At Home in His Heart (6 page)

But she’d forgotten.

“Hi, Bryce.” Devon leaned across her, hand outstretched. “You remember me, don’t you?”

He studied her a moment, then recognition dawned and a smile broadened as he shook her hand. “Keith’s little sister, Devon. All grown up.”

“Hey, you’re good. I think I was about eight years old the last time you saw me.”

Bryce nodded thoughtfully. “That would be about right. Before Keith and I joined the army. But he always showed off pictures of his family. You resemble him, but a lot prettier.”

They chitchatted a few minutes, then Devon settled back into her seat and Bryce returned his gaze to the arena.

“He is so hot,” Devon breathed into Sandi’s ear as she discreetly fanned her face with her hand. “Forget what Mom says. Keith wouldn’t pick a jerk for a best friend.”

Sandi wasn’t so sure about that.

Gina climbed onto her lap and, as another woman slipped in
on the far side of Devon, her sister-in-law shifted once again, pushing Sandi to within an inch of Bryce.

She glanced up to see him gazing at her, his forehead creased in a frown. Her face warmed. He probably thought she was making inappropriate advances. Keith’s wife on the prowl for husband number two.
In his dreams.
She gave Devon a discreet shove with her hip and gained another inch between her and the ex-military man.

Nevertheless, with Gina wiggling on her lap, occasionally her arm brushed his. And each time her breath caught. How could she concentrate on the performance with him next to her? Maybe she should leave Gina with Devon and go hide in the ladies’ room until the whole thing was over.

“He can’t keep his eyes off you.” Devon’s whisper came again. “Tell him how big and strong and masculine he looks tonight. Men love that. Feeds their egos. You’ll have him eating out of your hand.”

Sandi shifted and “accidentally” elbowed her sister-in-law, but nevertheless managed to cast a discreet look in Bryce’s direction. He wasn’t looking at her as Devon claimed. But she could admit
he
sure was nice to look at. Strong profile. Expressive eyes.

He’d been so nice to Gina, too.

That was the reason she found him somewhat attractive, right? A man who’s good to your kid—even if he did think you’d make a lousy wife to his best friend—made him appear more good-looking than he really was. Kind of put a golden glow around him. Besides, merely finding someone—anyone—attractive didn’t mean there was an actual
attraction
there.

Still conscious of his proximity, she refocused on the arena, reminding herself this was the man who’d single-handedly managed to keep her from honoring her husband with a museum exhibit by summer’s end. The man who’d done his
best to talk Keith out of marrying her. Who’d shortchanged them out of who knows how many months they could have shared before her husband’s death. Who’d cheated her of an opportunity to make things turn out differently.

Very differently.

“Say something to him.” Devon’s voice again tickled her ear and Sandi shifted to get away from her. Bumped against Bryce. He looked over at her, and her face warmed again.
Please, Lord, get me out of this.

Bryce leaned toward her bright-eyed daughter. “Would you like a hot dog? Popcorn? Snow cone?”

Gina twisted to face her. “Can I, Mom?”

“Okay. But only one thing.”

“Snow cone! Grape.”

Gina beamed at Bryce, and Sandi’s gaze once again met his, caught off-guard by the kindness in his eyes. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You want anything?”

Yes. To be a million miles from here.

She shook her head, and he nodded toward Devon. “How about you? Anything you want?”

She could almost hear the inappropriate thoughts simmering in Devon’s head, but Keith’s sister smiled primly. “A Coke, please.”

He nodded, placed his hat on the seat next to Sandi and headed to the concession stand.

Thank You, Lord.

She gave Gina a grateful hug. Then cast a dirty look at the smirking Devon.

M
an, it had gotten warm in there.

All those people breathing the same air. Crammed in so close.
Sandi snuggling in even closer.
Bryce pulled a handkerchief from a back pocket and wiped his forehead as he waited for his order at the concession. He’d had to get out of there, at least for a while.

“Hello, Bryce.”

He turned to an auburn-haired woman, Cate Landreth, who’d been behind him in school. He’d run into her and her husband a time or two since returning to town. She always seemed friendly enough, but he hadn’t much taken to her.

