Joan Pickart – Single With Twins (страница 3)

“Why are you staring at me?” Heather said, snapping Mack back to attention.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just trying to figure out what your official title is. You know, sister-in-law, stepsister-in-law. It’s not important. What matters is that I’ve found you at long last.”

“Why?” Heather said, frowning. “Why is that important, Mr. Marshall?”

“Mack. Please, call me Mack and I’ll call you Heather. After all, we are related.”

“Back to the question…Mack,” Heather said. “Why did you go to such lengths to find me?”

Because he’d nearly died in the dirt halfway around the world, Mack thought, and had been deeply shaken by the fact that he had no family, no one who cared enough to cry at his funeral. That was the truth of the matter, but he wasn’t about to bare his soul to a woman he didn’t even know.

“I, um, I had some unexpected time on my hands,” he said, “and I remembered that I had some old boxes that belonged to my father when he was alive. I’d stuck them in storage and forgotten about them for years. When I finally sifted through the stuff, I discovered documents that proved my father had been married briefly before he met my mother. That first marriage produced Frank. For reasons known only to my father, he never told me he’d been married before and had a son older than me.

“I was determined to find Frank. But after weeks of frustration and dead ends, I learned that he was deceased. Then I finally located you and your daughters. And—” Mack shrugged “—here I am.”

“Well, that makes sense, I guess,” Heather said. “I suppose I’d do the same thing if I suddenly found out I had a relative I hadn’t known existed. Except I’m not certain we’re actually related, given the circumstances.”

“You’re a Marshall,” Mack said firmly. “That makes us family as far as I’m concerned. My investigation also uncovered that you have no relatives. You, Melissa, Emma and I are it…the full contingent of the Marshall clan.”

“You know my daughters’ names?” Heather said, her voice rising slightly.

Mack nodded. “And their birthday. I also know your date of birth and…” He frowned. “You don’t look exactly thrilled with what I’m saying here.”

“Well, my stars,” Heather said, throwing up her hands, “how would you feel if a perfect stranger appeared on your doorstep and proceeded to inform you that not only is he a relative of yours, he also knows everything about you? What else did you find out? When I had my last dental appointment? What kind of vehicle I drive? What?”

“Your car is twelve years old,” Mack said, then cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but the information was right in front of me on the computer and—”

“You’ve invaded my privacy, Mr. Marshall,” Heather said, “and I’m going to report you to…to— I don’t have the slightest idea who I’m going to report you to. Oh, this is ridiculous.” She paused. “Look, I’ve had a long day and I’m tired. I think it would be best if you left now.”

“May I come back tomorrow?” Mack said, getting to his feet.

Heather stood and crossed her arms, her hands wrapped around her elbows. “I really don’t see any purpose to be served by it. So, okay, we’re related, we’re…we’re family, if you want to stretch the point. But we come from entirely different worlds. You’re a famous photojournalist, a globe-trotting celebrity. I’m a single mother who runs an accounting business out of my home and pinches pennies to provide for my daughters. We have absolutely nothing in common. We’ve met, said hello, but we have nothing to talk about.”

“What about Frank? I’d like to hear about my half brother.”

“That will take all of sixty seconds,” Heather said, rolling her eyes heavenward.

“Heather, I’d really like to meet your daughters, have a chance to get to know them…and you. You’re all the family I have and…well, I’m all the family you have. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“No. Yes. Oh, I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “This is all rather overwhelming. I have to give serious thought to what is best for my daughters. Our family, for all intents and purposes, consists of the people who live on this block.

“I rented this house right after the girls were born and no one has moved away from this street since then. We look out for one another and…I don’t want to upset or confuse my daughters by saying, ‘Hey, guess what? You have an uncle, or stepuncle, or whatever. Say a quick hello to Mack, girls, before he takes off for parts unknown and we never see him again.’ Why disrupt their peaceful and consistent existence like that?”

Heather shook her head. “I’m sorry. You’ve really thrown me for a loop, and I’m not behaving well. I apologize for being so rude, but I have to think about what is best for my girls.”

