Читать книгу Another Man's Children - Christine Flynn, Christine Flynn, Mary J. Forbes - Страница 7

Lauren Edwards stood in the living room of her brother’s rambling log cabin, feeling completely out of place in her panty hose and business suit, and scanned the list her mother had left her.

She didn’t know if she should simply be concerned, or go straight for panic.

For the next week, she would be responsible for her niece and nephew while Sam, her brother, was at work. She adored Jenny and Jason. And she wanted very much to help her brother. She just hadn’t been around the toddlers that much. She hadn’t been around many children at all, for that matter, which was why she’d asked her mom to leave a checklist.

Dubiously eyeing item number two, “Keep out of reach anything that can be stuffed into a facial orifice,” she had to admit she hadn’t considered that their daily routine and the list of dos and don’ts would take up three full sheets of a legal-size pad.

Drawing a breath that brought the scent of burning pine from the stone fireplace behind her, she reached for the handle of her travel bag so she could change into something more comfortable. She was sure it was only because she was still in the process of shifting mental gears that the task ahead of her suddenly seemed so daunting. Only hours ago, she’d been in a meeting in Seattle trying to maintain polite professionalism when what she’d really wanted to do was grin like an idiot because she’d finally made the shortlist for a store of her own.

It was hardly a sure thing, and managing a Brenman’s department store wasn’t going to save a rain forest or cure the common cold, but she’d worked desperately for this promotion. For the past two years, she’d sacrificed evenings, weekends and her social life to prove that she could handle the responsibility—which was why now had not been a good time to tell Andrew Nye, her boss, that she needed to take time off. Andy, who happened to be in line for promotion to the new store Brenman’s was opening himself, lived, ate and breathed retailing. Anyone under him who expected to get anywhere in the company had to regard it as their sole reason for existence, too.

That was undoubtedly the other reason she was feeling less than certain at the moment. Abandoning ship an hour after being told she was in the running hardly made her look like a team player to those monitoring her performance. She could only hope that Andy would be up front with the rest of upper management and make it clear that she’d made arrangements last week to be gone, should anyone ask for her. A person couldn’t schedule family emergencies the way she could a vacation. And her family was in the middle of a crisis that had struck like the proverbial bolt from the blue.

Sam, her older, and only, sibling, had lost his wife in a car accident two weeks ago. It still seemed impossible to comprehend that Tina was gone. But there was no getting past the numbing fact that she was, and that she’d left behind a son, a daughter and a grieving husband. Until yesterday, Lauren and Sam’s mom had been taking care of the children, but Beth Edwards had a job of her own she’d had to return to. Since there was no one on Tina’s side who could help, it was now Lauren’s turn.

That was why she’d spent the last seventy-two hours doing a week’s worth of work before promising Andy and her floor managers that she would be available by telephone day or night and driving in the miserable January drizzle to the dock in Anacortes. From there, she and her car had taken the ferry to Harbor Island, Washington, two hours and a world away from nearly everything she knew as civilization, then driven the five miles from the charming seaport village of Harbor Cove to her brother’s secluded home on one of the island’s isolated inlets.

Her brother had once told her he couldn’t imagine ever living anywhere else, which proved just how different they were. They were both city-born and bred. But Sam had apparently inherited the genes of their pioneer ancestors, while her genetic makeup allowed complete adaptation to freeways and cell phones. Different or not, she loved Sam. He’d been her protector when they were growing up, her friend when they’d grown older, and the source of endless encouragement when her own world had fallen apart two years ago. Now, Sam was hurting in ways she could only imagine, and she would do whatever she could to make things easier for him.

Resolved to do her best for his sake, she dropped the list onto the coffee table. Unbuttoning her jacket, she headed for the hall, dragging her wheeled bag behind her. Three steps later, she turned around and picked the pad up again. She was a firm believer in lists and schedules and those sheets were the Holy Grail as far as she was concerned. She needed to keep them intact. That meant keeping them beyond the reach of little hands.

She’d set her instructions on the fireplace mantel beneath the huge wreath of colorful dried pods and flowers and had grabbed her travel bag once more when a heavy knock sounded on the front door.

With a faint frown for the timing, her hand fell from where she’d reached to pull the clip from the tight twist at the back of her head. The only thing her mother had asked of her was that she coax her brother into moving back to Seattle. The only thing her brother had specifically asked her to do was find him a permanent housekeeper and nanny. She thought it might help him if he were closer to family, too, but her coaxing could come later. Since she knew Sam would need more than the week she would be there to tie up his affairs on Harbor, she had placed an ad in the local paper and scheduled interviews days ago.

