She shrugged back into the bra and told herself to quit losing focus. Who she’d been didn’t matter as much as who she became from this point forward. She wouldn’t repeat her “Mr. Smith” mistake by turning weak-kneed over the first hunk to cross her path.
Dee whipped a T-shirt over her head and stepped into sweatpants, wriggling them over her hips. Her hands paused midtug. She couldn’t have seen what she thought she had, could she? She eased the sweats down a notch.
She stared at the map of stretch marks scrolled across her stomach.
“Oh my God.” She blinked and looked again.
Nausea kicked into overdrive. Her hands twitched away. The pants snapped back, covering what she wasn’t ready to view.
“Calm down,” she muttered, not even caring that she was talking to herself since she’d decided she might well be crazy anyway. “Stretch marks can come about any number of ways. Maybe I’m a diet junkie with a ballooning weight problem. I’ve just got babies on the brain because of little Madison.”
Slowly she inched the pants lower, following the milky-white ladders all the way to—
A scar. A bikini-cut, puckered scar. Just like a Cesarean section scar.
Her legs turned to soup. Dee folded into a heap on the floor. All the bottled tears and terror gushed free. Fists pressed to her stomach, she scavenged for control, strength, reason in a world turned inside out.
Her time to plan had ended. If she had a child out there somewhere, she had to find her or him. Fast.
And that meant trusting Jacob Stone with everything and pray he wasn’t another “Mr. Smith.”
Chapter 4
J acob pushed away from the computer. The numbers weren’t going to change anytime soon and the busload of seniors should be arriving any minute now. At least he could accommodate them.
Whatever Dee’s secrets, she made one hell of a great worker. She’d accomplished more in a day than most would in a week. He’d found nothing wrong with any of her rooms. Not at all what he’d expected from a party girl.
More than her face didn’t fit the profile some of her initial behavior indicated. She could have cried or pleaded her way into an extension on her room, and most men would have caved. Dee hadn’t even tried.
She’d shown a lot of grit on a day that would have taken most folks down. He admired that. Emily liked her, too.
He sat upright.
Could Dee be the answer to his problems? An idea started to form in his mind. She seemed to be down on her luck, with no one to call. Maybe she wouldn’t mind relocating.
He’d already begun working on a transfer to McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma. He qualified for a family humanitarian transfer, given he was his sister’s guardian—Madison’s, too. Emily didn’t want to move even an hour away from Chase, and Jacob would still be gone too long and often for the teen to be alone out here, especially with a baby.
He wouldn’t trust a stranger with his sister, but getting to know more about Dee certainly had merit.
Through the window, he saw her step from her room, the halogen lights casting a domelike effect over the snow-covered parking lot. The Cascade Mountain Range loomed dimly in the distance. Her brisk strides carried her across concrete, snowflakes sprinkling down around her. At least she wasn’t shivering this time, just moving with efficiency in her new-used gray sweatpants. Somehow she made even grungy workout clothes look elegantly sexy.
No sex thoughts, dude. He needed to get his mind back on the plan. Find out more about Dee Smith. His life had been fraying at the seams for long enough. Time to start pulling things back together, starting tonight with Dee.
She pushed inside, her nose pink from the cold.
He stood to help her close the door, catching a whiff of her clean hair, which only made him itch to test the feel of it between his fingers. “Nice pants.”
“Huh?” She glanced down and plucked at the loose cotton. “Oh, they’re definitely warmer. Thank you.”
Dee slipped out of her coat. Her freshly washed hair crackled into a static halo. The coal-black sweater left her face paler than before, and he worried she’d worked too hard. Were her eyes red rimmed from tears or the elements?
Either way, she needed him as much as he needed her at the moment. He just had to decide how to approach her in a way that wouldn’t leave her feeling pressured about her job.
Five minutes ago, he would have laughed at the thought of asking Dee to walk across the street with him. Now, he warmed to the idea of getting to know her better—for his sister’s benefit. “Have you had anything to eat since lunch?”
She dropped the W-2 form onto the check-in counter. “Never mind about food. We need to talk.”
Dee sat at the kitchenette table in Jacob’s back-room apartment. She flattened her palms against the scarred oak surface, the only way to keep them from shaking. Forget trying to drink the can of Coke waiting in front of her.