Think About Love

by Vanessa Grant

  She put Kippy on the big bed. This time, instead of screaming, the baby squirmed a little, then shoved her thumb into her mouth and stared at Samantha as she stripped off her damp blouse and slacks.

  "Next time, kid, I'll change before I bathe you," she promised, pulling the pins from her hair and finger combing it as the long mass tumbled over her shoulders.

  Kippy gurgled, blinked, and reached for a strand of hair.

  "Wait a minute," said Samantha, pulling out a pair of faded jeans and a loose sweatshirt. "You're wide awake, aren't you? Completely wide awake."

  She stepped into the closet and grabbed a hanger for her suit.

  Kippy started crying.

  "So I guess it is separation anxiety." Her voice seemed to calm the baby, so she kept talking, saying, "I'm here, Kippy. Right here. I'm not going anywhere."

  Kippy gulped and made a noise that might have been a gurgle.

  This baby tending took a lot of energy. The doctor and social worker were right—a woman with congestive heart failure had enough to worry about without looking after a small baby.

  How long would it take Samantha to learn the tricks of being a mother? And when would Kippy fall asleep, so Samantha could call Cal and give him the bad news?

  Cal tried Sam's cell phone a couple of times throughout the afternoon, as well as the home number of Dorothy Marshall, Sam's next of kin.

  At five-thirty, he had dinner in the hotel's dining room, hardly tasting the food. Afterward, in his room, he tried both numbers again. He wasn't sure what the hell he meant to say if she answered, but his anger had been building all day. He was certainly entitled to more of an explanation than she'd given him. He disliked being treated as the enemy, as someone she needed to keep secrets from.

  They needed to clear the air.

  He knew it would make more sense to wait until tomorrow, when she was committed to meeting him at six-thirty. Earlier, he'd decided that instead of taking her to the helicopter in the morning, he'd take her somewhere for breakfast and get some answers. He was pretty sure, though, that Sam wasn't going to tell him a damned thing more than she already had.

  After a day spent cooling his heels in the small town of Nanaimo, he'd had his fill of coal mines, stunning harbor views, and waiting. To hell with phoning her. He'd go to her island now, tonight.

  He called a car rental company and then impatiently waited for the car to turn up.

  He got to the Gabriola Island ferry terminal about seven, only to be told the ferry had just left. The next sailing was scheduled to sail at five minutes to eight.

  In fact, it sailed at eight-thirty, and he spent the twenty-minute harbor crossing standing on deck, staring at the long, low shape of Gabriola Island with a cool evening wind blowing through his hair. As the ferry approached Gabriola, the clouds shifted from white and gray to shades of red and pink. Water, islands, and flaming sky—a world away from Tremaine's hectic atmosphere.

  When the ferry docked, he drove off and pulled into a parking spot in front of the pub. Inside, he asked for directions. Crocker Road was miles away, almost at the far end of the island. Light faded as he drove east on the two-lane pavement, trees crowded on both sides of the winding road. Ahead, he saw evergreen branches stretching to touch each other over the road, and when he entered this tunnel protected by overhanging branches, he seemed to have driven into another world. The cathedral of trees blocked the small amount of light left in the sky. He'd seen houses earlier, but now all sign of human habitation had disappeared, except for the road itself.

  Ahead, something moved at the side of the road and he braked.

  A doe. She stood at the edge of the road, staring at him. Something in her eyes reminded him of Sam. Then, suddenly, she turned and fled into the trees.

  He'd been right to follow his instincts and take the trip to Gabriola. He hadn't suspected that Sam wore a mask until yesterday, but if this island was the place she'd come from, the part of her that he got to see at work was only the tip of the iceberg.

  Perhaps a mile later, he emerged from the tunnel of overhanging trees. A farm on his left... another on his right. Power lines overhead. He followed his instructions, turning right, then right again a mile later, onto gravel road. Population density about one house every quarter mile. Less, if you counted the farms and the unpopulated tunnel of trees.

