Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  “Maybe not of me, but what about the inn?” At his look of confusion, she continued. “Do you have any idea how many hours the three of us are putting into this every week? We have no time for personal lives. We have our regular jobs and this. Are you willing to give up all your evenings and weekends?”

  “You’re right, I’ll need to juggle my schedule a bit so Paige won’t feel ignored. But it can be done.” So much for playing golf with the guys on the weekends, though.

  “Chance”—she stared at him—”won’t you feel awkward working with me? After we... after what happened?”

  His gaze held hers. “Would it be so hard for us to be friends?”

  “I... don’t know.” She turned away, needing some distance to think all this through. “I’ll have to talk to Adrian and Allison.”

  “Yes, of course. Will you call me as soon as you decide? We’ll need to have papers drawn up, with everything spelled out so all of us are comfortable.”

  She nodded. “I better get back to work.”

  “I’ll go with you.” He fell into step beside her. “You know, I wonder why I didn’t think of this while we were working on the business plan. We’d have had better luck getting the loan from Liberty Union if they’d known I was willing to put up capital.”

  She stared at him, wondering how he could be so happy when she was so miserable. But then, why wouldn’t he be? He had the woman he wanted waiting outside, a job at the bank, and the possibility of a business on the side. Just as long as he didn’t plan to have her on the side, as well.

  If he so much as suggested that, she’d give him a knee right to his vitals.

  Halfway down the steps, he stopped and looked around. “Aurora?”

  “Yes?”

  “Right before I found you, were you crying?”

  She snorted. “I was too busy trying to breathe to waste time crying. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.” He shook his head and they continued down the steps.

  The thought of facing the tourists outside had her stomach churning again, but it couldn’t be helped. She just hoped she made it through the afternoon without getting ill. One humiliation a day was all she could handle.

  Chapter Fourteen

  By the time Rory got off work, the nausea had grown so intense, she was sure she’d caught the flu. What a perfect end to a perfectly rotten day, she thought. The last thing she needed was to be laid up with a stomach virus while there was so much work to do.

  Of course, there was one other possibility. A possibility that didn’t even bear thinking about. She tried to count the days since her last period, but couldn’t remember.

  Deciding to rule out the unthinkable, she stopped at a pharmacy on the way home to pick up something for her stomach and an early pregnancy test. Thankfully, the person working the cash register wasn’t anyone she knew, so she didn’t have to suffer any questioning looks or raised eyebrows.

  When she reached the cottage she heard Allison and Adrian in the kitchen, but headed straight for the bathroom. Five minutes later, she lost what little food she’d managed to eat that day. Cold sweat coated her brow by the time she joined her brother and sister.

  “Hey, Rory.” Allison turned from the stove with a smile. “Adrian was just telling me about your great day.”

  “Great day?” Rory collapsed at the kitchen table, too shaken to even give Sadie an absentminded pet.

  “We filled nearly every seat.” Adrian retrieved a fresh tomato to add to the cucumber on the chopping block. “Which means no leftovers for us tonight.” Grinning broadly, he twirled a knife and started chopping. Rory looked away from all sight of food as her stomach rolled. “If the lunch runs are going to be this popular, we may need to add another day—if Bobby is willing.”

  “How’d we do money-wise?” Allison asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Rory dropped her forehead to her arms on the table and concentrated on taking slow steady breaths. “I’ll figure it out with Bobby tomorrow.”

  “Are you okay?” Allison put the lid on the soup, and joined Rory at the table. Taking the chair next to her, she ran a motherly hand over her hair.

  “Oh, I’m dandy.” She laughed without humor. “Why wouldn’t I be on the most miserable day of my life? After the disastrous lunch, I had to do two more regular tours.”

  “But Adrian said the lunch run went great.”

  “Did he tell you Chance was there?” She lifted her head and pushed her hair off her clammy forehead.

  “No, he did not.” Allison spared their brother an irritated look.

  “And he brought a date,” Rory added.

