Freefall

Thomas’s stomach clenched at the word. How far had he come, from a Coast Guard chopper pilot content with his bachelor life to a man with a wife and ready-made family?

And how did Sophie feel about all of this? He couldn’t read her at all. She veiled her emotions behind a bright smile.

She looked radiant, lovely. Demure, in an un-Sophie-like way, like a spear of sunlight cutting through the water on a gray day.

For one crazy second, he wished this was a regular wedding, that they were two people in love preparing to begin their lives’ journey together. The fierceness of his desire startled him.

“She’s a beautiful bride,” someone murmured. “You’re a lucky man, Thomas.”

Lucky? He thought about the word. It shouldn't have fit, given the circumstances, but somehow it did.

He was lucky.

Freefall

RaeAnne Thayne

RAEANNE THAYNE

lives in a graceful old Victorian nestled in the rugged mountains of northern Utah, along with her husband and two young children. Her books have won numerous honors, including several Readers’ Choice Awards from Romantic Times and a RITA® Award nomination by the Romances Writers of America. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers. She can be reached through her Web site at www.raeannethayne.com or at P.O. Box 6682, North Logan, UT 84341.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Chapter 1

As final resting places go, the El Carmelito cemetery in Pacific Grove, California, was a beautiful place to spend eternity.

The wild sea off Point Piños crashed just a few hundred yards away, wind-gnarled Monterey cypress provided shade and serenity and a small herd of blacktail deer browsed among the grave markers.

Under other circumstances, Sophie Beaumont might have found some small comfort that her sister would be laid to rest here in exactly the kind of place Shelly had loved best. But she couldn’t find anything remotely resembling comfort. Not yet. Not when the shock and grief of losing her twin so abruptly raged through her like that fierce ocean battering the rocks.

She hated funerals, she always had, and this one was by far the worst. Sophie swallowed hard as she looked at those elegant matching coffins waiting to be lowered into the ground—one starkly, horribly empty, one containing Shelly’s battered remains.

She thought of the burial ritual she had seen a few months earlier in rural China, where mourners wore colorful clothing and celebrated the deceased’s life with an exuberant funeral parade. Or the Jamaican way, where the families of the deceased dressed in their Sunday best and feasted for nine days. Shelly would have vastly preferred that to this cold, solemn ceremony.

Two small, sniffly whimpers on either side of her dragged her from her thoughts. Poor lambs. Poor bewildered little orphaned lambs. Her sister’s own twins, Zach and Zoe, just five years old, didn’t know what to make of this somber service. All they knew was their mother and father were both gone and that their comfortable, secure world had changed forever.

“Shh,” their older sister, Alison, whispered to the twins. Her green eyes, far wiser than their ten years, looked at Sophie solemnly as if waiting for her to do something. Sophie gazed back helplessly, not sure what her niece expected of her. Finally, with a heavy sigh, Ali pulled her younger brother into her lap to console him.

Sophie winced. If she wasn’t so tired, she would have thought of that. Or at least she wanted to think so.

Following Ali’s example, she pulled Zoe into her own lap. The little girl snuggled against her with a few more sniffles, her cheek pressed against the black leather of the slim little blazer Sophie had picked up a few months ago at a market in Belarus. It was far too hot for leather, unexpectedly warm for a cloudy November day on the peninsula, but Sophie had had nothing else with her suitable for a funeral—and no time to find anything else—when Thomas had finally tracked her down two days earlier in Morocco. She’d been traveling nonstop since his call and barely made it to Monterey a few hours earlier, in time to shower and change out of her traveling clothes.

The preacher was droning on about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, about ashes to ashes, dust to dust. She wanted to listen but the words seemed hazy, surreal.

This couldn’t be Shelly he was talking about in that dry, lifeless tone. Her sister had been funny and bighearted, passionate about her children and deeply in love with her husband.

Whether the son of a bitch deserved it or not.

