Shattered

by Joan Johnston

  “Be careful!” she warned the boys.

  “Wolf won’t hurt ’em, ma’am,” the heavyset man said.

  Despite his dangerous-sounding name, the dog sat unruffled as her sons “oohed” and “aahed” and ran their hands over his furred head and back.

  “This is Micah,” Shaw said, introducing the man to Kate. “He takes care of the house. He’s a terrific cook.”

  “Good to see you, Boss.” The hired man turned to Kate and said, “You need anything at all, ma’am, just let me know.”

  “Thank you,” Kate said.

  Micah excused himself to help Bruce with their bags, which were in the trunk of the second limo. Wolf rose and followed him.

  “Let’s go inside,” Shaw said to the twins. “I’ll show you your rooms.”

  As though it was the most natural thing in the world, he slid an arm around Kate’s waist and headed down the winding walkway that led to the front door. She went with him willingly, because her other choice was to make a scene in front of her sons.

  The boys hop-skipped on the lush lawn beside Shaw to keep up with his long strides.

  “You said rooms, Shaw,” Lucky pointed out. “Does that mean I don’t have to share a room with Chance?”

  “Is that all right with you?” Shaw asked.

  “It sure is!” Lucky backpedaled beside Kate as he crowed, “Mom, I’m gonna have a room of my own!”

  “Me, too!” Chance shouted, running in circles on the lawn with his hands held out like an airplane.

  Kate made a distressed sound that Shaw must have heard because he leaned close and said, “Any reason why that isn’t a good idea? I just thought—”

  “It’s a fine idea,” she snapped. “Any other wishes you plan to fulfill while we’re here?”

  “As many as I can,” he snapped back. “I’ve got a lot of making up to do, as you well know.”

  “You’re going to spoil them, Shaw.”

  “By giving them their own rooms?”

  “And bringing their horses and their dog and their cat here.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a hell of a lot,” he said. “I would have liked to be the one to give them their first horse. Or their first dog.”

  “Or their first cat?”

  “I hate cats.”

  Kate couldn’t help it. She laughed.

  “What’s so funny, Mom?” Lucky asked.

  “I tickled your mother’s funny bone,” Shaw said.

  “I know Mom’s really ticklish in the ribs,” Chance said. “I didn’t know she had a funny bone. Where is it?”

  She looked helplessly at Shaw and laughed harder. It beat the heck out of crying.

  Shaw chuckled. “I’ll show you sometime.” He opened the door to his home and gestured his sons inside.

  Kate saw why there were no windows on the outside. The interior walls in the U-shaped house were made of windows that brought the outdoors inside. The patio in the center of the courtyard was shaded by a giant oak and graced with a waterfall burbling over stones into a pond dotted with blooming white water lilies.

  Kate watched her sons move through Shaw’s earth-toned bachelor living room, past the saddle-leather, man-size chairs and the plush, man-length couch, both situated in front of a stone fireplace that ran up to the cathedral ceiling, as though they were bird dogs hunting down the scent of a covey of quail.

  They touched everything, the odd-shaped lamps, the Hopi Indian dolls, the pillows on the couch, letting their curiosity take them from item to item. They scuffed their feet across the colorfully patterned rug.

  She waited for Shaw to tell them to back off, not to handle this, to leave that alone. But he said nothing. She searched his face, trying to discern what he was feeling. But he had his emotions well contained.

  When the boys finally headed down a wide hallway off the living room, he followed them as though he were attached by an invisible string. She thought he might have forgotten she was there, so entranced was he with his sons.

  She stood bemused for a moment, wondering if she should follow him or stay where she was.

  He returned to the doorway and said, “The bedrooms are down this hall.”

  He waited for her, and she was grateful the hallway was wide enough for her to walk beside him without touching. She saw the boys had stopped and waited for him.

  “Which room is mine?” Lucky asked.

  “Which one is mine?” Chance asked.

  “This is yours,” he said to Lucky, pointing through a doorway. “And this is yours,” he said to Chance, indicating the doorway next to it.

