“There is a point, Mr. Shawnessy,” Cara said tightly. “And I’d have been there already if you didn’t keep interrupting with sarcastic comments.”
He pressed his lips together and Jeaned close—close enough she could smell his masculine scent, a scent that stirred her own femininity, reminded her of earlier in the day when that strong, hard mouth had been crushed firmly against her own.
She snatched up their empty bowls and moved to the sink, poured soap on a sponge, then turned on the water. “Margaret offered me the money to start a security company of my own, no strings attached,” she continued while rinsing the bowls. “I turned her down, but at her persistence, finally told her that I would accept a loan, but only on one condition, that she become my partner. She refused at first, but I was just as persistent as she was. Hence the birth of Sinclair and Muldoon Enterprises. Margaret runs the office two days a week and keeps the books.”
Ian gave a snort of laughter. “You’re trying to tell me that this woman, the owner of a multimillion-dollar company, answers your business phone?”
“Our business phone,” Cara said over her shoulder. “And that’s exactly what I’m telling you. Her position with Muldoon and Associates had become more figurehead than productive. Until she came to work with me, she spent her time at ladies’ luncheons and charity teas. She was bored and lonely.”
“I’ll just bet her children love you,” Ian muttered thoughtfully.
“Her only son has been dead for thirty-three years. Her only brother has been gone for five years.” Cara rinsed the bowls, then set them on the dish. “Her nephew, Peter, dotes on her, but he’s busy running Muldoon and Associates.”
Cara glanced over her shoulder, watched as Ian rose and stepped toward the sink. Toward her. Cara turned off the water and was reaching for a towel when he moved behind her and placed his long arms on either side of her, effectively pinning her against the counter.
She felt his chest against her back, the press of his thighs against her own. She turned slowly and faced him, realized her mistake immediately when her breasts brushed against his chest. Since she was wearing only the thin cotton shirt, the contact was electrifying. Heart pounding, she leaned back, forced herself to look into his eyes.
He stared down at her. She felt weak and hot and ridiculously aroused. When he pressed in closer, she gasped, realized that he was aroused, as well.
This wasn’t going at all the way she’d planned.
“Story time is over,” he said harshly. “I want the bottom line now. Why the hell were you watching me?”
She drew in a slow, deep breath, swallowed and lifted her face to his. “We had to be sure. Margaret felt that if she had a picture of you, then she would know.”
His gaze narrowed, his eyes turned black as the darkness outside. “Know what?”
“That you are her grandson.”
Four
Ian blinked twice, then very carefully, very slowly said, “What did you say?”
“Ian, come sit down.”
He felt the pressure of her hand on his chest and ignored it. “You’re telling me that my grandmother, a woman named Margaret Muldoon, sent you here to find me?”
“Please…”
Her voice softened, but there was an edge of desperation there, as well, Ian noted. He realized that he’d pressed her tightly against the counter, that their bodies were touching intimately. He might have indulged himself and prolonged the contact if she hadn’t just laid a bombshell on him.
On a curse, he moved away and shook his head. “You’re good, Blondie. Real good. You almost had me there. Now I want the truth.”
“I’m telling you the truth.” She straightened, placed both hands on the counter behind her and drew in a slow breath. “Margaret Muldoon, Philadelphia socialite, owner and chairman of the board of a multimillion-dollar a year accounting firm, is your grandmother. Now will you please sit down?”
He did, but only because the kitchen was too small for him to pace effectively. He glanced at his watch, then folded his arms and stared at her. “Start talking.”
With a sigh, she dragged one hand through her damp hair. “Thirty-three years ago you were abandoned as a newborn on the steps of St. Matthew’s Seminary in Wolf River, with no clue to your mother’s or father’s identity. You were adopted two weeks later by Joseph and Kathleen Shawnessy and legally became Killian O’Neil Shawnessy. Your father was a crop duster, and on Sundays he would fly you and your mother on pleasure trips. One Sunday when you were nine years old, they were both killed when their plane went down. You had the chicken pox that day, and they’d left you home with a baby-sitter.”