The first of the two ladies who’d responded wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another ten minutes. But Shenandoah Adams was obviously early.

Rebuttoning the jacket of her tailored black suit and smoothing the few strands of wheat-colored hair that had escaped their confines, Lauren hurried to the door before another knock could wake the baby.

The metal latch clinked as she pushed it in, cold air rushing inside as she pulled open the heavy door. The damp chill raised goose bumps on her skin, sent them racing down her back—and seemed to freeze her welcoming smile in place.

The person blocking her view of majestic fir trees and the sheltered inlet was definitely not the middle-aged, part-time yoga instructor and nanny she was expecting. As her glance moved up a row of buttons on a blue, plaid, flannel shirt, she found herself faced with six feet of obscenely attractive, dark-haired male in denim and a down vest.

His rich sable hair swept back from lean, chiseled features and covered the back of his collar. His cheekbones were high, his mouth firm and he looked more guarded than uncertain when the dark slashes of his eyebrows merged over eyes the same silver gray as the stormy sky.

“You’re Sam’s sister?”

His voice was low, deep, disturbing. The sound of it rumbled through her like the ominous approach of distant thunder as he swept an assessing glance from the sleek style of her hair to the tailored fit of the suit she never would have been able to afford if she’d had to pay retail.

She hadn’t a clue who this man was. But there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he had just mentally stripped her right down to her beige lace bra.

“I am,” she returned, unconsciously crossing her arms. Her brother was big and dark-haired and definitely the outdoor type. She was short, fair and definitely…not. Given those comparisons, she could understand why this man, big and looking like an outdoor type himself, might question the relationship.

Yet it wasn’t confusion or surprise she sensed in him. It seemed more like displeasure.

“And you’re…?” she cautiously prompted.

“Zach McKendrick.”

The sound of his name was as hard as he looked in the moments before his eyes narrowed on her protective stance. He seemed to realize he’d put her on the defensive. Suddenly looking as if that hadn’t been his intention, he forced the edge from his tone. “Sam said you were trading places with your mom for a while.”

“Zach….”

“Sam’s business partner.”

She knew that. The name anyway.

“Look,” he said, his brow tightening again as he glanced at his watch. “I’m in kind of a hurry. Is he here?”

“He went into town about ten minutes ago. To pick up Jason from preschool,” she explained, trying to be helpful. Impatience fairly leaked from his pores, but he was her brother’s partner, a man she knew to be his friend. “Do you want me to have him call you when he gets back?”

“I can’t wait for that. I need a manifest he took.” A muscle in his jaw twitched as his glance slid over her shoulder. “It’s probably in his den.”

There was no denying the tension filling his lean, powerful body as he waited for her to invite him in. It radiated from him in waves, restive, chafing, yet ruthlessly restrained.

Feeling his tension knot her stomach, totally disconcerted by the effect, she stepped back, as much to escape the unnerving sensation as to grant him entrance.

“Thanks,” he muttered and walked right past her.

Her brother’s living room was a large open space with overstuffed leather furniture, rustic pine end tables, braided rugs and a wall of male-fantasy-quality electronics that her sister-in-law had softened by blending the elements with knickknacks and books on the floor-to-ceiling shelves. Zach’s powerful strides had already carried him past the big-screen TV when she closed the heavy door. By the time she turned around to ask him what a manifest looked like so she could get it for him, he was heading into the hall.

Her first thought was to ask what he thought he was doing. Her second was that this was her brother’s house and, since Zach was his partner, she was hardly in a position to stop the man from going wherever he wanted to go. Especially since he seemed to know exactly where he was headed.

“Don’t wake the baby!” she hurriedly called to the back of his navy-blue vest.

Without breaking stride, he lifted one hand in acknowledgment and disappeared through the first doorway on his left.

Feeling steamrolled, Lauren stared into the empty space.

If anyone were to ask her what she thought of Zach McKendrick, she would be hard-pressed to come up with anything positive, much less anything complimentary. Considering that Sam and Tina had both spoken of him as if he were the salt of the earth, she couldn’t help but wonder what they saw that she was so obviously missing.

Blowing an uneasy breath, she turned from the empty hall. She didn’t really know much about the people in her brother’s life. Their worlds were both so busy and so different. But she remembered Sam and Tina mentioning Zach during holidays at their parents’ home, which were the only times the family had all been together in the last several years. Holidays at Mom and Dad’s were mandatory and nothing short of the Second Coming was considered excuse enough to miss them.

The exception was New Year. They didn’t usually spend that day together. Yet, they had the last one. And, then, there had been no celebration. They had all spent the dawn of the new year in Tacoma, because that was where Sam, Tina and the kids had been visiting her father when Tina had been killed by a speeding driver the day before New Year’s Eve. Because Tacoma had been her hometown, and because her mother was buried there, that was where Sam had insisted the services be held.

