Freefall

“You’re right,” she snapped. “I’m lying, you caught me. The truth is, I decided to wake up a frail old man and take him for a stroll around the garden at midnight, just for kicks.”

“Stop fighting,” William said suddenly, his voice sharp and clear. “Peter, I’m tired. I’m not in the mood for any more of your nonsense. I’m going to bed.”

He walked into the house, leaving them gaping after him. Tom raked a hand through his dark hair, messing it even more. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. It’s just been a hell of a day. I fell asleep in the study and when I woke up, I went to check on him before going to bed and panicked when I found him gone.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Look, I need to make sure he’s settled back in bed. Will you wait here for me?”

She studied him. “No. My feet are freezing. But I’ll wait for you in the kitchen.”

She was heating milk on the stove when he came in ten minutes later looking tired and dispirited.

“Would you like some hot cocoa?” she asked.

He leaned against the work island. “I haven’t had hot cocoa made the old-fashioned way since my mother died.”

“It’s much better this way.” It had always been her and Shelly’s comfort treat, something they shared on the nights when Sharon forgot to come home. She had been touched to find all the ingredients in a cupboard by the stove, as if Shelly used them often.

“It should only take a moment for the milk to heat. Is everything okay with your father?”

“Yes. He fell asleep as soon as I tucked him back in his bed. I can’t for the life of me figure out how he got out. His room has a double lock and an alarm that’s supposed to go off whenever the door is opened. He managed to work both locks and disengage the alarm. I suppose I’ll have to figure out a better system.”

“Does he do this often?”

“Not so much anymore. After he was first diagnosed, Peter and Shelly used to have to hide all the car keys or he would just take off and drive around all night. They wouldn’t have the first idea where to find him. That’s when we hired Maura to look after him.”

“It must be terrible for him.”

His shrug rippled the soft navy cotton of his shirt. “Strange as it seems, it’s been a little easier the more his disease progresses. The first few years were tough but he doesn’t really have an awareness anymore about what’s happening to him.”

He paused and turned his attention to her. “Look, I am sorry about snapping at you out there. I was acting on raw fear. I don’t know what might have happened if you hadn’t gone to his rescue. Thank you. It was lucky you happened to see him out there.”

“I heard him first. He was weeping, Tom. Horrible, wrenching sobs. He thought I was Shelly and he said something about seeing Peter in his room. He was out looking for him.”

“He thinks I’m Peter half the time. You heard him. Maura and I tried to explain about the accident but I don’t know how much is getting through. Maybe it’s better this way.”

How terrible it must be for Thomas to lose a little more of his father each day. With Peter’s death, the responsibility of caring for his father now fell completely on his shoulders.

She longed to comfort him but didn’t know how—and she wasn’t sure if he would welcome her efforts anyway—so she busied herself with beating the cocoa to a froth.

When it was finished, she poured a mug for him and one for herself and the two of them sipped their hot drinks in silence for a few moments.

Thomas finally broke the silence. “I saw your work on Costa Rica in Go! magazine this month. You really brought the country and the people to life with your photos.”

A compliment? From Thomas? Pleased and embarrassed—and unsure how to react to the unexpected comment—she focused on the murky cocoa in her mug with its swirls of lighter froth. “Thank you,” she murmured. “It’s a beautiful place. One of my favorites.”

“I imagine you have many favorites.”

She glanced up and found him watching her out of those silvery blue eyes. She managed to smile despite the little tug of awareness in her stomach. “It changes all the time. Usually, wherever I’m hanging my gear is my favorite.”

“Do you ever get tired of the wandering life?”

Once more she wasn’t sure how to answer him. She had found incredible success at her chosen field and she did love the thrill and adventure of discovering new places.

She enjoyed her life but she had never been able to imagine herself spending the rest of it constantly moving around like Sharon, never content to spend more than a week or two in one zip code.

If she thought about the future at all, eventually she saw herself settling down, maybe working for a newspaper or teaching photography at a liberal arts college somewhere.

All that had changed with Thomas’s late-night phone call to her hotel in Morocco. Now she had three children to think about.

“I’ve never known anything else,” she finally answered his question. “But I’m going to learn for the children’s sake.”

Thomas wanted to argue with her again about her complete conviction that she was staying here to care for Ali and the twins but he bit back the words. Not now, when they had achieved this tentative, fragile peace here in the stillness of the night.

She had rescued his father and it seemed churlish to pay her back by more bickering. As she had said earlier in the evening, there would be time to discuss the future when things settled down.

Besides, the few hours of sleep she must have found snuggling in Peter and Shelly’s room with the children didn’t look to be enough. She gave a huge yawn suddenly, then blinked at him, a faint, appealing brush of color on her fair cheeks.

“Sorry. It’s not the company, I promise.”

“Don’t worry about it. Get some rest. Come on, I’ll walk up with you and help carry the children back to their own beds.”

He followed her up the stairs, trying like hell not to notice the way the faded material of her jeans hugged her very shapely rear end. At Shelly and Peter’s master suite, they found the children still cuddled together under the covers, Ali in the middle with a twin on either side.

He remembered how Sophie had looked sleeping peacefully surrounded by children when he had checked on them earlier in the evening. She had made a soft, innocent picture, her gold-blond hair tangled on the pillow in a wild, sensuous cloud.

“I don’t think we should move them,” Sophie said quietly at his side. “If they can find some comfort here together, I don’t see the harm in it. I’ll sleep over there on the sofa in case they should wake.”

“There are a half-dozen guest rooms in this mausoleum where you would be far more comfortable.”

“The sofa looks fine. I’ve slept on worse. Anyway, I’d hate for them to wake up and not know where to find me.”

She smiled softly at him and for one astonishing moment, Thomas was overwhelmed by a wild urge to catch that smile with his mouth, to taste that smudge of cocoa at the corner of her lips.

He almost leaned forward but checked himself just in time, appalled at his idiocy where Sophie was concerned. “Good night,” he muttered stiffly, then stalked down the hall.

No, it definitely wasn’t going to work having her here. The sooner she figured that out, the better for both of them.

Chapter 4

His to-do list had taken on a life of its own.

Tom stared grimly down at the handwritten notes he had begun making soon after Peter’s death. He was up to a half-dozen pages of tasks and counting. If he started this very moment and worked twenty-four hours a day, he was afraid it would still take him several weeks to tie up all his brother’s loose ends.

During his three-year tenure as president and CEO of Canfield Investments, Peter had been fiercely aggressive, substantially expanding the family’s financial interests. It was going to take Tom weeks to unravel all the tangled threads.

Weeks of paperwork and meetings and conference calls. He couldn’t imagine anything worse.