The seventh inning was a killer. Boston scored four runs, and the Yanks needed not one but two pitching changes. Things didn’t look good.
At the stretch, it was past nine-thirty. Cam knew they’d never see the end of the game if he was going to get Jo to the airport for an eleven-thirty flight to the West Coast.
Anyway, the Yankees were so deep into the bullpen that this one might be a goner. He still had questions. A lot of questions.
Not that he really gave a rat’s ass what happened to Christine McGrath. But his brothers had just been babies when she drove off like Thelma without Louise. They had a right to know. Especially Colin. Cam’s youngest brother had always blamed himself for their mother’s abandonment, but the little monster had been barely old enough to say his own name when she’d disappeared. He owed the information to Colin, and to Quinn.
He took Jo’s hand and squeezed it, liking any excuse to touch her. “It’s time to go,” he said softly.
Her coppery eyes lit with surprise, then she frowned. “You want to stay for the bottom of this inning, don’t you?”
It was his turn to be surprised—that she’d even make the offer. “Yeah. But I’d rather you didn’t stomp me with one of your cowboy boots for missing your flight.”
They stood, he said his goodbyes to all the box neighbors he spent so many nights with every summer, and he walked her toward the tunnel.
He heard the crack of the bat behind him, knowing by the sound of the crowd that it was a line drive. When he didn’t pause, she looked up at him expectantly.
He gave her a sly grin. “You really don’t think I’d let you be late, do you?” The announcer called a double. Double damn.
Slipping her arm through his, she rewarded him with a million-dollar smile. “Thank you, Cam.”
Aw, hell. That smile was worth missing a grand slam. “No problem. As long as you’re willing to admit the truth now.”
Her step slowed. “The truth?”
He pointed a thumb over his shoulder toward the field. “Dull as dirt?”
“Well…” She dragged out the word and squeezed his arm, the intimacy of the gesture hitting him like a blast of heat. “Your enthusiasm could be contagious.”
He laughed and pulled her closer, noting that her step seemed to lighten and her smile seemed genuine. She could sense she was getting what she came for, and that obviously made her very happy.
“You know, Jo,” he said as they left the stadium and stepped onto the streets of the Bronx, “I gotta tell you something.”
“What?”
Maybe it was the elusive, clean fragrance of her hair, or the feel of her slender arm wrapped through his. Maybe it was the odd companionship he’d felt with the first woman who didn’t try to fake that she understood baseball, but was willing to learn. He didn’t really know what the hell it was, but he felt like telling her exactly what he was thinking. “It’s too bad we had to meet under such bizarre circumstances.”
“Why’s that?” She looked up again, her lips parting slightly, her ridiculous but adorable cowboy hat casting a shadow over her delicate cheeks. “Because you think you could have made a baseball fan out of me?”
He froze in his spot, the desire to kiss her hitting him as hard as that line drive he just missed. “Yeah,” he said, taking off her hat so he could get closer. “And I could, too.”
Face to face, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he curled his arms around her waist and she did the same around his neck. Their heights were damn near perfect, he thought. Her eyes at his mouth, just a simple head tilt apart.
“You’re going to sign the paper, aren’t you?”
He nodded once. With her gazing up at him with that engaging look of gratitude on her face, he just had to dip his head about three inches…open his mouth to meet hers and…
He kissed her.
She tasted like salt and beer and mint. Her lips were warm and soft and when they opened to him, he skimmed the delicate inside flesh of her mouth with his tongue. His head buzzed with the instant pleasure, and he tensed his arms around her, angling his head to make the kiss more intense and longer.
And it lasted just long enough to start a fire in his body.
Slowly she pulled away. Her eyes were closed, but that beautiful mouth formed a smile. For some reason, that pleased him more than anything. She hadn’t yanked away and called him a jerk who’d forgotten the serious reason she’d come to him. She looked like she thoroughly enjoyed being kissed by him.
“I’ll tell you what,” she whispered, her mouth still close enough to almost feel the movements of her lips.
“What?”
“I’ll teach Callie baseball and I’ll even buy her a Yankee baseball cap. Okay?”
A million clashing emotions rushed through him, but he tamped them all down.
“You do that, sweetheart.” He slid his hands over the curves of her waist and up the sleek, tight muscles of her back.
