Читать книгу His Brother's Baby - Laurie Campbell - Страница 7

November 28

There was a woman in his living room.

And she was tickling a baby.

Before Conner Tarkington could ask how she’d gotten in here and what she was doing on his sofa, the woman shot one startled glance in his direction, grabbed the baby and immediately angled her body to shield the pink-blanketed bundle from view.

“Who are you?” she demanded, rising from the sofa with the baby almost hidden behind her, as if she were facing down an intruder. “How did you get in here?”

Great defense, he had to give her that, Con thought with a mixture of admiration and annoyance. Put the blame on him, act like he was some kind of burglar or something, rather than a bone-weary attorney who’d just flown from Philadelphia to Scottsdale and found a stranger in his family’s house.

“I used my key,” he told her, holding up the platinum key fob his mother had given him last night, after a farewell dinner during which no one even attempted a toast. “Who are you?”

“The house-sitter,” she answered defiantly, although her guarded stance softened a bit at the sight of his carry-on bag. As if she might be willing to consider the possibility that he wasn’t some random invader. “And the Tarkingtons aren’t coming until January. So if you were planning to visit them—”

“I was planning,” Con interrupted, “to bring in my stuff, dump it on the floor and get some sleep.” Nine hours of flying, counting the layover in Chicago, was a small price to pay for escaping the holiday season at home, but it was still nine hours of teeth-gritting torture. He would never admit it to anyone, but flying scared the life out of him, and while the past few weeks of twenty-hour workdays was his own choice, all he’d wanted for the last hour was to collapse into bed.

Alone.

Although, if he were in a mood for company, he couldn’t ask for better than this woman. In spite of her ragged jeans and disheveled tumble of dark curls, she seemed to radiate more sensuality than any woman he’d noticed in a while. But considering the wary suspicion in her eyes, it seemed pretty certain this house-sitter wasn’t a “welcome to Scottsdale” gift.

Not that his law partners would set up that kind of gift, anyway. Not that anyone he knew would—except maybe his brother, and he hadn’t talked to Kenny in months.

“Nobody said the Tarkingtons were expecting a guest,” the woman protested, drawing his attention back to the problem at hand. His family had believed the house was vacant, but she’d obviously appointed herself as some kind of gate-keeper. And when he glanced beyond her to the dining room, where a baby swing rested against the doorway, he realized why.

“Oh, hell,” Con muttered. “You’re living here.”

She didn’t even attempt to deny it, probably because the evidence of a baby in the house was impossible to hide. “Until January,” she confirmed, moving the gurgling baby to her shoulder before repeating her original question. “Who are you?”

He extracted the driver’s license from his calfskin wallet and flashed it at her. If all she wanted was a show of identification, rather than the self-analysis he’d endured when his partners insisted on a shrink, he could answer with no problem. “Conner Tarkington. And you—”

“Conner…” she repeated, and then her face went white. “Tarkington? You’re Kenny’s brother?”

If she knew Kenny, that might explain how she’d gotten in here. Kenny had always attracted the kind of gorgeous women who appreciated fast living and fun times, and this one was beyond gorgeous, with her vivid coloring and soft, full lips. But she wasn’t dressed like the “show ponies” who used to follow Kenny home from golf tournaments. And it was hard to imagine his brother choosing a woman with a baby.

Much less inviting them to stay.

“Yeah,” Con answered, dropping his coat on the chair by the door and watching the color return to her heart-shaped face. “He moved you in here, huh? Told you to make yourself at home?”

She straightened her posture and gave him a cold look. “He told me,” she said, “that his family needed a house-sitter. I’m supposed to leave them the key in January, but…” He saw the moment his look of disbelief must have reached her, because she suddenly faltered and drew a shaky breath. Clutching the baby tighter against her, she whispered, “Oh, no. He was making that up?”

Oh, yeah. Kenny had outdone himself with this one. Instead of sending her off with a charming thanks-for-the-good-time gift, he’d installed her in the Tarkingtons’ vacation home with an imaginary job.

