Sinful

by Joan Johnston

  King blustered, “I had to make a choice—”

  “And you chose him.” Eve’s face was hot and her hands were shaking. She felt like throwing something. Screaming. Raging. She felt helpless and hopeless and angrier than she could ever remember being.

  Her horses. Her beautiful mustangs. What would happen to them now?

  Leah held out her hands in supplication. “Please, sit down, Eve. I’m sure we can work out something with Matt.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.” Matt focused his gaze on King. “Do you want me here? Or not?”

  King fisted his hand around his napkin. “Of course I want you here! But I expected—”

  “You expected me to coddle those three Brats the way you always have,” Matt said. “I won’t. You’ve given them plenty. I’m sure they’ve got trust funds overflowing with cash,” he said with a sneer. “It’s time they make their own way in the world.”

  Eve felt like she was going to vomit. “Is that what you think? That because King Grayhawk is wealthy his daughters must be rich?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I think,” Matt said.

  Eve gave a harsh, raucous laugh that became a sob. She turned to King, her face crumpling in defeat as she dropped back into her chair. “Oh, Daddy, what lies have you been telling him?”

  For the first time, Matt looked uncertain. “I know you set up trust funds for Libby and North,” he said to King, mentioning his sister and brother, Jane Flynn’s other two children. “You never put money away for the Brats?”

  King shrugged. “It was never necessary. They’ve pretty much taken care of themselves. I bought them whatever they needed and gave them a place to stay.”

  “Which you’ve promised to this prodigal son,” Eve said, making the expression an epithet.

  “Now that you know the truth, Matt,” Leah interjected, “surely you can rearrange your plans.”

  Matt shook his head. “My quarter horses are already on the way. They’ll be here by the end of the week.” He focused his gaze on Eve. “You’ve got that much time to move your mustangs out.”

  Eve turned to King. “What do you suggest I do, Daddy? Send them to the slaughterhouse?”

  “Find another piece of land, of course.”

  “In Teton County? How am I supposed to pay for it?” Eve left the words hanging, expecting her father to at least offer to help her with the cost of relocating her mustangs in a county with some of the most expensive real estate in the country. When King didn’t speak, she said in disgust, “Don’t worry, Daddy. I’ll figure something out.” She turned to Matt and demanded, “Why did you come here? Why are you doing this? How can you be so cruel?”

  To her astonishment, it was Pippa who answered her. “My dad doesn’t want anything to do with you Grayhawks. We had a great life in Australia until he showed up.” She jerked her chin toward King. She lurched to her feet and snarled, “I can’t wait till this year is up! Maybe then you’ll leave us alone and stop making my dad so sad.”

  Eve’s gaze shot to Matt, whose eyes had lowered to the plate in front of him. Nathan had dropped his drumstick and was staring at his sister, his jaw slack.

  “Sit down, Pippa,” Matt said quietly, “and finish your supper.”

  “I’m not hungry.” She threw her napkin halfway across the table and marched out of the dining room.

  Eve waited to see if Matt would call her back, but he said nothing.

  Tears welled in Nathan’s eyes. He looked at his father and asked, “Is Pippa gonna run away again?”

  Again? Had she run away in Australia? Was that why Matt had come here? To be sure his daughter couldn’t run to wherever she’d gone before?

  Matt stood and gathered his son in his arms. Nathan clung to his father as Matt turned to face the rest of the Grayhawks at the table. “This isn’t easy for us, either. But you made the deal,” he said to King, “and I’m holding you to it.” He shoved Nathan’s chair out of his way with a loud scrape as he left the room.

  Eve glanced at King to see what he thought of everything that had just been said.

  It was Leah who asked the question that had crossed Eve’s mind. “What’s going on, Daddy? Why didn’t you offer to buy a piece of land where Eve can keep her mustangs?”

  King hesitated so long, Eve wasn’t sure he was going to answer. At last he said, “Everything’s tied up somewhere else.”

  “What do you mean by everything?” Leah asked.

  “Just what I said,” King replied. “Don’t ask me where I’ve put it, because that’s none of your damn business.”

