Sinful

by Joan Johnston

  “If only Brooke and Sawyer agreed with you, I’d be a happy man.”

  “You’ll be surprised how quickly they settle in.”

  “Tonight was rough. I was hoping you might be able to join us tomorrow for whatever it is we end up doing.”

  “I can’t.”

  No explanation, just a refusal. Connor wasn’t used to taking no for an answer. There had to be a way to convince her to come back tomorrow. He set a cup of hot tea in front of her, then sat down on the stool next to Eve with his own cup of tea. He tried the simplest method first.

  “I need your help.”

  A pained expression crossed her face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I have my own problems, Connor. I have a lot to do this week.”

  “Like what?”

  She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, then blew on her tea to cool it and took a sip.

  He sipped his tea as well, waiting for her to share whatever was troubling her.

  “It doesn’t really matter,” she said at last. “I just can’t come.”

  “Would it help if I told you I’m desperate?”

  “Brooke and Sawyer are wonderful kids. They’ll adjust.”

  He sighed heavily. “How long is that going to take?”

  “Honestly, they’re going to be fine. You’ll all be fine.”

  “So you say. Won’t you join us tomorrow?”

  “I can’t!”

  She sounded agitated, but he wasn’t ready to give up. “If something had happened to me, you would have helped Molly.”

  To his dismay, she burst into tears.

  He stood and reached out to wrap his arms around her to comfort her, but she lurched from the stool and took several steps away from him. He stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans to make it clear he wasn’t going to touch her.

  Connor regretted bringing Molly into the conversation. His dead wife was a constant specter that disturbed his waking days and haunted his dreaming nights, but he hadn’t realized how upset it would make Eve to bring up her name. His heart still ached whenever he thought of his wife. “I miss her, too.”

  Eve swiped at the tears on her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “I’m so sorry, Connor.”

  “For what?” He’d been too far out of it to hear most of what was said to him around the time of Molly’s funeral, but as far as he knew, Eve hadn’t been involved in Molly’s accident.

  “I wasn’t in the mood to sit through a horror movie that night, so I offered to babysit instead. If only I’d gone with her, we would have been in my truck, which had better traction than her car.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” It wasn’t anybody’s fault, really. It was simply a freak accident. Molly had hit some black ice on the way home and slammed into a tree. She must have turned her head the wrong way, or maybe it was her short stature. In any event, the air bag broke her neck.

  If anyone was to blame, it was him. He should have been home with his wife. He would have been happy to see a horror movie with Molly. She loved being scared when he was there to cling to both during the movie and afterward.

  Connor missed his wife. He missed their life together, which had been cut so disastrously short. He regretted the choice he’d made to leave his family for a third time, but there was no way to take it back.

  “I just wish…” Eve left the sentence hanging, and he wondered what she’d been about to say.

  “Wishing can’t change the past,” he said. “Molly is gone and I’m alone with my kids, who have no memory of the times we spent laughing and playing together when they were babies. They don’t understand why their mother had to go to heaven or what role their father is supposed to play in their lives.”

  “I can’t help you, Connor,” she said firmly. “I have things I have to do.”

  He gave her a smile intended to charm and then felt guilty for trying to charm his dead wife’s best friend into playing mother to his kids. That thought lasted until he remembered his crying children, at which point he said, “The kids would feel a lot better with you around.”

  “That’s not fair!” she snapped. “I told you, I’ve got problems of my own. I can’t be babysitting your kids.”

  He could tell she was angry, but he didn’t know what he’d said, exactly, to make her so mad. “Fine. You’ve got problems. Have a seat. Let’s talk. Maybe I can help.”

  She eyed the stool she’d vacated. “I doubt it.”

  “It can’t hurt. Besides, you haven’t finished your tea.”

  She sat again, but he could feel her putting up a wall between them. He wondered if she could tell that he still felt the same mesmerizing attraction to her now that had struck him the first day he’d seen her standing by her high school locker. Maybe she could. Maybe that was why she wanted to keep her distance.

