Читать книгу For His Son's Sake - Ellen Tanner Marsh - Страница 8

Love at first sight. If anyone had told Kenzie Daniels that it was about to happen to her she would have hooted with laughter.

Two people who’d never met before didn’t just take one look at each other and go all soft inside. Outside of the movies it didn’t happen like that. Not with a total stranger, not coming face-to-face in the middle of nowhere—and certainly not if the other person happened to be a seven-year-old boy.

But that’s exactly what happened, and in a place Kenzie would never have expected: on the beach not far from her house, while lying on a towel reading a magazine.

She’d been up most of the night before drawing—as an artist you worked when your muse was awake—so this morning she’d gone out after breakfast to lounge in the sun before heading to the grocery store to do her weekly shopping.

Crossing the dunes by way of the boardwalk, she spread her towel in the sand. The tide was low and the waves washed lazily onshore. One of the things Kenzie loved about the beaches that made up Cape Hatteras National Seashore was the fact that they were rarely crowded. This time of morning only a few anglers stood casting their rods into the shore break while a group of teenagers waxed up their surfboards nearby.

Of course, in a few hours families would come spilling from the houses lining the dunes behind her, loaded down with beach chairs, umbrellas and toys. After all, July was peak season on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and every town from Nags Head south to Buxton, where Kenzie lived, was crowded with vacationers.

But the sheer length of the Outer Banks’ shoreline meant that there was always plenty of room for everyone. And for the time being few people were around to disturb the peaceful morning hours.

Taking off her shirt to expose the slim, one-piece swimsuit underneath, Kenzie rubbed on sunscreen, then stretched out on her back and reached for her copy of Newsweek. Already she could feel the tension in her neck and shoulders seeping away. She’d spent too long hunched over the drawing board again, but inspiration had struck just before bedtime and she now had two good drawings to show for the sleepless night.

How long had she worked anyway? At least until three o’clock. She grimaced ruefully, picturing her mother nagging her for keeping such hours. Good thing she wasn’t living at home anymore. And good thing she hadn’t heeded her mother’s advice by advertising for a roommate. This way she could burn the midnight oil as long as she wished, play the music as loud as she wanted, never worry that she was running afoul of someone else’s privacy, feelings or sleeping habits.

You were wrong, Mother. You, too, Brent. Living alone definitely has its advantages.

So did the fact that she and Brent hadn’t gotten married the way they’d planned.

Had that been the case, “I’d have gone out of my mind by now,” Kenzie muttered aloud. Better to be an artist out here on the isolated cape than surrounded by the people, the press, the staff and obligations that went with marrying someone like senator-to-be Brent Ellis.

Brent was definitely running for the senate this year, because her mother had told her as much the last time she’d called. Grinning, Kenzie tried to imagine herself as a senator’s wife but couldn’t. In fact, the only thing she knew for sure was that she would have made a lousy one. Not that she wasn’t well schooled in the ways that Washington’s political wheels turned. Heck, she’d practically come of age at Republican party fund-raisers and embassy receptions.

But she had never embraced the lifestyle her parents preferred, the one that Brent, now that he’d been made a full partner in her father’s prestigious law firm, intended to claim as his birthright. Lord knows she wasn’t cut out to play the obliging Washington hostess at his behest. To stand loyally at Brent’s side while he climbed the political ladder toward—what? A bid for the presidency somewhere down the road?

A vision of herself as First Lady made Kenzie snicker aloud. And at the same time wince, remembering a presidential campaign that she alone had brought to ruin a little more than a year ago.

Her heart cramped. No. No way she was going there with her thoughts right now. She’d promised herself during those awful days when the fallout was just beginning that she wasn’t going to dwell on something she couldn’t change, that she wouldn’t have changed even if she’d known in advance about the storm of controversy she was unleashing over her family’s heads.

As for her father…

“That’s enough, Kenzie!” No way was she going to let thoughts of her father screw up her morning off. Or drive her to talk aloud to herself the way little old ladies did when they’d been living alone too long.