“I see you’re with Sandi Bradshaw tonight.”

He wasn’t
with
Sandi, but he supposed it looked like that, with her sitting all cozied up next to him, her daughter in her lap. Like a threesome. But there wasn’t any point in explaining all that to someone he didn’t know well.

“I’ve always said she’s a mighty bright gal.” Cate darted a look at him, as if she knew a secret she was dying to share. “This proves it.”

Was he missing something here? “How’s that?”

“The museum rent.” She stared at him as though he was thicker than a stand of old-growth ponderosa. “Tourist fees
sure ain’t going to make up the difference. Everybody knows it, but Sandi’s not one to give up, God bless her. And we sure would hate to lose the museum.” She winked. “
Uncle
Bryce.”

The woman laughed, gave him a wave and sauntered off.

What was she implying? That Sandi planned to butter him up? Intended to use her feminine wiles to talk him out of the rent increase? Was that what tonight was all about? She’d managed to hone in on his location in the midst of hundreds of people with all the accuracy of a GPS. Then all the furtive looks, distracting movements, sweet blushes. Had she coached her daughter to keep calling him Uncle Bryce, too?

He should have known.

Hadn’t he learned anything at all from Keith’s involvement with the manipulative little minx? If he didn’t watch it, he’d be falling off the same cliff his buddy had.

No way would he let that happen.

No way.

“Wouldn’t you like to move to Paradise Valley, Gina?” LeAnne placed a hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder as they walked to the trailer in the fading light and stepped up on the front deck. With school letting out for the summer the previous Wednesday, they’d been to an early Friday evening Disney flick and a fast-food dinner. Now they were home for dessert. “Wouldn’t you like to live with Grandma?”

“I want to live with Mommy.” Gina looked at her mother, uncertainty in her eyes.

Sandi shot her a reassuring smile, hoping it reminded her of earlier discussions that calmed fears of Grandma uprooting her from Canyon Springs.

LeAnne laughed and pulled Gina close for a hug, avoiding looking at Sandi. “Of course you do. Mommy can come, too. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Scads.

LeAnne wouldn’t let up. For the past five years she’d badgered Sandi to relocate to the Valley. To abandon Canyon Springs and allow Gina more “opportunities” a city could offer. She even pressed to have Keith’s body moved from its pine-shaded resting place to the Bradshaw family mausoleum in the desert.

But recently she’d started in on Gina about a move, as well, even though she’d been asked not to persist. When Sandi reminded her last month, explaining how it made Gina feel anxious, LeAnne acted taken aback, insisting she was “just teasing.”

She unlocked the front door and held it open for the other two to enter. “We’re quite happy right where we are, aren’t we, Gina?”

Her daughter gave her an enthusiastic nod, the creases in her forehead brought on by her grandma’s questions evaporating. “This is the bestest place in the whole wide world.”

“You might be surprised, Gina,” LeAnne continued as she and her granddaughter seated themselves at the oval kitchen table, “at what else is out there in that world you’ve never seen.”

Sandi forced a smile as she moved to a cabinet for bowls. “I think she has plenty of time yet to explore it.”

Ironically, there was a time she would have given anything to be living anywhere but Canyon Springs—although not with her mother-in-law, thank you very much. Keith had been so sold on the little town where he’d spent his summers as a kid that he’d wasted no time settling his bride in his fishing hideaway. She hadn’t been happy about it nor had she been shy about vocalizing her displeasure. But now this is exactly where she wanted to be for Gina’s sake.

For Keith’s.

She turned to her daughter. “Why don’t you run and get that picture you drew for Grandma? The one of the horse show.”

Gina hopped up off her chair and ran down the short hallway to her bedroom.

Saying a prayer for courage, she took a deep breath. “LeAnne—”

“I know you don’t want to hear it, Sandi.” The older woman folded her arms. “But Keith wouldn’t want you and Gina to continue living here.”

Sandi opened the freezer and pulled out a gallon of ice cream. Retrieved the metal scoop from a drawer. “This is where he wanted to raise Gina. I intend to honor his wishes.”