  The hurt look on Leah’s face came and went so fast Eve wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t been staring right at her.

  “Fine. Keep your secrets.” Leah folded her napkin and set it neatly beside her plate. “Excuse me, please. I’ve lost my appetite.” A moment later she was gone through the swinging door that led to the kitchen.

  Eve searched her father’s features, looking for some hint of what he was thinking. But King Grayhawk had been a politician too long. His thoughts and feelings were hidden behind the impenetrable facade he’d perfected during years of purposeful deception.

  “I hope the price of having Matt here was worth it,” Eve said as she tossed her balled-up napkin onto her plate.

  “It’s worth anything and everything I have.”

  King’s answer made her throat ache. “Why, Daddy? What is it about Matt that makes him more precious than the rest of us? Can you just tell me that?”

  Before he could answer, Leah came rushing back through the swinging door. “It’s for you,” she said, handing a portable phone to Eve. “It sounds urgent.”

  Eve took the phone and held it to her ear. Her blood ran cold as she listened to the frantic voice on the other end of the line. She answered, “Yes, I can. Hold on. I’ll be there soon.” She handed the phone back to an anxious Leah and rose from the table.

  “Who was that?” King asked.

  Eve looked him square in the eye and said, “None of your damn business.”

  Chapter 5

  EVEN COMPARED WITH his bloodiest battle in Afghanistan, the hour between his frantic phone call to Eve and the moment she arrived on his doorstep was the most harrowing of Connor’s life. His kids were crying, and he couldn’t get them to stop.

  “Thank God you’re here,” he said as he ushered Eve inside along with a blast of frigid air. “They’ve been bawling nonstop since I put them to bed. It started with Sawyer. He said he wanted his Nana. Once Brooke heard him sobbing she joined in. Nothing I’ve said, nothing I’ve done, has been able to comfort them.”

  “Take me to them,” Eve said as she dropped her coat on a rocking chair in the living room.

  “I had rooms set up for each of them, but right now they’re huddled together in Brooke’s bed,” he said as he led her along the creaking hardwood floor toward the rooms at the back of the seventy-year-old ranch house. “After I turned out the light in Sawyer’s room and left, he must have run in there. A few minutes later I heard them howling like a pack of coyotes. When I turned on the light to see what was wrong, I found them holding on to each other as though a tornado was threatening to rip them apart. When I asked what was wrong, they hid their faces and cried louder.”

  Connor knew he was rambling, but he couldn’t stop. He was scared. What if he couldn’t do this? What if the kids wouldn’t stop crying? What was he going to do? He couldn’t lose his kids. He loved them. And they needed him, whether they knew it or not.

  “I tried picking them up and holding them in my lap to comfort them, but I could feel them quivering like scared rabbits. I wasn’t sure whether they were scared of being alone with me or just scared of being in a strange place,” he said, continuing to babble like an idiot. “I put them down and called you. Thank God you were home. Thank God you were willing to come.”

  If she hadn’t answered, his next call would have been to the Robertsons. He was glad that hadn’t been necessary, but he would have done it.
He couldn’t stand to see his children weeping. He couldn’t stand to see them so unhappy. It made his heart hurt.

  Connor had figured the kids would take one look at Eve and quiet down. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The moment Brooke saw Eve in the bedroom doorway, she reached out her arms to her. But when Eve sat down on the bed and embraced her, she cried even louder. Sawyer grabbed Eve around the neck and wouldn’t let go, his sobs escalating as well.

  Connor stood by his daughter’s bed feeling helpless and hopeless. Eve looked him in the eye and gestured with her chin for him to sit down beside Sawyer, but he couldn’t move. His feet felt rooted to the floor. The sound of his children weeping so horribly made his stomach clench. He balled his hands into fists so Eve wouldn’t see how badly they were shaking.

  “It’s all right, Brooke,” he heard her murmur. “Your daddy’s here and I’m here and everything’s going to be all right.”

