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Melancholy tried tugging at her, but Shay refused to give in to its grasp. “Maybe someday I’ll demand payment,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Have you lift a hammer or something at our family cabins.”
“Sure,” he said, then he swept her hair off the back of her neck and pressed his lips there in an obvious farewell. “You name the time, Birthday Girl.”
The nickname, of course, just underscored how that would never happen. They didn’t have any way to make further contact. He had no idea who she really was. She considered changing that. One side of her wanted to grab a pen and write her name and number on that wide, calloused palm of his. The other side of her, the wary side that didn’t trust easily, hesitated. And while she was arguing with herself, he left the room.
Like that, it was decided. By him, who hadn’t pushed to know any more about her.
She made her own decision as she heard the quiet click of the door swinging back after he exited. Not regretting a moment of what they’d shared. Her neck still tingled where he’d placed that goodbye kiss. The memories of their singular attraction and single night together would last a long, long time.
It might have been her best birthday gift ever.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_effac29b-4fba-59c7-b34b-327b6c4d7e95)
SHAY TOOK THE highway turnoff that led to the family land and traveled the four miles of private road, all the while pushing the Deerpoint Inn adventure into the far recesses of her mind. It was time to go back to normal, become the unruffled, circumspect woman who mostly kept to herself—and who held her fears and dreams close to the chest, too. A precocious and sometimes impossible fifteen-year-old was under her care and Shay needed a calm temperament to do her best for the girl.
Maybe she’d done something out-of-character on her birthday, something self-indulgent and possibly a little reckless, but it was over now. In the very short period of their acquaintance, Jay couldn’t have made any permanent change to her.
Pressing her foot to the accelerator, her car climbed the steep drive that led to the cabins. Her sister Poppy had exchanged her battered SUV for another in decent shape—at the insistence of her fiancé, Ryan—and it was parked near a cluster of five cabins. Shay braked beside it.
Climbing from her vehicle, she took in the view. The last time she’d been out here had been weeks ago, just as winter was giving way to spring, when the snow was melting on the ground around the dwellings, but still abundant on the tree-free slopes rising above them. It was the last of the property held by the Walkers that had been secured one hundred and fifty years before, when the pioneering men and women came to the area in search of timber to harvest. In recent times, before the fire that took out the chairs, lifts and lodge, the family had run a small but popular ski resort.
While the snow was completely gone now, the cabins didn’t look much different than in March. They were run-down, with dirty windows and sagging porches. Shay assumed the seven she couldn’t see, those nestled in the surrounding woods, weren’t in any better shape. Still, she smiled as her sister emerged from the closest bungalow. Poppy and her five-year-old son, Mason, had lived there until a torrential rainstorm had destroyed part of its roof and sent her into the arms of the man she was now promised to marry.
“Hey,” Poppy said, the smile that, of late, seemed to reside permanently on her face brightening a few more degrees as she caught sight of Shay. Her honey-and-brown hair hung around her shoulders and she slipped dark glasses over her gray eyes as she stepped into the sun. “You made it.”
Shay nodded. “Once the roads reopened I left as quick as I could.”
“Did you get my Happy Birthday text?” her sister asked as she came closer. Then she hesitated, tipping up her shades to send Shay a sharp look. “What’s happened?”
“Happened?” She hoped guilt—and why should she feel guilty about a single night of commitment-free passion?—wouldn’t show on her face like a blush. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You look different,” her sister said, now nearly toe-to-toe with her.
Shay shuffled back. “How was the premiere?”
“We talked to you on the phone about that,” her sister reminded her.
“Yes, but I only heard about it from Mason’s little-dude, naturally hyperbolic point of view. How’s London?”
Poppy propped her glasses on top of her head, an appraising light in her eyes. “Let’s see. She was Memphis the first day, Raleigh the next. Today she’s Omaha.”
