Claire’s throat tightened. Was it possible that Kane had moved in? Her father hadn’t mentioned where his nemesis had put down roots, but someone lived across the water. “Stop jumping at shadows,” she reprimanded, and Sam, who was reaching for the doorknob, stopped short.
“What?”
“Just talking to myself. Go out and see if your brother’s hungry. I can whip up a turkey sandwich or heat some pizza.”
“He won’t say anything,” Sam said with a lift of her slim shoulder. “He’s just a big grouch.”
Amen, Claire thought, reaching into one of the sacks and stuffing a pint of strawberries into the refrigerator. At first she’d hesitated, not wanting to take her father’s charity, but then she’d decided she was being selfish, that her children could heal here in this rambling house in the woods, perhaps even thrive. So she’d taken Dutch up on his offer and moved in. The house still looked bare. Her small amount of furniture plus what had been left years before couldn’t begin to fill over twenty vast rooms. In the distance she heard the trill of a meadowlark and the soft rumble of a boat trolling in the lake.
“Well, here goes nothing.” Samantha, having easily shaken the Colorado dust from her heels, was enthusiastic, glad for a change, whereas Sean hated his new life in Oregon and treated Claire as if she were an enemy, the person responsible for all his misery, which, of course, she was.
“I’ll make some lemonade.”
“It won’t do any good, Mom,” Samantha said with a knowledge far too wise for her tender years. “He likes being a jerk.” She sauntered through the door, walked up to Sean, and though Claire couldn’t hear the exchange of conversation through the closed window, she got the idea. Sean, arms folded over his chest, jaw thrust forward in silent accusation, didn’t respond. Samantha threw a look over her shoulder and met her mother’s gaze. She didn’t have to say “I told you so.” Claire read it in her eyes.
Great. Claire attempted and failed at avoiding hateful thoughts directed at her ex-husband. Sean needed a father figure in his life right now, a man who could straighten him out, and definitely not someone who thought any female over the age of fifteen was fair game. Shuddering, Claire put away the rest of the groceries and, from the corner of her eye, watched as Samantha skittered off to explore the woods near the lake. Sean stretched, cast his mother a bitter glance through the glass, and, as if he didn’t want to be within ten feet of her, sauntered toward the stables, where three horses, two geldings and a mare, now resided, compliments of Dutch Holland.
She shut the refrigerator as someone rapped loudly on the front door.
Claire wiped her hands on a towel. Maybe Tessa or Randa had stopped by. It had been several days since the confrontation with Denver Styles in this very house, and she hadn’t heard a word from either of her sisters. “Coming!” she yelled as she hurried through the hallway to the foyer. She threw open the door.
Kane stood on the porch.
Claire held on to the doorknob for support. Her heart took a fateful, stupid leap.
“Claire.” One side of his mouth lifted in an arrogant but hauntingly familiar smile. Taller than she remembered, his features hardened by the passing years, he would never again be considered a boy. A breeze had the nerve to ruffle his hair—light brown, sun-streaked, and in need of a cut—while he stood, arms crossed over his chest, stretching a wheat-colored cotton sweater at the shoulders.
A vise seemed to clamp over her stomach, slowly turning and squeezing so hard she could barely breathe. He was the one man she had no right ever to lay eyes upon again, and he was here, standing on her front porch, as bold and brash as the wild, rebellious teenager he’d once been. “What’re you doing here?”
“I thought I’d welcome you back to the old neighborhood.”
“But you . . . you . . .” She caught hold of herself before she came across as the tongue-tied adolescent she’d once been—the rich girl he’d adored, the girl who had scorned him . . . well, for a while. She licked her lips and crossed her arms over her chest, as if protecting her heart. “Dad says you’re writing some kind of tell-all book about him, about us, and about Harley and the night he died.”
A dark cloud passed behind his gold eyes but was gone in an instant. “That’s true.”
“Why?”
His lips twisted cynically. “It’s time.”
“Because Dad’s thinking of running for governor?”
A slight elevation of his eyebrows. “That’s one reason.”
“And the others?” Her hands were beginning to sweat.
His gaze narrowed, shifting for a second to her lips before returning to her eyes and settling there. Claire’s heart thumped mercilessly. “I think I—we—owe it to Harley.”
“You were hardly best friends.”
Again that chilling smile. “The reasons for that run too deep to mention, don’t you think?”
She swallowed hard against a throat so dry it ached. “What happened between us—” she said, then stopped, gathering herself. Don’t let him get to you. Not again. “Was there something you wanted to say to me?”
“More than you’d want to hear. I figured your old man told you what I was up to and tried to make it look like I was on some kind of witch-hunt.”
She nodded. “That’s about the gist of it.”
He snorted. “Okay, so there’s some truth in the fact that I’d love to show good old Benedict that he’s not above the law, that he can’t always bribe his way out of a mess, that he’s not goddamned royalty around here.”