Chapter Thirteen
“They really were hungry.”
Mick grinned as he surveyed the empty serving bowls and bread platter.
Rachel’s twins sat behind empty plates, sated looks on their faces and more than a little of their dinners decorating their matching pink, polka dot pajama tops.
Their short hair that had dried without the benefit of a comb stuck out every which way.
Rachel rolled her eyes at her daughters but smiled. “I guess showers before spaghetti wasn’t my best idea.”
Visiting her home tonight had not been one of his smartest plans, either.
On his stealthy walk over, he’d been worried about spending time in the same room with the girls’ mother while constantly looking for excuses to touch her.
Now he realized that a cozy dinner with Rachel and those two sweet little girls was just as dangerous for him. Possibly more so.
Good thing the blinds were closed up tight because anyone passing by on the sidewalk and seeing the four of them through the front window would think they were a family.
He was having a hard time trying to avoid imagining that picture himself.
And longing for things he should have known better than to want.
“I do have a stain stick,” Rachel said, still speaking about her messy daughters. “I’ll need a lot of it.”
“You didn’t seem to be hungry.” He pointed to her plate where she’d scooted around spaghetti noodles but appeared to have taken only a few bites.
“I’m a little distracted since someone still hasn’t told me why it was so important that we meet tonight.”
Mick blew out a breath. “Fine. Anyone ever mentioned that patience isn’t your virtue? I had to meet with Kenny Davison today.”
“That’s it?” Then she tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. “Had to?”
Carly, who’d been too focused on the last piece of garlic bread that she’d split with her sister to pay attention to the adults before, suddenly moved her chair closer to his.
“Mr. Mick, did you know that I had gym at school today?” Carly sat higher in her chair and crossed her arms with authority. “We practiced jump rope tricks.”
“I bet you’re great at skipping rope,” he said. “I miss nearly every time when I try.”
“I could teach you.”
Carissa leaned so far forward that her chin nearly touched the tabletop. “I could teach you stuff, too. I had art today. We’re making bowls with clay that we roll out like snakes.”
Mick pushed back from the table and glanced over at Rachel, who was watching him. He couldn’t blame her for being cautious with anyone around her daughters. They already had an absentee father. She probably wanted to protect their tender feelings.
“Sounds like I’m going to be busy.” He set his fork aside.
“On Monday, I’ll tell my art teacher, Miss Summers, that Mr. Mick—”
“Wait,” he said to interrupt Carissa and then swallowed hard.
Rachel’s eyes were as wide as his must have been. He took a breath to slow his pulse.
“I mean would it be okay if we keep my visits and the lessons you girls teach me to ourselves? Like secrets?” He glanced from one twin to the other and then focused on their mother, hoping she would get the message.
If he and Rachel wanted to keep their collaboration quiet, they couldn’t have the girls making announcements at school.
“Right. Secrets,” Rachel said. “That’ll be fun, won’t it, girls?”
Though both of her daughters nodded, Carly squished up her face as though she wasn’t sure why keeping quiet about their repeat guest would be such a riot.
“Mommy, can we watch a show instead of books tonight?” Carly asked.
“It’s Friday night,” her twin added.
Rachel’s expression became the pinched one as she looked from the girls to the staircase.
“Just this one night, Mom,” Mick said in a low voice, grinning.
She pushed away from the table and stood. “Okay. But first I want you both to march upstairs, wash your faces, and get some clean pj’s. Bring the stained ones to me.”
The girls hurried from the room to follow her instructions. Rachel scooted around the table, scraping and piling plates with efficient movements. When she carried her stack through the doorway and to the sink, Mick grabbed glasses and followed her.
“They’ve probably already told at least their teachers that you came to our house,” she said as she turned on the faucet. “You’re the new fire chief. You’re a big deal. At least to them.”
There it was. The reminder that even if her daughters thought of him as a celebrity, Rachel would only see a usurper who stole her brother’s position. A job that had been technically available for the taking.
“Maybe they both forgot about yesterday?”
“Wouldn’t count on it.” She pointed to a place on the counter where he could set the glasses.
“One of the girls’ preschool teachers told all the parents if we would believe just half of the stories our kids brought home about her, then she would buy into only that much of those they told her about us. ”
“That doesn’t sound promising.”
