Always Valentine's Day

“So I’m a hustler now, is that it?”

Too caught up in her own fury, Larkin missed the gathering tension. “I don’t know, are you? Kind of funny how things changed. One minute, you’re just some guy flirting. Then you see me with my father, the futures trader, and suddenly you go all continental on me, with the hand kissing and the heavy stares and…” She swallowed, remembering the flare of heat and need, noticing for the first time the palpable tension that hung around him.

“And?” Christopher bit off, a dangerous flash in his eyes.

She flushed. “And nothing. If you’re going to try to get alongside my father through me, you’re going to have to do a lot more to convince me than just kiss my hand.”

“Gladly.” And before she knew what he was about, he’d dragged her to him, lips coming down hot and possessive on hers.

Kristin Hardy has always wanted to write, and started her first novel while still in grade school. Although she became a laser engineer by training, she never gave up her dream of being an author. In 2002, her first completed manuscript debuted in the Mills & Boon® Blaze® line; it was subsequently made into a movie by the Oxygen network. Kristin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and collaborator. Check out her website at www.kristinhardy.com.

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To the usual suspects for doing what they usually do (you know who you are), to Least Goat, for daring to dream, to Harlequin, for giving us happily ever after for sixty years, and to Stephen, for giving me happily ever after for eleven years. And counting.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About The Author

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Preview

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements Thanks go to Laini Fondiller of Lazy Lady Farm, and Kristan Doolan and Layla Masant of Doe’s Leap Farm (www.vtcheese.com) for teaching me about goat dairying, and to Andy and Jenny Tapper of Via Lactea Farm (www.vialacteafarm.com) for introducing me to their goats and showing me what life on a working farm is like.

Chapter One

Larkin Hayes looked across the glassed-in lido deck of the Alaskan Voyager to Vancouver Bay beyond. When she’d left L.A. that morning, the mercury had been headed for the mid-nineties. Here in Vancouver, it hadn’t even cracked sixty degrees.

A snatch of the Lost theme song had her pulling her BlackBerry from her pocket.

“Hello?”

“I’m just leaving the airport,” a voice said without preamble.

Five years might have passed since she and her father had spoken regularly, but Carter Hayes seemed to have no doubt that she’d recognize his voice.

And she did. She just couldn’t believe what he was saying. “You’re only now leaving the airport?”

“My flight got delayed in Tokyo.”

“You’re aware the ship sails in a little over half an hour, right? We’ve already done the lifeboat drill.”

“I think I can find a lifeboat on my own.”

“The question is whether you’re going to be able to find the ship in time.” Then again, Carter had always been able to do just about anything he wanted—except maybe make a marriage last.

“They won’t sail without me,” he said confidently.

“If you’re lucky.”

“I’ll be lucky.”

One corner of her mouth tugged up. Quintessentially Carter. What wasn’t quintessentially Carter was booking fare on a commercial cruise line for their trip. He could have chartered a yacht; hell, he probably could have bought a few dozen of them.

Except that cruising for a week or two on even the largest yacht would have left them with a few too many silences to fill.

Across the way, a family had commandeered two tables and still spilled over the edges in a three-generational confusion of bodies and laughter. What would it be like to be a part of that kind of happy tangle of relations? she wondered enviously. Someone to joust with, someone to travel with. Someone else to try to talk some sense into Carter. Instead, she had a handful of disgruntled stepbrothers and sisters, all of whom wanted no part of the man they now loathed, except for maybe his money.

Larkin shook her head. No point wasting time on pointless thinking. “Our first port of call is Juneau,” she said. “You can always catch up with the ship there.”

“Forget Juneau. The cab driver tells me we’re twenty minutes away. I’ll be there.”

“In that case, you’ll find me on the lido deck.”

“Good. Order a bottle of Clicquot. We’ll drink to the future.”

To the future, Carter’s favorite toast. Not surprising for a man who’d made the bulk of his fortune from futures trading.

Larkin ended the call and walked through the doors that led outside onto the fantail, not sure whether she was amused or annoyed. Then again, Carter had that effect on people. He could be, by turns, infuriating, surprising, generous, charming, brilliant and astonishingly pigheaded. As a husband, he’d been a miserable failure in marriages two, three, four and, she assumed, five. As a father, he’d been like a football team—good seasons and bad seasons.

And, for the previous five years, off seasons.

She pulled her duster-style coat more tightly around her to ward off the chill and shook her head. A trip to celebrate his sixtieth birthday, he’d said, but she’d recognized it for what it was—an olive branch. A fine idea, in theory. What she and Carter were going to do with one another for a week solid, though, heaven only knew.

Staring at the islands across the bay, Larkin watched a floatplane as it dropped down from the sky and scudded along the waves. How did it feel to land on water the first time, on shifting waves instead of the solid concrete of a runway?

