Книга - For His Son’s Sake

For His Son's Sake
Ellen Tanner Marsh


IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST KITE…From the moment Angus Calder's kite disrupted her beachfront nap, Kenzie Daniels was a goner. And the energetic seven-year old seemed just as smitten…unlike his heart-stopping, coolly conservative dad. Ross Calder obviously didn't want his son growing attached to Kenzie, so why was she still drawn to the vulnerable single father struggling to form a bond with the son he'd never known?The beach vacation was supposed to bring Ross and his unresponsive son closer, yet the free-spirited beauty was the one they were both forming an attachment to. While the levelheaded attorney couldn't deny his attraction, he wouldn't risk his son's heart breaking when they returned home and bid Kenzie goodbye. And Angus's heart was the only one at risk…wasn't it?









“You’re so scared of being hurt, you keep everyone at arm’s length, especially me.”


“Aw, Kenz—” Raw pain was in his voice, in his eyes, as he looked at her.

“I think there isn’t any need to keep me at arm’s length. I am not going to take your son away from you.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t keep you at arm’s length,” he went on slowly. Without waiting for her to answer, and before she could think of a suitable retort, he slid his hands over her hips.

“Know what?”

“What?”

“You’re right. That’s much too far away.”

“Ross,” she breathed as he brought their bodies oh so close.

“Know what else I think?” he added, his lips hovering barely an inch above hers.

“What?”

“That you are a threat. To my peace of mind. To my sanity…

“Let me show you what I mean.”


Dear Reader,

It’s spring, love is in the air…and what better way to celebrate than by taking a break with Silhouette Special Edition? We begin the month with Treasured, the conclusion to Sherryl Woods’s MILLION DOLLAR DESTINIES series. Though his two brothers have been successfully paired off, Ben Carlton is convinced he’s “destined” to go it alone. But the brooding, talented young man is about to meet his match in a beautiful gallery owner—courtesy of fate…plus a little help from his matchmaking aunt.

And Pamela Toth concludes the MERLYN COUNTY MIDWIVES series with In the Enemy’s Arms, in which a detective trying to get to the bottom of a hospital black-market drug investigation finds himself in close contact with his old high school flame, now a beautiful M.D.—she’s his prime suspect! And exciting new author Lynda Sandoval (look for her Special Edition novel One Perfect Man, coming in June) makes her debut and wraps up the LOGAN’S LEGACY Special Edition prequels, all in one book—And Then There Were Three. Next, Christine Flynn begins her new miniseries, THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT, with The Housekeeper’s Daughter, in which a son of Camelot—Virginia, that is—finds himself inexplicably drawn to the one woman he can never have. Marie Ferrarella moves her popular CAVANAUGH JUSTICE series into Special Edition with The Strong Silent Type, in which a female detective finds her handsome male partner somewhat less than chatty. But her determination to get him to talk quickly morphs into a determination to…get him. And in Ellen Tanner Marsh’s For His Son’s Sake, a single father trying to connect with the son whose existence he just recently discovered finds in the free-spirited Kenzie Daniels a woman they could both love.

So enjoy! And come back next month for six heartwarming books from Silhouette Special Edition.

Happy reading!

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor




For His Son’s Sake

Ellen Tanner Marsh







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




ELLEN TANNER MARSH’s


love of animals almost cost her readers the pleasure of experiencing her immensely popular romances. However, Ellen’s dream of becoming a veterinarian was superseded by her desire to write. So, after college, she took her pen and molded her ideas and notes into full-length stories. Her combination of steamy prose and fastidious historical research eventually landed her on the New York Times bestseller list with her very first novel, Reap the Savage Wind. She now has over three million copies of her books in print, is translated into four languages and is the recipient of a Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award.

When Ellen is not at her word processor, she is showing her brindled Great Dane, raising birds and keeping the grass cut on the family’s four-acre property. She is married to her high school sweetheart and lives with him and her two young sons, Zachary and Nicolas, in South Carolina Low Country.










Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue




Chapter One


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.




Chapter Two


But Avon was a small town. Running into acquaintances was the rule, not the exception. Only, Kenzie didn’t expect to see Ross Calder and his son again quite so soon—like that very evening.

She had spent the afternoon inking her drawings and preparing them for mailing. Afterward she’d gone down to the dock behind her house to check on the minnow traps. They were filled with fish, including one or two good-sized spots and a croaker, but as usual there wasn’t enough for all the hungry mouths she had to feed. So she’d driven up to Avon to spend some of her precious cash at the bait-and-tackle store.

She was walking back to her truck when someone called her name. Shifting her packages to one hip, she turned. “Angus! What are you doing here?”

“Going to the movies.”

He was wearing a navy T-shirt with “England” written on it in red and white, khaki cargo shorts and high-topped black sneakers. She’d forgotten how cute he was. Or how good-looking his father was. Ross Calder was wearing khakis, too, and a denim shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He folded his tanned arms across his chest as he came around the car he’d just locked. The movie theater was right across the parking lot.

“Good evening, Ms. Daniels.”

“Hi.” Kenzie looked beyond him for Angus’s mother, but the two of them were alone.

Angus was hopping excitedly in front of her.

“What’s in the bag?”

“Angus,” his father warned.

“No, it’s okay,” Kenzie said quickly. “Minnows.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “Can I see?”

Obligingly she opened the container. As he leaned over it, she caught his father’s eye and smiled. Was there anything more endearing than a curious seven-year-old? Besides, it gave her an excuse to look at Ross, because he was certainly what you’d call easy on the eye.

Only, Ross didn’t return her smile. The expression on his rugged face was that of a man looking at a…a specimen under a microscope or something. It was a probing look, as though he was trying to figure out what made her tick.

“Are you going fishing with those?” Angus was obviously fascinated with the contents of the foam container.

“I’m going to feed them to my birds.”

“Wow!” he breathed. “What kind of birds eat minnows?”

“Shore birds, mostly. Like herons and egrets.”

Could those blue eyes get any wider? “Do you own a heron, Kenzie?”

She laughed and felt something wicked stirring inside her. Maybe because Ross Calder was standing there looking so impatient, as though letting Angus talk to her was the last thing he wanted. “Tell you what. If you’d like, and your father says okay, you can come over to my place tomorrow and see for yourself. I think you’ll be pretty impressed.”

Angus whirled. “Can we?”

“We?”

“I can’t drive myself, can I?”

Kenzie bit her lip to keep from grinning. He was a cheeky little Brit all right, and more of his father’s son than had been evident at first.

“We’ll see.” Ross’s tone didn’t hint at what he was thinking. But his expression made Kenzie wonder if maybe he wasn’t having trouble making up his mind. He almost appeared to be feeling uncertain about whether to give in to the boy’s wishes or tell him no outright. Surely an odd reaction coming from a man who seemed as self-confident as Ross Calder?

“Please?”

“Angus. We can talk about it tomorrow. Right now we’re late for the movie.”

“Better hurry,” Kenzie agreed. “It’s the only theater around and it fills up fast. Come on over after ten, okay?” She gave them directions to her house, said goodbye and walked off feeling pretty pleased with herself for having made up Ross Calder’s mind for him.

Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have. After all, she wasn’t stupid, and she strongly suspected that Ross Calder didn’t want to have another thing to do with her. You’d have to be blind to miss the body language. He was obviously used to giving orders and having them followed. And his orders were clear: Keep away from my kid.

Not that Kenzie didn’t respect those wishes. But it irked her that he could be so standoffish when Angus was so much the opposite.

Besides, she hadn’t given him a single reason to dislike her, had she? Was she sending out the vibes of an ax murderess or something?

Oh, the heck with Ross Calder. Angus’s reaction when he saw her birds up close would be well worth his father’s unwilling participation. Kenzie had joined the local shorebird rescue society about a month after moving to Buxton. Her whitewashed cottage had had an aviary in the back, and when Kenzie’s landlord had told her that the former tenants had been rescue volunteers, Kenzie had immediately decided to do the same. The moment she had been given her first orphaned baby bird to hand feed, she’d been hooked. Now she had more than a dozen feathered orphans under her care, and a tour of the aviary was a real treat for any youngster. Kenzie ought to know—she’d hosted Hatteras Elementary School field trips often enough.

But even as she stowed her bags in the back of her pickup, Kenzie’s thoughts returned to Ross. Why did he act so uptight all the time? If he wasn’t careful he’d wipe that sunny smile off Angus’s face for good.

“I should know,” Kenzie muttered ruefully.

But she wasn’t going to think about her own father right now. No, sir. She’d only end up feeling as grumpy as Angus’s dad.

It was a beautiful evening and she intended to enjoy it. Once she got home and finished her chores, she was going to sit on the dock, dangle her feet in the water of Pamlico Sound and watch the sun go down. And she would pretend she didn’t have a care in the world.

Which, at the moment, she hadn’t. She’d finished enough drawings to meet publication deadlines until the end of the week, and she didn’t have any appointments in Norfolk until Thursday. That meant she was free to do whatever she wanted tomorrow, a delicious thought after all the work of the past few weeks, when she’d sat up all night waiting for the drawing muse to hit and enduring harassing phone calls from her editor, because Maureen hated missed deadlines.

As for Ross and Angus Calder, if they didn’t show up tomorrow she wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Only, to be honest, a little disappointed.



