Most importantly, though, nobody on this side of town was likely to remember him. He’d come to Fisher Falls with a definite purpose, but the idea of constantly running into people he’d once known hadn’t been particularly appealing.
Just as it hadn’t been particularly delightful running into Elise the first week he’d arrived. He’d gone into the deli near the temporary office he’d set up, and there she’d been. Sitting alone at a table looking just as pampered and spoiled as she’d been when he was fifteen and she only a year younger.
If she hadn’t popped out of her seat and stood in his way, he would have been happy to have pretended not to know her. But she had, and she’d acted as if she was delighted to see him. When he had cynically asked what she wanted, she’d laughed gaily and waved her hand, as if to dismiss his question. But when she’d asked why he was in town, he’d told her. Her smile hadn’t wavered at all at his clear statement that he was establishing a new branch of his construction company in Fisher Falls, even though she had to know that he would be in direct competition with their father.
And for reasons that still confounded him, he’d ended up giving her his address and phone number here in town when she’d handed over to him a linen business card imprinted with her name and number in gold script.
As if they were likely to call each other up for a chat or something, for Christ’s sake.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, remembering that his half sister wouldn’t be calling anyone ever again.
“Are you all right?”
He dropped his hand and looked at Darby. “No, I’m not all right.” He saw her bite her lip as she focused again on the road ahead.
But he wasn’t feeling impatient with her—only with himself. He stifled an oath and tore at his collar again, finally yanking his tie free and pulling it off. He balled it in his fist and looked at her.
The light was gradually fading, but it had been light enough to see her when he’d opened the door to find her and the social worker standing outside. Unlike Laura Malone, who’d been wearing a navy blue suit, Darby White wore tan shorts and shirt. The shorts were neither too long nor too short, and the legs they revealed were shapely and firm and way too long for someone whose head barely reached his shoulder. Her blue eyes had been moist, and she had a short mop of reddish hair that stuck out at all sorts of angles around her head.
Neither carrot-red nor auburn nor blond, but somewhere in between, the choppy, wavy feathers had captured the setting sun, causing each strand to gleam with fiery light, and she’d looked oddly appealing. Now, in the car’s interior, her hair looked like licks of flame against her pale face, and he added vulnerable to the mix.
“The kids. What have they been told?” He watched her slender hands tighten even more around the steering wheel, and felt his stomach tighten, too.
“Um, nothing,” she said huskily. “We kept them from seeing the cars through the front windows at the center. Laura thought the news might be better coming from you or Mr. Carson.”
He exhaled roughly. Great.
She pulled into a well-lit parking lot beside the cheery-looking building, and Garrett couldn’t help himself—he looked toward the corner. There was nothing remaining to indicate that a tragedy had occurred there earlier that day. The traffic signal still turned yellow, then red, even though there were no cars there to stop.
He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking of all that hadn’t been. And all that wouldn’t be.
When he opened them, Darby with her rusty hair and brimming eyes filled his vision. She touched his hand. “It’ll be all right.”
He doubted it. But still he found his hand turning over, closing around hers. For a lingering moment it helped.
Then she drew away. She ducked her head, but he still saw her swipe her fingers over her cheeks. They went inside through a door that jingled merrily, where the lights were bright and cheerful. Where five little kids waited.
Slept, actually.
The girl with blond curls streaming over her shoulders lay facedown on a blue mat and was obviously the oldest. That would be Regan. And sleeping on a mat beside her, equally blond, but with hair cut short must be Reid.
Garrett shoved his hands in his pockets and stood at a distance as he watched Darby greet the matronly woman who’d been sitting in a rocking chair with a magazine on her lap. The other woman was from Social Services, he assumed, when she shut her magazine with a snap and gathered up a bulging briefcase.
He was glad when Darby quickly and quietly went about gathering up two car seats and pushed them into his arms. Action had always been his preference to inaction.
But when they’d fastened three seats into the backseat and one into the center of the front bench seat, Darby stood back from the car and frowned. “I’m sorry. I should have had you follow in your truck. We’re going to be more crowded than I’d thought.”
“I’ll drive,” he said and smoothly plucked the keys she was worrying between her fingers away from her. “You and Regan can fit in one seat belt.”
“But—”
“It’ll have to do,” he said shortly. “The streets of Fisher Falls are all rolled up now. Traffic is nil.”
Still, she shook her head. “I think we should split up. Some in my car, some in her—” She turned her head just in time to see the Social Services woman drive away, taking with her any chance of creative carpooling. “Well, fudge.”
Garrett felt pretty much the same, though he wouldn’t have couched it in such genteel terms. Obviously the Social Services people hadn’t felt any qualms about leaving five kids with him. As if the fact that he was their mother’s half brother was enough evidence of suitability.
It angered him, suddenly. For all any of them knew, he could be a monster. A hideous parental figure. And this Darby was a child-care worker. Not even an official representative of Social Services. “This is crazy,” he muttered, staring at the keys in his hand.
“I know it’s little comfort at a time like this, but you will adjust to your loss,” Darby said. Her voice was still husky, and Garrett realized that it wasn’t just tears that put that velvety-soft rasp in it. “You and Elise must have been very close.”
“Close?” He snorted softly. “No, I wouldn’t say that.” He couldn’t begin to figure why he’d even responded to that statement. He’d never been one to speak freely. Not with the few people he considered his friends, and sure as hell not with strangers, even when they came equipped with sympathetic blue eyes and mile-long legs.
Dammit. His sister was dead, he’d actually agreed to take responsibility for five kids who didn’t know him from Adam and he was leering at Darby White.
She wasn’t even his type. He preferred tall blondes with some curve around their bones. This pint-size woman looked as if she’d poke him with the sharp angles of her shoulders if he got too close.
He realized he was still watching her. Saw the way her eyes widened a bit, the way her lips parted for breath, as if she’d caught his thoughts. She looked shocked.
And why wouldn’t she be?
He turned his back on her and went inside the building, where he picked up a padded bag patterned with little blue and yellow ducks. It was stuffed with disposable diapers and brightly colored plastic toys and God knew what else. He carried it to the car and stuck it on the floor in the backseat.
Darby was still standing in the same spot on the other side of the car from him. Now she just looked puzzled. “Then why?”
“Why what?” But he knew.
She moistened her lips