  She perched on the edge of the stool with her back to the kitchen and stared into the fire, her mug in both hands.

  Connor sat down beside her and waited for her to speak.

  She chewed on her lower lip. And said nothing.

  At last he said, “Does your problem have anything to do with a certain missing black sheep returned to the fold?”

  She made a disgusted sound. “Of course it does.”

  “What’s Matt done this time?”

  “I have a week to get my herd of wild mustangs off the ranch.”

  “A week? I thought you said you had a year to find a place to graze them.”

  She turned to him, her blue eyes fierce. “Matt might not own Kingdom Come yet, but my father gave him the power to decide how the land is used from day one. Matt intends to run quarter horses on the pasture where I’ve been keeping my mustangs. He’s demanded I move them by the end of the week.”

  “Can’t King help you out?”

  “That isn’t an option.”

  Eve didn’t explain, and he saw from the way her jaw was clamped tight that she didn’t want to talk about it.

  Connor realized he must have been thinking about a solution to her problem even before the situation turned into a crisis. He took a deep breath and said, “I might know a way to fix things.”

  “I’m desperate,” she admitted. “What have you got in mind?”

  “Bring your mustangs here.”

  She looked surprised but intrigued.

  “There’s plenty of land for them to roam. If you like, we could even plant some hay for winter feed.”

  She stared at him with wide, hopeful eyes. “You’d do that for me?”

  “I’d want something in return.”

  She frowned. “Like what?”

  The idea had been forming in his mind ever since his kids starting crying. He made the request without thinking twice about the problems it might create between his father and hers, between their siblings, or between the two of them, for that matter. “What would you think about coming to live at Safe Haven?”

  “Not much.”

  He put a hand on her arm to keep her from sliding off her stool. “Hear me out. You need a place for your mustangs. I need someone to help me ease Brooke and Sawyer through this difficult period of adjustment. You get what you need. I get what I need.”

  She looked a lot more anxious than excited about the idea, which meant she knew as well as he did the ramifications of such a decision. “You mentioned keeping my horses over the winter. How long are you suggesting I hang out here?”

  “Just a month or two, until Brooke and Sawyer get to know me again. The kids know you and trust you. Hell, they love you. As sad as it makes me to say it, my kids don’t remember what it was like to have me as a father. Tonight was a pretty big wake-up call. I’m drowning here, Eve. I need help. And where my kids are concerned, I’m not too proud to ask for it.”

  “I’d be glad to come here whenever you call.”

  He was already shaking his head before she was halfway through her sentence. “That won’t work.”

  “Give me one reason why not?”

  “I
t takes you an hour to get here.”

  Eve made a face, conceding the difficulty of driving back and forth to Connor’s ranch every day or even every two or three days.

  “Besides,” he continued, “the kids have to know that the adults in their life will be there for them. That means morning, noon, and night. They need you—I need you—here.”

  “They’ve got you.”

  “I’m not enough. Not yet.”

  “And you think in a month or two you will be?”

  He grinned, showing a confident face, hiding his fear that she would leave him high and dry. “I do.”

  Her blue eyes looked bleak. “I feel trapped. If I had anywhere else to turn, I wouldn’t consider it.”

  “I guess it’s lucky for me you don’t.”

  “You realize this is blackmail.”

  “It isn’t blackmail if both of us get something out of it.”

  He held his breath as she pursed her lips and shook her head. She was going to refuse.

  “You’d have your own room,” he blurted.

  She laughed. “That’s a comfort. I’m glad I won’t have to share a bed with the kids. Or with you.”

  The instant she said it, the smile froze on her face.

  Connor spoke quickly to defuse the sudden sexual tension. The last thing he wanted her to do was refuse because she thought he would hit on her. “I told you before, Eve. What happened between us at the hotel won’t happen again. Our relationship will remain purely platonic.”

