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“Pearls of wisdom coming from—” Collin’s heart did another debilitating plunge and he stepped back against the entryway table pressing his right hand to his chest. “No. Oh, no. I know what I promised, but that was when you were delirious in labor—or I was delirious with fear? At any rate, I can’t keep the girls while you’re gone. You’re looking at a man who has never remotely craved an opportunity to change diapers “
“Then you’re in luck. Genie and Addie are well past the diaper stage. They’re in fast-track preschool.”
“Next stop MIT?” As she lasered him with the infamous Masters’s matriarchal look, he held up both hands and rethought his defense. “What was I thinking with a military mom who names her daughters versions of general and admiral?” He had teased her from day one about Gena and Addison’s names, which he’d turned into those nicknames. But he had little doubt that her three-year-olds were mavericks in the making, the next evolution of all that their gutsy mother was striving to be. That made what she was asking of him all the more insane.
“Look at you,” he tried to explain with unabashed awe. “You’re a pilot. You navigate thousands of pounds of metal through the air. You’re a walking hero 365 days a year even if you never left the country.” Dropping his hands at his sides, he looked at her helplessly. “What do I have to offer your babies, Cass? On weekends, when there is such a thing on my calendar as downtime, I’ve been known to sleep fourteen hours and wake up in the same position when I first crashed onto the bed.”
“You’ll adapt. Learn to do what I do. Juggle. Manage. The difference is you’ll be doing it with a seven-figure income.”
He bent at the waist and lifted his left knee as though she’d thrown him a sucker punch—or kick. “Ouch, girl.”
Cassidy grimaced. “Sorry. Doesn’t it help that even if you weren’t the next in line to be the kids’ legal guardian that you are the one and only man I adore and trust?”
“Give me your commanding officer’s phone number.” Collin snatched up his cell phone stationed on the kitchen bar. “There are issues about your judgment he needs to know about.”
Unperturbed, Cass stood her ground. “If I didn’t think you could rise to this occasion, I would take the offer of one of my fellow pilots’ wives and leave the girls on base with them. I even asked the kids what they would prefer and do you know what they said?”
“Buy us a suite at Disneyland and sign our guardianship over to the Jonas Brothers?”
“They want ‘Unca Colon.’ Declared in unison might I add.”
Collin almost choked. “Please tell me that you’re talking to an orthodontist about that speech impediment?”
Secretly, however he dealt with a new guilt surge knowing how he’d dropped the ball as “Unca” last Christmas. Instead of spending it with them and Cassie, he’d flown to Tahiti with a redhead whose name he could no longer recall. “Tell them they’ll hate it here. No presents and nothing but oatmeal and algebra. By a tutor who can barely speak English,” he added seeing nothing but advantage in heaping on negatives.
Nonplussed, Cassie replied, “I was thinking more like this could be an opportunity to show them the museums and galleries in the areas. Take them to the botanical gardens over in Fort Worth plus the Dallas arboretum and zoo. Focus on something else besides the corporate bottom line for a change.”
“Forgive my arrogance, but that bottom line is why you get to poke fun at my salary, kiddo.”
“It’s the detriment to you having a life. It’s going to blow up in your face one day. I don’t want you to vanish like our parents did when their balloon suddenly burst due to Dad’s bad business deals.”
Since he had a better memory of those shadow people that continued to haunt their past, Collin stiffened. The last thing he wanted to be accused of was emulating their parents in any variation.
“Give me a second…or a week,” he replied. “I’m sure I can think of a better solution for you. One you’ll end up thanking me for.”
That had Cassidy sucking in her cheeks and enunciating her words with particular care. “There is no one else, Collin. And should worse come to worst, at least this way they would already be used to being around you 24/7.”
Her innuendo had him dropping his head on his chest. “I beg you—do not go there.” The prospect of losing her shook him to his core and he quickly tried to hide his fear in humor. “Let’s focus again on my day job that—to paraphrase you—overpays me. What happens to the girls while I’m at the office? Do you realize I could quickly screw up that ‘Road to MIT’ plan of yours?”
Cassidy spread her arms wide. “You can’t delegate even an iota or work from home? Then ask someone in this granite fortress who they would recommend as a nanny.”