  At the word “daddy” Brooke shot an anxious glance in his direction. Then she hid her face against Eve’s throat and slid her arms tighter around Eve’s neck, nearly choking her. At his wit’s end, he responded the way he would have in the army. He started barking orders.

  “That’s enough, both of you! I brought Aunt Eve here to visit, and you’re dripping tears and snot all over her. Stop that wailing this instant!”

  Maybe it was the shock of hearing an adult shout at them, when they were used to kinder treatment. Maybe they were just cried out. Maybe it was Eve’s reassuring presence. But suddenly, as though he’d shut off a dripping faucet, the crying stopped.

  Connor stood where he was, his useless hands hanging at his sides, feeling totally enervated, while Eve calmly snatched a couple of Kleenex from the box next to the bed. She handed one to Brooke and said, “Blow your nose, sweetie,” then used the other to wipe Sawyer’s runny nose.

  Connor knew he should be doing something, but he was afraid to move in their direction, afraid he would incite another bout of crying.

  Eve patted the bed and said, “Come join us.”

  Connor managed to unroot his feet and sat beside Sawyer, who was perched on the bed to Eve’s left. Brooke was still sitting on Eve’s lap.

  “Now tell me,” Eve said as she grabbed another Kleenex and dabbed at Brooke’s swollen eyes. “What was all that crying about?”

  “We were scared,” Brooke said, darting a glance at Connor from beneath tear-drenched, spiky eyelashes.

  “Of what, little one?” Eve said, patting the tip of Brooke’s nose with her forefinger.

  “We were all alone,” Sawyer blurted.

  “You slept in separate bedrooms at Nana and Bampa’s house,” Eve reminded them.

  “This isn’t Nana and Bampa’s house,” Brooke pointed out.

  “No, it isn’t,” Eve said with a laugh of agreement. “It’s your father’s house. It’s where you’ll be living from now on.”

  “Do we have to stay here?” Brooke asked plaintively.

  “I want to go home,” Sawyer said.

  Connor said nothing. His throat was swollen too tight to speak. His children felt alone even with him—their father—in the house. It was his own fault for not staying in closer touch with them during the nine months after Molly’s death, while he finished his tour of duty. Brooke was too young to remember much of the life they’d led as a family before Molly died, and it was likely Sawyer had no memory of him before Molly’s death at all. He’d known this period of adjustment wasn’t going to be easy, but he hadn’t thought it would be this hard, either.

  “It’s too late to go anywhere tonight,” Eve said, suggesting by the way she’d phrased her statement that the children might be allowed to go home in the morning.

  He opened his mouth to make it clear they were here to stay, then shut it again. A day at a time. That was how he was going to become their father again. Tomorrow he could come up with another reason to delay their departure, and another reason on the day after that. Soon, he prayed, they would stop asking to leave.

  “Can I sleep in Brooke’s bed tonight?” Sawyer asked.

  Eve shot an inquiring look in Connor’s direction.

  He saw Eve’s slight nod suggesting that he agree. “I suppose that would be all right.” He’d put a queen-size canopy bed in Brooke’s room, because he’d liked the girly way it looked on the showroom floor. He’d put bunk beds in Sawyer’s room, thinking of the fun his son would have climbing up and sleeping on the top bunk when he was older.

  “Let’s get you both under the covers,” Eve said, standing and sliding Brooke upright until her bare feet hit the floor.

  Connor had put both kids in long john pajamas to be sure they’d be warm enough. He hesitated, then reached over to lift Sawyer into his arms as he stood. While Eve helped Brooke get settled under the covers, Connor walked around to the opposite side of the bed. Sawyer kept his arms tucked in front of him, separating their bodies, until Connor gently eased him onto the bed and reluctantly let him go.

  His son scooted toward his sister, so the two of them ended up lying next to each other in the center of the bed. Connor sat down beside his son, tucking the covers under Sawyer’s arms as Eve did the same for Brooke. Then Eve leaned over and kissed each child on the forehead. To his surprise, Brooke caught Eve’s face with both hands and pulled her close to brush her eyelashes against Eve’s cheek in a butterfly kiss.