Lauren hadn’t seen Zach there, though. She remembered that her brother had talked to him several times on the phone, but his friend hadn’t attended the funeral. She would have remembered seeing him. No woman with a pulse would forget eyes like that.

The thoughts caught her smoothing the folded afghan draped over the arm of the butterscotch leather sofa. Ceasing her restless motions, she crossed her arms to keep from fidgeting. She didn’t want to wonder what had kept Zach away, especially when he could have flown himself in and out of town in a matter of hours. She didn’t want to think about how the bottom had been ripped out of Sam’s world. She especially didn’t want to consider how empty the house must feel to her brother without his wife’s vivacious laugh and bright, cheerleader smile. She just wanted to help.

At the moment, however, all she could do was wait for the man she could hear rummaging around her brother’s desk.

He was an ex-military test pilot. She had no idea why she remembered that just then, but the detail had impressed the heck out of their father when Sam had told him several years ago that he and Zach were going into business together. According to Sam, who rarely spoke in superlatives, Zach had retired from the military and was now the hands-down best bush pilot in the entire Northwest.

The man can set a float plane down in a puddle, her brother had claimed, and take off in winds strong enough to knot a plane’s wings.

Since Sam was a bush pilot himself, a job that had prematurely grayed their mother and probably his wife, that was undoubtedly high praise.

She had also heard that he was divorced. That, she’d learned from Tina because her sister-in-law had once mentioned how often Zach showed up for meals at their house. It had been Tina, too, who had mentioned that the man was like a brother to Sam, which, Lauren supposed, accounted for his familiarity with the house and his lack of hesitation entering it.

“It’s not in there.”

Lauren whirled around from where she stood by the sofa. It didn’t seem possible that a man his size could move so quietly, but she hadn’t heard a single board squeak when he’d walked back up the hall.

With his hands jammed on his lean hips, his wide brow furrowed, he scanned the toy-cluttered surfaces in the room. “Have you seen it?” he asked, not bothering to look at her before turning away to check the credenza behind him. “What I’m looking for is in a file. Manila. Eight-by-ten. There’s a green label on it that says To Be Shipped.”

“I haven’t seen anything like that. Why is this so important?” she asked, leaning down to check through the stack of newspapers, magazines and children’s books on the coffee table. She was more than willing to help. The sooner he found what he was looking for, the sooner he would leave.

“Because we have a pilot who can’t take off without it. We’re losing money every hour that plane sits on the ground.”

His hurried search of the credenza proved fruitless. Though he didn’t swear, he looked as if he were about to when he turned to the kitchen to check the table and counters in there.

“I can’t figure out why he even took it with him,” he muttered, stepping through the doorway. “The man isn’t paying attention to anything he’s doing anymore.”

Lauren’s spine snapped straight. He was talking to himself. Not her. But she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “I would imagine that if Sam is preoccupied it’s because he just lost his wife.”

The sound of movement in the kitchen came to an abrupt halt. In the sudden quiet, she heard nothing but the rattle of a loose vent as the furnace kicked on and the methodical tick of the antique grandfather clock guarding the wall beside the front door. Her heart bumped to that heavy rhythm as Zach’s imposing frame filled the kitchen doorway.

He stood like a dark sentinel, unmoving, ready to challenge. “There is no one more aware of that than I am,” he informed her tightly. “And his preoccupation is only getting worse, which isn’t helping any of us right now.”

“Isn’t it us who should be helping him?”

The quicksilver gray of his eyes turned chill. “I’m doing what I can,” he informed her, his tone heavy with restraint. “I’ve covered for him as much as I can. But I’m not in a position to cut him any more slack.” His voice dropped like a rock in a well. “Until he gets himself together, I’m going to have to ground him.”

Lauren stared in disbelief when he left her standing there to resume his search of the kitchen. She knew that the only things holding Sam together right now were his children and his job. Sam loved to fly. He lived for it. It was all he’d wanted to do since he was five years old. She didn’t understand his obsession at all, but she didn’t have to understand it to know how much of an escape it could offer. No one knew better than she did how pain could be anesthetized by the demands of work. And she was unable to imagine how her brother would cope if his arrogant, insensitive, stone-for-a-heart partner denied him the lifeline his work provided.

The heavy ache in her chest was for her brother as she headed through the kitchen doorway. The pressure behind it was caused purely by the man who’d just managed to push every protective button she possessed.

“I was under the impression you were his friend.”