Loud, dramatic sobbing down the row of chairs cut through the minister’s words like a chainsaw, and Zoe sniffled louder in her arms. Though she felt small and mean for it, Sophie wanted to stalk down the row of mourners and give her mother a good, hard slap. Couldn’t Sharon tell she was upsetting the children with her wailing and carrying on?

Of course she couldn’t, she answered her own question. And even if Sharon knew, she probably wouldn’t care.

The minister droned on until Sophie wanted to scream at him to stop, that he obviously didn’t know anything about Shelly if he thought his words carried any meaning about her life.

Zach sniffled again on Ali’s lap and Sophie felt heat brush her shoulder. Not a touch, just a stirring of air. Automatically, her gaze shifted to the man sitting on the other side of her niece. Thomas Canfield, brother to Shelly’s husband Peter, had wrapped an arm around Ali and pulled her close, Zach and all.

He looked solid and reassuring, his shoulders impossibly broad in his Coast Guard dress blues, and for one insane moment she wanted nothing more than to burrow her head against his chest as if she were five years old just like the twins.

Over the childrens’ heads, their gazes met. Not a trace of warmth showed in those icy blue eyes. They were diamond-hard and so bitterly cold she shivered, despite her leather jacket and the heat of the afternoon.

She forced her attention back to the minister, willing herself not to think about how those wintry eyes had once blazed with hot need and breathtaking tenderness.

A few more words, another prayer, and it was done. As the last amen floated away on the sea breeze, mourners stood and began to talk softly among themselves. Sophie stayed seated, feeling numb, her limbs leaden, listless.

“Is it over?” Zoe asked, her lisp making the last word sound like “ov-oh.”

She hugged the little girl close. “Yes, sugar. It’s over.”

“I don’t want Mommy and Daddy to be in Heaven.” The small voice nearly broke her heart.

“I know. Oh, honey, I know.”

Someone with more experience around young children than she probably would have added something wise and comforting but Sophie drew a complete blank. She was still trying to figure out what to say when Sharon glided to them, weeping copiously. Not even her thick waterproof mascara could hold up under those conditions. Black splotches underlined her eyes, pooling in the wrinkles she fought so hard against.

“Oh, Sophie. Isn’t this the most terrible thing that’s ever happened? My poor girl. My poor baby girl. I never thought one of my girls would die before me. Oh, I don’t know how I’ll bear it.” Sharon began to weep again and the barrel-chested man she’d brought along—another Earl, wasn’t it?—handed her a handkerchief and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.

Sophie should be more compassionate toward her mother. She knew it but still she fought a wave of resentment that even now Sharon couldn’t stand to have anyone else be the center of attention. Not even her dead child or her suddenly orphaned grandchildren.

The instinct to flee was almost overwhelming. For one wild moment, Sophie wanted to grab her equipment and her suitcase and hop a plane to any destination, particularly one on the other side of the globe. A place where nobody knew her, where she could be just another anonymous face in the crowd hiding behind a camera lens.

Since she couldn’t leave, at least she should be able to crawl into a bed somewhere—anywhere—and sleep for the next forty-eight hours until she lost this jet lag and could begin to cope with the storm of emotions that had buffeted her since Thomas’s late-night phone call in Morocco.

Ten years ago she wouldn’t have needed a phone call to tell her something had happened to Shelly. For most of their life, they had shared an invisible bond, one of those weird psychic twin connections that defied logic or words. When Shelly had broken her leg jumping off the swings in second grade, Sophie had crumpled to the floor of her classroom howling in pain. When Sophie had sliced a finger cutting vegetables in Home Ec, Shelly hadn’t been able to finish a test in English class because her own finger throbbed too badly to write.

But that was all in the past. In the last ten years, Sophie had done everything she could to sever that bond, to put as much distance as possible between her and her twin, psychic or otherwise.

