The You I've Come To Know (A Mother's Love Book 1) Read online

  Leigh deserved his best. So did Jen and all the family members gathered under the Wolfsley umbrella. This far-flung group of crazy siblings, in-laws, and outlaws allowed him to exercise his fatherly and brotherly urges as well as those of son and uncle. He needed that.

  Because he wouldn’t have a family of his own.

  His calling was to serve and protect, a career that put him in danger, at risk. He accepted both, had taken on the responsibility with his eyes wide open.

  But he couldn’t do his job at the level of competence he required of himself if he had to consider the consequences for loved ones. If he had to second-guess every decision to reach for his weapon. If he was distracted by a memory of a wife or child when a perp was cornered five feet away.

  One or the other, career or family, would suffer. He’d seen it happen to co-workers often enough to prove the myth. And he refused to choose. He loved his sisters, adored every niece and nephew they’d provided him to spoil.

  It was enough, this extended family surrounding him. It was enough.

  “Well, Scout It’s just you and me,” he said, then snuggled back and closed his eyes.

  Chapter Two

  THEY CALLED HIM THE BIG BAD WOLF.

  Willa Grace Darling knew that about him. Knew there were plenty of people afraid of her neighbor.

  Not your normal law-abiding citizens, of course. No. Those would find him as welcome as the warmth of a fire on a night of chilled bones and breath-frosted air.

  But others who couldn’t claim a bean of a brain when it came to rights and wrongs feared his wolfish bite. As well they should.

  Willa took a breath, took a moment to focus, took another to enjoy the view—a purely aesthetic undertaking, of course. She smiled, so very glad that she was a woman with an appreciation of things earthy and elemental, and watched him cross the back lawn of her cottage to the kennels where she was feeding the three dogs boarding with her at present.

  The Big Bad Wolf was definitely big, though not in a hulkish sort of way. He did work out. The way his T-shirt stretched to accommodate his biceps told that tale. If truth be known, he was probably no more than six foot one or two, though the width through his shoulders and chest topping both flat abs and narrow hips gave the impression of a few extra inches.

  Wolfish was a good description. Lean. Wary. Alert. One of a pack who made his way alone. Perhaps not entirely accurate, but Willa liked the capricious notion. Cocking her head to the side, she absently stroked Tic Toc, the pit-bull mix in the first pen. Together they followed Joel’s approach.

  He always favored black and gray and today was no exception. Black jeans. Gray T-shirt, this one emblazoned with the seal and motto of his employer. It smacked of authority, of pride in a job well done. Funny. All that from a T-shirt.

  She was quite aware that clothing had little to do with that undeniable, indefinable thing that made this man a man. One she’d never been able to keep her eyes from.

  Willa had lived next door to him now for going on a year. He kept an ungodly work schedule, cooking out regularly on the redwood deck he’d built behind his house, pushing himself physically, relentlessly, on marathon-length runs and endless sessions of lifting weights. She’d observed much about him but had learned little. She had yet to satisfy her unhealthy curiosity about why he never brought a woman home.

  Or why, in twelve months, he hadn’t made a move in her direction when her harmlessly understated flirtation had spawned an obvious, distinct male interest.

  She lowered her lashes and looked away, then lifted them and glanced his direction. He was a man’s man. But a woman’s man most of all.

  His hair was light, a layering of sun-bleached blond and golden brown, though she’d been close enough the times they’d talked to see strands of pure white that put his age past thirty. And those not earned over the years were certainly earned on the job. It couldn’t be easy, law enforcement. So much danger. So many risks. She admired him for that, as well.

  He got closer and she moved on to the second pen, making kissy-face with the retriever pup named Loverboy who was determined to distract her. She gave the dog a ten for effort. But it was hard to distract the distracted. Willa slanted her gaze to the side.

  Joel’s gait was less fluid than usual, what with the cast he swung forward with each step and the cane he used to balance the rhythm, yet the way he moved was still worth the price of admission.

  Big? Yes. Wolf? She could buy it. But she wasn’t so sure about “Bad.”

