“What could I be afraid of?” he asked lightly.
She reached out and caressed his cheek. “Losing your family the way Faith lost her family.”
He shut his eyes, unable to believe this woman understood him so well. “My whole life I lived with this double message that always tested me. In my heart I knew what my parents did to my sister was dead wrong and the only way I could make it right was to search for her. Every birthday of mine that passed marked another year closer to finding Faith.”
“You’re a good man,” she murmured, as her soft fingers stroked his skin, encouraging him to continue.
“But I also knew the consequences for stepping out of those boundaries my parents set for us kids. I could lose my family and everything that was familiar to me if I misbehaved. Toeing the line was second nature.”
Zoe leaned her head against his shoulder, her breath soft on his neck. “Yet you became a lawyer and didn’t go into the family business.”
“Only because J.T. did and because being an attorney would help me if they suddenly decreed it was time I helped run Baldwin’s, too.” He’d just never faced the possibility that that day might arise.
“You became your own man,” Zoe insisted and he laughed at her determination to make him see himself the way she viewed him.
“Still, my sister no longer existed for them and I knew…heck, I know that if I cross them, I may no longer exist, either.” Despite himself, he shivered at the prospect.
“Yet you stood up to them tonight, and you did it for Sam.”
“And for you.”
She narrowed her gaze.
“You doubt me?” he asked. “Or do you just want to make believe what I said isn’t true?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Every time things get intense between us, you back off in some way.”
A smile teased her lips, but it wasn’t a happy one, more like an acknowledgment of his words.
“Care to tell me why?” he asked.
“If you want honesty, I’ll give you honesty. You’re a threat to me, Ryan. An honest-to-goodness threat.”
Her admission let him know that her feelings for him ran as deeply as his did for her. The difference was, he refused to run away.
“I’m a threat? Or your own feelings are?”
She breathed in deep and he felt the tremors wracking her body. “A little of both, I suppose.”
He narrowed his gaze, not surprised and yet confused at the same time. “You come from an open, loving family. One that isn’t afraid of expressing their feelings, good or bad. You can’t possibly be afraid of falling in love.”
Love? Not yet, but the possibility wasn’t completely incomprehensible. Still, he couldn’t believe he’d said the word out loud.
Neither could she. Her eyes opened wide, but to her credit, she held on to her composure as she tried to explain. “I’m thirty and I’ve never fallen in love. Never said the words to a man who wasn’t a family member. I’ve watched my parents live the emotion and saw my sister fall firsthand. I’ve long since accepted that it isn’t going to happen for me. And it definitely can’t happen between two people as different as us.”
Well, he’d asked. Now he knew. And his stomach cramped as he realized how tightly she held on to her notions.
“Differences aren’t always a bad thing,” he reminded her.
She shook her head and laughed. “You’re determined to make this difficult, aren’t you?”
“Not at all.” He reached out and stroked her cheek. “You’re scared of feelings you never thought you’d have. Join the club, sweetheart. I’m thirty and I’ve never been in love. Never said the words or even thought I’d fallen hard.” And he wouldn’t say them outright just yet, either. “It’s something we do have in common.”
She glanced down at the comforter. “My life is at a crossroads. Surely you see that. I’m still living at home. My business, which doesn’t even have a name, is barely up and running and I’ve already had to put it on hold to come up here.”
“To be with Sam. Who needs you. You didn’t hesitate to drop everything for her and she’s not even your flesh and blood. Compare that to the situation she’s got waiting for her here and you’re miles ahead of us.”
She laughed. “Looks like neither of us gives ourselves enough credit.”
“So isn’t it great that we’ve got each other cheering us on? You know you’re the first woman I’ve ever known who’s truly an individual. You have drive, direction—”
“Ryan, don’t.” She shook her head and didn’t meet his gaze. “I need to resettle before I can consider myself a part of a couple or even seriously consider a relationship.”