  “He what?” Allison’s flare of anger dissolved quickly to sympathy. “Rory, that’s awful. How’d you handle it?”

  Rory groaned. “I dropped a bowl of fruit in her lap.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “Well, not on purpose,” she insisted, then covered her face. “I was such a dork, I ran inside to hide, and Chance ran after me, which just made everything that much more embarrassing.”

  “Rory, it wasn’t that bad,” Adrian said from the chopping block. “People probably assumed the two of you were going to get towels or something.”

  “And when we didn’t come back?”

  “They were too busy having orgasms over my Caribbean pasta salad to notice how long you were gone,” Adrian said. “But what’s the big deal about Chance bringing a date? It’s not like you’re interested in him.”

  Rory stared at her brother, wondering how he could be so dense when she’d done nothing to hide her attraction to Chance. “Actually, I was very interested.”

  Adrian’s eyes widened. “In Oliver Chancellor?”

  “Yes, Oliver Chancellor, who happens to be one of the smartest and sexiest men I’ve ever known.”

  Adrian laughed. “So that’s why you two were gone so long?”

  “No, it’s not.” Rory looked away, trying to decide how much to tell them and where to begin. “Chance asked if we’d consider taking him on as a partner.”

  “Well, that’s sort of out of the blue, don’t you think?” Adrian finished the tomato and started on some carrots.

  “Not really,” Rory said. “Considering how much time he spent helping us with the business plan.”

  Adrian shrugged. “I figured he was just hoping to score with you. And when he realized you weren’t interested, or at least I thought you weren’t interested, he gave up.”

  “That’s not exactly how it happened.” Rory plucked at the hem of her shorts. “What do you mean?” Adrian scraped the vegetables into the salad bowl.

  Rory exchanged a look with her sister before she forced herself to admit the truth. “Chance is the one who isn’t interested. At least, not now. Not after... not after he got what he wanted.”

  Adrian halted with the knife still in hand. “What are you saying?”

  Tears welled up in Rory’s eyes. “I’m pregnant.”

  Adrian’s heart stopped as he stared at his little sister. “Oliver Chancellor got you pregnant?”

  “Apparently.” She nodded and tears spilled past her lashes. “I thought it was the flu, but I just took a drugstore test, and... I don’t believe it. It doesn’t seem real!”

  Allison looked stricken while Adrian cussed under his breath. In all his years of raising Rory, he’d never seen her look so frightened and hurt. A cold fist of anger tightened around his gut. “I’ll kill him.”

  “Why?” Rory swiped at her cheeks. “This isn’t Chance’s fault. It’s mine.”

  “It takes two to make a baby, sis.” He plunged the tip of the knife into the cutting board. “You didn’t do this on your own.”

  “It was my fault.” She looked away as if ashamed. “I threw myself at him.”

  Adrian looked from Rory to Alli. Alli looked back with wide blue eyes as if waiting for him to fix everything. How the hell was he supposed to fix this! “Dammit, Rory, how did this happen? I mean, I know how it happened but— Jesus, you know about
birth control. And if you tell me you did it without a condom, I’ll strangle you.” He rubbed his face in an effort to compose himself. When Rory had turned sixteen, he’d given her a box condoms and a very frank lecture about safe sex, and told her when she felt old enough to have sex to use protection. Did she think he was joking? How could he keep his sisters safe if they wouldn’t listen to him?

  Rory sniffed softly. “I’m sorry.”

  Trying to control his temper toward himself, toward Chance, toward the whole situation, he took a seat on the other side of Rory from Allison. “So, what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Rory said through her tears. “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Neither was he, apparently.” Adrian rubbed his forehead as memories intruded. A man shouldn’t have to face this sort of thing twice in one lifetime. At least Rory was in her twenties, not sixteen as Alli had been. He’d handled that badly, as he remembered. Very badly. And he didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

  “Does Chance know?” Allison asked quietly. Always the gentle one. The peacemaker and healer. How painful this must be for her.

