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The children shouted with laughter at his impromptu face mask and his clumsy efforts to handle the diaper. “This is a Code Brown,” he informed them, trying not to gag. “The other is a Code Yellow.”
“Poop, Code Brown,” his second in command translated for him. “Pee-pee, Code Yellow.”
The children squealed with laughter though he failed to see the humor. The replacement diaper was finally in place, more or less, the baby had a bottle and the rest of them were assigned beds. He tucked them in.
They took his refusal of their requests for stories, snacks and teddy bears with fairly good grace, but insisted on good-night hugs and did not even notice his awkwardness in performing this rare duty. Then they laid down their heads and slept almost instantly.
Granny was soon sleeping, too, and he set his watch alarm to check her pupils every two hours. Exhausted, Cole stoked the fire, pulled the sleeping bag he had brought from his knapsack and fell asleep on one of the large leather couches.
He awoke to find the toddler sitting on his chest, her face three inches from his, her eyes locked on his, willing him awake.
“Me Kolina,” she announced as soon as he pried one eye open.
“Number Four,” he corrected her. “Go back to sleep.”
“Baby tinks,” she informed him. “Code Bwon.”
His own nose had already let him know that. And that was how his day began, with a baby stinking and the unsettling discovery that at this rate they had a two-hour supply of diapers. And the pace didn’t let up one little bit, until Number Seven appeared, two full days into the siege.
There was still no power and no phone. The main road was not open. Cole would not, in good conscience, leave an aging, injured grandmother alone to cope with these challenges, never mind the five rambunctious children.
And now Number Seven had arrived. And it didn’t appear that she was a housekeeper with a nice, fresh supply of diapers, either.
“What kind of nut has five kids?” The voice was gravel-edged and deep, and the man who regarded Brooke Callan from the doorway of her employer’s house made her heart drop like an elevator rushing down a shaft.
The man was glorious and having spent the last five years in and around the film industry in Los Angeles as actress Shauna Carrier’s personal assistant, Brooke was now something of an expert on glorious men.
And their black hearts.
To her discerning eye, this one looked more black-hearted than most of them. He stood at least six feet tall, handsome as a pirate captain. He had the faintly disheveled look of a man so certain of his charms he could be careless about his appearance.
His denim shirt was unbuttoned and untucked, and the white undershirt underneath molded perfect pecs, a wide powerful chest, a flat, washboard stomach. His jeans, worn through on both knees, were so soft with age and wear that they clung to the large muscles of sculpted thighs.
The man had dark whiskers roughing his perfectly planed cheeks and his clefted chin. His hair, black and curling wildly, had not been groomed, a fact that just underscored his faintly brutal untamed charm.
In startling contrast to the darkness of his hair and whiskers, and to the olive tone of his skin, were eyes as blue and startling as sapphires. There was a certain light of strong command in them that Brooke did not see in actors, though, not even when they were trying their hardest to look menacing.
The man before her gave off an air no actor could ever imitate. His eyes held the shadows of things not spoken about in polite circles, and something in the chiseled and forbidding lines of his face warned her this was a man who had been on intimate terms with danger.
The look in those sapphire-blue eyes was impenetrable, guarded and assessing at the same time. The lines around the firm curve of sinfully sensuous lips was stern and unyielding. He did not look like a man who would laugh easily or often.
The man exuded power and control.
Only one thing stopped the picture of menace, of almost overpowering male strength, from being complete.
Shauna’s baby, Lexandra, was stuffed under one of his arms like a football, her large padded rump and ruffled diaper cover pointed at Brooke. Chubby pink legs churned the air happily.
Nestled in the crook of the other strong, masculine arm was two-and-half-year-old Kolina, her head resting trustingly against that broad chest, her thumb in her mouth. The child’s face was dirty, but other than that she was a picture of contentment. She popped out her thumb briefly and gave Brooke a radiant grin reminiscent of her famous mother’s.
“Hawo, Addie Bwookie.”
“Hello, sweetheart.” Brooke tried to keep her voice calm. Who was this menacing man? What was he doing looking so at home in Shauna’s house and so comfortable with Shauna’s children when Shauna herself was in California making a film?
Brooke knew if she had ever met him before she would never have forgotten him. He was not an acquaintance of Shauna’s. The other possibilities made her quail in her shoes. Was he a criminal? A kidnapper? An obsessive fan who had somehow found out about this secret hideaway?
How often had she tried to tell Shauna she needed more staff? Full-time guards, not just the housekeeper and nanny who came during the day to help her poor mother. But Shauna had this thing about her children being raised “normally,” not surrounded by live-in helpers and armed guards.
Realizing now was a poor time for I-told-you-so, Brooke drew a deep breath, tried to swallow her fears and gather authority. It felt like a futile effort given the unflinching gaze that rested on her with such unsettling intensity. She knew she looked a wreck, her clothing rumpled, her shoe broken, her hair a hopeless damp tangle after her nightmarish journey here.
