Читать книгу: «Unexpected Father»

One

Hannah Brewster sat on the grass scowling at the two pickup trucks pulling into the driveway, her hands clenched on the shortened two-by-four lying across her lap. Just the name McClennon was enough to make her blood boil, and here came two of them now.

But these were the two older brothers, John and Jake, not Jordan McClennon, whose memory was still an aching bruise to her pride.

Hannah wouldn’t have come all the way from St. Louis today if she’d known any McClennons would be here, as well, but Ronnie Wardlow had neglected to mention that little detail until a few minutes ago. On purpose, she suspected.

Ronnie had invited her to help him and some friends build a new house for his mother, Esther. Hannah liked Ronnie and his mother, and she had jumped at the chance to get out of St. Louis and into the country air at Sandford, Illinois, on a sunny, early-May weekend. The whole plan had sounded fine until now.

The trucks drew to a stop beside Ronnie’s battered pickup, and two tall, dark men got out of the vehicle. McClennons, she was sure. They were certainly a good-looking family.

The second truck had a camper top on the back, and the driver stood behind it for a couple of minutes, adjusting something with the help of the McClennon brothers. When he stepped around the pickup into Hannah’s view, her heart leapt to her throat.

Jordan McClennon.

She started to stand up, then abruptly sat down again. She looked around in agitation, finally focusing on Ronnie. He gave her a helpless shrug.

Ronnie knew that she didn’t like Jordan, but he didn’t know the whole story.

It wouldn’t have mattered much to any other woman, she supposed—a man dumping a girl after two dates was hardly headline news—but she had been young and in love. For months that love had been secret—and totally one-sided—but then one red-letter day Jordan McClennon, founder and owner of McClennon Industries in St. Louis and Hannah’s employer, had bumped into her in the employees’ lounge and invited her to dinner.

Hannah had never considered herself attractive; at the time she’d been too thin and gangly, wore thick glasses and pulled her hair back in a drab ponytail for convenience. But she had bought a new dress for her first dinner with Jordan. He’d been polite and charming, and she’d returned home more in love than ever.

There was a second date. Hannah had found a reservoir of self-confidence in the wine, and when Jordan had suggested they stop at his apartment to pick up some papers before dropping her at her place, she’d agreed.

He gave her a tour of the apartment, and at the bedroom she found herself looping her arms around his neck and smiling up at him. Jordan took it from there. If there was a seduction, she had been a more than willing participant, if not the instigator. But that didn’t assuage her anger with Jordan.

He was handsome, he was articulate, he was intelligent, he was the walking embodiment of charm. And he’d never called her again after they’d made love.

Her grandmother was right, she decided. Men only wanted one thing. And when they got it, they moved on to the next conquest.

Her pride stung, even more so when she’d passed Jordan’s office two days later and had seen him in conference with a buxom blonde. Some conference. Her bosom was thrust into his face as she leaned over the desk next to him, and one hand with its manicured, fire-engine red press-on nails was draped teasingly over his.

Hannah would have continued working at McClennon Industries, would have continued with her dateless, colorless existence, because she was a Brewster, and that was what she had been taught. But circumstances intervened.

Her sister, Marybeth, the wild one in the family, had become pregnant out of wedlock, and Hannah had quit her job to help her out. When Hannah finally returned to St. Louis, it was with her sister’s child and to a different job.

Until this day she had not seen Jordan McClennon again.

She nearly groaned at the sight of him. She might not be in love any longer, but her libido hadn’t forgotten him.

He had the same chiseled features and black hair as his brothers. His eyes were blue, so light and yet intense, like the center of a flame.

And he was looking right at her. With interest.

Immediately her surprise turned to irritation. He hadn’t changed. He was always on the lookout for a conquest. Obviously he didn’t recognize her yet, or he would know that he’d made this particular conquest seven years ago.

Hannah kept her expression carefully neutral as a chattering Ronnie led the men toward her. To her dismay, she found that she couldn’t quite make herself look away from Jordan.

Her pride, like an irate security guard, willed her eyes to move along and stop dawdling where they didn’t belong. But her eyes were focused only on doing an inventory of Jordan McClennon’s features.

His black hair, thick and gleaming like ebony in the sun, was flawless, just unruly enough to move in the breeze and yet provide the perfect frame for his striking face. No flaws in his bone structure, either; the hard, square chin and high cheekbones would have done a Viking proud. Eyes so light blue that they seemed preternatural were still fixed unwaveringly on her The straight, aristocratic nose, the full, firm mouth that quirked up on one side in an assured, sardonic half smile....

