His eyes kindled, tiny pilot lights deep within the blue, as she approached him down the stairs. "Very nice."
Val lifted her chin. "Thank you," she said, and followed him out to his car.
She wasn't a car person, but the Jaguar impressed her, with its sleek lines and contained energy. High maintenance, she reminded herself. Like its owner. She didn't have room in her life to tend either one.
Still, there was something seductive about all that understated drive. The car wrapped her in comfort, deep seats, smooth leather, soft music playing from the radio. The road was a hum, the landscape a blur. Con's long, lean hands clasped the wheel with easy control. His profile as he scanned the road was hard and a little intent. She remembered his absorbed expression as he moved strongly on her and in her, and pressed her knees together.
The car crested a hill and swooped down a hollow. Val gazed out her window at a spreading ancient oak and the tangled glory of summer roses. Through the windshield up ahead she could see a white farmhouse on a hill and a pale-coated dog and a child playing in the sunshine.
It was a dream of all a home should be, a vision of domestic perfection, warmer and more welcoming than her parents' showcase house.
And the man coming down the porch steps as the car pulled up the graveled drive completed the fantasy.
Con glanced over at her. She didn't think the drool showed on her chin, but his eyes narrowed. "Forget it, Dixie. He's married."
Secretly amused, she glanced from one dark-haired, blue-eyed, beautifully built male to the other. "Your brother?"
"One of them."
Con got out of the car. Val had both feet flat on the gravel before she realized he'd come around to open her door. With a little shrug, she accepted his guiding touch on her elbow and preceded him up the walk.
"You must be Val." Patrick MacNeill offered her his hand and a smile. "Kate'll be right down. She just got off rounds."
"It's very nice of you to invite me. I—"
A small, sturdy boy in jean shorts and a Michael Jordan jersey came running up from the yard, the dog bounding at his heels. Close up, Val could see that beneath the brim of his baseball cap the whole left side of his face was puckered and scarred. The result of a long-ago car accident, Con had explained on the drive over.
"Uncle Con!"
"Yo, buddy."
The two embraced before Patrick drew the child to him with an arm around his shoulders. "This is my son, Jack."
Val smiled into the MacNeill blue eyes that watched her intelligently from the boy's scarred face. "I could have guessed. He looks like you. Like both of you."
The child's watchfulness dissolved into the MacNeill grin. "That's what Mom says."
Con's look of quiet approval brushed her like a kiss.
The screen door opened behind them and another early-model MacNeill stepped out on the porch. Val looked up. And up. This version was even taller than Con, younger, leaner and less finished than Patrick. He wore his dark hair longer than his brothers', and a small gold hoop in his ear like a pirate.
"Well, hi there, pretty lady. I thought I heard the muscle mobile."
"Hell," Con said. "Who invited him?"
Patrick shrugged. "Kate let it slip you two were coming. He invited himself."
The pirate possessed himself of Val's hand and assessed her with impudent brown eyes. "So, you're the woman the Boy Genius is so eager to keep to himself."
Val bit down on a smile. "I take it this one's not married?" she murmured to Con.
Patrick overheard. "No one can catch him," he explained. Con snorted. "No woman in her right mind would want him."
"Don't listen to them," the pirate urged. "They're just jealous."
"I can see how that must be a constant problem for you," Val drawled.
The younger man laughed. "You'll do," he said. "I'm Sean."
"Val Cutler."
"Nice to meet you." He sounded like he meant it.
"You can let go of her hand now," Con said.
"Are they here?" a woman's voice called from inside the house, and the screen door opened again.
Val drew in her breath. The MacNeill men had not intimidated her. This MacNeill woman did.
Dr. Kate MacNeill was small and neat and proudly pregnant in a pale blue tailored jumper that managed to look both comfortable and expensive. She had masses of curling light brown hair, astute brown eyes, and a diamond on her left hand that flashed like the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. In her flowing skirt and bangles Val felt like a thirteen-year-old pressed into passing canapés at one of her parents' parties: conspicuous and young and underdressed.