Mack nodded slowly. “I understand, but perhaps it will help you to reach a decision if I tell you that I won’t be doing any traveling for a while. I’m self-employed and I’m on an extended…vacation. I’ll definitely be around for a few weeks at least.”

“Oh,” Heather said. “Don’t people in your tax bracket usually go to more exotic places than Tucson, Arizona, for their vacations?”

“Not when they discover that the only family they have is in Tucson, Arizona,” Mack said quietly, looking directly into Heather’s eyes. “I want—I need—to connect with you and your daughters, Heather. I hope you’ll grant me that privilege.”

She couldn’t breathe, Heather thought suddenly. The soft, rumbly timbre of Mack’s voice, combined with those mesmerizing dark eyes of his, was stealing the very breath from her body.

Mack Marshall was so big, so powerful, so blatantly male, that his very essence seemed to fill the room to overflowing, leaving no space for her, no air to breathe.

Oh, this was frightening, yet somewhere deep within her was a hum of excitement, as well. A heightened awareness of her own femininity as nothing she’d ever experienced before.

No, she didn’t want to see Mack again, didn’t want him in her home, close to her, unsettling her, throwing her so off kilter. No.

“Heather?” Mack said. “May I come back tomorrow? You name the time and I’ll be here. Please?”

“Three o’clock,” Heather heard herself say, then shook her head slightly, stunned at her own response. She sighed in defeat. “The girls get home from school about two-thirty. I’ll explain things to them while we’re sharing our snack, then you can arrive and—oh, I hope I’m doing the right thing.”

“You are. Believe me, you are,” Mack said, smiling. “Thank you, Heather, more than I can begin to express to you. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock sharp. Good night.”

Mack extended his right hand toward Heather and she stared at it for a long moment before placing her right hand in his. He gripped her hand firmly, but didn’t release it from his grasp.

“Thank you again,” he said.

Heather nodded, told herself to retrieve her hand, but didn’t move.

Heat, she registered. There was a strange heat traveling up her arm and across her breasts, causing them to feel heavy and achy, so strange and— She could feel the calluses on Mack’s hand, which was so large it totally covered hers. There was power in that hand, but he was holding hers with just the right amount of gentleness and, dear heaven, the heat.

Heather pulled her hand free and hoped Mack didn’t see the shuddering breath she took in the next instant.

Mack turned and moved to the door, and Heather followed to lock up behind him.

“Until tomorrow,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper.

Mack left the house and Heather closed and locked the door behind him. She leaned her forehead against the worn wood.

How was it possible, she thought, that a simple knock on the front door could turn her entire world topsy-turvy?

Oh, Heather, stop overreacting, she admonished herself as she spun around and headed for the kitchen to make the almost-forgotten lunches. Anyone would be a tad shaken up to have a stranger suddenly appear on the doorstep and claim to be a long-lost relative.

Her world wasn’t topsy-turvy, as her mind had so dramatically described it. It was simply changed a little by the arrival of Mack Marshall. She could handle this. She just needed some rejuvenating sleep, would have this development in its proper perspective in the light of the new day.

“Right,” she said dryly as she yanked open the refrigerator door. “If that’s true, then why do I have a sneaking suspicion that as of three o’clock tomorrow afternoon my life is never going to be quite the same again?”

Chapter Two

Mack muttered several earthy expletives, tossed back the blankets on the bed, then crossed the room to the large bathroom.

He tore the paper off one of the hotel glasses, filled the glass and swallowed the pill the doctor had prescribed for him when he’d left the hospital in New York City.

He’d been determined to deal with the pain in his shoulder with nothing stronger than aspirin, he fumed, returning to the bed. But he’d been tossing and turning so much, he’d aggravated his wound to the point that he would never be able to sleep with such throbbing pain tormenting him.

Mack sighed and gave himself a firm directive to relax, turn off his mind and get some much-needed sleep. He was bone-tired and had jet lag, to boot.