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“Brother-in-law?” The knife trembled in her fingers. “What are you talking about? I don’t have a—”
“Strictly speaking, no. But since your brother was married to my sister, I guess that’s the closest I can come to describing our…relationship.”
Mallory struggled to catch her breath. She gawked disbelievingly, trying to verify his claim, trying to recognize the man behind the black stubbled beard.
She’d met Janine’s brother only once, on the day of the wedding, but then he’d been clean-shaven and elegant and—she’d had to admit it—devastatingly attractive in a black tux. He’d looked like a movie star. This man was scruffy and edgy and wearing nothing but an old pair of blue jeans. He looked like a prisoner on the run.
The man she remembered had been tall and solidly built. This man was tall, but he didn’t have a spare ounce of flesh on his darkly tanned body. He was lean and hard and—
“Oh, it’s me,” he drawled. “Or are you staring because you get your jollies out of looking at a man’s half-naked torso?”
She wrenched her gaze from his powerfully muscled chest and opened her mouth to let fly with a scathing retort, only to have the angry words dry up in her throat. He’d raked back his hair, revealing an inch-long white scar on his forehead. A scar she recognized.
This was indeed Jordan Caine. As she assimilated the fact, she felt faint with relief. For months she’d tried desperately to get in touch with this man so she could put her plans in motion. Now—oh, joy!—he was here.
Controlling a rush of euphoria, she set the knife on the counter. “How did you get into the house?”
“I have a key. Which was just as well—I doubt you’d have heard me if I’d rung the bell, you were out like a light. By the way, you’ll be glad to know you don’t snore.”
She stared at him. “What? How do you know—”
“I arrived in the early hours but before I went upstairs I heard a movement in that bedroom so I checked it out. You were sound asleep in a creaky old rocking chair.”
“You mean…you slept here?”
“Of course.”
Her mind boggled at the absolute gall of the man—walking into the house like that, as if he owned it! With an effort, she held onto her temper. “What do you want?”
“Right now,” he said with a mocking smile, “what I want is coffee. Did you happen to make enough for—”
The toast popped up and to her astonishment, he whirled towards the sound, his body taut. The spring-loaded reaction made her blink. She’d sensed the man was on edge but this was ridiculous. Curiosity burned inside her—
But when he turned to her again, his eyes had a diamond-hard glitter. A warning glitter. Mind your own business. He didn’t say the words; he didn’t need to.
She swallowed back her half-formed questions. “I didn’t make enough coffee for two, but help yourself. I’ll put on another pot when I’ve had my shower.”
“And we’ll talk. You have a bit of explaining to do.”
“I have a bit of explaining to do?” She glowered at him. “You’ve got to be kidding! You’re the one who—”
“Could you pass me a mug?”
Lips compressed, she reached into the cupboard. He stepped over and held out his hand. As he took the mug, she caught a hint of his musky male scent. It was earthy as a dark forest, erotic as an intimate caress. She felt an unfamiliar tingling sensation deep down inside her…a sensation that was as unsettling as it was unwelcome.
She drew back sharply, but not before she’d seen his mouth slant in a knowing smile.
“I guess,” he murmured maliciously as he poured his coffee, “you’re not used to having a half-naked male around in the morning. Sorry if I’m disturbing you—”
“On the contrary,” she retorted with a haughty tilt of her chin, “I’m quite used to having a half-naked male around in the morning—and not only in the kitchen, but in my bed!”
She whirled away from him and stalked out of the kitchen, her cheeks burning. But even as she hurried to the bedroom, she heard his mocking laughter follow her.
The sooner she got rid of him the better, she decided angrily—though she must be careful not to antagonize him. He could so easily put obstacles in the way of her becoming Matthew’s legal guardian, and that was to be avoided at all costs. No, on the surface she’d have to be nice to Jordan Caine. It would be a very small price to pay in the end.
She closed the bedroom door and tiptoed over to check on Matthew. He was still asleep, thank goodness. She hoped he wouldn’t waken till after she and his uncle had had their talk. She didn’t want to be distracted during what was going to be the most important conversation of her life.
“Right, let’s have that talk.” Jordan leaned back against the countertop, watching Ms. Madison through narrowed eyes as she made a fresh pot of coffee. Earlier, touslehaired and terrified, with yesterday’s lipstick and mascara smudged—and with a scalpel-sharp bread knife pointed directly at his heart!—she’d looked sexy as hell. Now, in a demure green T-shirt and perky shorts, with her hair neatly scooped up in a topknot and her face scrubbed clean, she looked even sexier. Too bad she was a redhead; the situation could have been interesting. “For starters, what are you doing here?”
