Her Reason to Stay Read online

  “It sounds improbable right now, but until I saw the two of you sitting behind that table as if you were under siege, I assumed she’d be as happy as I was to find a sister.”

  For a moment, he said nothing. Upstairs, he’d been as impassive as Raina. But now he looked uncomfortable.

  “Raina and I made assumptions, too,” he said. “Come back up, and we’ll all start over.”

  “Forget it. I made a mistake.”

  “I’m trying to explain what we thought. Raina’s mother asked me to protect her. I have to do that.”

  “She’s a grown woman.”

  “And totally untouched. Honesty is a safe place where few things have challeneged her. She’s used to her life being a certain way and you’ve changed that. But she is a good person. Get to know her, and see what I mean.” He touched her again, squeezing her wrist as if to emphasize his sincerity. She looked down, causing him to release her.

  “You all but accused me of planning to rob Raina the second she turns her back on an open checkbook.” His intensity had the strange effect of a rope around her throat. She was strong enough to ignore a passing attraction to some guy. She wouldn’t let him distract her. “You think I’m after my sister’s money. I don’t need it. I can find a job. I’ve found a way to start over too many times to tell you.” Good God. It was like in the old days, when she’d drink too much and buttonhole strangers to confess her worst sins. “I never found family before.”

  She didn’t realize her voice had broken until he lowered his head. Above him, the atrium soared to a glass dome. His dark lashes glinted in the diffused light. No doubt part of Mother Nature’s foul plan to make him look sensitive.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “I know I’m making this worse, but I just want to ask for another chance. For Raina,” he said. “Accept our apologies for thinking you might be here for whatever handout she could give you.”

  “I don’t see how you stay in business. The other attorneys must rake you over in court if you’re this articulate.”

  “I hardly ever make a fool of myself like this.” He stepped out of her way. She could have left.

  “Why should I stay? Raina didn’t care enough to come downstairs to insult me, herself. None of what you or I say matters because this is between me and her.”

  She got as far as the revolving door.

  “Raina’s still mourning her mother. Her father died when she was in college. She has no one else.”

  Daphne was already reaching for the door, but she thought of Raina, braced behind the big table, her arms wrapped around her waist. His shot hit Daphne right where she was weakest.

  “No one,” he said again.

  Maybe he wasn’t that bad in court. “You know things about me. Have you investigated me?”

  “No,” he said. He was a good liar, but she’d been a jury consultant. She’d made her living sitting in on voir dire to assess which jurors would vote her client’s way in a court case. She understood psychology and body language, and she was hard to fool. She eyed him steadily until he continued. “I looked. Aside from the financials, I found stuff on your track-and-field results.”

  She almost told him he hadn’t dug deep enough, but why send him straight to the truth about her past? He and Raina would think even less of her.

  “She’s alone. You could help her. She might help you, too.”

  “Alone’s a bad place to be.”

  A man in a business suit burst through the door from outside, shaking rain off his umbrella. Patrick pulled her away from the door.

  “People have already tried to take advantage of Raina.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” It was the way of the world. “But I didn’t, and I wouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have come here. This place…It makes me think of families and old-fashioned closeness. I’m used to bad guys who wear their evil on their sleeves.” She couldn’t articulate her experience of the town thus far. Of course, her exposure had been limited, so maybe she should see more before passing judgment. “My sister is content in a world I’m not sure I could live in even if I wanted to. I’m used to larger, more anonymous cities.”

  “How do you know until you try?”

  “It might be pointless, Patrick.”

  She hadn’t meant to say his name. It was too personal. It invited proximity. As if acting on that invitation, he stepped closer. Her awareness of her surroundings narrowed until she saw—felt—only Patrick.

  Each breath pressed his chest against her shoulder. The situation grew personal in the extreme.

  “You don’t know this place. Raina’s been lost since her mother died. You could help her life make sense again. I can’t do any more for her.”