I must be crazy, Ross was thinking to himself. Taking Angus to a strange woman’s house to look at her birds. What on earth did the kid want to do that for? After all, he’d spent nearly an hour that morning tossing bread crusts to the seagulls on the back deck. Surely Kenzie Daniels’s birds couldn’t be as interesting as those dive-bombing scavengers that had made the boy laugh out loud for the first time since coming to America? Or worth a drive in the growing heat of the day?

But here he was, easing the rental car onto the highway heading south toward the town of Buxton.

“Hey, look!” Angus pointed to the black-and-white Cape Hatteras lighthouse on the horizon. “Is that the one we climbed yesterday?”

“Sure is.”

A few years ago the lighthouse had been moved several thousand feet inland, away from the eroding beach where it had stood for more than a hundred years. Ross had enjoyed studying the photos of this engineering phenomenon at the small National Park Ranger Station nearby, but Angus had been more excited about the climb itself.

They had made it all the way to the top without stopping, Angus ducking beneath the legs of the tourists puffing along ahead of them in order to be there first. He hadn’t wanted to go back down again for the longest time, and Ross had allowed him to look his fill of the ocean, the beach, the rooftops of the houses far below, pleased to see him so animated.

Admittedly it was the first time Ross had felt a little bit at ease with his son. Not worried that he was going to say or do something to make the boy withdraw into himself, the way he had when they’d first met in England after Penelope’s death.

What a bleak meeting, Ross thought, recalling how awkwardly he had stood in his former in-laws’ icy drawing room while Angus, led in by a servant, had ducked his head and refused to say hello. Penelope’s parents weren’t even there. They had flown to Majorca, hoping the sunshine would help them get over their only daughter’s death, which had occurred several weeks earlier when Penelope’s commuter plane had crashed while carrying her on holiday. They had left no message for Ross, although they had known he was coming to take his son to America—nor, apparently, had they told Angus about it, either.

Angus had been unaware of the recent upheaval in his life—that his father, having only recently learned of his existence, had tried to see him, only to be denied visitation rights by his mother. When no amount of pleading, arguing or, finally, threatening had swayed Penelope from her stubborn stance, Ross had reluctantly resorted to intervention from a court of law.

A lot of good that had done him, he thought briefly. Not only had he unleashed a media frenzy thanks to the Archers’ well-known name, but Angus had been spirited away to some isolated Norfolk estate. And Penelope, pleading a fragile constitution, had flown off to Naples with some millionaire boyfriend, providing even more fodder for the gossip columns.

Grimacing at the memory, he massaged the tight spot in his chest. He didn’t like thinking back on those days or dwelling on how little progress he and Angus had made since then.

On the other hand, Angus seemed to have had fun being with him yesterday and there was no reason things should be different today. Maybe a visit to MacKenzie Daniels’s birds would recapture a little of the spontaneity they’d felt while touring the lighthouse together.

That, in effect, was why he’d agreed to take Angus to Buxton.

On the other hand, he had to admit that he, too, was a little bit curious. Not so much about MacKenzie Daniels’s birds, but about the woman herself.

Of course, his curiosity was purely academic. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he felt guilty at how curtly he’d treated her on the beach yesterday. He’d not meant to do so, of course. But when she’d pointed out to him how dangerous it was to let Angus go near the water by himself he’d all but panicked at the thought of what might have happened, and at how absolutely ignorant he was of the commonsense rules of parenting. So he’d retreated behind a facade of rudeness, telling himself that he resented Kenzie Daniels for the sweetly easy way she treated his son—and the way Angus responded to her.

Okay, so maybe he did resent her a little. Ross didn’t care to admit it, but you’d have to be blind not to see how much more relaxed and outgoing Angus seemed in Kenzie’s presence. Far more so than he’d ever been with his father.

Ross thought back to the way Kenzie had lectured him for letting Angus go down to the beach alone, and a cold hand settled once again around his heart. Had she been right in saying Angus was too young to be trusted near the water? But how was he supposed to know these things?

Cripes, it was proving harder to be a father than it was to practice law! Maybe Alex hadn’t been entirely wrong. There were so many rules to learn and so many things you had to figure out intuitively. How on earth was he ever going to get the hang of it?

“Kenzie’s lucky to live here,” Angus said suddenly.

Ross realized the sand dunes on either side of the highway had given way to the small shops and filling stations of Buxton. “Think so?” Ross hadn’t been too impressed with the town yesterday although, to be fair, they’d turned off at the lighthouse without seeing much of it. But looking around now he wasn’t inclined to change his mind, except for liking the fact that Buxton was less developed than Avon, crowded as it was with rental houses, restaurants and souvenir shops.

“What kind of birds do you think she has?” It was a question Angus had been asking pretty regularly since last night. Even the comedy he and his father had seen at the theater hadn’t held his interest as long as the thought of Kenzie’s birds.

“She said something about herons and egrets,” Ross reminded him. Although why anyone would want to keep one of those as a pet was beyond him. He didn’t like animals in general, and certainly couldn’t see anyone owning anything more exotic than a goldfish.

“Look, isn’t this where she said to turn? Right after the fire station?”

The road sign read Soundside Lane. “Good eye, son.”

Angus grinned shyly. “Thanks.”

The car bumped down a narrow paved road past thinning trees and marshland. In the distance the waters of Pamlico Sound shimmered in the sunshine. The road ended at a curving shell driveway. Ross recognized the old black pickup truck he’d seen outside the bait-and-tackle shop last night.

“Looks like this is it.”

A sandy path led to the house, which was built at ground level, not elevated like newer ones designed to meet federal flood regulations. Its age showed in the weathered white siding and tin roof. A gnarled oak tree shaded the front deck. Ross had noticed yesterday that, unlike Avon, Buxton had a number of older cottages like this one, which must have been built by the original families who had populated the island. They had probably planted the trees, too, because the oak in this front yard had obviously been around for half a century or more.

Was MacKenzie Daniels a local of long standing? She didn’t talk like a rural North Carolinian.

“I’m going inside.” Angus was already unbuckling his seat belt.

Ross watched him race up the path toward the house, showing none of the painful uncertainty he usually exhibited in new situations.

“What is it about that woman?” he muttered in despair.



From her kitchen window, Kenzie saw the car turn into the driveway. A sudden wave of panic overwhelmed her. “Oh, my gosh, they’re really here!”

After drying her hands at the sink, she hurried into the front room. “Thanks for the warning, guys,” she scolded the dogs lolling on the rug.

Both of them thumped their tails on the floor but made no move to rise. If they were aware of her panic they didn’t show it.

Kenzie froze as she reached for the doorknob. Was there time to brush her hair, check her makeup for smudges? She hadn’t really expected them to come, although she had taken the precaution of getting up early to run a vacuum over the floors and cart the newspapers out to the recycling bin. And just in case they did show up and were hungry, she’d driven down to the Gingerbread House in Frisco for doughnuts and almond bear claws.

But there wasn’t time to take a final look in the mirror. Through the front windows, she saw them coming up the walk, Angus in the lead. Kenzie switched her gaze to Ross, noticing the way the sun painted chestnut highlights in his dark hair. The way he had thrust his hands casually into the pockets of his jeans. He was wearing a faded blue T-shirt, which was stretched tight over his wide shoulders and chest.

A totally unfamiliar feeling of shyness crept over her. What had she done, inviting this man into her house? Her home was her private domain and she’d never asked a stranger to come in before. Not a darkly virile man like this one, at any rate.

She looked around as though seeing the place for the first time. What would he think of the cluttered rooms, the shabby furnishings? The peeling paint on the windows and walls? She had the feeling that Ross Calder lived in a decidedly more…genteel environment than this one.

Instantly sanity returned. She had no reason to be embarrassed by the bare wooden floors of her living room, the slouchy slipcovers on her sagging sofa, the shells and driftwood lining the windowsills.

Besides, Ross Calder and his son were here to see her birds, not to judge her for the kind of housekeeper she was.

Her skittering heartbeat slowed as she opened the front door and saw Angus clattering up the steps. She returned his bright smile, resisting the urge to sweep him into a hug. “Hi! I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

“I told you I wanted to see your birds, didn’t I?”

Kenzie looked past him. Ross was still standing on the path below her, she on the deck. Their eyes were level as she looked a challenge at him. “How about you? Are you here under protest or as a willing participant?”

Her directness startled him. But then the corners of his mouth turned up. “Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.”

Kenzie had never seen him smile before. Good grief! Did the man know he was armed and dangerous when he smiled like that? Her heart started tripping again and she could feel herself blushing. This was ridiculous! Good-looking men had smiled at her before—her former fiancé wasn’t exactly homely, either, but even Brent hadn’t caused this fluttering awareness of his masculinity deep inside her.

“To which charge are you referring?” she asked tartly, glad for something to say.

“To the latter. Rest assured, Ms. Daniels, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing than bringing my son here to visit.”

She’d never wonder again where Angus had come by his charm. When Ross Calder chose to turn it on, it hit you like a ton of bricks. And he seemed to mean what he said—unless he was a superb liar, like her father.

“Please. Just Kenzie.” Again she was glad for something to say and for the fact that her voice sounded calm.

“Hey, Kenzie! Who are they?”

The dogs were sniffing at Angus through the screen door, tails wagging.

“That’s Zoom and Jazz. And you should be honored. They don’t get up for just anybody.”