  Especially with a little girl baby dressed all in white bouncing in the crook of his elbow.

  “Willa,” he said in greeting, reaching her at last.

  “Joel.” She lowered her gaze and smiled to herself. From the pail she carried, she scooped out another cup of kibble for Loverboy and emptied the last half cup into the final boarder’s tiny bowl. She’d get to the rescued dogs once she’d finished with her paying customers.

  And once she found out what brought the Wolf from his lair.

  At Willa’s single sharp whistle, her own dog, Gordy, padded across the lawn from the shade of the shed where he’d been resting. He held the business end of a water hose in his mouth, the green rubber tubing spooling behind him through the grass.

  Destination determinedly in mind, the dog acknowledged the baby’s sudden burst of excited babbling with the barest lift of one ear. Willa, however, looked up all the way and met Joel’s gaze.

  He shifted the little girl’s diapered seat, and nailed Willa a look of impressed regard. “That dog’s got you spoiled.”

  Willa took the spray nozzle from Gordy’s mouth and rewarded her loyal black-and-white friend with a scratch behind both ears. “Did you know border collies have been trained to carry anything—even a tempting sack lunch—for miles? On no command but a whistle? And deliver it all in one piece?”

  “Your own personal pizza delivery.”

  Amused, she nodded. “Something like that. Though I’m not sure Gordy could deliver a pizza unscathed. He has a thing for pepperoni.”

  “A dog after my own heart.”

  Willa looked from the man to the beast who had so captured her affections. “Mine, too.” The dog sat at her feet, his eyes on her face, listening, listening. That devotion earned him an extra scratch for good measure.

  “So, Detective,” she said, nodding toward the infant “I see you’ve been busy since last we spoke.”

  Joel’s smile was that of a man in love. “This doll baby is my niece, Leigh.”

  Hearing her name, the infant’s attention shifted from the dog to Joel. She clapped her hands together and then clapped them on her uncle’s face. “Hey, now, Scout. Uncle abuse will result in a permanent mark on your record.”

  Doing all she could to keep a straight face, Willa aimed a stream of fresh water at the three bowls she’d just emptied. “She definitely has trouble written all over her. Don’t you, Leigh?”

  Again Leigh responded to her name, this time issued from a stranger’s lips. Her white-blond curls and big brown eyes the picture of a Raphaelite angel. She turned to take in Willa’s face. Then she saw Tic Toc. And Loverboy. And Mickey, the miniature schnauzer.

  The baby’s deafening squeals set two of the dogs to barking. Willa quieted her canine children while Joel calmed his niece.

  Adjusting his weight between cast and cane, Joel nuzzled Leigh’s neck until she giggled madly. Then he turned a full male grin Willa’s way. “I’m about to need a leash and a harness just so I can keep up with her.”

  Glancing up through branches overhead, feeling the sough of breeze touching her skin, Willa released her breath before looking back at that grin. “Surely that’s not why you’re here.”

  “What? A leash and a harness? It’s a thought.” He tried for a straight face and failed. “Just kidding.” The baby began begging in strident tones to be let down. “What I really need is a muzzle.”

  Willa only let him get away with the comment because she knew he wasn’t serious.
Joel wore the label of family man with as much pride as he wore his uniform. It was commendable of him. A good, good thing.

  Except should her flirtation and his interest ever go anywhere, it would never be anyplace permanent. She really would have liked that to have been different. She really, truly would have.

  But such was life, she thought and sighed, glancing back at her family—her rescued dogs, her boarders, little Mickey who couldn’t have weighed more than five pounds.

  Storing the kibble pail and respooling the hose, Willa raised the latch on Mickey’s kennel and lifted the tiny schnauzer to her chest. Taking a deep breath, she walked toward Joel.

  As she had hoped, the baby’s excitement at her overwhelming canine choices calmed as she zeroed in on the one within reach. Almost within reach. Willa was, after all, protective of her charges.

  “Look, Scout,” Joel said to the baby, his laughing gaze canted down at Willa. “It’s a hairbrush.”

