Jonathan arrived home the following Wednesday at four. He told himself that his earlier than usual arrival had nothing to do with a vague sense of guilt brought on by Cynthia’s comments about his relations-or lack thereof-with his nephew. If he wanted to leave the office before his usual time, that was his prerogative. After all, he ran Steele Enterprises.
But as he pulled his car into the wide, five-car garage, he knew that he was lying. Even though he’d tried to ignore everything she said, he couldn’t forget her words. While he had no interest in Colton, he didn’t want to repeat the sins of his father. He remembered what it had been like growing up in a house where his only blood relative loathed the sight of him.
He entered the house and tried to figure out what he was going to say to Cynthia. Unfortunately his actions were going to add to her conviction that he was one of the good guys. He would have thought their last time together would have cured her of that, but she was nothing if not perverse.
The foyer was quiet and empty-usual occurrences for the large house. It had been many years since these walls had heard much in the way of laughter. But even as he registered sadness at the thought, he heard a faint sound from upstairs.
He climbed the stairs. The sound turned into singing, accompanied by many high-pitched squeals. Jonathan followed the noise into Colton’s room and from there into the bathroom. He found Cynthia standing by the long vanity. She supported Colton, who sat in a small, blue, plastic tub. A small tape player stood on the closed toilet lid and she sang along with several high-pitched voices. The tape had been made for children but she seemed to know all the words.
Although her back was to him, Jonathan could see her clearly in the mirror. She wore her blond hair in a ponytail high on the top of her head. A damp white T-shirt clung to her chest, outlining her full breasts. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but her skin was lightly flushed from the warm water.
Colton squealed again. Cynthia looked down at him and smiled. Jonathan saw the softness in her expression, the tender curve of her mouth. He briefly wondered if his mother had ever bothered to look at him like that and decided that even if she had, the feelings must have faded, because she’d managed to walk out on him without ever once looking back.
Cynthia glanced up and saw his reflection in the mirror. Her smile broadened. “Now you know how I fill my day,” she said. “It’s not exactly the same world as high finance or whatever it is you do, but I like it.”
Her jeans were a faded shade of blue and they hugged her hips and thighs with a thoroughness he’d been intent on himself the other night. He still remembered how her rear had felt when he’d cupped it. Firm yet yielding. He’d wanted to peel off her clothes and feel that bare part of her.
“Are you really just twenty-six?” he asked abruptly, knowing that he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“Of course.” She grinned. “Hey it could be worse.”
He winced. “You’re practically jail bait. I’m thirty-seven.”
“I know.” Laughter danced in her eyes. “You kiss pretty good for an old man.”
He knew she was teasing, but the phrase definitely hit below the belt. “You kiss pretty good for someone barely out of her teens.”
“How rude,” she said indignantly. “Is this where I remind you that I’ve been legal for several years now? In fact after college I actually left Grand Springs and made my way to the big city.”
She lifted Colton out of the bath and placed him on a fluffy towel she had waiting beside the basin. When the baby was securely wrapped, she cradled him in her arms and walked back into the bedroom.
“What big city would that be?” he asked.
“Chicago. After college I had a job with an advertising firm there. They considered me ‘high potential’ and I was within a couple of months of getting on their management fast track when Frank was injured.”
The humor fled her face as she set the baby on the changing stand. She dried him off as she spoke. “Then I came home and left all that behind. So you see, I’m not the hick you think.”
“Okay, you had a whole year in Chicago. But you live at home now.”
“Only because it’s easier for my mom. We’ve been talking lately that it’s time for me to get back out on my own. She has things pretty much under control.”
“Will you go back to Chicago?”
She shook her head. “My life is here now. I enjoyed my time away but I’m not really that much of a city girl. I like Grand Springs. I learned that I want to be close to my family.” She reached for a diaper and secured it around Colton’s behind.
Jonathan leaned against the door frame and folded his arms over his chest. “Do you regret what you gave up? It sounds like you were on your way with the advertising firm.”