“Can I let them out here on the porch with us?”

Kenzie motioned Ross through the gate at the top of the stairs, then closed it behind him. “Go ahead.”

“They look like tigers! What kind are they? Are they nice?”

“They’re greyhounds. And yes, they like everybody. That orange-and-black color is called brindle.”

Angus stroked the dainty heads while the dogs’ tails wagged harder. “Which is which?”

“Jazz has more black in his coat.”

“Retired racers?” Ross asked.

Kenzie nodded, surprised he knew.

“They’re racing dogs?” Angus breathed.

“They were. In some parts of the country greyhounds are raced for sport, like horses. Zoom and Jazz ran on a track in Florida. When their careers were over they needed a place to live. I got them from a friend who runs a greyhound rescue near Disney World.”

“Do they still like to run?” Angus was clearly fascinated.

“You bet. That’s why I never let them outside without a leash. They’ll take off like a shot. But most of the time they sleep. They’re couch potatoes, really.”

His freckled nose wrinkled. “Couch potatoes?”

Ross grinned. “An American word. They like to lie around watching TV.”

Angus brightened. “So do I.”

Ross and Kenzie both laughed. And all at once warmth bubbled inside Kenzie’s heart. No doubt about it, she liked being on friendly terms with Ross much better than being at odds with him, like last night in the parking lot, when she couldn’t figure out what she’d said or done to make him seem so distant toward her.

Angus turned to his father. “Could we have a greyhound?”

“When you go to college.”

“That means no, doesn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

But Angus didn’t seem to care. He whirled back to Kenzie. “Are the birds here in your house?”

“They’re out back. C’mon.”

Leaving the dogs on the deck, she led Angus and Ross through the yard. The boy danced excitedly beside her, while Ross followed more slowly. Kenzie opened the padlock on the screen door to the shed. “This used to be a garage. Now it’s kind of a hospital for sick birds.”

Angus’s eyes were completely round. “A bird hospital?”

“That’s right. So you’ll need to be quiet. These are wild birds, not pets. They’ll be scared of you, so don’t move too fast or get too close, okay?”

“Okay.” His voice had dropped to an awed whisper.

Grinning, Kenzie’s eyes sought Ross’s. Didn’t the guy know how adorable his kid was?

Apparently not. Instead of smiling indulgently at his son, he was studying the sagging roof of the shed, probably wondering, Kenzie didn’t doubt, if it was safe to enter.

Her mouth set. “Come on in. It won’t collapse on you.”

The front half of the shed was crammed with boxes, cabinets and mismatched drawers. Two refrigerators and a chest freezer took up one wall. Ross looked around at the cluttered workbench with its scale, storage bins and stacks of kitchen and medical utensils. Heavy leather gloves were draped over the sink. It was cleaner than he’d expected, and apparently structurally sound after all.

“Oh, wow! Look at that!”

Ross turned. Angus was pointing at the back wall, which was divided into rows of cages, as well as pens that opened into fenced outdoor aviaries. About a dozen birds were staring back at them, some uneasily, some calmly. Ross recognized a pelican, a hawk and an egret. The rest escaped him.

Angus was tugging at Kenzie’s arm. “Kenzie! What kind of bird is that?”

“A red-tailed hawk. Don’t get too close. He’s just getting over being sick. If you startle him he’ll try to fly away and hurt himself on the wire. Do you know what that one is?”

“A pelican?”

“Right.”

“What happened to him?”

“His bill got tangled in fishing wire and he couldn’t feed himself. He was half-starved when he came here, but he’s gained a lot of weight since then. I may set him free tomorrow.”

“But why would he want to leave? He’s got his own swimming pool!”

They were both whispering. Still, Ross noticed that Angus was practically shaking with both excitement and the strain of not showing it so he wouldn’t scare the birds. Ross had seen him this overwhelmed only once before—when they’d gone to a toy store in Manhattan and he’d been allowed to operate a model train by himself. He was usually so withdrawn in public, but right now he certainly didn’t look like a kid who was shy or scared or had recently lost his mother. Right now he was looking at Kenzie with his eyes glowing a bright, happy blue.

“I’d keep him if I were you. He’s the prettiest bird in the world!”

Even Ross had to laugh at that.

“Don’t you like him?” Angus demanded.

“It has to be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s not true!”

“Oh, yes it is. He reminds me of…of some throwback to the dinosaur age.”

Ross had been teasing, but Angus glared at him tearfully. “You don’t like anything!”

Ross turned away, but not before Kenzie saw the glimmer of pain in his eyes. “You’ve got to admit they’re a little bizarre,” she said quickly. “And there’s nothing pretty about that bill when he decides to use it.”

“Do pelicans bite?”

“Oh, my, yes.”

Angus backed away quickly.

“How’d you get into this business?” Ross asked, determined to ignore Angus’s outburst. “Are you a veterinarian?”

“Just a volunteer.” Kenzie opened the chest freezer and began rummaging inside. “When they run out of room at the raptor refuge up in Manteo they send them down here. I’m sort of an overflow center.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“About a year. I had to learn the ropes the hard way. Like what to do with a vomiting owl and how not to get your eyes gouged out by a heron. Want to feed them some fish, Angus?”

“Could I really?”

“Sure.” She leaned deeper into the freezer, unaware that she was giving Ross a clear view of…well, of a very firm, muscular body. White shorts and long, tanned legs. A cropped T-shirt that rose higher as she leaned over farther, revealing more sun-browned skin.

Ross’s hurt at Angus’s remark seemed to fade at the simple pleasure of admiring Kenzie’s sweetly sexy curves. She seemed so wholly unaware of her appeal. Surely she had to realize the affect she had on every man who met her? And what about the way she was affecting him? Much as he disliked admitting it, he was starting to view Kenzie Daniels in a far more personal light than he wanted to. Yes, he was aware of the sweetness and warmth that Angus had responded to so readily, but this purely sexual pull of attraction was more than he’d bargained for—and something he certainly didn’t welcome. He had enough to worry about just dealing with his son!

“Eeeww!” said Angus, pulling Ross back to the present.

Kenzie had pulled a glassy-eyed fish from the freezer.

“Change your mind?” she asked with a grin, dangling it in front of the boy.

“Um—”

“Would gloves help?”

“Oh, yes, thanks.” Angus looked relieved.

“Don’t blame you, sport. I hate touching slimy stuff, too.”

She helped him pull on the heavy gloves while Ross watched, then showed him how to feed each of the birds. Angus didn’t even flinch when a gannet with a long, pointy bill lunged forward to snatch the fish. And he whooped aloud when a great blue heron swallowed its meal whole.

“Did you see that? Did you see that, Kenzie? It went down his throat sideways!”

“Pretty amazing,” she agreed, laughing.

When Angus had given each bird a treat, Kenzie led him away to wash up while Ross followed without speaking, muscular arms folded in front of his wide chest. Pushing a footstool up to the sink, Kenzie lifted Angus onto it, chatting unconcernedly all the while. “Let’s scrub that smell away, okay? Here, use plenty of soap. How about something to drink? Are you thirsty?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And hungry? I’ve got pastries in the house.”

“Ooh! What kind?”

She twinkled at him. “We’ll have to go see. Wait, wait. You missed a spot.”

He scrubbed quickly at the offending hand she’d tapped, then jumped off the stool and rushed outside without asking his father’s permission.

Kenzie hung away the towel. “Hope you don’t mind him having sweets.”

“How do you do that?” Ross countered gruffly.

She turned to look at him. “What?”

“Make it seem so easy.”

Her hand stilled. He was standing there with his thumbs hooked in his belt, his expression unsmiling and oddly vulnerable. She’d never noticed before, but his eyes were a darker blue than Angus’s.

Something in her heart seemed to turn over. No way, she told herself firmly. No way was she going to start feeling sorry for this man!

But she wasn’t going to pretend to misunderstand him, either.

“Because it is easy. With a boy like that—”

“I don’t mean just Angus. You’ve obviously been around a lot of them. How many children do you have?”

She blinked. “I—I don’t—I’m not married.”

“Oh.” He was silent for a moment, then looked at her with something very close to helplessness. “Then how do you do it?”

Kenzie bit her lip. Something obviously wasn’t right here. While she had no idea what it was, her heart had started aching in a funny way. “It isn’t anything you can explain,” she said softly. “It’s just something you know. In here.” When she touched her heart, his expression changed, and she knew for sure now that what she saw in his eyes was pain.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said roughly.

Heaven help her, but some strange compulsion was making her reach out to cover his big hand with hers. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“What do you mean?”

His fingers had closed over hers and the heat rushed to Kenzie’s cheeks because of the way he was looking at her—as though so much depended on her answer.

“I mean that deep down you do know the right things to do for Angus. It’s supereasy when you…um…you love somebody.”

For some inexplicable reason that word—love—stuck in her throat. She’d never minded uttering it before. The heated color in her cheeks deepened and she snatched her hand away before Ross noticed. What in heaven’s name was wrong with her?

“Kenzie?” Angus was peering around the door at her. Those blue eyes, that cute grin, made her feel instantly in control again.

“What is it, sport?”

“Would you hurry up, please? I can hear those pastries calling me from your kitchen.”