Still, she had to conduct herself with dignity and courage. The safety of Shauna’s children might depend upon it.
“What are you doing in Shauna Carrier’s house?” she demanded.
“Who’s Shauna Carrier?” he asked with only the mildest of interest.
Brooke eyed him narrowly, trying to sniff out subterfuge. Surely every man in the Western world, and perhaps beyond, knew who Shauna was.
At least every man Brooke had the misfortune to date. They knew and had no scruples about using the personal assistant to try to get closer to Shauna.
The fact the actress had been happily married for the last twelve years seemed to make no difference to the myriad men who wanted to make her acquaintance.
But Brooke decided the man before her looked capable of many things—not all of them kind—but subterfuge? Nothing in the stubborn strength of his features suggested he would see any need for it.
“Shauna Carrier,” Brooke explained. “She owns the house you are ensconced in. She’s the mother to those children you are holding.”
“Well, that answers my question about who would be nutty enough to have five children. She’s a movie star, or something, right?”
“She’s not a movie star. She’s an actress.” Of course, it was the wrong time entirely for a debate on semantics.
“Whatever.”
His lack of being impressed was completely unfeigned, but it seemed to Brooke this unexpected visitor to the estate was not being particularly forthcoming.
“Who are you?” she demanded, sliding the zipper open on her purse as a first step toward getting at the Mace she kept secreted in her handbag.
For this whole long trek, she had been cursing Shauna for her overly active imagination when it came to her kids.
The phone, Shauna had reported to Brooke yesterday, almost in tears, was not working at Heartbreak Bay. Shauna was a devoted parent, and she spoke to her children every day when she had to be away.
The actress had fallen in love with the wild Kootenay region of Canada several years ago. She had purchased lakeside property and built a home there, declaring the remote location the perfect place to raise her family, away from life in L.A. and the prying of the press.
To Brooke, it seemed if Shauna was determined to have a retreat in the Canadian wilderness she had to factor in minor inconveniences like bears and mosquitoes and unreliable phone and power service. Even cell phones—essentials of modern communication—were inoperable in the area because the house stood in the shadow of mountains that soared to dizzying heights.
Yesterday, Brooke’s calls on Shauna’s behalf had determined the phones were out because of a severe windstorm.
Shauna had only been slightly mollified by the news that her difficulties in contacting her children were being caused by technical problems. She had that feeling.
Brooke heartily hated that feeling, which Shauna had also had about each of the men who had dated Brooke since Brooke had joined her employ. And, in each case, it had been entirely, heartbreakingly correct.
And so, Brooke had been dispatched to check on things in Canada. The trip was nightmarish, as always. The final indignity had been a huge tree across the highway just miles from Shauna’s lakeside estate.
“Ma’am, we’re going to be a while cleaning up this mess,” a road-crew member had informed her helpfully. “You might want to think about getting a room in Creston and trying later in the week. Or if you’re en route to Nelson, you can go the other way.”
But she was not en route to Nelson, and she wasn’t about to be thwarted at this stage of the journey. She hadn’t succeeded as a personal assistant to someone as famous and temperamental as Shauna because she lacked determination.
So, here she was, her shoe broken, most of her nylons left behind on the branches of a fallen tree she had skirted, her gray silk suit smudged, rumpled and stained beyond repair, her hair falling in her eyes and sweat trickling down her neck from the final climb to Shauna’s cliff-top mansion.
Facing a gorgeous and mysterious man who felt like an adversary. Of course, lately, she felt pretty adversarial toward all members of the male species, fickle swine that they were. And the better-looking they were, the more adversarial she felt. No excuses needed.
Brooke’s exhausted mind tried to figure out if she disliked the man before her on principle, or if she sensed real danger. It did seem like a horrible possibility that Shauna’s misgivings might be founded, once again. The facts: a notoriously handsome stranger with ice-blue eyes and the look of a warrior king was in Shauna’s house and held two of her unsuspecting children captive in his powerful arms.
Brooke tried not to let the terrifying thoughts that were flitting through her mind show on her face. What if the fierce-featured man in front of her was holding Granny Molly and the children hostage? Even if he truly didn’t know who Shauna was, the house announced to any who glimpsed it that the owner had a great deal of money, if not a whole lot of taste.
“Who are you?” she demanded again, her voice stronger as she slid her hand unobtrusively into her bag and searched around for her can of Mace.
“Who are you?” he returned, unforthcoming. His eyes narrowed and flickered to where her hand was imbedded in her purse and then back to her face. “We’re expecting the housekeeper, which you obviously aren’t.”
We’re expecting the housekeeper. As if he lived there!
“Addie Bwookie,” Kolina informed him by way of introduction.
