“I tried to tell you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Tried how? I wasn’t that hard to find. A letter or phone call would have done it.”
Some emotion he couldn’t identify flickered across her face. Once he’d known the meaning of her every look, every gesture. At least he’d told himself he did. Maybe that had been an illusion.
“I came to Baltimore,” she said slowly, not looking at him. “Not long after I’d gotten the papers.”
He didn’t need to ask what papers. His mother had wielded the Winchester clout as easily as his father. She’d pushed the divorce through in record time.
“You didn’t oppose the divorce.” That wasn’t what he’d intended to say, but it just came out.
“No, I…” She stopped, seeming to censor whatever she’d been about to say. “That doesn’t matter now.”
He leaned against the weathered railing next to her, studying her down-tilted face and wishing he could see her eyes. “If you came to Baltimore, I didn’t see you.”
“I changed my mind,” she said carefully. “I did what I thought was best for all of us. Maybe I was wrong, but it’s too late now.”
He stared at her, frowning. He wanted to push for answers, but maybe she had a point.
“All right, forget what we did or didn’t do then.” He didn’t think he could, but he’d try. “Let’s talk about now. Is Sammy angry about his father showing up after all this time?”
“Not angry, no.” Her grip on the railing seemed to ease. “Confused, as I said, but he’s a much-loved, secure child. He can deal with this.”
None of that love and security in Sammy’s life came from his father. Well, fair enough. Tyler hadn’t had that from his father, either.
Again he had the urge to walk away. All he could offer this child was money. He’d lost the capacity to form close relationships a long time ago, if he’d ever had it.
He couldn’t leave until he’d talked with Sammy. He owed both of them that much, at least.
“When can I meet him?” He threw the question at Miranda.
Her soft mouth tightened. “I suggested tomorrow, and he said he’d think about it. I’d like to let him agree without pressuring him.”
Was she trying to get out of it? “I have a business to run, Miranda. Tomorrow after school. I’ll be here.”
Her head came up, and she glared at him, then jerked a nod. “I’ll talk to him about it.”
“Tomorrow after school. I’ll see you then.”
He pushed away from the railing. He’d gotten what he’d come for. He had no reason to linger.
Miranda took a quick step, stopping him. “I said I’d talk to him, Tyler. I’m not going to force him to do something he doesn’t want to, just because you’re in a hurry.”
He swung toward her, and they stood only inches apart. He could read the expression in her eyes—she was wishing for distance between them. He reached out and caught her wrists in his hands, feeling smooth, warm skin and a pulse that thundered against his palms.
“It’s already been his lifetime, Miranda. I won’t wait.”
“Fine.” She jerked her hands free, and fierce maternal love blazed in her face. “Just you be careful of what you say to him. If you hurt Sammy, I promise you, I’ll make you regret you ever heard of Caldwell Cove.”
“Chocolate, vanilla or something more exotic?” Tyler lifted his eyebrow as he asked the question, and Miranda tried not to let that simple movement affect her. She was immune to Tyler Winchester’s charm—she’d gotten there the hard way.
She concentrated on the list of flavors posted behind the counter in the ice-cream shop. “I’ll have the peanut-butter ripple.”
Taking a walk through town with Sammy after school had been her idea. It seemed so much less intimidating than pushing the boy into a face-to-face interview with a father he didn’t know.
She’d suggested to Sammy that they show Tyler around Caldwell Cove, not that there was much to see. The village still lay in a sedate crescent along the inland waterway, anchored by the inn at one end and Uncle Jeff’s mansion at the other. The spire of St. Andrew’s Church bisected the village. Little had changed since Tyler was here last, except for the new resort hotel down near the yacht club.
She had an ulterior motive for this walk. She wanted Tyler to understand that Sammy belonged here. Sammy’s happiness didn’t depend on anything his father could give him. Maybe when Tyler realized that, he could go away with a clear conscience.
Tyler handed Sammy a chocolate cone, then took a small vanilla for himself. Conservative, she thought. When had Tyler become conservative?
When he’d been drawn back into the Winchester way of life, probably. He’d slipped into his father’s place as CEO of Winchester Industries, apparently forgetting that he’d ever had other dreams.
Concentrate on the present, she ordered herself. Don’t succumb to the lure of the past.
They stepped onto the narrow street bordered by the docks, and she looked for an inspiration to give them something to talk about.
“Sammy, why don’t you tell your father about the boatyard.”
Her son didn’t seem too enthusiastic about his role as tour guide. He licked, then pointed with an ice-cream daubed finger toward the docks and storage sheds lining the quay.
“That’s Cousin Adam’s boatyard. He fixed Grandpa’s fishing boat when the motor died.”
“Adam took all of us on the schooner for Pirate Days, remember?” she prompted.
Enthusiasm replaced the caution in Sammy’s face as he turned to Tyler. “That was really cool. I got to help put up the sails and everything. Cousin Adam’s going to give me sailing lessons this summer. He says me and Jenny are big enough to learn.”
“Jenny is Adam’s little girl,” she explained. “You must remember Adam, don’t you?”
“I remember Adam.” His expression suggested the memory wasn’t a happy one. “As I recall, he, um—” he glanced at Sammy “—suggested it would be better if I didn’t see you.”
She felt her cheeks grow warm and hoped he’d attribute it to the March sunshine. “I didn’t know that.” It made sense. Adam, Uncle Jefferson’s older son, belonged to the rich branch of the family, the one that sometimes frequented the yacht club. He would have heard the rumors that his little cousin, who was supposed to be waiting tables at the club, was instead dating a wealthy summer visitor.
“Your ice cream is dripping.” Tyler reached out with a napkin and dabbed at her chin just as she ducked away from his touch. His fingers brushed her cheek instead, and her skin seemed to burn where they touched.
“I’ll get it,” she said hurriedly, hoping the napkin she raised to her lips hid her confusion. She couldn’t be reacting to Tyler. She was immune to him. Remember?
“Mine’s getting away from me, too.” Tyler licked around the top of the cone, where the ice cream had begun a slow trail toward his fingers. “I’d forgotten how hot it can be on the island in March.”
“Summer’s on its way,” she said, then regretted that she’d mentioned the season. Tyler wasn’t to know it, but summer always brought back memories of him. She glanced at his face involuntarily, then wondered how often this adult version of her first love indulged in something as simple as an ice-cream cone.
Tyler licked a froth of vanilla