Like finding out she was going to be living with a new stepmother. And another. And another.

“Stop right now!”

The man’s shout had Larkin whirling to see a small girl pelting out of the doors, glancing back over her shoulder and laughing. And then it seemed to happen in slow motion, the girl tripping, falling, pitching toward the deck with a yelp.

“Hey!” Reflexively, Larkin reached out to catch the wiry little body before it hit. She didn’t reckon on the momentum, though, and instead wound up tumbling to the deck with her, her BlackBerry spinning away.

“Whoops.” The girl grinned at her from under a mop of curly dark hair.

There was a rush of steps. “What the hell?” A man skidded to a stop and stared down at them a little out of breath. “Sophia, you know you’re not supposed to run.”

“Maman says hell is a bad word.”

“Then I guess you shouldn’t say it.” He hoisted her to her feet.

His cropped hair was as dark as his daughter’s, Larkin saw. Matching stubble darkened his jaw, a frankly delectable jaw with a chin that had just a hint of a cleft, the kind that made Larkin want to nibble it.

Lucky Maman.

He held out a hand as Larkin sat up. “Need a lift?”

He might have had the cheekbones of a model but he had the beat-up hands of a man who worked for a living, scarred, sinewy. She was prepared for his palm to feel hard and callused. She wasn’t prepared for the jolt of heat that surged through her, as though he were connected to some hidden power source. She swayed as she stood.

“Easy, there. Take a minute to get your sea legs.”

“We’re not at sea yet.”

“Which is why you should start now.”

He retrieved her BlackBerry and handed it to her. An irresistible humor hovered around the corners of his mouth, glimmered in his brown eyes. “Christopher Trask,” he said. “And this little heathen, who will be apologizing any minute, is my niece, Sophia.”

Niece.

“I already apologized,” Sophia complained, squirming.

He gave her a stern look. “What did I hear your mother tell you about running?”

“That you were supposed to stop me,” she returned with an impudent look. “Anyway, you said a bad word.”

They stared at each other a moment, at an impasse. “How old are you again?” Christopher asked finally.

“You know I’m six.”

“Do you want to live to blackmail again at seven? Apologize.”

Sophia eyed him. “You won’t tell Maman I was running?”

“Not if you say you’re sorry.” And not if she didn’t out him, Larkin realized with silent laughter. “Now please apologize properly to Ms.…”

“Hayes,” she replied obediently. “Larkin Hayes.”

Christopher folded his arms and cleared his throat.

Sophia shuffled her feet. “I’m sorry I knocked you down. I shouldn’ta been running.” She looked up at Christopher beguilingly. “Can I go tell Keegan about the stuffed penguins now?”

“Sure, but don’t…run,” he finished as Sophia dashed back inside. He watched her for a moment, then nodded to himself as she apparently reached her destination. He turned back to Larkin, dusting off his hands. “You can see how she respects me.”

Larkin gave him an amused look. “Your mastery of the situation is obvious.”

“I was afraid of that.” He scrubbed at his hair ruefully. “It’s harder than it looks, you know. Especially when they run in packs.”

“Family vacation?”

He nodded. “It sounded like a good idea at the time.”

“It always does.” She walked over to the rail. “I take it you don’t have experience with kids?”

“Nope. Bachelor uncle. Or, I don’t know, first cousin twice removed? They’re my cousins’ kids, whatever that makes me.”

“Uncle Soft Touch?” she suggested.

“Not if I can help it.” He came to a stop beside her.

“Of course not. I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said sweetly as she leaned on the varnished wood.

“The trick is to break their spirits while they’re young.”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “And I can see how good you are at it. Shouldn’t you be getting back inside? Their parents must be desperate without you.”

His glance at the doors was a little hunted. “I’m sure they won’t miss me. I’ll just soak up a little more sun.”

“You’re aware it’s fifty-eight degrees and cloudy, right?”

“I’m an eternal optimist.”

This time she grinned outright. “So how many of them are you up against?”

“Five. All under the age of seven. If you see me in a bar later mainlining Shirley Temples, you’ll know I cracked.”

“I’ll be sure to send over some peanuts.”

Gulls circled over the whitecap-dotted water. Christo pher wore only khakis and a deep blue flannel shirt against the fresh breeze that sent the pennants over their heads snapping, but he seemed not to mind it.

“Do you work outside?”

He blinked. “Why do you ask?”

“You don’t seem to mind the cold.”

His teeth gleamed. “I run a farm in Vermont. This is balmy.”

“Vermont,” she said. “Maple syrup.”

“You’ll warm my cousin Jacob’s heart. He and my aunt have a sugar bush. They make maple syrup,” Christopher elaborated at her uncomprehending look.