“Look,” Con began, before realizing he didn’t even know this woman’s name, “I’m sorry, uh…”

“Lucy. Lucy Velardi.” Her voice was still very small, but when she shifted the blanket to present the baby—a baby he really didn’t want to look at right now—there was an unmistakable pride in her bearing. “And this is Emma. My daughter.”

Great, so now he had to play bad guy to a woman and a child. It had been almost a year since Kenny’s last discarded girlfriend showed up at Con’s office, but just because he’d been out of touch for a while didn’t mean his brother had suddenly decided to take responsibility for his own messes. No, that was still—as always—Conner’s job.

All right, then. Time to see if he’d retained his skill at smoothing things over during the past six months of rebuilding his life from the bottom up. Time to start the job, get it done…because he already knew there was no sense in delaying a blow.

“Lucy,” he said swiftly, “I’m sorry for whatever my brother told you, but if my family wanted a house-sitter they’d call an agency.” The stricken look in her eyes was all too familiar, but he’d delivered this kind of speech so many times that by now he knew better than to watch the woman receiving it. “I appreciate your looking after the place, but—”

“But it wasn’t a real job,” Lucy interrupted, “was it?”

That was different, Con realized with a flicker of surprise. One more intriguing contrast from the usual show ponies. Normally they protested that Kenny had to be telling the truth when he’d promised them a Porsche or invited them to Hawaii or talked about five-carat engagement rings, because no one had ever shared a love like theirs.

But this woman wasn’t asking for money….

“Well,” he answered, wondering what his brother had promised her, “it’s a real job, in a way.” After all, she had obviously kept the place clean, watered the plants, taken care of whatever the housekeeping service normally handled the day before anyone arrived. “But it’s my job now.” At least until his mother and Warren arrived in January. “So you and Emma can get back to—”

“Right,” she interrupted again, standing up and adjusting the baby’s blanket with a quick, decisive gesture. “Absolutely. We’ll be out of here in no time.”

“You’ve got somewhere else to go, right?” Of course she did, he realized as soon as he’d asked the question, because otherwise she wouldn’t be so ready to leave. Still, any house-sitter deserved more notice than she’d gotten…no matter what she’d already collected from Kenny. “You need any money? I mean, if you’ve been doing this for a while, I owe you—”

“No, you don’t,” Lucy said fiercely, heading for the dining room where a tall stack of envelopes rested against a printer’s box. “Kenny already paid me back in March, and I’ve been addressing envelopes for a temp service, besides. And last week I started the early shift at a diner downtown. They got a Code of Variance, so I can bring Emma. We just—”

“Lucy. Wait a minute.” She was speaking too swiftly, moving too rapidly, and he had the feeling she was balanced on a very thin edge of panic. But when she turned to meet his gaze, he saw nothing but determination in her coffee-brown eyes. “You sure you’re okay? If you need to make some calls, if you need any help—”

“I don’t need any help!” she snapped, shifting the baby from her right arm to her left with a touch as gentle as her posture was rigid. “I take care of myself. And Emma.”

And Emma, right. The baby he still wasn’t letting himself contemplate looked surprisingly small against Lucy’s trim yellow T-shirt, although he couldn’t remember exactly how big a baby was supposed to be. Had Bryan ever been so—

Don’t go there.

“All right, then,” Con answered her as well as himself. He had to stay focused on action, not on his son. “I’ve got some stuff to bring in, but let me know if you need any help, uh, lifting a suitcase or anything,” he concluded. “All right?”

Lucy fixed him with a steely glare. “Look, I don’t know how much clearer I can make this,” she said evenly, “but I am not taking anything, any help, from any Tarkingtons.”

From the fury with which she practically spit his name, Kenny must have really done a number on her. Which meant that, unlike the women who hinted about Porsches, she must have given her heart completely….

God, she must’ve loved him.