Stop! she ordered herself. But still, her shameless eyes took in his hard, lean chest and thighs and the tight jeans that made all kinds of promises.

There was still no wedding ring on his finger.

Her face was growing warm.

She made herself smile as Ronnie introduced the brothers to her.

“Hannah Brewster?” Jordan repeated as if Ronnie’s introduction had come as a complete surprise. “The Hannah Brewster who used to work at my company?”

Hannah felt a prick of irritation that he chose that particular description—employee—instead of something more familiar. Still, she forced herself to nod coolly.

Jordan surveyed her with obvious interest.

“You cut your hair. And got rid of the glasses.”

Her irritation grew. He was looking at her as if she were a new chair he was considering buying for his patio.

“Actually, I kind of liked the glasses,” he said, smiling.

Hannah was determined not to let that charming smile do her in this time.

“I gave the glasses to charity when I got contacts,” she said dryly. “I didn’t keep the hair, either, or you’d be welcome to it.”

Jordan laughed, and she felt a pang, remembering how much she had liked his laugh once upon a time. It was like the sound of a river rolling over sun-warmed stones. It was the kind of laugh a woman liked to hear on a Saturday night while the radio played love songs and her lover slowly undressed her. It was a laugh—and a voice—that could warm the coldest night.

His eyes were studying her again. “No,” he said softly. “I take it back about the glasses. Your eyes are too pretty to hide behind glasses.”

From the corners of those eyes she could see his brothers exchanging glances. Apparently they were all too familiar with his routine.

“You must have a subscription to the Guide for the Single Male,” she said sharply. “That’s about the tenth time I’ve heard that line.” She was making no concessions to his studied charm.

Jordan’s smile widened, and she noticed that his brothers had raised their eyebrows in surprise.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” the brother introduced as Jake said. “But could I take a picture of this? The great Jordan McClennon striking out with a woman?”

He and his other brother, John, laughed and punched a put-upon Jordan in the shoulder, grinning at Hannah as they turned to leave.

“It was nice meeting you, Hannah,” John, the middle McClennon brother, said. “Very nice. Come on, Ronnie. Let’s get to work.”

Hannah scrambled to her feet, picked up the board and cradled it in her arms. When she felt Jordan encroaching too closely on her heels, she turned suddenly, nearly catching him in the stomach with the board’s end.

“Hannah, I—” he began, the laughter gone from his face.

“Excuse me, Jordan,” she interrupted crisply. “I’m here to help Ronnie build a house, and that’s all. Don’t waste your energy on me.” With that, she turned with as much dignity as she could muster, the board still in her arms like a soldier’s musket, and trooped toward the cement foundation.

Hannah leaned on the board and carefully avoided looking at Jordan as she watched Jake gather tools from the back of the pickup. A long strip of metal lay half-coiled on the ground by her feet. Glancing down, she caught a distorted reflection of herself, and studied it impassively.

She supposed she did look quite different from the way Jordan had remembered. Her short haircut with its pixie bangs and tousled shape gave her fine brown hair more character and suited her face. She used mascara now that her brown eyes were actually visible without glasses, and it had seemed a natural progression to wear a light shade of lipstick as well.

She had always tended to be on the thin side, but over the past few years she had gained enough weight to add some curves. She was wearing an old pair of jeans that clung to her rounded hips, and a pink cotton T-shirt with a picture of a hot-fudge sundae on the front above the words Breakfast Of Champions. She was all too aware that the T-shirt stretched tightly over her breasts.

Thinking back, she had never known what it was that prompted Jordan McClennon to ask her out in the first place. At the time it had seemed a miracle that someone like Jordan would notice mousy little Hannah Brewster, much less take her to dinner.

Her affair with Jordan had been the only one in her life, and it had taught her a valuable lesson about herself. She was not the promiscuous type, and she was not about to let anything like that happen again. Her sister, rest her soul, had occupied enough beds to fill a motel directory, but that life-style was not for Hannah. She would rather remain celibate than repeat the humiliation of making love with a man she cared for, only to have him waltz away with not so much as a backward glance.

Jake returned with a power saw and hammers and began explaining the framing of a house, as John helped him set up the saw. Hannah began to get cold feet about the whole project as Jake talked about how they were going to build the sill.