  Most of the light had left the sky by the time he turned onto Crocker Road. Nine-thirty. According to his mother's rigid etiquette, he'd arrived too late for a social call.

  Someone had put the house number on a tree at the road. He couldn't see the house, but he turned into the shadowy drive, easing the rental car over humps and bumps. Someone should bring in machinery, gravel, asphalt, to make this long drive less of a hazard.

  He was halfway up the slope, wondering if there really was a house, when he spotted the log home nestled under evergreen trees. He wasn't sure what he would have done if the lights had been out—probably knocked on the door anyway. He didn't know exactly why it felt so imperative to confront Sam now, tonight, but it did.

  He pulled up behind the white Ford Escort she'd rented. At least he'd got the right place. Beside the house, he could see a battered old Honda, telling him she wasn't alone.

  He got out of the car, slammed the door behind him. No one appeared to investigate the noise. Those thick log walls probably masked the sound. He crossed the open grassy area in front of the house and stepped onto the veranda, touched a comfortable-looking wicker chair that could have been older than he was. The varnished wooden door was set in a frame with a tall, narrow window to its right. He could see an oak dining table through the window, Sam's portable computer open on its surface.

  No sign of life, neither Sam nor the Honda's owner.

  Sam was a city creature, a businesswoman from her immaculate low shoes to her smoothly disciplined hair. She didn't belong here.

  Who really lived in this cabin and what the hell was Sam doing here? What was so important that she'd leave Seattle on the eve of a major event she'd planned, to come to this tame wilderness, to commune with deer and stare out at magnificent sunsets over tall, green trees?

  He hammered on the door.

  No answer.

  He waited a minute, knocked again, then prowled the veranda. If she were inside with her grandmother, surely she'd get up and answer.

  It wasn't a grandmother. A lover, and with both the dining room and what he could see of the living room empty, they must be in the back of the house. In a bedroom.

  He shoved his jacket aside and jammed his hands into his pockets. Maybe he didn't know Sam beyond the business world, but he was damned sure she wouldn't walk out on Tremaine's open house preparations to go off and tangle the sheets with a lover.

  He heard the sound and spun in time to see the door open. He closed the distance with two long strides, froze when he realized it wasn't Sam at the door.

  The woman had a baby held against her chest, her long, shining, rich brown hair streaming over the shoulder opposite the baby. It must be almost to her waist, the hair... and her eyes....

  He stepped back instead of forward. Sam's eyes, her mouth.

  She was barefoot, for crying out loud, and—how had she managed to hide all that hair?

  "Cal." Her voice was flat, not Sam's voice at all, but this was Sam. "You'd better come in."

  She didn't step back to let him through the door, and he couldn't seem to stop staring. "You've got a baby."

  "I suppose I have." She shifted the infant in her arms.

  He didn't know what the hell to say. The baby wasn't more than a few months old. How the hell could she have a baby? Maybe he hadn't known about the hair, hadn't realized her bare feet would look so—well, sexy. Hadn't known she even owned a pair of jeans. But he sure as hell would have noticed if she'd been pregnant.

  "How old is he?"

  Sam hugged the baby tighter. "She's six months old." She finally stepped back. "Come in, and close the door behind you."

>   She swayed with the weight of the baby as she walked away, all long, lean legs and a waterfall of tempting hair.

  Cal closed the door with too much force, then cleared his throat. Six months. Maybe he was unobservant, but not that damned unobservant!

  He couldn't reconcile the two women… His cool second-in-command holding a baby, hair down to her waist and feet naked… and the Sam he knew.

  She turned to face him, still holding the sleeping baby.

  "It's not your baby."

  "I tried to call you earlier."

  "I'm here now." Watching her hold the baby unnerved him, or maybe it was her hair, the odd look in her eyes. "Shouldn't she be in bed?"

  "I'll try putting her down," Sam said. "Make yourself comfortable in the living room."