Lost in thought, she followed him across the yard. Something was definitely not right between Ross Calder and his son. They seemed uncomfortable with each other, as though they weren’t used to—or even liked—being together. And Ross was so uptight around Angus that the tension was almost a physical thing humming through him. And as for that oddly vulnerable moment they’d just shared…surely that had been an unspoken plea for help?

Kenzie tried to ignore the painful squeezing of her heart. She knew all about bad relationships between parents and their offspring—she and her father hadn’t spoken for more than a year. In fact, the last thing he’d said to her was that he didn’t consider her his daughter anymore.

But Angus was only seven. How could you get on bad footing with a kid that age?

And where did Mrs. Calder fit into this?

Unless Ross and his wife were divorced? Or in the process of divorcing? That would explain her absence and the awkwardness Ross exhibited around his son. Maybe Angus resented him for the breakup, and this trip to the Outer Banks was Ross’s way of trying to make up for it.

A weekend father. Kenzie knew the type: caught up in their careers, they took no part in raising their own kids and in fact were little better than strangers to them. Then the marriage ended and they found themselves on the outside of the fence, trying desperately to squeeze a loving relationship into those brief, alternate weekend visitations.

Which didn’t always work.

Poor Ross! And poor Angus!

She opened the back door for the boy, resisting the urge to ruffle his dark curls. Her heart ached, imagining how he felt, knowing how hard it was to mend a damaged relationship. Sometimes impossible.

“The doughnuts are on the table. Help yourself. I’ll pour you a glass of milk.”

Ross came in through the screen door behind her. He nearly filled the small kitchen, reminding Kenzie that he was more the rugged male type than the vulnerable man of a moment ago. “Coffee?” she asked quickly.

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“No. I’ve already ground the beans.”

Ross looked around the room while she fetched cream and sugar and arranged the pastries on a plate. An old farmhouse sink, a few lopsided cabinets painted white, a laminated countertop straight out of the 1940s. Nothing like the sleek Corian-and-stainless-steel condo kitchen he once owned in New York before leaving his old law firm at the beginning of the year, when the battle over Angus had started heating up overseas.

Clearly whatever Kenzie Daniels did for a living didn’t pay much. Granted, you didn’t need a lot to live like this.

By now Angus had made himself at home at the oak table. The boy’s short legs dangled from one of the mismatched chairs as he munched on a buttermilk doughnut and looked around him with the bright interest of a typical seven-year-old. Again he seemed not at all shy in his surroundings.

“This place reminds me of Norfolk,” he announced.

“Your grandfather’s place?” Kenzie asked, much to Ross’s surprise. What did she know about Angus’s family?

“Yeah. Everything’s old there, too.” He talked around a mouthful of doughnut. “I like it.”

“Did you spend a lot of time in Norfolk?”

Angus hesitated a moment, then said with a shrug, “Summer holidays and Christmas, too.”

Kenzie set a mug of coffee in front of where Ross was standing. “Why is it that Angus has a British accent and you don’t?”

“I’m American, he’s not.”

“Oh. Then Angus’s mother—”

“My wife…my ex-wife is…was English.”

Kenzie caught her breath. Was?

“She passed away earlier this year.”

The shock of those words jolted her. She glanced quickly at Angus, who sat with his eyes glued to his plate. “Oh, Angus, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” But he wouldn’t look at her and she saw his little Adam’s apple bob convulsively as he swallowed. Her heart contracted and she glanced at Ross, who was studying his son with the same pained intensity.

“Maybe we’d better go, Angus,” Ross said quietly.

“But I haven’t drunk my milk yet!”

“And you haven’t had your bear claw,” Kenzie added meaningfully to Ross.

“What’s a bear claw?” Angus asked, immediately intrigued.

“It’s like a turnover, with almonds in it.”

Angus scrunched up his freckled nose. “I’d rather have another doughnut. Please?” he added, smiling shyly.

The awkward moment was over. Kenzie handed him the plate. “Eat all you like, sport.”

Ross sat down at the table, the tension draining out of him. This had been the first time Penelope’s death had been mentioned to a stranger, and Angus had handled it much better than he’d thought. So had Kenzie, by knowing better than to ask more questions the way other people probably would have.

“If I had your birds I’d try to make pets out of them,” Angus said to Kenzie, a milk mustache painted above his lip.

Grinning, she tossed him a napkin. “So you wouldn’t mind pelican poop all over your room?”

“Yuck. I hadn’t thought of that.” Balancing his empty glass on his plate, he set both next to the sink. “I think I’d rather have a dog. They go outside when they need to use the bathroom and…hey, Kenzie! What are all these drawings?”

Through the opened door leading from the pantry, he had caught sight of her workroom and quickly went in.

“Angus, don’t poke—” Ross warned.

“No, it’s okay. Look at them, if you like.” She rose to pour more coffee into Ross’s mug. “How about another bear claw?”

“They’re hard to resist,” he answered with a smile.

“Tell me about it. I’ll have to run an extra mile this afternoon.”

Ross had already decided that she was a runner—a serious one from the look of her. He realized he liked that about her, because he was one, too. “How often do you run?”

“Every day, if I can.”

“On the beach?”

“Not always. The sand is too soft. I prefer the trails near the lighthouse.” Kenzie thought about asking him to join her, suspecting he was a runner, like her, then instantly squelched the idea. Much as she liked having company on her jogs, she didn’t think he would agree. Besides, who would look after Angus in the meantime?

She stole another glance at Ross to find him looking at the water outside the window. His face was a dark contrast to the brightness outside, and she couldn’t help admiring his profile; his straight nose, his lean cheeks, especially the sensual curve of his mouth. Quickly she dropped her gaze. Why on earth was she studying Ross Calder’s mouth?

Angus’s head appeared around the door. “Hey, Kenzie, are these cartoons?”

She looked up, relieved. “Yes.”

“How come they don’t make any sense?”

She laughed. “Because they’re for grown-ups. They’re supposed to make grown-ups think about things that have happened around the country recently. They’re political cartoons,” she explained, catching Ross’s eye.

“They’re all over the place! Come see. Wow! She’s got a cool computer, too!”

Time to reel in his overinquisitive son.

But Ross, too, stopped short in the doorway, staring. Angus was right. There were black-and-white ink drawings all over the walls, some framed, some pinned or taped, many of them only half-finished. There were more on a huge drawing table in the corner, which was crammed with art supplies, along with a computer and sophisticated scanning equipment. Two televisions were set up nearby, one tuned to CNN, the other to a local news broadcast. VCRs were recording both.

Kenzie appeared behind them.

“Did you draw these?”

She nodded.

“For work or pleasure?”

“I’m the political cartoonist for the Norfolk Messenger.”

“Wow!” Angus breathed. “I’ve never met a cartoonist before.”

Neither had Ross. Thumbs hooked in his pockets, he studied the sketches spread out on the cluttered stand. A few of them dealt with the current administration’s proposal to step up offshore drilling near Point Edwards Bay in Alaska, a controversy that had been commanding front-page headlines when Ross and Angus had left New York two days ago. They were extremely well drawn, politically astute…and cuttingly funny.

Intrigued, Ross studied the ones hanging on the wall. Most of them seemed to deal with local officials he didn’t know, poking not-so-gentle fun at their foibles, while others made scathing statements about political leaders across the nation—especially in Washington.

“You drew these?”

Kenzie’s lips twitched. “You seem incredulous. Why? Do I come across as that much of a dumb Southern blonde?”

“Trust me, Ms. Daniels, you do not come across as any sort of stereotype.”

Kenzie frowned. Was she supposed to take that as a compliment? Being unique, if that was what he meant, could be a good thing…or very bad. It was impossible to tell, because although he was looking at her he wasn’t smiling.

She felt her breath catch on some odd pain in her throat. Why did he always seem to be so darned…vulnerable to her? As though he hadn’t been given much reason in life to smile? Had his wife’s death hurt him that badly? And why the heck did she care?

Fortunately Ross had turned his attention back to the drawings. “You’ve got a very keen eye for politics, Ms. Daniels. But you seem to think extraordinarily poorly of lawyers.”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

The sudden sharpness of her tone surprised him. Turning, he saw that her mouth was set in a hard line and that her eyes were snapping. He’d never noticed before that they were light blue and had flecks of gold in them.

“You don’t, ah, care for lawyers?”

“In general, no. If Washington were a cesspool—and sometimes I think it may be—they’d be the bottom feeders.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really,” she said with unexpected heat.

“That seems rather harsh.”

Her chin tipped. “But accurate.”

“My father’s a lawyer,” Angus piped up helpfully.

Kenzie’s gaze flew to Ross’s intractable face. “Is that right?”

“It is.”

A totally inexplicable feeling of betrayal washed over her. She should have known! He wasn’t vulnerable or hiding some sort of inner pain! She’d misread those feelings, hadn’t realized that his reticence was really an air of superiority and that the inscrutable expression he wore whenever he spoke to her was actually a habit perfected in the courtroom, where it could prove a huge disadvantage if the other side of the bench knew what you were thinking.

No wonder Angus wasn’t entirely comfortable with this man! Not to resort to stereotypes, but all the lawyers Kenzie knew—and being from Washington she knew plenty—weren’t exactly the warm and fuzzy, touchy-feely type. Furthermore, they were rarely cut out to be loving fathers.

Like her own.

