A mirror image of that man who resembled him not at all.
* * *
She wasn’t what he’d expected.
Then again, Grant Dunbarton wasn’t sure exactly what he had expected the mother of Brent’s son to be. His brother had been completely indiscriminate when it came to women. Brent had been indiscriminate about everything. Women, cars, clothes. Friends, family, society. Promises, obligations, responsibilities. You name it, it had held Brent’s attention for as long as it interested him—which was rarely more than a few days. Then he’d moved on to something else. He’d been the poster child for Peter Pan Syndrome, no matter how old he was.
Actually, Grant reconsidered, there had been one way his brother discriminated when it came to women. All of them had been jaw-droppingly beautiful. Clara Easton was no exception. Her hair was a riot of black curls, her mouth was as plump and red as a ripe pepper and her eyes were a green so pale and so clear they seemed to go on forever. She was tall, too, probably pushing six feet in her spike-heeled boots.
She might have looked imperious, but she had her arm roped protectively around her son in a way that indicated she was clearly uncomfortable. Grant supposed that shouldn’t be surprising. It wasn’t every day that a woman who’d been spawned by felons and raised in a string of sketchy environments discovered she’d given birth to the equivalent of American royalty.
Because the Dunbartons of Park Avenue—formerly the Dunbartons of Rittenhouse Square and, before that, the Dunbartons of Beacon Hill—were a family whose name had, since Revolutionary times, been mentioned in the same breath with the Hancocks, Astors, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. Still, Grant admired her effort to make herself look invulnerable. It was actually kind of cute.
And then there was the boy. He was going to be a problem. Except for his hair and eye color—both a contribution from his mother—he was a replica of his father at that age. Grant hoped his own mother didn’t fall apart again when she saw Henry Easton. She’d been a mess since hearing the news of Brent’s drowning off the coast of Sri Lanka in the spring. It had only been last month that she’d finally pulled herself together enough to go through his things. Then, when she came across the will none of them knew he’d made and discovered he had a child none of them knew he’d fathered, she’d broken down again.
This time, though, there had been joy tempering the grief. There was a remnant of Brent out there in the world somewhere. In Georgia, of all places. Grant had been worried they’d need a paternity test to ensure Henry Easton really was a Dunbarton before they risked dashing his mother’s hopes. But the boy’s undeniable resemblance to Brent—and to Grant, for that matter—made that unnecessary.
“Ms. Easton,” he said as warmly as he could—though, admittedly, warmth wasn’t his strong suit. Brent had pretty much sucked up all the affability genes in the Dunbarton DNA while they were still in the womb. Which was fine, because it left Grant with all the efficiency genes, and those carried a person a lot further in life. “It’s nice to finally meet you. You, too,” he told Henry.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Mr. Dunbarton,” Clara said, her voice low and husky and as bewitching as the rest of her.
A Southern drawl tinted her words, something Grant would have thought he’d find disagreeable, but instead found...well, kind of hot.
She nudged her son lightly. “Right, Hank? Say hello to Mr. Dunbarton.”
“Hello, Mr. Dunbarton,” the boy echoed dutifully.
Grant did his best to smile. “You don’t have to call me Mr. Dunbarton. You can call me...”
He started to say Uncle Grant, but the words got stuck in his throat. Uncle wasn’t a word that sat well with him. Uncles were affable, easygoing guys who told terrible jokes and pulled nickels from people’s ears. Uncles wore argyle sweaters and brought six-packs to Thanksgiving dinner. Uncles taught their nephews the things fathers wouldn’t, like where to hide their Playboys and how to get fake IDs. No way was Grant suited to the role of uncle.
So he said, “Call me Grant.” When he looked at Clara Easton again, he added, “You, too.”
“Thank you...Grant,” she said. Awkwardly. In her Southern accent. That was kind of hot.
She glanced at her son. But Henry remained silent, only gazing at Grant with his mother’s startlingly green eyes.
“Come in,” he said to all of them.
August Fiver did, but Clara hesitated, clearly not confident of their reception, her arm still draped around her son’s shoulder.
“Please,” Grant tried again, extending his hand toward the interior. “You are welcome here.”
Clara still didn’t look convinced, but the intrepid Henry took an experimental step forward, his gaze never leaving Grant’s. Then he took a second, slightly larger, step. Then a third, something that pulled him free of his mother’s grasp. She looked as if she wanted to yank him back, but remained rooted where she stood.
“My mother is looking forward to meeting you,” Grant said, hoping the mention of another woman might make her feel better. But mention of his mother only made her look more panicked.
“Is something wrong, Ms. Easton?”
By now, Henry had followed Fiver through the door, so the three of them looked expectantly at Clara. She glanced first at her son, then at Grant. For a moment, he honestly thought she would grab her son and bolt. Then, finally, she strode forward. Again, Grant was impressed by her attempt to seem more confident than she was. This time, though, it didn’t seem cute. This time, it seemed kind of...
Hmm. That was weird. For a minute there, he felt toward Clara the way she must have felt when she roped her arm protectively around her son. But why would he feel the need to protect Clara Easton? From what he’d learned about her, she was more than capable of taking care of herself. Not to mention that he barely knew her. And he wouldn’t be getting to know her any better than he had to after this first encounter.
Sure, it was inevitable that their paths would cross in the future, since his mother would want to see as much of Henry as possible, and Clara would be included in that. But Grant didn’t have the time or inclination to be Uncle Grant, even without the Uncle part. He and Brent might have been identical in looks, but they’d been totally different in every other way. Brent was always the charming, cheerful twin, while Grant was the sober, silent one. Brent made friends with abandon. Grant’s few friends barely knew him. Brent treated life like a party. Grant knew it was a chore. Brent loved everyone he ever met. Grant never—
Clara Easton walked past him, leaving in her wake a faint aroma of something spicy and sweet. Cinnamon, he realized. And ginger. She smelled like Christmas morning. Except not the Christmas mornings he knew now, which were only notable because they were a day off from work. She smelled like the Christmas mornings of his childhood, before his father died, when the Dunbartons were happy.
Wow. He hadn’t thought about those Christmas mornings for a long time. Because thinking about mornings like that reminded him of a time and place—reminded him of a person—he would never know again. A time when Grant had been staggeringly contented, and when his future had been filled with the promise of—
Of lots of things that never happened. He didn’t usually like being reminded of mornings like that. For some reason, though, he didn’t mind having Clara Easton and her cinnamon bun–gingerbread scent remind him today. He just wished he was the kind of person who could reciprocate. The kind of person who could be charming and cheerful and made friends with abandon. The kind who treated life like a party and loved everyone he met.
The kind who could draw the eye of a woman like Clara Easton in a way that didn’t make her respond with fear and anxiety.
* * *