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Buttoning her dress and calling herself a moron, she raced to the house, up the back steps and through the door.
“Mommy!” the little girl cried. “Mommeee!”
“I’m coming, sweetheart!” Tiffany flew up the stairs. J.D. was on her heels.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
“I’m here, baby,” Tiffany said, running down the hallway and tearing into her daughter’s room. “Right here.”
Christina was in the middle of her bed, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her little face. Tiffany scooped her daughter up and held her tightly, kissing her cheeks, holding her buttocks with one arm and her head with the other. “It’s all right, Chrissie, Mommy’s here. I’ll always be here.”
Sobbing, Christina clung to her. “I scared.”
“I know, honey, I know. But there’s nothing to be scared about. I’m here.” She dabbed at her daughter’s eyes and, taking up Chrissie’s favorite blanket, sat in the rocker near the bookcase, the rocker she’d used when the children were infants. J.D. stood in the doorway, looking as if he wanted to say something, but he held his tongue, and a second later Stephen, his hair at odd angles, half staggered into the room.
“Nightmare?” he asked and Tiffany nodded.
“Bad dream!” Christina whispered.
“You gotta do somethin’ about it,” Stephen said, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
“I’m trying. Shhh.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Stephen rolled his eyes at his uncle, then returned to his own room.
“Can I do anything?” J.D. asked, his face tense.
She shook her head but held his gaze as Christina, giving up a tiny sigh, snuggled against her. “We’re fine,” Tiffany said and ignored the doubts in his eyes. “Just fine.” She picked up the well-loved, floppy-eared stuffed rabbit and tucked it into her daughter’s arms. “Here’s Bub.” Then she pressed a kiss to her daughter’s curly head and kept rocking.
Thankfully J.D. took the hint. “If you need anything—”
“I won’t.”
“I’ll be upstairs.” She held her breath as she heard him climb the steps to the third floor. Christina calmed as she always did, and her eyelids slowly lowered as the tempo of her breathing steadied. Humming softly, Tiffany continued to rock until she felt her daughter’s bones turn to butter.
Gently Tiffany tucked Christina into the bed and tiptoed into the hallway. She left the door ajar and walked toward her own room, pausing for a second at the open door to the third floor.
It was an invitation from her brother-in-law. She let her fingers run alongside the edge of the door and thought long and hard about his silent offer. A part of her longed to dash up the stairs and throw herself into his arms. Another part restrained her. J.D.’s invitation was one she couldn’t accept. She’d been a fool to kiss him tonight. Letting him touch her and feeling all those long-buried sensations was tantamount to emotional suicide. With renewed determination and more than a trace of regret, she closed the door and walked to her room.
She could never, never let J.D. get close to her again. It was just too dangerous.
Slowly she unbuttoned her dress and caught a glimpse of herself in the freestanding mirror. Her hair was mussed, her dress wrinkled, her face still flushed. “Oh, Tiffany,” she said. “Be smart. For your kids’ sake.”
She tossed her dress into the hamper and slipped on a cotton T-shirt, then slid between the sheets of her bed and turned off the lamp. Why couldn’t she just tell J.D. to take a hike? To leave her and her small family alone?
Because you want him, Tiffany. It’s just that simple.
And oh, so complicated.
Once before, she’d given in to temptation, and she’d lived to regret it. She shuddered and closed her eyes. It had all started with the accident, the damned accident that had altered the course of her life forever. She’d been driving down from the mountain after a day of skiing. Philip had dozed off in the passenger seat. The kids had been in the back of the sedan, Christina strapped in her toddler seat while Stephen, exhausted and half asleep, was listening to his headphones. It had been nearly nine months ago, but she remembered it as vividly as if the horrible night had just been this past week.
The snow had been blinding as she’d eased down the steep hillside, not realizing that within minutes her entire life would change...
The snow just wouldn’t let up. Fat flakes fell on to the windshield before the wipers could scrape them off. Ice had collected on the wiper blades, and the steady glare from the headlights of the cars driving up the mountain were giving her a headache.
She’d never liked driving in the snow in western Oregon where it usually began to melt only to freeze over again, leaving a layer of ice on the pavement.
Road crews were working around the clock, and she comforted herself with the fact that the road past Government Camp on Mount Hood had been sanded and plowed and resanded. Yet her studded tires slid a little as she rounded a corner, and she looked forward to finding dry, or wet pavement, at the lower elevations.
