Linda Howard Read online

  Cate didn’t think it funny at all when Conrad paused after his son had stepped out on the porch. He paused and swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Miss Cate, I’d like to ask—that is…are you receiving visitors tonight?”

  The old-fashioned approach both charmed and alarmed; she liked the way he’d done it, but was horrified that he’d asked at all. Cate did her own swallowing, then stepped up to the plate, on the theory that sidestepping the issue would only bring on more approaches. “No, I’m not. I spend the evenings with my boys. I’m so busy during the day that night is the only time I have with them, and I don’t think it would be right to take that away.”

  Still, he tried again. “You can’t mean to give up the best years of your life—”

  “I’m not giving them up,” she said firmly. “I’m living them the way I think best for me and my children.”

  “But I might be dead by the time they’re grown!”

  Now, there was a point of view that was sure to attract. She shot him an incredulous look, then nodded in agreement. “Yes, you might. I still have to give the opportunity a pass. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Not really,” he muttered, “but I guess I can take rejection as well as any other man.”

  Sherry poked her head out the kitchen door. “Cal’s here,” she said.

  Conrad’s gaze moved to her, and zeroed in. “Miss Sherry,” he said. “Are you by any chance receiving visitors—”

  Leaving Sherry to handle the geriatric lothario as best she could, Cate dodged past her into the kitchen.

  Mr. Harris was already on his knees with his head poked into the cabinet under the sink, and both boys were out of their chairs busily emptying his heavy toolbox.

  “Tucker! Tanner!” She put her hands on her hips and gave them her best Mother glare. “Put those tools back into the toolbox. What did I tell you about bothering Mr. Harris this time? I told you that you could watch, but to leave his tools alone. Both of you, go to your room, right now.”

  “But, Mommy—” Tucker began, always ready to mount a spirited argument to defend whatever it was he’d been caught doing. Tanner merely stepped back, still holding a wrench, and waited for Tucker to either fail or prevail. She could feel the situation beginning to spiral out of control, her maternal instinct telling her they were on the verge of outright rebellion. This happened every so often, pushing at the boundaries to see how far she would let them go. Never show weakness. That was her mother’s sole advice for facing bullies, wild animals, or disobedient four-year-olds.

  “No,” Cate said firmly, and pointed at the toolbox. “Tools in the box. Now.”

  Pouting, Tucker threw a screwdriver into the box. Cate felt her back teeth grind together; he knew better than to throw his own things, much less someone else’s. Swiftly she stepped over the toolbox, took his arm, and swatted his rear end. “Young man, you know better than to throw Mr. Harris’s tools. First you’re going to tell him you’re sorry; then you’re going to your room to sit in the naughty chair for fifteen minutes.” Tucker immediately began to wail, tears streaking down his face, but Cate merely raised her voice as she pointed at Tanner. “You. Wrench in the box.”

  He scowled, looking mutinous, but he heaved a sigh and carefully placed the wrench in the toolbox. “Oooookay,” he said in a tone of doom that made her bite her lip to keep from laughing. She had learned the hard way she couldn’t give these two an inch, or they’d run roughshod over her.

  “You have to sit in the naughty chair for ten minutes, after Tucker gets up. You disobeyed, too. Now, both of you finish picking up those tools and put them back in the box. Gently.”

  Tanner’s lower lip came out as he imitated a miniature thundercloud, and Tucker was still crying, but to her relief they began doing as they were told. Cate looked around to find that Mr. Harris had pulled his head from the depths of the cabinets and was opening his mouth, no doubt to defend the little culprits. She raised her finger at him. “Not one word,” she said sternly.

  He blushed scarlet, mumbled, “No, ma’am,” and stuck his head back under the sink.

  When the tools had been restored to the box, though probably not in their proper places, Cate prompted Tucker, “What are you supposed to tell Mr. Harris?”

  “I’m sowwy,” he said, hiccuping in the middle of the word. His nose was running.

  Mr. Harris wisely kept his head inside the cabinet. “It’s o—” he started to say, then stopped. He seemed to freeze for a moment; then he finally mumbled, “You boys should mind your mother.”

