Another Man's Children

“Trust me.” His tone went as flat as the map on the wall. “There’s a difference between being a few miles from town and being in a place you can’t leave.”

“But being isolated couldn’t possibly be good for him right now. He needs his friends. He needs family.”

“Why?”

Why? she echoed, but only to herself. As tempting as it was, she wouldn’t fall for the challenge carved in his face. He’d just proved he wasn’t anywhere near as insensitive as he’d first seemed. She did, however, have major philosophical problems with his perceptions of her brother’s needs.

“Because he needs people around him,” she replied, not sure why he couldn’t see it himself. “To help keep him occupied. To help him deal with his grief. Being alone would be so much worse.”

“Or maybe,” Zach suggested, doing a commendable imitation of her patently patient tone, “it would be easier. Maybe what your brother needs is the opportunity not to be stoic for all those other people and to deal with whatever he’s feeling head-on.”

“He doesn’t need to be stoic around me.”

“Of course he does. You’re his little sister.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

The look he gave her held amazing tolerance. “A man doesn’t want to show weakness around a female member of his family. And he sure as hell doesn’t want to show it in front of another male. The life Sam had is gone and he needs to come to grips with that before he can move past it. The only way that can happen for some people is to leave them alone so they can deal with whatever they’re feeling without worrying about how it’s affecting everyone else. That includes you. Your parents. Me. Everyone.”

There was something about the way he included himself in that list that caught her attention. It was almost as if he were making a conscious effort to keep from adding to her brother’s concerns. But that thought was lost in the face of his absolute certainty. It was heavy in his voice, mirrored in his eyes.

Conviction like that wasn’t born of assumption. The only place something that deeply felt could come from was personal experience.

“Everyone has to deal with what they’re handed in their own way,” he muttered, suddenly looking uncomfortable with the way she was watching him. “The choice isn’t yours or mine, anyway. It’s Sam’s. And whether he chooses to stay or go, he’s not flying for a while.”

He sounded as if he expected her to disagree. Given that they hadn’t agreed on anything either had said so far, the expectation was reasonable. But she wouldn’t debate his decision about Sam flying. Zach had made his point. She just wasn’t at all convinced that what her brother needed right now was solitude.

“Does he know he isn’t a competent pilot?”

“I doubt it.”

“Is he going to argue with you about it?”

“I imagine he will. He’s been taking extra flights so he can be away from here. He’s not going to like the idea of being stuck where he doesn’t want to be.”

The faint buzz of fluorescent lights underscored the soft whir of a space heater in the far corner. Over those quiet sounds came the sharp, electronic ring of the telephone and the thud of Zach’s boots on the scarred linoleum floor when, without a word, he moved to the counter to answer it.

The deep, authoritative tones of his voice carried toward her as her glance skimmed his profile and the wide scar covering the side of his strong neck.

She’d told him she didn’t know him. And she didn’t. The things she knew about him were that he was divorced and that he was no longer in the military. If she had to guess, she would put him near her brother’s age. Thirty-seven or so. Only eight years older than she was herself. But those things were superficial. It was what he’d said about how some people needed solitude to deal with whatever it was they had to confront, and how they needed space so they didn’t have to be stoic for everyone else, that hinted at what might have shaped him.

He had spoken with the voice of experience. And though she could only wonder at what that experience had been, she had the uneasy feeling that he had suffered himself, and that he’d done it alone.

“I have to go.” Zach made the flat announcement as he dropped the receiver back in its cradle. Taking the note he’d just written, he moved to the map on the wall. After using a ruler and string to calibrate the distance between two points, he scribbled the result on his note. “Tell Sam I have to go to Vancouver for a pickup, so I can’t talk to him now. I’ll stop by the house about eight. You have until then to convince him to leave the kids with you. If you can do that, I won’t have to talk to him about being grounded.”

Chapter Three

Lauren stood at Jenny’s bedroom door watching her brother as he leaned over the side of the white crib. He looked big and male and decidedly out of place among the pale pastels of Bo-Peep and her sheep on the walls, and the frilly touches of pink eyelet on the curtains and comforter. But there was no doubt in her mind that he belonged right where he was, and that, at that moment, he found as much comfort as he gave.

His flaxen-haired little girl was finally falling asleep. Jenny’s silky eyelashes formed crescents against her plump pink cheeks. Her breath came softly as Sam slowly rubbed his thumb above the bridge of her little button nose. Soothed by her father’s touch, the child lay curled on her side, her arms around the puffy purple bunny her grandma had given her for her first birthday last week. According to Sam, Jenny dragged it everywhere with her and parted with it only when it came time for her bath.

