Treasured

Kathleen jumped. She’d forgotten all about Boris. Turning, she faced him and forced a smile. “No trouble, Boris. None at all.” She would see to it.

* * *

Only a faint, pale hint of sunlight streamed across the canvas, but Ben Carlton was hardly aware that night was falling. It was like this when a painting was nearing completion. All he could see was what was in front of his eyes, the layers of color, the image slowly unfolding, capturing a moment in time, an impression he was terrified would be lost if he let it go before the last stroke was done. When natural light faded, he automatically adjusted the artificial light without really thinking about it.

“I should have known,” a faintly exasperated female voice said, cutting through the silence.

He blinked at the interruption. No one came to his studio when he was working, not without risking his wrath. It was the one rule in a family that tended to defy rules.

“Go away,” he muttered, his own impatience as evident as the annoyance in his aunt’s voice.

“I most certainly will not go away,” Destiny said. “Have you forgotten what day this is? What time it is?”

He struggled to hold on to the image in his head, but it fluttered like a snapshot caught by a breeze, then vanished. He sighed, then slowly turned to face his aunt.

“It’s Thursday,” he said to prove that he was not as oblivious as she’d assumed.

Destiny Carlton gave him a look filled with tolerant amusement. “Any particular Thursday?”

Ben dragged a hand through his hair and tried to remember what might be the least bit special about this particular Thursday. He was not the kind of man who paid attention to details, unless they were the sort of details going into one of his paintings. Then he could remember every nuance of light and texture.

“A holiday,” she hinted. “One when the entire family gathers together to give thanks, a family that is currently waiting for their host while the turkey gets cold and the rolls burn.”

“Aw, hell,” he muttered. “I forgot all about Thanksgiving. Everyone’s here already?”

“They have been for some time. Your brothers threatened to eat every bite of the holiday feast and leave you nothing, but I convinced them to let me try to drag you away from your painting.” She stepped closer and eyed the canvas with a critical eye. “It’s amazing, Ben. No one captures the beauty of this part of the world the way you do.”

He grinned at the high praise. “Not even you? You taught me everything I know.”

“When you were eight, I put a brush in your hand and taught you technique. You have the natural talent. It’s extraordinary. I dabbled. You’re a genius.”

“Oh, please,” he said, waving off the praise.

Painting had always given him peace of mind, a sense of control over the chaotic world around him. When his parents had died in a plane crash, he’d needed to find something that made sense, something that wouldn’t abandon him. Destiny had bought him his first set of paints, taken him with her to a sidewalk near the family home on a charming, shaded street in Old Town Alexandria and told him to paint what he saw.

That first crude attempt still hung in the old town house where she continued to live alone now that he and his brothers had moved on with their lives. She insisted it was her most prized possession because it showed the promise of what he could become. She’d squirreled away some of Richard’s early business plans and Mack’s football trophies for the same reason. Destiny could be cool and calculating when necessary, but for the most part she was ruled by sentiment.

Richard had been clever with money and business. Mack was athletic. Ben had felt neither an interest in the family company nor in sports. Even when his parents were alive, he’d felt desperately alone, a sensitive misfit in a family of achievers. The day Destiny had handed him those paints, his aunt had given him a sense of pride and purpose. She’d told him that, like her, he brought another dimension to the well-respected family name and that he was never to dismiss the importance of what he could do that the others couldn’t. After that, it had been easier to take his brothers’ teasing and to dish out a fair amount of his own. He imagined he was going to be in for a ton of it this evening for missing his own party.

Having the holiday dinner at his place in the country had been Destiny’s idea. Ben didn’t entertain. He knew his way around a kitchen well enough to keep from starving, but certainly not well enough to foist what he cooked on to unsuspecting company. Destiny had dismissed every objection and arrived three days ago to take charge, bringing along the family’s longtime housekeeper to clean and to prepare the meal.

If anyone else had tried taking over his life that way, Ben would have rebelled, but he owed his aunt too much. Besides, she understood his need for solitude better than anyone. Ever since Graciela’s death, Ben had immersed himself in his art. The canvas and paints didn’t make judgments. They didn’t place blame. He could control them, as he couldn’t control his own thoughts or his own sense of guilt over Graciela’s accident on that awful night three years ago.

But if Destiny understood all that, she also seemed to know instinctively when he’d buried himself in his work for too long. That’s when she’d dream up some excuse to take him away from his studio and draw him back into the real world. Tonight’s holiday celebration was meant to be one of those occasions. Her one slipup had been not reminding him this morning that today was the day company was coming.

“Give me ten minutes,” he told her now. “I’ll clean up.”

“Too late for that. Melanie is pregnant and starving. She’ll eat the flower arrangement if we don’t offer an alternative soon. Besides, the company is beginning to wonder if we’ve just taken over some stranger’s house. They need to meet you. You’ll make up in charm what you lack in sartorial splendor.”

