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The only road she’d ever taken from town was the main one which curved around part of the big, sprawling island. Since she couldn’t recall seeing a sign for where she wanted to go along that narrow, tree-lined route, and given that she’d already driven five miles, she stopped at the only sign of life she encountered—a tiny mom-and-pop grocery store with a sign in the window advertising espresso and live bait.
Two minutes later she was backtracking a mile to take the shortcut to the shore road. The short cut, she’d been told, was marked by a white stake nailed with two pie tins that served as reflectors.
She’d noticed several roads disappearing back into the woods. She’d also noticed that the island’s citizenry wasn’t big on naming them. Tina had once told her that many of the people who lived on Harbor didn’t much care whether people could find where they lived. Their friends already knew. No one else needed the information.
Lauren had thought at the time that her sister-in-law had made the local residents sound like hermits. At the very least, the resident artists, entrepreneurs, kiwi farmers and seventies dropouts marched to their own drummers. Her brother was hardly a recluse, but he definitely possessed an entrepreneurial spirit. He was also a quiet man who tended to keep to himself and his family when he wasn’t working. Given that he’d always loved the outdoors, she could understand how he’d so easily adapted to this remote and wild place.
She had no problem seeing how Zach fit in there, either.
The man struck her as the classic lone wolf.
The ocean suddenly appeared a hundred yards in front of her, a vast expanse of gray against a paler gray sky. Refusing to dwell on the knot Zach put in her stomach, she followed the curve that made the road parallel the seaweed-strewn boulders and forced her focus back to the reason she was in the middle of nowhere hurrying to see a man who made her think in terms of feral beasts.
She almost missed the turn for the airport. The white sign with the black silhouette of an airplane was about the size of a briefcase, and weather had eroded most of it. There were no markers beyond that. They weren’t necessary. With nothing but the ocean on one side and an open field bordered by trees on the other, it was easy enough to see her destination.
A single landing strip slashed through the low-growing weeds and grasses. A pole with a wind sock dancing lightly in the sea breeze stood off to one side.
She’d wondered how she’d find the office when she got there. She needn’t have worried. There was only one building on the site. She’d heard her brother mention that the landing strip was public, but the building clearly belonged to him and his partner. The arched white airplane hangar proclaimed E&M Air Carriers in yard-high blue letters on its curved roof. Huge doors were open on one end, exposing a small white plane inside. The only other door was toward the opposite end and had a sign over it, which read Office.
Leaving her car beside the two trucks parked in front of it, she whipped her hood over her head, hurried to the door and stepped inside.
She was pulling her hood down and shaking off the rain when she turned and saw Zach look toward her.
He stood at the side of the counter that bisected the rather cramped little room. A large aerial map covered the wall beside him. Behind the tall counter, which was covered with another map, a gray metal desk overflowed with papers, coffee mugs and what looked to be fishing-fly-tying equipment. The scent of something that smelled like motor oil drifted through the narrow door leading to the hangar, mingling with the smell of fresh coffee from the coffeemaker on the filing cabinet.
Zach slowly straightened.
He didn’t have to say a word for her to know he wasn’t at all happy to see her. She also had the feeling from the way his mouth thinned that he knew exactly why she was there.
“Is there any possibility you can change your mind about grounding my brother?”
Her voice was polite, her tone reasonable and designed to invite discussion.
His was decidedly not.
“No.”
“That’s it?”
“As far as I’m concerned it is.”
The man looked as solid as a granite pillar standing there, and just about as flexible. His expression was closed, his tone flat with finality. Coupled with the challenge darkening his eyes, his manner had her digging deep for the tact that had so totally failed her earlier.
“I was under the impression,” she said, truly trying for civility, “that you and Sam are equal partners in the company. Isn’t that true?”
A faint frown flashed through his eyes. “We have equal ownership.”
“Then you both have equal say in its operation?”
“Technically.”
“Then, technically,” she repeated, thinking the man would rather choke than give more than he had to, “what gives you the right to tell him what to do?”