“That may have been his initial plan, darling, to come back to a town filled with carefree childhood memories. Goodness knows he’d gravitate to anything that would help him forget war.” She tapped on the table with a fingernail. “But the reality of living in a tiny town like this—in a dumpy little trailer—would have worn thin.”

Dumpy? Her cozy Bradshaws-in-the-Pines was dumpy? Little did LeAnne know that it was far nicer than the cramped apartment where she’d grown up in Kansas City.

Her mother-in-law’s tone softened to its most persuasive. “I have no doubt he’d have soon come to his senses. Would have left the army, relocated his family, gotten his law degree.”

Wordlessly, Sandi dipped ice cream into the bowls. Yes, there was a time, unknown to LeAnne, that she’d been on her mother-in-law’s side of this issue—but for a totally different reason. She’d been certain Keith’s determination to settle here had been nothing more than remnants of the parental rebellion that had driven him to follow Bryce into the armed forces. To ditch his coveted Harvard scholarship. To kiss goodbye the guaranteed position at the generations-old family law firm and a lifetime of public service to the state of Arizona.

But she couldn’t go along with LeAnne now, not even if moving to the Valley of the Sun would win brownie points. This was one of the few things on which she’d quietly stood
her ground. Once the museum featured a veterans exhibit dedicated to Keith, surely her mother-in-law would bestow praise for sticking with her husband’s original plan.

“Don’t get me wrong,” LeAnne hurried on, “Canyon Springs is a dear, sweet town—for a holiday. But to settle in forever?”

“I know it’s hard to understand, but—”

A rattling knock came at the door. Gina dashed out of her bedroom, a piece of drawing paper flapping in her hand. “I’ll get it!”

She opened the door wide, and a familiar, broad-shouldered male form filled the doorway.

“Mommy! It’s Uncle Bryce!”

Sandi didn’t have to look at LeAnne to know a questioning stare bored into her. She joined Gina at the door as Bryce handed something to her little girl.

Eyes wide, Gina took the sand-colored fabric object from his hand and clutched both it and her drawing to her heart. “Mommy, look! He found Daddy’s hat.”

Gina hadn’t noticed the cap missing until after school let out on Wednesday. They’d looked everywhere for it. Even driven back to the building and searched because she couldn’t remember when she’d last worn it.

Relieved beyond measure, Sandi gave Bryce a grateful smile. “Where on earth did you find it?”

“At the arena Monday night. Under the seats after you left. Sorry I didn’t return it sooner. Tucked it up under the passenger-side sun visor and forgot about it until tonight.”

“Thank you, Uncle Bryce.” Gina grasped him around the legs for a hug. “I love you.”

Startled, he met Sandi’s gaze with an apologetic look, as if somehow he was undeserving of her child’s adoration.

“She loves that hat,” she assured him. In fact, when Gina realized she’d lost it, no amount of hugs and kisses consoled
her. She’d cried herself to sleep that first night. “You’ve made a little girl very, very happy.”

Should she invite him in? Ask him to join them for ice cream? LeAnne was here, still staring razor-sharp daggers at her no doubt. To hear her mother-in-law tell it, Bryce had been a brat of the first order and a bad influence on Keith. But he was her husband’s best friend. And this was
her
home. And Gina’s. Bryce had gone out of his way when he didn’t have to.

Still debating, she caught an unexpected appreciative flicker of his gaze to her bare, shorts-clad legs. Her face warmed. On second thought, maybe he’d better be on his way.

“Can Uncle Bryce have ice cream with us, Mommy?”

Guess that settled it.

“You have to join us. It’s the least we can do to reward you for being Gina’s hero.”

“Oh, yes, by all means join us.” LeAnne’s coolish tones carried from the table across the room. “
Uncle
Bryce.”

He’d barely knocked at the door and already had three Bradshaw females telling him what to do.

He hadn’t spotted LeAnne when the kid opened the door. He’d flunked his reconnaissance training big-time, focusing only on the two winsome ladies who’d greeted him. He pulled off his Western hat and nodded in the direction of Keith’s mom as he stepped into the trailer.

“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Bradshaw.”

Would God strike him dead for saying that?

“Likewise.”

Right. And he was only two-foot-four.

Sandi clasped her hands, then motioned him toward the dining area. “Have a seat. I’m just dishing it up.”