He held the pain of that memory to himself, kept his face impassive as he stared blankly back at her. “All a matter of record.”
“You spent the next nine years bouncing around foster homes,” she went on. “Even did six months at the Wolf River Home for Boys for breaking your history teacher’s nose when you were thirteen.”
He smiled at that memory. Punching out that slime bucket Thompson had been worth every day at the Home. “Which only proves I have a violent nature. If you don’t get to the point soon, you’re going to see it.”
The patient look she shot him made him want to shake her. “You joined the Marines two years after you graduated high school, completed four years, then started a cellular phone company in Washington, D.C. You never married, have no children of public record and you rent a one-bedroom apartment in Maryland.”
“You did a lot of digging, Blondie,” he said dryly. “If I wasn’t so annoyed that it was my personal life you’ve stuck your nose into, I’d be impressed.”
“Like I said, details are my specialty. I make a point to pay close attention.”
He might tell her that he was paying attention to a few of her details, as well, such as the damp spots making her blouse almost see-through, and the curve of her long legs in her snug jeans.
But he’d rather not be distracted at the moment, so he forced his attention to her eyes, noticed the smug satisfaction in her green gaze. She might not look so smug if he told her that she’d uncovered no more about his current life than anyone else with a personal computer and telephone could have done. Anything else would require a level-four security pass. And that, he was certain, Miss Cara Sinclair didn’t have.
He was almost beginning to enjoy this little game. It had been a long time since a woman had intrigued him. And it had been a hell of a lot longer since he’d felt an attraction as intense as the one she evoked in him. There was something about her eyes that fascinated him. They changed color with her moods. When she was angry they shone like green fire. After he’d kissed her, they’d turned smoky. A few moments ago, when he’d had her pinned against the sink, they’d softened to the color of a spring meadow. He’d wanted her, just as much as he was certain she’d wanted him, and it had taken a will of iron not to strip down her jeans, lift her onto that counter and take her.
The thought alone aroused him, but he forced it back down. “How ‘bout you tell me something I don’t already know, Sherlock.”
“All right.” She tossed her head back and sent the ends of her hair over her shoulders. “Your father, Margaret’s only child, was Richard Muldoon. Your mother, Richard’s girlfriend, was Fiona Francisco DeCarlo. They were in love, but your grandfather, Daniel Muldoon, forbade them to marry. When Fiona became pregnant with you, they were going to run away, but your father was struck by a car when he was crossing the street outside of their home in Philadelphia. That was thirty-three years ago. Six months before you were born.”
He didn’t believe any of it. He wondered briefly if the Agency was responsible for all this, inventing this ridiculous story to test his reaction, to see if this woman could gain his confidence and convince him to reveal sensitive information.
Or worse, if she wasn’t from the Agency, if someone else had sent her…He didn’t like the thought of that at all. Didn’t want to consider what he’d have to do if she
turned out to be someone other than who she said she was.
He leaned back in his chair, kept his expression bland and his tone bored. “So my grandparents paid Fiona to give me up, and now, thirty-three years later they’re having an acute guilt attack and want to claim me as their own.”
Cara shook her head. “Fiona disappeared after your father died. Margaret searched for her, even though your grandfather disapproved, but she came up empty-handed. Four months later, your mother sent a letter and said that you had died in childbirth. Margaret didn’t believe her, but Fiona never came back to Philadelphia and left no trace of her whereabouts. Margaret searched for you for years, even after your grandfather died, but never found anything to give her hope.”
“Until you came along.” Ian kept his gaze carefully locked with hers. If she was lying, she was damn good, he thought.
Her sigh was heavy as she pushed away from the counter. “I ran computer checks on every member of Fiona’s family, extended family and friends, everyone she might have associated with. Then I ran checks on every hospital within a hundred miles of each person, at the same time checking the birth records within a two week period of when Fiona was due to deliver. Out of the twenty-five hospitals, there were three hundred live births, four stillborn. I followed up on every one, until I narrowed my search down to four possibilities, none of them stillborn. Out of those four, I was finally left with one possibility, a child born in Ridgeville, a small town fifty miles east of Wolf River. The family couldn’t be traced, and the mother had apparently lied on the birth certificate.”