Tonight, she hadn’t wanted to let it go even then, which was why Lauren had escorted it to the laundry room in the basement for a quick trip through the dryer, then wrapped it in a towel to tuck into the crib when the child had started crying for it before it was quite dry. In between, she’d wiped the water from the bathroom floor and helped Jason into his pajamas while Sam dried Jenny and got her ready for bed. Jason hadn’t seemed to mind her help, especially after she’d shown an interest in the dinosaurs on his pj’s. But Jenny had wanted only her dad.

At that moment, as he stood quietly studying the beautiful child his wife had given him, it seemed Sam only wanted to be with his daughter, too.

Feeling as if she were intruding, Lauren backed away from the door, moving quietly so as not to disturb her brother or Jenny or the little boy already fast asleep in his room next door. She felt helpless to ease her brother’s sadness, and it was perfectly logical that children would prefer a parent over someone they barely knew, but those troubled thoughts only added to the uncertainty she felt about what Zach wanted her to do.

She moved down the hall, picking up toys along the way and dropped them in the toy box on the far side of the living room. A fire crackled brightly in the fireplace. The television was on, its volume muted. She couldn’t tell if it was still raining. It was too dark outside to see, and the log walls of the house were too thick to allow much sound to pass through. But she was listening for outside sounds anyway. Specifically, the sounds of Zach’s truck.

The afghan Jason had wrapped himself in to watch television lay puddled in front of the set. Picking it up, she considered that even if she did agree with Zach about what was best for her brother, which she did not, she had other reservations about his recommendation that she stay with the children. Despite the man’s assertion that this place wasn’t as isolated as his cabin on the other island, it was still miles from town and it was still surrounded by forest and all the back-to-nature things her brother loved and she’d never seen outside a zoo. Her sister-in-law had even refused to let the kids have a pet for fear that one of those beasts would have it for lunch.

It wasn’t that she was afraid. It was more that she was dealing with unknowns, and she’d dealt with enough of those to last her a lifetime. She liked knowing what to expect. She liked knowing what was expected of her. She found security in habit and organization and there was little here but the unfamiliar. When she added the concern of being in such a secluded place without Sam around at night to the concern of taking care of the children completely on her own, she felt none of the confidence she’d acquired at her job. She felt downright apprehensive. Especially when she considered that any child-care skills she possessed were based purely on untested instinct and her mom’s checklist.

She was folding the afghan over the back of the sofa with the same care with which she would have arranged a sales display, when she heard the muffled thud of her brother’s stockinged feet on the pine floor of the hall. She didn’t have to see him to envision the weary slump of his broad shoulders or the fatigue shadowing his deep blue eyes. She could hear his exhaustion in the shuffle of his footfall. Every time she’d looked at him that evening, she’d seen a man who was running on empty.

Masking her trepidation, she offered him a smile. In the past two years, she’d tackled a lot of things she knew nothing about when they’d first been thrown at her and she’d somehow managed to survive. She just hoped that whatever her brother chose to do, his children would be able to survive her.

“How about something to eat now?” she asked, watching Sam pick up the remote control unit for the television from the coffee table and head for his favorite overstuffed leather chair. “You said you weren’t hungry when the kids ate, but you should be by now.”

“I had some of Jason’s noodles.”

He’d had two bites. Both taken to encourage the child to eat. “That’s hardly enough for a man your size. You need more fuel.”

“You sound just like Mom.” He gave her a smile, faint but forgiving and dropped into his chair. “I’ll make a sandwich later. Okay?”

She started to tell him she would be happy to do it for him herself. He really did need some nourishment. But she had the feeling he was no more interested in food than he was in the deodorant commercial he was staring at on the screen, and that the only reason he’d mentioned the sandwich was to make her feel better.

He needs to get away so he doesn’t have to worry about how he’s affecting everyone else.

Zach’s words echoed in her head, the conclusion nudging hard at her own convictions.

She nudged right back, certain that this evening would have been so much more difficult for him if he hadn’t had his children to hug and to think about.

Then, she remembered that getting away hadn’t necessarily been Zach’s idea. Sam had apparently told him that was what he wanted to do.

Her brother had yet to turn up the volume on the television. Now that the children weren’t crawling on and off his lap and demanding his attention, he didn’t seem able to sit still himself. Tossing the remote control onto the lamp table beside him, he rose and shoved his fingers through his short dark hair.

“Your partner should be here pretty soon,” she said, watching him walk to the bookcase and take out a book, only to put it back again. “He said eight.”

It was nearly half past now.

“He could have gotten fogged in.” Walking to the fireplace, he pushed around the flaming logs in the hearth, sending sparks up the chimney, and set the poker back in its holder. “The ceiling was pretty low this afternoon.”

“Wouldn’t he call?”

“If he can, he will.”

Now would be a good time to mention the cabin, she thought, as he walked to the coffee table. Now, while he looked as if he were ready to pace out of his skin and there was nothing else distracting him. There had been no opportunity to bring up the subject before with all the activity with the kids.