She looked at him. “I don’t regret a minute of it. When Frank was dying, he asked me to help out my mom. I would have done it anyway, but even if that hadn’t been part of my plan I would have dropped everything to honor his request. He’d given me so much over the years. He was both surrogate father and big brother to me. I loved him and I’ll always miss him. Being home made me feel closer to him.”
She spoke with a sincerity he couldn’t help believing. But even as he heard the words, he dismissed them. Mostly because he couldn’t relate to what she was saying. How could anyone inspire that much devotion? It didn’t make sense.
“After a few months I got the idea of starting my own business,” she said. She opened one of the drawers below the changing table and pulled out a one-piece jumper thing. Despite Colton’s attempts to squirm away, she expertly dressed the baby with practiced ease.
“You’re good at what you do,” he said, wondering how it was possible for something as small as a baby to grow into an adult.
“I love my work,” she admitted. “And you’re the reason I had the opportunity to get it all started.”
He groaned. “Don’t go there. I’m not in the mood for the saint speech.”
“All right.” She picked up the dressed baby and settled him in her arms, facing Jonathan. “That’s your uncle,” she told Colton. “Can you say Uncle Jonathan?”
Colton blew a raspberry instead. Cynthia laughed. “He won’t be talking for a few more months, but he’ll get there.”
Jonathan stared at the infant. He could see some of his brother in the child’s features. Or maybe he was seeing his own father instead. He stiffened slightly as he realized that for all his faults, David had managed to create a family for himself. He’d married Lisa and had had a baby. Someone to carry on his name and the legacy of the Steele family.
“How is he adjusting?” he asked, pointing at the baby.
“Not bad, considering.” Cynthia nuzzled the top of his head. “He’s a sweetheart. Some babies only bond with their parents and don’t take to anyone else easily, but Colton is open to attention from all comers. He’s very good-natured and healthy. The kind of baby who is easy to love.”
Love. Something else Jonathan didn’t believe in. Love was dangerous. It too easily turned to hate and vindictiveness. Marriage and children had never been a part of his plan. His cold, empty childhood had told him he never wanted to put any innocent baby through the same kind of hell he’d endured. Watching whatever feelings his father had had for him and his mother turn to anger and loathing had taught him that no love lasted very long.
“Do you want to hold him?” Cynthia asked, holding out Colton.
Jonathan straightened and took a step back. “No.”
“You’re going to have to do it sometime.”
“That’s what I pay you for.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, then turned her attention to Colton. “Uncle Jonathan is very stubborn. Can you say stubborn?”
Her question earned her a faint smile.
Jonathan ignored the exchange. He turned to leave, then paused. “The funeral is Saturday. You said Colton should be there. You still think that?”
“Yes. He won’t remember it, but when he’s older he’ll want to know that he was there.”
“It’s at one in the afternoon.”
“We’ll be ready.”
“You don’t have to go. Lucinda will be there.”
“I don’t mind,” she told him. “I want to be there for both of you.”
He almost didn’t believe her. After all, her comment implied a form of caring. But then he reminded himself that this was Cynthia he was talking about and caring was the one thing she did best.
One day she would learn that being that soft was going to make her life hell. He only hoped that he wasn’t the one to teach her that lesson.
The hillside graves stood side by side. Cynthia swallowed the tears burning her eyes and the back of her throat. She didn’t cry for Lisa and David Steele-after all she’d never met the couple. Instead her sadness came from memories of Frank’s funeral and the realization that Colton would never know his parents.
She hugged the baby closer to her. Colton responded with a cooing sound that eased some of the ache in her heart.
“Are you all right?” Jonathan asked softly from his place beside her.
“I’m fine. Anyway, I’m supposed to be asking you that question. How are you holding up?”
He shrugged. “Fine.”
The funeral service ended and people made their way to the graveside for the final words from the minister. Cynthia glanced at the gathering crowd. It was a cool early November afternoon. Although the sky was clear, the temperature had been dropping for days.