Oh, yes, Kenzie knew exactly how hard it was to have a decent relationship with a coldhearted lawyer for a father. And the situation was made even worse for Ross and Angus, who were obviously grappling in different ways to come to terms with the former Mrs. Calder’s death. Grief, instead of bringing them together, was driving a wedge between them.

“Kenzie? Can I let the dogs in? I hear them crying on the porch.”

Her expression softened as she looked down at Angus. The poor kid, she thought, aching. I know something of what he’s going through. “Sure you can, sport.”

When Angus grinned his thanks at her she smiled back, her cheeks dimpling. The gesture was absolutely pure and natural, and Ross, watching them, felt jealous longing flare like a white-hot brand inside him. How come Kenzie never smiled like that at him? And why wouldn’t he share the intimacy between them? Why did he feel himself the outsider here? Okay, so Kenzie Daniels seemed to have made some kind of favorable impression on his son. How could he not admire her bird hospital, her career as a cartoonist, a house on an island and a pair of tiger-striped dogs? With no vested interest in their relationship, she could also treat the boy with the easy familiarity Ross didn’t dare to. Maybe Angus was even beginning to feel some sort of displaced maternal affection for her.

Good God! The thought was enough to make any single father panic.

“Come on, Angus. We’ve got to go.”

His harsh words made Angus look so stricken and Kenzie so disappointed that he had to grit his teeth to resist changing his mind though he didn’t want to admit it, Angus wasn’t the only one falling victim to the warmth of Kenzie’s smiles. “We appreciate your hospitality, Ms. Daniels, but it’s getting late.”

Angus hung his head. “Thanks, Kenzie,” he mumbled. “I had fun.”

Kenzie was tempted to yell “Objection!” but knew better. Just like a lawyer, she thought furiously, taking no notice of anybody else’s feelings!

“You’re welcome, Angus.” She squeezed his shoulder, then hastily shoved the remaining doughnuts into a bag. “For later,” she whispered.

Straightening, she found Ross’s eyes nailing into her. Almost defiantly she tipped her chin. Without another word, he turned and walked out of the door.

She watched the car bump down the driveway and shook with anger. How dare that man treat his son that way? The kid had just lost his mother, for crying out loud! Couldn’t Ross see that what Angus wanted—craved—was simply a little love and warmth?

“Fat chance he’ll get it from the likes of him,” Kenzie muttered, shutting the front door none too gently.

Zoom and Jazz, aware of her anger, lifted their heads to look at her. Kenzie knelt to fondle their ears. “Settle down, guys. I’m not mad at you. I’m just obsessing.”

About the wrong thing. If she was going to fret about a damaged father-child relationship, she’d be better off worrying about her own.

Yeah, right.

And as for the conflicting emotions Ross Calder aroused within her—well, he happened to be good-looking, even sexy, and it was understandable that she, as a healthy young woman, would respond to that. But never mind that there might be a perfectly good explanation for him bolting out of her house like that, dragging poor Angus along with him, or that there were other, kinder emotions burning beneath his icy demeanor. He was still a lawyer, a bottom feeder of the lowliest kind, and she’d be darned if she’d respond to him in any positive way or feel the least bit sorry for him. Provided she ever saw him again.

Scowling, she turned to tackle the dishes in the sink.




Chapter Three


“I’m telling you, Delia, he’s a different kid around her. Totally open, friendly, eager to please. It’s almost a kind of hero worship. Everything she says and does is ‘supercool’ to him. I don’t understand it.”

“Do you think she reminds him of his mother?”

Ross tucked the receiver under his chin and pulled the pizza from the oven. Setting it on the counter, he envisioned Penelope, tall and darkly elegant, accompanying him to the opening night of the London symphony in a clinging Halston dress. Then Kenzie Daniels in shorts and a T-shirt, pulling dead fish out of a freezer. If he wasn’t so busy brooding, he would have smiled at the comparison.

“Not a chance.”

“Maybe she reminds him of somebody else. A housekeeper or nanny?”

Ross had met both women at Penelope’s funeral. One had been extremely old, the other dumpy and dark. “No way.”

“Maybe she just has a natural way with kids.”

“Meaning I don’t?”

He could actually hear Delia hesitating over the phone line. He gripped the receiver hard, dreading her answer. Bad enough that Delia had taken it upon herself to call and check up on them, and even worse that Angus had told her all about Kenzie the moment he’d answered the phone. Gushed on and on about her, actually, so that Delia had asked Ross for clarification when it was his turn to talk.

Now he was going to have to listen to things he didn’t want to hear and to admit things he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“He misses his mother, Ross. And maybe, in a way, he’s blaming you for her loss.”

His heart cramped. “Now wait a minute—”

“It’s totally unfounded, I know. But he’s a little boy, Ross. Kids tend to look at things differently. They really don’t know how to weigh what’s fair and what’s not. And you took him away from his home, his grandparents—”

“Who are even more cold and unloving than I am.” He tried to sound as if he was making fun of himself, but his voice was flat. He’d never felt less like joking.

“Give him time, Ross. And you, too. It’s only been a few months! He’ll warm up to you once he gets to know you better. After all, you’ve been a stranger to him all his life, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Penelope said unkind things about you to him when you first sued for visitation rights.”

Which had happened just before she’d died. Did Angus blame him in some way for that? Ross wondered suddenly. But who could have known that Penelope would be killed in a plane crash while locked in a bitter legal dispute over the son she had never acknowledged to Ross?

For God’s sake, some strange lump was forming in Ross’s throat as he wondered if his chances with Angus were doomed. He closed his eyes only to feel them stinging. Were those tears? It was definitely time to get a grip.

“Is that your closing statement, counselor?”

But Delia wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “Please, Ross.”

“Okay, okay.” Damn! Now he’d burned himself on the pizza tray. Cursing inwardly, he held his thumb under the faucet. “Look, gotta run. Supper’s ready.”

“Just remember what I said. And relax, will you? Stop trying so hard.”

“Always have to get in the last word, don’t you?” he countered, but this time he succeeded in sounding as though he didn’t mind.

Delia chuckled. No doubt she was relieved that he’d chosen to lighten up—though in reality Ross’s heart couldn’t have been heavier. He wished she’d never called him, wished she’d refrained from overstepping professional lines to discuss such personal matters with him. “Gotta run,” he said again, and was relieved that this time his voice didn’t waver. “I’ll check in with you at the office tomorrow.”

“Not until Thursday, Ross. You promised.”

“Okay, okay.”

He hung up to find Angus lying on his stomach in front of the TV watching cartoons. Handing him a slice of pizza, Ross gestured toward the characters cavorting on the screen. “Who are they?”

“That’s Johnny Savage and his friend, Major Stanton.”

“Oh? What do they do?”

“Fight aliens. Most of the time they’re humanoid. But that one’s an octopus. He’s a bad guy. His men squirt ink on people to capture them.”

“I see,” said Ross, who didn’t. What had happened to the simple cartoons of his childhood? Elmer Fudd hunting wascally wabbits? The Road Runner foiling Wile E. Coyote?

His brother’s words came back to haunt him. What makes you think you can raise a seven-year-old?

Ignorance, obviously. Would he ever get the hang of this parenting thing? Not just learning how to look after a kid, feed him, clothe him, keep him from harm, but find common ground for a relationship? And did he have it in him after all this time to embrace a whole new culture?

Ross wasn’t sure.

And at the moment he felt very much alone.

“So,” he said with forced gaiety when the cartoon ended. “Given some thought to what you’d like for your birthday? I need ideas, you know.”

Angus’s eyes widened. “Is it Wednesday already?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“And you—you want to give me a present?”

“Why not?”

“I heard you telling someone on the phone that you’d already gotten me something.”

“When was that?”

“The morning we left to come here.”

That must have been Delia, calling to remind Ross about Angus’s birthday; offering to buy a gift and send it to their beach house in the event he had forgotten.

But Ross had already bought the model train set Angus had fallen in love with at the toy store last month. Because of its size he’d brought along only the engine for Angus to unwrap on Wednesday, plus a few other things he hoped the boy would like.

Now he frowned, wondering if he should remind Angus not to eavesdrop on telephone calls between grown-ups. Surely this was a good time to drive the message home?

But the memory of how the boy had withdrawn from him in Kenzie Daniels’s aviary earlier that day stopped him cold. Back then he’d only mentioned his dislike of pelicans, not chastised the boy for bad behavior. Still, he didn’t want to be the cause of the boy’s frustrated tears again. The thought made him ache inside.

“So obviously you know you’ll be getting presents on Wednesday,” he said instead. “So much for a surprise. But you also get one birthday wish.”

“A wish? What kind of wish?”

“The best kind. You can ask for anything you like. Within reason, of course. Something special you’ve been wanting very badly.”

“For real?”

The boy’s eagerness tore at Ross’s heart. If only it was always this easy. “Sure. My mother started the tradition when I was just a bit younger than you. Each year my brother Alex and I were allowed to make one birthday wish, which Mom did her best to fulfill. She always said it was better than blowing out candles and just hoping it’d come true.”

“That never happens,” Angus agreed.

“I know.”

“Did your dad help make those wishes come true?”

My dad was the wish, Ross thought, then cleared his throat. “He sure did. So go ahead and tell me. What would you like?”

Angus’s eyes widened. “I can wish for anything?”

“As I said, within reason.”

“Can we go out to dinner?”

“On Wednesday night? Is that your wish?”

Angus nodded.

“Sure we can. Is that all you want?”