“I have paint on my clothes,” he protested, then gave her a hard look as what she’d said finally sank in. “Company? You mean besides Richard and Mack and their wives? Did you say anything about company when you badgered me into having Thanksgiving here?”

“I’m sure I did,” she said blithely.

She hadn’t, and they both knew it, which meant she was scheming about something more than relieving his solitude. When they reached the house, Ben immediately understood what she was up to.

“And, darling, this is Kathleen Dugan,” Destiny said, after introducing several other strangers who were part of the rag-tag group of people Destiny had collected because she knew they had no place else to spend the holiday. There was little question, judging from her tone, that this Kathleen was the pièce de résistance.

He gave his aunt a sharp look. Kathleen was young, beautiful and here alone, which suggested she was available. He’d known for some time now—since Mack’s recent wedding, in fact—that Destiny had targeted him for her next matchmaking scheme. Here was his proof—a woman with a fringe of black hair in a pixie cut that emphasized her cheekbones and her amazing violet eyes. There wasn’t an artist on earth who wouldn’t want to capture that interesting, angular face on canvas. Not that Ben ever did portraits, but even he was tempted to break his hard-and-fast rule. She was stunning in a red silk tunic that skimmed over a slender figure. She wore it over black pants and accented it with a necklace of chunky beads in gold and red. The look was elegant and just a touch avant-garde.

“Lovely to meet you,” Kathleen said with a soft smile that showed no hint of the awkwardness Ben was feeling. Clearly she hadn’t caught on to the scheme yet.

Ben nodded. He politely shook her hand, felt a startling jolt of awareness, then took another look into her eyes to see if she’d felt the same little zing. She showed no evidence of it, thank heavens.

“If you’ll excuse my totally inappropriate attire,” Ben said, quickly turning away from her and addressing the others, “I gather dinner is ready to be served.”

“We’ve time for another drink,” Destiny insisted, apparently no longer worried about the delayed meal. “Richard, bring your brother something. He can spend at least a few minutes socializing before we sit down to eat.”

Ben frowned at her. “I thought we were in a rush.”

“Only to drag you in here,” his very pregnant sister-in-law said as she came and linked an arm through his, drawing him out of the spotlight, even as she whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t you know that you’re the main attraction?”

He gave Melanie a sharp look. They’d formed a bond back when Richard had been fighting his attraction to her. Ben trusted her instincts. He wanted to hear her take on this gathering. “Oh?”

“You never come out of this lair of yours,” Melanie explained. “When Destiny invited us here, we figured something was up.”

“Oh?” he said again, waiting to see if she’d drawn the same conclusion about Kathleen’s presence here that he had. “Such as?”

Melanie studied him intently. “You really don’t know what Destiny is up to? You’re as much in the dark as the rest of us?”

Ben glanced toward Kathleen, then. “Not as much as you might think,” he said with a faint scowl.

Melanie gave the newcomer a knowing look. “Ah, so that’s it. I wondered when Kathleen arrived if she was the chosen one. I figured it was going to be your turn soon. Destiny won’t be entirely happy until all of her men are settled.”

“I hope you’re wrong about that,” Ben said darkly. “I’d hate to disappoint her, but I am settled.”

Richard overheard him and chuckled. “Oh, bro, if that’s what you think, you’re delusional.” He, too, glanced toward Kathleen, whose head was tilted as she listened intently to something Destiny was saying. “I give you till May.”

“June,” Mack chimed in. “Destiny’s been moping because none of us had a traditional June wedding. You’re all she’s got left, little brother. She won’t allow you to let her down. I caught her out in the garden earlier. I think she was mentally seating the guests and envisioning the perfect area for the reception.”

Ben shuddered. Richard and Mack had once been as fiercely adamant about not getting married as he was. Look at the two of them now. Richard even had a baby on the way, and Mack and Beth were talking about adopting one of the sick kids she worked with at the hospital. Maybe more. To his astonishment, those two seemed destined for a houseful. By this time next year, there would be the cries of children filling this house and any other place the Carlton family gathered. No one needed him adding to the clutter. He doubted Destiny saw it that way, though.

There were very few things that Ben wouldn’t do for his aunt. Getting married was one of them. He liked his solitude. After the chaotic upheaval of his early years, he counted on the predictability of his quiet life in the country. Graciela had given him a reprieve from that, but then she, too, had died, and it had reinforced his commitment to go through life with his heart under the tightest possible wraps. Those who wrote that he was prone to dark moods and eccentricities had gotten it exactly right. There would be no more nicks in his armor, no more devastating pain to endure.

His resolve steady and sure, he risked another look at Kathleen Dugan, then belatedly saw the smug expression on his aunt’s face when she caught him.

Ben sighed, then stood a little straighter, stiffening his spine, giving Destiny a daunting look. She didn’t bat so much as an eyelash. That was the trouble with his aunt. She rarely took no for an answer. She was persuasive and sneaky. If he didn’t take a firm stand right here, right now, he was doomed.

Unfortunately, though, he couldn’t think of a single way to make his position clear over turkey and dressing.