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Sean stopped as if stung. Stopped and stared at Kit. The flinty look in his eye said she was the last person he expected—or wanted—to see.
Well, he was the last person she wanted to see.
“Kit!” Alex’s face, on the other hand, transformed with joy. Throwing down the newspaper sword, she rushed at Kit as if to hug her, then pulled up short when she spied the bandage on her forearm. “What happened? Lions? Tigers? Bears?”
“No wildlife.” Kit smiled. “A chain-link fence.”
Sean rose stiffly to his feet. He hadn’t managed a clean change of clothes either since they’d shared a mud bath. “You should get that arm looked at.”
“Well, duh, Dad!” Alex rolled her eyes. “She’s in a hospital. I think she already has.”
Sean’s ears turned pink as the three other children, now seated around a table littered with the remains of a meal, stared wide-eyed from Alex to Kit to Sean.
“We’re waiting for Aunt Emily to have her baby.” Alex seized Kit’s uninjured arm. “Come meet my cousins.”
Kit had never met anyone who accepted her so unconditionally, who championed her so exuberantly as Alex did.
“Maybe Kit was on her way somewhere, scout,” Sean cautioned, as if he wished Kit would take off. The hungry look in his eyes, however, belied his gruff tone. “Let her be.”
The corners of Alex’s mouth turned down.
“I’d like to meet your cousins,” Kit replied, slipping her hand into Alex’s. She tried to ignore Sean’s inhospitable words and her empty stomach. A round of introductions was the least she could do for the little girl who so openly accepted her.
Sean watched his daughter lead Kit toward Nina, Noah and Olivia.
“Hey, guys! Meet Seafaring Cecil.” Sean winced at the hero worship in her voice.
His daughter loved new words, but he didn’t know if she understood the meaning of transience. As in Kit’s life. The McCabes were a rooted lot. They might venture out on the tide, but they came back in on it as well. How would his daughter feel when Kit eventually took off—as she would, oh, yes, she would—without a backward glance?
“So tell them about your favorite trip,” Alex insisted, clearly intent on showing off her prize.
It surprised Sean that his daughter had to draw Kit out. He would have expected more swagger from Seafaring Cecil. From a woman who’d hit the road at fifteen. But she stood, holding Alex’s hand, and looked almost shy.
“My favorite trip is one I’ve never taken.” She smiled and her smile was sweet and far away. “Kathmandu.”
Could it be? Kathmandu was the trip she and he had mapped back in senior year when they were supposed to be researching the effects of geography on the Russian revolution instead. Their mutual passion for the freedom travel promised was what had led him to ask her out.
She glanced at him, then quickly looked away, blushing. “So maybe you’d rather see some tricks I picked up from a street performer in Montreal.”
“I like tricks!” six-year-old Olivia chimed in. “But not mean ones.”
“Can you saw a person in half?” Alex asked, her uninjured eye saucer-large.
“No tricks that complicated.” Kit winked. “But I can juggle and do card tricks and read palms and pick pockets—”
“Pick our pockets!” Alex exclaimed as the children leaned forward as one.
Slapping her hands over her miniature backpack, eight-year-old Nina appeared shocked. “Do you keep what you take?”
“No, no!” With a predatory feline grace Kit moved around the small group. “This is just for fun.”
Her twin brother, Noah, danced from foot to foot, but Nina wore a pruney expression. “Picking pockets—”
Alex reached out and clamped her hand over her cousin’s mouth.
“You’ve got to pick a pocket or two,” Kit crooned, with a mischievous grin. “I give it all back afterwards to prove how clever I am. Cleverer than the people whose pockets I pick, whose belongings I snitch.” Waggling her fingers, she looked into the children’s eyes.
The kids giggled—except for Nina—and hugged their pockets.
“Who thinks they’re cleverer than me? Who thinks they’d know if I fingered their valuables?” Kit twirled an imaginary mustache. At ease now. Lost in the game. Impish. And irresistible. “Who?”
“Me!” A spontaneous chorus of four. They were McCabes, after all. Sure of themselves.
When the hands shot up, Kit made her lightning quick move. Sean saw Olivia’s bead bracelet disappear off her tiny wrist, noticed because Olivia had made such a big deal of finding that bracelet before coming to the hospital. Twisting to keep her eye on Kit, Olivia, however, seemed not to have felt a thing.
Sean examined Kit’s moves more closely. Not an unpleasant task.
