“He’s kind of young for coffee, isn’t he?”

Mac shot him a withering look.

Joe checked his watch. “Yeah, I’ve got some time. My first run isn’t until eight.” He hollered for someone to take over for him and walked with Mac and Thomas up the hill to the South Harbor Diner. When Mac walked in with Thomas in his arms, everything came to a halt in the small restaurant, and every eye in the room landed on him.

“Morning, everyone,” Mac said.

Murmured greetings followed as Mac and Joe slid into a booth.

“Jeez, man, you’ve got the whole town buzzing,” Joe said.

“Apparently.”

Mac told Joe about what’d happened since yesterday while sharing tiny bites of his corn muffin with Thomas. If the boy’s bouncing antics were any indication, he loved the treat. Before long, the muffin was a pulverized mess of crumbs that Mac scrambled to contain. The kid moved fast!

“You know what people say about her, don’t you?” Joe asked tentatively after hearing Mac’s story.

“It’s not true, Joe.” He told his friend what Darren Tuttle and the other boys, including Evan, had done to her.

Joe swore under his breath. “God, that’s horrible.” He leveled a steady look at Mac across the table. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Mac appreciated that his old friend knew him so well. “Haven’t decided yet. But I plan to have a chat with my brother. Soon.”

“Tuttle owns an auto body shop out on Sunflower Road.”

“Good to know.”

“He’s still as much of a jerk as he was in school.”

“Also good to know.”

“That’s one cute baby,” Joe said a bit wistfully.

“He really is.”

“You’re getting kind of involved here, huh?”

“I think maybe I am.” It still amazed Mac to realize all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. “There’s something about her that just gets to me. I can’t explain it.”

Joe shrugged. “Happens to the best of us.”

Mac knew he was referring to his feelings for Janey. After spending time with Maddie, he had a new appreciation for what it would be like to want someone who didn’t return the sentiment. That thought struck a chord of fear in Mac. Suddenly, he needed to get back to her. He needed to see her, to reassure himself that what they’d shared during the long night had started them down a path toward something important.

“I need to get Thomas back to his mom,” Mac said, tossing some bills on the table. “Give me a ring when you have time to kill.”

Joe raised an eyebrow as his lips quirked with amusement. “Sticking around for a while, are you?”

Mac glanced down at Thomas and then back at Joe. “Looks that way.”

Tingling breasts woke Maddie. Shifting in the bed, she moaned when her knee and elbow protested the movement. Her injuries hurt more this morning than they had the day before, if that was possible. Ignoring the sharp blast of pain from her knee, she got up too fast and hobbled into Thomas’s room. His crib was empty.