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Jenni stared at the box. Leigh’s silver, pearl-buttoned shirt draped over a flap, in a beam of sunlight.
“No,” he said brutally, grief molding his anger into an invisible defensive sword.
The child sniffed and buried her face in the doll’s drab hair. He wanted to go to her, apologize for his tone, try and—
“Jenni?” A woman’s voice. Her voice.
In the dim closet interior, Michael’s hands froze on a cluster of hangers. What was she doing here? He watched his niece pivot, eyes swimming with hurt and fear.
“Uncle Michael’s taking away Mommy’s clothes, Shanna. He says she’s never, ever, ever coming home.”
“Aw, peachkins…”
Jenni’s mouth trembled. She darted a look his way, then dropped her doll and ran from his line of view. An instant later he heard her muffled whimper: “I hate him.”
“Jenni—”
“Please, make him stop. Please, Shanna. Please.”
Michael closed his eyes and released a sigh. When would life be normal again? Never, he thought and stepped out of the closet.
His lanky-limbed employee stood five feet inside the doorway with Jenni wrapped around her thighs like a tiny tenacious wood nymph. Tears crept down the little girl’s uplifted face and rolled into the curls smoothed by mothering hands.
Shanna raised her eyes. He hadn’t anticipated the fury in them. Or the pain.
“So,” he said, ignoring a snip of guilt—and jealousy. “Three days ago you introduce yourself to my horse. Today, my niece.”
“She was wandering around outside. By herself.” The last two words hung like stone pendulums.
He stepped around the box and picked up the doll. “Jen, take…” What did she call it? “Take your doll downstairs and feed her some of your favorite tea.”
The child gave him a teary, pouty look. “Don’t want to.”
“Jenni.” Ms. McKay pushed Leigh’s daughter away gently. She knelt and cupped Jenni’s small shoulders. “It’s okay. Do what Uncle Michael asks. He’s…” She threw him a quick, cool look. “He’s worried Tavia might be hungry. It’s nearly lunchtime, you know.”
Rubbing a palm up the side of her nose, the child shot him another look. “’Kay.”
“That’s a sweetie.” Without so much as a glimpse his way, Shanna McKay reached for the doll. When he laid it in her hand, she straightened its frilly dress and delivered it to Jen. “I’ll be down soon,” she whispered.
She watched the girl head out of the room. Annoyed that he studied his employee with her sun-gilded thighs and patched denim shorts, rather than his niece, Michael said, “What’s with the aloha look?”
Her head slowly turned. The wistfulness he’d seen in her face evaporated. Coldness settled in. Ah, but her wide, feminine mouth stayed soft as a ripe peach. He drew closer.
She pushed to her feet. Her eyes were severe. He fancied his battered boots, tired Wranglers and wrinkled T-shirt scored a thumbs down. Her chin elevated. “Are you talking about this?” She pointed to the flower.
He nodded, unable to look away. The foolish thing reminded him of a sultry night dancer. Sultry and night was a combination he wanted—no, needed—to avoid, especially around her. Purposely, to regain his balance, he glanced at the box draped in Leigh’s clothes, and was jolted back to reality. “Looks all wrong,” he muttered, mind back on his task.
Her laugh was soft and husky. “Well, Doc, your opinion isn’t worth a hoot. But your niece is another story. She’s smart, sensitive and has this charming idea that flowers make people happy. I happen to agree with her.”
Michael turned again to the woman standing pole-straight in front of him. Her lean, tanned arms were folded under small, round breasts. Below his navel he felt a rush of blood.
He took in the blossom above her ear and the jumble of her hair. Silky, he thought, and itched to take up a fistful.
His eyes found hers. Wide, wary.
Boldly, he stepped into her space. “Happy, huh?” He watched air affect her nostrils as he touched her cheek. “Are you happy, Ms. McKay?”
“Doesn’t matter if I am or not.” She caught his wrist and plucked the marigold from her hair. “Question is,” she said softly, placing the flower in his palm, “Are you?”