She sighed deeply. Forced herself to relax.

At the moment she wanted nothing more than to lie here soaking up rays. Take a nap. Be left alone like Greta Garbo in—

“Look out!”

The warning yell came from right behind her. Startled, Kenzie lifted her head. A sharp, crackling sound came from high above, and in the next second something big and billowy fluttered down on top of her.

“Hey!” Kenzie flailed at the colorful nylon streamers tangled around her legs, at the brilliant green body of the kite that had crash-landed barely an inch from her head.

“Oh, no! I’m sorry! Are you all right?”

The kite’s owner was running toward her, rolling up the string as he went. A boy of no more than seven in bathing trunks that reached to his knees. “I’m only just learning. Did it hit you?”

Kenzie looked up into his face, preparing to give him an irritable lecture. But that was before she saw that his eyes were bright blue and his hair a thatch of black curls. He was chewing his lip apprehensively, but when their gazes met he grinned at her shyly. Dimples appeared in his cheeks, and his freckled, upturned nose crinkled charmingly.

Instantly, stupidly, Kenzie felt something inside of her melt. No doubt about it, the word cute had been invented for this little guy.

“No harm done. It barely touched me.”

“I thought for sure it was going to hit you on the head. I’m ever so relieved it didn’t.”

Not only was he cute, but she’d just noticed he had an accent. That, and his choice of words made him adorably grown-up and sophisticated sounding. Was he English?

Kenzie smiled at him. “I’m fine. Really.”

His grin widened in response, revealing a missing front tooth. “My name’s Angus. What’s yours?”

Angus. Even his name was adorable. She resisted the urge to tousle his curly black hair. “Kenzie.”

His brows drew together. “What sort of name is that?”

“Short for MacKenzie.”

He beamed. “Oh, that’s a proper Scottish name!”

She laughed. “Glad you approve.”

“I’m Scottish, too. At least my grandfather was. I was born in Norfolk.”

“Not the one in Virginia, I assume.”

He nodded approvingly. “Do you know where my Norfolk is?”

“That would be in East Anglia. Somewhere north of London, I think.”

Angus’s dimples deepened. “Not many Americans know that.”

Kenzie felt both flattered and amused by his obvious admiration. “Lucky for me I’ve traveled a bit. Are you renting a house in Avon, Angus?”

He pointed over his shoulder. “We’re staying in that one there.”

The rooftops of several beachfront cottages were visible over the dunes, but Kenzie didn’t bother turning to look. They were all pretty much alike: sturdy wooden dwellings built high off the ground to withstand the flood tides and storms that frequently lashed the Outer Banks.

Angus untangled the kite’s tail and picked it up from her towel. Kenzie saw that it was nearly as big as he was. “First time piloting one of those?”

Angus looked sheepish. “It’s hard to steer.”

“Piece of cake once it’s aloft. The trick is getting it airborne.”

“Do you know how?”

“Um, it’s been a while….”

The dimples reappeared, dazzling her. “Oh, please, could you show me?”

She glanced back toward the houses. “Your folks won’t mind you spending all this time out here alone?”

“My dad said I could come down, as long as I didn’t go in the water. Please, Kenzie?”

How could she refuse? “Hand me the string. Let’s give it a try.”

Ross Calder closed the cover of his laptop with a snap. Annoyed, he sat back on the couch, running his hands through his hair. While the Internet certainly made it possible to stay on top of his work while on vacation, it wasn’t the same as being at the office. Meeting clients face-to-face. Engaging in the dialogue with colleagues so important to an attorney with too many cases on his hands.

Lousy time to take a couple of weeks off, what with the Fitzpatrick trial rescheduled for early August, in addition to a thousand other, equally important cases and meetings and tiresome loose ends.