“Who thinks their young eyes are sharper than my old fingers?” she asked.
“Me!” The four craned their necks to keep their eyes on Kit prowling the perimeter of their rapt group.
As Nina wriggled uneasily, Kit slipped a bow from the cousin’s hair, then palmed it out of sight. Nina didn’t flinch, as the others squirmed and protected their own pockets.
Sean took note, however. He took note of every sensuous move Kit made. How the vine tattoo on her uninjured arm rippled over svelte muscle as Kit swiped then pocketed the children’s little treasures. How intense and childlike her own expression turned as she wove a sense of magic with her voice and her movements. How her red cowboy boots clicked on the hospital’s tiled floor as she moved around the group, holding their attention as a snake charmer would a snake.
In fact, he was so mesmerized that he failed to get out of her way on one of her turns. She bumped into him. Hard. But she wasn’t hard. She might have the enthusiasm of a child, but she had the soft curves of a woman.
Patting him solicitously, she said, “Sorry.”
He wasn’t.
“You’re all so clever,” she remarked, returning her attention to the children. “A tough crowd. Protecting your pockets so well.” She reached down and pulled a coin from behind Noah’s ear. “I’ll never put anything over on you.” She held it up to the delighted giggles of her audience.
She handed the quarter to Alex. “Hold this between your hands.” She adjusted Alex’s hands to a prayer position, and his daughter’s Seafaring Cecil compass ring instantly disappeared. “And I’ll try to move Noah’s money from here—” she tapped Alex’s fingers “—to there.” She tapped the pocket on Sean’s shirt.
Her touch left a warm spot on his chest.
She threw her hands into the air. “Alakazam!”
Alex opened her hands, and the coin fell to the floor.
The group groaned its disappointment.
“You couldn’t do it,” Nina said, her face a stiff little smirk.
“But I could do this!” With a flourish, Kit held the pilfered goods aloft. One bead bracelet. One hair bow. One compass ring. And one very familiar wallet.
Sean’s wallet. How the devil had she done that?
“Now who wasn’t paying attention?” Kit crowed.
He’d seen her lift all the other stuff, but not his own. Obviously, that enjoyable bump she’d given him had scrambled his brain. She certainly had that power.
Alex rolled on the floor, her face contorted with glee.
“Well, I’ll be—” Sean shook his head in admiration as Kit handed back his wallet.
“You need to keep a closer watch on your valuables, sailor,” she murmured, a wicked gleam in her eye.
His pulse picked up.
Once Alex’s cousins recovered, they erupted in a sea of demands.
“Teach me!”
“Teach me!”
“Teach me!”
“Is this a hospital, or did I make a wrong turn?”
Sean turned as his older sister, Mariah, marched off the elevator. She drilled such a look at Kit. Rude. His sister, a stunner and a spitfire who was completely overprotective of her younger brother Sean.
“Aunt Mariah!” Nina exclaimed. “Mom’s having our baby.”
“That’s why I’m here, love.” She bent down to accept a group hug from the four cousins. “And guess what? I checked. There’s a new kid on the block. Eric Aaron McCabe.”
“Uncle Sean!” Noah whooped. “I got a brother!”
Alex stood on a chair and tossed impromptu confetti—shredded cafeteria napkins—into the air.
“Alexandra,” Sean warned. “Get down and start cleaning up.”
“All of you, chop, chop!” Mariah bustled about the table. “Help me clean up. As soon as Aunt Emily’s back in her room, we can go up to see the baby.” She turned to Sean, her back to Kit, her posture antagonistic. “Family only.”
Sean thought it better to ignore her challenge. “I talked to Pop and Jonas. They’ll be along as soon as they close up work on the pound.”
“I think it would be better if we don’t all descend at once on Emily,” Mariah said. “After the kids have gone up, we can flip to see who takes the rug rats home for baths and bed.” She cut a hard glance at Kit. “You’ve been here the longest, maybe you should take them home.”
“I want to see our new baby,” Olivia wailed.
“Brother,” Noah insisted.
“I wanna stay right here.” Alex thrust her skinny arm through Kit’s shapely one.
Cocking one eyebrow, Mariah glared at Sean.
Sean refused to be intimidated. “Mariah, you remember Kit Darling. An old friend.” Rebellion simmered in the half-truth. “Kit, my big sister, Mariah.”
Mariah clamped her mouth shut, obviously reacting to rumors. She could be such a brat. Her brass made Sean want to shield Kit.