"Welcome," her hostess said warmly. "I'm so glad Con brought you. Has anyone offered you a drink yet?"
There was a general shuffle on the porch.
"Let me—"
"Would you like—"
"I'll get it."
"Sean," Kate said firmly. "Would you get Val something to drink? And bring me a lemonade, please, while you're in there."
"Sure thing, gorgeous." The pirate stooped to kiss his sister-in-law's cheek and then looked at Val. "What'll you have?"
"Lemonade sounds wonderful."
Val wasn't sure just what she'd expected from the gathered MacNeills, but what struck her was their clannish unity. It was evident in the way Patrick cradled his pregnant wife, the confiding way she leaned into his arm, the breezy insults and casual gossip exchanged between brothers. The conversation was noisy and general. Upright on the swing, Val sat a little apart as they laughed and joked and drank beer.
Crayons were scattered across the planked porch floor. Jack drew, sprawled on his stomach by the steps, getting up every now and then to chart his picture's progress with his mother. Stepmother, Val reminded herself. Con had shared a little of his brother's family history in the car. But the obvious, poignant bond between Jack and Kate MacNeill constricted Val's throat.
Observing them, she realized that here was the other reason behind that I-can-eat-the-world assurance of Con's that had set up her back at their first meeting. Love. His confidence sprang from this family foundation of casual love and support. She had nothing to compare it to but silent breakfasts and angry afternoons and evenings she'd been banished to her room for unacceptable dress or behavior.
She was, she realized, jealous.
Patrick hooked another bottle from the ice-filled cooler and handed it off to Con, lazing on the swing beside her. "So, how's the Comeback Kid?"
Con shrugged and twisted off the cap. "I'm doing all right. Wainbridge called on Sunday. I'm still in the running for the Ventucom job." That was news to Val. She listened intently.
"You don't sound so enthusiastic, bro," Patrick observed.
"They want me, that's the important thing."
"Yeah, yeah, everybody wants you," Sean teased. "Harvard man."
"Your mother would be glad to have you back in Boston," Kate said.
"Yeah."
"You could stay down here," Patrick observed. "Keep at the consultant shtick."
"Play in the minors?" Con smiled but shook his head. "That's not for me."
"I thought you liked being your own boss," Sean said.
"I do, actually. More than I thought I would. I like the whole business of working with a client to solve a specific problem. It's just…" Con shrugged.
Val couldn't sit silent any longer. "'He who dies with the most toys wins'?" she quoted back at him dryly.
Everyone turned to look at her. She felt the quick wash of heat sweep from her collarbone to the roots of her hair. But surrounded by Con's laughing, quarreling, normal family, she could not contain her indignation. They were the real prize, the true measure of his success. How could he not see that? How could he not want that?
"You have so much more to offer than that," she said.
Con's eyes glinted beneath lowered lids. "As I recall, you weren't all that thrilled with my interfering in your business."
She raised her chin at his challenge.
The glass sweating in her lap helped her ignore her clammy palms. "That was before I knew what you could do. Maybe we both need to adjust our expectations."
Patrick saluted her with his bottle. "I like the way this one thinks."
"I like the way this one looks," Sean said.
Con turned his head, allowing Val to catch her breath. "You like her too much and I'll break both your arms."
"I'm shaking. You hear anything from Lynn?" Sean asked.
"Sean…" Kate protested.
"Last I heard, she was getting married." Con raised his bottle. "To her happiness."
"I'll drink to the poor bastard she's marrying," Sean said.
"Cut it out, Sean," Patrick ordered. "Though I'll agree. You're well out of that one."
Val sat back shakily. It was none of her business, she reminded herself. None of her business who Con saw or where he went or whether he placed a proper value on himself. She'd known all along he wouldn't stay.
