Freefall. RaeAnne Thayne

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      “Can we go to Point Lobos tomorrow and watch the otters?”

      Sophie wiped at her eyes and found that her industrious niece had climbed out of the tub on her own and was wrapped in a towel, drying her hair. Chagrined at her own inattention, she hurried to help.

      “That sounds fun.” She cleared the remaining emotions from her voice. “We can talk about it with Ali and Zach and see what they want to do tomorrow.”

      “Talk about what?” Ali, her own hair wet from her shower, joined them in the bathroom wearing a pink cotton nightgown and matching robe.

      “I want to go see the otters tomorrow.”

      “We just did that with Uncle Tommy two days ago.”

      “I want to go again.” A stubborn light flickered in the little girl’s eyes.

      “I told her we would talk about it in the morning,” Sophie said to head off the argument she sensed could easily brew.

      Ali shrugged and went to work helping Zoe into her pajamas. The gesture made Sophie want to cry all over again. In just a few days without their parents, Ali had taken over mothering the twins. She was still a little girl, whose childhood had been snatched away from her abruptly and hideously.

      While Sophie took over the task, she vowed a solemn oath to herself that she would do everything she could to restore that childhood.

      “When will I go back to school, Aunt Sophie?”

      Oh dear. She had so much to learn about being a parent. She hadn’t given a single thought to them missing school. “Do you want to go back tomorrow?”

      Ali’s dimple flashed. “Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

      She supposed she’d lost track after six connecting flights and a dozen time zones. “How about Monday, then?”

      “Okay.”

      “Me, too,” Zoe insisted. “Zach and me go to kindergarten. Miss Lewis is my teacher. She’s pretty.”

      The three talked quietly about school and the girls’ classes while Sophie brushed the tangles from Zoe’s curly blond hair.

      “You’re all set now,” she finally said. “Cleaner than a baby kitten.”

      “Will you read to us like Mommy does?” Zoe asked.

      Sophie swallowed another damn lump in her throat. “Sure, honey.”

      “Mommy usually reads to us in her bed since it’s bigger.”

      “Okay. Why don’t you two find a book and I’ll round up Zach and we can meet you there?”

      She found Thomas and Zach in a bathroom down the hall. Tom’s golf shirt was soaked and water covered the terra-cotta tile floor, she saw with amusement, but her nephew sported slicked-back hair and snazzy dinosaur pajamas.

      “Whoa. Was there a tidal wave in here?”

      Zach giggled. “I was showing Uncle Tommy how to dog paddle and some water splashed on the floor.”

      “And on your uncle, by the looks of it.”

      Tom made a wry face, which sent Zach giggling again. She had to admit, the sound was terribly sweet. “Aunt Sophie, did you know Uncle Tommy used to take a bath in this very tub when he was five? And he used to sleep in my room, too.”

      The idea of Thomas as a five-year-old boy was just too difficult to fathom, especially with that soaked cotton showing every ripple of powerful, very grown-up muscles in his chest.

      She sneaked a look at him under her lashes and couldn’t help a quick intake of breath when she met his gaze, his blue eyes glittering with some expression she couldn’t immediately identify.

      “No, I didn’t know that. Aren’t you lucky that he lets you use it now?” Her voice came out breathless as she answered Zach.

      Just tired, she assured herself. Surely she wasn’t still foolish enough to be attracted to the man. Not when she knew exactly how little Thomas Canfield thought of her.

      “The girls and I are going to read a story before bed.” She ignored the fresh surge of melancholy. “Are you interested?”

      “Yeah!”

      “Okay, cowboy. We’re reading in your parents’ room.”

      The fleeting animation on Zach’s pointy little features slid away and he instantly sobered. Oh, sweetheart. Her heart ached all over again for the crushing loss these poor children had endured and she pulled him into her arms for a quick, comforting hug.

      Unlike his sisters, Zach wasn’t big on hugs, she was discovering. He pulled away after a moment and headed down the hall in search of Ali and Zoe. She watched his rounded shoulders for a moment, then turned back to find Thomas studying her again, his eyes gleaming in the bright fluorescent light of the bathroom.

      “How are the girls?” he asked.

      “About the same as Zach. Fine one minute, on the verge of tears the next. It’s going to take them a while to adjust to life without their parents.”

      “I think we’re all going to need time to adjust.”

      She thought of the sudden, radical changes in his life from bachelor military pilot to father-figure businessman overnight. He must be close to overwhelmed but he seemed to be adjusting in typical competent Thomas fashion.

      “Look, I can handle storytime so you can sleep,” he began.

      She shook her head. “I don’t mind. I’m sure you have things to do.”

      “Only one or two million.”

      “Go on, then.”

      “Are you sure? You look exhausted.”

      She didn’t know whether to be warmed by his concern or offended by the implication that she looked like hell. “I’ll be fine. Once we’re done reading, I’m sure I’ll drop like a rock.”

      They stood for a moment in awkward silence, two people who were all but strangers, linked only by a brief, sketchy past and by their shared love for the three children. Still, they had made it through the first evening together without coming to blows, she thought. Maybe they could somehow figure out a way to make this complicated arrangement work.

      She gave him a tentative smile, then turned and followed Zach down the hall.

      Chapter 3

      Some odd, discordant sound wrenched her from sleep. She blinked back to consciousness, to that first shocky awareness of her surroundings. It never took her long, probably because she’d spent her whole life waking up in different beds.

      Narrow, lumpy cots in a seedy Russian hotel, grand ornately carved beds in a haunted Irish castle, communal woven mats on the floor of a grass hut in Samoa. СКАЧАТЬ