His brother had spent the past four years breaking hearts all over the PGA tour, but never the heart of a woman like this one. A woman who obviously wasn’t in it for the money, who wasn’t clamoring for some kind of reward. No, this naturally sensuous, vibrantly fascinating woman had loved Kenny Tarkington.

A fact which left Conner feeling curiously regretful.

“‘Feelings are our friends,’ remember?”

“I hear you,” he acknowledged, mentally shoving his therapist’s reminder aside. He didn’t need—or want—any feelings right now, not while dealing with yet another woman his brother had abandoned. A woman who, unlike the usual two-month girlfriends, must have believed Kenny’s glib promises of love…and who needed to know there was little chance of him returning anytime soon. “Last I heard, Kenny was playing the Asian tour.”

“Well, he can stay in Asia,” Lucy retorted, with a flush of color that seemed to light her entire body. “And you can stay, uh, here. In your house. Emma and I will be out in no time.” She whirled toward the table, picked up a stack of envelopes and shoved it into the box, then turned back to him with a final plea. “Just do like you said. Get your stuff, dump it on the floor, and…and go to bed. Okay?”

She wasn’t going to watch Conner Tarkington bring in whatever luggage he’d left in his million-dollar car. Or watch him unpack in the luxurious master bedroom she’d kept scrupulously untouched. No, Lucy vowed as she headed for the guest room, she was going to grab a change of clothes, Emma’s freshly washed diapers and her milk from the kitchen, then get out of here before the last fragile shreds of her pride collapsed.

Her friend Shawna had offered to make room on the couch for overnight guests, and Shawna’s husband Jeff could pick them up when he got off work at midnight. So all Lucy needed to do was pack whatever she could carry to the nearest all-night donut shop, and wrap the baby in enough sweaters to keep her warm during the walk…because she sure wasn’t going to wait around here.

Not after vowing to raise her daughter with the hard-won knowledge that accepting men’s favors was stupid.

But Conner Tarkington wasn’t making it easy to concentrate on packing. Maybe he wasn’t deliberately trying to distract her—he seemed intent on nothing but the trek indoors and out and back again, with a laptop computer and a series of airline-labeled file boxes—but in spite of his haggard face and crumpled executive shirt, the man looked incredibly good.

And she had no business thinking that way.

So the sooner she got out of here, the better. “We’re going to be fine,” Lucy told Emma, folding a dozen cloth diapers into her pink-plaid bag. She still hadn’t saved enough for a move-in deposit, and asking for help from Kenny’s brother was out of the question, but there was no sense in worrying her daughter. “Because Shawna—you remember her, she’s got those blond corn-row braids—will let us spend the night at her place, and tomorrow Mommy’s going to find another job.”

The diner had been perfect, because she could keep an eye on Emma while fixing sandwiches for businesspeople, but it didn’t pay as well as the upscale restaurant she’d worked at until February. She had quit waitressing when Kenny wanted to spend more time together, although she’d returned to work the day after his farewell message. But by then it was already too late to qualify for health insurance, which made it all the more frightening when she was ordered to stay in bed or lose the baby.

Still, with the rent taken care of, she’d been able to devote every envelope-addressing paycheck to the medical, grocery and utility bills—and to start a meager savings account for moving out in January.

Which was still five weeks away.

“We’re just moving a little early,” she assured her daughter, tucking the flap of the bag into place and heading for the kitchen. “Not into the trailer park with the nice trees, because that costs more, but tomorrow we’ll look in the paper and find, uh, somebody who wants a roommate with a seven-week-old baby. A wonderful baby.”

Emma gurgled as Lucy kissed her forehead, and when she closed the refrigerator door she saw Conner depositing another armload of boxes on the dining-room table. “We’re almost out of here,” she called, and he turned around.

It was bizarre, she thought with a guilty flicker of awareness, how much the man looked like Kenny. Dark hair instead of blond, but the essentials were unchanged. The same rugged build, the same cleft in his chin, the same vivid blue eyes…except Conner’s gaze was harder. Darker.