Meaning she was much the same. The teen had taken a keen dislike to her first name and Shay had indulged her request to try out different city names as alternatives, telling herself it was good geography practice. Not to mention she would be heeding the old adage about choosing one’s battles. “Where is...Omaha, did you say?”
“She and Mason are exploring the woods.”
Shay looked over her shoulder to peer in the direction of the close-growing trees. Pines and oaks and dogwoods covered the landscape surrounding the cabins. As a girl, she’d loved to hike among them herself. Until the fire thirteen years before. A shiver rolled down her spine and she rubbed her hands over her suddenly cold arms. She still had ugly dreams about that day.
“Shay, what’s wrong?” Poppy demanded.
“Not a thing,” she lied. “What’s been going on around here?”
With a grimace, Poppy glanced about the clearing. “Maybe now that we have decent weather, I can make some real progress.”
“That’s got to be a little tough, what with you being busy with your fancy Hollywood fiancé.”
“Ryan realizes how important this is to me.”
“And Ryan loves you so much he’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
“I know.” Poppy smiled, clearly delighted that Shay had noticed. “But I want to do what makes him happy, too, which means a lot of shuffling between here and LA, so I can’t work on the cabins as much as I might like.”
“You’re not the only Walker able to wield tools.”
Poppy’s mouth turned down. “The three of you aren’t enthusiastic tool-wielders when it comes to this place.”
“I...” Shay hesitated. Poppy had good reason to believe that. When Mac and Brett had put down their sister’s idea to tackle the decrepit cabins and make them into something good, Shay had stayed on the sidelines, aware it wasn’t a legacy that came to her through DNA.
Poppy’s eyes narrowed again. “You...?”
For some reason, the truth spilled out. “I do like it here. Love it. I always have.” But she’d always felt the destruction of the resort was partly her fault. “Seeing it come alive again...if your father was still here it would make him so happy.”
“Our father,” Poppy corrected. “But are you serious? You’d stand with me in the face of Brett and Mac’s opposition?”
“They’re persuadable, I think,” Shay said.
A small smile curved Poppy’s lips. “So if you explained to them it’s as important to you as it is to me—is it really?”
Even though she knew the land wasn’t her birthright, Shay couldn’t refuse her sister again. She nodded. “Really.”
Poppy swooped in for a fierce hug. “Thank you. Thank you!” She pushed Shay away, her fingers still curled around her biceps. “See? That wasn’t so hard. Telling the truth. Saying what you want.”
Shay couldn’t resist returning her sister’s sunny smile. “I guess not.”
Poppy’s grip tightened. “All right, then. Spill the rest.”
“Spill?”
“You have another secret. What happened on your birthday? What happened to you at that inn? Something did. I can see it.”
Another guilty flush heated Shay’s skin. “Noth—”
Her denial was interrupted by a young boy’s shout. Mason came rushing out of the woods and into the clearing, his hair disheveled and his hands clutching a ragged collection of weeds. “Flowers!” he said, shoving them at his mother. “I brought you flowers, just like Duke.”
“Duke” was his name for Poppy’s groom-to-be. London, aka Omaha, sidled up behind him. “Mace,” she said, “I told you not to squeeze them so tight.”
Shay looked over at her charge. She wore her usual black jeans, a black T-shirt and black high-top sneakers. Her hair was dyed black and she wore such thick black liner and mascara that just looking at her could make Shay’s own eyes itch. There didn’t seem to be one soft thing about the girl...except for the gentle way she treated Poppy’s son.
If only for that, she would have been endeared to Shay forever. But London/Omaha had other qualities, too. Her parents had divorced when she was small and she’d lived with her mother in Europe. From what Shay had gleaned, the woman had put little time into parenting, and the teen had largely raised herself with the aid of household help.
Now her mother was dead and her father absent from the scene. Yet the fifteen-year-old was keeping it together, despite the dark wardrobe. Shay had to imagine London felt alone. But Shay understood loners because of her own outsider feelings, and so tried to give the girl space, as well as boundaries. Companionship when the teen would tolerate it.
