Ian couldn't go anywhere without someone sticking a camera or a recorder in his face. "How does it feel to be the only one spared?" One jerk had even asked if he felt guilty.
Guilty! Why would he feel guilty? He hadn't done it. He hadn't caused the freak wind draft or down spout or whatever they had called it that had caused the crash shortly after the flight's take-off. He wasn't God.
And he hadn't asked someone to take his place. He'd agreed to take a later flight.
Guilty? They may as well ask Molly if she felt guilty for buying him the ticket in the first place. What? Had she been trying to kill him off by putting him on that particular flight? That was as valid as the questions the reporters had been asking him.
One hundred and forty three dead, including 5 crew members. How did they think it felt? It felt like he was incredibly lucky. That it wasn't 'his time.' And that someone, somewhere wanted him around for something.
That was the question that someone should ask. Or answer. Why? Why was he spared? What was he supposed to do with the life he'd been given back when everyone else on that plane had died? Why had he been at the front of the line, thinking out loud, asking "Why not?"
A sharp three taps on the door literally started him out of his chair. He settled quickly back in, sighing. Great. Now they'd found him here. "Don't want any. Go away," he called.
Whoever it was knocked again.
"Go away," he said, louder, more forcefully this time. "Whatever you have, I don't want any."
"Maybe you should know what I want to give you before you make any rash statements," an irritated woman's voice taunted.
"Maybe I don't care," Ian called back. "Maybe you should just go away."
"I would gladly do that--I didn't want to come here in the first place--except you aren't answering your phone or your mail," said the woman's voice. "That puts me in a tough spot," she added, "since I'm obligated, by law, to get in touch with you."
Uh-oh. That sat him up straighter. The law? Ian had had enough minor and not-quite-so-minor brushes with that entity to stop brooding as he racked his brain to think of anything he may have done recently that would get the law on his tail.
Except not being on a plane when it fell out of the sky, he couldn't think of a thing.
And that, surely, wasn't illegal.
"Come in, then. The door's open," he called and settled back further into his chair bracing himself for whatever was to come.
* * *
The terrific looking man she'd had a monstrous crush on the entire time she was in junior high didn't look so terrific now, Jennifer Michaels thought as she stepped gingerly into the trailer house she'd spent the past three days finding. There were no lights on and the blinds were closed so she had to squint to see him at all. But, as her eyes adjusted, she breathed a sigh of relief because he didn't look anywhere near as good as he had the last time she'd seen him. That had been two days before she'd graduated from eighth grade, full of plans to launch into her high school career by taking this hot 'older man'--a junior at the time--by storm.
Glad it was a bright sunny morning and some light filtered through the edges of the blinds, she picked her way past an empty pizza box and what looked like a dirty T-shirt to come to a stop a few feet in front of him.
She waited momentarily for him to say something and finally leaned toward him, extending her hand. "Hi, Mr. Campbell," she said, "I doubt you remember me but I'm Jennifer Michaels. You and your mom lived right down the road from me while you lived in Brandenburg."
Ignoring her hand and without a flicker of recognition, he appraised her up and down like he might study a piece of furniture he considered buying. His eyes had widened slightly, appreciatively by the time they returned to her face and she was glad. For a moment, she didn't feel like an inanimate object.
He took two steps past her and leaned over the couch to move aside a stack of folded laundry. The action tightened the loose jeans over his still attractive behind and gave her a nice angle on the long athletic legs she'd so admired, long before she'd had any idea what or why she was admiring.
With a sweeping motion, he indicated the place he'd cleared. "Have a seat." He returned to his chair. And before she finished taking him up on the offer, added, "Now, what was it you wanted to give me?" She looked away from him and her gaze came to rest on the top of his laundry stack, where she stared at a neatly folded array of boxer shorts, patterned with everything from scattered hearts to flannel plaids.
He leered at her like the wild and crazy stud he'd always been reputed to be. "If you'd prefer, I can show you the ones I've got on?" He reached for his belt.
She stiffened her spine and got mad. "If you're trying to intimidate me, Mr. Campbell, you're doing a great job of it. So just quit. I don't know what your problem is but it isn't mine. I came here on business so let's just get..."
The edge of his--oh, dang. Why did she look at his mouth? She'd giggled about it with her best friend and they’d discussed every detail, every quirk, every fuzzy whisker surrounding it and imagined and practiced kissing it with pillows and it still--dang--made her mouth water, just looking at it. That appealing mouth quirked with amusement.
"...started," she managed to finish.
"I thought you were being neighborly." The amusement reached his eyes, which had been pretty lifeless until now, she realized.
