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Mandy had a small towel draped modestly over her breast as she nursed, and it puzzled Keira until she saw the two other children still asleep on the double bed behind her. Boys, both of them, with hair as blond as Mandy’s. That must be why she’s covered up—in case the boys wake up. The pink-and-yellow outfit on the dark-haired baby in Mandy’s arms was a dead giveaway the baby was a little girl.
Keira could no more help assembling random bits of data into a clear picture than she could help breathing. Three children in six years, she thought, remembering what Cody had told her about Mandy and Ryan Callahan. That’s some serious commitment between them. She wondered why the knowledge lightened her mood immeasurably.
Mandy smiled a welcome at Keira before glancing inquiringly up at Cody, who quickly introduced them. Then she adjusted the towel and deftly switched the baby to her other breast. “Sorry about this.” She indicated the nursing baby and gave Cody and Keira a rueful look that held only a trace of embarrassment. “I’ve been trying to wean Abby, but we left in such a rush last night I didn’t have time to pack any formula or baby food.” Her face turned troubled. “Did Ryan tell you what happened?”
“Not all of it—not yet—but enough.” He moved away from Mandy’s side and headed to the kitchen area to pour himself a cup of coffee, and Keira was unaccountably glad.
“He didn’t tell me until last night, after Steve—” She caught her breath, but went on. “We were already on the way here before he told me he called you.” Her blue eyes darkened. “I gave him hell for keeping this thing a secret from me, after he promised...” She stopped, a hurt expression on her face, and then started again. “Don’t be like him,” she begged Cody. “He can’t help being who he is—it’s the way he’s made. But you’re not like him. Don’t keep me in the dark. Not this time.”
Cody swallowed coffee from the mug in his left hand and grimaced, and Keira wasn’t sure if it was in response to the coffee or Mandy’s statement. Then his right hand briefly touched his left shoulder, and Keira remembered Cody referring to a bullet hole, Mandy and a lack of trust. Mandy had shot Cody, and she knew it hadn’t been an accident. She only knew what Trace had told her—that Cody and Mandy had been best friends growing up, but that she’d shot him the night David Pennington had been killed, thinking she was protecting Callahan. But there was more to the story. A hell of a lot more. Keira was sure of it.
Chapter 6
The thud of boots on the front porch warned them all, and as Cody reached for his gun, he saw Keira doing the same. When Callahan walked in the front door followed by McKinnon, Cody relaxed and dropped his hand. He quickly downed the rest of his coffee and glanced at the pot on the stove, unsure whether he wanted another cup or not.
The two men stacked the loads they were carrying on and beneath the kitchen table beside him, then turned around and headed back the way they’d come. “One more trip should do it,” Callahan told Cody laconically as they passed him, “if you help.”
Cody chuckled silently to himself as he followed Callahan out. As clearly as if Nick D’Arcy was standing beside him, he could hear him saying, Callahan was running the show six years ago, but this is your case now. The extent of his involvement is at your discretion.
At some point he was going to have to draw the other man aside and let him know—privately—how things stood. But not in front of witnesses. He owed Callahan that much. Callahan had saved his life after Mandy had shot him, even though he’d known by then that Cody had once slept with her.
She hadn’t been Callahan’s wife at the time, but Cody knew that hadn’t made it any easier for the other man to accept...or forgive. Saving Cody’s life despite that said a lot about Callahan’s integrity. Or maybe by then he’d already known he had nothing to fear from Cody where Mandy was concerned.
Cody acknowledged there was probably more than a hint of truth in that assessment. Mandy had never loved him and never would. He’d known it even when he’d made love to her all those years ago that New Year’s Day. But desperate men do desperate things, he reminded himself.