“There are—let me count.” He did the math. “Four children in this building. ‘Children’ being a euphemism, since one is in college. In fact she confided to me in the elevator last week that she is taking pole dancing as a college elective.”
“Oh, she was just flirting with you. The ninety-year-olds want to fatten you up and the little girls hear that voice and they want you to be their knight in shining armor.”
He wasn’t knight material, but it was a waste of time to argue with his sister. “The point being that the other three are products of split-custody agreements and only visit on odd weekends, and increasingly only on holidays.”
“Ask at the office.”
“You think I would hand over the care of your precious darlings to total strangers?”
Cassidy crossed her arms over her chest. “Faster than your brain registers eye candy. Look, I know you have to work, but surely somewhere in your vast circle of acquaintances and associates there’s someone who can refer a person good with kids, who can keep them growing while they’re away from their lessons and friends in San Antonio.” Suddenly her eyes widened and she snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it! Your ex. I think she’d be perfect.”
Ex? “I don’t have an ex,” he grumbled. “You know I never date anyone long enough to call her ‘girlfriend,’ just to avoid the unpleasantness of said nomenclatures.”
“I mean your ex-employee. The assistant you fired.”
“Sabrina.” Her name came off his tongue as quickly as her image flashed before his eyes, but his physical response to that was like getting a puncture wound in his lungs. The coughing fit that followed soon had Collin bending at the waist. “I did not fire her,” he wheezed.
“Right, that would have been the compassionate thing to do. Or to tell her the truth—that you were hot for her. But, no, you exiled her to the basement of your building to be a secretary to—who is that fossil down there?”
“Norbit, the head of Reference and Research.”
“Yeah, yeah, the glorified file clerk. Bet he cuts his own hair and wears thick glasses with black plastic frames and carries his meals to work in a construction-worker type lunch box.”
It annoyed him to no end that she could deduce character types so well. “Star Trek, to be factually correct, and he can do the Spock finger greeting on command.”
“Be still my heart.”
“He’s also phenomenal at Trivial Pursuit.”
“Stop gushing or I’ll have to change my daughters’ names to something other than Masters.”
Tempted to laugh, Collin instead muttered, “See if I ever confide in you again. You’re not supposed to use confidences against a person.”
This entire conversation was the reason why he’d begun to put longer breaks between their phone calls and limited most of their communication to text messaging once a week. It was easier to hide from her probes into his personal life—in other words his happiness—even if it risked losing what was left of his family.
“I’m so worried,” she drawled. “How much does she love her new job?”
He almost tried countering with “She who?” but knew it would make him look more foolish, so he simply confessed. “She quit.”
“Smart woman.” Shoving her dropped flight bag out of her way with her foot, Cassie strolled into the living room. “I grew fond of chatting with her when I would call your office and you were tied up with some so-called meeting or presentation.”
Collin’s gaze drilled into her back. “There’s nothing so-called about my appointments.”
“You just pray that Donald Trump hasn’t gotten wind that she’s on the market and goes groveling after her. I could cope better being overseas knowing she was watching my girls.”
“Excuse me, a minute ago I was the hero. Now everything hinges on her?”
Cassie shot him an unrepentant grin. “Remember Gran’s favorite quote? ‘Don’t ask a question that you don’t want an answer to.’”
Sabrina Sinclair stood before the door of the apartment she shared with her latest roommate, Jeri Swanson, and frowned at the key that no longer fit in the dead bolt. She might be in dire need of getting off her feet after having completed a twelve-hour shift at work, but this was the door to Apartment 314 and the lock had worked fine when she left here at six this morning. Hoping that her airhead roomie hadn’t already taken off with her latest boyfriend for another night of clubbing, she knocked on the door.
“Jeri? It’s me. Are you in there?”
“No, she is not, and you might as well get going, too.”
The voice calling up to her from the bottom of the stairwell had Sabrina backtracking to look over the shaky wooden railing, down at the elderly woman below. “Mrs. Finch? Is something wrong?”
“Don’t play innocent with me. I told you that I wouldn’t put up with any more tall tales regarding the rent.”
Although three stories away from the frail but feisty woman’s shaking and arthritis-bent finger, Sabrina reared back. “But Jeri paid it yesterday. I had to get to work early for inventory and she took my money to add to what she owes and paid you.”