  He wasn’t acting the part of a knight in a business suit. He truly cared about Raina. His love for her dragged Daphne back to earth with a thump.

  She twisted away. “I don’t understand what goes on between you two, but you make me feel claustrophobic.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Maybe he’d never longed for that one person who made him feel he had a place, a love stronger than anything else he’d ever known—a love to fill the gaps created by years without affection or concern. But Daphne had. And she began to suspect that Patrick loved Raina that much.

  Daphne hadn’t resented Raina’s luckier ticket in the adoption lottery, and she’d been glad her sister had never been forced to fend off unwanted male attention. Right now Daphne envied the connection between Raina and this man.

  “I’m sorry.” Daphne held out her hand. “You’re my sister’s answer. She doesn’t want love from me. You matter to her. Goodbye, Mr. Gannon.”

  He stared at her for a moment, the look in his eyes confused as his hand clasped hers. Her palm disappeared in his. Her fingers felt crushed and her arm grew heavy from her wrist to her shoulder. Heavy with awareness.

  “I didn’t expect you to be like this,” Patrick said. “You’re strong enough to walk away.”

  She retreated, fighting her attraction. A woman who’d grown up with inappropriate men, Daphne recognized the danger of being vulnerable to a man like Patrick—one who got through her defenses, one who was committed elsewhere. Affairs always started this way. Sexual longing. Looking too deeply into his eyes. Him holding her hand too long, drawing out perfectly natural physical contact, making it something more. That path, however tempting, led to heart-ache. It led away from the real, safe love she deserved.

  She should run, if only because of Patrick and the threat of a relationship that had nothing to do with her reasons for coming to Honesty.

  But there was Raina. Suppose he was right. Suppose she really wanted to know Daphne, but she didn’t know how to say so.

  Wasn’t it worth another day or two in this little town to have the chance to know her sister?

  “I’ll stay.”

  Instead of sagging with relief, he seemed to grow larger. His shoulders went back as he took a deep breath.

  “But she has to call me. She has to make the next move.” Daphne had a right to make demands after the way they’d treated her. “And next time we meet on neutral ground.”

  Before he could counter or touch her again in a way that would persuade her to linger, she left. She walked to where she’d parked, ignoring the rain. She tried to look purposeful, as if she weren’t trembling from scalp to toe with unexpected, totally illogical need of a man who loved her sister.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “DID YOU CATCH HER?”

  “I caught her.” Patrick pressed his tingling palm to the side of his jacket.

  What was his problem? Daphne was his client’s sister. Besides, he wasn’t interested in a relationship right now. There’d been plenty of women who’d offered to comfort the poor, divorced single dad whose ex-wife had loved pills better than their family.

  He’d turned down those women because his son needed him and he couldn’t afford to complicate his life any further. But something about Daphne had almost ma
de him forget.

  With ridiculous weakness, he’d basked in her scent, eased closer so that the dark tendrils of her hair had curled against his shoulder, while he’d kept her talking, not only to persuade her to give Raina a second chance, but to prolong the pleasure of drowning in the whiskey-honey tones of her voice.

  He’d been too long on his own with his son, Will.

  “She’s staying, but you have to call her, Raina. I’m done.”

  “I will.” Raina pushed herself out of her chair. Happiness softened the pinched lines of her face as she hurried to the window.

  Patrick had worried about her since the moment her mother had pulled him closer to her hospital bed and begged him to look after her daughter. It was good to see those lines ease.

  Nevertheless, he had to make sure she understood he wasn’t part of her relationship with Daphne, whatever it turned out to be.

  “You’re too late,” he said as Raina’s forehead bumped the window. “She was speed walking last time I saw her.” He’d probably lit the fire—hanging on to her as if she were a rope at the edge of quicksand.

  “I didn’t know what to say.” Raina pressed fingertips to her head. “She looks like me, but she…she seems so different.”