The girl tousled Mason’s hair, the smallest of smiles tipping up the corners of her lips. Yes, London was a survivor, and Shay had to admire that, too.
“Did you have a good time?” she asked her now.
Her mask of boredom resettled firmly in place. “Sure.”
“Are you ready to go home?”
“Whatever.” But the world-weary facade again slipped a little as they said their goodbyes. Mason was impossible to ignore when he gifted her with a ferocious little-boy hug, and she again ruffled his hair while expressing polite thanks to Poppy.
The four drifted toward Shay’s car. As London stowed her belongings and then climbed into the passenger seat, Poppy stayed by the driver’s side. “We need to have lunch,” she said through Shay’s window.
“To discuss the cabins?”
Poppy shook her head. “To discuss you. Something’s different about you.”
Buckling her seat belt gave her an excuse to avoid her sister’s comment, and soon she had the car turned in the direction of Blue Arrow Lake. Her sigh of relief was lost in the hum of the car engine and for the first time she actually appreciated her teen charge’s usual dour silence.
So she was completely gobsmacked when the girl shifted in her seat and willingly addressed Shay for maybe the first time ever. “Yeah,” she said. “What happened to you? Something’s changed.”
* * *
SHAY AVOIDED THE teen’s question by employing a trick she’d learned from her mother: she pretended she didn’t hear it. Lorna Walker had used that ploy often and it was easy to understand why. What with four children, a spouse who’d wandered away and then wandered back, and a daughter conceived in scandal, Shay’s mom had likely been often plagued with uncomfortable—or just plain nosy—queries.
Luckily, London didn’t seem interested in bestirring herself to insist on an answer, so the ride home continued in silence. It gave Shay time to think over their upcoming schedule. After a couple of eventful days that had relaxed their usual routine, it was time to get back to normal.
Soon they were passing through the small town of Blue Arrow Lake, with its European village atmosphere that drew tourists up the hill from the big Southern California cities in the valleys and the beaches below. Small shops, boutiques and bistros catered to a crowd with money to burn on fine cheeses, fancy wines and casual, yet chic, designer apparel. The businesses appeared to be busy, even midweek, though on Saturday and Sunday they would be packed when the owners of the mansions surrounding the lake visited their vacation homes at the end of the workweek.
Blue Arrow Lake was a private body of water, and only those who owned the exorbitantly priced frontage properties were allowed docks. As they left the town behind and turned into the estate-lined narrow streets, she caught glimpses of deep blue water and the occasional powerboat or sailboat cutting across the surface. No one walked the streets. They didn’t encounter another car.
Still, Shay couldn’t help her recurring fancy from popping up, the one that revolved around London’s absent father. She’d never spoken with the man. After the death of his ex-wife, he’d apparently turned over his daughter’s care—temporarily, she was told, while he finished up some business in the faraway country of Qatar—to a factotum in his company. The aforesaid factotum, one dry and gray Leonard Case, had interviewed Shay via Skype. Then, he’d brought the stoic teen and her plethora of belongings to the cavernous mansion where Shay had met the two in person.
Leonard Case had lasted forty minutes before he returned to wherever he’d come from.
Ever since that day, she’d imagined herself running into her employer, Jace Jennings, accidentally. Not that she’d ever admit it to anyone, but she’d drummed up this idea that it would happen like governess Jane Eyre coming across her as-yet-unknown Mr. Rochester when he and his horse fell on an icy causeway almost at her feet. Of course, now wasn’t the time of year for frosty conditions, and the entire idea was beyond ridiculous, but still Shay couldn’t help herself from keeping a lookout for a frowning, rough-looking traveler.
There was no sign of anyone, of course.
And the house they now approached was no Gothic Thornfield Hall.
Instead it was a massive modern two-story, all steel and glass, with two walls made entirely of windows and a sleek deck that wrapped the entire structure. The prow of it jutted toward the lake, giving the impression of a ship preparing to set sail on the water.