Growling, he set the computer aside and crossed to the glass doors opening onto the back deck of the house. Why not phone in? Ask Delia if she would—

His thoughts skidded to a halt. No way. Delia had reminded him emphatically just before he left Friday afternoon that she wasn’t going to take a single one of his calls until Thursday at least. That she would not return his e-mails, no matter how much he hounded her to respond. And she’d instructed everybody else on staff to do the same.

“It’s for your own good, Ross,” she’d said in her sweetly maternal way—the old busybody. “I insist you take at least five full days to unwind. Naturally I’d rather you didn’t pester us for the entire fortnight you’ll be gone, but I’m well aware it’s the only way to reach a compromise. Please, Ross. It’s the first vacation you’ve taken in six years.”

Her voice had softened and she’d laid her hand on his arm, ignoring his scowl and the rigid muscles beneath her fingers. She’d been his business manager for more than five years now and had stayed with him when he’d left his old firm. And she was as adamant about overseeing his mental health and well-being as she was the running of his office. “You need to have some time with your son.”

Sliding back the glass door, Ross wandered onto the deck. Propping his hands on the railing, he stared out across the ocean. Delia was right. He had his son to think of now.

His son. As usual, the words caused an icy chill to settle around his heart. As usual, they brought to mind other, scornful words not intended to hurt but doing so anyway: “What on earth makes you think you know how to raise a seven-year-old?”

“I can figure it out,” Ross had responded stubbornly.

“How?” his brother, Alex, had shot back, furious. “Using who as a role model? Not our father, I hope!”

Ross deliberately pushed his brother’s words to the dimmest recesses of his mind, back where all the memories of his father were stored and rarely, if ever, taken out. Poor Alex was six years older than he was, which was why he had a lot more memories of the father who had abandoned them and their mother when Ross was only three. Ross’s memories were vague and few in number. And unlike Alex’s, they didn’t have the power to wound.

His thoughts turned again to Angus, the boy Alex so adamantly insisted he wasn’t qualified to raise. Angus was the one who had begged Ross to take him on this trip, the one who’d chosen to come here to Hatteras Island before the new school year started.

Not Hatteras Island, specifically. Anywhere on the Atlantic seaboard would have been fine with the boy. Born in England, a country literally surrounded by water, he’d never even seen the ocean before.

Or his father, for that matter, until April of this year.

There was that rock-hard lump in Ross’s chest again. A knot of frustration and worry—okay, maybe downright fear—whenever he thought of his new responsibility. This boy he had inherited upon his ex-wife’s death only four short months ago—a boy he hadn’t known existed until just a few, short months before. Penelope had been killed in a plane crash. Once again his throat tightened with the guilt and anger he hadn’t quite come to terms with yet. The anger he’d felt at Penelope for keeping Angus a secret from him—and his guilt for having been a complete stranger to the boy until now.

Ross’s eyes blazed. Not a boy, damn it, his son. They’d been together for weeks now—why couldn’t he learn to think of Angus as his?

And you didn’t inherit a kid, for crying out loud. He’d had a darned important part in Angus’s creation, after all, even though he hadn’t played a single role in the boy’s life afterward. The important thing to remember was that he was now Angus Calder’s legal guardian. His father.

Ross unclenched his jaw. Forced himself to let go of the knot in his chest. Over the dunes he could hear the breakers crashing. Angus was down there somewhere flying his kite.

Maybe he should join him. Suggest a walk on the beach or something. Only, Ross wasn’t fond of the beach. Born and raised in upstate New York, he preferred the freshwater streams and lakes of New England to the salty sea.

But Angus was another story when it came to the ocean. From the moment he’d seen the Atlantic from the airplane window on his way to America he’d wanted nothing more than to set foot in it.

But a weekend trip to Long Island or the Jersey shore wasn’t what he’d had in mind. Instead he’d fetched the atlas from Ross’s library and traced his finger down the coast south along Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, sounding out the different names of seaside towns until he hit Norfolk.

“Look! That’s where I’m from!” he’d said excitedly, as if Ross didn’t know. Then, in the next moment, the North Carolina town of Nags Head had caught his eye.

