“Nice family you got there, mister,” the cabbie said as Ross stared after her.
There was genuine admiration in the guy’s voice. Ross pressed another buck into the guy’s hand and started after Gillian, walking in a way that advised anyone in his path to step aside.
His skin began to prickle as soon as he entered the lobby. He’d spent his childhood up to his knees in manure and mud or coated with dust and sweat, working his parents’ ranch alongside the hired hands. There hadn’t been much extra money in those days, though the Kavanaghs always managed to keep their heads above water. Ross had received most of his education in a one-room schoolhouse, and the folks with whom his family associated had all been simple, hardworking ranchers, not much different from Chantal and Sim Kavanagh except in their unadulterated humanity.
The Roosevelt Hotel had never been intended for the common man. It was only a few years old, its carpets and fancy upholstery pristine, every metal surface sparkling, porters and spotlessly uniformed bellhops poised to fulfill every guest’s slightest wish. One of the bellhops rushed forward to take Toby’s suitcase; Ross gave the kid a hard look and lifted the bag out of Gillian’s hand.
Gillian continued to the elevators without stopping; though no one would take her for a glamour girl, her inborn werewolf grace naturally attracted attention. Ross bristled at the expensively suited swells who watched her progress across the lobby with appreciative stares; Gillian simply ignored them. Rich or not, they were only human.
The boy in the elevator seemed very aware of Ross’s mood. He stood quietly in his corner until the elevator settled to a stop and Gillian got out.
The corridor smelled of perfume and fresh flowers from the vases set on marble stands between the widely spaced doors. Gillian paused before one of the doors, produced a key and entered.
The door led to a luxurious suite, complete with an obviously well-stocked and illegal bar. A handsome young man sprawled on the brocade sofa, drink in hand, his wayward hair several shades darker than Gillian’s gold. The young man sprang to his feet when he saw Gillian and Toby.
“Gilly!” he exclaimed. “You found him!”
Toby hung back, waiting for Ross to enter the suite. The young man’s gaze fixed on Ross in surprise.
Gillian’s posture was as rigid as it could be without losing any of its grace. “Hugh,” she said, “may I present Mr. Ross Kavanagh. Mr. Kavanagh, my brother, Hugh Maitland.”
IF A BOMBSHELL had gone off in the room, the shock couldn’t have been more palpable. Hugh’s nostrils flared, taking in Ross’s scent as Gillian’s words began to penetrate.
“Ross Kavanagh?” he said. “The Ross Kavanagh?”
Gillian had no intention of belaboring the point. The day had already proven to be an unmitigated disaster, and Hugh’s involvement was only likely to make matters worse. Her hopes of keeping the truth from Ross had been naive from the start.
So had her conviction that seeing him again would have no effect on her heart.
If it hadn’t been for Toby, she might not have been able to maintain her composure, but he kept her focused. She would deal with Ross—and her own unacceptable weakness—once her son was safely out of danger.
She took Toby’s hand firmly in hers. “You’ll excuse me,” she said, “but Toby must have a bath and then a nap. Hugh, I’m sure you will provide Mr. Kavanagh with appropriate refreshments.”
Hugh gazed at her with lingering astonishment. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
“I’m not at all tired, Mother,” Toby said, his jaw setting in that stubborn expression that so perfectly mirrored Ross Kavanagh’s. “Mayn’t I—”
Gillian stared into Toby’s eyes. She seldom felt the need to bring the full weight of her authority to bear, but she was desperate…to get him away from Ross’s influence. Toby shrank ever so slightly under her gaze, acknowledging the wolf he had yet to become. He was very subdued as he accompanied her into the ornate water closet.
There were no further arguments from him as she ran a bath and left him to soak in the hot water. She retreated to her bedroom and went to the window, staring out at this cold, modern city of steel canyons and seething humanity.
She’d thought herself prepared. She’d thought that she could face Ross in the same way she’d dealt with New York itself: by keeping a firm grip on who she was, where she had come from and why she was here. By reminding herself that what she and Ross had shared had been no more than a few weeks’ passion, that they’d never had anything in common save for their youth and reckless disregard for propriety.
All her careful preparations had disappeared when Ross had arrived at the apartment building with Toby beside him. The image she’d held had been that of a boy only slightly older than she’d been twelve years ago: a handsome young man with striking light brown eyes and hair a few shades darker, unpolished yet undeniably compelling. A young man who’d claimed to love her…just before he admitted that he was only one-quarter werewolf and unable to Change.
That boy was gone. The man who’d stared at her with such accusation might have been another person entirely. He was no longer young; the lines in his forehead and around his eyes testified to a life of conflict, a career spent enforcing the law for the humans whose blood he shared. He was still handsome, but it was a grim sort of attractiveness, touched with bitterness that Gillian dared not examine too closely.
But it was what lay beneath the surface that had startled her most. At the hospital in London he had seemed so completely human that she’d never questioned her initial assumption; even after he’d told her the truth, she’d hardly been able to recognize the wolf within him.
No longer. The life he’d lived since the War had chiseled away at his humanity, revealing the core of his werewolf nature. It gleamed yellow under the brown of his eyes, sculpted the bone and muscle of his face, stalked in his every movement.
Those changes alone would have been enough to shake her equilibrium. But it was something within herself that had stripped her of her defenses, something she couldn’t possibly have anticipated that struck at her with all the force of a hurricane.
Gillian pressed her forehead to the cool window glass. Years had passed—years of dedication to duty, to her father, to her son. It should not even be possible for her to still desire a man she had known for only a handful of weeks amid the chaos of war, a man who could never become her mate. She had almost forgotten what it was to feel that kind of excitement, that kind of pleasure. Such things had no place in the life of a sequestered widow, and she had accepted that they would have no part in her forthcoming marriage.
Why, then, had this happened now? Was it her punishment for refusing to recognize Toby’s incipient rebellion, for neglecting to meet needs she hadn’t understood? Or was it a gift in disguise, a reminder that she must never let down her guard, never for a moment surrender to her own natural weakness?
She had felt weak in Ross’s presence. Weak and vulnerable. But he would never know it. She would make certain of that. She would take Toby home as quickly as possible. And then…
“Gilly?”
Hugh’s voice held a note of concern that reminded her how long she’d been gone. She answered her brother’s tap on the bedroom door with a calm that was almost sincere.
“I’m sorry, Hugh,” she said. “Give me a few more moments to put Toby to bed, then I’ll join you.”
“You’d better,” Hugh said. “Kavanagh isn’t much for small talk, and I don’t want to be the one giving all the explanations.”
Explanations.