He nodded in understanding, telling himself she hadn’t completely closed herself off to the notion of them. She needed time to adjust to her feelings, which gave him time to confront her fears and find solutions. He needed to be able to deal with each point on a rational level or he’d never change her mind. A possibility he couldn’t begin to contemplate.
She shut her eyes and leaned back, closing him out.
But this time he wasn’t unnerved by her need to pull away because he understood now that she was scared. Scared of how an emotion as intense as love could change her life and threaten the freedom she held so dear.
He’d just have to take her fears as a challenge to overcome.
ZOE STRETCHED OUT on the lounge chair by the pool at Ryan’s parents’ house. She couldn’t say she was comfortable with his mother and grandmother sitting beneath an umbrella on the opposite side of the patio, alternately staring and whispering. She felt like a pariah at a party.
But then she’d turned and looked at Ryan, who lay beside her in swimming trunks, and decided life could be much, much worse. His tanned chest was a magnet for her hungry gaze and she devoured him from behind her sunglasses.
Only she knew she’d spent the night in his bed. He’d managed to coax her into forgetting their intense conversation and making love, not once, but twice last night and then again this morning. Each time he’d come inside her, he’d shuddered and whispered her name, soft and low in her ear. He’d made her insides turn to mush, made liquid trickle between her thighs so she could clasp him in moist heat. Zoe crossed her legs and felt that sensitive spot tingle and shoot desire straight to her core.
As a distraction, she tried to focus on the afternoon sun, which beat down hard, but her mind strayed back to their too-serious conversation last night. What he was coming to mean to her, and her to him. And why she needed to back off.
Zoe shivered despite the hot sun. She grabbed for the sunscreen and slathered lotion on her arms and chest. All the while, she felt Ryan watching her, too.
“Hey, Zoe!” Sam yelled.
She glanced up, shielding her eyes with her hand so she could better see the teenager’s antics.
“Cannonball!” Sam yelled and jumped, grabbing her knees midair prior to hitting the water, which splashed over all the chairs drenching everything in sight.
Thanks to the heat Ryan generated, Zoe didn’t mind the cold shower. His mother, on the other hand, rose from her seat and shook her arms in fury.
“Samantha, there are other people in the vicinity!” Vivian chided.
“Sorry, Mrs. Baldwin.” Sam said the words in a singsong voice that failed to sound sincere.
The older woman, clad in a too-formal summer dress, glanced at Ryan. “Does the child have to call me that? I sound like a stranger.”
“You are,” Zoe muttered beneath her breath.
“What would you like Sam to call you?” Ryan asked.
That question seemed to stump his mother and she grew oddly quiet.
“How ’bout I call you Grandma?” Sam asked, stepping out of the pool.
Zoe chuckled. The kid might not want anything to do with Ryan’s family, but she definitely knew how to push all the right buttons to annoy them.
“Why don’t you just call her Vivian?” Ryan sug
gested.
Any replies were interrupted by shrieks from the side of the house.
“Oh, no.” Zoe ran, Ryan ahead of her, and the others followed.
They rounded the corner and Zoe nearly barreled into Ryan who’d stopped short. His grandmother stood on a white wrought-iron bench, pointing at the ground and shrieking.
“Mother, what’s wrong?” Vivian asked.
“It’s…it’s…there’s a rat in my roses,” she screamed loudly. “Call Hilton,” she said. Hilton, Zoe now knew, was the butler.
Nobody pointed out that, even in her panicked state, Grandma Edna directed that the butler be called to help when there were perfectly capable family members standing around uselessly. Meanwhile, Grandma Edna still gesticulated wildly with her hands.
“Have him call a terminator,” the older woman shouted.
“I think you mean an exterminator.”
Zoe turned to see Uncle Russ had joined the fray.
“I’m sure it’s not a rat,” Vivian said, calming her mother and helping her down from the bench.
Zoe met Ryan’s gaze.
“I’m quite sure it isn’t,” he said, somehow keeping a straight face.
