Rachel’s eyes were as wide as his must have been. He took a breath to slow his pulse.
“I mean would it be okay if we keep my visits and the lessons you girls teach me to ourselves? Like secrets?” He glanced from one twin to the other and then focused on their mother, hoping she would get the message. If he and Rachel wanted to keep their collaboration quiet, they couldn’t have the girls making announcements at school.
“Right. Secrets,” Rachel said. “That’ll be fun, won’t it, girls?”
Though both of her daughters nodded, Carly squished up her face as though she wasn’t sure why keeping quiet about their repeat guest would be such a riot.
“Mommy, can we watch a show instead of books tonight?” Carly asked.
“It’s Friday night,” her twin added.
Rachel’s expression became the pinched one as she looked from the girls to the staircase.
“Just this one night, Mom,” Mick said in a low voice, grinning.
She pushed away from the table and stood. “Okay. But first I want you both to march upstairs, wash your faces, and get some clean pj’s. Bring the stained ones to me.”
The girls hurried from the room to follow her instructions. Rachel scooted around the table, scraping and piling plates with efficient movements. When she carried her stack through the doorway and to the sink, Mick grabbed glasses and followed her.
“They’ve probably already told at least their teachers that you came to our house,” she said as she turned on the faucet. “You’re the new fire chief. You’re a big deal. At least to them.”
There it was. The reminder that even if her daughters thought of him as a celebrity, Rachel would only see a usurper who stole her brother’s position. A job that had been technically available for the taking.
“Maybe they both forgot about yesterday?”
“Wouldn’t count on it.” She pointed to a place on the counter where he could set the glasses. “One of the girls’ preschool teachers told all the parents if we would believe just half of the stories our kids brought home about her, then she would buy into only that much of those they told her about us.”
“That doesn’t sound promising.”
“You didn’t answer my question before. Youhadto meet with Davison?” She watched him in her side vision. “Was it about the quote in theInformer?”
He rested his hands on his hips, but he couldn’t keep a straight face. “Was I the only one who didn’t recognize that talking to the press could get me in trouble around here?”
“You were just poking the powers that be. Maybe a few of them. With all the chaos at Station 1, you had to know that your superiors were watching you.”
“Too closely, if you ask me.”
As he lifted the plates she’d stacked, he stepped back and scanned the lower row of cabinets, finding only well-worn drawer pulls and door handles. “No dishwasher?”
“I see two.” She pointed to the counter for him to return the plates and then tossed him a towel. “So that’s it? You went to the trouble of coming here to tell me you got called to the principal’s office?”
She scrubbed a plate in the sudsy water, rinsed it and placed it in his towel-covered hand.
“Really, I just wanted to tell you something, and I thought I should do it in person.”
“What’s that?”
Mick chewed his lip but decided to stop stalling. “I think your theory might be right.”
The plate she’d been washing slipped from her fingers and under the suds. It clinked on the metal at the bottom of the sink. When Rachel slowly turned to him, Mick gave her the towel to dry her hands.
“What changed your mind? What did Kenny say?”
“Something about how more negative publicity could hurt the village’s Mount Bel Fest and that I wasn’t authorized to give statements, but it felt like there was more to it.”
Two lines formed between her brows. “Like what?”
“I would have thought that he’d be more—I don’t know—anxiousmaybe for police to make an arrest. He seemed to be more concerned with ensuring that I understood it wasn’t my investigation.”