  Raina was right. Daphne was different. She was strong, independent and, most telling, she wasn’t afraid to let her feelings be known.

  At twenty-eight, Raina remained, improbably, the princess under glass in one of Will’s Disney movies.

  “You know where she’s staying?”

  “She sent me the address.” Raina dug in her purse. “Even after your secretary told her to get in touch with you if she wanted to meet today.”

  “She doesn’t take orders well.”

  “You admire her, Patrick?”

  Admire her? He shrugged. “She’s got courage. She’s had a harder life than you.”

  He needn’t have been so blunt. Daphne had rattled him, resurrected feelings he’d thought had gone forever. He’d deliberately kept his emotions on ice after what had happened to his son last year. Staying detached from everyone except Raina and Will had become his special skill.

  “How do you go to someone you’ve never met and tell her you’re her twin? And how do you anticipate being welcomed?” Raina found what she was looking for, a crumpled envelope. “I admire her courage, but I don’t have it in me to love a sister who’s a stranger.”

  “I’ll repeat what I said to her. Give her a chance.”

  “You asked her to give me a chance?” Raina looked affronted at the idea that she had done something that required being given a second chance.

  Which was Patrick’s last straw. He should have walked when Raina had first called him about her twin-out-of-nowhere. Untouched by life except in her own extraordinary home, she might be out of her depth with a woman like Daphne.

  Patrick began to gather the papers around his folder, still open on the table. “Raina, I’ve paved the way for you. The rest is up to you.”

  Raina waved off his impatience. “I know. I get upset about the wrong things, and I always look to you to help me make a decision, but my mother’s not here, and I can’t ask her why she didn’t tell me I was adopted. She should have warned me. She had to know Daphne or my birth parents might show up.”

  “No one came in all these years. Hannah probably thought her secret was safe.”

  “Okay, okay.” Raina gripped the envelope so hard it crinkled in the silent room. “Why do you suppose they didn’t adopt Daphne, too?”

  “I don’t know. You were infants. Maybe your parents didn’t know about Daphne.”

  “Does that seem likely?”

  “I’d think the agency would have wanted sisters to go together.”

  “Just when I need my memories most, I feel as if I didn’t know my parents, either.” Raina straightened the envelope and pulled out the letter. “I’ll call Daphne’s hotel.” She scanned the writing. “Good Lord, it’s one of those cheap ones out on Helier Drive.”

  Patrick had noticed the frayed cuffs of Daphne’s long-sleeved T-shirt and the worn spots on her jeans. Those shiny white patches, forming the seat of her pants, would stay on his mind a while, but he couldn’t attribute them to her sense of style.

  “That hotel is probably all she can afford.” He wasn’t any happier than Raina at the thought of Daphne in an area where most of Honesty’s criminal activities occurred.

  “I wonder if she’d meet me for coffee?”

  “Ask her.” He glanced at his watch. “I have some meetings.”

  “Why are you so eager to rush off? We didn’t intend to hurt her feelings.”

  “It got out of hand fast. We should have been more tactful.” Accusing Daphne right at the start of wanting money had been unfair. “She wants to get to know you. You’re interested in finding out about her. If you talk, things will work out.”

  Raina took out her cell phone. “Mind if I use this room a second longer?”

  “Fine. Will’s waiting for me.” His mother looked after Will, and Patrick was already late to pick up his son. He shoved the last of the loose pages inside the folder he’d made on Daphne. Sports clippings from the Internet, bank statements, her initial letter to Raina, hope written between every line. “Take your time and try to keep the games to a minimum, Raina.”

  “Games?”

  “You know what I mean. This morning was a game. You tried to make Daphne angry enough to admit she’d come to take advantage of you. But maybe she didn’t.”

  She stopped in the middle of punching in Daphne’s number on her phone. “What happened downstairs?”

  “Nothing happened,” he said. Nothing would. Will was his priority.

