Joan Johnston - Shattered

“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.”

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.”