Small Town Secrets. Sharon Mignerey

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СКАЧАТЬ yet that didn’t keep him from wanting to shield her from heartache—another surprising thought had him silently laughing at himself. He was the last person imaginable to shield her from hurt or heartache or anything else.

      She led him upstairs, the stairwell in her house accessed from the kitchen, the sky-blue color of the kitchen continuing down the hall. She opened the first door—a nursery all done up in soft colors and white painted furniture. Clearly, it was a room that had been put together with the care of a woman already loving the child who was to be in here.

      Léa paused an instant, then crossed the room to the window where she took down the café rod that held crisp eyelet curtains.

      Following her into the room, Zach cleared his throat. “I overheard you and the woman who was here before—you’re wanting to adopt?”

      She nodded, her gaze not quite meeting his. Her guarded expression revealed just how important this was to her, which somehow made it important to him.

      “Some kid is going to be lucky to have you for his mom.”

      “Thanks.”

      Léa’s voice was husky, as though she needed to clear her throat.

      “I could be putting my foot in my mouth, but I thought it was nearly impossible for a single person to adopt.”

      “In some states I’ve heard that’s the way it is,” Léa said. “Thankfully, here in Colorado, it’s a little easier, though the scrutiny for a single parent is the same as it is for a couple.”

      He made quick work of securing the window, then followed her on down the hallway past the bathroom and into the larger bedroom at the end of the hall. Her room.

      It was comforting and feminine. The white wicker furniture reminded him of being on a porch, and, as he gazed around the room, he decided that it might have once been one. It appeared that after it had been closed in, a pair of glass double doors had been left that now opened onto a balcony too narrow even to stand on.

      “The left-side door doesn’t open,” she said, pulling back the sheer curtain. She vibrated with tension as she stared out the window. “Right after we moved in, Foley dubbed this the Romeo balcony.”

      “I thought Juliet was on the balcony.”

      Léa nodded, her gaze lifting to his. “Exactly.”

      “And he was able to get in this way?”

      “I used to love sleeping with the door open,” she said without directly answering his question. “A breeze would come in, and you’d be able to smell the junipers and the piñon. I hate this—locking the doors up this way—but I don’t know any other way.”

      “You could move.”

      “No,” she stated simply, although the look she gave him spoke volumes.

      Though Zach disliked the idea of marring the white woodwork with the sturdy latches she handed him, he installed them both. Since the doors were panes of glass, they also wouldn’t keep anyone out for long.

      Finishing, he turned around to look at Léa where she stood next to the bed.

      “Need anything else?” he asked, deliberately putting distance between them and heading down the hallway toward the stairs.

      “You’ve done more than enough,” she said. “Any time I can return the favor…”

      “You fed me breakfast. Let’s just call it even.”

      She followed him to the front door where he casually let himself out of her house without looking back, telling her that he’d see her in a day or two. If he could stay away that long, that is. Like her cooking, she was a feast for the senses, and he loved everything about being around her.

      Oh, he could tell himself that he was simply being a gentleman and a good neighbor because he was worried about her. But that would only be half the story. Being with her had made him feel more human and more alive than anything he’d experienced during the last three years. And seeing her vulnerability made him ache to hold her close the way he craved a shot of bourbon.

      He shook his head to clear it. That comparison made him break into a sweat.

      As he put away the drill and headed to the pasture, he called up the tools he had learned in AA. Take things one moment at a time. He didn’t have to stay sober forever. Just for the next five minutes.

      And he didn’t have to give up wanting Léa forever. Just for the next five minutes.

      “Human beings live not on bread alone,” he recited to himself, “but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”ⁱ As always, he had a choice. Surrender to the temptations of the moment. Or hold them at bay for the next five minutes. Five minutes. He could do that.

      Deliberately, he reminded himself of all the reasons to stay away from Léa. She had plans to be a mother, plans that a relationship with him would probably ruin. She had an ex who would clearly go ballistic if he even suspected she was interested in someone else. Her uncle was the chief of police. As soon as he found out where Zach had spent the last three years, he’d definitely be persona non grata. Since Zach had gone to the police station to register his presence in the county, complete with a new mug shot and fingerprints, it was only a matter of time before the whole police department would know about his past. He hoped he was ready to deal with the predictable fallout.

      Zach glanced at his watch. Three minutes more.

      Sadie’s cows ambled toward the fence as they always did, the red Angus more pets than livestock. Her bloodlines book showed the care she had taken over the years to breed the cattle for an even disposition, low-birth-weight calves and strong growth. The calves regarded him with open curiosity. The fifteen cows and the big bull watched with more wariness, but Zach knew he could work in the field with them without worrying one of them would take after him. Tomorrow he’d need to move them to the other pasture, rotating the fields as Sadie had taught him when he was still a boy. Mentally he walked through the process of moving the cattle, then catalogued the things he needed to do tomorrow.

      Find a sponsor.

      Check in with his parole officer.

      Repair the fence along the south boundary.

      Stay away from Léa.

      When he looked at his watch again, nearly fifteen minutes had passed.

      “Thank you, Lord,” he said, closing his eyes.

      When he opened them, he noticed, really noticed, the lush green of the thick pasture, made so by an artesian well. Beyond the pasture where surface water was non-existent, the sandy landscape was dotted with dark green junipers that stretched to the west.

      He loved this view, and it was just as good as he had imagined it would be every day he was in prison. Nearly forty miles away, Azure Mountain rose above the Raven Rampart. Breaks in the hills and mesas were painted in tones of lavender, emphasizing the vast expanse of land between where he stood and the distant mountains. For thirty-two and a half months the extent of his vision had been measured in yards. For every one of those months he had imagined this view, standing right here and being СКАЧАТЬ