction. “What’d you do?” he growled, taking a step toward him, even with Shayla draped over him like a coat.

      “No!” Shayla pulled the man’s arm. “It’s okay.”

      Link took a step back, scrambling to explain. “Your little girl ran out into the street. I . . . almost hit her. With my truck.”

      “That true?” The man looked down at Shayla, then cut his glare toward the table where the child sat. His countenance visibly softened when his gaze landed on her. When Shayla didn’t answer, he tipped her face upward, as if he might read the truth in her expression.

      She cast her eyes down, but nodded. “She’s okay, Daddy. She wasn’t hurt.”

      The man narrowed his eyes at Link. “What happened?”

      Link swallowed. “Like I said, she ran out in front of me. I couldn’t get stopped on the ice. Truck skidded pretty good, but it didn’t even graze her. It was close though. She’s a lucky little girl.”

      He wanted Shayla to come to his defense—to tell the guy that he’d bailed out of his truck and rolled to safety with the little girl in his arms. He was pretty sure Shayla had seen that part, despite her accusations. But he kept it to himself, suddenly more eager to get the heck out of Dodge than to stand here and paint himself as a hero.

      The man looked to Shayla as if for confirmation. Link saw nothing in her eyes, but apparently the guy was satisfied Link hadn’t tried to kill anyone.

      “I’ll be going now. If . . . if you have any other questions or”—he shrugged—“whatever, Shayla knows where to contact me.”

      He gathered the cake boxes and strode to the front of the store, feeling foolish. And confused. She’d called the guy “Daddy.” His sisters called their husbands that sometimes when they were talking about their kids. And the guy didn’t look old enough to be her father, but a little too old to be her husband. Not that that meant anything these days. Of course even if the man was her father, she could still have a husband. She had a kid after all.

      He climbed in the truck, jabbed the key into the ignition, and revved the engine. She probably was married. He sure hadn’t known that when he’d flirted with her. And in his defense, she had never given him one single back-off-buddy-I’m-married signal. Not one.

      If she had, he would have run hard and fast in the opposite direction.

      Chapter 2

      2

      Thanks, honey. That’s perfect.” Audrey Whitman lifted the coffee cakes from the bakery boxes Link had delivered, then quickly covered them with a clean tea towel—that is, hid them from Grant. Her husband was not to be trusted around fresh bakery fare. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten.”

      Link shook his head. “Nope. Just took longer than I expected. Here’s your change from the twenty, but I had to put the coffee cakes on my credit card.” He laid a wad of wrinkled bills on the kitchen counter, then deposited a few coins on top. “Here’re your receipts.”

      “No, you keep the change. That’s your gas money. Hang tight, and I’ll pay you for the rest.” She smoothed the receipt out with the palm of her hand. “Sixteen dollars? For two little coffee cakes?” She shook her head. “I’m in the wrong business.”

      “If you don’t need anything else, Mom, I’m going to head out.” He seemed distracted. “I’m pulling an extra shift tonight.”

      “Sure. You go on. I’m set. Thanks again. See you Tuesday.”

      “Not sure about Tuesday. I’ll let you know.” Link inched toward the door, seeming a little too eager to get away.

      She wondered if he had a date. From her lips to God’s ears. “Oh, hey! You said you slid on the ice? What happened?”

      Link stopped with his hand on the door like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

      “You didn’t smash up your truck, did you?”

      “No. No damage. Just scared the snot out of me.”

      “Yeah, so I heard. Except snot’s not what I heard.” She gave him the look. The one her kids used to call “Mom’s stink-eye.” Probably still did. She knew her kids weren’t angels, and she appreciated that they cleaned up their mouths around her and Grant—and the grandchildren, she hoped. But as she’d always told them when they were kids, what slipped out in a moment of crisis was a good indicator of what was in their hearts. She hoped Link had taken note. But he was a grown man—twenty-nine!—and she wasn’t going to hassle him about his mouth now. That was between him and God. Still, she couldn’t help but think that a good woman would smooth out her boy’s rough edges.

      With a sheepish grin that made him look like a little boy again, Link opened the door. “Tell Dad hi. See you later.” He gave a little wave and exited before she could say more than “drive safe.”

      Hmm. She knew her son, and something was definitely up.

      Oh, that it was a girlfriend!

      ***

      The roads were still slick and Link drove with a newfound caution. The more he thought about the close call this morning, the heavier his gut felt. In the blink of an eye, his life—and the lives of so many others—could have changed in horrific ways. He truly didn’t think what happened had been his fault. He hadn’t been speeding. He was sure of that. And yes, he’d been pulling double shifts for several weeks now, but he wasn’t sleep deprived. Still, he had been distracted—on the phone with Mom, thinking about work . . . about flirting with the pretty girl at the bakery. Shayla.

      He threw up a prayer of thanks that things had turned out the way they had. That the little girl was safe. Although her existence sure did throw a wrench in things. Even if Shayla was available, a single mom wasn’t exactly on his list of things to look for in a woman. But probably a hazard of dating at his—according to his sisters—ripe old age. He remembered his mother saying something about her and Dad not being surprised if he ended up with a woman who’d been married before. He rolled his eyes. They all acted like he was fifty or something. Never mind that some days he felt like fifty.

      Part of it was work. He didn’t really mind his job, but it wasn’t where he’d envisioned himself at this point in life. He’d been with Carson Tech since one month after graduating from Southeast Missouri State. It was just a job. An entry level job—testing electrical wiring—that really had nothing to do with his business major. It was merely supposed to be something to pay the bills until he found a “real” job.

      Yet here he was, six years later—no, almost seven now. Man, where had the time gone? He’d