Sophie looked up at Brad and waited.
"You want to?" Brad asked.
Sophie nodded.
"Then run get your coat and your new hat and mittens."
Sophie rushed to the bedroom and came out carrying her jacket, which had mittens stuffed into one pocket and the hat stuffed in the other. Brad held up the jacket for her to slip her arms into, then zipped up the front and helped her on with her mittens and pulled the hat down over her ears. "Now can I have a hug?" he asked.
Sophie shook her head. "I don't know if you're my daddy," she said. "I'll wait and see what Mommy says when God brings her here." She turned and left.
Brad stood, and watched Sophie trudge through the snow with Ricky, who looked at her and smiled, and in an instant Sophie smiled back. But before he shut the door, he saw Justine walking toward the cabin, arms laden with bags. She caught his eye, and said, "I see you survived your first day as daddy." As she approached, she smiled.
Brad couldn't help smiling back, or noticing the blush to Justine's cheeks from the wintry weather, or the glint of icy tears from the cold, or the perfect shape of her face with her hair tucked inside a wool cap with Nordic patterns on it. About the time he didn't think the woman could get any more beautiful, she proved him wrong. Even her lips, slightly blue from the cold, seemed more defined. More...
Don't even go there, Meecham.
Lips, breasts, body... The woman herself. All off limits. A dead end.
Justine stomped the snow off her shoes and nudged past him, then dropped the packages on the couch beside Sophie's gifts for God and swept the cap off her head, sending her hair cracking from static electricity and standing out to frame her face in a cloud of russet-red.
"I got everything I wanted," she said. Unzipping her jacket, she shrugged out of it and hung it on one of several wooden pegs by the door, then turned in a slow circle for Brad's perusal. "Am I modest now?" she asked, stopping in front of him and waiting for his response.
Brad's eyes roamed down the length of her, taking in the wide-heeled, low-top black boots with black lacings, reminiscent of Mary Poppins, if that had been her intent, then moving up her gray wool slacks to the high-neck, long-sleeve white jersey top. He noted that she was wearing something under it, so there were no signs of the hard nubs of her nipples. It bothered him that he wanted her more than when she was naked in the hot springs pool, if that were possible. The fact was, he wanted Justine Page. Period.
"Well, what do you think?" she asked, eyes bright with expectation.
"You look nice," he said. "Ordinary."
Hell, there wasn't anything ordinary about the woman. He had the bizarre desire to see her walking down a catwalk, with that subtle crossover step models did when strutting their stuff, and watching her modeling everything from long designer tee-shirts to sheer gowns opened down the front to expose the inside curves of her breasts, and sitting back and letting everyone there appreciate what she had, knowing it was only for him.
For the first time in his life, he could understand the concept of mistresses. He needed a modest woman with high morals to help him raise Sophie, but he wanted Justine for himself, away from his family. Justine just as she was, glib, flippant, wanting him to show her what an orgasm was. And he would if she were his mistress. Endlessly.
But the bottom line was, he couldn't cheat on a wife, so Justine would never be his mistress, and he'd never put that ring on her finger either. The idea had crossed his mind a week ago, but he'd get over it. Life had a way of shoving the I wants aside.
"I'm glad you approve," Justine said, then turned and went into the bathroom and shut the door. After a few minutes, she returned, and said, "Sophie must have had a bath. There are still bubbles in the tub."
"Yeah, and we need to talk about that," Brad said, eyes returning to the jersey and the band of white beneath it. Maybe a sport's bra?
"Talk about what?" Justine asked, hands draped on her slender hips.
"About Sophie. She doesn't have any sense of modesty."
"She's five."
"That's what worries me. Sophie was playing with her nipples when I was trying to dress her. She said it felt good."
"It probably does," Justine said. "There are lots of nerve endings there. Sometimes it happens to me when I get cold, sometimes when something rubs against them, like when I wear a tee shirt with nothing under it. Is that all you're worried about?"