Kit shrugged. “I have to eat.” Gently removing her arm from Alex’s grasp, she handed back Olivia’s bracelet, Nina’s hair bow and Alex’s ring. She flipped the coin to Noah.
“It’s been real,” she said, her voice suddenly tough. She let her hand rest for a moment on Alex’s head. “You’ve been great.”
Then, without so much as a glance in Sean’s direction, she moved to the cafeteria’s sandwich array.
And Sean, having wanted her to leave earlier, now desperately wanted her to stay.
Standing with her back to the lot of them, Kit paid for a ham on rye. Who the hell did Mariah think she was? Dishing out the cold treatment. Making Kit feel fifteen again. And lacking.
The only reason she hadn’t decked the insufferable snot was because the insufferable snot was Alex’s aunt. Alex deserved better.
She moved to the drink machines to purchase bottled water. But when she stuffed a dollar in the slot, the machine immediately spit the rumpled bill back at her. She banged the lit front with the flat of her hand.
“Lemme try.” Alex stood next to Kit, empathy written on her face.
Kit handed her the dollar.
Carefully, as if the task were brain-surgery important, Alex straightened the kinks from the corners, then smoothed the entire bill by running it back and forth over the edge of the vending machine.
The gesture touched Kit. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she murmured.
Alex cocked her head, her gaze unwavering. “Because I like you.” Simple as that. Yet not so simple when her family obviously wanted Kit out of their lives.
Kit glanced over her shoulder to where Sean and his sister were engaged in heated stage whispers. Nina, Noah and Olivia huddled near their aunt.
Kit looked back at Alex, a little person with an enormous heart. “I like you, too,” she replied and felt pounds lighter for having admitted it.
Alex stuck the smoothed dollar in the slot, and the docile machine gave up a bottle of water. Scooping it out of the bin, she handed it to Kit.
“Thanks. Can I buy you one?”
“Alexandra,” Mariah called over. “Come finish cleaning up.”
The McCabes had always been clannish and tough as nails. They’d worn their hardscrabble respectability like a badge. The Darlings couldn’t buy respectability with a bushel of money and a gold-plated plaque from the governor.
Kit turned on her heel for the elevator. To hell with them. All of them.
“Kit!” Alex called as the elevator doors slid open.
“Let her go, Alex,” Mariah urged.
“Kit!” Sean called as she stepped into the car. “Wait!”
She punched the button for the lobby and felt an enormous sense of escape as the doors shut and the car began to descend, leaving Sean behind with his sanctimonious sister. Kit kicked the metal wall. Hard. Pain shot through her big toe.
In the lobby, she hobbled toward the entrance and the parking lot.
“Kit!” Sean had emerged from the second elevator.
She hobbled faster through the lobby’s automatic doors and into the parking lot toward her motorcycle. Freedom on a kickstand.
But Sean’s stride was too great. Catching up with her, he grasped her good arm and spun her around.
“Stop, dammit.” His dark eyes burned into her. “Why are you running?”
Her heart raced in a rhythm all out of proportion to her brief sprint. Sean did her in with his smoldering eyes and push-me-pull-me looks. His yearning tinged with anger.
“Why aren’t you inside with your family?” she demanded.
He held her arm as if he had every right to touch her. He didn’t. Kit had fiercely guarded her right to tell a man when he could and when he could not touch her.
“Let me go,” she growled.
He threw his hands in the air and took a step backward. “Not everyone in the world is the enemy, Kit.”
“Tell that to your sister.”
“She acted like a jerk. I apologize for her behavior.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“Ah, Kit….” A look of pain suffused his rugged features. “For a long time I’ve owed you an apology.”
It was her turn to take a step backward.
“Back in school—”
She held up her hand to ward off what she realized was coming.
“In school,” he continued, undeterred, “I asked you out, then stood you up.” His words seemed scraped and raw. “I’m sorry.”
She couldn’t believe he’d brought that old hurt into the open.
“Why did you stand me up?” She pulled herself ramrod straight, prepared herself for his macho defense. Or, at the most, the admission of teenage stupidity. Peer pressure. Folding to a dare. “Why?”
“Jilian…” He cleared his throat. Clenched and unclenched his hands. “Jilian told me she was pregnant. With Alex.” His words sounded forced. “I wasn’t thinking about anything or anyone else. We were married right after you left town.”
