Suddenly Family

“Why are these animals so important to you?”

The nature of his interest made her lips curve. “For some of the same reasons children are important. They need protection and care,” she explained. “Because I care, I do what I can for them.”

She looked as she sounded, as if she were certain he would understand something so basic.

He didn’t understand at all.

Not sure why it mattered, he ran a skeptical glance from the curls disappearing behind her back, over her clear, unembellished skin and paused at the hand-strung brown beads skimming her collarbone. His assessing glance narrowed on her shoulders.

He was unable to detect so much as a hint of a bra strap or cup beneath the soft fabric of her shirt, nothing to support or mold the high, gentle swells of her breasts. Making himself ignore the thought of how perfectly she would fit in his palms, he forced his glance to the loose linen drawstring pants riding her slender hips.

There was nothing artificial about the woman. Nothing made up, made over, restrained, restricted or enhanced. She was completely, unabashedly natural. He’d even bet her underwear was 100 percent pure cotton.

Not that he was ever going to find out. Since he was no more interested in a relationship than he’d heard she was, his thoughts were actually leaning more toward her beliefs than her bedroom. He now had the nagging feeling she was one of the vegan ilk who had refused to baby-sit at his house because he had leather furniture. “You’re a vegetarian.”

At the flat conclusion in his voice, T.J.’s expression mirrored his own.

“So?” she prompted.

“So are you into some esoteric philosophy that regards animals as gods or something?”

She had already struck him as being a little unconventional, which made her fit in perfectly on Harbor where eccentricities were the norm. The island was populated with a curious blend of kiwi farmers, entrepreneurs, loners and dot-com millionaires, each perfectly content to march to his own drummer. Considering who her mother was, he figured T.J.’s philosophies could be light-years away from his more traditional leanings.

“Do you mean, do I worship cows and that sort of thing?”

“Well…yeah,” he rather unintelligently concluded.

Her smile emerged, as warm as sunshine and faintly chiding. “My burgers are made of tofu,” she admitted, “but I’ve never confused something on four legs with anything other than what it is. I just happened to grow up with animals. They were always around the communes we stayed in when I was a child.”

One slender shoulder raised in a faint shrug. “They were my friends,” she explained, her voice softening as she thought of how much company and comfort those animals had given her. “It’s only natural that I should provide a safe environment for those who need it now.”

For a moment, Sam said nothing. He simply watched her study the wrenches on the cart before she glanced around the cavernous space. She seemed infinitely more at ease than she’d been when he’d first seen her standing in the office doorway, and terribly curious about what surrounded her.

He was feeling more than a little curious himself. Her comments about being raised in a commune had just summoned images of tie-dye and love beads.

He’d certainly heard of the communes of the sixties and seventies and their free-living lifestyle. He even knew several aging hippies himself, a few of whom ran the Mother Earth Spa on the north end of the island and whose faithful clientele flew in regularly on his airline. Then there was her mother.

“The animals lived in the commune with you?”

“I don’t remember any living with us. Except for this mangy yellow dog someone had. But he didn’t stay very long. The guy or the dog,” she mused. Having perused the wrenches on the cart, she looked back at him. “Metric, right?”

He nodded at her query and watched her glance swing to a spare propeller blade hanging above the long, brightly lit workbench. “For as far back as I can remember,” she continued, crossing her arms as if to keep from touching anything, “if I wanted company I headed for the woods.”

“How many people did you live with?”

“Anywhere from half a dozen to twenty or so.”

“Weren’t there any other children?”

“Sometimes. That depended on where we were. And on the weather. Winter tended to weed out the wannabes.” Tipping her head back, she studied the structure of the wing flap above her. “Even when there were other kids, they didn’t stay long enough to really get to know.” No one stayed long. Ever. Transience had always been part of the life. “But there were always animals. I’d find their dens and play with the babies.”

“You’re kidding.”

Her attention remained on the wing as she shook her head, her smile rueful. “I know. I’m lucky I didn’t lose a limb.”

“Or your life.”

“That, too,” she easily agreed. “Some babies’ mothers can be very protective. I think bears are the most aggressive,” she mused, still checking out the hardware. “But I ran into a beaver once that was a close second. She wasn’t happy at all about me playing with her kits.”

Without thinking about what he was doing, Sam let his glance slide over the long line of her throat as she followed the flap to the light on the wing tip. His first inclination was to ask where her mother had been while she had wandered the woods in search of playmates. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, though. Wasn’t sure he wanted it to matter.

What she’d just so artlessly told him conjured the uncomfortable image of a very isolated child.

“It sounds lonely.”

Her inspection of his plane came to an abrupt halt. Meeting his eyes, she tipped her head to study his.

“It was,” she admitted with compelling candor. Sympathy unexpectedly moved into her soft expression. Her voice, already quiet, quieted further as she searched his face. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Feeling alone like that, I mean.”

She had caught him off guard before. She’d just never caught him as unprepared as he felt at that moment. As it had the other day at the bookstore, her candid manner had pulled him past the protective wall he’d built around himself, caused him to be curious and left him without the distance he tended to keep between himself and nearly everyone else.

