Ellen Marsh - For His Son's Sake

“Don’t be silly.”

“But you are! Isn’t she?” he demanded, turning to his father.

Ross’s eyes held hers. “Yes, she is.”

No doubt about it, something in Ross Calder’s voice was making her tingle all over. “Thanks,” she said lamely, then pointed quickly to the envelope. “Look inside. There’s something else.”

It was a picture book called Pirates of the Outer Banks. On the cover, a menacing Blackbeard shook his cutlass at them. “Blackbeard used to hide out on Ocracoke, the island south of ours,” Kenzie explained. “So did Anne Bonney, the lady pirate. They supposedly buried their treasure there, but it’s never been found.”

Angus leafed eagerly through the pages. Then he frowned. “But, Kenzie, I can’t read this! I’m not very good yet.”

“No problem. I bought it mainly for your father. So he could read aloud to you.”

Startled, Ross looked at her.

Yes, read to Angus, Kenzie silently urged him. It’s one of the most wonderful things a parent can do with a child. Don’t tell me it’s never occurred to you to try!

“Can we go to Okie Coke and look for the treasure ourselves?”

Kenzie laughed. “It’s pronounced Ocracoke, sweetie. And, yes, you can. It’s a short ferry ride from Hatteras Village.”

“A ferry ride! Can we go, Dad? Please?”

Dad. Kenzie suddenly realized that she’d never heard Angus address his father that way before. She cast a swift glance at Ross and her heart squeezed when she saw the startled pleasure in his eyes.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Will you come, too, Kenzie?”

“Um—”

“You’ve spilled some Shirley Temple on your sleeve, son,” Ross interrupted. “Go wash it off, please.”

“Okay.” He slid meekly out of his chair.

The moment they were alone, Ross turned to her. “Ms. Daniels.”

Even a blind man could have sensed the change in him. She steeled herself for whatever was coming. “Mr. Calder?”

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for Angus, not only this evening, but also the other day. You’ve been kind to him and made him laugh, and I’m truly very grateful.”

“But?”

Ross took a deep breath. “But I’d rather not encourage further contact between the two of you after this evening.” Or with me, he thought silently.

Even though Kenzie had suspected this was coming, she was surprised at the stab of disappointment she felt. “I hope you don’t think I’ve done anything to encourage—”

“Oh, I’m not suggesting as much. And while I’m glad Angus seems to be moving beyond the loss of his mother I don’t believe it’s at all healthy for him to grow attached to you.” He said this without looking at her, knowing better than to allow those big blue eyes to weaken his resolve.

“No, it isn’t,” Kenzie agreed in a whisper.

“So surely you can understand my request?”

She nodded, her own eyes downcast.

“Kenzie.” His hand was on her arm, sending warmth shooting through her. “Look at me.”

She lifted her eyes and the crooked smile on his face threatened to undo her.

“Let’s enjoy tonight, okay? For Angus’s sake?”

She didn’t like the feeling that was coming over her. A thank-goodness-she-was-sitting-down-because-her-knees-were-givingout sort of giddiness that had absolutely nothing to do with the way he was looking at her or with the feel of his big, warm hand on her skin. Nothing at all.

She struggled to say something that would put her back on even footing. Before she fell completely. “For Angus’s sake, gladly. Just make sure you keep that in mind yourself, Counselor.”

He leaned back, breaking the contact between them. “That sounds like a reprimand.”

“In a way, it is,” she admitted reluctantly.

He leaned back even farther, striving to look casual although he was feeling anything but. Asking her to stay out of their lives after tonight had been much harder than he’d thought, though for the life of him he didn’t know why. “So you have some criticism to offer concerning my behavior toward Angus?”

“Toward Angus, no. Toward me.”

“You?”

“If you want this to be a pleasant evening, you’re going to have to stop behaving so disapprovingly of me.”

“Disapproving!” Ross sounded genuinely startled. Had he been trying too hard to build a fence between Kenzie and Angus—and himself—tonight? But how could that be? His tactfulness was well-known in the courtroom and it shouldn’t have failed him here.

“Oh, you’ve been nice enough, I’ll admit. But I have this feeling that deep down you didn’t want me to come. That I’m here tonight only because Angus insisted on inviting me.”

He sucked in his breath at the stab of guilty pain he felt. “Ouch. You’re very direct, Ms. Daniels, you know that? What a shame you never studied law.”

“Did I get all the red off?” Angus had appeared at Kenzie’s side, holding out a scrubbed sleeve for her inspection.

“It looks fine.” She dabbed it dry with her napkin, then stood up.

He regarded her curiously. “Where are you going?”

“The ladies’ room,” she said as she left the table.

Once there, she took deep, calming breaths as she leaned against the sink. Thank goodness Ross hadn’t noticed her reaction to his casual words. Although Ross had been teasing her, the things he’d said had totally unraveled her composure.

“You plead your case very well, MacKenzie. Too bad you never studied law.”

Similar words had been spoken by her father, but in a tone Ross Calder hadn’t used with her—a tone which she’d never heard anyone use with her until that final, hateful confrontation outside the stately double doors leading to Burton Daniels III’s law office in downtown Washington, D.C.

It was the last thing he had ever said to his daughter, after the reporters and news cameras had gone. Although he had been the leading candidate for his party’s run for the presidency, he had just announced his withdrawal from the Republican race, citing his wife’s recent hospitalization as the major cause.

But thanks to Kenzie, everyone in America knew the real reason behind his decision: those questionable campaign funds he’d received from a European businessman whose bank on Grand Cayman Island had consequently become the target of an international investigation. No one in the States had been aware of any connection between the millionaire Belgian banker and the powerful D.C. attorney—until an unassuming political cartoon in the tiny Maryland publication Eastern Shore Weekly had raised the question.

The repercussions were only just beginning when Burton Daniels III announced his withdrawal from the Republican race, and no one doubted there’d be more to come.

As indeed there had been. A subpoena to appear before Congress, a Justice Department investigation, a hefty fine and six months’ jail time for Daniels’s campaign manager.

But what had whetted the nation’s interest more than the sullying of Burton Daniels’s once prestigious name had been the fact that Daniels’s own daughter had drawn the cartoon that had proved his downfall—her first ever published work. Strange, the wags had whispered among themselves, how Mrs. Burton Daniels’s hospitalization for chest pains had coincided with the publication of her daughter’s revealing cartoon and her husband’s subsequent withdrawal from the Republican race.

Still, much had changed since then. Surgery to install a pacemaker had set Kenzie’s mother to rights, and relocation to the isolated Outer Banks had helped Kenzie escape the unending media frenzy. Luckily she had found steady cartooning work at the Norfolk Messenger, because she’d not have been fit for any other career after fleeing Washington and giving up her nearly completed doctorate in early childhood education.