by Anna Adams
She fended Molly off. “I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t know what you two are doing here.”
“Gran.” Ignoring Sophie’s resistance, Molly looped her arm around her cousin’s shoulders.
“Wait a minute.” Ethan towered over the two women. “I don’t need my mother or my nephew and niece to help me protect my own daughter.” Planted at his daughter’s side, Ethan looked strong enough to do the job.
“What are you protecting her from?” Ian ignored everyone else.
The sheriff moseyed into the fray. “Our grandmother suggested you manhandled Sophie in the parking lot at the baby farm.”
“Don’t call it the baby farm,” Sophie and Molly said at the same time.
“Gran hates it,” Sophie added, though it was what she and everyone else called the resort. She didn’t want Ian to feel he was part of the family.
“Whatever you call the place,” Zach said, maneuvering to get in Ian’s face, “she said this guy had his hands all over you and I should find out why.”
“Oh, for…” Sophie twisted out of Molly’s grip and swung away from her relatives. “Gran didn’t want to believe what she really saw. And, Molly, I’m sorry to tell you she called you because she thinks I’ve turned into a bad girl, and you might have some pertinent advice.”
Her cousin’s pale skin colored, clashing with her dark red hair. “Why does this family believe we should talk about such personal things in front of just anyone?” She pinned Ian with another pointed glance.
“You just do,” he answered, “but I envy your honesty.” He was all set to confess his and Sophie’s secret. He’d use every advantage to force a second chance with her and his baby. He waited for her to speak up. The trees around them clicked their branches as if they were counting off the seconds. He knew Sophie was willing him to keep silent. With deep regret and a gut-sucking fear she’d never forgive him now, he did the dirty work. “I need to talk to my wife about our child.”
The other Calverts turned as one to gape at Sophie. She seemed to sink, but Ian caught her, willing to lie on the ground for her if she’d get over this and start rebuilding their fledgling life. She found her strength and shrugged him off.
“You knew I was begging you not to tell them.” She flexed her fingers as if she’d like to shove him down the mountain.
He glanced at her father. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Ethan clenched his hands into fists as shock glazed his eyes. “I don’t get it, Sophie. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to slide him under the biggest saw you own.”
Zach took a step. Ian tensed, ready, willing and pretty much aching to fight.
Sophie must have sensed a hint of his desperation. She held up one palm, breathing deeply. “Cut it out.” She focused on Ethan, who looked appalled. “I need time to figure out how to handle my life. Dad, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Sophie.” Ian knew he was begging, but didn’t give a damn. “I didn’t tell him to hurt you.”
“He’s my dad. I’m his daughter. How’d you think he’d feel?”
“I love you.” Ethan reached for her, but she backed into Ian. “It’s just that your mother—”
“I’m not Mom.”
Her voice, ragged with guilt and the fear that she might just be like her mother, forced Ian to act. He pressed her to his side. “Sophie’s done nothing wrong. If you want to blame someone, blame me, but we’re both trying to make the situation right if you’ll stay out of our business.”
“You invited them in,” Sophie said. “Now they’ll give us hell until we agree to try staying married.”
“I know,” he said.
Rage exploded in her eyes. She tried to break free, but he pulled her hand against his chest and held her. She had to understand his pounding heart wouldn’t lie, and he wouldn’t expose such weakness to anyone else on earth.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just want what’s mine. I’m fighting for my child as hard as you are, but I’m fighting for you, too. I was raised by headmasters and upperclassmen. I’m going to be this baby’s father, and you and I have to do something about our marriage. Can’t you just forget what I said to Jock?”
“No.” She shook her head, but her sadness was palpable. “I keep asking you, what’s changed?”
“I quit my job, and I told my boss not to assign me anywhere else.” He still hardly believed he’d done it, and she sucked in a breath. “You understand that kind of commitment, Sophie? Can you match it?”