  Rory shook her head.

  “Are you going to tell him?” Allison stroked her sister’s hand.

  “I don’t know.” Rory took a shuddering breath. “I guess I’ll have to eventually. It’s not an easy thing to hide.”

  “How do you think he’ll react?” Allison asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rory answered in a small voice, her eyes and nose red against her pale skin. “He’s very big on doing things the right way. I’m scared he’ll feel obligated to marry me, which is a terrible solution.”

  “Then you don’t want to marry him?” Adrian asked.

  “Not if he feels obligated,” Rory said.

  “Well, dammit, he should feel obligated,” Adrian insisted. “It’s his baby, too. And you need to tell him, Rory. A man has the right to know. Even if he is a stupid, irresponsible jerk.”

  “Chance is none of those things!” Anger lit behind Rory’s tears. “I’m the one who’s stupid and irresponsible.”

  “Irresponsible maybe, but you are not stupid!” he shouted back.

  She looked ready to argue, but subsided. “I’ll tell Chance, okay? Just not right away.”

  “Why not right away?” Adrian demanded. “If I’d fathered a child, I’d damn well want to know. And I’d want to be a part of any decisions about doctors and such. This baby is just as much his as it is yours.”

  “Adrian,” Allison scolded gently. Her gaze met his, asking him to calm down. “We’re not talking about you. We’re talking about Oliver Chancellor. Aside from the fact that he’s helped us a lot lately, or tried to, none of us knows him all that well. What if...” Allison’s eyes clouded with old pain. “What if he asks her to have an abortion?”

  “Then I really will kill him.” Adrian reached out and squeezed Allison’s hand. They’d never told Rory about Allison’s pregnancy, or Peter’s demands that she abort it. Rory had only been fourteen, and Allison had been too distraught to confide in anyone but him at first. He’d finally talked her into telling their aunt. Alli had refused any thought of abortion, wanting desperately to keep her baby even though she’d been scared half to death. Two weeks later, she’d miscarried. And Adrian had taken his anger out on Peter’s face for everything he put Allison through.

  But that was Peter, and this was Chance. Adrian had gone to school with both of them, and the men couldn’t be more different, even if they did both come from money. “There’s no need for her to even consider abortion. If Chance doesn’t want to claim responsibility, fine, the three of us will raise the kid together. It’s not like I’ve never changed diapers.”

  “Oh, Adrian.” Fresh tears welled up in Rory’s eyes. “Thank you. That means so much, even though I know you must be disappointed in me.”

  “Don’t say that! Don’t even think it!” He gathered her into a fierce hug and she buried her head under his chin. He stroked his hands over her back in soothing circles as he’d done a hundred times while she was growing up. It had been a long time, though, since he’d comforted her through a crying jag. “You could never disappoint me. Neither one of you could.” He smiled at Allison, who’d stopped fighting the silent tears that slipped down her cheeks.

  “What am I going to do?” Rory sniffed against his neck. “This is all so scary.”

  He looked to Allison, pleading for help.

  Allison took a breath and dried her cheeks. “First we’re going to get you an appointment with a doctor to be sure you and the baby are doing fine.”

  “Do I have to do that right away?” Rory sat up enough to look at both of them. “I’m not even a month along. It seems so soon to see a doctor.”

  “It’s never too soon for that,” Alli insisted, rubbing her sister’s back. “As for when and how you tell Chance, that’s your business, and we’ll support you in whatever decision you make.”

  Adrian started to object but closed his mouth when Allison gave him a warning look.

  “In the meantime”—Allison straightened Rory’s hair— “what do you want us to tell Chance about being a partner?”

  “I don’t know.” Rory sat back with a groan. With effort she reined in her runaway emotions enough to talk in a steady voice. “A part of me wants to tell him yes, because he really would be a help, and because I can’t stop thinking—hoping—that if we spend more time together, he’ll come to his senses and realize how good we are for each other. But another part of me wants to tell him no, because I’m so mad and hurt and I want to hurt him back, even though I know it’s childish. But I can’t help it, and I swear, if he brings Perfect Paige near me again, I may toss her into the bay.”

