Hell, who kept track of those things? She was busy minding her own business, washing the window over her kitchen sink and thinking the shutters on the Sand Dollar—the luxury cottage across the shared parking lot from her small bungalow—would benefit from a new coat of paint, when the doorbell rang. She just happened to check her watch. Then, looking down at her seen-better-days cropped T-shirt and raggedy jeans, she sighed. Why didn’t anyone ever drop by unexpectedly when she was dressed to kill?
Murphy’s Law, she supposed. Shrugging, she set aside the old tea towel she’d been using, paused her iPod, pulled out the earbuds and went to answer the summons. School had let out for the day; it was likely a friend of Austin’s, although Austin himself wasn’t home yet.
When she pulled the door open and saw the man on the other side, her mind went blank. Holy Krakow, how wrong could one woman be—this was no teenage kid. This was a total stranger, something you didn’t see very often this time of year—unlike during the summer tourist season.
And the guy was a god.
Okay, not really. But he was definitely the next best thing. His hair, which she’d mistaken at first glance for blond, was actually a medium brown that had either been burnished by the sun or was the product of some world-class stylist.
She’d vote for the former, given that every man she’d ever known would choose castration before they’d be caught dead over at Wacka Do’s wearing a headful of little tinfoil strips. And although she could honestly say she’d never met an actual honest-to-gawd big-city metrosexual, she was pretty sure this guy wasn’t to be her first.
His tanned hands were too beat-up looking, his skin a little too weathered. He had muscular shoulders beneath a nice gray suit jacket, worn over an olive-drab hoodie and a silky, silver-gray T-shirt. And solid thighs that were molded by a pair of button-fly Levi’s that had seen hard wear.
She couldn’t see his eyes behind the shaded lenses of his sunglasses, but he had the most gorgeous lips she’d ever seen on a man, full yet precisely cut. If she were a different type of woman, in fact, she might almost be able to imagine lips like those kissing h—
“Is your mother home?”
“Seriously?” All right, not the politest response. But, please. She hadn’t almost imagined what his lips could do—Marvin Gaye had started crooning “Let’s Get It On” in her head. And having him talk to her as if she were a child was like ripping the needle across a vinyl record, bursting her pretty, if where-the-hell-did-that-come-from, fantasy.
After a startled look, he studied her more closely. Those lips curved up in a faint smile. “Oh. Sorry. Your size fooled me for a minute. But you’re not a kid.”
“Ya think?”
His smile deepened slightly. “I’m not the first to make that mistake, I’m guessing.”
Okay, get a grip, sister. What was her problem, anyway? She didn’t lust after strange men. And she’d been in the hospitality business since she was sixteen, for pity’s sake, so rarely, either, was her first inclination to unleash snide sarcasm on people.
At least not on people I don’t know.
She gave an impatient mental shrug. Because even if she was in the habit of lusting or unleashing, this guy could be a guest at the inn for all she knew. It was the dead lowest part of the low season, which was why she’d felt comfortable enough leaving Abby to man the front desk while she took a rare day off. But Abs was still green, and it wasn’t a stretch to imagine the girl blithely drawing directions on one of the resort maps to help a complete stranger find Jenny’s place on the back grounds of The Brothers Inn.
Jenny plastered a pleasant expression on her face. “Is there something I can do for you?”
He looked down at her. “Yeah. I was told I could find a Jenny Salazar here?”
“You found her.”
“I’m here about Austin Bradshaw, regarding his guardianship.”
Jenny’s heart picked up its pace, but she merely said, “You don’t look like a lawyer.”
“I’m not. But Mr. Verilla said you’re the person I need to talk to.”
She sighed and stepped back. “Then I guess you’d better come in. You’ll have to excuse the mess,” she said, leading him inside. “You caught me in the middle of cleaning day.”
Her place was just under six hundred square feet of recently weatherized cottage, so it took a total of five seconds to reach the middle of her living room. She turned to face him and saw that he’d removed his shades and was hooking one temple arm into the neck of his T-shirt. Raising her gaze from his strong, tanned throat, she met his eyes for the first time.
Shock jolted through her. Oh, God. Only one other person in the world had eyes that pale, pale green—the exact same shade as the summer shallows in the fjord that was Hood Canal.
Austin.
Anger was deep, immediate and visceral. And it had her drawing herself up to her not-so-great greatest height. “Let me guess,” she said with ice-edged diction. “You must be Jake Bradshaw.”
When she looked at him now, she didn’t see that compelling face or the abundant sex appeal. Instead, she pictured all the times Austin thought his father might call, might show up, and the stark disappointment each and every time that didn’t happen. Disdain she couldn’t quite disguise tugged at her upper lip.
“Mighty big of you to finally decide you could spare your kid a minute of your precious time.”
* * *
FOR OVER A DECADE, Jake had dealt with all manner of people. He’d long ago perfected the art of letting things slide off his back. Yet for some reason the contempt from this little female dug barbed needles under his skin.
It didn’t make a damn bit of sense. The woman was all of five foot nothing, for crissake, and her shiny dark hair, plaited into two thick little-girl braids, with a hank of long bangs pulling free from the left one, didn’t exactly promote a grown-up vibe. She had spare curves, clear olive skin and brown eyes so dark it made the surrounding sclera look almost blue-white in comparison. Dark eyebrows winged above them, and her slender nose had a slight bump to its bridge.
His brows met over the thrust of his own nose. “Who the hell do you think you are, lady?”
Okay, not what he’d intended to say. But being back in Razor Bay, the place he’d spent most of his teen years plotting to see the last of in his rearview mirror—well, it put him on edge. Plus, after the thirty-two-hour trip from Minahasa to Davao to Manila to Vancouver to Seattle to here, he was so dead on his feet he was all but punch-drunk. Not to mention seriously tense at the thought of seeing his kid after all these years. Of having full responsibility for him for the first time.
So excuse the hell out of him for reacting to the contempt in her voice and his own flicker of temper that here was yet someone else who thought they could dictate to him about his son.
Stuffing down every negative feeling that arose, however, he managed to moderate his tone when he inquired, “And you think you have the right to judge me, why?” God knew, he’d done enough of that on his own. He didn’t need some half-pint stranger’s condemnation on top of it.
He watched as she crossed her arms and raised her chin. “Well, let me see,” she said coolly. “Maybe because I’m the woman who’s been in Austin’s life for the past eleven years. And this is the first time I’ve ever seen you.”
Jake wanted to howl at the unfairness of her charge. Except...was she actually wrong? He’d had a series of come-to-Jesus talks with himself on the endless journey back here and was forced to admit that he’d been looking at his dad ethic through a pretty skewed lens for a long time now. The admission made not defending himself to Ms. Salazar more than a simple matter of pride, more than an ingrained