“Did she now? Maybe that’s what she told you, but I haven’t seen a cent of the $900 you two owe me, or the other $450 still due from last month. So today I changed the locks on the door right after she left—which you might be interested to know was barely an hour after you did.”
A sickening feeling overcame Sabrina and she gripped the railing. Jeri wasn’t by nature a morning person; that’s why she preferred waiting tables at a dinner-only steak house—when she worked. In better circumstances, Sabrina would never have accepted her as a roommate to begin with, let alone trusted her to take care of the rent money, since Mrs. Finch hinted strongly that she preferred cash. Now it appeared that her trust had indeed been badly invested.
Her throat raw with the growing need to scream or cry, Sabrina asked, “Did she say where she was going? When she’ll be back?”
“Don’t know, don’t care, and you’re a dumber duckling than I first suspected if you wait for her, or waste another thought on that one. From the racket her and her man friend made, I don’t think their problem was anything that a drying-out spell in the Dallas County Jail wouldn’t fix.”
“I see.” And Sabrina did. Once again she had erred on the side of The Golden Rule and been burned. There was nothing to do but apologize again—this time profusely—and start over. She needed to get inside and get into a hot bathtub to ease her aching body, then get some sleep in order to plan how to repair the damage done to both her landlady and herself. “Mrs. Finch, if you’ll let me in, I promise you that I will work extra overtime and have the rent paid up within two paychecks, and I assure you that Jeri won’t be allowed in here again.”
“Nope. Done with the lot of you. Tired of promises. Tired of the noise and the trouble. You get out of here now or I’ll call the police on you.”
“But my things are in there.”
“No they aren’t. Your friend took your personal stuff and I’m keeping the furnishings as part of the rent owed. I’ve been walked over for the last time.”
As if things couldn’t get worse, midway through that pronouncement, a handsome, well-dressed man with wavy, ash-brown hair stepped beside Mrs. Finch and tilted back his head to gaze up at her.
“Oh, Lord,” Sabrina whispered.
Collin Masters? What on earth could compel him to come here—and why now for pity’s sake? Hadn’t he caused her enough humiliation and grief?
“May I be of some assistance?”
She didn’t buy his wide-eyed innocence for a second, or that pretense of concern even if it did sound more sincere with his pedigreed accent. Hoping he hadn’t heard everything, Sabrina started down the stairs at record speed ignoring the protests from her aching limbs. “No, you cannot. This is a private conversation.”
Ignoring her, Collin turned his thousand-watt charm onto Mrs. Finch. “Am I to understand there’s a matter of rent due?”
The diminutive woman’s eyes lit with hope as she leaned toward him to conspiratorially share. “A total of $1,350.”
“Wait a minute!” As Sabrina reached them, she skidded on the dirt-slick linoleum floor and had to brush her already untidy hair out of her eyes. “You said you’re keeping my furniture,” she told Mrs. Finch. “That should come off the debt.”
“If I can sell any of the discount junk, I’ll be lucky if it covers the expense of the locksmith and a cleaning woman to make the place presentable again.”
The hurt heaped onto injury stole Sabrina’s breath and she pressed her hand against her chest as she protested. “That’s not true or fair!” No doubt Jeri had her grandmother’s pearl earrings and her grandfather’s pocket watch, but what of family photos that had no price as far as she was concerned? Her personal papers?
“Allow me.” Collin reached into his suit jacket and pulled out his checkbook.
Keeping her gaze on Collin’s moving pen, Mrs. Finch told Sabrina, “What’s fair is being free of any more excuses from you and having to tolerate your partying friends. If they’d have spent less on liquor, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“I’ll make the check out for $1,500,” Collin said writing fast. “Does that sound fair to you, Mrs. Finch?”
The woman was part bloodhound; before Sabrina could open her mouth, she sighed and whimpered. “I suppose it will have to do. There’s the lost sleep and, being a widow woman, the constant fear someone will murder me in my bed, but that comes with the situation, doesn’t it?” Then beaming at Collin, she added, “You’re such a dear man. Exactly who are you?”
“A friend.”
“No, he’s not!” Sabrina glared at Collin before realizing her protest fell on deaf ears. Redirecting her attention to her landlady, she appealed to her compassionate side as a grandmother and mother. “Mrs. Finch, we’re talking about my birth certificate, my school records and tax receipts. You’re certain that was all taken?”