Dumbfounded by this unexpected confession, Kit felt a stab of empathy for his wife. The gossips must’ve had a field day. “How would Jilian feel if she knew you were telling me this?”
In the light of the parking lot lamps, Sean’s face appeared drained of all color. “Jilian’s been dead six years. Car accident.”
Kit didn’t know what to say. She’d been prepared to stand up to him if he’d apologized for being a jerk. But this halting admission was too filled with pain.
“You didn’t have to tell me all this.”
“I did.” He glowered at her as if he hadn’t wanted to tell her anything. “Because you shouldn’t think I wasn’t attracted to you. Then.”
He said then, but his eyes said now. She’d seen desire in men’s eyes before. Lust. Crude and controlling. The look in Sean’s eyes was different, tinged with vulnerability. Telling her the truth had cost him.
Unaccountably, tears stung her eyes.
“Kit…” He moved to draw her to him, kiss her maybe. She couldn’t quite tell. His tenderness and unguarded yearning made her wild. She could have handled his scorn. Or his pity. But not this sensitivity.
Drawing back, she slapped his face with all her might. As much to punish him for arousing her deeply guarded feelings now as for his inadvertent cruelty all those years ago.
CHAPTER FOUR
HIS CHEEK STILL SMARTING from Kit’s slap, Sean stepped out of the hospital elevator and into a McCabe celebration. With all the goings-on, surely his bruised ego would go unnoticed.
Pop and Jonas had arrived in the maternity floor waiting room and Brad was passing out cigars, both real and chocolate. The kids were wild from junk food, missed bedtimes and the adults’ high spirits.
“Once he decided to come, there was no stopping him!” Brad exclaimed, his chest puffed out. “And he’s a keeper, all right. Eric Aaron McCabe. Seven pounds, eleven ounces and eighteen inches of squalling testosterone.”
Jonas clapped Brad on the back.
“He’s right. I just saw him. And Emily looks great, too.”
Mariah appeared around a corner. “I’ll call Nick and Chessie,” she said. “They’d better move back home quick before the selectmen declare Pritchard’s Neck has its quota of McCabes.”
“Hush, girl.” Pop gave his only daughter a loving glance that belied his gruff reprimand. “There could never be enough of you to suit me.” Penn had fathered five children. Now he counted on those offspring to build his dynasty.
A nurse appeared, and Sean recognized her as one of Pop’s poker pals. “Visiting hours are over, and you need to let the new mom rest. But, if you can control yourselves, I’ll bend the rules just the tiniest bit and let you take a peek at the new family member…who’d better have a good set of pipes to be heard over the lot of you.”
“Ah, Adele,” Pop crooned, affecting an Irish brogue. “I’ve a soft spot in me heart for a lass in uniform. Can I buy you a cuppa when your shift is done?”
Adele leveled Pop with a flinty glare. “You can pay your poker debts, Penn, and I’ll call us even.”
Her retort shut the older man up momentarily.
“Now,” Adele continued, “if you can hold on for just a few more minutes, we’ll have your baby ready for viewing in the nursery. But first, Emily would like to speak to you, Sean.”
“Me?”
“You sure she wasn’t asking for the proud grandpa?” Pop asked, feigning insult.
“I think I know the difference between you and your sons,” Adele replied. “I’ll be back for the rest of you when the baby’s ready.” She squinted at the assembled clan. “And try to keep your conversation to a dull roar.”
With that, she set off down the corridor at a brisk clip, Sean in her wake.
“Did Emily say why she wanted to see me?” he asked.
“You can ask her yourself.” The nurse stopped outside one of the rooms. “She’s in here.”
Emily was sitting up in bed when Sean came in, holding the baby and looking radiant.
“Do you want to hold your nephew?” she asked.
“You bet.”
Sean took the tiny bundle and stared down in wonder at the newest family member. “Hey, I’m your Uncle Sean.” The baby yawned, unimpressed. “He’s a handsome dude, Em.”
“Thank you. We think so.” Emily shifted her pillow, cleared her throat. “Would you like to have more children?”
Yeah, he would. “I’ve got Alex,” he said, concentrating on the infant in his arms. “And a whole lot of nephews and nieces. That’s plenty.”
“Family’s important.”
“Nothing more important.”
Another nurse appeared in the doorway. “I’m here to take the baby. If we don’t get him in the nursery soon, I’m afraid your family’s going to riot.”
“They’re an impatient bunch.” Sean chuckled as he handed Eric over. He turned to Emily. “I’d better let you get your beauty sleep.”