He had no idea what he’d done to give himself away, but she had somehow recognized the emptiness living inside him. As ruthlessly as he battled that feeling, as diligently as he tried to avoid thinking about why it was there, the last thing he wanted was to talk about it now.

He dealt with the feeling enough when he was alone.

Feeling exposed, hating it, he took a step back and nodded toward the plane. “I think I’d better check on your son.”

The understanding in her eyes flickered out like a candle in a draft. He could even feel her draw back from him as he moved past her, tension radiating from him in waves.

“Hey, buddy,” he called, forcing that tension down for the child’s sake. “How’s it going in there?”

“Do I hafta get out now?” came the little boy’s reply.

T.J. blinked at Sam’s back and tried to focus on what he was saying to Andy. Something about rudder flaps, she thought, but little registered. The way he’d so abruptly changed the subject made it feel as if he’d just slammed a door in her face.

Not at all sure what she had done, she was trying to figure it out when the distant drone of an airplane filtered in with the breeze. In a matter of seconds the sound intensified, reverberating through the building, then faded off as the plane passed, banked and set itself down on the runway.

“That’s Zach,” Sam said, appearing to note the tail numbers of the E & M craft taxiing off the runway. Wanting to see what was going on, Andy crawled to his knees on the seat. “I was sure Chuck would get here before him.”

Sam seemed to be talking more to himself than to the child who now asked if another plane was coming soon.

All T.J. cared about was getting out of there before they were joined by anyone else. Feeling awkward and uneasy, she moved to where Sam shadowed the cockpit door.

“Come on, Andy,” she murmured, edging in front of Sam’s solid-looking chest. “It’s time for us to go. Mr. Edwards has things he needs to do, and we don’t need to be in the way.”

Andy clearly didn’t want to leave. There were too many new things here for him to see. Though disappointment made him hesitate, he dutifully put the Game Boy back from where he’d seen Sam take it and held his arms out so she could lift him to the ground.

Andy’s tennies hit the concrete with a faint squeak. Turning, she automatically took her little boy’s hand before glancing up at the man towering over her. Something like caution shadowed his features, along with a fair amount of the reserve she was feeling herself.

“It’s Sam,” he corrected, frowning at her turn toward formality.

“Then thank Sam for letting you sit in the plane, Andy.”

“Thank you,” came the child’s sweet reply. He smiled then, the dimple in his cheek as deep as a cherry pit. “It was way cool.”

A smile involuntarily twitched at the corner of Sam’s mouth. “Way cool, huh?”

The child’s head bobbed, but Andy’s attention was already being diverted to the plane that had taxied to a stop near the hangar. The circular gray blur of the propellers slowed to reveal three still blades.

“Well, we’d better get going,” T.J. said quietly, heading around Sam with her son in tow. “I’ve kept you long enough.”

A muscle in Sam’s jaw jerked. “You haven’t kept me from anything.”

She shrugged, offering a smile that looked uncomfortable at best. “Your partner is here, and we need to get home and feed the animals.” With the graceful sweep of her hand, she motioned toward the open end of the hangar. Dusk had already robbed the sky of its color. “It will be dark soon.”

Sam’s only response was a nod. He hadn’t meant to be rude when he’d walked away from her moments ago. He knew he had been, though. He also knew he had offended her in the process, but he’d had no idea how else to handle her question. He had no intention of opening a vein for this woman. Or anyone else, for that matter. And that’s what it felt like he would be doing if he were to acknowledge to anyone else the void inside him. So he let her go with a wave to her kid and swore silently to himself as he watched them walk away. From her polite reserve after he’d killed the light in her eyes, it was as clear as rainwater that she’d crawled inside a shell.

He’d liked her a whole lot better when she was being feisty and straightforward. She seemed far less vulnerable that way.

The knowledge that he’d been the one who’d caused her to withdraw kicked him square in the conscience as his partner walked inside. All she had done was let him know she understood how lost and alone a person could sometimes feel. Just because he didn’t care to share that understanding didn’t mean he couldn’t have handled the situation with a little more finesse. After all, he still needed her to watch his kids.

“Hey, Sam. That was T.J. wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. It was.”

“That must have been one tough first lesson.”

His partner of thirteen years strode past the loaded cargo dolly with his log book in one hand and pure speculation carved in his face. Zach McKendrick was a regular guy. The best, as far as Sam was concerned. He was also an excellent business partner and one of the best bush pilots in the entire northwest. The strapping, ex-jet-jockey didn’t make a bad brother-in-law, either.

“What makes you think the lesson was tough?”

Scratching his jaw, Zach shrugged. “It’s not like her to ignore a person. I know she saw me, but she kept going anyway. She usually asks about Lauren. Makes small talk, you know?” His shrewd eyes narrowed. “She seemed awfully anxious to get out of here.”

“She has animals she needs to feed.” Later he might consider that he’d truly screwed up his best prospect for temporary child care. Now he just wanted to do something…physical. “Do you have anything to unload?”

