“Who thinks they’re cleverer than me? Who thinks they’d know if I fingered their valuables?” Kit twirled an imaginary mustache. At ease now. Lost in the game. Impish. And irresistible. “Who?”
“Me!” A spontaneous chorus of four. They were McCabes, after all. Sure of themselves.
When the hands shot up, Kit made her lightning quick move. Sean saw Olivia’s bead bracelet disappear off her tiny wrist, noticed because Olivia had made such a big deal of finding that bracelet before coming to the hospital. Twisting to keep her eye on Kit, Olivia, however, seemed not to have felt a thing.
Sean examined Kit’s moves more closely. Not an unpleasant task.
“Who thinks their young eyes are sharper than my old fingers?” she asked.
“Me!” The four craned their necks to keep their eyes on Kit prowling the perimeter of their rapt group.
As Nina wriggled uneasily, Kit slipped a bow from the cousin’s hair, then palmed it out of sight. Nina didn’t flinch, as the others squirmed and protected their own pockets.
Sean took note, however. He took note of every sensuous move Kit made. How the vine tattoo on her uninjured arm rippled over svelte muscle as Kit swiped then pocketed the children’s little treasures. How intense and childlike her own expression turned as she wove a sense of magic with her voice and her movements. How her red cowboy boots clicked on the hospital’s tiled floor as she moved around the group, holding their attention as a snake charmer would a snake.
In fact, he was so mesmerized that he failed to get out of her way on one of her turns. She bumped into him. Hard. But she wasn’t hard. She might have the enthusiasm of a child, but she had the soft curves of a woman.
Patting him solicitously, she said, “Sorry.”
He wasn’t.
“You’re all so clever,” she remarked, returning her attention to the children. “A tough crowd. Protecting your pockets so well.” She reached down and pulled a coin from behind Noah’s ear. “I’ll never put anything over on you.” She held it up to the delighted giggles of her audience.
She handed the quarter to Alex. “Hold this between your hands.” She adjusted Alex’s hands to a prayer position, and his daughter’s Seafaring Cecil compass ring instantly disappeared. “And I’ll try to move Noah’s money from here—” she tapped Alex’s fingers “—to there.” She tapped the pocket on Sean’s shirt.
Her touch left a warm spot on his chest.
She threw her hands into the air. “Alakazam!”
Alex opened her hands, and the coin fell to the floor.
The group groaned its disappointment.
“You couldn’t do it,” Nina said, her face a stiff little smirk.
“But I could do this!” With a flourish, Kit held the pilfered goods aloft. One bead bracelet. One hair bow. One compass ring. And one very familiar wallet.
Sean’s wallet. How the devil had she done that?
“Now who wasn’t paying attention?” Kit crowed.
He’d seen her lift all the other stuff, but not his own. Obviously, that enjoyable bump she’d given him had scrambled his brain. She certainly had that power.
Alex rolled on the floor, her face contorted with glee.
“Well, I’ll be—” Sean shook his head in admiration as Kit handed back his wallet.
“You need to keep a closer watch on your valuables, sailor,” she murmured, a wicked gleam in her eye.
His pulse picked up.
Once Alex’s cousins recovered, they erupted in a sea of demands.
“Teach me!”
“Teach me!”
“Teach me!”
“Is this a hospital, or did I make a wrong turn?”
Sean turned as his older sister, Mariah, marched off the elevator. She drilled such a look at Kit. Rude. His sister, a stunner and a spitfire who was completely overprotective of her younger brother Sean.
“Aunt Mariah!” Nina exclaimed. “Mom’s having our baby.”
“That’s why I’m here, love.” She bent down to accept a group hug from the four cousins. “And guess what? I checked. There’s a new kid on the block. Eric Aaron McCabe.”
“Uncle Sean!” Noah whooped. “I got a brother!”
Alex stood on a chair and tossed impromptu confetti—shredded cafeteria napkins—into the air.
“Alexandra,” Sean warned. “Get down and start cleaning up.”
“All of you, chop, chop!” Mariah bustled about the table. “Help me clean up. As soon as Aunt Emily’s back in her room, we can go up to see the baby.” She turned to Sean, her back to Kit, her posture antagonistic. “Family only.”
Sean thought it better to ignore her challenge. “I talked to Pop and Jonas. They’ll be along as soon as they close up work on the pound.”
“I think it would be better if we don’t all descend at once on Emily,” Mariah said. “After the kids have gone up, we can flip to see who takes the rug rats home for baths and bed.” She cut a hard glance at Kit. “You’ve been here the longest, maybe you should take them home.”
“I want to see our new baby,” Olivia wailed.
“Brother,” Noah insisted.
“I wanna stay right here.” Alex thrust her skinny arm through Kit’s shapely one.
Cocking one eyebrow, Mariah glared at Sean.
Sean refused to be intimidated. “Mariah, you remember Kit Darling. An old friend.” Rebellion simmered in the half-truth. “Kit, my big sister, Mariah.”
Mariah clamped her mouth shut, obviously reacting to rumors. She could be such a brat. Her brass made Sean want to shield Kit.
Kit shrugged. “I have to eat.” Gently removing her arm from Alex’s grasp, she handed back Olivia’s bracelet, Nina’s hair bow and Alex’s ring. She flipped the coin to Noah.
“It’s been real,” she said, her voice suddenly tough. She let her hand rest for a moment on Alex’s head. “You’ve been great.”
Then, without so much as a glance in Sean’s direction, she moved to the cafeteria’s sandwich array.
And Sean, having wanted her to leave earlier, now desperately wanted her to stay.
Standing with her back to the lot of them, Kit paid for a ham on rye. Who the hell did Mariah think she was? Dishing out the cold treatment. Making Kit feel fifteen again. And lacking.
The only reason she hadn’t decked the insufferable snot was because the insufferable snot was Alex’s aunt. Alex deserved better.
She moved to the drink machines to purchase bottled water. But when she stuffed a dollar in the slot, the machine immediately spit the rumpled bill back at her. She banged the lit front with the flat of her hand.
“Lemme try.” Alex stood next to Kit, empathy written on her face.
Kit handed her the dollar.
Carefully, as if the task were brain-surgery important, Alex straightened the kinks from the corners, then smoothed the entire bill by running it back and forth over the edge of the vending machine.
The gesture touched Kit. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she murmured.
Alex cocked her head, her gaze unwavering. “Because I like you.” Simple as that. Yet not so simple when her family obviously wanted