More intriguing.

And it was a little unnerving to realize that some ancient, feminine part of her still found that look of effortless privilege so…so… Well, so attractive.

“Sure you don’t need any help?” Conner asked, and she flinched. On the surface his question was perfectly polite, but she knew what lay beneath it. She had seen the weary resignation on his face when he told her there’d never been a job, and she knew what he must be thinking. Here’s some good-time girl who fell into a gold mine.

Just like her mother…

“No,” Lucy answered abruptly, heading back toward her room for the stack of sweaters. “We’re fine.” She didn’t need to remember her mother right now, not with such a humiliating parallel staring her right in the face. When she’d begun supporting herself halfway through high school, she had vowed that Lucy Velardi would either pay for her own dance lessons or go without. That she would never, ever depend on the generosity of men with expense accounts and wives back home.

Until all of a sudden she’d let herself move in with a celebrity golf pro who spent money like water.

But at least Kenny wasn’t married.

Oh, God, was he?

He could have lied about that, too, Lucy realized with a sickening lurch in her stomach. They hadn’t spent much time discussing family, which at the time had suited her fine, but surely he would have mentioned a wife.

Wouldn’t he?

After all, he had mentioned a “big-time responsible” brother and a mother “who about died when my brother got divorced,” and he was the one who’d blithely suggested a quick wedding at the courthouse when the pregnancy test turned blue.

So she hadn’t fallen in love with a married man, Lucy decided, standing up straight and surveying the room one last time. Just a scumbag…which was Shawna’s description of the man who’d never once called to ask whether Lucy had given birth to a daughter or a son. The man who probably still hoped she’d gotten rid of his baby.

A hope which justified her refusal to ever contact him again. Although if she had, maybe she would’ve been warned about the arrival of his brother…a beautifully mannered attorney who probably suspected her of using Kenny for whatever she could get.

“He’s not thinking that,” she knew Shawna would protest, but Shawna hadn’t seen the grim set of his jaw when she announced that Kenny had already paid her. Maybe she was overly sensitive at times, but there was no mistaking the rueful look on Conner Tarkington’s face.

Shouldering the diaper bag and wrapping her baby in the pile of sweaters on top, Lucy headed for the front door and found Conner just coming inside with his keys in hand. “That’s the last of it,” he told her, holding the door for them with the kind of reflexive grace she supposed Cinderella’s prince might have shown. Then he stopped, as if only now realizing she was on her way out. “Lucy, where’s your car?”

That was a question she hadn’t expected. She’d been more prepared for a request to examine her bag for stolen silver, although that might be a little crude for someone as well-bred as this man. But instead, he was looking at her with startled concern, as if he couldn’t imagine leaving the house without a car waiting in the driveway.

“I don’t need one,” she said, balancing Emma against her shoulder with one hand while extracting the house key from her purse and holding it out to him. If she could just maintain this confident tone of voice, just let him report to his brother that Lucy Velardi was doing fine… “Tomorrow I’ll come get the rest of our stuff.”

“You—” He glanced from the key to her, then at the sleeping baby, and the frown in his dark blue eyes deepened. “Is somebody picking you up?”

What, all of a sudden he was worried about them walking in a neighborhood like this one? She’d never lived anywhere as luxurious as this secluded enclave of golf villas, not since leaving her mother and Mr. “I’m In Charge Here” the year she’d turned sixteen. “No, we’re going right down the street,” Lucy said, nodding toward the distant lights of Hayden Road, where the donut shop stayed open around the clock.

“At this time of night?” Conner sounded horrified, and he still wasn’t taking the key she held out. “I’m not throwing you and a baby out in the street!”

Maybe not technically, but from the moment he’d broken the news that the Tarkingtons had never requested a house-sitter, there was no other choice. Still, he looked troubled by the realization that she and Emma were actually planning to walk away. “You’re not throwing us out,” she told him, setting the key on the stucco wall that bordered the porch. “We’re leaving.”