Zach didn’t say a thing. He didn’t even move. He just stood studying her carefully guarded expression and wondering at how out of place she looked in the utilitarian surroundings. On all of Harbor Island for that matter.
She had city written all over her and, while he had nothing in particular against metropolitan women, he had a particular burr on his tailwing for any woman who presumed to know him after three minutes of conversation.
Overlooking the fact that what they’d had hardly qualified as a civilized discussion, he pushed aside the flight schedule he was adjusting and walked into the waiting area with its scuffed linoleum floor and green plastic chairs. Planting himself four feet in front of her, he jammed his hands on the hips of his worn jeans and narrowed his eyes on her upturned face.
“I have the right,” he assured her, not bothering to elaborate. As long as she was there, there was something he wanted to know. And he wanted to know it before she said anything else that would make him wish his partner had been an only child. “Do you honestly think I’m more concerned about myself and this business than I am about Sam?”
It was as obvious as the chips of silver in his storm-gray eyes that her accusation had been eating at him ever since he’d left her brother’s house. The fact that it bothered him that much would have given her pause, too, had he not just taken a deliberate step closer.
Lifting her glance from his very solid-looking chest, Lauren felt certain that most sensible people would be looking for a little distance right about now. The female part of her, the part that remembered the heat in his touch, told her that was exactly what she should be doing, too.
“What am I supposed to think?” she returned, ignoring sensibility for the sake of her brother. “You know his circumstances, and you still want to take away one of the only things that’s keeping him going. You’re right,” she conceded, without backing down, “I don’t really know you. But I know you’re a pilot and I’d think that would give you at least some appreciation of what it will mean to Sam to lose his only means of escape right now.”
Something dark flashed in his eyes, something dark and haunted and repressed so quickly that only a fine tension remained.
His voice grew deliberately, deceptively quiet.
“I know exactly what flying can mean to a man. And I know what it can mean to face the prospect of not being able to do it. I also know that Sam is as aware as I am of the FAA regulation that prohibits a pilot from flying when he’s physically or mentally impaired. And right now,” he said tightly, “Sam isn’t a competent pilot.”
“He’s under—”
“He’s under stress,” he snapped, cutting off her protest. “I know that. And that stress is dangerous because it’s interfering with his concentration. The last thing I want is for him to wrap himself around a tree because his thoughts weren’t on his pre-flight check and he missed something critical. Or because his mind started to drift and he found himself in a situation he couldn’t correct in time. Or, God forbid,” he grated, “he had passengers with him when something preventable happened and he took them down with him.
“Yes, it is business.” His voice was hard, his expression harder still as he pounced on her earlier accusation. “If he kills someone, we lose everything we’ve built here. But I’d rather do that than have him jeopardize himself. I’ve already lost one friend. I damn well don’t want to lose another.”
He hated what she was doing, resented the way she was forcing him to acknowledge the fear he felt for his friend.
He hated the very word. There had been a time when he’d nearly believed that fear didn’t even exist for him. He’d learned how to deny it, to bury it under exhilaration and the adrenaline rush of the close call, the near miss. But that had been back when his training had made him believe that admitting to fear robbed a man of his edge, and once he lost his edge he was no longer invincible. Back when utter confidence had often been all that had kept him alive.
He knew fear now, though.
He knew that loss could happen in the blink of an eye.
And he knew that something about the woman so warily watching him now taunted the ruthless control he’d always maintained over himself.
Annoyed with that, too, he lowered his voice as he forced himself to back off, but the tightness remained. “Does that answer your question?”
Lauren had gone utterly still. In the space of seconds, the imposing, quietly irritated man looming in front of her had ripped away the protective anger that had braced her—and seriously shaken her entire perception of him. There was no denying that he was overbearing, arrogant and bolder than any man she knew, but he wasn’t heartless.
He wasn’t even close.
He was just as worried about Sam as she was. Only he’d had more reason to be concerned because he’d known of circumstances she hadn’t even been aware of.
