Assumed Identity(27)
Shirley wiped her hands on her smock and exited through the swinging doors while Robin pulled up the Vanderhams’ order on her computer screen. Emma shifted in the sling, blowing bubbles through her tiny bowed lips and drawing Robin’s attention down to the contented baby smiling up at her. “You’re such a good girl,” she praised, adding baby talk sound effects that made Emma gurgle and squiggle even more. Robin wiped the bubbles from her baby’s lips and pressed a kiss to her velvety brown hair. “Did you want to get into your swing to see the world? It’s not fair that you got seven hours of sleep while Mommy only got two.” Emma started suckling on Robin’s finger and she nearly forgot about everyone else in the shop. “Ready for an afternoon snack, are we?”
The bell hanging over the front door jingled. Reluctantly, Robin pulled her attention away from Emma to greet the new customer.
Her one-time beau—the man she’d bought this very shop from after his company had renovated the building—Brian Elliott, walked in, circled the counter, kissed her cheek and wrapped her in a hug. Instinctively, Robin’s arms curled around Emma, protecting her from being crushed between them. “Oh, God, sweetheart, are you okay?”
She took note of his expensive cologne and the concern that lined his dark eyes. “I’m fine, Brian,” she reassured him, reaching one arm around his crisp gabardine suit to pat his back. “Just a few bruises.”
“That sick man was lying in wait for you? You should have called me as soon as this happened,” he insisted.
“In the middle of the night?”
“You know I still care about you.”
“There’s nothing you could have done. The police came. I answered their questions. Then we went across the street and spent the night at Hope’s.”
She left out the juicy bits about someone toppling Emma’s car seat, strangers watching her shop and a ghost saving the day and rousing an unfamiliar, dangerously potent desire inside her.
Unlike her bland “nope, nothing” firing anywhere in her system in response to Brian’s hug.
If the initial embrace had been awkward, the end of it was even more so. Brian must have realized how she shielded the baby between them and he sucked in his stomach and arched his back, breaking contact with Emma before he pulled his arms from Robin. He plucked the front edge of the sling between his thumb and forefinger and pulled it up around Emma, even as she buzzed her lips and reached for one of the buttons on his jacket. “Should she be here?”
Ah, yes. One of the reasons they’d broken up—Brian’s aversion to starting a family.
Robin reached inside the sling to let Emma’s delicate, grasping fingers grab hold of one of hers, silently apologizing for the rejection. Brian was a wealthy workaholic. That he’d taken time out of his busy schedule to pay her a visit was his way of saying he still cared. Too bad that caring didn’t extend to her daughter. “What are you doing here, Brian?”
He unrolled the newspaper he clutched in his hand and slapped it on the counter. “I came as soon as I read this. I’m disgusted with Knight’s coverage of the task force investigation. Pure publicity stunt if you ask me. At least the Journal had the decency not to run any pictures.” He reached out to touch the scrape along her jaw and she quickly averted her head to avoid the contact.
“Not very flattering, is it?” Robin had seen the small headline near the bottom of the front page. Local Woman Survives Assault. It was weird to see herself and the events of last night described in such impersonal detail. She’d read the short article over coffee with Hope this morning, and had cringed at seeing her name linked to a possible attack by the Rose Red Rapist. And even though they hadn’t mentioned Emma by name, she’d already put in a call to the paper complaining about the reporter’s emphasis on her being a single mother and how her child could have been left abandoned to the elements by a criminal with no moral regard for the minor’s safety. The only positive was Gabriel Knight’s mention of the Ghost Rescuer who’d come to her assistance and how the man should be decorated for his bravery.
“He said you were beaten. You could have died.”
“Mr. Knight made it sound worse than it was,” Robin lied, trying to placate the concern that steeled Brian’s handsome features and snagged the Vanderhams’ interest.
“You should let me hire security for this place,” Brian offered.
“Why? This is my shop, not yours. Whatever happens here is my responsibility.”