It was butt ugly.
There wasn’t a homey touch about the place.
As they came to a stop in the drive, London sighed, as if she were thinking the same thing. They both pulled their belongings from the backseat. As the teen hitched the strap of her laptop bag over her shoulder, Shay felt another ping of guilt. Not over her brief fling this time, but because she’d left her own computer behind at the house while on her birthday adventure. Not once had she thought about finding a way to check her email. What if Jace Jennings had responded to one of her reports about his daughter at last?
Though that seemed highly unlikely.
Since taking over London’s care, she’d delivered weekly missives to the email address provided by his factotum. At first they’d been news-filled and professional—the topics they’d covered during school hours, his daughter’s excellent progress on catching up to grade-level standards—but at his continued silence she’d begun writing more and more outrageous things in order to provoke a response.
I’ve decided to replace our trigonometry lessons with tango instruction.
Yesterday, we studied literature by reading Celeb! magazine from cover to cover.
Our chemistry field trip was a trek to the local chocolate factory.
So far, no reply.
Inside the house, together they mounted the stairs to their separate bedrooms. “It’s your turn to dust,” Shay reminded the girl, noting the sparkling motes dancing in the sunshine streaming through the windows.
London paused and turned her head, her black-lined eyes narrowing. “I dusted last time.”
“Nope,” Shay said, her voice cheery. “That was me. Of course, if you’d prefer to vacuum—”
“God, no,” London said, and stomped off, each heavy footstep communicating her mood.
Shay let it roll off her back. “Before dinner, all right?”
There was a mumbled answer.
When they’d first moved in, the factotum had said he’d arranged for a weekly housekeeping service. She’d told him not to bother. Cleaning up after oneself was its own lesson, and she’d guessed correctly that it was a lesson the teen had yet to learn. So they split the chores and Shay was unmoved by the eye rolling, the grumbles and the can’t-I-do-it-tomorrow? pleading. Lately, she’d even caught a small smile of satisfaction on London’s face at a well-swept floor or a lemon-wax-polished table.
Inside her bedroom, she caught a whiff of that pleasant scent. It was a large room, with views that overlooked the lake. The four-poster bed was modern in design, but its stark lines were softened by a white lace-edged duvet she’d brought from home. On the cube table beside the bed sat a photo of the Walkers, from when both her mother and Dell Walker had been alive. Shay paused to scrutinize it now. She often did, looking for similarities between her and her siblings, and her and her mother. Shay’s hair color was different from everyone else’s in the family, and she’d always assumed she’d gotten it from the man who’d made her mother pregnant.
The one who’d never bothered to reach out to Shay.
She’d never reached out to him, either. Not even with an innocuous email, let alone an outrageous one.
I’ve decided to replace our trigonometry lessons with tango instruction.
Remembering that, Shay glanced toward her laptop. Out of obligation more than expectation, she turned it on and clicked to her email program. New posts popped up and she ran her gaze down the listing. Something from a high school friend. Another sent to her by an acquaintance she’d made on the homeschool message board she visited. And then her eyes caught on a brand-new sender: JJennings.
Her finger jerked on the mousepad; she blinked, then she clicked to open the email. Oh. My. God.
Shay dashed from the room. “London,” she yelled, forgetting the name of the day. “We have an emergency.”
The girl took her sweet time to saunter to her doorway. “What? Is this about my paper on Romeo and Juliet? I know it was a little trite to compare and contrast the play with that Taylor Swift song—”
“Your father is due to arrive here today.”
London’s insouciance shattered like a glass hitting the floor. Her jaw fell, too. “What?”
“Anytime now. Well, he didn’t give a time, so who knows when?” Shay forked her fingers through her hair. “Or maybe he came by already and we missed him. Do you think he came by when we weren’t here?”
She was aware she was babbling and that the teen was staring, but Shay couldn’t help her jangling nerves and the acute, uncomfortable awareness of those emails she’d been sending.