  Connor knew what it was because, once upon a time, he’d been the beneficiary of those kisses, which Molly had taught to his daughter. He felt Sawyer’s hand wrap around his thumb and pull and turned his attention back to his son. Sawyer kept tugging and Connor leaned in until Sawyer caught him by the ears and pulled him close.

  He felt Sawyer’s cheek against his own as the two-year-old tried to mimic his sister. His son’s lashes weren’t long enough to administer a butterfly kiss, but Connor’s chest ached with the joy of having his son close, longing for the day that his children would love and trust him again.

  “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he said to his son.

  “Mommy used to say that,” Brooke said accusingly, as though he wasn’t allowed to use phrases that Molly had used.

  Connor turned to find his daughter’s bright eyes on him. “I know.”

  “Mommy’s dead,” Sawyer said.

  He met his son’s sober gaze with one of his own. “I know.”

  “I miss Mommy,” Brooke said.

  “Me, too,” Sawyer said.

  “I do, too,” Connor choked out. He brushed a lock of hair off Sawyer’s forehead. He remembered Molly saying it was the lock of dark hair that fell on his own forehead that had caused her to fall in love with him. “I could never marry a man without flaws, because I could never measure up to such a God,” she’d said with a laugh. “You’d be absolutely perfect,” she’d said as she looked into his eyes after making love with him, “except for that ornery lock of hair.”

  “Will you read us a story?” Sawyer asked.

  “It’s late. You need to get to sleep.”

  “Mommy always read us a story,” Brooke said, a wistful tone in her voice as though he should know these things. He did. He simply hadn’t realized how important such familiar routine was to his children. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  “I will tomorrow night,” Connor promised. “Time now to sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  “Doing what?” Brooke asked.

  “Lots of fun things,” Eve said when Connor couldn’t think of what to reply.

  “Will you be coming with us?” Brooke asked.

  “I don’t think—” Eve began.

  That was as far as she got before Connor interrupted. “I’ll do my best to try and talk Aunt Eve into joining us.”

  He could see that the idea pleased both children.

  Eve got to her feet and headed for the bedroom door, and Connor jumped up to follow her.

  He stopped at the door and said, “All right if I turn out the light?” He su
ddenly realized that he hadn’t asked either child earlier, he’d simply tucked them in and darkened their rooms.

  Both kids snuggled down under the covers.

  “Okay,” Brooke said.

  “Okay,” Sawyer echoed.

  Connor breathed a silent sigh of relief and turned out the light. He left the door open a crack so he could hear if either child called to him during the night. Then he hurried after Eve, hoping she wouldn’t rush off before he had a chance to speak to her.

  She already had her coat on by the time he got to the living room.

  “What’s your hurry?” he said, feeling panic at the thought of being alone with his kids again. “Take your coat off and stay awhile.” Brooke and Sawyer were calm now, but he wanted Eve there until he was sure they were asleep. “Can I offer you something to drink? It’s the least I can do to thank you for coming to my rescue.”

  He saw her hesitation and said, “Please, Eve. I owe you one. I was a dead man walking until you showed up.”

  “They would have settled down eventually,” she said as she slipped her coat off and dropped it back onto the rocker. “They were pretty much cried out by the time I arrived.”

  “If you say so.” He wasn’t so sure. “What would you like? A glass of wine? A beer? Something stronger?”

  She smiled. “Hot tea?”

  He smiled back at her and felt all the tension leave his body for the first time since he’d gotten his children back. “Sure.”

  He was grateful there was no hot water dispenser at the ranch house. She’d have to stick around long enough for him to boil some water, which gave him a few minutes to get her to drive all the way back out here tomorrow.

  “You’ve really fixed this old house up nice,” Eve said as she perched on one of the stools at the granite breakfast bar.

  “I added a modern bathroom for the kids and upgraded the kitchen, but I kept the old clawfoot tub, the log walls, and the hardwood floors.”

  She surveyed his simple western décor, which was done in warm browns and reds. A large cowhide covered the area in front of the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, where a wood fire popped and crackled. “It feels like a home.”