“That’s exactly what I was going to ask you.” Taking toast from the toaster, she crossed to the table. “But okay, I’ll go first. I’ve moved in. As of last night.”
He did a double take. “Moved in?”
She buttered the toast. “I plan on living here.” She reached for the marmalade. “For the foreseeable future.”
“In this house? Are we talking about the same place? Number Five Seaside Lane?”
She turned to him, her brown eyes faintly surprised. “Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
He paused for a moment, and then faking an encouraging tone that set his teeth on edge, he said, “Tell me more about these plans of yours. As I recall, you had a job in Seattle…?”
His nonthreatening manner had its desired effect; he could see her relax, could see he’d put her off-guard.
“That’s right,” she said. And added impulsively, “I have to admit that the last several months haven’t been easy. I’ve driven here every Friday after work, gone back to Seattle every Sunday night. It’s been awful, not being with Matthew through the week. I’ve missed him so much—but now we can be together all the time and I’m so happy about that. You’ll get to meet him in a minute,” she added with a smile. “He’s still asleep, but he should be wakening soon.”
She’d brought a lover here? Jordan stared at her incredulously. “He slept in this house last night?”
“Mmm.”
“He wasn’t in your bed!”
“I don’t let him into my bed every night—only when he’s whiny.”
“Whiny?” Good grief, what kind of a wimp was the guy!
“Look, I’m not expecting you to get involved with him. In fact, I’m assuming you won’t want to and I’d actually prefer that you didn’t. But it would be nice if you could send him a postcard once in a while when you’re abroad—”
“Are you out of your mind? I want nothing to do with him. I don’t even want to see him!”
His vehemence obviously jolted her; but at the same time he saw an expression of relief in her eyes.
“Then that will make everything easier for me,” she said. “I was afraid that if you once held him in your arms you might fall in love with him and want him for yourself.”
“What the hell do you—”
“I’m sorry, but try to see it from my point of view. I’ve been trying to contact you for months so we could straighten everything out but when I didn’t hear from you, I decided to forge on with my own plans on the assumption that you wanted nothing to do with the situation. You can’t blame me, since you didn’t even bother to come home for the funeral! And since you told me at the wedding that you’d never forgive me for supporting Tom and Janine when they wanted to marry, I figured I’d never see you again.”
“My sister was barely eighteen,” he snapped. “Your brother got her pregnant when she was little more than a child herself. He was twenty-four, and took advantage of a girl who was immature and—”
“They married because they were in love.”
“There’s no point in discussing this now. It’s water under the bridge. But you’re right about one thing. I’ll never forgive you for the part you played—”
“I don’t want your forgiveness. Nor do I need it. As for Tom, you never did understand him. You didn’t take the time to get to know him and if you had, you’d have learned what a fine and decent man he was.”
“No decent man would have—” He sliced his hand down in a dismissive gesture. “We’re only rehashing what we said on their wedding day. Let’s get back on track. Tell me about these plans of yours…to live in this house.”
Before answering, she poured her coffee and set the yellow ceramic mug on the table. When she spoke, it was quietly.
“Tom and Janine had signed the lease for a year and on their death it still had several months to run so I took over the payments. The lease came up for renewal last month and I signed the contract for another year at the same rate.” She toyed abstractedly with her thin gold necklace. “It’s a beautiful house, I can’t imagine why the owner lets it out so cheaply. I asked the woman at the Realty Management company but she didn’t know. All she could tell me was that the arrangements had been made through the owner’s lawyer.”
“Well, that all sounds fine and dandy.” Jordan’s lips thinned. “But ‘there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip’! And I see one little obstacle in your way.”
A frown crinkled her creamy skin into a neat little V between her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Sit down,” he said, “and drink your coffee before it gets cold. I’m going up to have my shower. When I come back down again…I have something to tell you.”
Mallory stared after him as he left the kitchen. What on earth did he mean: an obstacle? It had sounded ominous, yet she had everything under control…didn’t she? The house was hers for at least the next eleven months, and Matthew would be hers forever—his uncle had made it more than plain that he had no interest in the child.
She sat down and drank her coffee. She usually loved that first kick of it the morning, but today it had no effect.
She couldn’t shake a dreadful feeling of foreboding.
She was still trying, without success, to figure out what Jordan Caine could possibly be going to tell her, when she heard the sound of a vehicle chugging up the drive.
Getting up, she looked out the window, over the garden fence, and saw a truck parking behind the Lexus. On the panel, it said AB Movers, the company she’d hired to cart her belongings from Seattle.