He’d also lost a friend in Tina himself. And she hadn’t even considered that.
Trying to regroup, all she managed was a faint, “Yes.”
“Good.”
“Look. I’m—”
“Do you want to help your brother?”
“Of course I do. But I’m sor—”
“How long are you staying?”
She was trying to apologize, to let him know she regretted her assumptions. Those assumptions might not have been there had he been a little less impossible, but she wouldn’t shirk her part of the blame.
With his glance narrowed on her face, it was clear he wasn’t interested in making amends. He was, however, confusing her.
“How long am I staying?”
“Here. On Harbor.”
There was a measuring look in his eyes, something she didn’t trust at all. The muscle in his jaw was jumping.
“I can only take about a week off.”
He considered her for another nerve-wracking moment. “That’s better than nothing.”
“For what?”
“Your brother needs to get away,” he told her, expressing no interest at all in what she could only take a week off from. “He said he’d give anything to get away from all the memories of Tina for a while. But there’s no one to stay with the kids. If you really want to help, tell him you’ll watch them for him so he can go over to my cabin. It’s over on Gainey,” he said, speaking of one of the other seven hundred islands in the area. “I’ll fly him there myself.”
The discomfort she felt suddenly shifted course. “Why would he need to go to another island?”
“Because it’s isolated there.”
“This place isn’t?” Incredulous, even more confused, she swept her hand toward the door. “His house is the only one on that inlet. The only house for miles,” she felt compelled to point out, since the location was now taking on an entirely new significance. “I’d think that would be about as remote as it gets.”
“Trust me.” His tone went as flat as the map on the wall. “There’s a difference between being a few miles from town and being in a place you can’t leave.”
“But being isolated couldn’t possibly be good for him right now. He needs his friends. He needs family.”
“Why?”
Why? she echoed, but only to herself. As tempting as it was, she wouldn’t fall for the challenge carved in his face. He’d just proved he wasn’t anywhere near as insensitive as he’d first seemed. She did, however, have major philosophical problems with his perceptions of her brother’s needs.
“Because he needs people around him,” she replied, not sure why he couldn’t see it himself. “To help keep him occupied. To help him deal with his grief. Being alone would be so much worse.”
“Or maybe,” Zach suggested, doing a commendable imitation of her patently patient tone, “it would be easier. Maybe what your brother needs is the opportunity not to be stoic for all those other people and to deal with whatever he’s feeling head-on.”
“He doesn’t need to be stoic around me.”
“Of course he does. You’re his little sister.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
The look he gave her held amazing tolerance. “A man doesn’t want to show weakness around a female member of his family. And he sure as hell doesn’t want to show it in front of another male. The life Sam had is gone and he needs to come to grips with that before he can move past it. The only way that can happen for some people is to leave them alone so they can deal with whatever they’re feeling without worrying about how it’s affecting everyone else. That includes you. Your parents. Me. Everyone.”
There was something about the way he included himself in that list that caught her attention. It was almost as if he were making a conscious effort to keep from adding to her brother’s concerns. But that thought was lost in the face of his absolute certainty. It was heavy in his voice, mirrored in his eyes.
Conviction like that wasn’t born of assumption. The only place something that deeply felt could come from was personal experience.
“Everyone has to deal with what they’re handed in their own way,” he muttered, suddenly looking uncomfortable with the way she was watching him. “The choice isn’t yours or mine, anyway. It’s Sam’s. And whether he chooses to stay or go, he’s not flying for a while.”
He sounded as if he expected her to disagree. Given that they hadn’t agreed on anything either had said so far, the expectation was reasonable. But she wouldn’t debate his decision about Sam flying. Zach had made his point. She just wasn’t at all convinced that what her brother needed right now was solitude.
“Does he know he isn’t a competent pilot?”
“I doubt it.”
“Is he going to argue with you about it?”
“I imagine he will. He’s been taking extra flights so he can be away from here. He’s not going to like the idea of being stuck where he doesn’t want to be.”