Then she lifted her face toward him again, a victorious light in her magical eyes. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me.”
This time she leaned into him and initiated the kiss, all that happiness translating into an instant connection between their mouths.
He slanted his head to taste more of her, cupping her face between his hands and then tunneling his fingers into her magnificent hair. He felt himself stir into hardness against her stomach, the flare of desire shooting through his veins like liquid lightning.
He had to get control or she would most definitely miss her flight. Pulling away, he stroked her lower lip with the tip of his finger, resisting the urge to slide that finger into her mouth, where his tongue had been.
“Nothing like a little baseball to warm a lady up,” he said with a smile.
She just smiled and pulled farther away, not contradicting him on the reason for her sudden light and lusty mood. She’d won her game, and they both knew that accounted for her surprising display of affection.
“Come on, sweetheart.” He tugged her toward the cab stand he knew was around the corner of the stadium. “Let’s get to the airport.”
As they reached the stand, he opened the door of the first available waiting cab. “After you.”
But she didn’t move. “No, Cam, you don’t have to go all the way to the airport. Just—” she glanced at his pocket “—sign.” She gave him a heartbreaking look. Half pleading. Half regretful. “Just sign the paper and I’ll be on my way.”
“And miss making out with you in the cab? Are you crazy?”
She let out a quick laugh. “I think we’ve made out enough for one night.”
She reached toward his jacket pocket, but he backed away. “Then we’ll talk.”
There went that pretty eyebrow, straight into a disbelieving arch.
He inched her into the cab. “Really,” he assured her, unable to resist checking out the backside of the body he’d been holding. “We’ll talk.”
Not that he’d mind kissing her in the back of a cab for an hour, but it was time to talk.
Kissing Cameron McGrath had been stupid. And incredible.
Okay, it had been incredibly stupid.
But Jo had been so pleased that he’d agreed to sign the paper, and so…turned on by him. She’d wanted to kiss him. And, truth be told, she wanted to kiss him again.
But she shimmied to the far side of the cab, and he left a good foot of seat between them. Maybe he did want to talk.
If he would just sign the damn consent form, she’d kiss him silly from here to Kennedy. God, it had been so long since any man turned her on like this. She’d been gun-shy for years after her marriage debacle, which had only been an ugly confirmation that her mother’s theory about men was absolutely right: they leave.
She’d kept herself too busy fixing wrecks to pay much attention to the men who came through the door of her shop. One, maybe two had caught her eye and she’d had the occasional interlude with them, but she couldn’t remember anyone who made her legs turn watery and put that twinge in her tummy.
Katie, on the other hand, had pretty much been addicted to that twinge and not only had her legs turned to water, but her brain basically disintegrated in the company of a sexy guy, too. Now, that led to some big messes, and fixing those wrecks had sucked up the rest of Jo’s personal time.
“So, where’s the father?”
His question surprised her—almost like he’d been following her train of thought. “You mean…Callie’s father?” She hated to say the baby’s name. She didn’t want him to form the least bit of an interest in knowing her. In meeting her. If he did, he’d fall in love, of course. Everyone fell in love with Callie on first sight. She was a replica of Katie, gorgeous, beguiling and downright irresistible.
“Were they married?” he asked.
She sniffed. “He was.”
“Oh.” There was a definite note of disappointment in his voice.
She gave him a tight smile. “In her defense, she didn’t know—at first.”
“And he doesn’t want to take care of his own kid?” Disappointment turned to disgust.
“He’d rather his wife and kids didn’t know about Callie. He gave up parental rights long before the baby was born.”
Cameron blew out a breath and looked out his window. “Why the hell did she mess around with a married man? Was she stupid or something?”
“No,” Jo said quickly. “She was very smart. Brilliant about some things. The business, the books. All that stuff. But…she had a weakness for smooth-talking, good-looking guys. And they, most of the time, had a weakness for her.”
He snorted softly. “You know what they say about the apple and the tree.”
Jo’s spine stiffened at the comment, and she turned to him, stabbing a single finger in his direction. “Look, you can throw your insults at Katie. After all, she’s your little sister and she was a royal pain in the butt. But you cannot—I repeat, cannot—insult Aunt Chris. That woman was a saint.”
