A Mother's Wish by Debbie Macomber

am,” Steve assured them. He made an effort to sound vaguely amused by the whole situation. He lowered one arm and started to move his hand toward his back pocket.
    “Keep your hands up where I can see them,” the older cop snapped.
    “What’s going on?” The voice drifted down from the upstairs area of the house. A sweetly feminine, slightly groggy voice.
    Steve glanced up, and to his great relief saw Meg’s face framed in the second-floor window.
    “Meg,” Steve shouted, grateful that she’d finally heard the commotion. “Tell these men who I am, so they can put their weapons away.”
    “Steve?” she cried, shocked. “What are you doing at my house?”
    “Do you know this man?” the cop asked, tilting his head back and shouting up at Meg.
    “Ma’am, would you mind stepping outside?” the second officer asked. He mumbled something Steve couldn’t hear under his breath.
    “I’ll be right down,” Meg told them, and Steve watched her turn away from the window.
    “Have you been sneaking around seeing my mother?”
    “Lindsey, it’s not like it seems,” Steve said, experiencing a twinge of guilt at the way he’d misled the girl. He’d planned to talk to Meg’s daughter soon, but he hadn’t intended to do it in front of the police.
    “I’d be more interested to find out why he has your mother’s purse, if I were you,” the second teenager said.
    “I already know why he’s got Mom’s purse,” Lindsey said loudly. “He stole it.”
    “No, I didn’t!” Steve rolled his eyes. “I was trying to return it.”
    “You have my purse?” This was from Meg. “Oh, hello, Mr. Robinson. Hi, Wolf. I think everything’s under control here.” Man and dog went back inside a moment later.
    “My purse!” she said again.
    Steve relaxed and lowered his arms. “You left it in my car,” he said.
    “Thank goodness you found it.” Meg, at least, displayed the appropriate amount of appreciation. “I didn’t know when I’d get it back.”
    Now that the flashlight wasn’t blinding him and the officers had returned the guns to their holsters, Steve saw Meg for the first time. In fact, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She’d thrown a flimsy cotton robe over her babydoll pajamas but despite that, they revealed a length ofsleek, smooth thigh whenever she moved. The top was low-cut and the robe gaped open and … Meg grabbed the lapels and held them together with both hands. It didn’t help much.
    Steve was afraid he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Meg’s attire. Both officers looked approvingly in her direction. Steve was about to ask the younger of the two to wipe the grin off his face, but he held his breath and counted backward from ten.
    He got to five. “Lindsey, go get your mother a coat.”
    “I don’t have to take orders from you,” the girl snapped.
    Meg blinked and seemed to realize that despite the robe, such as it was, her nightwear left little to the imagination.
    In an apparent effort to deflect a shouting match, one officer asked Lindsey a few questions, while the other engaged Steve and Meg in conversation.
    “You know this man?” he asked Meg.
    “Yes, of course. His name’s Steve Conlan.”
    “Steve Conlan.” The officer made note of it on a small pad. “That’s what he said earlier.”
    Steve pulled out his wallet and flipped it open, silently thrusting it out. The cop glanced at it and nodded.
    “He didn’t steal my purse, either,” Meg went on.
    Steve cast the other man an I-told-you-so look, but said nothing.
    “You went out with Steve behind my back?” Lindseycried, peering around the second policeman. Her eyes narrowed. “I can’t
believe
you’d do something like that—after our talk and everything.”
    Meg cast her a guilty look. “We’ll discuss this later.”
    But Lindsey wasn’t going to be so easily dissuaded. “After our talk, I really, really thought I was getting through to you. Now I see how wrong I was.”
    “If you’d give me a chance