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“Okay.” His voice had dropped to an awed whisper.
Grinning, Kenzie’s eyes sought Ross’s. Didn’t the guy know how adorable his kid was?
Apparently not. Instead of smiling indulgently at his son, he was studying the sagging roof of the shed, probably wondering, Kenzie didn’t doubt, if it was safe to enter.
Her mouth set. “Come on in. It won’t collapse on you.”
The front half of the shed was crammed with boxes, cabinets and mismatched drawers. Two refrigerators and a chest freezer took up one wall. Ross looked around at the cluttered workbench with its scale, storage bins and stacks of kitchen and medical utensils. Heavy leather gloves were draped over the sink. It was cleaner than he’d expected, and apparently structurally sound after all.
“Oh, wow! Look at that!”
Ross turned. Angus was pointing at the back wall, which was divided into rows of cages, as well as pens that opened into fenced outdoor aviaries. About a dozen birds were staring back at them, some uneasily, some calmly. Ross recognized a pelican, a hawk and an egret. The rest escaped him.
Angus was tugging at Kenzie’s arm. “Kenzie! What kind of bird is that?”
“A red-tailed hawk. Don’t get too close. He’s just getting over being sick. If you startle him he’ll try to fly away and hurt himself on the wire. Do you know what that one is?”
“A pelican?”
“Right.”
“What happened to him?”
“His bill got tangled in fishing wire and he couldn’t feed himself. He was half-starved when he came here, but he’s gained a lot of weight since then. I may set him free tomorrow.”
“But why would he want to leave? He’s got his own swimming pool!”
They were both whispering. Still, Ross noticed that Angus was practically shaking with both excitement and the strain of not showing it so he wouldn’t scare the birds. Ross had seen him this overwhelmed only once before—when they’d gone to a toy store in Manhattan and he’d been allowed to operate a model train by himself. He was usually so withdrawn in public, but right now he certainly didn’t look like a kid who was shy or scared or had recently lost his mother. Right now he was looking at Kenzie with his eyes glowing a bright, happy blue.
“I’d keep him if I were you. He’s the prettiest bird in the world!”
Even Ross had to laugh at that.
“Don’t you like him?” Angus demanded.
“It has to be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s not true!”
“Oh, yes it is. He reminds me of…of some throwback to the dinosaur age.”
Ross had been teasing, but Angus glared at him tearfully. “You don’t like anything!”
Ross turned away, but not before Kenzie saw the glimmer of pain in his eyes. “You’ve got to admit they’re a little bizarre,” she said quickly. “And there’s nothing pretty about that bill when he decides to use it.”
“Do pelicans bite?”
“Oh, my, yes.”
Angus backed away quickly.
“How’d you get into this business?” Ross asked, determined to ignore Angus’s outburst. “Are you a veterinarian?”
“Just a volunteer.” Kenzie opened the chest freezer and began rummaging inside. “When they run out of room at the raptor refuge up in Manteo they send them down here. I’m sort of an overflow center.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“About a year. I had to learn the ropes the hard way. Like what to do with a vomiting owl and how not to get your eyes gouged out by a heron. Want to feed them some fish, Angus?”
“Could I really?”
“Sure.” She leaned deeper into the freezer, unaware that she was giving Ross a clear view of…well, of a very firm, muscular body. White shorts and long, tanned legs. A cropped T-shirt that rose higher as she leaned over farther, revealing more sun-browned skin.
Ross’s hurt at Angus’s remark seemed to fade at the simple pleasure of admiring Kenzie’s sweetly sexy curves. She seemed so wholly unaware of her appeal. Surely she had to realize the affect she had on every man who met her? And what about the way she was affecting him? Much as he disliked admitting it, he was starting to view Kenzie Daniels in a far more personal light than he wanted to. Yes, he was aware of the sweetness and warmth that Angus had responded to so readily, but this purely sexual pull of attraction was more than he’d bargained for—and something he certainly didn’t welcome. He had enough to worry about just dealing with his son!
“Eeeww!” said Angus, pulling Ross back to the present.
Kenzie had pulled a glassy-eyed fish from the freezer.
“Change your mind?” she asked with a grin, dangling it in front of the boy.
“Um—”
“Would gloves help?”
“Oh, yes, thanks.” Angus looked relieved.
“Don’t blame you, sport. I hate touching slimy stuff, too.”
She helped him pull on the heavy gloves while Ross watched, then showed him how to feed each of the birds. Angus didn’t even flinch when a gannet with a long, pointy bill lunged forward to snatch the fish. And he whooped aloud when a great blue heron swallowed its meal whole.
“Did you see that? Did you see that, Kenzie? It went down his throat sideways!”
“Pretty amazing,” she agreed, laughing.
When Angus had given each bird a treat, Kenzie led him away to wash up while Ross followed without speaking, muscular arms folded in front of his wide chest. Pushing a footstool up to the sink, Kenzie lifted Angus onto it, chatting unconcernedly all the while. “Let’s scrub that smell away, okay? Here, use plenty of soap. How about something to drink? Are you thirsty?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And hungry? I’ve got pastries in the house.”
“Ooh! What kind?”
She twinkled at him. “We’ll have to go see. Wait, wait. You missed a spot.”
He scrubbed quickly at the offending hand she’d tapped, then jumped off the stool and rushed outside without asking his father’s permission.
Kenzie hung away the towel. “Hope you don’t mind him having sweets.”