Everyone was appropriately dressed in black for the occasion, but Cynthia saw few signs of real sorrow. No woman wept, no man looked stricken. From what she could tell, the polite collection of people was of mostly business associates. There was no family save Jonathan and Colton, and few friends.
At the church service she’d noticed that most people who had spoken had done so in the abstract, as if they hadn’t really known David or Lisa.
“Where are his friends?” she asked in a low voice.
Jonathan glanced down at her. “I’m not sure he had any. I wouldn’t have known them. David was seven years younger than me. When we were growing up we were always at different places in our lives.”
Cynthia nodded, then looked at Lucinda. The housekeeper had a faint frown pulling her eyebrows together. Cynthia remembered all that she’d said about David. None of it had been flattering.
How could two brothers have been so different, she wondered. How could they have become so estranged?
The minister began to speak. She listened to his words. Colton was quiet as if the baby recognized the solemnity of the occasion. Now he and Jonathan only had each other. Cynthia vowed that she would make sure they bonded together to form a family unit. After all that he had been through, Jonathan deserved someone to love, who loved him back.
David Steele’s house was as coldly modern as Jonathan’s was old-fashioned and welcoming. Both were huge and expensive. While during the dark of night Cynthia could play a silly game of pretend and actually see herself settling permanently in Jonathan’s home, David’s place of residence seemed to mock her from the moment she entered the front door.
Huge white walls soared up two stories, broken only by splashes of color provided by large canvases of confusing modern art. In the center of the massive foyer stood a fat white marble column topped by a slick, black grinning creature-part gargoyle, part devil. The white tile floor made the open area seem even bigger and Cynthia had the feeling that if she spoke, her voice would echo.
Jonathan moved through an archway into another room. She followed and found herself in an open living area. There were huge windows with views of the city and the mountains beyond. Here the color scheme was again predominantly white with only the artwork providing any contrast.
“The view must be something at night,” she managed to say by way of a comment. What she wanted to say was that she’d never been in a place that made her feel so incredibly cold.
“From what I remember, it’s very impressive,” Jonathan said. “I’ve only been here a couple of times before.”
Cynthia shivered. At least she’d thought to have Lucinda take Colton home after the funeral. She hated to think of that bright, happy baby in this ice palace.
Jonathan turned slowly in the center of the living room. “I don’t know why I bothered to come here. There’s nothing that I want.”
Cynthia sighed. “I know you feel that way now, and it makes sense. After all, you and David were hardly close. But time may change your opinion of him, or at least blunt some of your anger. If you don’t take a few mementos now, when you can, you may regret it.”
“So speaks Pollyanna,” he grumbled. “You could find good in the devil.”
“That would be a stretch even for me.” She looked at the sculpture of a wounded bull at the feet of a bullfighter and shuddered. “But I still stand by what I said. Also, we need to pick up some pictures for Colton to have later. And I want to look at his room here. There might be a few things we should take back to your house.” Although she couldn’t imagine it right now.
Jonathan didn’t say anything. Instead he led the way back into the foyer and up the stairs to the second floor. In the white-on-white master bedroom, she saw pictures scattered along a marble-topped dresser. They were all of David and Lisa. Not a single photo showed Colton. Cynthia frowned at the oversight.
“Take whatever you want,” he said. “I’ll go down to the kitchen and get some bags so we can carry the stuff out.”
She nodded, then began to study the framed snapshots. There was David and Lisa on vacation in different parts of the world, a couple of wedding pictures and some candid shots of them around the house. She picked three at random, then added one of the wedding photos. Next, she went down the hall until she found a study.
There were books and a desk large enough to serve as an alternate runway for the local airport. Several of the bookshelves held framed pictures. She walked over and began to study them.
She was looking at a picture of David with an older man when Jonathan entered the room. “Is this your father?” she asked.
He walked over to stand next to her. “Yeah.”
On another shelf she found pictures of the older man with a pretty woman. “Your mother?”
Jonathan shook his head. “David’s mother. My stepmother.” He shrugged. “She was good to me. I missed her when she died.”