Obviously she had succeeded beyond her wildest dream. She hated that she had known nothing of the car accident that had killed Shelly—of that final terrible plunge off the soaring cliffs of Big Sur, of the impact so horrendous Peter had been flung from the Mercedes, his body dashed on the rocks below and then carried away by the violent sea.

Shelly had been dead three days before Thomas finally managed to learn what magazine she was on assignment for and could contact the photo editor and track her down.

Three days where she had been wandering from town to town, village to village. Eating, sleeping, laughing. Living her life just as always, with no clue her sister was gone.

She wanted to stand at that grave in this beautiful cemetery by the ocean and weep for the past and the physical and emotional chasm between them at the end.

“Can we go home now?”

Zoe’s question wrenched at her heart, filled her mouth with shame. She was no better than Sharon. How could she stand here feeling so sorry for herself when these children had lost everything?

Home. She thought of Peter and Shelly’s house on Seventeen Mile Drive, that huge estate in the gated Del Monte Forest that should have seemed elegant and cold.

For all its grandeur, Shelly had managed to make Seal Point feel like a home. That was just so Shelly. Her sister had plenty of experience building nests wherever they lived, from dingy apartments to run-down trailers and even the back seat of Sharon’s old Toronado when they had spent a summer living out of it.

There were mourners to greet, polite conventions to follow, but she realized the children were close to the breaking point. They were her responsibility now and nothing else mattered.

“Yes, sugar. I’ll take you home. Alison, are you ready?”

Her niece nodded tightly, and held on to Zach’s hand. She led the little entourage toward her rental car. They had almost reached it when Thomas slipped away from his father’s side and headed toward them.

“You’re leaving?”

How did he make those two words sound like an accusation, a denunciation?

She straightened her shoulders. “The children are tired. I think they’ve had enough. They need to be in their comfort zone.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw and he looked as if he wanted to say something, but he finally nodded. “I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

“That’s not necessary,” she answered coolly. “I’m sure the children and I will be fine.”

“I’ll see you at the house.”

She didn’t have the energy left to tell him he was the last person on earth she wanted to spend any time with today, so she just nodded and climbed into the rental car.

“It was a very nice service, don’t you think? I mean, as far as these things go.”

Tom glanced in the rearview mirror of the Jaguar. His father gazed silently out the window at the churning sea as they drove past Asilomar toward Country Club Gate. His Savile Row tie was slightly crooked, his silver hair a little mussed—things William Canfield never would have tolerated in better days. Maura McMurray sat beside him, solid and dependable as always, sympathy creasing her plump, no-nonsense features.

“Yes,” Tom answered the nurse. “Peter would have been pleased to see so many people there.”

Did that sound petty? he wondered. Yeah, probably, even though of course he didn’t mean it that way. He sighed. Nobody could say his and Peter’s relationship had been an easy one. He had loved his younger brother but they hadn’t seen eye-to-eye on many things.

They had always wanted different things. Peter, like their father, had thrived on the influence and power of being one of the Canfields of Seal Point. He had loved the social scene, moving and shaking with the other leading families of the peninsula.

Tom had no patience for the thin, transparent superficiality of it all. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he and his brother hadn’t exactly gotten along. Peter—and William, for that matter—had never been able to understand the choices he had made with his life.

For all the good those choices had done him.

“I was glad to see Mrs. Canfield’s sister made it in time for the funeral,” Maura cut through his thoughts. “Although I have to admit it gave me quite a start when I first saw her sitting there with the children. Uncanny, the way the two of them look so much alike, isn’t it?”

He made a noncommittal sound. It always surprised him when people made that observation. Certainly there were similarities between the sisters. They were twins, after all. They shared the same hair color, similar facial features, same slim, willowy build.

Both were strikingly beautiful, he had to admit, but his sister-in-law’s appeal had been soft, gentle, like some impressionistic watercolor. Sophie, on the other hand, was wild and sensual—bold, vivid colors splashed onto textured canvas. Long tousled blond curls and sinful eyes and kiss-me lips.

“The children seemed taken with her, considering how seldom they’ve seen her.”