  “A comedian. How fun.” She stepped closer until Mickey was an arm’s length from Leigh. Until the toes of Willa’s work boots met the single toe of Joel’s. Until her intention in coming so close was a foot shy of obvious. Joel didn’t object to the invasion of his space so she stayed.

  “Leigh. This is a dog. Dog.” In an aside to Joel she said, “Not a hairbrush.”

  Leigh was captivated. “Gentle, now,” Willa crooned, covering the baby’s grabbing fingers with her own to guide her touch. Mickey gave Willa only one imploring glance before allowing himself to be used for instruction.

  “Easy, easy,” Willa nearly whispered, sliding her hand and Leigh’s first over the dog’s back then showing the baby the silky triangles of Mickey’s ears, the black button of his nose, his tiny yet ferociously functional teeth, and pink pearl tongue.

  Leigh’s attention was rapt. But so was Joel’s. His head lowered, his gaze keen and focused and knowing. Knowing. Deeply, intimately knowing as he watched the stroking motion of her hand.

  His nostrils flared and his eyes darkened and she absorbed that look, let it float and flitter like fairy dust to settle over her. Her body responded but, lovely as the feeling was, this was neither the time nor the place. She was working and he was occupied and to explore what had just passed between them would take longer than the few minutes they had here.

  So she raised her stubborn chin. “Why are you here, Joel? Not that I ever mind the company, of course. But you’ve never been the chatty type. And I know you don’t have a dog to board.”

  “Actually, I was hoping to board Scout here. For the morning, anyway.”

  Nodding once, Willa waited to respond. Just for a moment, a moment she took for herself.

  It was always this way for her with babies. And this baby was as picture-perfect as they came, with her lashes so long and her eyes so round and observant and her dimples framing a grin so wide and curious and full of life.

  Somewhere Willa knew Joel was explaining about missing parents—his—and rendezvousing parents—Leigh‘s—and sisters spread hither and yon. His words only touched the surface of her consciousness.

  “For the morning, you said?”

  He twisted back the wrist beneath Leigh’s bottom to view his watch. “I have a doctor’s appointment at ten. I should be back by noon.”

  Willa considered that. “You have baby things for her? Or is this a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants endeavor?”

  That devastatingly devouring grin again. “Her diaper bag is on your front porch. And her walker seat play thing. That’s all I could manage in one trip.”

  “Sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Willa said and turned away. She settled Mickey back in his kennel then took that first step toward the rest of the morning and anything else that followed.

  “Seems to run in the family,” Joel remarked. When Willa frowned, he added, “That being sure thing? Never mind.”

  Yet when Willa held out her hands and Leigh dived without a second’s hesitation, Joel turned the question on Willa. “Are you sure?”

  And how was she to answer that? Truthfully? That she knew nothing about babies? That her limited maternal instincts had been honed on dogs?

  That her infertility was not an open wound, yet the scars would always remain?

  She couldn’t say any of that and still expect him to give her these next two hours of bliss. And so she said the only thing she could.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Three

  THREE WEEKS. THREE MORE WEEKS. Twenty-one days before returning to work was an option Joel would be allowed to consider. Consider.

  He tightened his grip on the truck’s steering wheel. Then rolled down his window because there didn’t seem to be any air in the cab.

  The sky was blue, the sun was high, and Joel couldn’t breathe.

  Funny that the department demanded he take sick leave when he wasn’t even sick.

  This struggle to breathe had nothing to do with his lungs and everything to do with frustration. That didn’t make him sick. Just like torn ligaments and muscle ground into hamburger and a bone held in place with synthetics didn’t make him sick.

  What made him sick was ineffectual waiting, doing nothing, twiddling his thumbs. Doc Anders wouldn’t even release him to be assigned temporary desk duty.

  “Not a chance, Wolf Man,” the doc had answered when Joel had asked that very thing not an hour ago. “I know you too well. I let you near the station, you’ll be swinging that cast like a weapon, coldcocking the first thug who looks at you crossways.”