There weren’t any pictures of Jonathan in the room. But then how many brothers kept pictures of each other standing around? She collected a half-dozen more pictures and added them to the bags Jonathan had found.
“At least you had one positive family experience,” she said lightly. “Your stepmother. Did you get along with your father?”
The question popped out before she could call it back. Too late she remembered what Lucinda had said about Jonathan’s relationship with the elder Mr. Steele.
His already tense expression tightened. “Not really.”
She leaned against the desk. “But he had to have loved you and been proud of you, even if he didn’t show it. Look at what a success you’ve made of yourself. From what I understand Steele Enterprises was a company going nowhere until you took it over. You turned everything around. He had to respect that.”
“You’d think,” Jonathan said, avoiding her gaze. He walked over to a picture of David with his father. “I guess he appreciated what I could do with the company because he left me in charge. Even my dad had to see that David would only run it into the ground. But I don’t think he respected me.”
“He loved you,” she said firmly. “Sometimes parents have trouble showing it, but he felt it.”
“Did your mother’s family love her?” he asked without turning around. “Is that why they threw her out when she was eighteen? Is that why you never see them?”
“I, ah…” She stared at his broad back, at the dark wool of his suit jacket. “How do you know I don’t see them?”
“You never mention them.” He faced her again. “I can read between the lines. They cut her off without a cent and they’ve never tried to reconcile. Knowing the little I do about your mother, I’m going to guess she made the attempt a couple of times, but they’re not interested.”
All the blood seemed to rush from her head. Every word he spoke was true. “How did you know that?”
“It wasn’t hard to figure out.” He shoved his hands into his slacks pockets. “Families are an invention of the devil. We’re better off going it on our own. That way no one gets hurt.”
“And no one gets loved. You can’t want that.”
“Love is an excuse to cause pain.”
He spoke flatly, then grabbed the bag of photos and left the room. “If you want to look at Colton’s room, do it now. I want to get out of here.”
She heard his footsteps on the stairs.
Cynthia stood in the center of the study for a long moment, then moved in the opposite direction Jonathan had taken. She pushed open doors until she found one that led to a baby’s room. Except this wasn’t like any child’s room she’d seen before. Instead of being warm, welcoming and filled with homey furniture, she felt as if she was staring at a set decorated for a photo shoot.
Pale raw silk covered the walls and hung by the windows. The canopied crib looked both imposing and uncomfortable, the fabric matching the light cream color of the walls. Personal furnishings on the dresser were silver and glass. Although the décor wasn’t as stark as the other rooms, there wasn’t anything soft about the furniture or the decorations. No fuzzy stuffed animals littered the carpeted floor or corners. In fact there weren’t any toys anywhere. It wasn’t a baby’s room at all-it was a showpiece.
“Do you want anything?”
She turned at the sound of the voice and saw Jonathan standing in the doorway. Apparently he’d changed his mind about going downstairs.
She motioned to the room. “I can’t figure out if Colton had a lucky escape, or if I did his room all wrong.”
His dark gaze stared past her, but she saw the bleakness in his expression. She wanted to go to him and have him hold her. She wanted them to kiss and touch and even make love. She wanted to be with him-both to heal and because he made her feel things she’d never felt before. But he was Jonathan Steele and she was just a nanny. She had no place in his world. He spent most of their time together trying to scare her off.
“What are you thinking?” he asked suddenly.
She glanced at him. “That you’re a trial by fire. Knowing you is going to make me stronger.”
“Or you’ll get burned. If I were you, I wouldn’t take odds on getting out unscathed.”
Jonathan had stopped pretending to work about an hour before, but he didn’t leave his study. He knew what awaited him out in the rest of the house-Cynthia. She and Colton lurked in the hallways, waiting to pounce, to claim his attention. She’d been hovering ever since they returned from David’s house. He almost wished he had somewhere to go that night so he could escape her concern.
Except, if he was completely honest with himself, he didn’t want to be anywhere but with her.