He stood with his back to her at the white-tiled counter bisecting the high-beamed room. Beyond the counter, the small family room was occupied by an old pot-bellied stove, a round oak dining table, a high chair and a playpen. The side with the modern electric range was bright with hanging copper pots, yellow curtains and Jason’s artwork papering the fridge.

All she really noticed when Zach turned was that he had the nerve to look insulted.

“I am his friend.”

“It doesn’t sound like it.”

His eyebrow hitched. “Do you want to explain that?”

“If you were a friend,” she told him, more than ready to comply, “you’d be more concerned with how difficult things are for Sam right now than with how his preoccupation is affecting business. You’d be trying to make things easier. Not take away all he has left.” She understood corporate concerns. She also understood that things happened to people and that temporary adjustments had to be made for their circumstances. Even Andy, who often acted as if compassion were spelled with four letters, grasped that concept. Mostly, she understood that a friend did what he could to help. Not hurt. “You might not care about anything but planes and profits, but Tina was everything to my brother.”

Something dangerous washed over Zach’s carved features as he took a step closer to where she’d stopped near the middle of the polished pine floor. He took two more, forcing her to either tip her head back to see his face or retreat.

Every instinct in her body screamed for her to back up. Years of having to claw to stay in place allowed her to hold her ground.

“How do you know what I care about?” His voice was deceptively calm, dangerously so. “How could you possibly have any idea how I feel about anything? We’ve never even talked to each other before.”

The line of his jaw was as sharp as a blade, the cut of his mouth blatantly sensual. She was aware of the heat and tension radiating from his body, the fresh air in his clothes, and the scent of something spicy and decidedly male clinging to his skin. Mostly, she was conscious of the bold male confidence that had allowed him to step uninvited into her space.

Everything about him seemed to taunt, unnerve or disturb her, but she was too concerned about his heartless attitude toward her brother to worry about how easily he overrode the air of calm control she managed to present to the rest of the world.

Her voice low in deference to the child sleeping three doors down the hall, she purposefully ignored the trip-hammer beat of her pulse. “I don’t need to have talked to you before to know what…or who…you care about. I believe you just made it obvious.”

“The only thing obvious is that one of us has no idea what’s going on here.”

“And that would be you.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched.

In response, Lauren felt her stomach knot. She couldn’t believe she was challenging this stranger. He was ex-military, a jet jockey—a test pilot, she reminded herself, thinking his old occupation spoke volumes about the sort of man he was. He had actually strapped himself into what amounted to an untried, controlled explosion and blasted himself through the atmosphere at speeds that broke barriers she couldn’t begin to fathom. A man like that would have to be utterly confident, disciplined, fearless.

Totally insane, too, in her admittedly unadventurous estimation.

He would also have to believe that he would always come out on top.

That thought threatened to have her add a couple of inches to the charged space separating them. Confrontation wasn’t her style at all. If anything, she was known among the people who worked under her for her coolness under fire, her fairness, her tact. But she didn’t get a chance to wonder at how swiftly this man had stripped her sense of diplomacy. She didn’t have the opportunity to see if he would attempt to defend himself, either—not that she could imagine any possible, plausible reason for him being such a jerk. The soft knock on the front door had her spinning on her heel to answer it.

Zach was right behind her, his footfall unhurried, deliberate. The hair on her neck prickled with the feel of his eyes boring into the back of her head.

She had no idea how badly she was shaking until she reached for the hammered iron latch—and felt Zach’s hand close over her fingers.

The hard wall of his chest brushed her shoulder. With his broad palm covering the back of her hand, his heat searing a path up her arm, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he could feel her trembling.

“I have my reasons for grounding your brother,” he growled, his breath fluttering the fine hair at the top of her head. “And you don’t know me. You don’t know me at all.”

Moving her hand, he reached for the latch himself.

“I’ll wait for your brother outside.”

She had taken a step back the moment he’d let her go. As she took another, desperate for the distance, her glance darted up and caught on the silvery and striated scar that covered the entire side of his neck.

The disfiguring injury hadn’t been noticeable to her at all when he’d faced her. From the side, it was impossible to miss. The pale, slick-looking skin ran from under his jaw to below the buttoned collar of his shirt and behind the length of his thick dark hair.

The thought that only chemicals or fire could cause scarring so severe had her wincing when he pulled open the door. Catching her expression, his own went as cool as the air that rushed inside before he sidestepped the startled woman backing up so he could pass.

The muffled “Hi” he offered the lady sounded impossibly civil.

“Hi, yourself,” the waiflike woman replied to his retreating back. Pushing off the hood of her beautifully woven turquoise cape, she watched him take the stairs from the log-railed porch in two strides and jog through the rain to the black truck parked by her pea-green Volkswagen bus.