“Um, well…” Angus looked down at his sneakers. “Can we take Kenzie along?”

“What?”

He must have spoken sharply, because Angus’s face fell.

“You said I could have a wish,” he mumbled. “And I want to have dinner with Kenzie.”

Ross set his plate aside and drew in a deep breath. The last thing he wanted was to encourage further contact with a beautiful-but-lawyer-hating woman his son seemed to be unnaturally drawn to. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Angus nodded.

“Not that inflatable kayak at the hardware store across the street?”

Angus shook his head.

“Or that fishing trip on Pamlico Sound?”

“No, thank you.” He was still mumbling and he wouldn’t look at Ross.

“Or that train set you saw at Garrison’s Toy Store?”

He saw the struggle on his son’s face and realized he was being unfair.

“Angus, wait a minute—”

“No, I told you what I wanted. I want to have dinner with you and with Kenzie.”

Those weren’t Penelope’s vivid blue eyes staring back at him all at once. They were Ross’s own, and they were too darned determined. The tilt of that chin was all too familiar, as well.

“Okay, okay. We’ll invite her to dinner.” Ross took a deep breath and struggled to make his tone lighter. “Got a restaurant in mind?”

Angus brightened. “There’s one on the sound near the place where we turned to go to the lighthouse. It has a deck on the water. Can we go there?”

“Did you happen to notice the name?”

Disappointed, Angus shook his head.

“Would you recognize it if we drove by again?”

“I think so. Does that mean we can eat there?”

“If we can find it.”

“Can we look now?”

Ross glanced out of the windows. The sun had set, but there was plenty of daylight left. He drew another deep breath. Anything to make the boy smile again. “Come on.”

Following Angus down the steps, he couldn’t help thinking how unfair it was that the one thing that seemed to make Angus happy was the one thing he would have preferred to deny him: more time in the company of one MacKenzie Daniels.

For God’s sake, he didn’t want Angus getting emotionally attached to someone he’d never see again once they returned to New York! And he himself definitely didn’t want a woman cluttering up his life, not even for the week and a half that remained of his vacation. After Penelope, it was the last thing he wanted, ever. Never mind that Kenzie Daniels seemed to be everything Penelope had never been: sweet, unassuming, very kind and generous. Not to mention funny and warm and such a natural with kids that he couldn’t help envying her that ease.

In the car, he cleared his throat. “Mind if I ask why you want to invite Ms. Daniels so badly?”

“Because I like her.”

“I agree she’s nice, but you shouldn’t get so intimate with strangers, son.”

“What’s intimate?”

“Eh…make friends with them so fast. We don’t know anything about her.”

“But we do! She can fly kites and she rescues birds and has two greyhounds and draws cartoons!”

How to argue with that kind of logic? Ross took a stab at it. “You know a lot about Marty, don’t you?” Marty was the handyman at Ross’s apartment building.

“Yeah.”

“And you think he’s nice, too. But you’ve never asked me to invite him to supper.”

“That’s different.”

Lord, the boy was stubborn. “In what way?”

“He’s nice to me, but he’s not a friend. I mean, it’s different with Kenzie. She doesn’t work for you and doesn’t have to like me if she doesn’t want to…and…and…”

He was clearly struggling to find the right words. Ross racked his brains to do the same, desperate to keep the line of communication open. This was the first time Angus had ever tried sharing his feelings with him.

“I think I see what you mean,” he said slowly. “Marty’s nice, but he’s really just doing his job.”

Angus looked relieved. “Yeah. But Kenzie doesn’t need to be nice to me. She just is. She didn’t yell when my kite landed on her, and then she showed me how to fly it.”

Ross’s eyes left the road to settle on his son. “You hit her with your kite?”

Angus blushed. “I didn’t mean to. It fell on her. Well, next to her. But I think it scared her. She was sleeping on her towel.”

“Oh.” So that was it. Nothing like a disaster to break the ice between strangers. The fact that she hadn’t berated him had obviously made a big impression on Angus. And his gratitude had strengthened into liking the more time he spent with her. Ross had to admit that, to a seven-year-old, Kenzie Daniels must seem very exotic and interesting—much more interesting than having a dour old lawyer for a father.

Ross’s spirits sank at the thought. Angus certainly hadn’t indicated any interest in his father’s career the first time he had been shown Ross’s office in Queens, where he had been introduced to Delia and the others in the practice. Granted, the run-down warehouse that served as headquarters for Calder & Hayes LLC wasn’t much to look at. Not like the glass-fronted high-rise on Madison Avenue, where Ross had practiced corporate law for eight years. Where he had been a full partner, highly paid and widely respected, and had lived only a few blocks away in an elegant town house he shared with Penelope, surrounded by the stores, restaurants and the theater and museum districts she had loved to haunt.

And now? What had the bitter battle for Angus—blown out of all proportion first by Penelope and then by the bloodthirsty English tabloids—cost him? He was no longer a high-powered attorney in a prestigious Manhattan firm, but a partner in a tiny law office that no one in midtown Manhattan had ever heard of, doing more pro bono work than not because most of his clients were the indigent and homeless of the city who couldn’t afford to pay. Nowadays he supposed he was barely one step above being a public defender—something Penelope had thought utterly amusing when she’d found out.

“My, my, how far the mighty have fallen,” she had said to him at her bitchiest best. That had been at their last meeting, back in February, after Ross had shown up at her parents’ elegant London town house to demand one last time that Penelope bring the boy back from wherever it was she had hidden him, to be reasonable, to at least allow father and son to meet, for God’s sake! But Penelope wasn’t interested in talking about Angus. She had wanted to hear all the sordid details about his downfall, how Ross’s senior partners had asked him to step down, that the publicity—the firm had an office in London—was damaging their image, how it wouldn’t do for the firm to become entangled in a custody battle between Ross and the daughter of Sir Edmund Archer.

“Hey! Hey, stop! There it is!”

Jerked from his black thoughts, Ross hit the brakes too hard. A horn blared behind him. “Sorry. Where?”

Angus pointed. The Boathouse. A two-story restaurant set back against the sound, the parking lot filled with cars. The wide front porch was packed with people waiting to be seated.

“You sure know how to pick ’em,” Ross said with a crooked smile. “Come on. Let’s see if we can get reservations for Wednesday night.”

They could. And Ross had to admit that the dining room was cheery with its cypress-paneled walls and nautical decorations. The food didn’t look bad, either.

“I want to sit at the window,” Angus whispered. “Can you ask?”

The hostess, writing down their names, overheard and smiled. “I’ll be sure and save the best table for you. You can watch the sun go down over the sound.”

Angus smiled back at her shyly. “Thanks.”

No doubt about it, the kid was opening up. Maybe Delia had been right. All he needed was to give it time.

“Nice choice,” Ross said, giving in to his feelings and tousling Angus’s hair in the doorway.

For once the boy didn’t draw away. “Really?”

“Really. Kenzie’ll love it.”

That earned him a shy smile all his own. Side by side they went back to the car, Ross feeling swellheaded with pride. Maybe he was starting to get the hang of this thing after all.

And if Angus’s happiness meant being nice to Kenzie Daniels, well, he could do that, too. At least long enough to give the boy a birthday dinner he’d remember.



“I don’t believe it!” Kenzie gritted her teeth and pounded her fist on the steering wheel. If the dump truck ahead of her slowed down any further they’d both be crawling. She’d been following him since Nags Head, unable to pass because of all the oncoming traffic. Usually Saturdays were the worst time to try and navigate Highway 12, but this was midweek, for crying out loud.

She downshifted as the dump truck slowed to veer around two cyclists, then glanced at her watch. Ross and Angus were picking her up in an hour and she was still twenty miles from home.

Nothing like a hissy fit to sour her mood even further, she thought. She was already tired and cranky after a morning spent in the Norfolk Messenger offices, summoned to a meeting that couldn’t wait until tomorrow, when she’d already planned to show up anyway. At least Maureen, her editor, had felt bad about springing the planning session on her without warning and had taken her to lunch—though they’d ended up waiting seemingly forever for their food.

Then the long drive back, with Kenzie starting to feel a little pressured about the time. The situation had worsened when her pickup had stalled just north of the Oregon Inlet bridge, the needle on the temperature gauge buried on Hot.

The radiator, of course. She’d been nursing the old one longer than she should have with a gallon of coolant she kept in the bed. The tow truck had taken too long, the radiator hadn’t been in stock, and she had whiled away the afternoon at the convenience store across the street reading pulp magazines and wondering how she was going to afford the repairs until a replacement part was shipped down from Elizabeth City.

Now she was stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle and about to succumb to a screaming bout of road rage. Didn’t the driver ahead of her know she had a date—with two good-looking guys, no less? Couldn’t he pull over and let her by?

Angus had sounded so grown-up when he’d called to ask her to dinner. Surprised and flattered, she’d accepted at once. Then she remembered that Ross would be there, too. “Are you sure your dad doesn’t mind?”

“Oh, no. He said you should come.”

Yeah, sure. Kenzie could picture him agreeing with that stoic lawyer’s look that Angus was too young and unsophisticated to read. Still, she was surprised at how much she was looking forward to the evening. She had a number of friends among Buxton’s permanent residents and went out with them often. But she’d never been invited to celebrate a seven-year-old English charmer’s birthday. Not at the Boathouse, which, after all, was outrageously expensive.