  At first Kate thought there was a mirror in the wall between the two rooms. Then she realized that a double door had been cut in the wall between the two rooms, and that they were mirror images of each other. The boys could shut the door between their rooms for privacy, or leave it open if they wanted to play together.

  While Kate watched, the two boys met in the doorway, then turned and grinned at Shaw, acknowledging the perfect beauty of the connecting doorway. Then they turned again to explore their separate rooms, which each held a twin bed, an end table and lamp and a desk with a computer. Flatscreen TVs hung on the wall of each boy’s room, with a DVD player on a table beneath it stacked with many of the same movies she’d seen on the plane.

  Kate smelled fresh paint. “When did you do all this?”

  “I had a doorway cut between the rooms the day I found out about the twins.”

  Kate felt a shiver run down her spine. He’d planned this moment. He’d intended to have his sons living here. This was no vacation he’d organized for them. This was forever.

  Kate glanced up at Shaw and at last saw some of the emotions he’d been so careful to hide. Triumph. And satisfaction.

  “I hope my room is near the boys.” So she could grab them when the time came and make her escape.

  “You’re sleeping in here.” He opened the door to the room at the end of the hall and waited for her to enter.

  Kate’s heart skipped a beat when she realized he’d invited her into what was clearly his bedroom. A mystery novel lay half-read facedown on the end table. A picture of a woman with a young boy who she thought might be Shaw and his mother sat atop the chest of drawers. A shiny pair of black lizard cowboy boots, one a fallen soldier, sat at the base of a wardrobe.

  “What is this?” she demanded.

  “Didn’t I mention it? You’ll be sleeping with me.”

  9

  When the boys began to bicker, Kate knew they were finally exhausted from the excitement of the day.

  “Time for bed,” she said.

  “Aw, Mom,” Chance said.

  “I’m not tired,” Lucky argued.

  “Showers. Now.”

  “Do we have to, Shaw?” Lucky asked.

  Kate was incensed that her son was looking to a stranger for permission. “Yes, you have to,” she said sharply.

  “You heard your mother,” Shaw said.

  Kate realized it wasn’t until Shaw confirmed her demand that her sons obeyed her and trotted off to take showers in the bathroom across the hall. “I can handle this,” she told Shaw, hoping he’d take the hint and leave.

  “Let me stay.”

  He didn’t plead, just stood there looking vulnerable. And virile. She knew she was being a fool. He was manipulating her again, using her soft heart against her. She put herself in his shoes and imagined what it would be like to discover you had two children you’d never known existed. How you’d want to be a part of everything they did from now on. It would take someone more cruel than she was to exclude him.

  But that meant she was going to have to share the bedtime ritual she performed each night with her sons. She fought back the jealousy she felt. Her sons craved a father, and Jack had taken himself out of the picture for the next four months. She should be grateful Shaw was willing to step into the role.

  “All right. Stay,” she said.

  “What should I do?”

  She was
amazed that a man as powerful as Wyatt Shaw could look so helpless. She retrieved a pair of boy’s white briefs and a set of Batman pajamas out of the overnight bag she’d brought and handed them to him. “When Lucky comes out of the shower, dry him off and put these on him.”

  It occurred to her suddenly that Shaw might not know which twin was Lucky. She hadn’t yet heard him address either one by name. She eyed him askance, wondering whether he would be able to tell which twin was which, since they were truly identical physically.

  A moment later, the boys came running into the bedroom, naked and shrieking, towels flying behind them, tracking wet footprints on the tile floor.

  Shaw turned to her, scowling, and said, “You had them circumcised?”

  Kate had a sudden vision of a naked Shaw, who wasn’t. J.D. had insisted on it. Flustered, she said, “Yes. And it’s too late to undo it now. So live with it!”

  Shaw grabbed Lucky and began briskly toweling his hair.