Well, at least, she reflected dryly as she hurried to open the front door, something was going according to plan!
CHAPTER TWO
JORDAN HALTED abruptly on the landing. When he’d come upstairs earlier, the front hall had been empty except for a D-shaped phone table and a spindly chair beside it. Now it was crammed with boxes and furniture and all sorts of other paraphernalia…and in the midst of the chaos stood Mallory.
“What the devil’s going on?” he called down.
She looked up. “My things have arrived from Seattle.”
Her things? Dammit, this was an added complication and one he didn’t need. He fought to contain his intense frustration as he glowered at the cardboard boxes…and the several bookcases, the chairs, the pine desk…an oil painting, a dozen potted plants, a set of wicker furniture—
Two men in beige overalls appeared in the doorway, their name tags proclaiming them to be Archie and Rock. Archie and Rock were carrying a teal-blue sofa.
“Where do you want this, miss?” asked Archie.
“In there, please.” Mallory indicated the sitting room, to her right.
As the men hefted the sofa into the room, Jordan pounded down the stairs.
“Mallory—”
She turned to him, and he saw that her cheeks were flushed, her forehead moist. “I know you want to talk to me.” She shoved back a clump of auburn hair that had tumbled from her topknot. “But it’ll have to wait till the men have finished—”
“Get rid of it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He waved a hand around the hall. “This stuff can’t stay here. Tell the men to take it away.”
She looked at him as if he were speaking in tongues. “Would you please go through to the kitchen while I see to this?” Rolling her eyes, she turned her back on him. “Whatever it is you want to talk about will have to wait.”
He grasped her shoulders and spun her around again. “This is what I want to talk about. You can’t stay here. Tell these men to take your things and pack them back in their truck and—”
“Sorry, mister, no can do.” Rock and Archie had come out of the sitting room. Rock handed Mallory a triplicated form. “You’ve checked the number of pieces?”
She nodded.
“Then sign here and we’ll be on our way.”
Impatiently, Jordan said, “I’m telling you, Mallory, I don’t want you living here any more. You can’t—”
Ignoring him, she signed the form.
As Rock ripped off her copy and gave it to her, he grinned at Jordan. “Don’t want her to move back in, buddy? You’re making a big mistake.” He ran an appreciative gaze over Mallory and winked. “This one’s a keeper, mate!”
Sidestepping the boxes, the two men left, leaving the front door wide open behind them.
Jordan looked exasperatedly at Mallory. “You’re going to have to get this stuff out of here—”
“And you’re beginning to sound like a broken record.” Anger made her eyes tawny as a tiger’s. “I told you, I’ve rented this house for the next year and—” She broke off with a “Tsk!” as a rattling noise came from her bedroom.
“That’s Matthew,” she said. “He’s awake—and no wonder, with all the fuss you’ve been making!” She brushed past him. “But you may as well come and meet him now. He’s at his best, first thing in the morning.”
“I’ve told you,” Jordan said grimly, “I don’t want to meet him. What I want is for the two of you to get out of this house right away—”
But she had disappeared into the bedroom.
And next thing, he heard her say in a tender voice, “So you’re awake, are you, sweetheart?” A chuckle. Then, “Oh, Matthew, get your fingers out of my hair…!” A second’s silence, followed by the unmistakable sound of a kiss.
He needed this situation like he needed a hole in his head! Gritting his teeth, Jordan rounded a wicker chair—cursing as he tripped over a vacuum cleaner—and stormed out through the front door. Then with resentment exuding from every pore, he strode down the drive, across the deserted street, and over the salt grass to the beach.
Three miles to the south jutted a rugged cape, with an inn nestled in its sheltering embrace. To the north, the small town followed the curve of the beach to a marina, where he could see yachts bobbing alongside narrow jetties.
He paused for a second, and then headed north.
The realtor’s office was on the town’s main street. He’d walk there now and list the house. That way, when he talked with Ms. Madison again, it would be a fait accompli. The moment the place sold, her lease would automatically be nullified. And it should sell fast, because he would ask a reasonable price. He didn’t need the money. What he needed was to get that woman out of his life, once and for all.
“He’s been gone a couple of hours, Elsa.” Mallory grimaced as she glanced out the sitting room window. “But I can see him coming back now—along the beach. Don’t forget to tell the sisters not to come around today. I’ll give them a call when things settle down.”
“Why has he come to Seashore?” Elsa’s voice came worriedly over the phone line. “He never visited while Janine was alive. Do you think he wants Matthew?”
