“Da Da!” she cried.
The look on Grant’s face would have been comical if the whole situation wasn’t so sad.
“Take it,” Callie urged softly. “Grant, take it!”
Very reluctantly, he did, grasping the sloppy-looking candy between his thumb and forefinger. “Callie, what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” he growled.
She swept the baby up in her arms and squeezed her tightly. “Grant says ‘thank you’, Molly. He loves that lollipop.” Giving her a loud, wet smack on the cheek, she hurried her back to the nanny’s care.
When she got back, he was washing his hands in the sink.
“You do realize she was offering you her most prized possession,” she noted dryly. “I guess I’m going to have to teach her that you can’t buy love.”
“Callie…”
She saw the tortured look in his eyes and regretted her words. “I’m sorry. But she’s just a child and she wants you to like her.”
“I like her,” he said, though his tone was forced. “It’s not her fault that she reminds me so much of…”
“Of Lisa,” Callie said. She was making a point of talking about them now. “I know. And I know you’re trying to be kind to her. You’re really making an effort.”
“But you want me to love her like she was my own,” he said. “And, Callie, that’s just not going to happen.”
Maybe not. Maybe it was hopeless. And maybe there would come a time when she had to decide who needed her more: Molly or Grant. She only hoped it never came to that, because she wasn’t sure which way she would go.
Something woke Grant up the next morning-a movement on the bed beside him. His heart leaped. Had Callie come back to him on her own? He turned and met a pair of dark, laughing eyes, and then a little chubby fist hit him in the cheek and Molly giggled.
“Da Da!”
He jerked back.
“Callie!” he called.
Molly began to bounce on the bed, laughing uproariously.
He turned back to look at her, frowning fiercely. But as he watched, his frown faded. She did look cute. If only he could look at her once and not see Lisa’s reproachful face.
“There you are, you rascal,” Callie said, coming in and standing at the edge of the bed. “Are you torturing Grant again?”
Molly giggled and bounced out of reach.
“I’ll get her out of here,” Callie said, reaching for the moving target.
But Grant was smiling at her. “Why don’t you come join us instead?” he suggested as he pulled her down on top of him.
“Grant!” She laughed as she slid over to his side. “What are you doing?”
“Enjoying you,” he murmured, looking sensual.
“Oh my,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was open house today.”
“I wish I could wake up this way every morning,” he said, touching her cheek with his forefinger.
He barely got the words out when Molly dove between them, chattering happily as though she thought she should be part of the conversation.
His head jerked back in surprise and Callie pushed up on her elbow, preparing to make Molly move.
But Grant had calmed himself. “Let her stay,” he said. “It’s okay.”
Callie had to work hard to keep from choking aloud. A happy bubble was rising in her chest.
“She’s just being a little dickens this morning,” Callie said lovingly. “Nadine tells me that she had to spend half the day yesterday racing around stuffing things back into drawers after Molly emptied them out.”
“So she’s already getting into the drawers,” Grant said. He remembered when Lisa had been at that stage. As he thought of it and pictured Lisa, he steeled himself and waited for the pain to come. But there was nothing. After a moment, he began to wonder why.
They cuddled in the bed for another five minutes and then it was time to get up. But the warm feeling stayed with him all the rest of the day.
Callie was sure they were making progress, but one big hurdle still remained. Gena had said he was racked with guilt. If that was true, surely it would do him good to get it out in the open and talk about it. Did she have the nerve to bring it up?
One night about a week later, he was packing for another business trip. It seemed like a good time. She waited for him to come out of his room, and she told him she wanted to talk about something. He sat down with her on the couch and she launched into it.
He listened to her version of Gena’s theory about his feeling guilty because he didn’t pay as much attention to Lisa when she was alive as he should have and didn’t say a word. Instead he got up and poured himself a drink and went to sit on the balcony, away from her.
She was pretty sure he was furious with her. And why not? Did she really have a right to push him on this?
But an hour later, when he came in, he pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair.
“That last day,” he said, his voice a bit hoarse, “it was obvious Lisa was coming down with something in the morning. I had a meeting. Jan had a presentation she was giving at Junior League. Neither one of us paid much attention to Lisa. We thought we were so damn busy with such important things.”
His voice broke and it was a moment before he could go on.
“The nanny tried to call us all day, but my cell phone wasn’t working right and Jan didn’t pick up because she was in a meeting hall until late in the afternoon. When she finally got home, Lisa was burning up and the nanny was hysterical. She tried to call me, but the cell still wasn’t working and my secretary was out for the afternoon. So she packed Lisa into the car and went racing off to the hospital. She ran a red light. And got hit. She lived another twenty-four hours, but Lisa was killed in the original impact.”
“Oh, Grant. Oh, I’m so sorry.”
He pulled away and just shook his head.
“But it wasn’t your fault. How could you…?”
“Don’t patronize me, Callie,” he said harshly. “Of course it was my fault. If I’d been a proper father and husband, the accident would never have happened. Of course it was my fault. And I’ll pay all the days of my life.”
She refused to be cowed by his anger at himself. Following him into his room, she shut the door and made him face her. “You listen to me, Grant Carver,” she said sternly. “You are a wonderful, caring man. You may have been careless in the past, but you’re older now, more mature. You won’t let family needs slide ever again.”
“How do you know? What makes you so sure?”
“I know you. I’ve seen you in action. And most of all…” She walked into his arms. “I love you.”
His face registered shock. He hadn’t expected that. She was playing against the rules again, coloring outside the lines. He didn’t have an answer, but she didn’t care. Stepping forward, she rose on her toes and put her arms around his neck.
“Make love to me, Grant,” she whispered. “If you can’t love me, at least make love to me. That’s all you ever promised, and I’m holding you to it.”
“I will, Callie,” he agreed, cupping her cheek in his hand. “If you promise to stay with me all night. Can you do that?”
She looked up at him, surprised. “Of course. Are you sure you want me to? I thought…well, I know you still consider Jan your real wife and I thought…”
“Oh, Callie.” He crushed her in his embrace. “You’re my wife. Don’t you ever doubt it. I’ve been aching to have you where I can hold you all night long.”
Tears welled in Callie’s eyes. “Grant,” she whispered. “I’d be honored to share your bed.”
He pulled her down onto the velvet comforter and she knew she had a home there at last.
Grant sat down in the plane, ready for his flight to San Francisco, and stared at his briefcase. He had put a large manila envelope inside. Though he hadn’t opened the envelope yet, he knew what it contained. The detectives