  Kate called to Chance and began patting him dry. She glanced at Shaw and said, “How did you know which twin was Lucky?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Not to most people,” she said, waiting while Chance pulled up his underwear, then holding out Superman pajama bottoms so he could step into them. The twins had often fooled their teachers and even their friends.

  “Did you brush your teeth?” she asked Chance.

  “Not yet.”

  “Both of you, back to the bathroom. Brush your teeth,” Kate ordered.

  “Aw, Mom,” Chance said.

  “Jeez, Mom,” Lucky said. “Do we hafta?”

  “Go,” Shaw said.

  They went.

  While the twins ran back to the bathroom to brush their teeth, Kate asked Shaw, “So tell me, how did you know which twin was Lucky?”

  “He was the first one in the room. He always leads. He’s more confident, more brash. Chance thinks more, feels more, argues less.”

  Kate was surprised and pleased that he’d noticed those vital differences between the two boys. “I suppose those extra five minutes Lucky spent in the world before Chance arrived gave him a little more self-assurance.”

  “Or maybe you treat him differently because you know he’s the elder,” Shaw said.

  “Maybe,” Kate conceded.

  When the boys returned from the bathroom and bared their teeth in grimaces that passed for smiles, Shaw said, “Now what?”

  “I usually read them a story.”

  Shaw’s gaze slid anxiously to the bookcase. “Which one?”

  “I want the one about Winnie the Pooh and the honey pot,” Chance said.

  “I want the one about Tigger,” Lucky said.

  Kate took out one book from A. A. Milne’s four-book Winnie-the-Pooh collection for herself and handed another one to Shaw. “Lucky will show you which story he wants.”

  Both boys pulled down the covers and climbed into the twin beds on their own. Kate sat on the edge of Chance’s bed, then looked over and nodded, to indicate Shaw should do the same. Then she began to read. She heard Shaw’s raspy voice rise in falsetto as he pretended to be a bouncy Tigger.

  The door between the two rooms remained open. Neither boy had wanted it closed.

  Kate was disturbed to see that Shaw had her sons’ favorite books shelved in both rooms. It frightened her that he knew so much about their likes and dislikes. His knowledge felt like an intrusion. These weren’t his children.

  Yes, they are, a nagging voice reminded her.

  And it was clear he wanted—intended—to be a part of the twins’ lives. He’d maneuvered her into coming here by hanging the threat of danger over their heads. But Kate was sure no physical danger from Dante D’Amato could be as ominous to her and her sons as Wyatt Shaw’s desire to make a happy family out of them.

  He planned to have her sleep in his bed, even though she’d told him she was involved with someone else. How could he expect her to feel safe closing her eyes at night, when he’d been accused of strangling the last woman who slept in his bed?

  What else did you expect from the son of a mob boss, a man who’s arrogant as sin and wealthy as hell?

  Fortunately, Kate had known her share of arrogant, wealthy men. Her grandfathers, Blackjack and King, had given her good practice in coping with such behavior. The secret was to hold your ground. Because the minute you gave a man like that an inch, he took a mile and a quarter.

  She was going to have to confront Shaw and lay down her own rules for what she was and wasn’t willing to put up with while she and her sons were living in his house. And the sooner the better.

  She finished the story she was reading, then stood and tucked the covers more firmly around Chance, up one side and down the other. Finally, she leaned down to kiss him on each cheek as she said, “Good night. Sleep tight.”

  He answered, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  Ordinarily, that was the signal to turn out the light. But as she straightened, Chance said, “I want Shaw to tuck me in, too.”

  Kate felt forsaken. Her sons hadn’t even met Wyatt Shaw twenty-four hours ago. Now their mother wasn’t enough for them. They wanted Shaw’s attention. The man had clearly ensorcelled them.

  She kept the betrayal she felt out of her voice as she said, “I’ll let him know.”

  She stood in the open doorway between the two bedrooms and watched as Shaw tucked the covers snugly around Lucky’s body, first down one side and then the other, as Lucky had apparently instructed him to do. She observed her son, whose gaze stayed focused intently on Shaw, as though the man were an apparition that might disappear from his life, as J.D. had, if he closed his eyes.