She didn’t belong here at all, she assured herself. She had some skill with a hammer and saw only because she had helped her father—if helped was the right word—when he remodeled their house. She had done it because she’d wanted to be with him, and she had treasured those times together. But she was here now simply because she was Ronnie’s friend. And he was the only reason she hadn’t headed back to St. Louis already.

Ronnie had been an electronically precocious but socially oblivious teenager when he’d begun working at McClennon Industries as a summer intern. Hannah had been a few years older, but she had befriended him when she’d seen him eating his lunch alone, a stoic look on his face. She’d lost touch with him when she left McClennon Industries, but when she returned to St. Louis, she ran into him again at the library where she worked. She had visited him in Sandford a couple of times, and she was fond of his mother, Esther.

Jake and John were laying the metal strip over the foundation rim now, and Jake called to Jordan to get the sill boards ready. Hannah met Jordan’s eyes briefly before he moved toward the tarp-covered pile of lumber. She felt her pulse quicken.

“I’m sorry,” Ronnie said lamely beside her. “I didn’t know that Jake had told Jordan about the house. I didn’t have any idea he’d be here.”

Hannah ended Ronnie’s misery with a gentle touch on his arm. “It’s okay. There’s no reason to feel awkward. It’s been a long time since I last saw Jordan, and, believe me, there’s no spark there anymore.”

The last part wasn’t entirely true, but Ronnie seemed satisfied.

He moved off to help Jake and John, and Hannah studied Jordan covertly. How had she forgotten how physically compelling he was? Maybe it was a case of not wanting to remember. It all seemed like a dream now. That she had once been intimate with this man made the blood collect in places that hadn’t felt a man’s touch since Jordan.

What he had done to her, she thought in wonder, was to seduce her with the expertise of long practice. No, that wasn’t quite fair. She’d been more than willing to be seduced. And it had been an exquisite experience.

But a man like Jordan McClennon knew how good he was with women. And Hannah realized with certainty that he would seduce her all over again if he could. For him it would be just another game.

“Hannah!” Jordan called sharply, startling her and making her blush as if he had read her thoughts. “Help me with these boards.”

She was tempted to tell him to do it himself, but she realized that both Jake and John were watching, though they tried not to be obvious about it. She decided it was less trying to help with the boards than to be the continuing source of the McClennon brothers’ amusement.

“Well?” she said, frowning, as Jordan continued to watch her, his eyes narrowed.

“You’re standing on the board, Hannah,” he explained with exaggerated patience. “That makes it a little tough for me to pick it up. Not that you’re not light as a feather, sweetheart, but I haven’t had my Wheaties today.”

“You mean there’s something you can’t do?” she shot back. She had never been particularly defensive before now, but this was the man who had seen her naked, who had made love to her, then left her.

His eyes met hers and held. “Shall I come over there and move you?” he asked quietly.

His voice was too low for anyone else to hear, but the heat climbed her face, anyway. The arrogant egotist would probably love an excuse to touch her. No doubt he thought she would fall all over him again.

Lifting her chin, Hannah stepped to the side, then bent and grasped the end of the board. With one last look at her, Jordan did the same.

“Is it too heavy?” he asked solicitously, and she grunted negatively, determined not to give him any more response than absolutely necessary.

When they had deposited the last of the boards on the ground by the foundation, Hannah put her hands on her lower back and stretched. She wasn’t badly out of shape, but it had been a long time since Kevin had been light enough for her to lift him with any frequency. That was the trouble with babies; they eventually grew up. It seemed that every day they presented their mothers with a new set of problems and a new set of delights. She gently touched the locket at her neck. It still saddened Hannah that Marybeth never got to see her son turn into such a wonderful kid.

“Are you all right?” Jordan asked carefully, and Hannah focused on him, realizing that she had been staring off into the distance.

“Yes,” she said with resignation. She had learned how to be all nght no matter what happened. She supposed she had inherited from her father the ability to put one foot in front of the other and soldier on despite any difficulty. Not that it was always easy; there were more than enough times when she nearly wondered aloud why she was bothering. But a Brewster didn’t stop to ask pointless questions when there was work to be done.

Jake had finished attaching the metal strip to the foundation and was moving the first sill board into place. Ronnie appeared by Hannah’s side and with an encouraging smile handed her a hammer. Jordan didn’t miss the fact that Ronnie’s fingers brushed Hannah’s Turning her back on Jordan, Hannah bent to pick up some nails.