  Cate seized a paper towel and wiped Tucker’s nose. “Blow,” she instructed, holding the towel in place, and he did with the excess energy he put into everything. “Now, both of you go up to your room. Tucker, sit in the naughty chair. Tanner, you may play quietly while Tucker’s in the chair, but don’t talk to him. I’ll come upstairs and tell you when to swap places.”

  Heads down, the two little boys dragged themselves up the stairs as if they were facing a fate of unimaginable horror. Cate checked the clock to see what time Tucker would be released from punishment.

  Sherry had come back into the kitchen and was watching Cate with a mixture of sympathy and amusement. “Will Tucker actually sit in the chair until you go upstairs?”

  “He will now. In the past his time in the naughty chair has been extended several times before so now he gets the idea. Tanner has been even more stubborn.” And that was the understatement of the year, she thought, remembering the struggle it had been to make him obey. Tanner didn’t talk much, but he personified “stubborn.” Both boys were active, strong-willed, and absolutely brilliant when it came to finding new and different ways to get in trouble—and worse, danger. Once she had been horrified at the idea of even swatting their bottoms, much less spanking them, but before they turned two she had revised a lot of her former opinions on child-raising. They still had never had a spanking, but she no longer had confidence that they would get through their childhood without one. The thought made her stomach clench, but she had to raise them alone, discipline them alone, and keep them safe while somehow molding them into responsible human beings. If she let herself think too much about it, the long years stretching before her, she would almost drown in panic. Derek wasn’t here. She had to do it by herself.

  Mr. Harris cautiously backed out of the cabinet and looked up at her as if gauging whether or not it was safe to speak now. Evidently deciding it was, he cleared his throat. “Ah…the leak is no problem; it’s just a loose fitting.” Blood was climbing in his face as he spoke, and he quickly looked down at the pipe wrench in his hand.

  She blew out a relieved breath and went toward the door. “Thank God. Let me get my purse and pay you.”

  “No charge,” he mumbled. “All I did was tighten it.”

  Surprised, she stopped in her tracks. “But your time is worth something—”

  “It didn’t take a minute.”

  “A lawyer would charge an hour for that minute,” Sherry observed, looking oddly amused.

  Mr. Harris muttered something under his breath that Cate didn’t catch, but Sherry evidently did because she grinned. Cate wondered what was so funny but didn’t have time to pursue the matter. “At least let me get you a cup of coffee, on the house.”

  He said something that sounded like “thank you,” though it could have been “don’t bother.” Assuming it was the former, she went into the dining room and poured coffee into a large take-out cup, then snapped a plastic lid in place. Two more men came up to pay their bills; one she knew, one she didn’t, but that wasn’t unusual during hunting season. She took their money, surveyed the remaining customers, who all seemed to be doing okay, and carried the coffee back into the kitchen.

  Mr. Harris was squatting down, restoring order to his toolbox. Cate flushed with guilt. “I’m so sorry. I told them to leave your tools alone, but—” She gave a one-shouldered shrug of frustration, then extended the coffee to him.

  “No harm,” he sa
id as he took the cup, his rough, grease-stained fingers wrapping around the polystyrene. He ducked his head. “I like their company.”

  “And they love yours,” she said drily. “I’ll go up now and check on them. Thank you again, Mr. Harris.”

  “It hasn’t been fifteen minutes yet,” Sherry said, checking the clock.

  Cate grinned. “I know. But they can’t tell time, so what does a few minutes matter? Will you watch the cash register for a few minutes? Everything looked okay in the dining room, no one needed coffee; so there’s nothing to do until someone leaves.”

  “Got it,” said Sherry, and Cate left the kitchen by the hall door, climbing the long, steep flight of stairs.

  She had chosen the two front bedrooms for herself and the twins, saving the best views for the paying guests. Both stairs and hallway were carpeted, so her steps were silent as she turned to the right at the top of the stairs. Their door was open, she saw, but she didn’t hear their voices. She smiled; that was good.

