“Sorry. It’s not the company, I promise.”
“Don’t worry about it. Get some rest. Come on, I’ll walk up with you and help carry the children back to their own beds.”
He followed her up the stairs, trying like hell not to notice the way the faded material of her jeans hugged her very shapely rear end. At Shelly and Peter’s master suite, they found the children still cuddled together under the covers, Ali in the middle with a twin on either side.
He remembered how Sophie had looked sleeping peacefully surrounded by children when he had checked on them earlier in the evening. She had made a soft, innocent picture, her gold-blond hair tangled on the pillow in a wild, sensuous cloud.
“I don’t think we should move them,” Sophie said quietly at his side. “If they can find some comfort here together, I don’t see the harm in it. I’ll sleep over there on the sofa in case they should wake.”
“There are a half-dozen guest rooms in this mausoleum where you would be far more comfortable.”
“The sofa looks fine. I’ve slept on worse. Anyway, I’d hate for them to wake up and not know where to find me.”
She smiled softly at him and for one astonishing moment, Thomas was overwhelmed by a wild urge to catch that smile with his mouth, to taste that smudge of cocoa at the corner of her lips.
He almost leaned forward but checked himself just in time, appalled at his idiocy where Sophie was concerned. “Good night,” he muttered stiffly, then stalked down the hall.
No, it definitely wasn’t going to work having her here. The sooner she figured that out, the better for both of them.
Chapter 4
His to-do list had taken on a life of its own.
Tom stared grimly down at the handwritten notes he had begun making soon after Peter’s death. He was up to a half-dozen pages of tasks and counting. If he started this very moment and worked twenty-four hours a day, he was afraid it would still take him several weeks to tie up all his brother’s loose ends.
During his three-year tenure as president and CEO of Canfield Investments, Peter had been fiercely aggressive, substantially expanding the family’s financial interests. It was going to take Tom weeks to unravel all the tangled threads.
Weeks of paperwork and meetings and conference calls. He couldn’t imagine anything worse.
Overwhelmed and disheartened by the job ahead of him, Tom gazed out the wide French doors of Peter’s ground-floor office. In one of the peninsula’s notoriously mercurial weather shifts, the unseasonable warmth of the last few days had vanished like the tide, leaving behind stormy gray skies and thick banks of coastal fog interspersed with heavy rains.
Even with the inclement weather, he couldn’t deny the view through the rain-streaked window was still appealing. The gardens of Seal Point were lush year-round thanks to the efforts of Manny Reyes and his sons, who had taken care of the grounds as long as Thomas could remember.
In the steel-gray light and slanting rain, the flowers burned with saturated color—purples and blues and reds that waved on the stiff sea breeze. He had always found peace here, even when he was a wild, rebellious teenager butting heads constantly with his father.
He frowned suddenly as something disturbed the pleasing scene. What on earth? A parade of umbrellas darted through the gardens, bobbing and weaving through the plants.
He stared in disbelief. What was Sophie doing, dragging the children outside on such a grim day? It was definitely her, though, under a bright yellow umbrella and leading a precession of smaller umbrellas like a mother duck with her babies.
What kind of lunacy was she up to this time? He stood at the window frowning as he studied them. He had his answer soon enough when Sophie and her entourage trotted into the poolhouse and emerged a few moments later without their colorful umbrellas but wearing terry-cloth robes and bathing suits.
He watched dumbstruck as all four of them—Sophie, Ali, Zach and Zoe—ran for the pool then leaped in, heedless of the rain pockmarking the surface.
She was crazy. She had to be.
Temperatures were probably only in the low fifties. It was a better day for curling up with a good book by the fireplace than for splashing around in a swimming pool.
The pool was heated, he had to admit, at a comfortable eighty degrees. Regardless, he still couldn’t imagine how she thought it would be good for the children to be outside in this rain. All he needed were three sick kids on his hands when Sophie decided to leave.
They were all going to catch their deaths.
This was just like Sophie, he fumed, thrusting open the door and marching outside.
She lived only for the moment and never bothered to think through the consequences of her actions, never thought about who would suffer those consequences.
While she had been flitting around the world taking her pictures, she likely had never given a single thought for her sister, or how Shelly might have worried herself sick sometimes about her twin traveling the globe alone.
It might be fine and dandy to take foolish risks when it was her own safety at stake. But she was supposed to be caring for three innocent children here—children who were ultimately his responsibility. He couldn’t sit by and let them suffer because of her thoughtlessness.
He hadn’t thought to grab an umbrella and the hard slap of the rain did nothing to cool his anger. It suddenly seemed terribly unfair of her to force him into the role of the bad guy. With each step, his temper flared higher until by the time he reached the pool, he was surprised steam wasn’t sizzling off his skin with each raindrop.
The delighted smiles of the children when they saw him didn’t help matters. They looked more light-hearted than he’d seen them all week. Instead of calming him, their obvious delight in this little adventure only added fuel to his ire.
“Hi, Uncle Tommy,” Zoe called out. “Want to go swimming with us? It’s fun!”
“No,” he said shortly. “I think everybody needs to go back inside and dry out.”
“But we just got in!” Zach protested. “We needed exercise. We’ve been cooped up all day. Sophie said so.”
“You can exercise inside where it’s warm and dry.”
“We won’t stay out here long,” Sophie said. “Just long enough to burn off a little energy.”
At her words he glanced over at her, treading water with Ali. Big mistake. She wore what on anyone else would probably be considered a perfectly respectable one-piece black bathing suit. But Sophie somehow made it look sleek and sensual. Even from the edge of the pool he could see her slim, curvy body straining the material of the suit.
If possible, he was even more attracted to her than he had been a decade ago, he realized with considerable chagrin.
She had been so young then, just coming into her beauty. The years had stamped strength and self-assurance onto her features, had turned a very lovely girl into a stunning woman.
He hated his own weakness where she was concerned. She had rejected him, made it quite clear she regretted their brief passion. Why else would she have left so suddenly?
And what kind of fool could still hunger for a woman who treated him like a pair of shoes she decided didn’t fit after all?
“In case it’s escaped your attention, it’s raining.”
She laughed. “Yes, I believe we’re aware of that. If we weren’t before, your drenched clothes probably would have given us a good clue. But we figured, what’s a little rain when we were just going to get