Brad had to get the image of the tee shirt and Justine in it out of his mind before he could get on with the next issue. "Sophie tried to make bubble breasts, and she also spread her legs and put bubbles there. Do girls play with themselves like boys do, and am I going to have to worry about Sophie sticking things up herself?"
"No," Justine said, "she was having fun in the bubble bath, but humans are sexual creatures, and her sensitive spots are there from birth."
Brad drew in a weary breath. He hadn't expected this with a five-year-old, least of all not a girl. "I told her she wasn't to get naked with boys or men, only me and the doctor, which brought up another issue. She asked if she could get naked with Ricky if they were playing doctor. When you were a kid, if you'd been playing doctor with a boy and he told you he wanted to stick it between your legs, what would you have done?"
"Kids don't play that way," Justine replied. "They're usually just curious about how the other looks, but that's why you don't let boys and girls play unsupervised. I was unsupervised with the boy next door and we ended up having a very close inspection at each other before my mother caught us and sent the boy home, but Sophie's safe with Ricky as long as they're supervised and involved in good clean fun, like now. They're building a snow man and having a good time together, and Sam is with them. It's all good."
The image of a five-year-old Justine and a five-your-old neighbor boy examining each other bothered him because he could see Sophie doing that because she had no inhibitions. "Would Grace have done that with a boy?" he asked, still wondering if promiscuity was inborn.
"I don't know," Justine replied. "Grace always played with baby dolls. She never had Barbies. But I had Barbies, and a Ken, and I wanted breasts like Barbie. But I couldn't understand why Barbie had breasts and Ken didn't have a penis. So I made one. I poked a hole in Ken's crotch and stuck a broken toothpick in it. The whole Barbie Ken thing was provocative. I intentionally let Ken and Barbie see each other naked. I even put Ken and Barbie in bed like I'd seen on a soap on TV. I was a twisted ten-year-old, but if I had a daughter, I'd never let her have Barbies. She'd have baby dolls like Grace had."
Brad made a mental note to buy Sophie a baby doll. And new underwear. And she needed undershirts so she wouldn't play with her nipples. "Did you play with your nipples?" he asked.
"Probably," Justine replied. "I can't remember. But you're obsessing over something that's normal little girl behavior. It doesn't mean Sophie will turn out like me. Grace was a virgin when she married her first husband, and I imagine even she played with her nipples since she started getting breasts when she was ten and had to wear a bra before she was eleven."
"That's less than five years away," Brad said, worried.
"Yeah, and the monthly period comes with it," Justine reminded him, "so you'll have to have a stash of supplies ready, and Sophie will have to know what's coming so she can tell you when it happens. Then you get to explain what to do with a tampon." She gave him that pat look she got when she'd one-upped him.
And she had. He had no idea how he'd talk to Sophie about tampons. She was an independent little cuss; he couldn't even get her to give him a hug. And she had a CEO attitude about her—looks that could kill, stomping her foot to emphasize a point. And the point was, she was running the show, not him. "Thank God that's five years away," he said, "Do they make tiny little sports bras for five-year-olds?"
"I doubt it," Justine replied. "Speaking of which..." She raised her shirt, revealing a white sports bra. "Now you have nothing to complain about. I'm completely respectable."
; Brad stared at the white band around her breasts. She kept referring to herself as flat chested, but that wasn't what he saw. His reaction below the waist was immediate. His desire to take what she was offering almost his undoing. "You don't have to show me," he grumbled.
Justine lowered her shirt. "I wanted to," she said. "I'm also a sexual creature, although I'm only now realizing it."
"Don't talk like that," Brad said. "It's a come-on for a man. If you want men to treat you with respect you can't be acting like you do."
"I'm just being honest," Justine said. "Sex never interested me before I met you. It was a means to an end. Now it's something I want, but only with you."
"You don't even know me," Brad said.
"I know you have empathy for others, and that you're worried about a little girl you didn't know existed three days ago and now plan to take on the responsibility of raising her, and that you want to make a respectable woman out of me when you know you could get me into your bed simply by asking. And I also know you made vows you intended to keep to a fool of a woman who didn't appreciate what she had."