  She disappeared and he almost called out for her to watch her step, because she'd strung the charger cord from her computer across the archway into the kitchen. But she stepped gracefully over the wire and disappeared into a hallway to the right of the kitchen.

  He prowled into the living room, studied an aging, overstuffed sofa and chair, a big window looking out on a shadowy stand of cedar trees, a set of split log stairs leading up into a loft.

  She'd grown up on Gabriola Island. Here, in this house? Or was this someone else's house? The next of kin listed in her employment records was Dorothy Marshall, at this address. He hadn't checked the phone book to see if Dorothy Marshall really lived here. This house could belong to someone else.

  The baby's father, perhaps? Sam's parents?

  Whose baby was Sam putting to bed? Who owned the Honda outside? And what the hell had happened to the Sam he'd appointed to Tremaine's board of directors?

  Sam returned without the baby. "I think she's really asleep this time."

  "I've never seen your hair down before."

  "It's not businesslike."

  "The computer industry has a pretty loose dress code."

  She shrugged and that half smile appeared. "People say I look about sixteen with my hair down. It's hard to get people to take you seriously if you look like a teenager."

  She looked all woman, and she wasn't wearing a bra. The sweatshirt was thick, loose, but when she moved he saw the motion of her breasts.

  He jammed his hands in his pockets again. The last time he'd felt so uncomfortable in a woman's presence he'd been fifteen.

  "Do you want coffee? A soft drink? Dorothy doesn't keep alcohol in the house."

  "I want an explanation. Who's Dorothy?"

  "My grandmother."

  "So there is a grandmother."

  When she brought the coffee into the living room, she found him staring at Dorothy's collection of pictures and certificates in the stairwell leading up to the loft. He pointed at a picture of a young girl sitting on a tall horse. "You?"

  "My mother. She was fifteen there." The picture had been taken less than a year before her mother met an American drifter on Drumbeg Beach, fell in love, and ran away with him only weeks later.

  "You look very much alike."

  "Looks can be deceptive."

  He shot her a penetrating glance, then moved to the next frame, a document certifying that Moonbeam Jones had successfully completed the beginner's swimming class.

  "Who's Moonbeam Jones?" he asked as he took the steaming mug from her hand.

  No one had called her Moonbeam in so many years, except her mother of course, and her grandmother occasionally slipped.

  She took her own coffee mug and settled on the big armchair. At this point, keeping her private life to herself was the least of her worries.

  "My mother named me Moonbeam and my sister Star. I had swimming lessons here one summer." The first time Dorothy rescued Samantha and Susan from foster care, at the ages of ten and eight.

  "Samantha M. Jones. M for Moonbeam."

  "There's something I need to tell you. Can you sit down? You're making me nervous."

  "You're never nervous."

  She wasn't answering that one.

  She waited until he settled on the sofa, until he'd taken a sip of the coffee. What she had to tell him wasn't going to improve his mood.

  "I can't leave until tomorrow afternoon. I'm keeping tabs on preparations from here, though, and I've got a web conference set up first thing tomorrow. If you can fly me with the chopper, we can get to Tremaine's mid-afternoon."

  "And?" he asked. "There's more, isn't there?"

  "I'll need to leave early, before the open house is over. I have to get back to Nanaimo tomorrow night before the last Gabriola Island ferry sails at ten fifty-five."

  She heard Cal set his cup on the end table.

  She stared at the floor, not at him, and said, "After that, I need two weeks off."

  Some hair had fallen forward over her face. She pushed it back with her free hand and muttered, "I should have put my hair up."

  "I need an explanation, Sam."

  She was a businesswoman. Time to stop sounding like an airhead and give him the explanation he deserved.

  "The baby is my niece. My grandmother is her guardian, but Dorothy's been hospitalized. I know it's bad timing." She gestured to the computer. "I am in touch. Telephone. Web conferencing."

  "So you said. Where's your sister?"

  "She and her husband died in an air crash last December."

  "Last December? Five months ago?"

  "Yes." She swallowed. "Two days before Christmas."

