Freefall. RaeAnne Thayne

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      She shook her head. “I doubt if I could. Maybe in a few more hours.”

      “You’re going to fall over by then. Go on and rest.”

      Before she could voice that argument he could see her gearing up for, the telephone rang in the kitchen. Thomas reached for it and heard her mother on the other end of the line.

      “Hello, Sharon.” In light of the loss they had all suffered, Thomas managed to conceal his dislike for the woman and handed the phone to Sophie.

      If possible, Sophie’s voice dropped several more degrees as she greeted her mother. Tom took over the sandwich-making while eavesdropping without shame.

      Her expressive features had been one of the first things to captivate him all those years ago. She seemed a little more composed, a little more controlled ten years later, but he could still clearly see the tension rippling through her, the frustration simmering below the surface.

      “No, I understand,” Sophie said quietly. “Earl has a load to deliver and you’ve decided to cut your stay short and go with him. I didn’t expect you to stick around long. No, that wasn’t a dig, Sharon. Just an observation. Sure. Yes, I’ll tell them. Goodbye.”

      Her mouth tightened for an instant as she hung up the phone but then her features smoothed out and she turned to the children. “Grandma Sharon is leaving this afternoon, kids. I’m sorry. But she says she’ll be back through in a few months.”

      Ali and Zach barely looked up from the cartoon but Zoe gazed at her aunt, her eyes anxious. “Are you going, too, Aunt Sophie?”

      Sophie must have caught that thin thread of fear in the little girl’s voice. She paused in the process of opening a bag of chips, then set it down and swept Zoe into her arms. “Oh, no, honey. No! I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

      Chapter 2

      Thomas stared at her. How the hell could she look a child in the eye like that and utter such a bald-faced lie? Panacea or not, the children deserved the truth.

      He waited just a few beats, until Zoe turned back to the TV then grabbed her arm. “Sophie, can you help me with something in the pantry?”

      Those green eyes widened at the request and went even bigger when he yanked her into the six-foot by six-foot butler’s pantry then slammed the door shut behind them. In such close quarters, he was instantly overwhelmed by the scent of her, exotic and sensual, like a rainy afternoon in the jungle, so he went on the offensive.

      “Where the hell do you get off saying something like that?”

      She frowned and jerked her arm away from him. “What did I say?”

      “That you’re not leaving.”

      “I’m not leaving.”

      His laughter was harsh. “That will be a first.”

      “The children need me, Tom, and I intend to be here for them.”

      “Until when? Your next assignment? Until you get the chance of a lifetime to shoot yaks in Nepal or whatever it is this time and off you go without giving a damn what you’re leaving behind?”

      Incredibly, unbelievably, hurt flashed for an instant in those wide green eyes but she shielded them quickly. “That’s not going to happen.”

      “That’s easy to say now. But what about a month from now? These are children, Sophie. Not pretty little toys you can put on the shelf when you’re bored with them. They are children who have just suffered a terrible loss. Right now they need all the stability they can find until their world settles again. You really think you can give them that? You, of all people!”

      Again that hurt flared in her eyes but she jutted her chin into the air in typical stubborn Sophie fashion. “What they need is love and I have more than enough of that to give them.”

      “Sometimes love is not enough.”

      “Isn’t that the truth?” she muttered, an edge of bitterness to her voice.

      He narrowed his gaze and studied her, trying to figure out if there was hidden meaning in her words. God knows, she had no reason to be bitter over their brief relationship. No, they hadn’t had a relationship, he corrected himself. Just fledgling, unspoken emotions and one steamy encounter on the beach that could still make his heart race when he remembered it.

      Then she ran away, for the first time but certainly not the last.

      This time Sophie folded her arms over her chest, her chin still lifted defiantly. “I’m staying, Tom. The children need me. If you want me out of their lives, you’re going to have to pry me out with a crowbar.”

      “Must I remind you, I am the executor of Peter’s estate. His will specifically names me their guardian.” He knew he sounded like a self-righteous ass but he didn’t give a damn.

      “And I have a letter from Shelly dated not two months ago where she asked me to care for her children if something happened to her.”

      Tom frowned, unease slithering through him like a moray eel cutting across the ocean’s floor. Shelly had written Sophie? The timing seemed odd in the extreme. Why would a young, otherwise healthy woman write such a thing only weeks before her death? Did she have some impending premonition of danger?

      “You can be as arrogant and domineering as usual,” Sophie went on, heedless of the direction of his thoughts, “but that’s not going to change my mind.”

      “The children are my legal responsibility,” he repeated.

      “They’re as much my responsibility as yours, if not legally than at least morally. I don’t care what Peter’s will says. They are my nieces and nephew, and I love them. I’m not going to abandon them when they need me. Anyway, if I don’t stay, who’s going to care for them when you’re out playing Rescue Ranger?”

      Her scorn for his career shouldn’t bother him but somehow it did. He should be used to it after ten years of fighting to live the life he wanted. Nobody understood his passion for his job. Not his father, not Peter. They had thought him crazy for turning his back on the family fortune to enlist in the military—in the plebeian Coast Guard, no less.

      They didn’t understand his passion for the service, for the unrivaled satisfaction of going after someone who needed help, the controls of his bird humming under his hands and adrenaline pumping like opium through his system.

      That part of his life was over, he reminded himself. Peter’s death had accomplished what his brother had never been able to do in life. “I’m putting in for a discharge,” he murmured. “I’ll be taking leave while the paperwork goes through.”

      Her expressive face softened instantly with sympathy. “Oh, Thomas.”

      He looked away from her pity, focusing on the rows of cans and bottles that the housekeeper kept in ruthless order inside the butler’s pantry. “It’s the best thing for everyone. The details of Peter’s estate will keep me busy for weeks. In the meantime, I’m planning to hire someone to help Mrs. Cope with the children.”

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