His Brother's Baby

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Damn, Lucy deserved better than that….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter Two

They had a deal, Lucy reminded herself two days later as she inserted another sheet of letterhead into the printer and watched The Bryan Foundation logo slide toward the tray. She gave Conner neatly typed letters, he gave her a paycheck and a place to stay. That was all.

Their deal didn’t require him to act like family, to enjoy playing with Emma instead of keeping a careful distance whenever the baby was awake. It didn’t require him to act like anything more than a housemate who traded cooking and grocery-shopping duties with her, and who didn’t go beyond the light conversation they shared during breakfasts and dinners at the kitchen counter. It didn’t even require him to answer a simple question like, “Why do you call this The Bryan Foundation?”

But every time she remembered his response to that question—“It’s a long story. Do you have the investor list?”—she found herself gritting her teeth. If he didn’t even want to tell her how he’d named a foundation which provided after-school care for children, there was obviously never going to be much of a friendship, here.

Not that she cared, Lucy reminded herself as she glanced at the baby carrier, where Emma seemed enchanted with the pulsing concerto she’d put on the CD player. Not that she even wanted to be friends with Conner Tarkington. It was just hard to share a house and a dining-room office with someone who stayed so remote all the time…except for that one, never-mentioned flash of awareness between them, the night he’d mentioned locking her door.

Then she heard the front door slam, which meant he was back already. “Lucy, can I Fed-Ex that proposal tonight?” Conner called, and she hastily turned her attention to the page emerging from the computer printer.

“They close at five-thirty,” she told him, and as Con came into the office he glanced at his Rolex watch.

“Damn, I guess not.”

But he said it calmly, the way he said everything else. Wednesday evening, when she had whooped with exhilaration over finally getting the new fax machine to send pages, he had barely nodded. And yesterday afternoon, when the computer swallowed the addresses she wanted and Lucy had burst into tears, his only response had been a quiet suggestion that she call someone to recover the data.

It was probably that very lack of emotion which made the man so incredibly good at business, Lucy suspected. And while she couldn’t help wishing he’d let himself relax once in a while, she had to admit there was something impressive about his detached professionalism, his innate confidence that things would go exactly the way he wanted. No one who dealt with Conner Tarkington would ever have to worry about him changing his mind or backing out of a promise.

She could handle her end of their deal just as professionally, she knew, the same as anyone he might have hired from the temp service. Although, Lucy admitted, as the CD player in the living room began a lush violin solo, maybe a temp wouldn’t answer phone calls while dancing to the Tarkingtons’ music collection….

Conner reached for the message slips she handed him, then halted momentarily as the violin’s melody soared. “Thanks,” he said, but in his voice she could hear a thread of tension. “What’s that?”

“I can turn it down,” she offered. Maybe Con was one of those people who couldn’t think with noise in the background, but the sound wasn’t loud enough to disturb Emma. “Or do you just not like music?”

He hesitated, and she saw his knuckles whiten as he tightened his grip on the messages. “It doesn’t bother me,” he muttered. “It’s just… Do you have anything else?”

“Practically everything,” she told him. “You should know, it’s your family’s collection.” But now that she thought of it, Lucy realized, over the past few days she hadn’t noticed him anywhere near the cabinet of jazz, big band, classical and contemporary CDs in the living room. “Are you sure you don’t mind music?”

Conner squared his shoulders, picked up the portable phone from the dining room table and then met her gaze straight on. “I’ve been on the board of the Philadelphia Orchestra First-Nighters,” he answered gruffly, “for the past six years.”