  He hoped his kids appreciated the sacrifice he was making. For their sake, he was going to keep his hands off Eve Grayhawk the whole time she was living under his roof. It wasn’t going to be easy, but sacrifices had to be made.

  Eve looked like she needed a shoulder to cry on, but he made no effort to take her in his arms to comfort her. He’d already flirted with disaster once tonight. She’d made it plain she didn’t welcome his attentions. Right now, he needed her help with his children more desperately than he needed her long legs wrapped around him in bed.

  “All right,” Eve said as she rose. “I’ll do it. But only until the kids are comfortable with you. Once they’ve adjusted, I’m gone.” She reached out a hand for him to shake. “Agreed?”

  Connor pulled her into his arms—purely platonically—and gave her a hug. “Thank you, Eve.” She was taller than Molly and fit him in all the important places. He felt his body responding to the rightness of holding her close and let her go. He tucked his hands in his front jeans pockets to hide the evidence of his rock-hard body and said, “When can you move in?”

  Chapter 6

  EVE HAD FELT cherished in Connor’s embrace. She’d kept her eyes lowered so he wouldn’t see the desire she felt, the longing to have him kiss her and touch her and put himself inside her. She fought back the feelings of guilt. Wanting him was no longer sinful. But it wasn’t prudent, either. The chances were good that she would get her heart broken if she hoped for more than friendship.

  At the exact moment she realized that Connor had become aroused, he’d stepped away from her, leaving her feeling bereft. His actions made it abundantly clear that, even if he was attracted to her, he intended to do nothing about it.

  “Why don’t you go home, pack whatever you need, and spend the night here?” Connor suggested. “I’m sure the kids would feel better if they found you here in the morning when they wake up.”

  The worry in his eyes prompted her to say, “All right.”

  “I really appreciate this. You’ll never know how much.”

  Remembering how relieved and happy Connor had looked when she’d agreed to return kept Eve from changing her mind about the whole thing on the long drive home, even though there were a lot of reasons why what she was about to do wasn’t a good idea. Why, oh, why had she agreed to live in Connor’s house? How was she going to keep her feelings secret when they were sleeping under the same roof?

  By the time Eve pulled up to the back porch at Kingdom Come, her mind was racing with all the things that could go wrong. The situation she’d put herself in was a disaster waiting to happen. She reached for her cell phone to call Connor and tell him she couldn’t do it. Then she remembered Brooke’s and Sawyer’s woeful faces, and Connor’s fearful eyes, and realized that she couldn’t abandon any of them.

  Connor wasn’t a bad father. He was simply inexperienced and overwhelmed. If she spent time at Safe Haven she could help him discover what he needed to know and give the kids time to learn to love him again. She’d hidden her love for Connor a very long time. She could hide it a little while longer.

  Besides, Connor had offered Safe Haven as a sanctuary for her mustangs, and she saw no other way of saving them. She wasn’t entirely sure that offer would remain open if she backed out of helping him with his kids. She was over a barrel. Out of options. Up the creek without a paddle. Stuck.

  When Eve stepped into the kitchen she could feel the tension arcing as dangerously as a live wire among her three sisters. Leah was leaning back against the sink, arms crossed. Taylor stood at the end of the breakfast bar, fisted hands at her sides. Victoria sat perched on the edge of a bar stool, her back stiff.

  “What’s going on?” Eve asked as she moved toward an empty seat at the bar.

  “Just a small difference of opinion,” Leah said through tight jaws.

  “About what?” Eve asked, looking from face to tight-lipped face. “Let me guess. It has something to do with Matt.”

  “Bingo!” Victoria said.

  “I flew Daddy’s jet to Texas with Vick,” Taylor said. “We were hoping at least one of Matt’s siblings could tell us why he left home twenty years ago.” Taylor had gotten her pilot’s license as early as the law allowed. She worked as a pilot for whoever would hire her, everything from crop-dusting to dumping fire retardant on forest fires to corporate flights around the world. She often flew King’s jet for him when his regular pilot was on vacation.

