Chapter 10
Amy groaned in frustration the next morning when, despite doctor’s orders, she tried to put weight on her booted-foot. A sharp pain sliced through her toe, making her grateful she’d accepted Paige’s offer last night to tend Kallie today. Although Kallie could walk, she wasn’t sure how she’d manage the crutches and the toddler.
She had just kissed Kallie goodbye when Ben walked through the door. He smiled and gave a slight bow. “Your ride is here.”
“Wha— I’m fine... I can...” Why did she always stammer around him?
His eyebrows raised and he grinned.
Focusing, she tried again. “I’m perfectly capable of driving myself to work, thank you very much.”
“Seriously? You have a huge boot on your right foot and unless you’re ambidextrous, driving with your left is harder than you think.”
“You sound like you speak from experience.”
A tinge of pink filled Ben’s face. “I do.”
“You’re not going to elaborate?”
Ben turned away. “Nope.”
Paige laughed. “That’s because he’s embarrassed.”
Ben snatched up a pillow off the couch and threw it at Paige, causing her to laugh again, but neither of them explained.
Amy debated whether to press the issue but decided against it. She’d get Paige to tell her later. Instead, she glared at Ben.
“Hey, this is Robert’s idea, not mine. He wants to make sure his dispatcher arrives in one piece. No offense, but I’m more afraid of Robert than I am of you.”
Amy rolled her eyes and growled. She pointed one crutch at his chest. “Fine, but if you even so much as try to carry me, I’ll hit you over the head with this.”
Thankfully, the ride passed quickly, providing little opportunity for the electricity that had built between them last night to return. When they got to the office, Ben held the door open for her, then moved a chair from the foyer for her to prop her foot up on.
When it looked like he might linger and hover, she pointed at the door and smiled. “Thank you. Now, don’t you have to get to work?”
* * *
After sharingthe embarrassing story of how she fell off the fence and broke her toe, for the third time, Amy wanted to crawl in a hole. Of course, she’d left out the part about flirting with Jake.
During the few quiet moments she had to herself, Amy’s curiosity about Ben’s wife’s accident and his daughter’s disappearance piqued. She browsed the Internet and read every article she could find. The picture of the beautiful baby girl from the Young’s mantle, popped up again and again—the same picture she’d seen plastered everywhere last October.
Amy knew firsthand bad things happened all the time, but she’d had a hard time believing someone could be so callous as to walk away with Ben’s baby. Now, having met him and seen the depth of his pain, her heart hurt for him.
She came across a later article that mentioned the blue Suburban Robert mentioned. She didn’t remember hearing anything about it last October, but she’d problems of her own with Lance around the same time. That was when he’d started drinking heavily.
Reading about the accident and pondering on the negative turn of events her life took around the same time, put her in a bad mood. She tried to shake it but couldn’t. Not being able to move freely didn’t help.
She’d never been so eager to leave work as she was when Robert announced he’d be driving her home.
When he pulled into the Young’s driveway, he glanced toward Debbie’s house before getting out of his Tahoe. He followed close behind as she crutched her way to the house. Amy hated to admit that after her clumsiness yesterday, Robert was right to be concerned.
Amy hoped helping with dinner would provide the distraction she needed, but Hope refused to let her in the kitchen. “Go put your foot up.”
Wishing she could take Kallie for a walk, Amy took her out on the back patio instead to read stories. She hoped the fresh air would improve her mood.
Paige joined them after a few minutes. “I took Kallie for a walk to the park this morning. Then, after lunch, we made cookies.” Paige continued to talk about their day, then switched seamlessly to ramble on about college, and how strange she found it that Riley and Daniel were dating.
If Amy didn’t know better, she’d have thought Paige was Faith’s daughter. They were both so talkative. Could Riley and Paige have been switched at birth? Not likely, since she remembered Paige mentioning she was exactly one month older than Riley.
