Freefall. RaeAnne Thayne

quiet nod and the twins with giggles he hadn’t heard in days.

      The sweetness of the sound made him bite back his sharp retort. He didn’t want to fight with her in front of the children. They didn’t need to see contention between the two people they had left. They were already uncertain, uneasy, about their future.

      He gazed at them paddling in the water—if not happily then at least with more enthusiasm than they had shown toward anything else since their parents’ deaths.

      Part of him wanted to let them continue to splash and play, to work off some of their tangled emotions in the water. But he knew he couldn’t jeopardize their health and safety just because they seemed to be having a good time.

      He was trying his damnedest to think like a parent and he couldn’t imagine his own parents ever letting him or Pete swim in the rain on a day like this.

      “Time to get out.” He used the same tone of voice he would with a recalcitrant subordinate under his command. “Everybody. Come on, time to get back into your robes and head inside. You can swim tomorrow if it stops raining.”

      Unused to that stern tone from him, the children looked to Sophie for guidance. Her gaze flickered toward them and then back to him, cool challenge in her eyes.

      “We’ll be out in a few moments. No more than fifteen, I promise.”

      Why did she have to be so difficult? This would be much easier if she didn’t insist on being stubborn about having her way. Maybe it would be better if she left sooner rather than later. As long as she decided to stick around, he feared she would fight him at every turn.

      He wanted to argue with her but he was hamstrung by the pleading in the children’s eyes. Thomas groaned at himself. He was going to have to become a hell of a lot tougher if he was going to do a halfway decent job as a father-figure.

      But maybe the week after their parents died wasn’t the best time to be a hardass.

      “Fifteen minutes, then you all need to go inside the house to get warm. Sophie, I would like to speak with you in the library when you’re finished here.”

      The nod she gave him in reply was just as curt as his own voice had been.

      “Are you sure you don’t want to swim, Uncle Tommy?” Zach asked eagerly. “You’re already wet. All you need is a swimming suit.”

      Despite his annoyance with Sophie, he managed a smile for his nephew. “Another time, bud. I have work to do.”

      The sooner Sophie decided to hit the road again, the better for all of them, he thought again as he marched back into the house, his shoes sloshing with every step.

      Once she was flitting around the world with her cameras, he and the children would be able to establish a routine that didn’t involve afternoon swims in the middle of a rainstorm or whatever other crazy scheme she might come up with.

      And once she left, he should have no problem shaking this ridiculous attraction seething under his skin.

      His temper still smoldered and hissed long after he changed into dry clothes and returned to the library Peter used as an office. He tried to immerse himself in the piles of work demanding his attention but he felt too prickly to make much headway.

      Instead, he watched the four of them play in the pool through the rain-streaked glass. They seemed to be involved in a game of tag that had all of them grinning as they darted through the water.

      Sophie seemed to be spending an inordinately long time being It, he noticed. She did little but pursue the children, her lithe body cutting through the water with grace and agility.

      He couldn’t hear them from inside but he was certain Ali and the twins were all laughing, genuinely enjoying themselves.

      They were acting like children, for the first time since he’d had to break the news to them about Peter and Shelly. Despite his best efforts, since that day he hadn’t been able to coax more than those heartbreaking, sad little half smiles out of them.

      Just as the clock ticked down the fifteen minutes she had said they would remain outside, he watched her gather the children around and say something to them, then the four of them climbed out of the pool and rushed toward the poolhouse for robes and umbrellas.

      A few moments later they headed for the house, their faces bright and rosy—from the cold or the exercise, he couldn’t tell.

      With a frown, Thomas turned back to the papers spread across the desk and pretended to concentrate while the ormolu clock on the mantel ticked down the moments.

      Thirty-three minutes later—not that he was counting or anything—a knock sounded at the door.

      Without waiting for a reply, Sophie opened it and walked into the office dressed in jeans and a soft rose-colored sweater, her hair captured in a still-damp ponytail.

      His reaction to her was as instant and powerful as it was unwelcome.

      She made a big show of giving an elaborate curtsy. “I believe you rang for me, my lord.”

      He glared at her pert tone. That was exactly her problem. Sophie thought she could laugh her way through life, that the world was one big adventure created only for her.

      Ten years ago she had glowed with enthusiasm for life, wanting to taste every delicious morsel of excitement the world had to offer. She had been hungry to explore, to embrace, to experience.

      Had he been just another of those little adventures of hers? The thought didn’t sit well with him. Not well at all.

      “I’d like to know something. Can you tell me how in the hell you have survived on your own all these years with absolutely not one smidgeon of anything resembling common sense?”

      She raised an eyebrow. “Dumb luck?”

      “I believe it. What were you thinking, Sophie?”

      With complete disregard for the paperwork spread across it, she perched on the edge of the desk, far too close for his comfort.

      He was furious with himself for the instinctive way he leaned back—and even more so when he thought he saw a hint of amusement play at the corner of her mouth, as if she enjoyed making him uncomfortable.

      “I’m assuming this lecture has to do with our little swim party.”

      “This has to do with you not giving a thought to the consequences of your actions, as usual. This has to do with the complete irresponsibility of taking three young children out in a cold, hard rain to swim without giving a single thought to their health and welfare.”

      “Are you finished?” she asked, her voice icy.

      He paused long enough to look at her and realized with some shock that she was angry, too. He had never seen her mad. Amused, entranced, aroused, but never mad.

      He sat back in Peter’s chair. “Not even close.”

      “Too bad. You’ve had your say. Now I get a turn. You’re completely wrong, Thomas. Believe it or not, I did consider the wisdom of taking them out in the rain and I did consider the possibility they might catch cold.”

      “But you took the risk anyway.”

      “I took the risk. And it was worth every moment. You were watching them. I saw you in here standing at the window. You must have seen the same thing I did. They were laughing. Smiling and laughing and behaving like children instead of quiet little wraiths.”

      He couldn’t deny the truth of her words. “Yes, I saw them. But they won’t be laughing when they all are sick in bed with pneumonia. What will you do if they get sick?”

      “I’ll make them chicken soup and tuck them into their beds and read them every story in the house. But I’d rather see them laugh and splash and catch cold than shrivel away into quiet, spiritless little mice.”

      All right, so maybe he had been a little more angry than the situation