“Lucy, wait a minute. I didn’t mean for—” With a swift gesture into the house, he pushed the front door open wider. “Look, there’s plenty of room. Why don’t you stay the night, and in the morning I’ll take you wherever you want.”

That was an unexpectedly generous offer, and it was silly to argue with him when the two-mile walk seemed longer and heavier every minute. Still, her pride wouldn’t allow a complete surrender. “In the morning, I can get the bus.”

He gave her a slight smile, as if conceding that she could take care of herself just fine. “All right. But I’ll tell you the truth,” Conner said, reaching to pick up her discarded key and dropping it on the table just inside the door. “I really don’t want to stay up all night worrying about you. And Emma.”

Oh.

Well…

When he put it that way, Lucy decided, staying one more night in the Tarkingtons’ home seemed like a pretty reasonable choice. And it would certainly make things easier than waiting with Emma at the donut shop. All she needed to do was return to the guest room where she’d spent the past eight months, and remember that nobody could lose their independence by accepting only one night of hospitality.

“All right,” she said, stepping back inside as Conner turned off the porch light and checked the front door deadbolt…the same rituals she’d performed every night since returning here alone in March. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He started down the hall toward the master bedroom, then turned back. “You can lock your door if you want,” he suggested, and as his dark gaze met hers she realized with a sudden, startling flicker of warmth that they both knew how very little space lay between their bedrooms. “But just so you know, I’m going right to sleep.”

“Good night,” was the only response she could think of, and as soon as she delivered it Lucy ducked into her own room to catch her breath. Lock her door? As if she hadn’t learned a long time ago to protect herself from whatever she had to? It was sweet of him, in a way, to act like she needed such a promise—like she was some blushing virgin who’d never dream of spending the night in a stranger’s house—but she knew perfectly well that a stranger as respectable as Conner Tarkington would never approach her door.

Still, his attempt at reassurance was endearing. And somehow, oddly satisfying. Because it showed that, at least on some inner level, he was as aware of her as she was of him.

Not that anything would come of such awareness, she reminded herself after phoning Shawna and canceling the request for a place to stay. A blue-blood lawyer would probably never look beyond the surface of a woman he viewed as a gold digger…and it wasn’t like she wanted him to! No matter how ruggedly attractive Conner Tarkington might be, no matter how unexpectedly nice he might be, she wasn’t letting herself wonder about him.

But as she put Emma to sleep in the blanket-padded bureau drawer on the floor beside her twin bed, she had to remind herself with increasing severity that she was not going to think about this man. About his intriguing combination of challenge and compassion. About the same compelling gaze and instinctive self-assurance that had drawn her to Kenny in the first place.

No, she wasn’t letting herself make such a mistake again. Ever. Because she now understood the danger in noticing the raw, elemental appeal of a man like that.

It had been far too easy to fall in love with a Tarkington.

And it had cost far too much.

Coffee.

He needed coffee.

Conner opened his eyes and felt a moment’s disorientation at the sight of the white stucco ceiling before remembering where he was. The Scottsdale vacation villa, right…which would explain why this room seemed so much lighter than the oak-paneled office where he’d woken up too often lately, before vowing to limit his workdays to twelve hours or less.

Still, there was always coffee in the kitchen at Weller-Tarkington-Craig, where the more ambitious junior partners arrived by dawn. And judging from the light on the ceiling, it had to be past dawn. More like—he blinked at the watch on his bedside table—seven-thirty in the morning?

God, had he really slept that late? There was no excuse for it, not on his first day of setting up The Bryan Foundation. Even though he’d pushed himself harder than usual these past few weeks, completing and reassigning cases to cover his leave until January fifteenth, sleeping until seven-thirty in the morning was unforgivable.

He’d better get that coffee fast.

It didn’t take long to shower, shave and dress for a day with no appointments, and by seven-forty Conner was heading for the kitchen—when the lusty squeal of a baby woke him more effectively than a jolt of caffeine.