“She stays connected with them,” he murmured. Whatever else her failings, he had to give credit to Sophie for that. No matter where she traveled, she had always tried to stay in touch by phone or e-mail and she sent the children small gifts from all the exotic locales stamped on her passport.

“I suppose she’ll be off again now.”

“I don’t know her plans but I’m sure she will.” Sophie was the queen of the hit-and-run visit.

“Well, I hope she stays a while for the children. The poor dears will need all the family they can find right now. How awful for them to lose both their mother and father at once.”

Maura’s sympathy didn’t seem to require a response. He glanced in the rearview mirror again and noticed his father playing with the power windows, rolling them up and down, up and down.

Maura competently distracted him with a pat on the hand and a small hand mirror she pulled from her bag, and William laughed and pulled a face at himself, his eyes scrunched up and his jaw sagging.

“Have you thought anymore about what you’ll do now?” Maura asked.

Tom could feel tension grip his shoulders again with bony claws. Just thinking about all the choices he would have to make in the coming days made his chest ache.

“No,” he answered tersely.

“I don’t mean to push you. I would just like to know if I’ll be needing to look for another position.”

He frowned at the nurse. “Another position? Why on earth would you look for a new position?”

Maura cast a sidelong glance at his father, who was oblivious to their conversation as usual, then she met Thomas’s gaze in the mirror. “You’re going to have a big burden on your shoulders in the coming months, caring for the children and all and taking over your family’s business concerns,” she answered quietly. “I thought you might want to reconsider Mr. Canfield’s living arrangements.”

He didn’t even want to think about this. Not today. “I’m not putting him in a nursing home, Maura. He’ll stay at Seal Point as long as he can. That’s his home, the place where he’s most comfortable. You won’t need to look for another position.”

“It won’t be easy for you, Lieutenant Canfield.”

That grim fact had been crystal clear the minute his team had responded to that rescue call and he had recognized Peter’s half-submerged Mercedes and Shelly’s lifeless body still inside.

“I’ll just have to try to do what’s best for everyone.” The trick was going to be figuring out what the hell that was.

The rest of the drive passed in silence and a few moments later they reached the curved iron gates of Seal Point, the home of his childhood and the place Peter and Shelly had lived with their children. With a press of the remote control, the gates slid soundlessly open.

Inside the house, he helped his father change out of his suit, unknotting his tie and unbuttoning his shirt as if William were a child.

“You’re a good boy, Peter,” his father said at one point, patting him awkwardly on the head as if he were ten years old again hitting a winning home run. Tom didn’t bother to correct him. What was the use? Despite the funeral service, his father probably wouldn’t even realize Peter—his golden son, the favorite—was gone.

Sometimes the injustice of it devastated him. His father, the brash and arrogant financier, was gone. In his place was this helpless, feeble man who couldn’t remember how to dress himself but who had rare, heartbreaking moments of lucidity.

While Maura settled William with a bowl of soup and a sandwich from the self-contained kitchen attached to his rooms, Tom changed from his uniform into the Dockers and polo shirt he’d brought along, then went in search of the children.

He found them all in the main kitchen Shelly had modernized a few years ago for entertaining, with its marble countertops, six-burner stove and subzero refrigerator. They had changed clothes, too, the children into shorts and Sophie into a T-shirt that was a bit too small and a pair of worn jeans with fraying hems.

With her feet bare and all that glorious hair tied back into a ponytail, she should have looked young and innocent. Instead, she made him think of rainy afternoons and tangled sheets and slow, languid kisses.

How could part of him still be foolish enough to want her? Disgusted at his weakness, he clamped down on the unwilling desire and walked into the kitchen.

The children greeted him with none of their usual exuberance. Zoe and Zach sat at the breakfast bar watching cartoons on the kitchen television and Ali was pouring milk from the refrigerator into four glasses. Usually they dropped whatever they were doing and jumped all over him like a trio of howler monkeys but now all three just gave him subdued smiles that just about shattered his heart into tiny pieces.