“Just a minute,” Emily replied. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Sean shifted uneasily.
“I’ve been a McCabe long enough to know what a devoted father and family man you are, Sean. You deserve a woman with the same values.”
“How did this get to be about me?”
“Mariah told me Kit was with you in the cafeteria.”
“She wasn’t with me. It was pure coincidence we ended up in the same room.”
“Hmm. Two coincidental meetings in one day.” Emily obviously didn’t believe him. “Mariah said there was chemistry between you two.”
“Mariah’s got an imagination as vivid as Alex’s.”
“Alex is definitely attracted to her.”
“Kit’s not staying in town.”
“Exactly. Why would you want to start up with someone who’s leaving?”
“I think we’ve had this conversation.”
Emily looked him in the eye. “My friend Elaine works for a consumer credit counseling service in Biddeford. The agency helps people manage their debt once they’re in trouble. Kit paid them a visit to get help sorting out Babe’s financial mess.”
“I don’t think Elaine should have told you this, and I don’t think you should be repeating it to me.”
Emily acted as if she hadn’t heard. “It seems Kit cosigned with Babe on all her accounts. When Babe skipped town, she left Kit with thousands of dollars in debt. Thousands.”
Sean cringed. What kind of person would do that to family? A mother putting that burden on a daughter was unbelievable. It was a betrayal. He thought of how implicitly he trusted Pop and Jonas and the deal they’d struck on the pound. Bailing out and leaving a family member stranded was so far outside Sean’s realm of experience, he felt suddenly protective.
“You can’t hold that against Kit,” he declared. “She’s trying to do what’s right.”
“I know,” Emily said quietly. “I’m telling you this because I’m worried about you and Alex. For us, family ties, loyalty and reliability mean everything. For Kit…who knows?” She gave his hand an affectionate squeeze. “You’re a good man, Sean. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want Alex to get hurt.”
“Neither do I. Good night, Em.” He kissed his sister-in-law on the top of her head, unwilling to admit that she’d effectively made her point. He and Kit were worlds apart. “Don’t worry.”
He left the room to find his daughter.
Back in the waiting room, Alex sat alone in the corner, scowling and peeling the label off a soft drink bottle. Sean could hear the rest of his family down the hall, presumably admiring the baby in the nursery.
“Hey, june bug, don’t you want to see your new cousin?”
Alex shrugged. “I dunno.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Why did Kit have to go?”
Sean sat beside his daughter and put his arm around her shoulder, fragile as a bird’s wing. “Kit’s not part of the family, hon. Besides, she finished her business at the hospital and headed home.”
“So why’d you follow her?”
“I…thought Kit’s feelings might be hurt. I wanted to apologize.”
“Aunt Mariah wasn’t real friendly to her.”
“No, she wasn’t.” He chucked Alex under the chin. “Hey, sport, if you want to see Eric, we’d better get a move on.”
Alex stayed put and crossed her arms over her chest. It was no secret she’d inherited his stubborn streak. “I like Kit.”
“I know you do.” He rubbed the back of his neck, massaged the tense muscles. “And she likes you. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
What was wrong was his inappropriate attraction to a woman who rocked his sense of responsibility. When she’d jumped on her motorcycle after slapping him, his first thought had been to climb on that powerful machine with her. He could imagine the evening breeze on his face, the heady sense of freedom, the thrill of not knowing what lay around the corner.
“I just wanna be her friend,” Alex whispered, her face pinched in confusion. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
His child deserved the best explanation he could muster.
“When Kit lived here,” he began, “she wasn’t happy. She didn’t make friends easily. She always wanted to leave, to see the world. She only came back because her mother messed up and Kit has to help her out. She’s not happy about it, and she can’t wait to leave. Alex, honey, it’s hard to make friends with a person who has no intention of sticking around.”
Sliding off the chair, Alex threaded her tiny fingers through Sean’s big ones. “Maybe she’d stick around if she had friends.”
It was hard to argue with a child’s simple logic.
He didn’t try. Instead, he led her down the corridor to where the rest of the family stood in front of the large nursery window, behind which the plastic bassinets were empty, except for one. It seemed Eric Aaron had center stage to himself tonight in this small coastal hospital. Better he should be in the spotlight than his Uncle Sean.
Lifting Alex up so she could see her new cousin, a flood of memories washed over him. He’d stood at this very window and gazed down at the pink bundle he and Jilian would take home. Alex.