The faint buzz of fluorescent lights underscored the soft whir of a space heater in the far corner. Over those quiet sounds came the sharp, electronic ring of the telephone and the thud of Zach’s boots on the scarred linoleum floor when, without a word, he moved to the counter to answer it.
The deep, authoritative tones of his voice carried toward her as her glance skimmed his profile and the wide scar covering the side of his strong neck.
She’d told him she didn’t know him. And she didn’t. The things she knew about him were that he was divorced and that he was no longer in the military. If she had to guess, she would put him near her brother’s age. Thirty-seven or so. Only eight years older than she was herself. But those things were superficial. It was what he’d said about how some people needed solitude to deal with whatever it was they had to confront, and how they needed space so they didn’t have to be stoic for everyone else, that hinted at what might have shaped him.
He had spoken with the voice of experience. And though she could only wonder at what that experience had been, she had the uneasy feeling that he had suffered himself, and that he’d done it alone.
“I have to go.” Zach made the flat announcement as he dropped the receiver back in its cradle. Taking the note he’d just written, he moved to the map on the wall. After using a ruler and string to calibrate the distance between two points, he scribbled the result on his note. “Tell Sam I have to go to Vancouver for a pickup, so I can’t talk to him now. I’ll stop by the house about eight. You have until then to convince him to leave the kids with you. If you can do that, I won’t have to talk to him about being grounded.”
Chapter Three
Lauren stood at Jenny’s bedroom door watching her brother as he leaned over the side of the white crib. He looked big and male and decidedly out of place among the pale pastels of Bo-Peep and her sheep on the walls, and the frilly touches of pink eyelet on the curtains and comforter. But there was no doubt in her mind that he belonged right where he was, and that, at that moment, he found as much comfort as he gave.
His flaxen-haired little girl was finally falling asleep. Jenny’s silky eyelashes formed crescents against her plump pink cheeks. Her breath came softly as Sam slowly rubbed his thumb above the bridge of her little button nose. Soothed by her father’s touch, the child lay curled on her side, her arms around the puffy purple bunny her grandma had given her for her first birthday last week. According to Sam, Jenny dragged it everywhere with her and parted with it only when it came time for her bath.
Tonight, she hadn’t wanted to let it go even then, which was why Lauren had escorted it to the laundry room in the basement for a quick trip through the dryer, then wrapped it in a towel to tuck into the crib when the child had started crying for it before it was quite dry. In between, she’d wiped the water from the bathroom floor and helped Jason into his pajamas while Sam dried Jenny and got her ready for bed. Jason hadn’t seemed to mind her help, especially after she’d shown an interest in the dinosaurs on his pj’s. But Jenny had wanted only her dad.
At that moment, as he stood quietly studying the beautiful child his wife had given him, it seemed Sam only wanted to be with his daughter, too.
Feeling as if she were intruding, Lauren backed away from the door, moving quietly so as not to disturb her brother or Jenny or the little boy already fast asleep in his room next door. She felt helpless to ease her brother’s sadness, and it was perfectly logical that children would prefer a parent over someone they barely knew, but those troubled thoughts only added to the uncertainty she felt about what Zach wanted her to do.
She moved down the hall, picking up toys along the way and dropped them in the toy box on the far side of the living room. A fire crackled brightly in the fireplace. The television was on, its volume muted. She couldn’t tell if it was still raining. It was too dark outside to see, and the log walls of the house were too thick to allow much sound to pass through. But she was listening for outside sounds anyway. Specifically, the sounds of Zach’s truck.
The afghan Jason had wrapped himself in to watch television lay puddled in front of the set. Picking it up, she considered that even if she did agree with Zach about what was best for her brother, which she did not, she had other reservations about his recommendation that she stay with the children. Despite the man’s assertion that this place wasn’t as isolated as his cabin on the other island, it was still miles from town and it was still surrounded by forest and all the back-to-nature things her brother loved and she’d never seen outside a zoo. Her sister-in-law had even refused to let the kids have a pet for fear that one of those beasts would have it for lunch.