He swore under his breath, then picked up the paper Lucinda had left on his desk that morning. Maybe reading about the day’s events would distract him.
But before he could get interested in a single article, he heard the doorbell ring. Seconds later a burst of laughter drifted through the big, lonely house. Conversation wafted back to him, along with more laughter.
Against his better judgment, he left his study and started toward the front of the house. He came to a halt in the doorway to the foyer. Jenny, Brad and Brett were skating on the slick marble. Their in-line skates glided easily over the floor as they circled around each other with casual grace.
Cynthia shrieked from midway down the stairs. “Are you insane? You can’t skate in the house. Stop it now!”
“Ah, Cyn,” one of the boys grumbled as all three of them slowed and looked up at her. “It’s too cool in here.”
“It’s Mr. Steele’s house. I don’t even want to think about what kind of marks you’re leaving on the floor.”
“Lucinda said it was all right,” Jenny said even as she plopped on the floor and started unfastening her skates. The teenager smiled at his housekeeper. “I don’t think we left any marks but if we did, I’ll help you clean them.”
Lucinda leaned against the closed front door and waved away her comment. “I’ll be fine. Mr. Jonathan doesn’t make any kind of mess and I’ve been here for years. So you would have to do a lot of messing up to make up for how clean he is.”
Jenny laughed, but the boys looked confused.
“We missed you,” Jenny told her sister. She stood in her stocking feet. “So we skated over to see you.” She scampered up the stairs. “How is little Colton?”
She cooed over the baby and then carefully took him in her arms. Brad and Brett scrambled to their feet. “So is there like a pool and stuff?” one of them asked.
Leaving the baby with Jenny, Cynthia made her way down the stairs and hugged the boys close. “I don’t, like, know.”
Both boys laughed. “Why do you hate it when we say ‘like?’”
“It’s not correct English. I want you to grow up to speak well.”
“Do you think Mr. Steele has video games?” the other brother asked.
Jonathan watched the exchange. He noticed that Jenny had brought Colton downstairs and was standing close to her sister. Neither of the boys had moved out of Cynthia’s embrace. They stood there, the Morgan children, so alike with their blond hair. Everyone wore sweatshirts and jeans. Even though Cynthia was exactly twice Jenny’s age, she didn’t look out of place with her sister or the boys.
They were her half siblings, he thought. Related in the same way he and David had been related. There was an even bigger age gap, yet somehow they had become a family. His chest tightened slightly as he wondered where he and his brother had gone wrong.
Lucinda bustled into the center of the room. “It’s getting late,” she said. “I think you should stay to dinner. I can cook many good things.”
“That’s great,” one of the boys said.
Jonathan wondered if there was a way to tell the twins apart. He would have to ask Cynthia.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cynthia said. “Mr. Steele doesn’t want an invasion of my relatives disturbing his evening.”
All three kids sent up a chorus of protests. Lucinda joined in, loudest of all.
“I don’t think he’d mind,” he said, speaking for the first time since arriving on the scene.
Five pairs of eyes focused on him. Cynthia blushed. “Oh. I thought you were still in your study. Sorry about this,” she said, motioning to the crowd around her. “They came by to see me for a few minutes, but they were just leaving.”
“There’s no need for them to go if they don’t want to,” he told her. He turned his attention to the children. “Lucinda is a great cook, but I don’t keep her busy enough. Why don’t you three go on into the kitchen and see what she has in the cupboards and freezer, then you can pick something good for dinner.”
Jenny and the boys didn’t need to be asked twice. Jenny handed Colton to her sister, then sped after the other three as they walked across the foyer and through the far door.
Cynthia looked at him. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I think you miss your family and they miss you. Oh, why don’t you give your mom a call and invite her over as well. Unless she has plans.”
An emotion flickered in her eyes. One that told him she thought he was a good man-despite all he’d told her about himself. He opened his mouth to protest her feelings, then closed it. For reasons he wasn’t about to examine he found he liked that Cynthia thought the best of him. Even if it was just for the night.