  “I don’t blame you for feeling any of that. But Rory”— Alli folded her hands on the table—”that’s something you need to think about. If we take Chance on as a partner, you’ll probably see a lot of Paige.”

  “You’re right.” She blew out a breath and thought it over a moment. “I guess I’ll just have to handle it.”

  “What if you spend time with him, and he marries Paige anyway? What will you do then?”

  Die, she thought. How had he become so important to her in so short a time? Somewhere along the way, he’d become as important to her as Pearl Island. If only she could feel as confident about winning his love as she did about making the inn a success.

  With him, though, the future was so uncertain. Was that how he felt, too? The reason he’d backed off after they’d made love? In a way she couldn’t blame him, because the emotions he stirred inside her were frightening.

  His words came back to her from that day when they’d argued on the pier: You can’t make something happen just because it’s what you want. Determination is fine, but you have to balance it with good sense.

  He was right. Even if she managed to win his love, she had no guarantees it would work out for them. Maybe they were too different. But how could she live with herself if she didn’t even try?

  She looked at her brother and sister. “If he spends time with me, then marries Paige anyway, I’ll find a way to live with it. I’ll have to.”

  “So, you want us to take him on as a partner?” Allison asked.

  “From a business standpoint, it makes good sense,” she answered. “Regardless of what happens between us personally, I want Pearl Island to be a success. And”—she took a deep shuddering breath—”if it becomes too awkward, we’ll buy him out.”

  “I agree,” Adrian said. “He would be an asset. Alli?”

  Allison nodded, hesitantly.

  “Very well.” He turned back to Rory. “I think I should handle the negotiations, though.”

  “I’m not a coward, Adrian,” Rory insisted.

  “I know, but you’re too emotionally involved to be objective on this one. For the sake of the business, let me deal with Chance on the partnership agreement.”

  “All right.” Rory nodded, suddenly too overwhelmed wi
th exhaustion to argue.

  * * *

  Chance wasn’t quite sure what had possessed him to become business partners with the St. Claires—or why they’d agreed. None of them seemed particularly thrilled with the arrangement. The day they’d met at the lawyer’s office, Adrian and Allison had been cordial, but cool. As for Aurora, she’d acted so nervous, he’d half expected her to call the whole thing off. But she hadn’t. They’d signed the papers, he’d handed them a substantial check, and the deal was done.

  Crossing the bridge to the island Saturday morning, he tried to sort it all out. He had no idea where he stood with Aurora. He wanted the friendship they’d shared while they’d been working on the business plan, minus the attraction. The friendship had been fun, exciting—and a large reason why he’d just invested a considerable amount of money in a risky venture.

  Apart from that, or perhaps added to it, he wanted to be involved with a project for once, not just hear about the ups and downs through his accounts at the bank. Building a business from scratch was new to him. A challenge. He hadn’t had enough challenges in his life.

  When the house came into view, his pulse quickened. If he wanted a challenge, he’d picked a big one.

  He found a place to park amid the pickup trucks that crowded the area behind the house, where they wouldn’t be visible from the dock. Being Saturday, there would be another lunch run at noon, and none of them wanted the guests to see a construction site parking lot when they arrived.

  Lifting the box he’d brought from the passenger seat, he made his way to the front of the house. There was a back entrance, of course, but he preferred the full impact of entering through the front. They’d finished painting the trim, a deep burgundy that provided a pleasing accent to the pink stone. The outside was nearly finished. The inside was another matter entirely.

  A table saw buzzed in the central hall, producing a steady stream of boards that were carried off in every direction. Hammers pounded out an offbeat rhythm, the sound attacking Chance’s ears as he made his way to the back of the house. He found Adrian in the kitchen helping one of the men install a commercial-grade vent.