Jordan studied her while his brothers drilled holes for the anchor bolts. He vaguely remembered the restaurant where he’d taken her to dinner a long time ago. What he remembered vividly was the sensation of her, of Hannah Brewster. There was a vitality in her, a warmth that made a man feel good all over just looking at her or listening to her talk.

He marveled that he could remember that evening so clearly. He had tugged her toward his bedroom when they had reached his apartment, and she had gone willingly. He could still see the smile on her face as she put her arms around his neck. He had taken her glasses off for her and then unfastened her hair, letting it fan out across the pillow. She had been nervous, fumbling with his buttons until he had to undo his shirt himself. But she had been so sweet in his bed.

He still hadn’t quite figured out the parameters of her relationship with Ronnie, but maybe it was one of those steadfast, quiet love affairs devoid of overt displays of affection. He couldn’t imagine why else she would be here—carpentry skills or not—unless there was something between her and the red-haired electronics prodigy.

Jordan realized that he was thinking. at least on a subconscious level, of taking her to bed again. She had grown into a beautiful woman since he had last seen her. Not that she hadn’t been attractive before—she just hadn’t known it then. She had a quiet confidence about her now. Still, something was missing.

Her smile—that was it. It was what had first drawn him to her. And he had yet to see it today.

He supposed she smiled for Ronnie. Resolutely he sat down on the ground by the pile of tools, rummaging for another hammer. He told himself to stop thinking about Hannah Brewster. She was treating him with all the welcome of a spitting cat. It was plain that she didn’t want anything to do with him.

Which made her all the more intriguing.

“I need the nails,” she said stoically, and he glanced up to see her silhouetted in the sun, her hands on her hips.

“What nails?” he asked stupidly, so lost in thinking about her that he was unsure for a moment if he was looking at her or a memory.

“The nine-gauge,” she said in the calm, efficient tone she’d apparently adopted just for him. “You’re sitting on them,” she added pointedly.

Jordan frowned, looking around the grass where he was sitting. “I think I’d know if I was sitting on nails,” he assured her.

“Maybe your jeans have cut off the circulation to your brain,” she suggested with a slight curve of her mouth, letting him know just where she thought he kept his brain.

“Hannah,” he began impatiently, wondering just what it was he wanted to say to her now that he’d started.

“Ah!” she said suddenly, diving down and scooping up a paper bag. “See, I told you,” she said, straightening with the bag of nails.

She was giving him back as good as he’d given her when she had been standing on the board, and it took him by surprise. Few women argued with him, much less provoked him.

“I wasn’t sitting on them,” he insisted. He shifted his weight forward, intent on standing so he could have this argument face-to-face, when his thigh came down on something sharp. “Ow,” he muttered, reaching down and closing his hand around metal. He held up a hasp. “That’s what I was sitting on,” he said.

For a moment she almost smiled, but in the next instant the smile was gone before it really materialized, leaving him bereft. He wondered why it mattered so much to him that she wouldn’t smile for him. And why it aggravated him so.

Hannah knew she was getting on his nerves. She could see it in his puzzled frown and in the set of his mouth. She found that she rather liked getting on his nerves. It was something that she would never have thought to do seven years ago.

“Carpenters!” Jake called out. “We need some carpenters with hammers over here!”

Hannah and Jordan both turned at once, Hannah scrambling toward Jake and John, unable to stop herself from watching from the corner of her eye as Jordan hefted a hammer before he followed. How old was he now? she wondered. Thirty-two. In his prime. A walking, talking, thirty-two-year-old specimen of temptation. She was only three years younger, but she often had the feeling that she had missed out on some part of her twenties that was important. She didn’t know how to flirt, and she didn’t know how to tell men things they wanted to hear.

Jordan knelt beside her, swiftly hammering in a nail at the joint next to the one she had just finished. His thigh was so close to her that the denim lightly brushed her hip, making her fingers shake as she searched in the bag for another nail. Unwillingly she remembered how that thigh had felt naked, hard and muscular along the length of her own leg. She stared down at the board in front of her.

She could feel him watching her, and she was sure he knew what effect he was having on her. She was almost positive that he was provoking this physical contact deliberately to pay her back for her cool treatment of him. Either that or he was intent on luring her into his bed again—and that was never going to happen.

He reached across her for another nail, and his firm hand brushed her bare arm, the contact, brief as it was, igniting heat that flared across her skin. She was trembling inside, hoping it didn’t show. She wouldn’t let him see how addled he was making her. Her flash point reaction to his casual touch could be easily explained by her long celibacy, she rationalized.