And then his hand, strong and sure, closed over her thigh. Surprised, she glanced over to find him watching her with a look in his eyes that stopped her breathing again. It was more than simple physical need this time. Question, demand, acknowledgment—all lapped at her defenses, undermined her assumptions.
"You could be right," he said.
To her? Or to Patrick?
His brother cleared his throat. "I need to get dinner pulled together. You two can give me a hand."
Val surfaced and started to stand.
Kate shook her head. "He means the guys," Patrick's wife told her. "I don't cook very often, and Con says you cook too much. Besides, Patrick keeps telling me I need to take it easy."
Well. That was different. Val subsided on the swing as Con got up and followed his brothers into the house.
Kate turned her head to watch her husband disappear through the doorway. The naked intimacy in her eyes touched a chord that shook Val's heart. What would it be like, she wondered wistfully, to love and be loved like that?
The woman turned around awkwardly in her rocking chair and then flushed. "I suppose you think we're pretty odd. Or that I'm pretty lazy."
"No," Val said honestly. "It's nice. It's just that my parents… It's just not what I'm used to."
"Mmm. I'll let you in on a secret. Me, neither." Val's confusion must have shown, because Kate smiled and explained.
"Patrick and I haven't been married that long. Eighteen months ago, all I had in my life was my work. I certainly never dreamed I'd find myself—" her hand encompassed it all, the porch, the scribbling child and the man who'd just left them, before coming to rest on her burgeoning belly "—here."
"Well, it's obvious you belong now."
Kate laughed. "What do they say? Love changes everything?"
Val turned the silver bracelets on her arm. "I don't think that's really true. I think it must take a very strong woman to hold her own against one of the MacNeill men."
"It's not a tug-of-war. The MacNeills pull together."
"That's true for you and Patrick, maybe."
Kate's brown eyes were shrewd and amused. "Don't underestimate yourself. And don't underestimate our Con, either."
As if summoned by her words, Con appeared in the darkness behind the screen. "Dinner's ready, Kate."
She started to lumber to her feet. With quick grace, he was through the door and beside her to help her up. She thanked him and then smiled at Val.
"See? He's good at support."
Watching Con's tender care of his pregnant sister-in-law, Val acknowledged Kate was right. He was good at giving support. But he was good at lots of things. That didn't mean he would put his ambition aside to offer her his unconditional and permanent support.
She tugged thoughtfully on her feathered earring. And even if he did, was she, with her fear of coercion, her untidy bundle of independence and insecurities, any good at accepting it?
* * *
She looked good at his brother's table, Con thought. She fit in. It wasn't her perfect manners, and it sure as hell wasn't her earring. She passed potato salad and teased with Sean and mopped Jack's spilled milk all without missing a beat. He watched her gradually relax and expand, and pride in her filled his chest so bad the pressure hurt his heart.
Eight hours ago, he'd wanted to slake his rage and frustration with Rob Cross's blood. He'd been primed to find solutions and spoiling for a fight. But Val hadn't asked him for answers. She sure as hell hadn't requested his Neanderthal routine. For the first time in his life, what he wanted had to take the back seat to what another person needed.
She'd needed something else.
He'd needed to give her something else.
Watching Val unwind, watching the brittle belle and flamboyant flower child slowly soften into her natural, genuine warmth, he thought maybe he had. But whatever he'd managed to give her, it couldn't equal the soul-deep satisfaction he felt seeing her in the midst of his family.
The realization should have worried him. He had a job waiting for him in Boston. He wasn't looking for a nice Southern girl to bring home to mother. And the nice girl in the peacock feather who'd just charmed the pants off his brothers had told him in no uncertain terms she wasn't looking for a permanent relationship.
But later, driving her home, he asked anyway, prompted by a little demon of possessiveness he would have denied a year ago. A month ago. Hell, two weeks ago. He hadn't met her two weeks ago. "Have a good time?"
"I did." He would not, he promised himself, be offended by her note of surprise. "I liked them."