  He shoved a hand through his hair. "You came back from your holidays and I asked you if you'd enjoyed yourself. You said it was good to be back. Just that. Your sister died, and you returned to work as if nothing happened?"

  With the exception of last Christmas with Dorothy, Samantha hadn't cried in front of anyone since she was ten years old. Tears threatened now, but she mustn't cry in front of Cal.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I... I just didn't."

  He raked his hand through his hair again, then picked up his mug and took a big swallow. "So—so, this baby? You're looking after her while your grandmother's sick?"

  "Maybe permanently. My grandmother might be going into a nursing home."

  He took long seconds to consider that. "Is there some reason you can't look after the baby in Seattle?"

  "It depends on the judge."

  "The judge?"

  "I'm applying for custody, but right now I can't take Kippy out of the country. The judge gave permission for me to look after her, but I'm being... supervised. I have to stay here."

  He looked as if he wanted to pace. She wished he'd leave.

  "Supervised?" he demanded. "By whom?"

  "The Ministry of Children and Families. A social worker. They've applied for custody; there's another hearing in two weeks. I need to stay until it's settled, until I have custody, and I have to prove I'm a good mother for Kippy. Cal, it's obvious I can't give you a hundred percent, at least for a while. It might be best if I resign."

  "Is that what you want?"

  "No, it's not what I want. I want to keep things together. Dorothy thinks the doctor is wrong with his diagnosis, and I want to believe that, but... I also want to believe I'm important enough to Tremaine's that we can work around this… this involuntary absence."

  He shook his head. Then he walked past her, to the front door, opened it, and stepped through.

  Was he going to drive away without a word?

  She followed him and found him on the veranda, staring at the grassy slope below the house. Bewildered, she watched as he jumped lightly down to the ground and walked away from the house, away from the car he'd rented.

  She couldn't believe she'd offered to resign. She should have asked for an unpaid leave, but that wouldn't solve the mess he'd be in if she walked out for an unspecified time.

  He had a business to think about, employees and clients depending on its smooth operation. Leaving might be necessary, but she needed to assure him that she'd never go without finding her own replacement.

  He cam
e back a moment later.

  "I assume you have a baby-sitter lined up for tomorrow afternoon?"

  "Diane, a neighbor."

  "I'll pick you up here at twelve-thirty."

  "I can drive into town in my rental. It's crazy for you to take the ferry over and back."

  "There's room here for me to land the chopper." He jumped back up onto the veranda, and she backed two steps away from him before she stopped herself. "Twelve-thirty. You'll be ready?"

  "Yes."

  Then she watched him drive away, wondering what was going to happen tomorrow.

  She'd intended to tell him on the phone, using her business voice. Instead she'd worn jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair hanging around her face like a child's. As she turned to go back into the house, she stubbed her toe on the old wicker chair.

  And bare feet! She hadn't even had her shoes on.

  Chapter Five

  Cal parked the rental car in the lot across from the hotel and locked it.

  Because he knew he'd go nuts pacing the anonymous hotel room, he headed downhill and found himself exploring a deserted waterfront mall sporting a closed cappuccino bar, art gallery, and souvenir shop.

  He finally emerged on a concrete walk bordered by grassy slopes and strode north along the curve of the harbor. He couldn't see another soul, although he heard the muted sound of vehicles up on Front Street where he'd parked the car.

  Sam....

  He couldn't get over the memory of Sam, barefoot and rumpled, holding a baby in her arms. Sam walking into the living room of that log cabin, her breasts moving seductively under an oversize sweatshirt.

  It didn't matter what she looked like with a baby in her arms. The point was that his second-in-command was talking about quitting. Somehow, between yesterday and today, his administrative genius, the person he relied on above all others, had transformed into a barefoot woman with a baby in her arms.

  He couldn't afford to lose her. Sam had spoiled him, and after a year without administrative hassles, he shuddered at the thought of going back to how it had been before Samantha Jones—Samantha Moonbeam Jones—saved him from bureaucratic psychosis.