“I’m Brooke Callan,” she said. “Shauna Carrier’s personal assistant.” She debated offering her hand, but she would have had to pull it out of her purse to do so, and she had almost found the Mace. Also, both of his hands seemed to be full.
And then, while debating what tone to take, she realized she was just too tired to be civil or cautious.
“I want to know what you are doing in Shauna’s house. Where is Grandma Molly?”
She realized she should have summoned the energy for a more civil tone, because she did not like the look on his face, the tightening of his jaw or the squint in his eyes one little bit. She found the can of Mace and wrapped her fingers firmly around it.
In a blur of motion, he set Kolina on the ground and caught the wrist of the hand Brooke had inserted in her purse. His grip was not painful, but it was relentless.
“Let me go,” she said and felt the first surge of true panic. This man was obviously much stronger than her. If he was holding the children and Granny, did she think he was going to come out and admit it?
Of course not! He would take her hostage, as well!
“You let go of whatever you have a hold of in there first,” he said quietly, and the calm of his tone abated her panic slightly. Her fingers seemed to loosen their hold on the Mace of their own accord, and he let go of her wrist immediately.
“Now put your hand where I can see it.”
The authority with which he spoke gave Brooke the very awful feeling he had done things like this before.
Though he had not for a moment looked tense, she saw that he relaxed subtly when she withdrew her hand from her purse and let it drop to her side.
Even after he had let go, she felt the imprint of his hand on her wrist and felt the leashed power of his grip and his personality. Kolina, on the other hand, was oblivious to his threat. From her new station on the floor, she had coiled her arms around his legs and was peeking out from behind his knee.
“Of all the nerve!” Brooke sputtered.
“What have you got in there, a gun?” He spat out a word that was not at all appropriate in front of Kolina, then took a deep breath as though he was gathering patience. He seemed a little confused about who was the suspicious party here!
“It is none of your business what I have in my purse!” She resisted a temptation to rub her wrist.
“This is not exactly L.A.,” he told her. “And guns and kids don’t mix. I can’t even believe you’d think of pulling one while I was holding two babies.”
“Not a baby,” Kolina informed him with a piqued pull on the leg of his jeans.
In spite of her indignation, Brooke registered the slim comfort that he actually seemed concerned about the children’s welfare.
“How do you know where I’m from?” she demanded.
“You already told me you work for the movie star. We don’t have a big film industry here in Creston, B.C. Besides, if the road crew is in the same place they were in yesterday, you’ve walked less than two miles and you look like you have survived a two-year trek across an unmapped wilderness. We make Canadian girls a little tougher than that.”
His gaze moved to her torn panty hose, which fluttered in the wind, and she felt a strange but not completely unfamiliar twist in her tummy.
Her worst enemy, attraction to the opposite sex.
No wonder she was so determined to believe he was a villain!
So she could be glad that she looked terrible. More than glad. She should be deliriously happy. But, oh no, Brooke-who-dances-with-temptation was shattered by the appraisal of the cool stranger before her.
Insanely, even if he was a notorious criminal, she had a purely feminine desire to be found irresistibly attractive by him.
Survival, she told herself. A little attraction might sway the power a bit in her direction if need be.
Besides, she liked basking briefly in male attention until they either found out who she worked for or Shauna appeared in person. Though reasonably attractive, Brooke could not compete with the stunning otherworldly beauty of her employer and had long since given up trying.
But this stranger seemed indifferent to Brooke’s female allure even without Shauna’s presence outshining the sun.
He continued his assessment of her in a flat tone. “Your hair color is fake and your tan is real.”
“Canadian girls don’t dye their hair?” she asked sourly.
“They don’t have that golden-girl look about them,” he said. “You do.”
He did not say it as if it were a compliment, and, unfortunately, when Brooke thought of golden girls she thought of Bette White and Bea Arthur.
“That’s an awful lot to know about a person in a glance,” she said, irritated at having been found superficial and inadequate without a fair trial. By a potential criminal.
And he wasn’t finished with her yet!
He ignored the challenge in her statement and went on, his voice low and level. “Don’t ever touch a gun unless you are prepared to use it. And you know what? I can tell from looking at you, you don’t have what it takes to use it.”
She stared at him in confusion. She should be delighting in the fact that an outlaw who had just taken over a house and kidnapped children would hardly be giving lessons on gun safety. On the other hand, he obviously had an unsettling personal knowledge of weapons and how to use them.
She felt a little finger of fury. How could he tell, in the length of a thirty-second meeting, whether or not she had what it takes? She itched to give him a little taste of the Mace.
“I do so have what it takes!” she said and realized it was a pathetic thing to say in the presence of a man who so obviously possessed the real thing in astounding abundance.
She wondered if she really could use Mace on him. She’d seen how quick his reflexes were. He could probably wrestle her weapon away from her before she’d figured out how to discharge the spray. And then, he’d be in the position to use it on her. She could feel the blood drain from her face at the thought.