His skin throbbed where their fingers curled together and the knot of petals pressed. “Happiness isn’t the issue here.”
“Wrong. It’s the only issue when it concerns your niece.” Her eyes gentled. “Don’t trash her mother’s clothes.”
He backed away. “I’m not trashing them. I’m taking them to the Lady of Lourdes church.” Defeat enveloped him. He pushed out a long breath. “I didn’t expect Jenni to come up here, okay? She was to stay downstairs.”
“Well, she didn’t. She went outside. Luckily, she wandered toward the cabin instead of the barns. Do you have any idea what she might have run into down there?”
Guilt gnashed his gut. “Look, Ms. McKay—”
“No, you look. Your niece needs you. At the moment, she’s got one person to fill those vacant spots her parents left. You. Give her some attention. Show a little concern. Heck, a pat on the head would do the trick fine.”
“Playing shrink now?”
She ignored the insult. “Jenni told me you don’t like being bothered. In my books that means she’s in your way. No child should ever be in the way.”
Michael stared at her. Bothering him? Was that how Jenni saw herself? Why not? You barely see her.
The woman before him scraped back her uneven bangs. “Fire me for pointing it out. I don’t care. The well-being of a child is more important than a job.”
He could see she didn’t give one spit if he did fire her. To her, Jenni was at risk in his custody. He didn’t know whether to feel humbled, guilty, angry or all three.
Bending to her level, he said softly, “Who do you think you are, Ms. McKay? Mother Theresa? You don’t know flip from flap about raising kids, or how it feels to live without parents. But you’re right about one thing. If you want to retain this job, keep your opinions to yourself.”
Her pupils dilated. She clamped her lower lip. Retreated a step. “I think…” Another step. “I think it’s…best I go.”
Regret spiked his belly. “Ms. McKay—”
“Shanna,” she corrected, shaking her head. “My name is Shanna,” she whispered. “Just like yours is…is Mike.”
“Mike? No one calls me Mike.” But he liked it. Across her lips it was an intimate, seductive little breath. Yeah, he liked Mike—a lot.
A quavery laugh escaped her lips. “I’ll try and remember that next time we meet.”
She left the room, and he stood alone with silence and a delayed whiff of her scent closing in on him.
Jenni sat on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. She wished Shanna would come downstairs. She knew Uncle Michael and her new friend were talking about what happened.
The tears she had wiped away started plopping on Tavia’s jumper again. It was getting really spotty. Octavia was so upset, and Jenni didn’t know how to calm her.
“It’s okay, Tavia,” she whispered against the doll’s hair. “I’ll look after you. I won’t let Uncle M. yell at you no more.”
But Tavia just kept crying, wishing for Mommy and Daddy to come down from heaven instead of staying up there and helping God all the time.
She didn’t like them being angels. She wanted them to be people like Shanna and Grammy. Even like Uncle M.
Jenni wouldn’t let Tavia tell her to say mean things to Uncle Michael, either. That wasn’t nice. She really didn’t hate him. She just didn’t want him to throw Mommy’s things away.
“’Cause,” Jenni whispered. “If he throws Mommy’s clothes away, he might throw mine away. Maybe he’ll even throw me away.”
She bit her lower lip and palmed her nose. If Uncle M. threw her away, then she and Tavia would just go and live with Shanna or Grammy. Sniffing, she swiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Yeah, that’s what they’d do. They’d live with Shanna. Shanna was fun and showed her things like the chick’bees.
Stroking Tavia’s hair, Jenni rocked back and forth, singing softly. She and Tavia felt better.
He’d been a jackass.
Again.
If she called him worse names when she opened her door, he’d bow his head and take them in stride.
