Daddy Daycare. Laura Marie Altom

Torn between the sobbing beauty in front of him and the make-or-break deal awaiting him on the phone, Travis weighed his options. Door number one: do the decent thing and help his sister’s gal pal through whatever crisis had her down. No doubt boyfriend or money trouble. Temporarily frustrating but ultimately fixable. Door number two: get the kinks worked out of a merger he’d been setting up for close to a year that would net Rose Industries a cool fifty million.

      “Sorry…” he said to the woman who might as well have been from another lifetime. One in which he hadn’t been the jaded, world-weary soul he was today. “I’ve got to take this call.”

      She nodded and sniffled.

      He gave her back another pat.

      Five minutes later, back behind his desk, he hung up the phone. “You any better?”

      “No,” she said, even though she’d nodded.

      “Well, if it’s love that’s got you down, no doubt Marlene and her big mouth have let you in on the fact that I don’t get it—the whole institution—so I won’t be of much help to you there. However, if you’ve got creditors on your back, I’d be happy to see what I can do.”

      “Th-thank you,” she said, “but neither of those scenarios apply. I wish they did, but—”

      “Mr. Callahan, Helena Liatos with Vamvakidis Shipping is on line two. She says it’s urgent.”

      “Go ahead,” his sister’s friend said. “The news I have will wait. Your sister’s already dead.”

      He’d been on the line a good two minutes when he said to the woman Kit presumed was Helena, “I’m going to transfer you to my money man for your answer.” Ten seconds later, his intense dark gaze focused on her, he asked, “What did you say?”

      “I’m sorry, Travis. I’d planned to break it to you gently, but—”

      “Look…” He shook his head. “I know I haven’t visited Marlie like I should. And as for you, well, what we shared was amazing. But I really don’t see how that gives the two of you the right to barge in here, mucking up my day with sick practical jokes when—”

      “Trust me,” she said, swallowing hard. “This is no joke. I’m sorry, Travis. So very sorry. But your sister’s dead.”

      “What?” Travis lurched forward in his chair. Surely he hadn’t heard Kit right? But the grim set of her once-smiling mouth had him thinking otherwise. She dug in her picnic basket of a purse again and pulled out a press clipping, which she handed to him. Under a heading that read “Fiery Crash Destroys Young Family” were two photos. One of a mangled car, the other the most recent photo Marlene had had taken of Libby when a traveling photographer had been at the Hartsville Wal-Mart four weeks ago. Travis knew when it’d been taken because Marlie had sent him a copy. Logically, he thought, if she was still around to send pictures, making him feel guilty about already having missed so much of Libby’s small life, then this visit from Kit was no doubt another ploy to get him to—

      “It was sudden,” Kit said. “I was babysitting and she and Gary were driving home from Joe’s Tavern—you know, that old two-step place out on Highway 14? Marlene loves—loved—to dance. Anyway, Gary hadn’t had a drop to drink all night, but you know how foggy it gets on Bald Mountain. A truck driver cut that sharp curve by the abandoned gas station. G-Gary—he died instantly. But Marlene hung on long enough to—”

      “No,” Travis said with a firm shake of his head. Pushing his chair back, he stood. Paced before the stunning floor-to-ceiling view of glistening Lake Michigan. It was a breezy day and the shoreline was alive with sailboats. Travis had always wanted to learn to sail—not that he didn’t already know the basics from back when he’d taken lessons as a kid, but he now wanted to know the exhilarating sport inside and out. Just hadn’t yet had the time. Maybe when Marlene finally moved back home to Chicago they could pick a boat together. Something with a safe spot for Libby and landlubber Gary, who was a great guy.

      G-Gary—he died instantly. But Marlene hung on long enough to—

      Travis pressed the heels of his hands to stinging eyes.

      The intercom buzzed. “Mr. Callahan, Helena Liatos is back on line two. She says it’s crucial that you—”

      “Hold all my calls,” Travis barked into the system’s microphone.

      Lips pressed tight, he shook his head. “I just talked to Marlie—what?—last week? So this can’t be right,” he said in reference to the press clip’s date. He tapped it. “I remember because she’d been yapping at me about coming down to Arkansas for the Fourth of July, but with this merger and everything I—”

      “At the time of her death, police were going to call you, but I thought it’d be better—kinder-—to tell you like this. Face-to-face. She loved you very much.”

      “Our grandparents always wanted her to come back. Her place was here.”

      “She always said she had no head for business. You have to know she loved Gary—and her life in IdaBelle Falls—very much. She was happy. Working alongside you at Rose Industries wasn’t for her.”

      “Nice she had a choice,” he thundered, turning to slam his fist on the desk. Out of a sense of duty he’d taken over the business, while, after inheriting their maternal grandmother’s place two years after graduating from Michigan State, Marlie had run off to Arkansas to play on the farm. He’d told her he didn’t mind, but deep inside he’d wanted her here. He’d missed indulging her rebellious streak since her every whim had shown him glimpses of what a less-structured life might be like. Her free spirit had filled him with just enough crazy urges to run off to Tahiti to make him see how asinine such a step would be. “Where does she think the money comes from to fund her laid-back country lifestyle?”

      “I know you’re upset,” Kit said, “but that doesn’t give you the right to put her down. And, for the record, she never spent a dime of the money you sent her—well, not after we had the initial investment we needed to get the daycares rolling.”

      “She’s not dead.”

      She rose, tried awkwardly to slip her arms around him, but Travis shrugged her away before resuming his pace across the large room.

      “This isn’t happening,” he said.

      “I know. I mean, I know how you must feel. I was pretty out of it myself for a while. But there was Libby to consider, and—”

      “Where is she? How is she?” he asked, staring out the windows. “My niece.”

      “She’s fine. With Gary’s parents, but—”

      Turning, Travis strode across the office to throw open the door. To his secretary he said, “Mrs. Holmes, please see if the corporate jet is available.”

      Chapter Two

      Oppressive July heat shimmered off a runway barely long enough to accommodate the plane. The terminal consisted of what was essentially a fancy shed boasting a sign that read IdaBelle Falls, USA. Rolling green hills lined with forest flattened into valleys of prime grazing pastures. Travis had been to IdaBelle Falls once since his sister up and moved to their maternal grandmother’s home. While her inheriting it hadn’t been a surprise, her leaving Chicago to live there had.

      Though the gentleman that’d been drummed into Travis since he’d been a small boy offered his hand to help Kit down the plane’s short, steep flight of stairs, his mind was on matters other than how small and fragile her fingers felt in his. As Marlie’s best friend, Kit must be hurting. But part of his problem was how could he be of comfort to her when a large part of him still didn’t believe it was true—that his sister was really gone?

      Marlene always had been trying to get him to come for a visit. So he could see how her “kinder, gentler way of life” was presumably so much better