“A lifetime would scarcely be enough.” He gently brushed the wetness from her cheek. “We do not cry as humans do but know, my mate, I will keen for you all my days.”
His glance darted toward the door, toward the crunch of footsteps in the snow. She felt the barest brush of his mouth against her lips, and then with a g’hir’s speed and a warrior’s stealth he was through the back door, silently closing it before she could blink.
She took a stumbling step after him. “Wait . . .”
Behind her a heavy knock fairly rattled the front windows.
“Sum!” Dean called through the door. “Come on, girl! I ain’t got all day!”
Blinking away her tears, she turned that way, toward Dean’s hammering, her fingers numb as they wrapped around the doorknob.
Dean was no longer handsome, not like he had been in college when he’d been a blond baseball player, a square-jawed All-Star with an easy smile, confident he’d make the majors someday. When he’d hurt his shoulder, after they were married and Emma was on the way, the life just seemed to drain out of him. He was drinking more these days, or maybe it was just finally catching up to him; it showed with the puffiness in his face, the gut he was starting to get.
“Where the hell you been?” he demanded. “I done called you about a million times.” He scowled, apparently forgetting that everyone had caller ID now; she knew exactly how many times he had called. “You’d think a person be by the phone day and night worrying about their child.”
That he had hardly visited his daughter in three and a half years, that it sometimes took Summer three weeks to get him on the phone only to have him tell her he didn’t have time to talk about “kid stuff,” went right out of her head.
Because there, in his arms, a tumble of white-blond curls and rounded pink cheeks, sound asleep in her Hello Kitty pajamas, was Emma.
With a cry Summer reached for her daughter, ignoring Dean’s surprised grunt as she swept her baby right out of his arms. She closed her eyes, cradling Emma against her, breathing in her scent, feeling Emma’s soft, downy hair against her cheek.
“Baby,” she murmured. “Momma’s home, sweetheart. Momma’s home.”
Emma didn’t even stir. Thanks to all the time in daycare, the child could sleep through an earthquake.
One unfamiliar with how g’hir moved might have dismissed it, might have thought that quick movement among the snowy branches a bird or small animal, but Summer, turning her head that way, just caught a flash of glowing blue eyes on her, on Emma, making sure they were both safe.
Then he was gone.
Twenty-two
Her vision blurred and she looked down at Emma.
“She’s so beautiful,” Summer murmured thickly. “I can’t believe I forgot how beautiful she is.”
Dean was looking at her askance.
Right. Act normal; this is just a normal co-parenting kid hand-off ’cause nothing weird has happened at all.
“What the hell you all dressed up for?” he asked. “You look like the blond chick from Frozen.”
Summer glanced down, dismayed to see she was still wearing Jenna’s dress and the jeweled slippers.
Perfectly normal.
“Christmas party,” Summer mumbled, laying Emma on Uncle Lester’s green patterned sofa. He kept the blanket that Granny Crawford crocheted across the back and Summer pulled it down to tuck around Emma. “Sorry. My cell was busted. I, uh, dropped it in the toilet.”
“That was pretty fucking careless.” He let the storm door shut behind him and leaned Emma’s small suitcase against the wall. “You ought to be more responsible.”
“Well, you know me.” Summer smoothed Emma’s hair back. The little girl’s face was speckled with what looked like that neon orange powdered cheese from Cheetos and she wondered when the child had last had a decent meal. “Anyway, they had to send me a new one. I just got it half an hour ago. How did the visit go? She and Marthe have a good time?”
He looked troubled. “She got bad news. The cancer’s back.”
Summer bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Dean. What are the doctors saying?”
He gave a shrug but it was far from careless. “That she probably won’t make it to spring.”
Summer’s glance went to the beautifully carved comb on the dining table. “It’s real hard to lose . . . someone you love.”
“I forgot,” he said. “Yours died a while back, didn’t she?”
Her mother had died just before they’d met but that was just like Dean, not to notice something that didn’t impact his comfort directly—like the needs and grief of other people.
“Yes,” she said instead. “But I’m sorry about Marthe. She’s always been good to me, good to Emma.”
“She was glad to see her.”
“I’m glad she could.”
“Yeah, well . . .”
He shifted his weight again and it occurred to Summer that this might be the longest and most meaningful conversation they’d had since before she’d gotten pregnant with Emma.
Her brow creased. “Something wrong?”