Ellen Marsh - For His Son's Sake

And if Angus’s happiness meant being nice to Kenzie Daniels, well, he could do that, too. At least long enough to give the boy a birthday dinner he’d remember.

“I don’t believe it!” Kenzie gritted her teeth and pounded her fist on the steering wheel. If the dump truck ahead of her slowed down any further they’d both be crawling. She’d been following him since Nags Head, unable to pass because of all the oncoming traffic. Usually Saturdays were the worst time to try and navigate Highway 12, but this was midweek, for crying out loud.

She downshifted as the dump truck slowed to veer around two cyclists, then glanced at her watch. Ross and Angus were picking her up in an hour and she was still twenty miles from home.

Nothing like a hissy fit to sour her mood even further, she thought. She was already tired and cranky after a morning spent in the Norfolk Messenger offices, summoned to a meeting that couldn’t wait until tomorrow, when she’d already planned to show up anyway. At least Maureen, her editor, had felt bad about springing the planning session on her without warning and had taken her to lunch—though they’d ended up waiting seemingly forever for their food.

Then the long drive back, with Kenzie starting to feel a little pressured about the time. The situation had worsened when her pickup had stalled just north of the Oregon Inlet bridge, the needle on the temperature gauge buried on Hot.

The radiator, of course. She’d been nursing the old one longer than she should have with a gallon of coolant she kept in the bed. The tow truck had taken too long, the radiator hadn’t been in stock, and she had whiled away the afternoon at the convenience store across the street reading pulp magazines and wondering how she was going to afford the repairs until a replacement part was shipped down from Elizabeth City.

Now she was stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle and about to succumb to a screaming bout of road rage. Didn’t the driver ahead of her know she had a date—with two good-looking guys, no less? Couldn’t he pull over and let her by?

Angus had sounded so grown-up when he’d called to ask her to dinner. Surprised and flattered, she’d accepted at once. Then she remembered that Ross would be there, too. “Are you sure your dad doesn’t mind?”

“Oh, no. He said you should come.”

Yeah, sure. Kenzie could picture him agreeing with that stoic lawyer’s look that Angus was too young and unsophisticated to read. Still, she was surprised at how much she was looking forward to the evening. She had a number of friends among Buxton’s permanent residents and went out with them often. But she’d never been invited to celebrate a seven-year-old English charmer’s birthday. Not at the Boathouse, which, after all, was outrageously expensive.

“Eight. Angus is eight as of today,” Kenzie reminded herself. She had spent most of yesterday working on his present. She couldn’t wait to see what he thought of it. No doubt Ross would find it silly. Like most of the lawyers Kenzie knew, he probably had no sense of humor.

The dump truck put on its blinker, downshifted, and turned into a construction site. Honking and waving her thanks, Kenzie sped away.

She fed the dogs and the birds in record time, then leaped into the shower. After wrapping her wet hair in a towel, she dried herself off and padded into the bedroom. No time to obsess over what to wear. She seized a dress from the closet and pulled it on, whipped out the blow dryer, then raced to put on her makeup.

“Kenzie!”

Crud! She hadn’t even heard the car drive up, and here she was still barefoot and lacking mascara. “Come on in! Be careful not to let the dogs out!”

The screen door slammed. Angus’s light footsteps sounded, followed by his father’s.

“Where are you, Kenzie?”

“In the bedroom. I’ll be out in a minute. There’s juice in the fridge. Help yourselves if you’re thirsty.”

She slipped on her watch, fastened a thin gold chain around her neck, spritzed on a trace of perfume. Her sandals were by the kitchen door. Barefoot, she waltzed out to fetch them.

“Oh, my,” she said.

Ross and Angus were at the counter, Ross pouring orange juice into a glass. They turned at the sound of her voice. She stared.

“Angus! You look super!”

He was wearing a new set of shorts and a collared shirt, obviously purchased from a local surf shop. The cargo shorts were sage in color, the Hawaiian shirt a riot of palm trees, hibiscus and exotic birds. His shoes were also new, the slouchy kind of sneakers worn by surfers and skateboarders. His still-damp hair was neatly combed.

“Do you really like it?”

“Way cool. I’m glad I dressed up, too.”

She had put on a knee-length sundress with spaghetti straps in periwinkle-blue—her favorite color. She wore her blond hair down. Her only jewelry was the delicate gold chain that nestled in the hollow of her tanned throat.

Shifting her focus from Angus to his father, she felt her cheeks grow warm. Like him or not, you had to admit that Ross Calder was one good-looking man. Angus must have talked him into buying something new, as well, because the fine white muslin shirt he wore was bright and crisp. The sleeves were rolled back in a casually masculine way and the open collar revealed an even more masculine expanse of muscled chest. Kenzie wasn’t sure how a pair of ordinary khaki pants could look so sexy, but Ross Calder definitely pulled it off.

She struggled to regain her composure as she slipped on her sandals. Reminded herself that, good-looking though he might be, he was still a member of that greedy, grasping, heartless class of professionals who lived for the thrill of making money, of working a judge and jury until their clients went free whether they knew them to be guilty or not.

Like her father.

Whom she had loved desperately as a little girl but who had betrayed her in the end, and who had turned everyone in her family but her mother against her when Kenzie had courageously exposed him for the man he was.

Even after all this time the pain of it clawed at her.

“Kenzie?”

She had to swallow before she could answer. “Yes, Angus?”

“You look really, really pretty.”

She gave a strangled laugh of gratitude and relief and pulled him impulsively into her arms. “Happy birthday, you little goof-ball! How does it feel to be eight?”

“I feel very grown-up, thank you.”

Was it her imagination, or did he look a little disappointed when she let him go? She hugged him again for good measure. Funny, but she’d forgotten how good it felt to hug a kid.

Straightening, she found herself eye-to-eye with Ross. He was wearing his lawyer’s look again, revealing absolutely nothing of what he was thinking.

Her chin tipped. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“It was Angus’s idea.”

“Oh.” Her heart sank.

“And he’s right. You do look really, really pretty.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

The way he said it made a shiver flee down her spine. Confused and breathless, she gathered up her purse, sunglasses and a padded envelope from the kitchen table.

Angus’s eyes lit up. “What’s that?”

“Your present, of course. As if you didn’t know.”

“It’s not very big.”

“There are a couple of saying here in America, Angus. Maybe you have them in England, too— Good things come in small packages. And curiosity killed the cat.”

“My grannie always used to say that to me.”

“She probably had good reason to.”

Outside, Angus gallantly held open the car door for her.

“But you’re the birthday boy. You should sit up front.”

He dimpled. “But you’re the guest of honor.”