“Aunt Chris, is it?” This time he choked a bitter laugh. “We are definitely not talking about the same Christine McGrath.”
Could she be hearing him right? He did blame Chris.
“Why was she a pain in the butt?” he asked before she could set the record straight. At her questioning look, he clarified, “Katie. You said she was a pain in the butt.”
“She was…” How could she put it? “A poor judge of character.” Because Katie longed for a man to fill the void that having no father had caused.
A spurt of guilt accompanied that thought. God, she didn’t want that to happen to Callie. But it hadn’t happened to Jo—and she’d been raised without a father. That desperation didn’t have to happen to a fatherless girl.
“Was she a—” He gave her a meaningful look, and she gave him a point for avoiding the ugly word.
“No,” Jo assured him. “She had morals. She wasn’t a loose girl. She just got involved with a married man and got pregnant. Not the first girl in history to make that mistake.”
“Were you close to her?”
“Like sisters.”
In the shadows of the cab, she thought she saw him wince at that. “How’d you meet her?”
“Chris came to Sierra Springs when I was three, almost four. She was pregnant and looking for work. Evidently, she and my mom—the only other single mother in town at the time—hit it off. Mom gave her a job at her beauty salon and they practically lived next door to each other. Chris was like my aunt, which is what I’ve always called her. And Katie was just always…there. Ever since I can remember.”
For a long time he didn’t say anything. He stared out her window, his expression pained. Jo studied his face, the heart-stopping features changing from dark to light with the passing cars. His deep-blue eyes had a faraway look, his square jaw clenched with some unspoken emotion.
Don’t think too much, Cam. Don’t change your mind.
Just sign the damn petition.
She didn’t want to push too hard, but her nerves felt frayed from waiting. “Have we talked enough yet?” She sucked in a quiet breath, and held it while she waited for his answer.
His gaze shifted from the world outside to focus on her, the hint of seduction back in his eyes as his expression relaxed. “Ready to make out?”
She almost laughed at the tease. “Will you sign that paper now?”
His lips curled up in a smile, and he moved imperceptibly closer, his now-familiar scent tickling her nose as he invaded the little bit of space between them. “You are persistent, I’ll give you that.”
“You should see me rough out a dent.”
“I’d like to,” he whispered, closing more space.
She tapped his rock-hard chest. “Sign.”
He slid his hand under her hair. “Kiss.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“Actually, it’s extortion.” He moved so close she could see the dilated pupils against his irises, even in the unlit cab.
She forced herself to turn to the window, in time to read a green-and-white highway sign as they passed it. “We’re almost at the airport.”
His gaze dropped over her face, settling on her mouth. She had to fight the urge to pull his head closer, to press her mouth against his again. Instead, she reached into his suit jacket pocket and closed her fingers around the envelope.
He must have known what she was doing, but he didn’t stop her.
“Here.” She held it out to him. “Do you need a pen?”
He didn’t take the paper, instead he dropped back against the seat with an air of defeat. “I need to read it.”
Her heart sank. “It’s long. A lot of legalese.”
“My native tongue.”
The cabbie suddenly knocked on the privacy window. “What airline?”
Oh, Lord. They’d arrived at JFK and she still didn’t have his signature.
She opened the envelope while Cameron leaned forward to talk to the cab driver. The document was short, just two pages. On the bottom of the second page was a line for his signature. Digging through her bag, she found a ballpoint pen.
“Here.” She handed both to him.
He just shook his head. “Inside. I’ll read it in the terminal.”
She had to accept that.
The cab pulled to a stop at the departures terminal. While Cameron paid for the cab, she climbed out, holding the paper.
“You don’t have any other bags?” he asked as they headed into the terminal.
“I didn’t plan on staying.”
He shook his head. “What if I didn’t sign that paper? Were you going to just go home?”
“I didn’t come to NewYork to sightsee,” she told him as they stepped into the light. She tapped his chest with the edge of the folded document and slapped the pen into one of his hands. “Here. You read it and I’ll check in.”
She turned from him, leaving him with his legalese, her heart thudding with each step. Please sign. Please sign.
Under the massive display board of flight times and gates, she imagined the words he was reading. It was simple enough. All it said, in a series of endless sentences, was that he, as the oldest sibling and closest living blood relative, released all rights and duties to Callie Katherine McGrath.