“Thanks, but I really can’t—”

“You gotta stay, Uncle Bryce. It’s chocolate chip.” Gina plunked her dad’s cap on her head and grabbed his hand.

He looked at Sandi. Did she want him to stay? He’d rather not. Not with LeAnne here. And not after that Landreth woman at the equine center Monday night hinted Sandi was attempting to get on his good side.

“Gina picked out the flavor all by herself.”

Sandi’s eyes encouraged, and his resolve wavered.

“Chocolate chip, huh?”

“Please?” The little girl tugged at his hand, and against his better judgment he gave in. Didn’t want to disappoint her. But oh, man, he hadn’t dined with LeAnne since Keith had dragged him home on rare occasions to her fancy gated community during high school. Even after all this time, the memories were still too vivid to make him feel good about this.

It was akin to walking in front of a firing squad.

But he was a changed man now.
Right, Lord?
Maybe she’d changed, too.

He followed Sandi and Gina into the dining area and placed his hat on the counter. Then he pulled out a chair as far from LeAnne as he could get and took in his surroundings. Nice place. Wasn’t at all what he’d have expected of Keith’s wife, though. While it was simple and uncluttered, it remained comfortable. Inviting. Family photos. Soft lighting. Not at all an impersonal, coldly modern look as he would have assumed had he taken time to think about it.

Interesting.

Sandi opened the dining area’s sliding glass door, letting in the now-cooling twilight air. A cricket chirped from somewhere on the back deck as Gina distributed bowls of ice cream and spoons. Then mother and daughter seated themselves on each side of him as he counted the seconds, wondering how long it would be before the first volley fired.

“So, Bryce. You’re back in Canyon Springs.” LeAnne crossed her fore arms and placed them on the edge of the table,
pinning him with the same judgmental gaze he remembered from childhood. “Where are you working now?”

A lacquered fingernail tapped on the table. He’d forgotten those glossy, dark-polished nails. Forgotten the sound they made when she tried to make a point. And the point now was that he was pretty much unemployed—and she knew it.

Deliberately relaxing back in his chair, he stirred the ice cream with his spoon. This was practically like old times, except Keith wasn’t here to enjoy it. But as much as he’d have liked to set the woman straight with a flippant retort, he had changed. Right? He wouldn’t let her bully him back into being the defensive, belligerent kid she undoubtedly remembered.

“I’m tending to my grandma. Working odd jobs and doing volunteer work as I adjust back into civilian life. Then when the time is right, I’ll step into something full-time.”

“And what might you expect that timing and job to be?”

He scooped up a spoonful of ice cream and smiled. “Afraid I’m not at liberty to say.”

She probably thought he was lying, covering up. But it was the truth. The fire chief, an old friend of the family, had been in preliminary negotiations with him last year as he’d neared his discharge from the army. Unfortunately, the anticipated opening fell by the wayside right before he’d arrived in town. Major city budget cutbacks. For various reasons, the pair agreed to keep their talks to themselves until monies were once again released.

So for now, he’d have to let Keith’s mom think he was free-loading off his grandma. It should make her happy that her oft-shared predictions that he’d never amount to much had come to pass.

“I drawed this, Uncle Bryce.” Gina held up a wrinkled piece of construction paper and held it out to him.

“Wow. Look at this.”
Give me a hint, kid. What is it?

“You’re holding it upside down.” She plucked it from his fingers and turned it the other way.

“I knew that.”

Gina rolled her eyes, then downed another spoonful of ice cream. “I made it for Grandma so she could see the horse show. But you can have it.”

He glanced at LeAnne, sitting tight-lipped, her ice cream untouched. He slid the paper across the table toward the older woman. “Thanks, Gina, but I’m sure your grandma has a special place for it.”

Sandi shifted in her chair. “So, Bryce, how is Mae doing? I intended to stop in and see her this week, but things kept coming up one right after another.”

“Things like putting in more hours at that museum, I imagine.” LeAnne’s words scolded her daughter-in-law, but her attention riveted on him. “Such a shame that the rent’s being raised when you finally have free time to spend with Gina. Devon said you worked all day Monday.”