“Why d’you suppose they call it that?”

It was the first unsolicited question he’d ever directed at his father.

The explanation Ross had uncovered for him had lit the boy’s eyes with excitement. Not for a minute did Ross himself believe the tale of North Carolina pirates hanging a lantern around the neck of a nag and walking the dunes in the dark trying to make ships run aground so they could plunder them.

But Angus did. And of course he wanted to see the place for himself. Fortunately for him, he’d made the request in Delia’s presence—they’d stopped by the office after eating lunch together—and an hour later a ream of colorful pages, downloaded and printed from the Internet, had appeared on Ross’s desk.

One look at the points of local interest had convinced Ross that Nags Head, North Carolina, was too crammed with mini-golf, pizza parlors and outlet malls for his tastes. Undaunted, Delia had gone back to her computer and brought him another set of downloaded images, this time of Cape Hatteras National Seashore on Hatteras Island, with its miles of empty beaches and dark green water.

Angus and Ross had arrived the day before yesterday, flying into Norfolk, Virginia, and renting a car for the two-hour drive south to Avon. Angus had been on the beach practically every waking moment since.

And Ross couldn’t deny that it was doing the boy—his son—a world of good.

Where the heck was the kid anyway? Ross checked his watch. Quarter to ten. He’d told Angus to stay no longer than twenty minutes, and he’d left the house at nine. Scowling, he descended the steps and headed for the boardwalk that crossed the dunes.

At least Angus had kept his word about staying out of the water. Relieved, Ross spotted him right away sitting in the sand on the other side of the boardwalk steps, looking up at the sky and laughing.

Ross tipped back his head. The kite they’d bought yesterday was dipping and curving in the deep blue of the sky above.

But Angus didn’t have hold of the strings. Who did?

“Here you go, sport. Your turn.”

A woman was walking toward his son, reeling in the kite string. She was wearing sunglasses and a navy-blue one-piece bathing suit. Shoulder-length blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail that swung below her sun-browned shoulders.

Ross stopped in his tracks. He’d made a point of shying away from serious relationships since he and his former wife, Penelope, had parted ways—and not on the best of terms. Heck, he’d made a point of shying away from women altogether, but this woman wasn’t the kind any red-blooded male could ignore. With tanned legs that seemed to go on forever and curves in just the right places, she had the knockout good looks that could set any man’s pulses racing. But it was more than sex appeal. There was something about her, in the way she was smiling at Angus, in the way she tossed her head and set her ponytail dancing, that seemed sweet and natural and irresistible—even to him.

“Here, hold them like this.”

The kite was controlled by a pair of strings attached to bright red handles, and the woman was showing Angus how to hold one in each hand, then change the kite’s movement by slowly raising and lowering them.

“Look at me! Look at me!”

Angus was crowing with excitement as the kite responded. Ross had never once seen the boy look animated since first laying eyes on him at Penelope’s parents’ house in London.

It shamed Ross to remember that he and Angus had shaken hands at that meeting, Ross feeling truly out of depth for the first time in his life. He remembered wondering awkwardly whether he was supposed to hug the kid or not. Scared that if he did, Angus might burst into embarrassed tears or, worse, push him away.

And Angus had seemed equally ready to do either—or both.

There was that pain in his chest again.

He left the boardwalk, frowning. “Angus! You were only supposed to stay twenty minutes!”

Startled, Angus and the woman turned. Ross had been standing up in the dunes where neither could see him. Now he stalked across the sand toward them, brows drawn together.

“Is that your dad?” Kenzie whispered to Angus. “He looks mad.”

“He hates when I’m late.” There was a thread of panic in Angus’s voice. “Kenzie, I don’t even know when twenty minutes is.”

And why should he? He didn’t even have a watch.

Kenzie turned, steeling herself to take the offensive. There was no doubt the man striding toward her was Angus’s father. Those blue eyes and untidy black hair were definitely the same. But Angus’s sweet, smiling expression was infinitely preferable to that rugged, unpleasant look. He was wearing jeans, expensive boat shoes and a worn T-shirt, the kind you bought from Eddie Bauer or J. Crew to make you look outdoorsy.