Suddenly she felt him behind her, a warm, strong presence. He placed two hands on her shoulders and gently squeezed. “No can do, sweetheart.”
She spun around. “What?”
“Besides the fact that there’s no proof this Callie Katherine McGrath is related to me, this document requires notarization.”
“No, it doesn’t. I already checked that before I left California.”
He pointed to a string of minuscule words across the bottom of the page. “New York is one of the states this line refers to.”
“I have the proof in my purse,” she insisted, but the definitive shake of his head caused the blood to drain from hers. “Can we find a notary?”
“At ten-thirty at night?”
Disappointment made her dizzy and she swore under her breath. If he had too much time, he could change his mind. He had every right, she knew, but she’d hoped this would be a ten-minute conversation.
“There’s nothing we can do tonight,” he said softly. “In the morning we’ll go to my office, get it notarized and you can catch a later flight.”
“But…but…”
“Come on,” he said, putting his arm around her and leaning a little too close. “You can darken my doorstep, after all.”
Cam grinned and reached out to keep Jo’s hat on her head. The rim threatened to tip backward as she gazed up at the top floor of his fifty-two-story building. When she did, the ends of her hair grazed her backside, an image he found wickedly arousing.
“You live here?”
He laughed softly. “Don’t sound so shocked. It’s the Upper East Side. People kill for an apartment in this building.”
“But it’s a skyscraper, not a home.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights?”
She gave him an incredulous look. “I climb mountains.”
“You do?”
“Did Shasta and Whitney in the same year,” she said, her gaze sliding up the building again. “So I suppose I can do your monolith.”
“Fortunately we have elevators for the faint of heart.”
Inside the building, he greeted Gervaise, who nodded to Jo, seemingly unfazed that Cam was bringing home a strange woman in a cowboy hat and boots. Not that his showing up with an unfamiliar woman would surprise his doorman. But the rodeo gear might have elicited at least a raised eyebrow.
“I’m on the thirty-second floor,” he told Jo as they entered the chrome-and-mirrored elevator. “Wait’ll you see the view.”
As the car shot up, she crossed her arms and leaned against the back wall, then closed her eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “This is an express, and some people get a little queasy.”
She shook her head and smiled. “I guarantee you this doesn’t bother me.”
But something did. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “I have an extra bedroom.”
Her eyes flashed open. “I wasn’t worried about that, either.”
The elevator stopped at his floor and he pulled his keys from his pants pocket. “You didn’t really think I was going to sign that without some kind of judge or notary to officiate, did you?”
Her look confirmed that she had thought exactly that.
“Well, maybe some other guy might have, but I’m a lawyer. And whoever told you a signature you wring out of someone in an airport would hold up in court is giving you lousy advice.”
“I’m representing myself,” she said softly. “And you said you’d sign it. Right before you kissed me.”
He opened the door. “You kissed me.”
“First. You kissed me first.”
“Well, someone had to take the initiative to get what we both wanted.”
She stood outside the door as if the heels of her boots were glued to the hallway carpet. “I wanted your signature.”
Was that why she’d kissed him? He put his hand on her back and ushered her into the entryway. “Moot point now. Let’s not argue in the hall.”
She took one step into the apartment, but it looked like it pained her to do so. “I really thought,” her voice cracked a little, then she cleared her throat, “I really thought you were going to sign that petition.”
“I will.” He moved around the living room, turning on a few of his nicest mood-setting lamps, then pressed the button that opened the drapes that covered one entire glass wall. “I bet you don’t have views like this in Sierra Springs.”
She crossed the room, her eyes trained on the show-stopping vista of lights and water. “Our views are different.”
“We’re facing east,” he explained. “That’s the East River, way down there is the Brooklyn Bridge, the—”
She suddenly spun around, sparks shooting from her coppery eyes. “Do you promise?”
He knew what she meant, of course. And he had no reason to torture her by threatening not to sign. She’d answered any questions he had; he simply wasn’t interested in finding out any more gory details about the “saint” who was his mother. He’d sign her paper, but they’d do it legally.
And he had something else to do first. He had to call his brothers, but he knew damn well if he revealed that, she’d start spitting nails. And he didn’t want her spitting nails. He much preferred her happy. The way she’d been outside the Stadium. Warm. Affectionate. Happy.