“So, what accounts for your expertise?” he asked suddenly, throwing her off guard.

“What?” She forgot about her rehearsed indifference and looked into his eyes. A mistake. They were far too probing, and she hastily looked away.

“The hammering,” he said. “Where did you learn carpentry?”

“From my father,” she said shortly. “I helped when he remodeled our house about twelve years ago. He taught me a lot. Sometimes I helped him when he accepted outside carpentry work.”

“Did we talk about that when we went out?” he asked, surprised.

This time she looked at him deliberately, meeting his eyes and making sure he saw her coolness.

“Frankly, Jordan, I doubt that you’d remember much of anything I told you then,” she said. “I don’t think conversation was your prime objective.” She wanted to make sure he understood that she hadn’t mistaken their pnor involvement for anything more than it was—an office affair, short and meaningless.

It had been so much more to her. She could remember almost every word of their conversations, even if Jordan couldn’t.

Abruptly she stood and moved to another corner of the foundation, deftly hammering in two nails where the sill boards joined.

Jordan followed her, squatting beside her, far too close for her comfort.

“That house your father remodeled,” he said. “Does he still live there?”

“He died a few years ago,” she said flatly, reaching for another nail even though two were sufficient.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Are you?” she asked sharply, looking into his face. “Or is it just the polite thing to say?” She was aware that she’d spoken a little too loudly, and now Ronme and Jordan’s brothers were staring at her, the sounds of hammers and drills having ceased for the moment.

“I don’t know what’s wrong here,” Jordan said carefully. “What have I done, Hannah?”

“Nothing,” she said, lying, but still managing to sound tired and aggrieved, something she hated when other women did it. If something was wrong, a person should just come out and say it. At least that was what she believed. But this wasn’t the time or the place to get specific, not when half of Jordan’s family was listening with intense interest.

“Hey!” a commanding woman’s voice called over the whine of a car engine. “Who wants something to eat?”

Hannah turned as a battered, fluorescent orange Volkswagen churned the driveway’s gravel amid the grinding of gears. The car overshot the end of the driveway by a good five feet, coming to rest just inches from a scarred oak tree that looked like it had had more than its share of close encounters with the VW if the flecks of orange paint on the bark were any indication. Ronnie’s sigh was audible.

“Hi, Ma. How come you’re here so early?”

“Early, schmearly. I figured you wouldn’t think to feed these folks. Now was I right or was I right?”

“Yeah, Ma, you’re right,” Ronnie agreed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

The portly woman in the green waitress uniform arched an eyebrow at him as she passed, trailing the scent of hamburgers in her wake. She smiled at Hannah as she set a large white bag on the foundation.

“Now, Hannah, these boys haven’t been working you too hard, have they?” she asked.

“Not even hard enough to earn a meal, Esther,” Hannah said, smiling despite her recent bitter exchange with Jordan.

Esther turned toward the car. “Kevin, if you want a hamburger, you’d better get over here.” She winked at Hannah. “He’s been busing and setting up tables for me all morning.”

“He hasn’t gotten in your way, has he?” Hannah asked. “I could watch him here.”

“The time a little boy gets in my way, honey,” Esther told her, “is the day that Esther Wardlow retires. He’s been an angel. Best bus boy we ever had,” she added in a loud voice as Kevin hopped from the car and trooped over to her, grinning at his mother.

“Look, Mom!” he called excitedly, holding out one small hand with four quarters on his palm. “I got tips. See? I’m rich. I done good, huh?”

Hannah couldn’t help smiling and gave him a short hug. He was such a good boy, always cheerful, always excited about something. He had her brown hair and eyes, but her sister’s short nose and bow-shaped mouth.

“Very good,” she said, tousling his hair. “I might even let you spend your fortune on some bubble gum since you worked so hard.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’m feeling generous. Are you hungry?”

Kevin shook his head. “I ate pancakes for breakfast and some toast and some bacon and some—” he wrinkled his nose, trying to think “—some sausages,” he concluded with satisfaction.

And this was the child who claimed he was never hungry in the morning, she thought, giving a mental sigh.

“I think you’re going to have to bus some more tables to pay for all that food,” she informed him. “Someday you’ll eat me out of house and home.”

Kevin laughed and danced up and down, clearly delighted with his mother’s familiar but good-natured complaint.

The men had gathered around the bag to get a hamburger, and Hannah glanced up to find Jordan still squatting by the foundation, his pensive eyes on her.