She sat up even straighter, concentrated on the latches of her briefcase and managed not to look at him again. Even scraggly and unshaved for who-knew-how-many days, he was still too darn attractive and she realized her school girl crush could easily burst to life again. "As I said, I'm here on business. Shall we get to it?"
"Yeah," he agreed, somber again and seemingly out of the mood to annoy her, "I'm kinda curious about that."
She extracted a file folder from her briefcase. "I need your signature on this."
"And this is?" He looked at the document she held out without taking it.
"It's a copy of the letter I already sent you. The one you ignored that made it necessary for me to come here."
He was scowling again, just like he'd been doing when she came in.
"You signed for it," she said with a touch of exasperation.
"Yeah? Oh yeah." He nodded as if remembering. "I signed for something at the post office last time I picked up my mail."
"And did you read it?"
He got up and went to the short expanse of counter dividing this compact living room from a small kitchen. Shuffling through the stacks of papers, he reached over and switched on a light. He shook his head. "You brought whatever you mailed, right?"
She nodded.
"Then no point wasting time looking for it now." Holding out his hand, he took the paper she'd offered before.
Glancing at it, he looked at her again. "Since you're here, spare me the time reading it."
"Why?" The word was out before she thought about it.
One of his eyebrows arched inquisitively.
She bit down on the sarcastic tone she wanted to use and said quietly, "It doesn't look like you're terribly busy. Reading one little letter isn't going to keep you from something terribly important, is it?"
And he laughed. It came from somewhere deep inside him and he thoroughly enjoyed it. It sounded warm and real and it touched something in her that had been eager to surface since the first moment she entered his cluttered and somehow mournful little home. She knew he'd better stop or her school girl crush would seem like a sprinkling of dust on a windy day compared to what she could feel as a woman.
She rose and moved toward him. "Look. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"Hey. Truth hurts." He smiled a real, genuine smile and she felt her insides starting to melt.
"So what are you doing with yourself these days?" she asked, immediately appalled at herself. That wasn't why she was here. "I'm sorry. None of my business." She held up her hands and backed a step away. "It's just..."
"It's just...what?"
"
It's just," she paused. "It's just, it feels like my business. I watched you play football and basketball. I watched you drive by my house so often in that ratty old Mustang with all your friends."
He smiled.
"I know you probably thought of me as some bratty little kid--if you ever thought of me at all," she added with a grimace. "But I feel like I know you so well. And now...well, now, with all this..." She indicated the briefcase she'd laid on the floor. "I feel involved. This is going to change all your lives." She sighed and turned back toward her papers. "And it is truly none of my business."
"Tell you what. Why don't we sit in the kitchen?” Ian caught her arm and gestured. “You tell me what all this is about. You do drink coffee?"
She nodded. When he released her, she was startled to realize she could breathe again. She hadn’t been aware that she'd stopped.
He motioned toward the small table under the windows extending the breadth of the small mobile home and headed for the coffee pot, then paused. “Or would you prefer a soda? Tea? Something else?"
"Coffee's fine. Black." She went and gathered her briefcase.
With a little more light in the room, she could see that it wasn't as bad as she'd thought. A mess maybe. A dirty t-shirt. Empty pop cans, some candy wrappers. A glass or two. A coffee cup on the end table beside his chair. A couple of microwave dinner boxes on the counter with the stacks of mail and paperwork indicated he was taking a little better care of himself than she initially thought.
Whatever was wrong with him, it didn't appear as if he was drinking. No booze, beer cans or empty bottles. And since he obviously lived alone, it wasn't as if he had anyone to hide it from.
She studied him as he set two mugs on the table.
He wasn't much taller than the last time she'd seen him but he'd sure filled out nicely. His hair was a little longer than fashionable and looked like it hadn't seen a comb in days. She could see paths where it looked like he'd raked his hands through the thick, wavy stuff. The brown had more gold in it than the scraggly darker brown camouflaging his face. If he had shaved in the last three or four days, she suspected she'd want to drool all over him.
Great shoulders. Nice butt. He still had the narrow waist, which she could glimpse occasionally, only because he was moving around. The loose clothing definitely did not do him justice.
He caught her staring. For a second, he looked surprised, then he just smiled. "Yeah," he said, nodding as he sat down across from her, "I've seen better days." His hazel eyes had flecks of gold in them that matched the gold highlighting his hair. His gaze warmed her. "Now would you mind telling me what, exactly, you want from me.”
She cleared her throat and turned her attention to her papers.
"Mr. Campbell, I'm here--"
"Call me Ian," he interrupted. "I think we just established that we're neighborly, right?"
She nodded. "Ian."
"I've got to admit, you have me curious." He lifted his mug but didn't drink, just held it between both hands in front of him, his elbows propped on the table, his eyes peeping over the mug, directly at her.