  Stopping in the doorway, she watched them for a minute. Tucker was sitting in the naughty chair, his head down and his lower lip protruding as he picked at his fingernails. Tanner sat on the floor, pushing a toy car up an incline he’d made by propping one of their storybooks against his leg, and making motor noises under his breath.

  Her heart squeezed as a memory flooded her. Their first birthday, just a few months after Derek’s death, had brought them an avalanche of toys. She had never made motor noises to them; they were just learning how to walk, and their toys were soft, plush animals, or something to bang, or educational toys she was using to teach them words and coordination. They had been too young when Derek died for him to have played cars with them, and she knew her dad hadn’t either. Her brother, who might have, lived in Sacramento and she had seen him only once since Derek’s death. Without anyone having demonstrated motor noises for them, they had each seized one of their new, fat, brightly colored plastic cars and pushed them back and forth, saying something that sounded like “uudddden, uuddden”—even capturing the gear changes. She had stared at them in total astonishment, for the first time truly realizing that a large part of their personalities came preset, and she might fine-tune their basic instincts but she didn’t have the power to shape their entire psyches. They were who they were, and she loved every inch, every molecule of them.

  “It’s time to swap,” she said, and Tucker hopped out of the naughty chair with a huge sigh of relief. Tanner released the little car and let his head droop as far as it would go, the complete picture of pitiful dejection. He dragged himself up, invisible weights attached to his feet so he could barely walk. He moved so slowly she was beginning to think he might become old enough to start school before he made it to that chair. But finally he reached it and dropped into the seat, his body slumped.

  “Ten minutes,” she said, once again fighting the urge to laugh. He obviously thought he was doomed; his body language all but shouted that he had no hope of being released from the naughty chair before he died.

  “I was good,” Tucker said, coming to lean against her legs. “I didn’t talk at all.”

  “That was very brave of you,” Cate said, stroking her fingers through his dark hair. “You took your punishment like a man.”

  He looked up, blue eyes wide. “I did?”

  “You did. I’m so proud.”

  His little shoulders squared, and he looked thoughtfully at Tanner, who showed every sign of expiring within moments. “Am I bwavuh than Tannuh?”

  “Braver,” Cate corrected.

  “Brrrraverrr.”

  “Very good. Tanner.”

  “Tannerrrr,” he repeated, making the sound growl.

  “Remember to take your time, and you’ll have it down pat.”

  Puzzled, he tilted his head. “Who’s Damn Pat?”

  “Tucker!” Horrified anew, Cate froze and her mouth fell open. “Where did you hear that word?”

  If anything, he looked even more puzzled. “You said it, Mommy. You said ‘Damn Pat.’”

  “Down, not damn!”

  “Ohhh.” He frowned. “Down Pat. Who’s Down Pat?”

  “Never mind.” Maybe it was just a coincidence; maybe he hadn’t heard the word damn at all. After all, there were only twenty-six letters in the alphabet, so how unusual was it that he would get some of them mixed up? Maybe he’d completely forget what he’d said if she just let the subject drop. Yeah, right. He’d savor it in private, then trot it out when it was certain to embarrass her the most—probably in front of her mother.

  “Sit down and play while Tanner’s in the naughty chair,” she instructed, patting his shoulder. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  “Eight,” said Tanner, reviving enough to give her a look of outrage.

  She checked her wristwatch; damn if there weren’t eight minutes left in his sentence. He’d already been in the chair for two of his punishment minutes.

  Yes, sometimes her children definitely alarmed her. They could each count to twenty, but she certainly hadn’t yet introduced them to subtraction, plus their concept of time tended to be either “right now” or “wait a long, long time.” Somewhere along the line, while he was observing instead of talking, Tanner had picked up some math skills.

  Maybe he could do her taxes next year, she thought with amusement.

  As she turned away, her gaze fell on the number 3 plainly lettered on the door across the hall from the stairwell. Mr. Layton! What with the plumbing emergency, plus the twins’ disobedience, she had completely forgotten about bringing a breakfast tray up to him.