Ian lifted his hands in mock admiration. “So naturally that has to mean I’m Fiona’s child. I’m sure no other unmarried mother, especially thirty-three years ago, ever lied on a birth certificate.”
“I realize that.” There was an edge of irritation in her voice. “It turned out Fiona’s cousin, Angela, a second cousin actually, lived in Ridgeville. Still lives in Ridgeville. I went to see her.”
Eyes narrowed, he glanced up sharply.
Cara moved to the table and sat beside him, leaning in close. There was an excitement in her eyes, Ian noted, a brightness which made them sharper, the green more intense.
“Angela told me that Fiona had been living with her for six months.” Cara’s voice had a breathless quality to it. “She drove Fiona to the hospital when she went into labor, checked her into Ridgeville hospital under a fake name, then checked her out two days later when she left with her baby, a healthy, dark-haired boy.”
Ian waited, suddenly aware he’d been holding his breath.
“The next morning,” Cara said softly, “Angela drove Fiona and the baby to Wolf River. In the early hours of the morning on April 29, she wrapped her three-day-old son in a white blanket embroidered with tiny blue roses, then placed him in a basket and left him on the steps of St. Matthew’s Seminary.”
Cara leaned closer, placed her hand on his arm. Her fingers were warm and smooth. “That baby was you, Ian.”
Ian heard the distant, heavy sound of his own heartbeat. The twenty-ninth was the same day he’d been left at the seminary. And somewhere, in a box on a closet shelf in his apartment, was a white blanket embroidered with blue roses.
No one knew about the blanket, except maybe Father MacRoy, the old priest who’d found him that morning. And Father MacRoy had been dead for twenty years. Even the police report simply described the blanket as white.
And what no one knew but him, Ian thought dimly, no one at all, was that under one tiny blue flower, so small it was never noticed by anyone else but himself, were the initials F. F. D.
Fiona Francisco DeCarlo.
Growing up, how many times had he taken that blanket down and touched those initials, wondered what they meant, who they belonged to?
How many times had he wondered why?
But that was years ago. It might have mattered then, but not now. Some things were just better left alone.
And that’s what he wanted. To be left alone.
“Well, blondie, it’s been real.” His blood felt thick and slow as he rose from his chair. “Thanks for the food and entertainment, but I’ve got an early-morning date with a fish.”
Cara stood, her expression incredulous. “Ian, after what I just told you, how can you walk away?”
He didn’t just want to walk. He wanted to run. On an impulse, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard. To his surprise, she didn’t resist. But she didn’t respond, either.
When he finally released her, she stumbled back, her eyes wide, her lips parted and moist. He wanted to kiss her again, he realized, and knew it was time to get the hell out.
“Walking away obviously runs in the family,” he said flatly. “Tell Margaret thanks for the thought, but I’m not interested.”
With that he turned and left.
The lake was blue and calm at seven the next morning; the air cool and still, filled with the sound of birdsong and the scent of pine. Rocks and pine needles crunched under her boots as Cara followed the path between her cabin and Ian’s, and from the low branch of a pine tree, a large gray squirrel chattered irritably at her intrusion.
Amazing how that squirrel reminded her of Ian.
She shifted the bag of groceries in her arms and frowned at the tail-twitching rodent, decided if she could deal with four bullheaded brothers, she could deal with one Killian Shawnessy.
She’d had a long, sleepless night to think about Ian’s reaction to what she’d told him. Of course he’d be angry, she’d reasoned. His mother had abandoned him. He had every right to be angry. She could certainly understand that.
What she didn’t understand was his cold, calm acceptance of the information, or why he hadn’t at least asked questions. Not even one. Outwardly he gave the impression he wasn’t interested, but when he’d kissed her, she’d felt the emotion churning inside him, emotions that went deeper than lust.