  But from the second he’d read hurt in Daphne’s eyes, from the moment he’d held her hand too long, he’d wanted her, pure and—not in any way—simple.

  How, out of the blue, could he desire a stranger when he’d sworn off any attachment except to Will until they had their life under control again?

  “Patrick?” Raina dropped the phone to her side. “You look funny. Are you okay?” She put her hand on the table, leaning toward him. “Is Will all right?”

  He turned the legal pad and folder as if aligning their edges were a priority. Raina knew he still felt guilty that his son had almost died because he’d been blind to his ex-wife’s addiction. If he’d known how much Lisa had craved the drugs that had become her crutch, he’d never have left Will alone with her. And his son would have been safely at home that snowy day, rather than nearly dying of hypothermia in the backseat of the car while his mother lay unconscious in a dressing room less than a block from Patrick’s office.

  “Will’s fine.” Raina had witnessed the rapid divorce that left him with custody of his son. She might be focused on her own grief, but she could step outside it long enough to care about his family. That was why he went out of his way for her.

  “Daphne didn’t come for money.” He hoped he wasn’t mistaking his own lust for good judgment. “I believe her.”

  “Why?”

  “She wouldn’t have walked out of here if she’d planned to work you for a paycheck.”

  “Something changed. You were on my side, but suddenly Daphne’s strong and kind, and I’m not supposed to play games.”

  “We’re talking trust. You both want to know each other, and that’s going to take trust.” He reached for the door then turned to look at her. She was right in a way. Those few minutes with Daphne had changed his feelings. It didn’t make sense and it wasn’t convenient. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Raina.”

  She’d always been the younger sister he’d never had, but the image of her twin, using her body to push through the revolving door, made him hitch his shoulders beneath a shirt that suddenly tormented his skin.

  He’d looked at Raina almost every day of her life. He’d talked to her and laughed with her and protected her, but Daphne was different. Her sad eyes had made him wonder about the secrets hiding behind them. He had fe
lt the taut weight of her breasts, a breath away from his chest, as if he’d held her already.

  After living alone with his son for long, empty, safe months, he’d longed to wrap his arms around Daphne’s slender waist and simply take pleasure in her warmth and curves.

  Wouldn’t he be safe with a woman who wanted family as badly as she did? Did he dare even entertain the possibility? After such deep acquaintance with fear and anger, hope seemed to sting.

  “I’ve got to get to Will,” he said.

  LATER THAT DAY, Daphne inhaled the coffee aroma, trying not to be noticed by the woman and little girl in line in front of her, not wanting them to mistake her for Raina. She checked her watch. She’d arrived at Cosmic Grounds about fifteen minutes early for her appointment with her sister, but it gave her time to appreciate the dark wood wainscoting beneath rich red walls without gawking like the stranger she was.

  She eyed buttery-smelling scones on plates beside jars of biscotti and chocolate-chip cookies wrapped in crinkly sleeves. The little girl plucked a praline out of a pyramid of the fat caramel-colored candies.

  “Can I have one, Mommy?”

  Her mother glanced down, barely comprehending. “I guess.” Then she looked startled when the girl behind the counter asked for more money.

  Daphne risked a scan of the other customers, a man buried behind a newspaper, a young girl running her index finger over a tome the size of the Domesday Book. The girl sipped her coffee. Her short cap of brown hair fell away from her face, and she smiled with tired gray eyes.

  Daphne had worked her way through a criminology degree. She recognized the signs of unremitting study. The girl went back to her work, and Daphne sighed, hoping despite a healthy dose of wariness that this might become her favorite coffee shop.

  Cosmic Grounds didn’t compare in size or even selection to the chain coffee shop down the block. Interesting that Raina had chosen it for their meeting. She seemed conventional all the way. Maybe she was hoping that the two of them wouldn’t be seen by too many of her neighbors.

  The mother and daughter hurried from the shop, balancing a coffee cup, a small container of hot cocoa and the girl’s candy.