All day he’d kept watch on the white log house through the trees. The battered two-toned pickup, parked in the narrow driveway, meant she hadn’t left as he’d feared during the hour he’d been to Blue Springs. Shortly after lunch his grandmother had called to announce her return from her six-week visit to her brother in Anaheim, and she’d demanded to see her great-granddaughter. Grateful for an excuse to get out of the house, he took the tyke into town. After this morning, he had no delusions about Jenni’s eagerness to leave him for a few hours.
Damn. They should be drawing closer. Bonding, not pulling apart. They shared a loss. As the adult, and a doctor, he knew how to lessen the trauma for Jen and for himself.
Except, he couldn’t.
Shanna’s right, he thought, walking the pathway toward the employee quarters. As a stand-in parent he was a bozo.
Shanna. The name hummed through his blood. He didn’t understand the attraction. She wasn’t his type. Tall, slim to the point of being gangly. He preferred women with hourglass figures. Soft. Yet, a glimpse of her had his jeans in an uncomfortable fit.
He regarded the cabin, then the ridiculous marigold in his hand, and scowled. Seven months without so much as a dinner date was more than any normal red-blooded American man should endure. The last, with a divorced radiologist, had evolved into a date of ear tonguing and crotch palming—from her—that he would rather forget.
Not Shanna. He’d be the one tonguing and palming. Lean limbs, that skin slick and damp…
Booting a pinecone off her stoop, he raised a hand to knock. No use denying it. The sight of her spun something between them.
The door flung open.
Her sapphire eyes were cool. Cool as the jewel they emulated. “Hey, Doc. Come to see if I’ve cut and run?”
Michael shoved off a flicker of displeasure. So she held grudges. He understood. Grudges held off pain. Thumbs catching his jeans pockets, he asked, “May I come in?”
“Why? As you see, I’m not going anywhere. I realized I do need this job.”
“I’d like to talk.”
“About what?” Her tone dipped below ice-blue, like the blouse she wore. “We said it all this morning. I stay out of your hair, you stay out of mine. When it’s over we’ll say adios and that’ll be that.”
“Dammit, Miss—”
“Drop the formalities, Michael. I’m just the hired help not one of your associates at the clinic, not a patient.”
He’d have preferred Mike—and the way it seared the air from her lips. Shifting, he stared down the hill at the barns. “I shouldn’t be taking my problems out on you.”
“Better me than your niece.”
He looked at her. She had such pretty eyes. “You don’t mince words, do you?”
“Seldom.”
Again he observed the barns and fields. “I never used to be like this.”
“Tragedy changes us in ways we don’t expect.”
And the tragedy I’ve seen in your eyes? “You’re different.”
“From who?”
“Most people.”
“Is that good or bad?” Her tone gentled.
He studied her soft mouth. “Good. Very good.”
“Well, that’s a first. Come in. I’ll put on a pot of tea.” She gestured to his hand. “That poor marigold needs water.”
She headed for the kitchen, leaving him to close the door—and to watch her backside in cropped denim pants. Baked chicken and a medley of spices hailed him. She could cook.
“Supper at three in the afternoon?”
“I skip lunch.” She pulled down the oven door and checked the meal. “So I try to eat early.”
He wandered around the tiny living room. “Next to breakfast, lunch is the most important meal of the day. There’s a saying that goes: king, prince, pauper. It’s how you should treat daily meals.”
This time her laughter was rich and a little smoky and floated into his belly. “I hate to put a crimp in your diet plans, Doc, but I eat when the growlies arrive. For me that happens twice a day.”
“You’re too thin.”
“Well,” she huffed. “Sorry if that offends you.”
“It doesn’t.” He liked her frame just fine. In fact, inordinately so. But he couldn’t snub his observations—from a medical viewpoint.
He looked around. It was the first time he’d been in the cabin since long before Leigh died. What he saw shamed him. The place was old. The walls needed painting.
“Would you like some chicken?” She tossed oven mitts on the Formica and readjusted one of the two barrettes holding back her hair. Her arms were graceful as a figure skater’s. He imagined them around his rib cage, his neck.
“You can’t live here.”
“Beg pardon?”