  Swiftly she walked to the door; it was slightly ajar, so she knocked on the doorjamb instead. “Mr. Layton, it’s Cate Nightingale. Would you like me to bring up a breakfast tray?”

  She waited, but there was no answer. Had he left the room and gone downstairs while she’d been in the twins’ room? The door had a stubborn squeak, so she thought she would have heard him if he’d opened it.

  “Mr. Layton?”

  Still no answer. Gingerly she pushed the door open, and the squeak came right on cue.

  The bedcovers were thrown messily aside, and the closet door stood open, showing several articles of clothing hanging from the pole. Each guest room had a small private bath and that door, too, was standing open. A small leather suitcase was on the folding luggage stand, the lid open and propped against the wall. Mr. Layton, however, wasn’t there. He must have gone downstairs while she’d been talking to the boys, and she simply hadn’t heard the door squeak.

  She started to back out of the room, not wanting him to return and think she was snooping, when she noticed the window was open, and the screen looked slightly askew. Puzzled, she crossed to the window and tugged the screen back into place, latching it. How on earth had it gotten unlatched? Had the boys been playing in here, and tried to climb out the window? Her blood ran cold at the thought, and she looked out at the drop to the porch roof below. Such a fall would break their bones, possible even kill them.

  She was so riveted with horror at the possibility it was a moment before she realized the parking area was empty. Mr. Layton’s rental car wasn’t there. Either he hadn’t come back upstairs at all, or—or he’d climbed out the window onto the porch roof, swung down to the ground, and driven off. The idea was ridiculous, but preferable to thinking her little boys might be climbing out on the porch roof.

  She left room 3 and returned to the twins’ room. Tanner was still in the naughty chair, and still looked in danger of imminent demise. Tucker was drawing on their blackboard with a piece of colored chalk. “Boys, have either of you opened any of the windows?”

  “No, Mommy,” Tucker said without pausing in his art creation.

  Tanner managed to lift his head and give it a ponderous shake.

  They were telling the truth. When they lied, their eyes would get big and round and they’d stare at her as if she were a cobra, hypnotizing them with the sway of her head. She hoped they’d still do that when
they were teenagers.

  The only explanation left for the open window was that Mr. Layton had indeed climbed out it, and driven away.

  Why on earth would he do such a strange thing?

  And if he had happened to fall, would her insurance have covered it?

  2

  CATE HURRIED DOWN THE STAIRS, HOPING SHERRY HADN’T been overwhelmed by an unexpected influx of customers while Cate had been upstairs dealing with the twins. As she approached the kitchen door, she heard Sherry’s voice, rich with amusement. “I wondered how long you were going to keep your head stuck under that sink.”

  “I was afraid if I moved, she’d swat my ass, too.”

  Cate skidded to a stop, her eyes wide in astonishment. Mr. Harris had said that? Mr. Harris? And to Sherry? She could see him saying something like that to another man—maybe—but when he was talking to a woman, he could barely put two words together without blushing. And there was an ease to his tone she’d never heard before, one that made her doubt her own ears.

  Mr. Harris…and Sherry? Had she missed something there? It couldn’t be; the idea of those two together was too outlandish to be real, like…like Lisa Marie and Michael Jackson.

  Which told her that anything was possible.

  Sherry was older than Mr. Harris, in her mid-fifties, but age didn’t matter much. She was also an attractive woman, hefty but curvy, with reddish hair and a warm, outgoing personality. Mr. Harris was—well, Cate had no idea how old he was. Somewhere between forty and fifty, she guessed. She pictured him in her mind’s eye; he looked older than he probably was, and it wasn’t because he was wrinkled or anything like that. He was just one of those people who was born old, with a seen-it-all manner. In fact, now that she really thought about it, he might not even be forty yet. His nondescript hair, somewhere between brown and dishwater blond, was always too shaggy, and she’d never seen him when he wasn’t wearing a pair of grease-stained, baggy coveralls. He was so lanky the coveralls hung on him, looser than a prostitute’s morals.