A baby…?

Emma, he remembered.

And Lucy.

He found them in the living room, where Lucy was just bundling her daughter into a quilted carrier. “You must’ve been wiped out, to sleep through all the noise this morning,” she observed, picking up her own denim jacket with the same easy grace he remembered from last night. “Emma’s been up since five.”

Con vaguely remembered hearing an infant’s shrill cry sometime during the night, but the sound must have been absorbed into some dream. Still, it had made him wonder again why Kenny had chosen someone with a baby to keep him company during the Phoenix Open.

Although the baby couldn’t be more than a few weeks old, so she wouldn’t have been around at the time.

And Kenny had probably been dazzled by Lucy’s sparkling energy, which Conner had to admit was even more enticing after a full night’s sleep. This morning she wore her wild curls pulled severely off her face and a conservative white shirt tucked into khaki slacks, as if dressed for a job interview, but there was still no hiding her vibrant, vivid beauty.

“No kidding,” he muttered, wondering if she was seriously planning a job interview at this hour of the morning. “I guess you didn’t need coffee to wake up, huh?”

Lucy grinned apologetically as she shouldered the pink diaper bag resting on the table beside the front door. “There isn’t any coffee,” she told him. “I quit drinking it while I was pregnant, and the past week I’ve been getting it at the diner.”

Oh, hell. “Where’s the diner?”

“Emma and I were just on the way there,” she answered, which made him remember that she’d mentioned a weekday shift someplace. “The bus comes at eight, so—”

“I’ll take you,” Con offered, bracing himself for more time with the baby. “As long as I can get a cup of coffee there.”

Starting coffee was her first task of the day, Lucy assured him, because she had the place to herself for lunch setup until the owner arrived at nine. So within a remarkably short time he found himself at the polished plastic counter of an old-fashioned diner, taking his first, sustaining gulp from the thick white mug she handed him.

“You’re a lifesaver,” he told her as she poured another mug for herself and pulled a handful of flimsy paper placemats from under the counter. “I have to remember to pick up some coffee on the way home.”

“Next best thing to a baby when you need to wake up,” she agreed, deftly spreading placemats from the far end of the eight-seat counter to his side, where the baby carrier rested. “Isn’t it, Emmie?”

The baby responded with a perfectly timed coo, jubilantly waving her fists from the depths of her carrier. It was easier than he’d expected, Conner realized, watching Emma’s look of rapt attention—a wide-eyed fascination he hadn’t remembered from last night. “She’s a morning person, huh?”

“Yeah,” Lucy agreed, tweaking her daughter’s fist with a smile of pure enjoyment, “and I don’t know where she gets that.” She picked up her coffee, then rested the mug on the counter so she could look at both the baby and him as she took her first sip. “I’ve always been a night person, and her dad…” She shrugged, as if Emma’s dad was the type who had never watched a sunrise. “Well, you know Kenny.”

Kenny?

Conner almost choked on a mouthful of coffee. That piece of news, delivered so offhandedly that Lucy evidently viewed it as common knowledge, explained a lot. His brother’s abrupt departure for Asia, Lucy’s haunted look when she mentioned that Kenny had already paid her, and most of all the reason she’d been offered this house-sitting job in the first place. But for Kenny to install her in the family home and then just walk out…

“Does he know about Emma?” Con demanded.

Lucy’s eyes darkened with what looked like a flash of hurt. “I haven’t talked to him since March,” she answered flatly. She picked up the baby, who was still waving both fists, and cradled her gently against her shoulder without meeting Con’s gaze. “He didn’t want her, and I don’t want him involved.”

But if Kenny had said he didn’t want Emma, which wasn’t hard to believe, then he’d obviously known about the baby. And while it was bad enough to walk out on a woman, it was something else altogether to ignore a child.

You did the same thing, remember?

“Well, even so,” Con observed, moving from the shaky ground of threatening emotion to the reliable bedrock of fact, “he’s got some responsibility, here.”

