The Prodigal Cousin

Patrick’s bark of laughter nearly burst his eardrum. “A kindred spirit. That’s what I always say, too. You wouldn’t know it to look at my daughter, but she’s an eating machine.”

“Dad.” The startled protest burst from Molly.

Sam grinned at Tamsin, who promptly dropped her gaze. He glanced at Patrick. “Need anything else?”

After a swift perusal, Patrick shook his head. “Be sure to come back down. My wife is putting dinner together.”

Sam nodded, uneasy again, because Eliza’s husband, welcoming now, might come to view him as the enemy. Sam didn’t enjoy invading Patrick’s home under false pretenses.

With Nina clinging to his free hand and Tamsin back on her side of the great generational divide, he carried his bag upstairs behind Molly. At the top, she took a right, her footsteps whispering on a thick burgundy rug. Soft lighting increased warm tones in the paneled hall. Had this place belonged to the Calvert family since it was built? Sam couldn’t imagine that kind of continuity.

Molly opened the third door. She set Nina’s bags on a chest in front of a surprisingly plain four-poster, and his younger daughter bolted across the room. Sam had expected frills and lace. Instead, the early American primitive paintings and a fire laid on the hearth offered hospitality.

“Daddy, come look!” Nina swung on a door frame, summoning him to her room. Tamsin leaned over her shoulder and forgot to move when Sam joined them.

Frills abounded in here, from the lace-trimmed duvet on the child-size sleigh bed to the skirt on a miniature dressing table. “It’s like a playhouse,” he said. “Only no spaces between the walls.” Nina’s stuffed animals would be at home at the tiny table set for high tea.

“Wow,” Tamsin finally said. Sam suspected the word had escaped her.

Molly’s smile reached all the way to her hazel eyes. “I like it, too. I wish we’d had it when I was a little girl.”

“How will I talk Nina into going home?” Sam asked.

The little girl grabbed her backpack, snatching a tattered blue elephant and a threadbare green lizard from its zippered opening. She seated them on the small white chairs, chattering about tea.

“Tamsin, come.” Nina patted the one open setting.

Tamsin glanced at Molly, adolescent reluctance all over her face. Sam fought a fond smile. She showed inordinate patience with her little sister, but what teenager wanted to take tea with a green lizard in front of a stranger?

“Would you like to see your room?” Molly asked her.

“No—after tea,” Nina said.

“I’ll come back, Nina.” Tamsin turned toward their hostess.

Molly edged around Sam, trailing a whiff of spice and woman that disturbed him. She crossed his room to open another door. “Here you go.”

Tamsin hauled her bag behind her. At the door, she glanced from her assigned quarters to Molly, and her bright smile made Sam glad he’d dragged her here.

“It’s great,” Tamsin said.

He was dying to see it, but she didn’t invite him in, and experience had taught him to wait for her to make the first move.

Molly clasped her hands as if to say “My work here is done,” and backed out, pausing at Sam’s hallway door.

“Dinner will be waiting. I’m sure Mom will find something fun for Nina.” She already knew Tamsin wouldn’t want to be classified with her sister. “When you come out of your rooms, turn left and go past the stairs. Mom and Dad use that end of the house, and the hall ends in a door to the kitchen stairs.”

Hearing her call his birth mother “Mom” shocked Sam. He nodded, trying to look as if he felt nothing, but her gaze narrowed as she caught his response, anyway. After a moment, she continued through the door.

She left it open, so he had to close it, but he couldn’t help watching her stroll toward the family side of the house. Her slender back and the gentle sway of her hips drew his gaze, inappropriate as that was. For God’s sake, she couldn’t be more than twenty-five.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Nina had entered his room again. “You look sad.”

“Sad?” He shut the door and scooped her into his arms. “Why would I be sad when you and Tamsin and I are going hiking tomorrow, and you’ve got this great room to sleep in tonight?”

She planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek. “I like this place. It’s cool.”

Astounding him, tears stuck in his throat. Nothing had been cool for her since she’d lost her mom. In fact, he didn’t believe his baby had ever used that word before. “Where did you learn ‘cool,’ Nina?”

“Tamsin says lots of stuff is cool. Daddy—” she pointed her toes toward the floor “—lemme down. Judy wants tea with Lizzie and Norm.”

Out of her pack came Judy, a doll with short blond hair that stood on end and bright blue eyes nearly kissed off her painted face. Fiona had named Judy before Nina could even turn over.

“Settle Judy and the gang and then wash your hands and face, and we’ll go downstairs.”

He couldn’t say if it was the long drive or his daughters’ excitement at their temporary rooms, but like Tamsin and Nina, he was suddenly interested in his surroundings.

Until he remembered he had to find a way to tell Eliza Calvert who he was.

MAYBE AN HOUR AGO she’d assured Sophie she wasn’t looking for a man, but Molly was an honest woman and she couldn’t restrain herself from listening for the least little sound from above. Inappropriate. A man who loved his daughters the way Sam Lockwood clearly worshipped Nina and the reluctant Tamsin, probably also loved his absent wife.

Sam’s reasons for traveling alone with his daughters made her curious, but she didn’t sense a divorce. Molly had dealt with plenty of children in the past four years. Usually, the extroverts like Nina, who believed even the adults around her were waiting for her conversation, came from a loving home. Tamsin was too quiet, but under all that Goth makeup, she was a young woman enduring the torture of her teenage years.

“They’re nice girls?” her mom asked.

Molly looked up from the beans she’d been staring at instead of snapping. “Nina’s chatty.” She broke a couple of beans at once. “She loves the room. Tamsin, the older girl, seems…”

The more Molly thought about it, the more she realized Tamsin seemed unusually quiet. She wore the unnerving yet familiar air of the walking wounded.

“I knew Nina’d like the dressing room.” Molly’s dad came in from the pantry behind the kitchen, brandishing several freshly cleaned trout. “Think they’ll enjoy these?”

“You’re going all out.” Tamsin was none of her business. Molly tried to put the girl out of her mind—or relegate her to the position she should occupy, that of a guest. “I thought we were doing leftovers.”

Her dad grinned. “I liked the way Nina called you the ‘big girl.’ And her sister looks as if she could use a treat.”

“The father sounded tired even from here,” Eliza said. “We might as well start their visit with a special dinner.”

“You’re staying, Molly?” her dad asked. “I cleaned one for you.”

Molly pried her gaze away from her mother’s face. She hadn’t imagined Sam Lockwood’s fatigue if her mother had sensed it, too, but Molly’s interest in the little family felt inappropriate. She’d resisted rash acts for ten years. No need to ruin her record and let herself feel involved because something about Tamsin spoke to her past. “I have stuff to do for a science project at school tomorrow.”

“You have to eat,” her mother said. “Stay.”

Upstairs, the door squeaked and Sam’s voice floated down. “Hold my hand, Nina. Don’t run. Hold on to the rail.”

“He’s overprotective.” Eliza looked upward. “Those stairs are perfectly safe.”

“Sh.” Patrick clearly felt the Lockwood family deserved privacy.