“Do you promise, Cam?” she asked again.
But he wouldn’t lie. Not even for another one of those temperature-raising kisses. “I’ll do the right thing,” he said vaguely. “I always do.”
“Then we have that in common,” she said, finally looking as though she might relax. “That’s why I’m here.”
She dropped her hat on the sofa, and once again the vision of her on his spare, high-end furniture seemed incongruous. She didn’t belong in this Manhattan high-rise. Not that she looked uncomfortable, just out of place.
“Feel free to kick off those boots, too, sweetheart.” He walked toward the kitchen. “Want a beer?”
“Just water,” she said, ignoring his probably not-so-subtle suggestion to start undressing. Instead he saw her wander back to the window.
When he returned to the living room, she was turned toward the view, but speaking quietly on a cell phone.
“Just don’t give her that soy stuff again, Mom. She hated it.”
Baby talk. It was of no interest to him. From behind, he studied her lazily. Her hair was not as neat as when he’d first seen her, but it tumbled over her back, long and straight and way too tempting to any mortal man.
“’Kay. See you tomorrow.” She clicked off and turned to him, taking the glass of ice-water he held out. “Thank you. I have a nice view, too,” she added, clearly sidestepping the unasked question of who she’d called. “No lights at night, though. Just the moon.”
He sat on the sofa, hoping she’d join him. “No lights? Where do you live?”
“In the foothills. In an old house that I’m refurbishing.”
“Let me venture a wild guess here. You’re doing it yourself.”
She grinned and dropped into the club chair across from him. “Damn straight. I just finished the kitchen.”
He laughed softly and took a swig of beer. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl who played with motors, climbed rocks and laid her own tile.”
“You still haven’t. I don’t touch the engines, I do body work. I don’t climb rocks, I climb mountains. And I didn’t lay any tile. But I built new cabinets and installed butcher-block countertops.” She reached down and slid off her boots with two smooth movements, then planted two little socked feet on the glass coffee table as though it were an ottoman instead of a work of art. “And I defy you to find a single seam in the whole kitchen.”
He couldn’t help laughing. “A regular Jill-of-all-trades.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Really?” He could only imagine. “Like what?”
“Tomboy, mostly.”
He shook his head and took the excuse to openly regard her from top to bottom. Not voluptuous, certainly. But nothing anyone would ever mistake for a boy. “Another wild guess—no one’s called you that in, oh, fifteen years.”
She rolled her eyes with a sarcastic little exhale, then let her head fall back on the chair. “Oh, let’s see…when was the earthquake? Three months ago. I don’t know for a fact, but Katie probably slung that term around three or four times a day. So, yeah, more recently than fifteen years.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d picked up a hint of rivalry, even something akin to jealousy, when Jo talked about this woman, this supposed sister of his.
“Was that what made her a royal pain in the butt?”
“Among other things.” She smiled, her eyes still closed. She surely didn’t realize what a sight she made, the narrow column of her neck exposed, her arms wide open, giving him a direct view of the vee in her collar and the hint of cleavage underneath it.
“Such as?”
“Trouble just follows some people around, you know?” She lifted her head and looked at him. “Like that Li’l Abner cartoon character who had the thunder-cloud over his head all the time. You remember that?”
“Vaguely.”
She shrugged. “Well, that was our Lady Katie. One gorgeous, wild, irreverent, fearless little pack of problems.”
“I got a brother like that,” Cam said with a laugh. “The rebel, Colin.”
“They could be twins.”
Something twisted in his heart. “What do you mean?”
“When I was…looking for information on your family, I found a picture of Colin in an article in Newsweek.”
He remembered the feature story on Colin’s avant-garde architectural design of an opera house in Oregon. “And he looked…like…her?”
She nodded. “The dark hair and eyes. Same face. Only Katie was tiny. Colin looked kind of tall, like you. But they could have been twins.”
Until that very moment he hadn’t bought the story. Not completely. Part of him had been playing a game, so intrigued by his unexpected guest that he hadn’t bothered to take a stand and demand proof of her outrageous claims. He hadn’t even really believed her paperwork to be legitimate until he saw it.
Had he really had a sister? Or even a half sister?