It wasn’t until Lucy’s posture stiffened that he realized he’d struck another sore spot…either that, or a source of fear. Not that Kenny would ever demand visitation rights, but maybe Lucy didn’t realize that.

“Not actually raising Emma,” he hurried to explain, “but at least paying his share.”

The explanation didn’t seem to make much difference in the rigid set of her shoulders. “I don’t want that, either. Just leave it alone, all right?”

“But…”

She turned the baby even closer to her, so that Conner could see nothing of his niece but a soft pink blanket, and glared at him. “Emma is mine, and I don’t need anyone else getting involved!”

Making things better would be a serious challenge, he realized, considering that no one except himself was unhappy with the status quo. Kenny obviously hadn’t cared to follow up on his child, and Lucy just as obviously didn’t want any assistance.

In fact, she seemed almost panicked at the very idea.

“All right,” Con said. A courteous withdrawal was always a safe delaying tactic, and it might take a while to locate Kenny on the Asian tour. Meanwhile, he would have to arrange for child-support payments until his brother showed up. But before he could find an acceptable way of phrasing such an offer, Lucy surprised him once again.

“I mean it,” she insisted, facing him across the counter with such intensity in her gaze that he wondered for a moment whether she had guessed his plan. “As far as Kenny’s concerned, I could’ve gotten rid of her and he’d be fine with that. So he’s got no business in Emma’s life—and neither do you.”

“All right,” Conner repeated, more loudly this time. “Lucy, I hear you. I won’t fight you for the right to change her diaper.”

For once, he saw, he’d hit exactly the right note, and he was rewarded with her sudden, sheepish smile. “Okay, then,” she said, giving Emma another gentle squeeze before returning her to the baby carrier, taking another gulp of coffee and picking up a handful of flatware. “I didn’t mean to jump on you like that. I just…”

“You’ve just got this thing,” Con finished for her, “about taking care of yourself.”

She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, as if searching for some trick in his statement. But she evidently didn’t find anything to disagree with, because she gave him another smile…the kind, he imagined, that would make anyone within view feel suddenly lighter. More energized. “Exactly,” she said, laying a white-handled spoon, fork and knife on the first placemat to his left. “So, what are you doing today, anyway? Playing golf?”

It was a reasonable question, Conner acknowledged, gulping the last of his coffee a little faster than he’d meant to and forcing himself to concentrate on business instead of her smile. Why else would a Philadelphia lawyer spend the holiday season alone in Scottsdale, if not to soak up the sunshine on a resort course?

“No,” he answered, moving to the coffee machine to refill his mug and gesturing a warm-up offer at her. “I came here to get some work done.” Not to mention a fierce desire to escape the memories of Christmas at home. “I figured I’ll turn the dining room into an office for the next six weeks. What about you?”

She looked surprised at the question, which reminded him that she was already planning today’s move—a move she’d better forget, Conner realized, because he couldn’t very well throw his brother’s baby out of the family home. No, Lucy and Emma were entitled to stay there, assuming she wouldn’t mind sharing a roof with Kenny’s brother.

“I’m going to find an extra job,” Lucy answered, sliding her mug down the counter for him to refill without letting their fingers touch. Just as well. You’re not going there. “This time of year, everybody’s hiring.”

She sounded remarkably confident, which made him guess she was no stranger to the process of job-hunting. And of course that made sense. A dedicated career woman wouldn’t have time to follow a pro golfer—even one as entertaining as Kenny—from party to party. No matter how earnestly he might have promised to love her forever.

Damn, Lucy deserved better than that….

“So as soon as we find a place,” she continued, accepting the freshened coffee he slid back to her with a nod of thanks and gathering another set of flatware, “I’ll come get the rest of my stuff out of your way. I’ll call first and see if you’re home, or out on… What kind of work are you here for?”

“A foundation,” Conner said, forcing his attention toward business as he returned to his seat. She obviously didn’t think Kenny’s family owed her a place to stay, but he couldn’t turn his back on a baby. “My partners talked me into taking some leave from the law firm, so I can get it done before I go back in January.”