"Speaking of vows, there's another problem," Brad said. "Sophie said Yvette was married and the way Sophie talked, the man wanted to take custody of her after Yvette was killed. From what I got out of it, Elsa brought Sophie here to keep the man from doing that, but I don't remember Elsa's last name, so I can't contact her to find out if there's anything to it."
"Moroz," Justine said. "Her name was Elsa Moroz."
Brad eyed her dubiously. "I'm surprised you remember."
Justine shrugged. "It's something I learned on the way up. Remembering names, body language, knowing when someone's lying or hiding something. Why they're hiding it. Who's sleeping together. All part of the game. Sometimes it comes in handy."
"What did you learn about Elsa Moroz?" Brad asked.
"That she was keeping something from you," Justine replied. "She said she was in the military, but someone in the military would say they were in the Army or Air Force, or whatever branch they were in. Also, when you asked if there was someone who could take Sophie, she hesitated, and her eyes shifted nervously when she told you there wasn't. She was also good at deflecting questions. When you asked why Yvette didn't try to contact you, she asked why you didn't contact Yvette. Maybe Yvette didn't contact you because she was married."
Brad tried to remember if the subject of marriage had come up. It had with him. He made it clear he was divorced. He also told her he didn't do married women. That much, he remembered. Thinking back, when he asked if she'd ever been married, she answered him by slithering up his body and kissing him like there was no tomorrow. For what? To distract him? She had. The subject of marriage never came up again. Four days later, when she left him on the platform at the train station, he thought he meant something to her, that they'd one day pick up where they'd left off. He'd given her his address so she could contact him, but she never did.
"There was also Elsa's claim that she sent you a letter that never arrived," Justine said. "I didn't think then, and I don't think now, that she ever sent a letter. I think she grabbed Sophie and left in a rush and came straight here. Maybe it was to keep her away from whoever the man is. She also knew you were staying here, and the ranch has a phone. She could have contacted you that way."
Brad couldn't deny any of what Justine said. As he paced the floor, he said, in a reflective tone, "If Yvette was married when she got pregnant, the man could have a legal claim on Sophie. I need to find out more about him. I don't want someone taking Sophie, especially someone Elsa Moroz was concerned enough about to take Sophie away where he wouldn't find her."
"What about the box Elsa gave you?" Justine asked. "Is there anything in it that might give some indication whether Yvette was married?"
Brad shrugged. "I don't know. I only looked in it once. I saw Sophie's birth certificate that listed me as her father and never went through the rest of the stuff."
"Then you should now," Justine said.
Brad went to his bedroom and returned with the box and unfolded the flaps on top. After setting the birth certificate aside, he fingered through the contents, mostly mementoes, a pouch with jewelry, and numerous photographs lining the bottom of the box. Lifting them out, he glanced though them, finding photos of Yvette with Sophie, some of Yvette and a man and a woman he assumed were her parents, and a few of Yvette as a baby, and as a toddler, and one close to the age she was when he last saw her. He looked in the box again, and saw, laying against the bottom, a plain envelope. Lifting it out, he saw that it was sealed, with the words hand written across the front in ink: For Brad Meecham, upon my death.
Brad stared at the envelope for an inordinate amount of time. The thought that Yvette felt it necessary to seal something in an envelope for him, upon her death, was disturbing, almost as if she were expecting something to happen.
She was killed by a hit-and-run driver.
He wondered now if the police ever learned who the driver was. Yvette's sister never volunteered the information, and he never asked. The idea that Yvette might have been run down on purpose by someone who had something to gain by her death was troubling.