“Seriously?”

“Well, someone’s got to. Or are you one of those people who thinks that food comes from the grocery store?”

“Of course not. Everybody knows it comes from restaurant kitchens.”

It was his turn to grin. “You take some keeping up with, Larkin Hayes.”

“Get your running shoes handy. So what do you farm?”

“These days mostly bills.”

“Not much money in that,” she observed.

“There is for my creditors. For me, it’s a miracle cure for being rich. Anyway, what about you? What’s your story?”

Improbable, at best. “Not nearly as colorful as yours. I’m traveling with my father. It’s his birthday.”

“Figured it would be nice to celebrate?”

“Yes.” And even nicer if Carter actually made it onto the ship.

“So where is he?”

“Oh, around,” she said vaguely.

“Had to take a breather already? We haven’t even sailed.”

Larkin gave him a sharp look. “He’s not here yet. He got delayed. We were coming from different cities.” Different continents, actually, but the less said about that the better. She pushed away from the rail to walk.

Christopher ambled alongside her. “So what was your city?”

“L.A.”

“Yeah? You an actress?”

She laughed. “Why would you ask that?”

Humor glimmered in his eyes. “Because you’re not big enough to be on American Gladiators.”

“It’s not the size, it’s the viciousness. I’ve got tricks up my sleeve that would turn your hair white.”

“In that case, could you show me a few so I can defend myself against my nieces and nephews?”

She gave him a sly look. “I only use my powers for good.”

“Oh, come on, I need all the help I can get.”

“Sorry, Gladiators’ code.”

He shook his head sadly. “You didn’t look like a cruel woman when I picked you off the deck.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“In other words, you really are an actor.”

“Isn’t everybody?” She glanced beyond him to see Sophia giggling at the door, next to a little boy with the same midnight hair. “I think you’re being summoned.”

Christopher turned to see them both waving madly at him. “Time to go play uncle,” he said.

“Well, it was nice to meet you.” She put out her hand. “I guess this is goodbye.”

His look held pure devilry. “Just how big do you think this ocean liner is?”

Small, he thought as he followed Sophia back inside to the staterooms. With luck, as small as a tugboat. Larkin Hayes was far and away the most interesting person he’d met on the cruise so far. Oh, hell, who was he kidding? She was far and away the most interesting woman he’d met in years. Four years, to be exact. There was something about her that made it hard to look away, some inner sparkle, a confidence in the way she stood, long and slim. Not to mention the fact that she was flatout gorgeous with that wide, generous mouth and that mane of blond hair that made a man want to sink his hands into it. It wasn’t that that got to him, though (really), but the smarts. Was there anything sexier than a clever-tongued woman?

She put that intelligence to good use, he figured, judging by her outfit: pea-size diamonds in her ears, a cashmere coat and, unless he was very much mistaken, a forty-thousand-dollar Patek Philippe watch. You noticed that kind of thing when you’d spent over eleven years as a financial industry lobbyist. Between Washington and Wall Street, he’d seen pretty much all the trappings of wealth that were out there.

Which had eventually sent him running back to the farming life he’d grown up with, but that was a different story.

And Larkin Hayes had a story. It showed in her eyes, sea green and dancing with fun, yet guarded in some indefinable way. They might have talked but she’d told him very little.

Which only made him want to find out more.

It was an ocean liner and there were only so many places to go. Sooner or later—sooner if he had anything to say about it—they’d run into each other again. Yep, by the end of the week, he was going to know Larkin Hayes a whole lot better.

“We’re moving!”

“No standing on the deck chairs, Adam,” Molly Trask reminded her grandson as they stood on their suite’s veranda. Her bobbed hair, once a glossy black, had turned full silver, a color that made her eyes look even bluer. She’d stayed trim, though—anyone with a family and a business like she had spent way too much time running around to let the pounds pile on.

“I wanna see,” Adam said obstinately.

“You just had your turn,” Jacob Trask said, turning from where he held Adam’s twin sister, Sophia, and their brother Gerard. Tall and burly as a lumberjack, Jacob looked like he could easily hold them up forever. And as their father, he probably would. “When your mama comes back from making her spa appointments, we’ll go up top where we can see everything.”

“But—”

He came by it honestly, Molly thought. Adam senior, her husband, had always been impatient himself. Impatient to work, impatient to live, impatient to love. And, it seemed, impatient to die. Ten years had passed since he’d left her, suddenly and unexpectedly. Ten years and it still felt fresh. In the time since his death, she’d focused on her family, watching her sons marry and start families of their own. How her barrel-chested, booming-voiced Adam would have loved being surrounded by his half-dozen grandchildren, rolling on the floor and playing with them. Spoiling them unmercifully, no doubt.