“You didn’t answer my question before. You had to meet with Davison?” She watched him in her side vision. “Was it about the quote in the Informer?”
He rested his hands on his hips, but he couldn’t keep a straight face. “Was I the only one who didn’t recognize that talking to the press could get me in trouble around here?”
“You were just poking the powers that be. Maybe a few of them. With all the chaos at Station 1, you had to know that your superiors were watching you.”
“Too closely, if you ask me.”
As he lifted the plates she’d stacked, he stepped back and scanned the lower row of cabinets, finding only well-worn drawer pulls and door handles. “No dishwasher?”
“I see two.” She pointed to the counter for him to return the plates and then tossed him a towel. “So that’s it? You went to the trouble of coming here to tell me you got called to the principal’s office?”
She scrubbed a plate in the sudsy water, rinsed it and placed it in his towel-covered hand.
“Really, I just wanted to tell you something, and I thought I should do it in person.”
“What’s that?”
Mick chewed his lip but decided to stop stalling. “I think your theory might be right.”
The plate she’d been washing slipped from her fingers and under the suds. It clinked on the metal at the bottom of the sink. When Rachel slowly turned to him, Mick gave her the towel to dry her hands.
“What changed your mind? What did Kenny say?”
“Something about how more negative publicity could hurt the village’s Mount Bel Fest and that I wasn’t authorized to give statements, but it felt like there was more to it.”
Two lines formed between her brows. “Like what?”
“I would have thought that he’d be more—I don’t know—anxious maybe for police to make an arrest. He seemed to be more concerned with ensuring that I understood it wasn’t my investigation.”
“As though Kenny had a secret that he didn’t want you to find out?”
Rachel gave him a knowing smile. She’d said something similar that first night in his office, though at the time, her premise had seemed too convenient in her brother’s case and too far-fetched in everyone else’s.
“I might be blowing it out of proportion when he could have just been flexing his muscles as village manager. Letting me know who’s boss. But what you’d said about someone covering a secret…” He paused, tilting his head back and forth. “Possibly?”
“Did you find anything else?”
“Wasn’t that enough?”
She didn’t get the chance to answer as the twins rushed into the kitchen, their faces fairly well scrubbed, their matching pj’s this time a light yellow with daisies.
Each carried a wad of pink laundry in her arms. With an apologetic look, Rachel ran the dirty clothes to the basement.
Then she led the girls into the living room to set them up with their promised show.
When she returned, she hurried to the sink and went back to work. “I might have found something, too,” she said, focusing on the faucet where she rinsed.
Mick took an automatic step closer, his throat tight. “What is it? You said, ‘might have.’ Not that you found something concrete. Which is it?”
Her shoulders shifted, but she kept washing and rinsing. Without looking at him, she held out a plate and waited for him to take it. “Riley called today. He said some things.”
His fingers suddenly cold, Mick lowered the dish on the counter so he wouldn’t drop it.
“Why didn’t you say that before?” He faced her, but she still wouldn’t look over from the water. “If I hadn’t come tonight, you wouldn’t have mentioned it at all, would you?”
He already knew the answer, but he waited for her to say it, anyway. When would she ever trust him?
She lifted her chin and finally turned his way. “I’m telling you now.”
“Well, what ‘things’ did he say?”
“Like before, he said I should stop asking questions. About Dad’s death. About everything. He told me to stay out of it. Even said he’d deal with the questions at the station when he got out of rehab.”
“I like your brother already.”
They exchanged a look that stated the obvious. No matter what happened in the investigation, he and her brother were unlikely to ever be friends.
“I’ll be sure to tell him that…when I see him. If I see him.”
She chewed the corner of her lip and stepped to the kitchen doorway to check on the girls. Mick stared at her back, searching for clues. There had to be something she wasn’t telling him.
“Did you at least admit to him that you aren’t going to stop looking?”
“Not exactly. But he didn’t seem to believe me when I said I would.”
“Then he’s a smart guy, too.”
She gave him a mean look before crossing into the dining room and slumping into a chair. Whether wise or not, she believed she had to keep searching.
He followed her to the table and sat on the side that faced the living room where the girls were on the couch, cuddling under the same throw from the night before.
“That’s all he said? That you should stop looking? I mentioned that a few times myself.”