Accepting the check, the woman nodded. “Looks like a first-class case of identity theft to me, sweetie. You sure are a lousy judge of character.”
With a killing look toward Collin, Sabrina muttered, “Tell me about it.”
Pocketing the checkbook and pen, Collin extended his hand to her. “Let me get you somewhere so you can think clearly.”
Wanting badly to slap away his hand, she felt the cold draft called reality still her. Mrs. Finch had accepted his money. Now she was indebted to a man she despised.
“This can’t be happening,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry.” Placing a hand at the small of her back, he gestured to the front door. “My car is outside. I can follow you to wherever you would like to go or drive you and bring you back to your car after we eat and talk.”
Her numbness made her slow to react, but she shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Well, you certainly can’t stay here.”
“No…but I don’t have a car anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
It should have bothered her that Mrs. Finch was standing by soaking all of this in, too, but what value did pride have under these circumstances? “The lease ran out and I turned it in.” She looked at him with a last feeble surge of resentment. “Thanks to you, I couldn’t afford it any longer.”
“Now just a moment…I didn’t make you quit your job. If you remember correctly, I didn’t even lower your salary. You left all on your own.”
“Stanley Norbit has foul breath and was stalking me daily through that dungeon. He’s creepy.”
While Collin couldn’t see himself inviting old Norbit to his apartment for a dinner party, the eccentric man’s work ethic and performance was second to no one. “He may be a bit socially stunted, but he’s never let me down when I had an eleventh-hour request.”
“Try wearing a bra and shave your legs and then talk to me.”
“I respect my tailor too much to do that to him.”
Not at all amused by his attempts to make light of her latest catastrophe, Sabrina began to storm out of the building, but stopped at the front door to make herself clearly understood. “I would apply as a mortician’s apprentice before I would work for someone like him again. But first and foremost, you made me the laughingstock of the firm, and you never realized that. You don’t go from working on the top floor for the executive vice-president and wind up in the basement for a joke of a department head, who until then, ran a one-man operation. Not without everyone speculating as to why and drawing their own obnoxious and humiliating conclusions.”
Sabrina kept her chin raised, though fully aware that in dusty and tattered jeans, an oversize T-shirt recently used while painting her apartment and scruffy sneakers, she resembled a bag lady, not an executive’s assistant. Seconds away from long-repressed tears, she summoned the last of her dignity and declared, “I promise you, Mr. Masters, I will pay you back every cent of what you gave Mrs. Finch, but now, please leave me alone.”
Collin followed her out of the building. “At the risk of you slinging that cowhide version of a bowling ball at me, may I ask what you’re going to do without a place to stay, clothes to change into and money? I’ll wager you don’t even have enough cash in that purse to buy yourself a hot dog.”
Not even change to feed a parking meter—if she had a car.
Standing in the shadow of the ancient building, surrounded by the towering glass-and-steel high-rises that was today’s Dallas, and its future, Sabrina didn’t need a stronger sign that her future lay in his hands. It was an amber day full of glittering leaves and enough wind to finish pulling her hair out of her loose ponytail. She quickly rewound the elastic band around the honey-gold mass and tried to come up with a game plan. There was little she could do for the rest of the dust and grime after a day’s work of supervising restocking shelves—and doing plenty of that labor herself—at Bargain Bonanza’s main warehouse. Every morning as she dressed, ignoring aches and exhaustion, she had to remind herself that she was a “manager,” and that would look good on her résumé. But with the economy what it was, she wondered when she would be able to risk hunting for a job that actually used her brains more than her questionable brawn.
Collin ventured closer and studied her face. “You’ve grown very quiet. Do I need to worry about catching you in a dead faint? When did you last eat?”
“I guess sometime around…” She remembered buying some vending-machine sandwich that she’d heated in the break room’s microwave. Then she’d been called to some delivery paperwork problem in the warehouse. When she returned, a cashier trainee, who regularly snatched up any and all snacks or leftovers, was devouring her sandwich. One look at his grease-covered lips around her ham-and-cheese melt had killed Sabrina’s appetite.
“There’s a great bistro near where I live,” Collin said, carefully directing her to his black Mercedes parked directly in front of the building. “It’s open until people quit ordering, but should be relatively quiet at this hour.” He added almost gently, “I’ll bet they can make anything you could want.”
