Freefall

“Until when? Your next assignment? Until you get the chance of a lifetime to shoot yaks in Nepal or whatever it is this time and off you go without giving a damn what you’re leaving behind?”

Incredibly, unbelievably, hurt flashed for an instant in those wide green eyes but she shielded them quickly. “That’s not going to happen.”

“That’s easy to say now. But what about a month from now? These are children, Sophie. Not pretty little toys you can put on the shelf when you’re bored with them. They are children who have just suffered a terrible loss. Right now they need all the stability they can find until their world settles again. You really think you can give them that? You, of all people!”

Again that hurt flared in her eyes but she jutted her chin into the air in typical stubborn Sophie fashion. “What they need is love and I have more than enough of that to give them.”

“Sometimes love is not enough.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” she muttered, an edge of bitterness to her voice.

He narrowed his gaze and studied her, trying to figure out if there was hidden meaning in her words. God knows, she had no reason to be bitter over their brief relationship. No, they hadn’t had a relationship, he corrected himself. Just fledgling, unspoken emotions and one steamy encounter on the beach that could still make his heart race when he remembered it.

Then she ran away, for the first time but certainly not the last.

This time Sophie folded her arms over her chest, her chin still lifted defiantly. “I’m staying, Tom. The children need me. If you want me out of their lives, you’re going to have to pry me out with a crowbar.”

“Must I remind you, I am the executor of Peter’s estate. His will specifically names me their guardian.” He knew he sounded like a self-righteous ass but he didn’t give a damn.

“And I have a letter from Shelly dated not two months ago where she asked me to care for her children if something happened to her.”

Tom frowned, unease slithering through him like a moray eel cutting across the ocean’s floor. Shelly had written Sophie? The timing seemed odd in the extreme. Why would a young, otherwise healthy woman write such a thing only weeks before her death? Did she have some impending premonition of danger?

“You can be as arrogant and domineering as usual,” Sophie went on, heedless of the direction of his thoughts, “but that’s not going to change my mind.”

“The children are my legal responsibility,” he repeated.

“They’re as much my responsibility as yours, if not legally than at least morally. I don’t care what Peter’s will says. They are my nieces and nephew, and I love them. I’m not going to abandon them when they need me. Anyway, if I don’t stay, who’s going to care for them when you’re out playing Rescue Ranger?”

Her scorn for his career shouldn’t bother him but somehow it did. He should be used to it after ten years of fighting to live the life he wanted. Nobody understood his passion for his job. Not his father, not Peter. They had thought him crazy for turning his back on the family fortune to enlist in the military—in the plebeian Coast Guard, no less.

They didn’t understand his passion for the service, for the unrivaled satisfaction of going after someone who needed help, the controls of his bird humming under his hands and adrenaline pumping like opium through his system.

That part of his life was over, he reminded himself. Peter’s death had accomplished what his brother had never been able to do in life. “I’m putting in for a discharge,” he murmured. “I’ll be taking leave while the paperwork goes through.”

Her expressive face softened instantly with sympathy. “Oh, Thomas.”

He looked away from her pity, focusing on the rows of cans and bottles that the housekeeper kept in ruthless order inside the butler’s pantry. “It’s the best thing for everyone. The details of Peter’s estate will keep me busy for weeks. In the meantime, I’m planning to hire someone to help Mrs. Cope with the children.”

“For heaven’s sake, you don’t need to hire someone! I’m family. I love the children far more than some stranger you hire will.”

For one crazy moment, the temptation to accept her help swamped him. With Sophie caring for the children, he might even be able to consider keeping his commission, just take a few months leave to handle the mess Peter had left behind at Canfield Investments.

He discarded the idea before it could take root. This was Sophie. Sophie, who had more stamps on her passport than Peter had neckties, who had made a successful name for herself traveling around the globe capturing whatever she found in her unique photographs.

She had inherited the restless gene that seemed to have skipped over Shelly. Just like her mother, Sophie could never stand to stay in one place long enough to sprout.

And even if she did force herself to stay, he wasn’t sure he wanted her caring for the children. After she left ten years ago and the hurt had begun to fade, he had realized the Sophie he had known had been flighty and reckless, irresponsible and selfish.

He’d meant what he said earlier. The children needed structure, stability, while they tried to cope with the loss of their parents. He couldn’t risk their one safe harbor by introducing an alien species like Sophie Beaumont into the mix.

“Aunt Sophie? Uncle Tommy? Is everything okay?”

Ali’s voice sounded from the other side of the pantry door, the worry in it adding another couple bricks of guilt to his load. “Just fine, Al. We’re, uh, looking for more peanut butter.”

“There’s a whole jar out here.” Suspicion coated her voice in a thin, crackly layer.

“Don’t worry about it, Alison,” Sophie said calmly. “We’ll be out in a moment. We were just having a discussion we didn’t want the twins to overhear.”

“Are you sure?” Ali asked.

“Yeah, honey,” he answered. “We’re fine. Just go on back to the twins. We’ll be right out.”

Sophie opened the door as soon as they heard the girl walk away and he wondered if she was as uncomfortable in such close proximity as he was. “We don’t have to fight about this, Thomas. Not today. Let’s both sleep on it and give ourselves and the children a few days for things to settle down. We can talk about it again later.”

As far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. Whether she left this afternoon or a week from now, she would still leave. He had no doubt whatsoever.

The trick would be to make sure she didn’t break the children’s already fragile hearts when she went.

She could handle this, Sophie reminded herself hours later, up to her elbows in bathwater.

“Ow. That huwts, Aunt Sophie.” Zoe made a face beneath her crown of suds. “Mommy doesn’t go so hawd.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to take it easy.” This was a little girl’s head she was scrubbing, not a potato, Sophie reminded herself. This whole bath business was much harder than it appeared. Zoe insisted on everything just so—a water level exactly right, the precise temperature, her bath toys set out just where she wanted them.

She knew how vital it was for all of the children to keep to their usual routines as closely as possible, but she couldn’t help comparing Zoe’s elaborately complicated ritual with indigenous children she had photographed around the world who were perfectly content to perform their ablutions with a dirty puddle and a handful of leaves.

Maybe this wouldn’t seem such an insurmountable challenge if she wasn’t completely running on empty. She felt as wrung out as the washcloth Zoe was using and she wanted nothing more than to climb into that comfortable guest bed down the hall and collapse for a week.

But she could do this. She was strong, far stronger than Mr. Thomas Know-it-all Canfield believed her to be.

“Ow!” Zoe exclaimed again loudly and Sophie had to force herself to relax again.

“Almost done. Time to rinse.”

“I don’t like shampoo in my eyes,” the little girl informed her matter-of-factly.

“I’ll keep that in mind, honey.”

She hoped Tom was having just as challenging a time with Zach in another of the estate’s zillion bathrooms down the hall. After helping the nurse—Maura, she said her name was—settle his father for the evening, Tom had joined her to help with the children.

She found so much domesticity—the two of them working together at something so mundane and homey as putting the children to bed—unsettling. With any other man she probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but this was Thomas. Thomas, who had kissed her and held her and treated her with such aching tenderness. Playing house with him like this was bound to unnerve her.

She jerked her attention away from that precarious road and back to Zoe. “There you go. That should do it.”

“May I play for a while?”

It was past her bedtime but Sophie didn’t have the heart to say no, not when Zoe had spent the day solemn and confused. For the first time all day she seemed like a little girl again instead of a silent, sad little waif.