The nerves in Lauren’s stomach were quivering as she forced her attention from the man who still had her caller staring after him.

“Ms. Adams?”

The woman turned with an inquisitive smile. Her long straight hair was parted in the middle, six inches of gray at the roots and dishwater-blond at the ends. A peace symbol, which Lauren assumed to be an antique, hung around her neck.

“It’s Shenandoah. Like the river,” she explained, her smile fading to skepticism as she eyed Lauren’s suit and heels.

The unexpected had just collided with the unforeseen. Taking a stabilizing breath, Lauren smiled politely and asked her to come in.

From behind the wheel of his truck, Zach watched Sam’s sister give him a cautious glance before she ushered the aging flower child inside. She looked as wary of him as Tina had of the bear he and Sam had found foraging in her garden last summer. Sam’s wife had never much cared for the local wildlife.

It was as obvious as the rain beating on his windshield that Sam’s sister felt pretty much the same about him.

They were even. He wasn’t crazy about her, either.

Blowing a breath, he dragged his hand over his face and sank back in the seat. He couldn’t believe how frustrated he felt. Or how he’d just acted with Sam’s little sister. The frustration he could deal with. Lauren Edwards was another matter entirely. With a schedule that was falling further behind by the hour and more worried than he was used to being about the partner he couldn’t count on for much of anything right now, he had no patience at all for her judgmental attitude.

Or her presence.

He knew Sam’s family wanted him to move back to Seattle. His mother had mentioned it a half a dozen times while she’d been there. Sam had said his mom had even asked if he wanted her to pack some of his things and take them back with her. His sister, Sam had also told him, had offered to find him a place in the city if he didn’t feel like looking himself.

Zach knew Sam understood his family’s concerns about him. But Sam had also confided that he had no idea what he wanted to do, and that the last thing he did want right now was to have to make a major decision. Any decision for that matter. Just getting out of bed in the morning was hard enough.

Zach was infinitely familiar with the numb, almost paralyzed state the mind slipped into to protect itself from feeling too much. He also knew that his friend would have to deal with his family and the changes that were taking place in his life whether he liked the idea or not.

Sam’s sister’s insistence to the contrary, he truly was trying to help her brother. In the meantime, he was having to deal with the ripple effects of Tina’s death himself. That loss affected nearly everything he’d managed to build over the past five years.

With the grim determination that had always served him well, he reminded himself that change was inevitable—and that the Fates hadn’t broken him yet.

It did seem, though, that they wanted to give it another shot. It was entirely possible that his friend could move for the sake of his children. If he did, Zach would lose his business partner.

More disturbing than that, he would lose the closest thing he had here to family.

The thoughts did nothing to ease the tension crawling through him. He needed to move, to pace, but he had no desire to get out of the truck and get drenched. Instead, he worked at a knot in his shoulder and checked the rearview mirror for signs of Sam.

Seeing nothing but the silver drizzle that turned the forest of spruce, hemlock and pine a hazy shade of blue, he glanced toward the rambling log cabin with its wraparound porch and winter-bare window boxes.

There was something more bothering him. Something about Sam’s little sister that added a different sort of frustration to those he was already dealing with.

She had been judgmental. And she clearly hadn’t a clue why her brother’s behavior demanded that he be relieved of certain responsibilities. But those weren’t the only things about her that set him on edge.

She was undeniably attractive. Beautiful, he conceded, recalling the cameo-like delicacy of her face. There was also a polished look about her that screamed high-maintenance. Pretty to look at. Cold to hold. Still, there’d been no mistaking the heat that had jolted through him when he’d met her clear blue eyes, or when he breathed in the fresh, springlike scent clinging to her sun-shot hair. Her skin had felt like satin to him, soft, warm, and before he’d pulled back his hand, he could have sworn she was trembling.

He’d also caught the way she’d flinched when she’d noticed his neck.

He was accustomed to the reaction by now, though some people were less obvious about it than others. What was visible, though, was nothing compared to what wasn’t—which was one of the reasons it had been longer than he cared to remember since he’d held a woman, and why he devoted more hours than he could count to running along the windswept beach below his house, and to rebuilding an old fighter plane that was as battered and scarred as he was.

He dealt with his frustrations as best he could and didn’t look for anything more than he already had. He didn’t want anything in his life that would change the status quo. He’d finally found a degree of contentment living and working in this wildly beautiful place, and that fragile peace was already feeling threatened enough.

The deep-throated hum of a Chevy Suburban had him jerking around in his seat.

Jamming down all of his frustrations for the sake of his friend, he plastered on as affable a smile as he could manage and climbed out into the rain.