  “What did Libby and North have to say?” Eve asked.

  “Nothing! Not a damned thing,” Victoria said. “That mangy dingo is still a complete mystery.”

  “So what’s the problem here?” Eve asked, her gaze skipping from Taylor’s balled fists to Victoria’s tensed shoulders to Leah’s crossed arms.

  Taylor’s eyes narrowed. “Leah wants us to leave Matt alone. She says Daddy’s working on a way to fix things so we have a place to go, and we should wait and see how that works out before we turn our guns on Matt.”

  Eve slid onto the bar stool next to Victoria. “You should listen to her.” She pursed her lips wryly. “Daddy might not be able to get you off if you actually end up shooting him.”

  “This is no time for jokes!” Taylor snapped, turning to confront Eve. “I want that bossy, high-handed, disgustingly self-satisfied intruder gone. I was hoping we could discover what made Matt take off in the first place and use that information to force him to leave again. Libby said she was gone from Kingdom Come a couple of years before Matt disappeared, and she has no idea what happened. North told us to go home and mind our own business.”

  “Maybe because he doesn’t know anything,” Eve surmised.

  “Taylor thinks he’s hiding something,” Victoria said.

  “I just wish we had a clue why he left,” Taylor said, frustration rife in her voice.

  “King did something to him,” Leah said in a quiet voice. “Something terrible.”

  All eyes turned to Leah for an explanation of her pronouncement.

  “How do you know that?” Taylor asked.

  “You know how close King came to dying last year,” Leah replied. “He’s lucky to be alive. Every other word out of his mouth lately has something to do with making amends. I think that’s what bringing this wayward son back is all about. Making peace with Matt while he still has the chance to do it.”

  “Is the cancer back?” Victoria asked, her eyes bleak.

  “As far as I know, he’s still cancer-free.”

  Victoria’s question
made Eve realize that, however much they all might condemn their father for what he was doing, they still loved him. Maybe too much. Certainly more than he deserved, after the way he’d abandoned them most of their lives. This latest betrayal shouldn’t have surprised them as much as it had. Maybe it was the enormity of it, the sheer unexpectedness of it. Whatever his reasons, Eve was as aggrieved as her sisters over their father’s treatment of them.

  “I’m asking you to be patient,” Leah said. “King says he has some big deal in the works, but it isn’t progressing as fast as he’d hoped.”

  “When is this magic bean supposed to grow into a beanstalk?” Taylor demanded.

  Leah shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “What kind of investment are we talking about?” Victoria asked. It wasn’t a casual question. Victoria was a day trader online and followed the stock and foreign markets closely. Apparently she was good enough at it to make a comfortable living, because during the summer she volunteered as a smoke jumper and was off fighting forest fires all over the country.

  “I don’t know,” Leah admitted. “He wouldn’t tell me that.”

  “We’re just supposed to trust that everything will turn out all right?” Taylor said.

  “It always has in the past,” Leah said.

  “Vick and I don’t intend to leave things to chance,” Taylor retorted.

  “Meaning what?” Leah asked.

  “We’re going to do whatever it takes to get Matt to go back where he came from.”

  “I think that’s a mistake,” Leah argued.

  “Not the way we see it,” Taylor shot back.

  “What, exactly, do you have planned?” Eve asked her sisters.

  Before either of them could answer, Leah said, “They won’t tell me.” She met Taylor’s and Victoria’s gazes in turn and added, “But I’m sure it’s something they’ll regret once it’s done.”

  “He deserves whatever he gets,” Victoria said sullenly.

  “What about his kids?” Leah asked. “Do they deserve to be hurt, too?”

  Victoria lowered her gaze to her hands. Taylor stared defiantly at Leah, then surprised Eve by turning to her and demanding, “Are you with us? Or not?”