“Eight. Angus is eight as of today,” Kenzie reminded herself. She had spent most of yesterday working on his present. She couldn’t wait to see what he thought of it. No doubt Ross would find it silly. Like most of the lawyers Kenzie knew, he probably had no sense of humor.

The dump truck put on its blinker, downshifted, and turned into a construction site. Honking and waving her thanks, Kenzie sped away.

She fed the dogs and the birds in record time, then leaped into the shower. After wrapping her wet hair in a towel, she dried herself off and padded into the bedroom. No time to obsess over what to wear. She seized a dress from the closet and pulled it on, whipped out the blow dryer, then raced to put on her makeup.

“Kenzie!”

Crud! She hadn’t even heard the car drive up, and here she was still barefoot and lacking mascara. “Come on in! Be careful not to let the dogs out!”

The screen door slammed. Angus’s light footsteps sounded, followed by his father’s.

“Where are you, Kenzie?”

“In the bedroom. I’ll be out in a minute. There’s juice in the fridge. Help yourselves if you’re thirsty.”

She slipped on her watch, fastened a thin gold chain around her neck, spritzed on a trace of perfume. Her sandals were by the kitchen door. Barefoot, she waltzed out to fetch them.

“Oh, my,” she said.

Ross and Angus were at the counter, Ross pouring orange juice into a glass. They turned at the sound of her voice. She stared.

“Angus! You look super!”

He was wearing a new set of shorts and a collared shirt, obviously purchased from a local surf shop. The cargo shorts were sage in color, the Hawaiian shirt a riot of palm trees, hibiscus and exotic birds. His shoes were also new, the slouchy kind of sneakers worn by surfers and skateboarders. His still-damp hair was neatly combed.

“Do you really like it?”

“Way cool. I’m glad I dressed up, too.”

She had put on a knee-length sundress with spaghetti straps in periwinkle-blue—her favorite color. She wore her blond hair down. Her only jewelry was the delicate gold chain that nestled in the hollow of her tanned throat.

Shifting her focus from Angus to his father, she felt her cheeks grow warm. Like him or not, you had to admit that Ross Calder was one good-looking man. Angus must have talked him into buying something new, as well, because the fine white muslin shirt he wore was bright and crisp. The sleeves were rolled back in a casually masculine way and the open collar revealed an even more masculine expanse of muscled chest. Kenzie wasn’t sure how a pair of ordinary khaki pants could look so sexy, but Ross Calder definitely pulled it off.

She struggled to regain her composure as she slipped on her sandals. Reminded herself that, good-looking though he might be, he was still a member of that greedy, grasping, heartless class of professionals who lived for the thrill of making money, of working a judge and jury until their clients went free whether they knew them to be guilty or not.

Like her father.

Whom she had loved desperately as a little girl but who had betrayed her in the end, and who had turned everyone in her family but her mother against her when Kenzie had courageously exposed him for the man he was.

Even after all this time the pain of it clawed at her.

“Kenzie?”

She had to swallow before she could answer. “Yes, Angus?”

“You look really, really pretty.”

She gave a strangled laugh of gratitude and relief and pulled him impulsively into her arms. “Happy birthday, you little goof-ball! How does it feel to be eight?”

“I feel very grown-up, thank you.”

Was it her imagination, or did he look a little disappointed when she let him go? She hugged him again for good measure. Funny, but she’d forgotten how good it felt to hug a kid.

Straightening, she found herself eye-to-eye with Ross. He was wearing his lawyer’s look again, revealing absolutely nothing of what he was thinking.

Her chin tipped. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“It was Angus’s idea.”

“Oh.” Her heart sank.

“And he’s right. You do look really, really pretty.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

The way he said it made a shiver flee down her spine. Confused and breathless, she gathered up her purse, sunglasses and a padded envelope from the kitchen table.

Angus’s eyes lit up. “What’s that?”

“Your present, of course. As if you didn’t know.”

“It’s not very big.”

“There are a couple of saying here in America, Angus. Maybe you have them in England, too— Good things come in small packages. And curiosity killed the cat.”

“My grannie always used to say that to me.”

“She probably had good reason to.”

Outside, Angus gallantly held open the car door for her.

“But you’re the birthday boy. You should sit up front.”

He dimpled. “But you’re the guest of honor.”

Returning his smile, she slid in next to Ross. It was the closest she’d ever been to him. He must have showered and put on aftershave recently, because he had a decidedly pleasant smell about him. Clean and…and sexy. Muscles rippled in his arm as he switched on the ignition. “Seat belts, Angus, Kenzie.”

She reached for the strap, glad to have an excuse to wriggle away from him. For some reason she found herself completely unnerved by his presence. Maybe it was the intimacy of their outing together; after all, it was easier dealing with him in the familiarity of her own home. Or maybe it was the fact that he looked so drop-dead handsome tonight. Either way, something about him was doing odd things to her inside.

Angus leaned forward as far as his belt would allow. “Will your birds be okay while you’re gone?”

“They prefer peace and quiet.”

“Did you let the pelican go?”

“This morning.”

“Oh. Too bad. I wish I’d seen it.”

“That’s okay,” she said brightly. “Maybe next time.”

“Will you be letting something else go before next Saturday? That’s when we leave.”

“The blue heron might be well enough by then.”

“Oh, good!” He leaned forward to address his father. “Can we watch Kenzie let it go?”

“We’ll see.”

“It’s a pretty neat experience,” Kenzie said. “Before I let the birds go I band them with a number so people will know who they are if they’re ever caught again. To band them, I have to put their heads in a coffee can.”

Angus’s eyes went wide. “How come?”

“It may seem cruel, but when you stuff them down inside a can they instantly relax. Then you can slide the band on their feet without a struggle.”

“Maybe they’re frozen with terror, not relaxed,” Ross said.

“Actually, research shows that their heart rates slow dramatically. So they really are relaxed.”

Angus bounced up and down in his seat. “I want to watch!”

“We’ll see,” Ross said again, but he sounded a lot more positive this time.

“Ever been to the Boathouse, Kenzie?” Angus demanded in the next breath.

“Only once, when I first moved here.”

“How long ago was that?”

“A little over a year.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“In Washington, D.C.”

“Washington!” Angus leaned forward to eye his father. “Have you ever been there?”

“A few times.”

“Is it nice? Would I like it?”

“You’d probably enjoy the museums and the zoo. Tell you what. I’ll be going there on business in October. Maybe you can come along.”

Angus’s face fell. “I’ll be in school then.”

“Second or third grade?” Kenzie asked.

“I—I don’t know. We had forms in my old school, not grades.”

“You’ll be in third grade here in America, son.”

Had Ross noticed the slight tremor in his son’s voice? Kenzie certainly had. Her heart ached, picturing Angus facing his first day at a strange new school with a new teacher and new classmates. She hoped he’d had the chance to meet a few of them already, managed to make friends with them. That he’d been taken on a tour of his new classroom so the place wouldn’t seem so strange and scary come September.

Did Ross know enough about parenting to arrange those things?

“Do you and Angus live alone?” she asked impulsively.

“At the moment, yes.”

What in heck did that mean?

She waited for an explanation, but none came. Instead Ross switched on his turn signal and pulled into the parking lot.

Kenzie mulled over the comment as she got out of the car. Was Ross planning to get married again? Angus had never mentioned a stepmother-to-be. Not that she cared, of course. She only hoped the woman would be the warm and loving person Angus—and his father—needed so badly.

They were seated at a booth with a huge picture window overlooking the sound. Angus sat down beside her, Ross opposite them. A waitress brought menus, requested drink orders.

“Can we have cocktails?” Angus asked eagerly. “It’s my birthday,” he added importantly.

“Why, sure you can, honey. How about a Shirley Temple? On the house. You’re the best-lookin’ birthday boy we’ve had in here all summer.”

Kenzie had to smile. Obviously she wasn’t the only female to fall instantly for the freckle-faced charmer with his proper British accent.

“You’ll have to have the same,” the waitress added to her and Ross. “We’re a dry county.”

“They don’t serve alcohol,” Kenzie explained after the woman had gone. “No hard alcohol. Just beer and wine. It’s not uncommon here in the South.”

Ross nodded. “Blue laws. I’ve heard of them. But if you ask me, it’s barbaric.”

Tonight she was inclined to agree with him. She didn’t care much for either beer or wine but she would very much have liked a cocktail to calm her nerves. For some reason Ross Calder was taking up too much room as he sat across the table from her. The booth was too small, too…intimate. Her gaze always seemed to be falling on him no matter where she tried to look. His face, his blue eyes, his unsmiling but strangely disturbing mouth. What on earth was the matter with her?

“Can I see what’s in the package now, Kenzie?”

“Gladly.” Anything to distract her.

But Ross had spied the waitress making her way toward them. “Let’s order dinner first, okay?”

Angus pretended to pout, then shyly volunteered to try the locally harvested clams. Kenzie ordered swordfish while Ross requested prime rib.

“Rare, please,” he told the waitress. “We lawyers have a yen for fresh blood.”

Even though he wasn’t looking at her, Kenzie knew which way he’d aimed that barb. It was so unexpected that she didn’t know whether to laugh or throw something at him. Honestly, she’d never let a guy unnerve her like this before!