Sophie’s smile was just as subdued but several degrees cooler. It drooped at the corners, with exhaustion, he figured, since she had been traveling for days to make it in time for the funeral.

“Would you care for a sandwich?” she asked. “Mrs. Cope left cold cuts in the refrigerator but the kids were more in a PB&J mood. Nothing better than peanut butter and jelly when you’ve had a rough day like today.”

He shook his head, absurdly touched that she was fixing comfort food for the children. “Maybe I’ll fix one later.”

“It’s hard to work up much of an appetite, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he said grimly.

“How’s William?”

He thought about giving his usual glib answer. He’s fine. Just fine. Thanks for asking. But something in Sophie’s green-eyed gaze—a bright glimmer of genuine concern—compelled him to honesty. “He doesn’t really know what’s going on, although Maura and I have both tried to explain about Peter and Shelly. In this case I suppose Alzheimer’s can be a blessing.”

She was quiet for a moment, then sent a look toward the children to see if they were paying attention to their conversation. “Shelly wrote me about his condition,” she finally said. “I hadn’t realized he had regressed so quickly. I’m sorry, Thomas.”

He didn’t know how to deal with the compassion in her eyes so he focused on something else, the circles under those eyes and the hollows under her high cheekbones. “Why don’t you sleep? I’m here now.”

She shook her head. “I doubt if I could. Maybe in a few more hours.”

“You’re going to fall over by then. Go on and rest.”

Before she could voice that argument he could see her gearing up for, the telephone rang in the kitchen. Thomas reached for it and heard her mother on the other end of the line.

“Hello, Sharon.” In light of the loss they had all suffered, Thomas managed to conceal his dislike for the woman and handed the phone to Sophie.

If possible, Sophie’s voice dropped several more degrees as she greeted her mother. Tom took over the sandwich-making while eavesdropping without shame.

Her expressive features had been one of the first things to captivate him all those years ago. She seemed a little more composed, a little more controlled ten years later, but he could still clearly see the tension rippling through her, the frustration simmering below the surface.

“No, I understand,” Sophie said quietly. “Earl has a load to deliver and you’ve decided to cut your stay short and go with him. I didn’t expect you to stick around long. No, that wasn’t a dig, Sharon. Just an observation. Sure. Yes, I’ll tell them. Goodbye.”

Her mouth tightened for an instant as she hung up the phone but then her features smoothed out and she turned to the children. “Grandma Sharon is leaving this afternoon, kids. I’m sorry. But she says she’ll be back through in a few months.”

Ali and Zach barely looked up from the cartoon but Zoe gazed at her aunt, her eyes anxious. “Are you going, too, Aunt Sophie?”

Sophie must have caught that thin thread of fear in the little girl’s voice. She paused in the process of opening a bag of chips, then set it down and swept Zoe into her arms. “Oh, no, honey. No! I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

Chapter 2

Thomas stared at her. How the hell could she look a child in the eye like that and utter such a bald-faced lie? Panacea or not, the children deserved the truth.

He waited just a few beats, until Zoe turned back to the TV then grabbed her arm. “Sophie, can you help me with something in the pantry?”

Those green eyes widened at the request and went even bigger when he yanked her into the six-foot by six-foot butler’s pantry then slammed the door shut behind them. In such close quarters, he was instantly overwhelmed by the scent of her, exotic and sensual, like a rainy afternoon in the jungle, so he went on the offensive.

“Where the hell do you get off saying something like that?”

She frowned and jerked her arm away from him. “What did I say?”

“That you’re not leaving.”

“I’m not leaving.”

His laughter was harsh. “That will be a first.”

“The children need me, Tom, and I intend to be here for them.”

“Until when? Your next assignment? Until you get the chance of a lifetime to shoot yaks in Nepal or whatever it is this time and off you go without giving a damn what you’re leaving behind?”