Despite the insanity around them, they shared intimate eye contact, causing her insides to curl with warmth.
“I thought we told you to keep the pig caged in the shade on the other side of the house,” Zoe whispered to Sam who stood wrapped in a towel behind her.
“I dunno what happened. Maybe I didn’t lock the cage good enough,” she said, too innocently.
Zoe cringed and waited for the fallout while Ryan dug around the garden for the pig. Zoe vividly recalled the moment in her own mother’s garden when he’d de scribed the prized roses, and decided all hope of keeping the peace, and Ryan on their side, was lost.
He might have found the situation amusing at first, but he couldn’t possibly find humor in the repercussions. So much for attempting a pleasant afternoon that would please Sam, Zoe thought.
“There it is!” Grandma Edna yelled and pointed to the ground just as Ima made her escape from the roses and ran across the lawn, Sam in hot pursuit.
Vivian reached into her pocket for a vial that Grandma Edna referred to as her smelling salts, though Zoe didn’t see why she needed them when she hadn’t passed out.
Ryan rose and brushed off his hands, then bent to check on his grandmother.
“Care to explain that, that thing?” Vivian asked through tightly clenched teeth.
“That’s Sam’s pet,” Ryan explained.
“If it wasn’t a rat, then what was it?” Grandma Edna asked as she fanned herself with a magazine Uncle Russ had held in his hand.
“Could I convince you it was a dog, ma’am?” Zoe pasted on her broadest smile.
Nobody laughed, especially after Zoe launched into an explanation of the Vietnamese potbellied pig.
As a group, they trudged back to the pool area. Although Ryan wanted to pack up and leave and Zoe was all too happy to agree, Uncle Russ insisted they stay. He’d just returned from the Boston store. An emergency, he’d said, and he wanted his share of time with both Ryan and Sam.
Zoe couldn’t help but feel excluded, but she reminded herself it was an omen of things to come. She’d better get used to it now. She wasn’t a member of this family, didn’t want to be, and would never fit in, anyway. She was here for Sam and when Sam no longer needed her for the transition, and it was safe back home, they’d have to talk to Social Services, say their goodbyes and…
And would Sam return here? Zoe’s insides roiled.
“So I thought that since you’re a member of this family, you would want the same piece of jewelry both Vivian and Grandmother Edna have,” Uncle Russ was saying to Sam.
Zoe hadn’t realized the teen had returned from rescuing Ima, but she had the pig packed safely in her carrier.
Russ held out a small jewelry box with the word Baldwin’s inscribed on top and Sam accepted the gift.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Take a look.”
“I can’t believe he bought Sam a gift,” Ryan said under his breath in awe. For all Uncle Russ’s support, even he hadn’t yet shown this kind of compassion for Faith’s child.
With cautious excitement and shaking hands, Sam opened the gray box. “It’s a B,” she said slowly. “A necklace.” Her voice dropped, the enthusiasm gone.
“I thought having it would make you feel more a part of us,” Uncle Russ said.
“I already have a necklace,” Sam said dully.
Ryan’s mouth grew dry.
“‘Thank you’ would be more appropriate,” Zoe coached her and Ryan nodded in appreciation.
“I already have a necklace.” Sam’s fists gripped the oxidized keys that had once belonged to her mother.
Uncle Russ nodded. “I realize that, but this one’s brand-new. You could put the old one in the box for safekeeping,” he suggested.
Ryan could see Sam’s struggle and the fast way she blinked to try to prevent tears from falling down her cheeks. He felt torn inside between his uncle with his good intentions and Sam with her devotion to her memory.
Zoe came up beside him and rested her hand lightly on his shoulder, letting him silently know she understood. He wasn’t surprised she read him so well, any more than he was shocked by the jolt her bare hand gave to his system. He wondered if she’d have this effect on him when he was eighty. He damn well hoped so.