“The mail from the outer islands. Are you changing the subject?”

“Yeah,” he muttered and grabbed an empty dolly. “I am.”

Curiosity arched Zach’s eyebrows. “Why don’t you want to talk about T.J.?”

“Because she’s not taking the lessons.” That was part of it, anyway.

“Does that mean she won’t be watching Jas and Jenny?”

That was another part of it. “I don’t know yet. I haven’t had time to come up with anything else to barter with.”

Considering the way she’d withdrawn from him, the bigger problem was whether she’d be willing to barter at all.

Chapter Four

She had no one to blame but herself. She’d dropped her guard. Forgotten to be wary.

T.J. dumped a scoop of sweet oats into a dented metal pie pan and set it inside one of the large wire enclosures she’d built into her woods. It had been more than twenty-four hours since she’d walked away from Sam Edwards, yet she simply couldn’t shake the sting she’d felt when he’d so abruptly rejected her understanding.

It didn’t help matters that she’d run into his sister a while ago, and now felt embarrassed on top of everything else.

The scent of damp pine and sea air filled her lungs as she pulled a deep breath. She needed to let it go, at least for now, so she could focus on her chores before the last of the day’s light faded. She and Andy had returned from a birthday party for one of his friends less than twenty minutes ago and the pale twilight wouldn’t last much longer. She had already helped her tired little boy through a modified version of his nighttime routine and tucked him into bed. Now she needed to get the animals fed so they could bed down, too.

Calmed by her own rituals—at least, telling herself she was, she grabbed the hose and the handles of her loaded wheelbarrow and headed into the woods. The narrow path led to the big enclosures she’d built near the creek at the back of her house. Inside the farthest one, two orphaned fox pups stopped chasing and tumbling with each other long enough to check out the food she spooned into their dishes. Heading back up the path after she’d secured the door, she slipped fish into a cage for the seagull someone had shot in the wing and left to die and veggies into the enclosure for a wild hare that had tangled with something with claws, murmuring to them all along the way.

Even as occupied as she was, she couldn’t shake the feelings still nagging at her.

Those feelings were mercilessly easy to identify. She felt regret because she had clearly stepped into Sam’s personal space and stepped over a line he didn’t want crossed. And stung because she’d reached out only to have him pull back like a snapped spring and slam an invisible door. The embarrassment was there because, thanks to Lauren, she now realized he probably thought she’d been coming on to him.

The embarrassment she could live with.

It was the rejection she hadn’t been prepared for.

She’d left herself wide open for it, too, which wasn’t like her at all. Over the years, she’d honed her reserve with men, developed a finely tuned sense of caution with any human possessing a Y chromosome. She trusted only children, animals and books and neither expected nor wanted anything from any male other than her son.

That reserve had failed her, however, with Sam Edwards. Until the moment he’d walked away from her in the hangar, her usual reticence simply hadn’t existed.

The front wheel of the wheelbarrow squeaked as she moved her supplies toward the next enclosure and the hole of twilight at the beginning of the path. It had taken her only minutes of the drive home last night to figure out why that caution hadn’t been there.

The sympathy she’d felt for him having lost his wife and being left to raise his children on his own had prevented it. Even the way he kept to himself, his work and his little family had served to sabotage her usual defenses. It was almost as if she’d sensed a kindred sprit in him, as if they’d had so much in common that there had been no need for protection. Only, there hadn’t been a connection at all. She just hadn’t been able to avoid responding to him any more than she could avoid responding to any wounded animal.

Water trickled from the end of the long garden hose as she hauled it back up the path. She was almost finished with her chores, but she wasn’t finished lecturing herself just yet. After all, no one knew better than she did that wounded animals needed to be approached with caution. She’d learned that lesson when she was eleven years old and tried to play nurse to a cougar. The beautiful sleek animal had been hit by a car and left for dead by the side of the road. The big cat had turned on her when it had come out of its stupor and missed slicing her face with its claws by scant millimeters before bolting into the woods to heal or die on its own.

A person would be a fool to forget a lesson like that.

Two adolescent raccoons chittered as she left a plate of cat food in their enclosure and added more water to the plastic bowl they’d dumped. In the larger enclosure at the edge of the trees by her lawn, a lame doe made her way to the sweet oats T.J. had left her a while ago. Mindful of the doe’s daughter following her as she fed the last of her charges, she smiled at her little shadow.

“This isn’t for you,” she murmured to the tiny fawn and dipped into the sack of oats once more. “It’s another serving for your mama. You need to talk to her about your meal.”

The fawn’s back barely reached T.J.’s knees. With the metal scoop in one hand, she bent to smooth her other hand over the white spots scattered over the animal’s lovely rust-colored coat.

She’d barely touched the soft hide when she suddenly went still.

So did the fawn. Her little head jerked toward the narrow gravel road beyond the house as the sound of crunching rock and a vehicle engine grew louder. Seconds later, the animal’s whole body on alert, they both stood frozen in the headlights of a large dark truck.

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