Taking a knife from the kitchen, he sliced open the envelope, unfolded the single page, hand-written in what he presumed was Yvette's hand, and began to read the words that were addressed directly to him, allowing Justine to read over his shoulder as he did:
Dear Brad, You will not be reading this letter unless something has happened to me. The reason I never contacted you after I left Macedonia was because I was married. I know I should have told you at the time, but I didn't. I have no excuse. But when I was with you those four days I didn't expect to get pregnant either, and now that I have your child, a daughter I named Sophie, I don't intend to burden you with her. She's my responsibility. However, when I learned I was pregnant, my husband knew the child could not be his, and he left me. We were divorced before Sophie was born so I put your name on her birth certificate. However, Sophie will come into some inheritance if something happens to me, and my ex-husband might try to claim her as his, since I was married to him at the time I became pregnant, and therefore Sophie could be legally his. But he'd only be claiming her so he could take control of Sophie's money. The trust is set up so that her father, which is you since I put your name on the birth certificate, would be the trustee for the account. My ex-husband's name is Harrison Patel. Yes, I was going by my married name when I was with you. I don't regret the four days we had together, only that I led you to believe I wasn't married. I knew you needed me at the time, but I also needed you. I was lonely. Please take good care of Sophie. Maybe someday you can tell her some of the good things you might remember about me. I leave that up to you. Regretfully, Yvette.
Brad sat staring at the letter. He'd lived in a fantasy world for almost six years, believing he and Yvette might one day pick up where they'd left off. Yet, from the beginning, she knew it would not go beyond the four days they had together. Her confession brought closure to his fantasy of one day finding her and marrying her, but it also brought up another issue. Her untimely death. A hit-and-run? Or murder?
Justine touched his arm. "This might explain why Elsa Moroz never contacted you before showing up. She didn't have time. Obviously, she wanted to get away from Harrison Patel."
"So it seems," Brad said. "I have contacts on the east coast I consult when I need information for my books. One near Arlington, Virginia, where Yvette lived, is a private investigator. I'll hire him to find out all he can about Harrison Patel, when he was married to Yvette, when they divorced, if Patel can be connected with the driver of the hit-and-run car. He had a reason to want Yvette dead. If Yvette was concerned about him trying to take control of Sophie's trust, it must be sizeable."
"Why wouldn't Yvette have appointed her sister as trustee?" Justine asked.
"Good point," Brad replied. "Yvette never said anything about having a sister, and there weren't photos of Elsa Moroz in the box. May
be she had some other interest in getting Sophie to me. I'll have the PI check her out too. If she's in the military that won't be hard. If she's not in the military, her name is probably not Elsa Moroz."
"What if Harrison Patel shows up with legal documents and insists on taking Sophie?" Justine asked.
"Then he'd better have a gun," Brad replied, "because Sophie's not going anywhere."
Justine looked at Brad's rigid face and knew he meant what he said. A father protecting his daughter. A man who'd stand by his family. Her estimation of Brad went up yet another notch. But a new worry entered the picture. A man coming after Sophie.
CHAPTER 10
Brad couldn't seem to keep his eyes off Justine as she romped in the snow with Sophie and Ricky. Sam Hansen had taken them for a snowshoe outing on one of the trails leading into the hills, and while he and Sam plodded along on snow shoes, they'd pulled the kids behind on sleds. Justine was a completely different woman than the one he'd first met at the lodge, two weeks before, the woman he didn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Now, it was hard to keep his hands off her. He was doing it, but wanting her kept him in a constant state of arousal. And there was no more sex talk. After lifting her jersey and showing him the sports bra, she'd been the model of modesty, wearing high-neck, long-sleeved jerseys and wool slacks, and a robe over her flannel gown, and even socks and slippers over her bare feet. It was about to drive him crazy.
For the snowshoe outing though, she was wearing a Scandinavian-design sweater with a bright green turtleneck jersey under it, and with her gray wool slacks tucked into tall snow boots, and a Kelly-green wool cap pulled over her ears, and not a trace of makeup on her face, she was still, without doubt, the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. She was also enjoying herself. When Sam first suggested they go snow shoeing, she'd opted out, but Sophie wouldn't go without her, so Justine reluctantly agreed. But it was just like when Justine petted the horse, as if a whole new world had opened up to her. Today it was a world of snow shoeing, and sledding, and being with kids. That's what surprised him most. Justine actually seemed to be enjoying herself, and there was no question the kids loved having her along.
Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) Page 32