She shook her head, looking dazed. They were both so tied to their jobs she knew exactly what his leap of faith meant. Commitment. She sighed, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have given up my job,” she said as if she didn’t even realize the words were coming out of her mouth. “You’d do anything…”
Her father brought his fist up to his chin, rubbing as if he were trying hard not to take a swing at her husband. Ian shifted Sophie out of range and prepared himself to take the punch.
She placed her hand over her father’s fist without taking her eyes off her husband. “I guess Ian fits in well enough with the rest of us. He’s already an expert at spilling his guts in front of a crowd.”
CHAPTER THREE
“ARE YOU—” Ian broke off, aware of their audience. Had Sophie just agreed to start over? In silence broken only by the squeak of the weather vane slowly revolving on her father’s tin roof, he stared from Molly to Ethan to Zach. They eyed him and then looked at one another.
Ethan recovered first. “Sophie, I want to send this guy to the hospital right now, but think a minute. Maybe he’s talking sense.”
With a pained expression, she closed her eyes and Ian stifled an urge to laugh. He’d flown to Bardill’s Ridge, convinced he’d lose her for good the second a Calvert laid a loving hand on her. Instead, her family was driving her toward him.
Ethan glared at him in a not-so-veiled warning before he went on. “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d fought harder to keep my family together. Sophie, your mother was unhappy. I never wanted to hear about that. All that mattered to me was that she’d cheated on me and done it recklessly enough for you to find out.” His face reddened. “At least listen to Ian, if he’s this serious about trying to make your marriage work. I’m not asking anything more of you.” Ethan wrapped an arm around his niece. “Come on, Mol. Zach, why don’t we give these two some privacy?” He herded them toward the patrol car. “Soph, use the house. I’ll be in my shop.” He paused, his boot heel scraping through the gravel as he eyed Ian with unmistakable threat. “Where I’ll hear if you yell for me, Sophie.”
“I don’t need to talk.” Sophie looked like her father, gazing at Ian with mistrust.
“Your child’s dad disagrees.” Ethan tossed the reminder over his shoulder as he continued to assist Zach and Molly to their car. “But you shout and I’ll be with you in a heartbeat.” He nodded at Ian. “Toting my power tools.”
Ian nodded, a sign of respect. In Ethan Calvert’s place, he’d also wonder if he was handing Sophie over to the devil.
“How do we know we’re not forcing her into a bigger mistake?” Molly twisted free of her uncle’s hold. “He might not be a decent guy.”
Sophie planted herself beyond anyone’s reach. “Thank you, everyone, but don’t worry about me. I’ve made all the mistakes I plan to.” Her glance stabbed Ian. “And I’m perfectly capable of making him see sense one last time.”
Molly studied Ian’s face as if she saw all the way into his mind. Finally she turned to her cousin. “Do what you really want. Don’t just think about how good it would feel to throw him out today. Imagine how you’ll feel when you look back—and remember how I grew up. My parents pleased themselves, and I got to pick up the pieces.”
Ian had heard the stories about Molly’s father and then her mother leaving town without her.
“Let’s go, Zach.” Molly tugged her other cousin’s sleeve. Then, with second thoughts in her eyes, she hugge
d Sophie, who focused a dazed smile on her cousin before Molly stepped back. “And—” she pitched her voice low “—I’m available for that ‘bad girl’ talk as soon as you need it.”
Zach took his turn, going toe-to-toe with Ian. “Sophie may technically be my cousin, but she’s more like a sister. No one hurts her. No one.”
Ian had looked into Zach’s mysterious past, too. He hadn’t been unable to uncover where the sheriff had learned the martial arts he’d used to disarm a bank robber. He hadn’t gotten to the bottom of the silence Zach kept about his military training. But as he met the other man’s belligerent eyes, Molly’s advice about considering the future echoed in his head.
She was pretty smart. Hurting Sophie’s cousin Zach might feel satisfactory in the extremely short run, but a family feud and his own eventual guilt wouldn’t further his cause. “I’m glad Sophie can count on you.”