It wasn’t that she was afraid. It was more that she was dealing with unknowns, and she’d dealt with enough of those to last her a lifetime. She liked knowing what to expect. She liked knowing what was expected of her. She found security in habit and organization and there was little here but the unfamiliar. When she added the concern of being in such a secluded place without Sam around at night to the concern of taking care of the children completely on her own, she felt none of the confidence she’d acquired at her job. She felt downright apprehensive. Especially when she considered that any child-care skills she possessed were based purely on untested instinct and her mom’s checklist.
She was folding the afghan over the back of the sofa with the same care with which she would have arranged a sales display, when she heard the muffled thud of her brother’s stockinged feet on the pine floor of the hall. She didn’t have to see him to envision the weary slump of his broad shoulders or the fatigue shadowing his deep blue eyes. She could hear his exhaustion in the shuffle of his footfall. Every time she’d looked at him that evening, she’d seen a man who was running on empty.
Masking her trepidation, she offered him a smile. In the past two years, she’d tackled a lot of things she knew nothing about when they’d first been thrown at her and she’d somehow managed to survive. She just hoped that whatever her brother chose to do, his children would be able to survive her.
“How about something to eat now?” she asked, watching Sam pick up the remote control unit for the television from the coffee table and head for his favorite overstuffed leather chair. “You said you weren’t hungry when the kids ate, but you should be by now.”
“I had some of Jason’s noodles.”
He’d had two bites. Both taken to encourage the child to eat. “That’s hardly enough for a man your size. You need more fuel.”
“You sound just like Mom.” He gave her a smile, faint but forgiving and dropped into his chair. “I’ll make a sandwich later. Okay?”
She started to tell him she would be happy to do it for him herself. He really did need some nourishment. But she had the feeling he was no more interested in food than he was in the deodorant commercial he was staring at on the screen, and that the only reason he’d mentioned the sandwich was to make her feel better.
He needs to get away so he doesn’t have to worry about how he’s affecting everyone else.
Zach’s words echoed in her head, the conclusion nudging hard at her own convictions.
She nudged right back, certain that this evening would have been so much more difficult for him if he hadn’t had his children to hug and to think about.
Then, she remembered that getting away hadn’t necessarily been Zach’s idea. Sam had apparently told him that was what he wanted to do.
Her brother had yet to turn up the volume on the television. Now that the children weren’t crawling on and off his lap and demanding his attention, he didn’t seem able to sit still himself. Tossing the remote control onto the lamp table beside him, he rose and shoved his fingers through his short dark hair.
“Your partner should be here pretty soon,” she said, watching him walk to the bookcase and take out a book, only to put it back again. “He said eight.”
It was nearly half past now.
“He could have gotten fogged in.” Walking to the fireplace, he pushed around the flaming logs in the hearth, sending sparks up the chimney, and set the poker back in its holder. “The ceiling was pretty low this afternoon.”
“Wouldn’t he call?”
“If he can, he will.”
Now would be a good time to mention the cabin, she thought, as he walked to the coffee table. Now, while he looked as if he were ready to pace out of his skin and there was nothing else distracting him. There had been no opportunity to bring up the subject before with all the activity with the kids.
Part of her still balked at the idea of Sam being all alone. Another part knew that if he didn’t go, Zach would tell him he couldn’t fly.
“How did he get the scar on his neck?” she asked, working her way up to mentioning the cabin.
His attention elsewhere, Sam’s brow furrowed. “Zach?”
She hummed a note of affirmation. “It looks like a burn.”
“It was. He crashed a jet when an experimental guidance system failed.” Looking as preoccupied as he sounded, he picked up a coloring book and distractedly flipped through the pages. He didn’t seem to pay any particular attention to the scribblings. He didn’t even seem to be seeing the pages at all, until he came upon a beautifully colored castle.