Well, she was no slouch in the spoiling department herself. Nor, she thought, were her sons, spiriting her off on an Alaskan luxury cruise just because she’d read an article in the Sunday travel section. To see the glaciers, they said, but she knew what it was really about. It was the tenth anniversary of Adam’s death, and they wanted to take her somewhere she’d be surrounded by family and things to see and do. Sweet of them, she thought fondly. They never asked, but she knew they worried and wondered why she’d never remarried. How could she explain that a love like she’d had with Adam left little room for another?

So she stood outside her plush stateroom and counted herself the luckiest woman around because she had the most precious of things—family.

She rose. “Come on, Adam, I’ll take you to the top deck.”

The movement took Larkin by surprise. One minute, she was sipping at her appletini and idly chatting to the couple next to her at the bar. The next, she’d realized that the pier was farther off. A lot farther off.

So that was it, then. They were under way, and Carter hadn’t arrived.

It shouldn’t have surprised her. It shouldn’t even have made her pause. She’d known when he’d called that there was no way he was going to make it. It wasn’t exactly the first time he’d promised something he hadn’t come through with.

So why did she feel let down?

The reality was that she missed him. She hadn’t wanted the five-year schism between them, she just hadn’t been able to stand by and see him rush down the aisle halfcocked yet again. Perhaps the first time she’d watched him had been the hardest, when she’d been thirteen, pale, still grieving the loss of her mother the year before. After that, she’d gotten better at it, and it had gotten easier. She’d grown accustomed to the cycle, learned how to get used to the new faces in the house but not attached.

In marriage, Carter had taught her hope, but he’d also taught her cynicism. With her mother, it had been ideal. In the marriages since, the affection, the white lace and taffeta had a way of morphing all too soon to arguments and hostility, to an angry crescendo followed by a few months of quiet after the wife of the moment had swept out and before the next began to make his eyes twinkle. Over and over Larkin had watched it happen—the rash decisions, the headlong rush, the racing disillusionment, like high-speed footage of the phases of the moon. Marry in haste, repent in court. The last time, though, at twenty-two, she’d refused to sit by and watch it all play out again.

And she’d told him why.

Carter hadn’t taken it well. The words had been bitter and echoed through the silence between them in the years since.

The partially successful legal battle to break his prenuptial agreement had lasted longer than the marriage, or so she’d heard. There’d been no rumors of a new Mrs. Hayes on the horizon. Perhaps, approaching sixty, widowed and with four subsequent divorces under his belt, Carter had finally decided to take a breather. His voice on the phone that hot August morning a few weeks before had almost made her drop the handset in shock, but she’d listened. Come with me, he’d said. We’ll have fun.

A chance to get through to him, Larkin had thought, a chance to make things right. Of course, making things right was kind of hard to do with someone who wasn’t there.

She downed the rest of her drink and rose.

“I thought you were going to order champagne,” a voice said behind her.

And in a rush of gladness, Larkin turned to see her father face-to-face for the first time in five years.

He looked the same, she realized in surprise. Oh, a pound or two more, maybe, and a bit less hair, but there was still a spark of enthusiasm in his eyes, an energy in the way he moved. Carter Hayes had grown older, perhaps, but on the dawn of his sixtieth birthday, he was not yet old.

He pulled her to him for a hug.

“I thought you’d missed the boat,” she said into his shoulder.

“I told you I’d make it. One of these days you should learn to trust me.” He held on a moment more, then released her. “So,” he said as he pulled out a chair, “where’s that bubbly?”

“Look at this place,” Christopher said as he walked through the open door of his cousin Gabe’s suite. “You could fit my room in here three times and still have some space left over.”

“Is it our fault we know how to live in style?” Gabe stepped in from the veranda.

“It’s not the knowing that’s the problem,” Christopher told him.

The color scheme was tones of peach and gold, to contrast with the ocean blues. Mirrors on one wall made the spacious suite look even bigger. Below the mirrored panels, the bed held pride of place with its snowy linens, puffy duvet and embarrassment of pillows. The built-in couch that ran along the opposite wall before curving out around the broad glass coffee table would hold three or four visitors, or sleep his cousin’s two rambunctious boys, unless they wanted to curl up in the armchairs that finished off the conversational grouping. But it was the wall of windows giving out onto the broad veranda that truly spoke of luxury. It was the windows that brought the sea inside.

“So your room’s small?” Gabe asked.

“Not so much. It’s at least the size of your bathroom.”

“That’s what you get for taking over the room of a halfbroke public servant.” Gabe was referring to his firefighter brother, Nick, who’d had to cancel his trip because of his wife’s unexpected pregnancy.

“You’re right. I should have held out on coming until you agreed to swap me for your room.”