The words nearly stuck in his throat, and Zach’s expression called him a liar. It also promised to follow up, but he let Molly drag him back to his car. Still watching, he started the engine and backed out.
Only Ethan remained, reluctant now to leave them alone. He curved an arm around his daughter, ignoring her stiffness. “How do you feel?”
“I’m fine.” Exhaustion weakened her tone. She leaned away from him. “I know about pregnancy. It’s my job.”
“In theory. You’ve never been pregnant before. You’re taking care of yourself?”
“Absolutely.” Relenting, she sank against him. “I don’t want you to worry.”
“I won’t.”
His obvious lie touched an unexpected chord of loss in Ian. Sophie’s family might meddle, but they mattered to each other. He tried to imagine Ethan Calvert telling his daughter he couldn’t make her wedding because he had an appointment to pick up some specialty wood for a new project he was building.
Couldn’t possibly happen.
“Come on, Ian. Let’s get this over with.” Sophie led the way across ragged brown grass to the clapboard house that had once been her home.
“Sophie,” her father called. Urgency edged his voice.
Ian turned back with her. Ruddy color painted Ethan’s face again as the wind whipped his graying hair. He hooked his fingers into the belt loops of his jeans, turning his booted feet inward. “I know you aren’t like your mom. I got scared for you.”
To Ian’s surprise, Sophie’s expression hardened. Aiming a level nod at her father, she opened the door and waited for Ian to enter ahead of her. Feeling a little sorry for Ethan Calvert, he glanced back. With the door in a death grip and her face twisted in fierce concentration, Sophie looked like a woman in pain.
“Damn.” She let go of the doorknob with such emphasis the door flew open. “Hold on.”
He smiled at her disappearing back, but turned away so she could make up with her dad in privacy. He hunched to avoid slamming his head into the low door frame.
Inside, a wood stove stood unlit at one end of the cold living room. Family photos decorated the opposite wall. Ian resisted an urge to look for pictures of Sophie. Though he was curious, she’d think he was pretending to be an attentive husband.
A fine layer of dust covered every surface. Ian peered through the open door at the brittle grass growing unevenly around patches of dry dirt. Sophie hadn’t lived here in a long while. Her town house offered a little clutter, but plenty of welcome. This wasn’t her kind of place. Images of her growing up in an atmosphere of neglect made him uneasy.
She sprang up the single step to the threshold, hiding red-rimmed eyes the second she saw him. “Do you want coffee? Something to eat? Dad said Gran dropped off a cake yesterday.” She closed the door, and the room grew dim in the sparse light through the darkened window.
“You’re hungry?” he asked.
“I’m from the South. Our first instinct in any crisis is to feed the victims. Besides, Gran is the queen of chocolate cake bakers, and making coffee for you and Dad will give me something to do with my hands.”
And allow her to keep her back to him while she regained her composure. “What else did your father say?”
She led him down a narrow hall that seemed to shrink around them. “He thinks I waited until too late before I worried about trusting you.” They reached a kitchen as bright as the rest of the little house was dim. Wide, clean windows opened to the sun on three sides of the room. “I didn’t tell him the whole truth about what happened at the wedding.”
He tried to look indifferent. No one had ever protected him before, and he didn’t deserve it now. “I appreciate your caution.” He couldn’t seem to produce a simple thanks.
“Dad has a lot of tools that could harm a man if he got really upset.”
Ian couldn’t hold back a smile. “I’ll try not to make him any angrier.” Her wry mood made her seem more familiar. “How about you, Sophie? Are you ready to forgive me and start over?”
She turned, coffee can in hand. “I don’t forgive lies—even lies of omission—easily, and I won’t forget. Be honest with me from now on, Ian.”
From now on? He felt as if she’d punched him, but he crossed the room before he realized he’d moved. “What are you saying?” He took the coffee can because he wanted to touch her, but held back. “We stay married? We go on with our plans from before?”
