Another Man's Children

Part of her still balked at the idea of Sam being all alone. Another part knew that if he didn’t go, Zach would tell him he couldn’t fly.

“How did he get the scar on his neck?” she asked, working her way up to mentioning the cabin.

His attention elsewhere, Sam’s brow furrowed. “Zach?”

She hummed a note of affirmation. “It looks like a burn.”

“It was. He crashed a jet when an experimental guidance system failed.” Looking as preoccupied as he sounded, he picked up a coloring book and distractedly flipped through the pages. He didn’t seem to pay any particular attention to the scribblings. He didn’t even seem to be seeing the pages at all, until he came upon a beautifully colored castle.

From the painful way he winced, Lauren had the feeling the picture was one Tina had colored for the kids.

“How long ago?” she asked, as much for the distraction it would offer Sam as her own desire to know.

The furrows in his brow deepened. Whether in thought or in pain, she couldn’t tell. “About seven years by now, I’d guess.”

“Do you know how long he’s been divorced?”

“I have no idea.” He closed the book carefully and set it down. “He was divorced when I met him. That was five years ago.”

It was a true reflection of her brother’s mental state that he showed no interest at all in her interest in his partner. He’d been in that distracted fog ever since she’d arrived—which explained why he hadn’t bothered with introductions when Zach had followed him in for the manifest. When she’d told him earlier that evening that Zach had gone to Vancouver, he hadn’t even asked how she’d come by that information.

It was entirely possible that he did need time to himself, she conceded, but she’d no sooner opened her mouth to ask if that was what he wanted, than a heavy, decisive knock on the door stole her brother’s attention—and made her need to talk to him that much more urgent.

“Wait!” she called, taking a step after him as he started for the door. “I need to ask you something before you talk to your partner. It’ll just take a minute.”

“Now?”

“Now,” she quietly insisted. “Please?”

She must have looked fairly desperate. “I guess,” he murmured, giving her an odd little glance. “Just let me let him in first.”

She had no choice but to stand back and allow Sam to open the door. Already uneasy, an odd sense of disquiet moved through her the moment Zach stepped inside and his hooded eyes locked on hers.

Droplets of rain clung to his overlong dark hair. The down vest he had worn earlier had been replaced with a brown leather bomber jacket that made his shoulders look a mile wide. He brought with him the scent of fresh sea air and pine, and, as she pulled in a deep breath, she doubted she’d ever again think of the forces of nature without recalling his dominating presence.

Without a word to her, his unreadable glance took an impersonal sweep of the casual burgundy jeans and sweater she’d changed into and promptly settled on her brother.

“Hey, buddy,” he muttered, closing the door with his elbow since his hands were full.

Sam turned back into the room. “How was the flight?”

“Weather’s minimum. Barely made it in.”

“Air?”

“Bumpy over a thousand.”

“Chuck make it back?”

“He logged in about an hour ago. The GPS in the 185 is working fine now.” Zach lifted a brown paper bag. In his other hand, he carried a six-pack of beer. “Let me get rid of these,” he said, and headed for the kitchen with the familiarity of a man who felt no need to question his welcome.

Much of their verbal shorthand had been lost on Lauren. The only flying she ever did was in commercial jets and her technical knowledge was limited to the operation of seat backs, tray tables and the overhead oxygen mask. But she had no interest in their shop talk. Conscious of Zach ignoring her as he walked past, her only concern was her brother.

“What did you need, Sis?”

From where she and Sam stood in the middle of the living room, she heard the refrigerator open and bottles rattle as the six-pack was shoved inside.

“I just wondered if you wanted to get away for a while,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I’ll be here with the kids, so if you want to go some—”

He was shaking his head, cutting her off before she could even finish. The sound of the silverware drawer opening filtered in from the kitchen. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking. I’m volunteering.”

“That’s nice, Sis. It really is. But I can’t leave Zach with all the work.”

“You can talk to him about it,” she suggested, needing for him to at least consider the idea before Zach pulled the rug from under him. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind taking care of things for you. He’s your friend,” she pointed out, in case he was wondering how she could possibly know that.

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think he’s your friend, or you don’t think you should go?”

“Look,” he replied, patiently. “Now isn’t the time. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Go ahead and talk about it now,” came the deep voice from the kitchen. “It sounds like a good idea.”

Zach appeared in the doorway with a large bowl of vanilla ice cream in one hand and a beer in the other. Looking as if he were only now hearing the notion himself, he walked toward them both. “You said the other day that you’d like to get away for a while,” he reminded his friend. “Now you have the opportunity.”

He handed the beer to his partner, then looked toward Lauren.

“Do you want anything?”

His manner seemed as comfortable with her as it was with her brother. On the surface, anyway. If not for Sam, Lauren was sure he would have preferred to ignore her. It was that kind of tension she could feel slithering beneath the facade. But this wasn’t about them. This was about Sam, and she would have to be as dense as the forest beyond them not to realize that Zach was doing what he could to make things easy for her brother. He clearly preferred that Sam choose to take a break on his own, rather than insisting on it himself.

“No. Thank you,” she replied, as committed as he was to doing her part.

“I’ll pass on the beer myself,” Sam told him. The bottom of the brown bottle hit the coffee table with a quiet click. “I’m flying in the morning.”

“You’ll be over the eight-hour rule before you fly again. Go ahead if you want it. Chuck or I will take the morning mail run.”

“The eight-hour rule?” she asked, as much to stall the course of the conversation as to understand what they were talking about.

“FAA regs,” Sam muttered. “Eight hours, bottle to throttle. A pilot can’t consume alcohol within eight hours of a flight. And I told you I want the early run,” he reminded the big man dwarfing his sister. “I’ll take whatever’s on the log for the afternoon, too.”

“They’re already covered.” Clearly intending to avoid that particular topic for the moment, Zach stabbed his spoon into the heaped blue bowl. “Let’s get back to what your sister was saying,” he suggested casually. “Getting away is a good idea, Sam. You remember the fishing streams over on Gainey, don’t you?”

For a moment, Lauren didn’t think Sam was going to let the change of subject go. He could be as stubborn as sin itself at times and there was a decidedly mulish look to his brow now. She also had the feeling that Zach was even more obstinate—if not downright bullheaded.

Sam was apparently feeling too apathetic to press his point. Either that, or the men’s relationship was such that they took turns getting their way. Her brother picked up the beer and, after taking a swallow, sank into his chair. Zach claimed the overstuffed chair on the opposite side of the sofa and propped his booted feet up on the ottoman.