  Doc had laughed then and shaken his head as if he’d conjured an image from a bad police sitcom and inserted his dialogue into the script. “The Big Bad Wolf behind a desk? Face it. I’d last longer rolling gauze bandages than you would pushing a pencil.”

  Joel had mumbled and grumbled that the doc didn’t know what he was talking about even though it was obvious the man had Joel’s number. He shouldn’t have been surprised. There wasn’t a soul he knew who didn’t have his number.

  He was about as open as his own back door, as uncomplicated as a cup of straight black coffee. No artificial flavor or la-di-da foam mucked up the pleasure he took from caffeine. And no pretext or agenda masked the truth in his intentions.

  He wanted to go back to work. Work was his life. The one thing more important to him than any other. He’d arranged his entire existence so that nothing, nothing interfered. Damn funny how when it finally happened, it was the job itself that had brought him to a grinding halt.

  Joel made the slow turn from the blacktop highway onto the long road that wound deep into the woods. This area north of Houston was quiet and isolated and still only minutes from civilization’s conveniences. It was the lazy way to get back to nature; he liked the solitude, the crickets, the smell of pine.

  He also liked keeping a tangible boundary between his private life and the grisly details of the day. He wasn’t a fool; he was never truly off duty. But the downshift in gears was mental survival.

  The minute his truck tires hit gravel he was on Wolfsley time. His home was his retreat and his sanity. This was where he unwound at the end of a shift with a cold beer, a thick steak, rare, hot off the grill, and blues the way only John Lee Hooker delivered.

  He enjoyed his own company; preferred to spend the evenings, when he made it home before midnight, on his back porch with the wide star-spangled sky and the furtive rustle of night creatures who shared his property and scraps of his food.

  He wondered why Willa chose to live here. Her profession obviously demanded the big outdoors, the seclusion, the room for the dogs to run, to play, to do their territorial doggy thing. He doubted suburban neighbors would have tolerated the noise or the smell, not that he ever noticed either. Willa kept the place clean.

  He wondered about her family. People came and went from her house and the kennels behind. They brought pets to board. They brought strays to leave. They brought children and checkbooks and left with four extra legs and a tail. He never saw anyone come and stay.


  He wondered why that was. He thought it a shame that she spent her time alone, but that was because he was used to big hugs and running tackles and wrestling matches that became flailing piles of arms and legs and sisters and nieces and nephews.

  The Wolfsleys, as a rule, had no decorum.

  Of course, not everyone was as loose with their affection. Which was the biggest damn shame of all. As far as Joel was concerned, there wasn’t a man, a woman, a child alive who couldn’t use a fraction of the Wolfsleys’ whole.

  But most of all, he wondered why he never saw Willa with a man. She was a damn good-looking woman. Tall and fit, she rarely wore makeup—or at least none visible to his untrained male eye. Her skin was creamy and lightly freckled. He guessed that’s what he noticed most, that bit of copper dusting the bridge of her nose and cheekbones.

  Golden blond hair, shoulder-blade length, was always pulled back in a band, at least the strands she didn’t fight to keep tamed. Her blue eyes flashed, flirted, and gave him fits long after they’d talked at their respective mailboxes, or exchanged hellos across the line of brush and trees that ran the length of their joint property line.

  He thought too often about how her eyes would look in the dark, what it would be like to watch from above as they widened, fluttered, grew stormy and glazed. He thought of... other things as well. Things like watching her freckles flush, dampening her skin, replacing the cloth band at her nape with a ring of sweet sweat that soaked into his pillow.

  Joel groaned. Nice going, Wolf Man. Like sitting in this seat with a stiff leg wasn’t bad enough. He eased his thoughts from imagined specifics to safe generalities, eased his body into less of a bind. So what if Willa starred in his private thoughts?

  He wasn’t into nameless, faceless body parts, or slick magazine pages of available skin. He liked to put a name to his fantasies. His thoughts were just a natural progression, the way the wind of mutual flirtation blew.

  It wasn’t like he was a pervert, sitting naked on his deck in the dark, staring at the light in her windows, hoping to catch a glimpse while beating...