“We didn’t make plans.” She loaded a filter into the coffeepot, then took the can back. “Another mistake—and not one I think you and I ever made before we knew each other.”
He nodded. “Normally, I like to know where I am, what to expect—how to minimize the risks. You made me forget the rules.”
“Same here. I’ve planned my career since—” She stopped, and he wondered what she didn’t want him to know. Her eyes glittered as if tears lay in them. Her scent, flavored by sun and mountain wind, emanated from the top of her head, enticing him. “I always ticked off the steps on my lists before I met you.” She busied herself with the coffee. “Let’s make rules this time. I stay out of trouble when I understand the boundaries.”
“What rules?” What more could he give up?
“I’m moving here.” She peeled off the coffee can’s plastic lid, still without looking at him. “I see you’re serious, but living here is part of the deal. This is a good place to raise children, safer than D.C. or Chicago. And my family is here. I want my child to know family the way I did.”
“I thought you grew up in D.C.”
“Partly. I stayed with my mom in the summers after she and Dad divorced, and I went to school at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins.” She ran water into the glass carafe. “But my best times were here with my dad and my cousins and my grandparents. I want to come home before I have the baby.”
Sacrificing his job should have been enough. “I either come with you or take a divorce and visitation?”
She nodded, finally looking at him. “I’m willing to try, but there’s no point in staying married if we aren’t going to work at it.”
When she widened her green eyes like that, he tended to believe his whole world lay in them, but he wouldn’t pretend he could let her push him around. “I’ll eventually have to take another assignment. How am I going to find work from here?”
“Exactly.” She poured water into the coffee-maker’s well and dropped the lid. “So you’ll travel as often as you do now. My family will help me with the baby.” She slid the carafe onto the warmer and switched on the machine. “You could even be killed.”
Her pragmatism almost hurt. Maybe his death would affect her more if it actually happened.
“I’ll work at our marriage, Ian. You know I want to be with you, but I let myself forget the important things before. And our baby is important—more than I am, more than you are.” She shrugged, her skin flushing as if she’d confessed too much. “Besides, my grandmother is about to retire. I asked her if I could join her at the baby farm, but she needs to know I’m staying.”
“For good?” He looked around. The kitchen was nice, but the
rest of the small, stagnant house, with its close-set walls, contained only so much oxygen. “You’re asking me to surround myself with people who think I’ve ruined your life.”
“I’m forcing you to become part of my family.”
She stared at his hands, and he realized he was rubbing his finger, the one that had never set properly after his father had broken it during an argument. Ian had thrown up his hand to defend himself, and instead ended up with a lifelong memory of an idiotic argument and his father’s demand for submission.
Just like then, he had no choice now.
“They’ll be your family, too.” Surprising him, she covered his hand, including his broken finger. “Give them a chance and time.”
He pulled away and shoved both hands into his pockets. “What do you really want?”
“You can take me at face value.” Clearly puzzled, she opened a cabinet and took down a tall glass and a mug. “I told you I want to live here, partly because of your work. I want to come home, anyway, but if we’re staying together, it makes sense to be where my family can help with the baby. My job is demanding, too.”
“You obviously made the decision before you thought about staying with me. This is an ultimatum.”
“I am moving home. I—need…” She closed her mouth, making a seam of her lips as if she had to gather strength to utter the word. “Help. And that won’t change if you and I are married.”
Anger grabbed him by the throat. Only his father had ever dictated to him. He tried to say no—to suggest their child wouldn’t be the first to divide time between divorced parents.
But his own confusing childhood stood in his way. How could he consider shuttling his son or daughter between houses without trying to create a family home?
Sophie was right about the Calverts. They’d help her when he had to work. And her grandmother was growing older. A new physician at the baby farm made sense. Sophie at the baby farm made sense. Worst of all, if he refused, he’d be doing it to prove his manhood. To himself.