And, good God, did he have a niece?
It’s up to you, Cam McGrath. You’re the oldest. You’ll heal the hurt.
He tunneled his hair with his fingers, then ran his hands over his late-day stubble. Oh, man. Was Gram McGrath right?
“Do you have a picture?” he finally asked.
Wordlessly she stood and walked to the entryway where she’d dropped her bag. “I have pictures of Katie and Aunt—”
“Just Katie.” He had no interest in seeing his mother.
She pivoted on her stockinged foot. “You better pound out that great big chip on your shoulder, Cam. She wasn’t the Wicked Witch of the West.”
He rolled his eyes. “Well, she sure as hell wasn’t the patron saint of lost children.”
“Cameron!” She barked his name so hard he thought she might have stamped her foot at the same time, the color rising in her cheeks. “Would you even consider the fact that maybe you don’t know what happened? Has your father told you everything?”
“He told us enough.”
“Then why would you hate a woman who was turned away by her husband for being pregnant with his child?”
That age-old white light of anger popped in his head, and Cam reached down to his most controlling depths to dim it. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back. “No, sorry, sweetheart. If she was pregnant, it wasn’t my dad’s baby. She wasn’t turned away by anyone. She waltzed out the door to find herself.” He put air quotes around the phrase that had always disgusted him, then let his hands fall to his sides, resisting the urge to curse mightily. He hated this subject.
Her purse hit his stomach with a thwack, and his eyes popped open at the impact. “Hey!” He choked out the word.
“Well I see mule-headed ignorance is as hereditary as good cheekbones in your family.” She stood in front of him, hands on narrow hips, fire in her coppery eyes. “You’ll find some letters in there. From your mother to your father. Note that he never read a single one, but had them returned to her.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, but a response utterly eluded him. Was it possible?
“I think those letters will change your mind about your mother.”
He doubted it. “Why do you care about changing my mind? It doesn’t help your cause.”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “My cause has nothing to do with Christine McGrath. Katie was the mother of the child I want, and she was the idiot who never drew up a will in case something happened to her. But Aunt Chris had a heart of gold, and years ago, someone broke it into a million pieces.” She stabbed a single finger toward his face. “She deserves to be remembered by her sons. And loved for the sacrifice she made. Your hatred is misplaced.”
He just stared at her, processing the speech. Broken heart? Sacrifice?
He hoisted the bag from his lap and dumped it on the floor. “Let’s just leave my mother out of this. I’ll handle the legalities of your friend’s baby in the morning.”
He saw her shoulders sag a little, like some air seeped out of her. “Fine. That’s fine.” She looked around the room. “Where’s that extra bedroom?”
He gestured down a hallway off the dining area. “Last door on your right. There’s a bathroom in there, too.” He glanced at the bag as though it contained a bomb. “Don’t you want that? Don’t you need something to sleep in?”
For a moment she just looked at her satchel, then she reached down and unzipped it, pulling out a small, striped cosmetic bag. “I need my toothbrush.” She stuck her other hand inside, her gaze still on him as she rooted around, then flipped out something white. “And clean underwear.”
She turned on her heel and headed down the hall. “I sleep naked. Everything else in there is for you.”
He watched her until she disappeared inside the last door, then dropped his head back with a soft groan. Why would his father lie to them?
After a minute he stared down at the bag, imagining just what contents she’d brought for him. His fingers itched to dig through it. To read those letters. To know the truth.
Or at least someone else’s version of the truth.
He slowly reached down and pulled out a thick stack of papers, folded and wrapped in a rubber band. Like a dealer cutting the deck, he took one from the middle of the pack and slid one piece of paper out, then unfolded it.
Dear James,
Your daughter has turned four.
He closed it again.
He really didn’t want to deal with this. He wanted to think about anything but the possibility that his father had lied to them. He’d much rather think about the woman who slept naked, who was probably in the act of undressing right now in his guest bedroom. But he pulled out another letter at random, his gaze sliding down to the middle of the handwritten page.
I long for news, a word, a picture. Anything about my boys. Is Colin riding a bike yet? Does Quinn still climb trees? Is Cam playing baseball this year?
His heart spiraled straight into his stomach and hit bottom like a boulder.
Oh, man. This changed everything.