“Of course you could always put the new necklace on a key chain if it makes you more comfortable, but wouldn’t you like to see how it looks?” Ignoring the silence and Sam’s discomfort, Uncle Russ stepped forward with the obvious intention of helping her remove the old necklace.
Sam stepped back out of reach and promptly fell into the swimming pool.
ZOE DIDN’T KNOW HOW they all survived the long day, but somehow they made it through their time at the Baldwin home. During the ride back into Boston, Sam fell asleep in the back seat, and Zoe and Ryan withdrew into their own private thoughts.
Despite the events of the day, Zoe was so wiped out, she couldn’t focus on anything other than her longing for bed. Ryan parked in the garage opposite the building and the three of them practically staggered up the ramp and across the street. The lights from the entryway beckoned.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to be home,” Ryan said.
Zoe nodded. “Hear, hear. I didn’t know one day could be so overwhelming and exhausting at the same time.”
Ryan pulled the door open, holding it for Zoe and Sam. “Ladies first.”
“Hang on. I need to throw some tissues out,” Sam said and before either Zoe or Ryan could argue, she darted for the large trash can on the corner, a few feet from the building’s entrance.
“Hurry up,” Zoe called, rolling her eyes. “Would it kill her to hang on to the garbage until we reached the apartment?” she asked, irritably.
Ryan met her gaze and laughed at the same time he heard Sam shout, “Let go!”
Ryan released the door and bolted for the corner, Zoe right behind him. She grabbed Sam while Ryan ran after the man who’d seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
“He touched me,” Sam said, practically hyperventilating from her fear. “This time he actually touched me.”
Zoe hugged her tight. “We were with you the whole time,” she said in an attempt to reassure Sam. But in her heart she realized she and Ryan had looked away for a split second. The same split second in which many parents lost their children in shopping malls and parking lots. She’d read about it so many times, yet despite the real danger surrounding Sam, they’d taken their eyes off her for a second too long.
“Was it the same guy?” Zoe asked Sam.
“I think so. It just happened so fast. He grabbed my arm like he wanted to turn me around to face him, but when I screamed, he ran. All I saw was the back of his head and a dark baseball cap.”
Zoe swallowed hard. “Maybe we’ll get lucky a
nd Ryan will catch up with him.” She hoped to calm Sam when in truth she felt anything but calm herself.
RYAN RAN HARD. The guy had youth on his side, but Ryan managed to grab the back of his T-shirt and drag him to a stop on the dark street he’d turned down.
Ryan’s mouth was dry and his heart slammed hard in his chest. “What the hell do you want from my niece?” he asked, shaking him as hard as he could.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You have the wrong guy.” The guy was winded, but arrogant.
“Oh no?” Ryan raised an eyebrow. “Then why’d you run like a scared shitless kid?”
Ryan stared into the hooded eyes of a punk who matched Sam’s description of the guy who’d broken into her room. Dark hair, big teeth, medium height and build. There was no coincidence. This was the same guy.
“I’m no idiot, man. If someone comes after me, I’m not hanging around to find out why.”
“At the moment, that’s exactly what you’re going to do. Hang around and fill me in on why you’re stalking a fourteen-year-old girl.” Ryan pulled the kid’s collar tighter, choking him with the tight material. “Unless you want the cops to ask these same questions?”
He shook his head, the dark long hair falling into his face. “Go ahead. I didn’t do nothing they can hold me for. At least nothing you can prove. It’s some troubled kid’s word versus mine. But if you want some advice, I suggest you get the key to this mystery soon. Now are you going to let me go or do I have to start yelling. This is harassment, man.”
Ryan scowled. The guy thought he’d back down. He didn’t know Ryan at all. No way would he leave this guy walking the streets.
He shoved the guy in front of him. “Walk,” he insisted.
“To where?”
“Inside the building where I can call the cops and let them decide who to believe.”
AFTER HOURS in the police station where they pressed charges against Sam’s stalker, it took forever for Zoe to relax and calm down. Not even a warm bath helped soothe her nerves.
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