Casting a glance at him she found him watching her, his blue eyes twinkling. So he had been teasing. Good grief, did he know how devastating he could be when he wanted to? She looked away quickly, her pulses humming and the heat rising to her cheeks.

“Can I open my present now, Kenzie?”

“Please,” she said, grateful for the distraction.

She watched with bated breath as Angus tore open the envelope. She’d had no idea what to give him, and the shopping was so limited in Buxton and Avon that nothing had inspired her. So she’d drawn him a picture, a cartoon she’d painted in a wash of watercolors. It showed the moment of their meeting, with Angus, dressed in a kilt to acknowledge his Scottish fore-bears, reeling in a kite that was about to land on the unsuspecting Kenzie’s head.

She had drawn herself as a somewhat gawky creature in a blue bathing suit, surrounded by all kinds of birds. Zoom and Jazz stood watch in the dunes.

She needn’t have worried. Angus whooped aloud when he saw it. “That’s me! Look, it’s me, and I have on a kilt at the beach! And there’s your dogs and your pelican and the seagulls and herons!”

“Do you like it?”

“I love it! I’m going to hang it in my room.”

“We’ll have to get it framed first.” Ross was looking at her almost wonderingly. “It’s very good.”

To Kenzie’s annoyance, little fingers of pleasure seemed to dance up her spine. The last thing she sought was approval from this man, especially when she’d been thinking violent thoughts about him just a moment ago. “Thanks.”

“How come you made yourself look so silly?” Angus demanded.

“Silly?”

“Yes. All skinny and your conk so big?”

“My—conk?”

“Your nose.”

She shrugged. “Guess that’s how I see myself.”

“But you’re beautiful, Kenzie!”

“Don’t be silly.”

“But you are! Isn’t she?” he demanded, turning to his father.

Ross’s eyes held hers. “Yes, she is.”

No doubt about it, something in Ross Calder’s voice was making her tingle all over. “Thanks,” she said lamely, then pointed quickly to the envelope. “Look inside. There’s something else.”

It was a picture book called Pirates of the Outer Banks. On the cover, a menacing Blackbeard shook his cutlass at them. “Blackbeard used to hide out on Ocracoke, the island south of ours,” Kenzie explained. “So did Anne Bonney, the lady pirate. They supposedly buried their treasure there, but it’s never been found.”

Angus leafed eagerly through the pages. Then he frowned. “But, Kenzie, I can’t read this! I’m not very good yet.”

“No problem. I bought it mainly for your father. So he could read aloud to you.”

Startled, Ross looked at her.

Yes, read to Angus, Kenzie silently urged him. It’s one of the most wonderful things a parent can do with a child. Don’t tell me it’s never occurred to you to try!

“Can we go to Okie Coke and look for the treasure ourselves?”

Kenzie laughed. “It’s pronounced Ocracoke, sweetie. And, yes, you can. It’s a short ferry ride from Hatteras Village.”

“A ferry ride! Can we go, Dad? Please?”

Dad. Kenzie suddenly realized that she’d never heard Angus address his father that way before. She cast a swift glance at Ross and her heart squeezed when she saw the startled pleasure in his eyes.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Will you come, too, Kenzie?”

“Um—”

“You’ve spilled some Shirley Temple on your sleeve, son,” Ross interrupted. “Go wash it off, please.”

“Okay.” He slid meekly out of his chair.

The moment they were alone, Ross turned to her. “Ms. Daniels.”

Even a blind man could have sensed the change in him. She steeled herself for whatever was coming. “Mr. Calder?”

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for Angus, not only this evening, but also the other day. You’ve been kind to him and made him laugh, and I’m truly very grateful.”

“But?”

Ross took a deep breath. “But I’d rather not encourage further contact between the two of you after this evening.” Or with me, he thought silently.

Even though Kenzie had suspected this was coming, she was surprised at the stab of disappointment she felt. “I hope you don’t think I’ve done anything to encourage—”

“Oh, I’m not suggesting as much. And while I’m glad Angus seems to be moving beyond the loss of his mother I don’t believe it’s at all healthy for him to grow attached to you.” He said this without looking at her, knowing better than to allow those big blue eyes to weaken his resolve.

“No, it isn’t,” Kenzie agreed in a whisper.

“So surely you can understand my request?”

She nodded, her own eyes downcast.

“Kenzie.” His hand was on her arm, sending warmth shooting through her. “Look at me.”

She lifted her eyes and the crooked smile on his face threatened to undo her.

“Let’s enjoy tonight, okay? For Angus’s sake?”

She didn’t like the feeling that was coming over her. A thank-goodness-she-was-sitting-down-because-her-knees-were-givingout sort of giddiness that had absolutely nothing to do with the way he was looking at her or with the feel of his big, warm hand on her skin. Nothing at all.

She struggled to say something that would put her back on even footing. Before she fell completely. “For Angus’s sake, gladly. Just make sure you keep that in mind yourself, Counselor.”

He leaned back, breaking the contact between them. “That sounds like a reprimand.”

“In a way, it is,” she admitted reluctantly.

He leaned back even farther, striving to look casual although he was feeling anything but. Asking her to stay out of their lives after tonight had been much harder than he’d thought, though for the life of him he didn’t know why. “So you have some criticism to offer concerning my behavior toward Angus?”

“Toward Angus, no. Toward me.”

“You?”

“If you want this to be a pleasant evening, you’re going to have to stop behaving so disapprovingly of me.”

“Disapproving!” Ross sounded genuinely startled. Had he been trying too hard to build a fence between Kenzie and Angus—and himself—tonight? But how could that be? His tactfulness was well-known in the courtroom and it shouldn’t have failed him here.

“Oh, you’ve been nice enough, I’ll admit. But I have this feeling that deep down you didn’t want me to come. That I’m here tonight only because Angus insisted on inviting me.”

He sucked in his breath at the stab of guilty pain he felt. “Ouch. You’re very direct, Ms. Daniels, you know that? What a shame you never studied law.”

“Did I get all the red off?” Angus had appeared at Kenzie’s side, holding out a scrubbed sleeve for her inspection.

“It looks fine.” She dabbed it dry with her napkin, then stood up.

He regarded her curiously. “Where are you going?”

“The ladies’ room,” she said as she left the table.

Once there, she took deep, calming breaths as she leaned against the sink. Thank goodness Ross hadn’t noticed her reaction to his casual words. Although Ross had been teasing her, the things he’d said had totally unraveled her composure.

“You plead your case very well, MacKenzie. Too bad you never studied law.”

Similar words had been spoken by her father, but in a tone Ross Calder hadn’t used with her—a tone which she’d never heard anyone use with her until that final, hateful confrontation outside the stately double doors leading to Burton Daniels III’s law office in downtown Washington, D.C.

It was the last thing he had ever said to his daughter, after the reporters and news cameras had gone. Although he had been the leading candidate for his party’s run for the presidency, he had just announced his withdrawal from the Republican race, citing his wife’s recent hospitalization as the major cause.

But thanks to Kenzie, everyone in America knew the real reason behind his decision: those questionable campaign funds he’d received from a European businessman whose bank on Grand Cayman Island had consequently become the target of an international investigation. No one in the States had been aware of any connection between the millionaire Belgian banker and the powerful D.C. attorney—until an unassuming political cartoon in the tiny Maryland publication Eastern Shore Weekly had raised the question.

The repercussions were only just beginning when Burton Daniels III announced his withdrawal from the Republican race, and no one doubted there’d be more to come.

As indeed there had been. A subpoena to appear before Congress, a Justice Department investigation, a hefty fine and six months’ jail time for Daniels’s campaign manager.

But what had whetted the nation’s interest more than the sullying of Burton Daniels’s once prestigious name had been the fact that Daniels’s own daughter had drawn the cartoon that had proved his downfall—her first ever published work. Strange, the wags had whispered among themselves, how Mrs. Burton Daniels’s hospitalization for chest pains had coincided with the publication of her daughter’s revealing cartoon and her husband’s subsequent withdrawal from the Republican race.

Still, much had changed since then. Surgery to install a pacemaker had set Kenzie’s mother to rights, and relocation to the isolated Outer Banks had helped Kenzie escape the unending media frenzy. Luckily she had found steady cartooning work at the Norfolk Messenger, because she’d not have been fit for any other career after fleeing Washington and giving up her nearly completed doctorate in early childhood education.

On the other hand, she and her father had never reconciled. He hadn’t spoken to her or acknowledged her existence in more than a year. And he had seen to it that none of her brothers, their wives or their children had said anything to her, either.

And of course Brent Ellis had called off their engagement the moment the scandal broke. Kenzie had clearly heard her father’s words echoing behind the pathetic little speech he had made, and she could well imagine the things her father had said when informing Brent that marrying his daughter meant no chance of keeping his partnership in the Daniels family law firm—which, in true Beltway fashion, had barely been tarnished by the sorry chain of events.

Career or love? Brent hadn’t hesitated in making his choice.

“C’mon, girl, get a grip,” Kenzie told her pale reflection in the mirror. True, Ross’s not-unkindly-meant words had unwittingly awakened memories she preferred to keep buried, but that didn’t mean she was going to ruin Angus’s birthday by hiding out in the ladies’ room. While she had no idea what had triggered her emotional meltdown, she wasn’t about to let either Ross or Angus suspect. So when she returned to the table she made sure that her head was held high and that her smile was warm and carefree.





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