“A foundation?” she repeated, looking so bewildered that he wondered whether Kenny had mentioned anything about the past two years. “Like for charity?”

“It’s a memorial.” The words came harder than he expected, but he knew better than to let the guilt over Bryan linger. No, he had to focus on what he could do right now. “There’s a lot of work involved up front, and that’s what I’m starting today.”

Or at least, that was what he’d planned to start today. But first, Con knew, he needed to figure out some way of making things right for his brother’s child.

Which, given Lucy’s determination not to accept anything from the Tarkingtons, might present a problem.

“Foundations give money to people, right?” Lucy asked, returning to the flatware bin at his end of the counter and setting down her coffee a safe distance from Emma’s carrier. “How much work does it take for you to write checks?”

Not nearly enough, which was why he’d set himself the task of creating The Bryan Foundation in the first place. Only by using every skill he possessed, not just every dollar, could he say that he had come to terms with his son’s death. That he was ready to move on with his life.

A life with no more false promises. To himself, or to anyone else.

“First,” Conner explained, “I have to organize the groundwork. Today I’m calling a temp agency…” And then, with a sudden jolt of triumph, he flashed on a solution to the problem of Lucy’s pride. “I’ve got to find someone who can help with the clerical stuff,” he told her in the same cordial tone he’d use with any potential employee. Thinking of her as an employee should make it considerably easier to keep his mind on business…and that was the only responsible choice he could make. “Typing envelopes, copying proposals, that kind of thing.”

Lucy was watching him warily, but there was no mistaking the interest on her face—so he might as well finish the offer.

“Is that,” Con asked her, “something you could do? Whenever you finish here?”

She hesitated. “I’ve done office work, sure. But I already know about the Tarkingtons and phony job offers.”

“This one’s real,” Conner retorted, trying not to show any annoyance. Such caution was understandable, considering what Kenny had pulled. “If you don’t want the job, that’s fine, but I’ve got to hire somebody. And I’d rather it was someone I know.”

He’d intended all along to hire someone for a few weeks of office work, and maybe she saw the truth of that in his eyes, because she frowned in concentration. “How much would it pay?”

“Not that much,” he answered slowly. If he tried to offer her something too generous, she’d go back to insisting she didn’t need any help and probably wind up in some fleabag apartment. “Minimum wage. But I’d like to get someone who can be on call if the job runs late, or stay as long as it takes….” Then another brainstorm struck. “So of course I’d throw in the guest room.”

Lucy stared at him in disbelief. “You’re making this up.”

“I’m not my brother!” Which was a stupid reaction, Conner knew. It was pointless to feel any flicker of hurt, because he shouldn’t care what this woman thought of him. “I’m offering you a straight, up-front deal,” he concluded. “You take care of the office work, and you and Emma can stay at the house until January fifteenth.”

It wasn’t going to be an easy sell, he knew as soon as Lucy folded her arms across her chest. “Why?” she demanded, glancing from him to Emma. “Just because she’s your niece?”

Because taking care of family was the kind of habit no one ever outgrew.

Because, like it or not, he’d spent a lifetime cleaning up after his brother.

Because if he turned his back on yet another responsibility, Conner Tarkington might as well check out.

“That’s partly it,” he told Lucy. After all, his responsibilities now included his brother’s baby. And as long as he didn’t allow himself any distractions from Bryan’s memorial, he could handle six weeks with a woman who made him feel more alive, more aware than he’d felt in a long time. “But I also want to get this foundation up and running, and I’ll need some help to get it done by January. So do we have a deal?”

She met his eyes, and the gaze lingered for a long moment before she drew a deep breath and reached forward to offer a handshake he wouldn’t have dared to suggest himself.

“All right,” she said as Con accepted her small, strong hand and felt the warmth of her skin radiate through every cell of his body. “Yes. We have a deal.”