That kiss had been another reason she’d spent a sleepless night. Every time she’d closed her eyes, every time she’d started to drift off, she’d felt the power of that kiss, the desire on her lips. He’d caught her off guard—again—and it frightened her that she’d nearly given in to him.
Lord help her, she’d wanted to.
At the edge of the woods Cara paused, then spotted two rowboats out on the lake. The father and son she’d seen at the cabin rental office in town were in one boat at the far end of the lake, Ian was in the other.
His line was cast, his back to her, yet somehow she had the feeling he knew she was there. Very little got past this man, in spite of the bored attitude he wore most of the time. Occasionally, and each time only for the briefest of moments, his eyes would give him away. There was a clarity in those deep, dark orbs. A sharp-edged intelligence that astounded her.
“Good morning.”
She jumped at the unexpected greeting from behind her, then turned. A good-looking dark-haired man and a slender, pretty redhead were walking up the path, their arms around each other’s waist. They both smiled at her.
She smiled back. “Morning.”
“Bob and Pamela Waters.” The man stuck out his hand. “Cabin two.”
“Cara Sinclair. Cabin four.” Cara took the man’s hand, then the woman’s. When they immediately hugged each other again, it was easy to figure out who they were. “You must be the honeymoon couple that the woman at the rental office mentioned.”
Pamela wiggled a wedding ring. “Four whole days.”
“But who’s counting?” Bob said, then they smiled at each other, one of those I-love-you-so-much, newlywed smiles that most people thought were cute. Cara wasn’t one of those people.
“Isn’t it beautiful here?” Pamela hugged her husband. “Bobby and I live in Dallas. We’ve decided we’re going to come here every year for our anniversary. Didn’t we, baby?”
“Bobby baby” rewarded his bride with a kiss. “That’s right, sweetcakes.”
Baby and sweetcakes on an empty stomach was almost too much for C
ara. She smiled tightly. “That’s great.”
“How ‘bout you?” Bob asked. “Where you from?”
She glanced at the lake. Ian hadn’t moved. “Philadelphia.”
Pamela’s big blue eyes got bigger. “Goodness. What brings you all the way here?”
“I’m trying to get over my second divorce.” Cara watched as Ian reeled up a wiggling trout. “I’ve been a little stressed since my husband ran away with my sister. My therapist thought the solitude here would be a good idea.”
Bob and Pamela’s smiles faded. “Oh dear, I’m so sorry,” Pamela said awkwardly, then glanced at her husband. “Goodness, Bobby, the time just flies up here, doesn’t it? Well, ah, we’ve got to be off now, Miss Sinclair, but we’ll, ah, see you around.”
Feeling absolutely wicked, Cara waved as the couple turned and walked quickly away. “Enjoy your honeymoon,” she called out.
They didn’t look back, just kept walking.
Marriage was fine, Cara thought, watching them disappear when the path curved. She intended to try it someday herself. After she’d established her business and put her nest egg away. Of course, she’d have to find the right guy first, but that was a detail. An important one, but a detail nonetheless. She definitely wanted kids, too, so she knew she wouldn’t wait too long.
But if her husband ever called her sweetcakes, she thought with a frown, he’d be sporting a black eye and sleeping on the couch for a long time.
She headed for Ian’s cabin, let herself in the unlocked front door. Thirty minutes later, when he came into the cabin, she was frying potatoes, onions and bell peppers.
Without so much as glancing her way, he shrugged out of his jacket and moved to the kitchen sink.
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully.
No response. He scrubbed his hands, splashed water on his face and reached for a towel.
Cara’s heart jumped against her ribs at the sight of him. He had a rugged, wild look about him this morning. His faded jeans hugged his lean hips, and the red-plaid flannel shirt he’d rolled to his elbows gave him the rough-tough appearance of a lumberjack. His morning beard was dark; his hair, rumpled. He looked like he’d just tumbled out of bed.
Killian's Passion Page 5