"They liked you."
She turned her head on the leather headrest. Even in the dark, he could see her smile. "Sean would like anything that wore a skirt and was under eighty-five."
"No. Sean likes them over eighty-five, too."
Her sultry chuckle raised the hair on his nape and his body lower down. The tires rumbled as the white lines in the road flashed by. Night rushed through the lowered windows. He could smell rain approaching and nearer, wilder, Val's perfume.
"I got along with your sister-in-law," she volunteered.
The slight rise in her voice betrayed her unspoken need for reassurance. It cracked him wide open. She created depths inside him he'd never known existed, caverns of hunger, chasms of yearning. One little push was all it would take to tumble him.
"Yeah," he answered absently. "Patrick did all right there."
"'All right'? Is that supposed to be a compliment?"
"Better be. He said I did all right, too."
The scent of her reached him through the darkness, making his nostrils flare. He didn't want to talk about his family any longer. He wanted to immerse himself in her. He wanted to focus her attention on him, and only him.
Con prided himself on taking the quickest, surest road to success. He never figured on following an irresistible detour through Dixieland. But he switched lanes, anyway, signaled and took the next turnoff.
Val sat up. "Where are we going?"
He glanced over at her, her face pale in the reflected glow of the dashboard. Tonight, he wanted off the fast track. He wanted to pull over with Val in the front seat and explore every curve, every dip, every scenic view North Carolina had to offer. He wanted…
"I figured I'd take you to my motel."
She relaxed at his casual tone, her lips curving. "I've never been to a motel with a man before."
His heart was hammering so loud he was surprised she couldn't hear it. "Yeah, well, I wanted to be your first."
She didn't answer him right away, her silver bracelets chiming faintly as she clasped and unclasped her hands in her lap. "It's a little late for that," she said finally, tightly.
"We can pretend."
"We're already lovers, MacNeill. You don't need to do the big seduction scene with me."
It was starting to rain. The fine mist on the windshield sparkled as he drove under the lit motel sign. He flicked on the wipers, and the moisture collected in streaks and ran down like tears.
Beyer's Motel straddled the asphalt beside I-40, a low brick relic of the fifties with noisy air conditioners in all the windows. But it was cheap, and it was clean. Tall pines sheltered it from the worst rumble of trucks, and Con's back window looked out on a wooded lot that sloped down to a creek.
He pulled into a parking spot, the tires sighing on the wet blacktop.
"This is silly," Val said.
She looked so young. She sounded so uncertain. He pulled the keys from the ignition, hunger and tenderness twisting inside him.
"Am I going too fast for you? You want to make out in the car first?"
She snorted with laughter. "Oh, that's smooth, MacNeill. Very smooth."
Relieved, he grinned, "Or I could take you down to the gazebo, show you the river by night."
"There's a gazebo?"
"Down by the creek, yeah. If you don't mind spiders."
She arched her eyebrows. "Am I supposed to shriek 'eek' and rush into your motel room now?"
He walked around the hood of the car, then opened her door. "Only if you feel like it. You could just bat your eyelashes and admit my general usefulness for creepy crawly removal."
"I think I've fed your ego enough for one day."
There it was again, the wry note, the distance, the toughness she inserted between them like a knife. It irritated him. What was she protecting herself from?
I'm not claiming victim status. I won't be defined by something that happened to me nine years ago.
She stood under the glow of the motel lights, her chin raised and that cool and secret smile curving her mouth, waiting for him to lock his car and make love to her in a rented room.
And it wasn't enough.
He'd been too greedy, that was the problem. Too attracted by her beauty and independence, her humor and warmth, to pay attention to her essential loneliness. He'd been too blinded by his fascination to notice her need. She'd had too little cherishing in her life and damn little tenderness from him.
He would make up for it, he vowed. Tonight, he would give her both.
THE COMEBACK OF CON MACNEILL Page 17