“How do you do that?” Ross countered gruffly.
She turned to look at him. “What?”
“Make it seem so easy.”
Her hand stilled. He was standing there with his thumbs hooked in his belt, his expression unsmiling and oddly vulnerable. She’d never noticed before, but his eyes were a darker blue than Angus’s.
Something in her heart seemed to turn over. No way, she told herself firmly. No way was she going to start feeling sorry for this man!
But she wasn’t going to pretend to misunderstand him, either.
“Because it is easy. With a boy like that—”
“I don’t mean just Angus. You’ve obviously been around a lot of them. How many children do you have?”
She blinked. “I—I don’t—I’m not married.”
“Oh.” He was silent for a moment, then looked at her with something very close to helplessness. “Then how do you do it?”
Kenzie bit her lip. Something obviously wasn’t right here. While she had no idea what it was, her heart had started aching in a funny way. “It isn’t anything you can explain,” she said softly. “It’s just something you know. In here.” When she touched her heart, his expression changed, and she knew for sure now that what she saw in his eyes was pain.
“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said roughly.
Heaven help her, but some strange compulsion was making her reach out to cover his big hand with hers. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“What do you mean?”
His fingers had closed over hers and the heat rushed to Kenzie’s cheeks because of the way he was looking at her—as though so much depended on her answer.
“I mean that deep down you do know the right things to do for Angus. It’s supereasy when you…um…you love somebody.”
For some inexplicable reason that word—love—stuck in her throat. She’d never minded uttering it before. The heated color in her cheeks deepened and she snatched her hand away before Ross noticed. What in heaven’s name was wrong with her?
“Kenzie?” Angus was peering around the door at her. Those blue eyes, that cute grin, made her feel instantly in control again.
“What is it, sport?”
“Would you hurry up, please? I can hear those pastries calling me from your kitchen.”
Lost in thought, she followed him across the yard. Something was definitely not right between Ross Calder and his son. They seemed uncomfortable with each other, as though they weren’t used to—or even liked—being together. And Ross was so uptight around Angus that the tension was almost a physical thing humming through him. And as for that oddly vulnerable moment they’d just shared…surely that had been an unspoken plea for help?
Kenzie tried to ignore the painful squeezing of her heart. She knew all about bad relationships between parents and their offspring—she and her father hadn’t spoken for more than a year. In fact, the last thing he’d said to her was that he didn’t consider her his daughter anymore.
But Angus was only seven. How could you get on bad footing with a kid that age?
And where did Mrs. Calder fit into this?
Unless Ross and his wife were divorced? Or in the process of divorcing? That would explain her absence and the awkwardness Ross exhibited around his son. Maybe Angus resented him for the breakup, and this trip to the Outer Banks was Ross’s way of trying to make up for it.
A weekend father. Kenzie knew the type: caught up in their careers, they took no part in raising their own kids and in fact were little better than strangers to them. Then the marriage ended and they found themselves on the outside of the fence, trying desperately to squeeze a loving relationship into those brief, alternate weekend visitations.
Which didn’t always work.
Poor Ross! And poor Angus!
She opened the back door for the boy, resisting the urge to ruffle his dark curls. Her heart ached, imagining how he felt, knowing how hard it was to mend a damaged relationship. Sometimes impossible.
“The doughnuts are on the table. Help yourself. I’ll pour you a glass of milk.”
Ross came in through the screen door behind her. He nearly filled the small kitchen, reminding Kenzie that he was more the rugged male type than the vulnerable man of a moment ago. “Coffee?” she asked quickly.
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“No. I’ve already ground the beans.”
Ross looked around the room while she fetched cream and sugar and arranged the pastries on a plate. An old farmhouse sink, a few lopsided cabinets painted white, a laminated countertop straight out of the 1940s. Nothing like the sleek Corian-and-stainless-steel condo kitchen he once owned in New York before leaving his old law firm at the beginning of the year, when the battle over Angus had started heating up overseas.
Clearly whatever Kenzie Daniels did for a living didn’t pay much. Granted, you didn’t need a lot to live like this.
By now Angus had made himself at home at the oak table. The boy’s short legs dangled from one of the mismatched chairs as he munched on a buttermilk doughnut and looked around him with the bright interest of a typical seven-year-old. Again he seemed not at all shy in his surroundings.
“This place reminds me of Norfolk,” he announced.
“Your grandfather’s place?” Kenzie asked, much to Ross’s surprise. What did she know about Angus’s family?
“Yeah. Everything’s old there, too.” He talked around a mouthful of doughnut. “I like it.”
“Did you spend a lot of time in Norfolk?”
Angus hesitated a moment, then said with a shrug, “Summer holidays and Christmas, too.”
Kenzie set a mug of coffee in front of where Ross was standing. “Why is it that Angus has a British accent and you don’t?”
“I’m American, he’s not.”
“Oh. Then Angus’s mother—”
“My wife…my ex-wife is…was English.”
Kenzie caught her breath. Was?
“She passed away earlier this year.”
The shock of those words jolted her. She glanced quickly at Angus, who sat with his eyes glued to his plate. “Oh, Angus, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” But he wouldn’t look at her and she saw his little Adam’s apple bob convulsively as he swallowed. Her heart contracted and she glanced at Ross, who was studying his son with the same pained intensity.
“Maybe we’d better go, Angus,” Ross said quietly.