Only, this man didn’t need to invent an image for himself. He already had a style of his own—in spades. He exuded the aggressive maleness of a man in control of his world, a man not used to being ignored. Kenzie made the conscious effort to keep her mouth closed so her jaw wouldn’t drop as she stared.

“Where have you been?” Ross demanded.

Angus lowered his head. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know I was late.”

His father folded his arms across his chest. Definitely not a conciliatory stance. “Then I guess you have no business coming down here by yourself.”

This time Kenzie’s jaw did drop. “Excuse me?” she blurted, astounded by his tone. “I’m confused as to who’s at fault here. Angus seems a little young to be allowed on the beach alone.”

“Does he?”

Was there a crack in that tough-guy veneer? Even though he’d shot the question back at her, Kenzie thought he suddenly sounded uncertain. She turned to the boy. “How old are you, Angus? Six? Seven?”

“I’ll be eight on Wednesday,” he told her proudly.

“There aren’t any lifeguards out here,” Kenzie said firmly. “And there’s usually a rip current running along the shore break.”

“Angus knows the rules.” She could almost feel the heat of the man’s glare. “He’s not to go near the water.”

But Kenzie could be tough too. “A seven-year-old should have an adult with him when he comes down to the beach, Mr.—”

“Calder. Ross Calder.”

He might not be too thrilled to have her lecturing him, but at least he was civil.

Kenzie reached out to shake the hand he extended. “I’m MacKenzie Daniels.”

Ouch! He’d squeezed too hard—deliberately, she wouldn’t doubt, as though wanting to let her know he was still in charge. She gritted her teeth to keep her smile from wavering. At the same time, she removed her hand slowly, resisting the urge to snatch it away. Not because he’d hurt her, but because of the way the contact between them had run like a physical jolt up her arm and through her body. His big hand had almost swallowed hers in a very masculine way.

But he was still a jerk. And too tough on his kid. Hopefully Mrs. Calder was nicer. “Here’s your kite, Angus.”

Angus took the handles from her. The kite, ignored, had landed in the sand behind them. “Thanks,” he said glumly.

“Keep practicing. You were doing great.”

“Was I?”

She resisted the urge to put her arms around him. To stick out her tongue at his father for being such a spoilsport. “Absolutely.”

“Will you help me tomorrow?”

“If I’m out this way, maybe. But I live down in Buxton.”

“Where’s that?”

“The town with the lighthouse. I just happened to be here today because I needed groceries.”

Avon had the only chain supermarket south of Nags Head. Every now and again Kenzie skipped the offerings at Buxton’s mom-and-pop grocery stores and drove the few miles to Avon to do her shopping.

“Okay. Maybe I’ll see you.” Angus was looking at her as though he was miserable. Why?

She gave his father a hard look. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Calder.”

“Likewise, Ms. Daniels.”

She watched them disappear over the dunes. So much for a sunbath. She was much too worked up to relax now. At the way Angus had changed the moment his father had shown up, like a dark cloud blocking out the sun.

And the way she had reacted to Ross Calder’s handshake. Instead of being furious at his unspoken message of superiority, she’d found herself reacting to it on a purely physical level.

Nuts.

Gathering up her things, she went back to the car.

She’d parked in one of the National Park Service turnouts that dotted the highway running south from Oregon Inlet to the end of Hatteras Island. The neighborhoods that made up the southernmost part of Avon ended here, where Cape Hatteras National Seashore parkland resumed. The boardwalk to the parking lot led past the last few cottages on the edge of town.

Angus had said he was staying in one of them. Kenzie scanned the decks for a sign of him, trying to look as if she wasn’t. But all of them were empty.

She sighed. Just as well. Even though something about that blue-eyed boy had touched her, she didn’t need to run into him again. Or his father, either, thank you very much.