"I'm here as the executor of your father's will and the certified--"
"Whoa. Whoa." He held up one hand. "My father's will? You're just now getting around to that? No, that doesn't make sense," he was now talking more to himself than to her. "He didn't have a will. Everything--what little there was--went to my mother--” He interrupted himself and scowled at her. "What are you talking about?"
"Not Matthew Campbell." Jenn said. "Your real father." She erased that in the air. "I mean, your biological father. I'm here about your biological father's will. James Edward Bridges."
Ian looked at her with pure bewilderment for a moment, then set down his mug. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I can tell you, you have the wrong man. Ian Campbell isn't a common name but it isn't unique either. You must be looking for another Ian Campbell." He stood up as if to help her gather her stuff so she could leave. "I'm sorry for whatever time you've wasted--"
"I have not wasted my time," she assured him, picking up her mug to sip at the coffee, to buy a moment to think. He obviously didn't know that the man who had raised him and his 'biological' father were not the same man. This she hadn’t expected. She set down the cup. "You are the Ian Campbell I'm looking for." She struggled to find the right words for him. Ask your Mom, she wanted to say, but knew from her search for him that she'd died three years ago. He'd received compassionate leave from the service to come back from Iraq for the funeral.
He stood, his arms stiff as boards, propped and leaning on the chair he'd vacated.
She started gently, "Do you remember the old bachelor--well, I thought he was old at the time--the old bachelor who lived on the other side of town. The big spread. The biggest cattle ranch in Madison County?"
Ian nodded. "Vaguely. He used to come to all the high school games and sit on the very top bleacher, right in the middle?"
"Right. That's him." She nodded. "That's...that was James Bridges." She waited for him to say something. He didn't. "He, James Bridges, is...was," she corrected again, "your biological father. Or at least he thought so. If you want, we can run a DNA test but I assure you, whether you do that or not, his will made you one of his heirs. It says, Ian Lane Campbell, legal son of Madeline and Matthew Campbell. And he didn't put any conditions in the will restricting your inheritance, based on whether or not you're his son. So it really doesn't matter. You and your brothers have inherited his ranch and everything else that belonged to him."
"Brothers? I..."
She waited for him to finish whatever he'd been about to say. "...don't have any brothers? Is that what you were going to say?"
Ian shook his head. He looked like she'd slugged him. She didn't know what the physical symptoms of shock were and wondered if she should get a doctor or something. She leaned over the table and touched his hand. "Ian. Why don't you sit down," she said gently.
He nodded absently and did as she asked.
"I guess if I have a father I didn't know I had, I shouldn't be surprised I have a brother, too, huh?" he finally said.
"Brothers. Plural," she added. "Two of them."
"Older? Younger? Who?"
"Well," she said slowly, "You probably know one of your brothers. He is about 18 months younger than you and was two grades behind you in school. Do you remember Andrew Whitmore?"
Ian narrowed his eyes and stared off at some distant place behind her. "Oh, yeah. Tall. Longish blond hair?"
She nodded, then said, "Yes," since he wasn't looking at her. "In fact, he's a lawyer at the law firm where I work. Did you like him?"
He shrugged and returned his attention to her. "I don't remember much about him except that he was kind of a nerd, wasn't he?"
"Yeah. He's kind of brainy," she admitted. "But one of the nicest guys in the whole wide world," she said with feeling. "You're going to love having him for a brother. A lot."
Ian frowned at her again. He sat down across from her and seemed to brace himself. "Okay, lawyer lady, tell me about my other brother. What other surprises do you have for me?"
"Well, I can't tell you much about Caleb. We haven't found him yet. He's a little older than you. I don't think he and his mother actually ever lived in Glendonburg. And they moved back east, shortly after he was born. But we will find him," she assured him.
"So my supposed father raised cattle and sowed a lot of wild oats?" Ian asked her.
"I think that pretty much sums it up."
"So what is it that you want me to sign," he asked abruptly.
"Just this paper saying you've been informed that you're an heir and that you will be present for the reading of the will--" She glanced at the calendar she'd laid flat on the table. "--a month and three days from now. June 25th at one p.m."
"In Glendonburg?"
"Yes," she confirmed. "Our office. Hayes and Jacobs. It's still there on Main Street where it always was, just a block from the courthouse next to th
e bakery. If that's a bad time we can--"
"It's fine." Ian became stilted again. "Is that all?" He stood.
"There are some conditions," she said. "But we were instructed not to reveal those until the reading of the will.” She felt concern for him. "I can see this has been a shock to you. I'm sorry."
"Hey." He shrugged. "Life is full of surprises."
"Well, if you'll just sign here, acknowledging that you've been notified and that you'll be at the reading..." She pushed the paper across the table to him, held out a pen and started gathering her things.
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