  When Shaw reached for the light, Lucky grabbed his wrist. “First you have to say, ‘Good night. Sleep tight.’ And then I have to say, ‘Don’t let the bedbugs bite.’”

  She felt her breath catch as Shaw brushed a dark curl from his son’s forehead and said, “Good night, Lucky. Sleep tight.”

  “Don’t let the bedbugs bite, Shaw.”

  He reached over and clicked off the light. When he turned, Kate saw his eyes glistened with unshed tears.

  Her voice was choked as she said, “Chance would like you to say good night to him, too.”

  Shaw crossed past her into the light as she stepped into the darkened room. She leaned over and kissed Lucky on each cheek. “Good night. Sleep tight,” she whispered.

  “Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he whispered back.

  Kate didn’t wait to see Shaw perform the ritual again with Chance. She headed down the hall to the bedroom they were supposed to share. When she got to the door, she realized confronting Shaw in his bedroom would put her at a distinct disadvantage. She turned around and headed back to the living room, which was more neutral ground.

  There was enough light from the hall to make her way to a chair near the fireplace. She turned on a single lamp on an end table and sat down to wait.

  It didn’t take long for Shaw to find her.

  “Why are you sitting in the dark?” He struck a long match and bent down to light the kindling in the fireplace, which crackled to life, creating flickering shadows of light. Then he crossed to a bar in the corner, hit a switch that created a soft light above it and poured himself a drink from a crystal decanter. “Can I make something for you?”

  “No thank you.”

  He took a sip of whatever he’d poured before he returned and sat in the chair next to her. He sighed as he settled one ankle over the opposite knee.

  “Are you comfortable now?” she said irritably.

  “Yes, I am.”

  She stood and paced to the fireplace, where she turned and faced him, her arms crossed protectively over her breasts. “What is it you really want from me, Shaw? What has this charade today been all about? Are we really in danger? Or did you just make that up?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. He put his foot back on the floor, then leaned forward with his forearms on his knees, rolli
ng the glass of liquor between his hands. He focused his gray eyes on her when he spoke. “I’m not sure what my father is going to do when he finds out about the twins. If it’s anything like what he did when he found out about me, then yes, the danger is very real.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My mother wasn’t a bad woman, she just fell in with a bad man. When she got pregnant, she realized she didn’t want to raise her child anywhere near Dante D’Amato. So she ran.

  “My father found her and kept her a virtual prisoner while she raised me. Eventually, he decided he didn’t like the things she was teaching me—like the difference between right and wrong. So when I was twelve, he had my mother killed.”

  Kate hissed in a breath. “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t know it,” he said bitterly. “I never even suspected it at first. It was only later that I realized what he’d done and why.”

  Kate didn’t speak, didn’t breathe, for fear he’d stop talking.

  Shaw drank the rest of the alcohol in his glass and set it on the coffee table in front of him. He sat back in the chair and brushed his fingers through the wings of silver hair on either side of his head. “The moment my mother was dead, D’Amato took control of my life. He sent me to the most exclusive prep school he could find, then to Harvard.”

  He stood abruptly and walked the few steps to the fireplace, where he shoved the burning wood around with a metal tool, making sparks fly, then adjusted the screen in front of the fire. When he was done, he leaned back against the mantel and said, “I studied hard because I wanted to make him proud of me.” He snorted. “I was pitifully starved for male attention. And I thought he cared about me.”

  “How do you know he didn’t?”

  She could feel the animosity radiating off of him as he snarled, “He just needed someone he could trust—someone related to him—to keep his books doctored. His two legitimate sons were already running businesses for him. It wasn’t until I graduated from Harvard that he told me what he expected from me.

  “When I refused to be a part of his dirty business—it seems my mother had ‘infected me’ with a belief in the value of truth and honor—he called me ‘an abomination’ and cut me off without a penny.”