Family Matters (3 page)

He had to make the woman in front of him understand. He stayed seated, giving her the power position. Petite as she was, though, they still almost met nose-to-nose. Her blue eyes sparkled dangerously.

He wanted only to stand there and admire them, yet he somehow managed to jump into speech before she could start the rant she so obviously intended. “You expect me to do nothing, when my mother—along with a whole community of people—have had their money finagled out of them by that con artist?”

“Con…? How dare you! You barely know my uncle Bren.”

“I know the type,” he snapped. “I see them often enough in court.”

“Well, maybe you spend too much time there, Counselor.
My
uncle's
heart's in the right place.” She glared at him. “Do you even have one?”

A bird chirped, then went silent. The drone of an airplane overhead faded away. In the long silence that followed, he could swear he heard his watch ticking.

“Okay,” she added finally. “That was rude. Sorry. But you haven't given him a chance.”

“He's had enough opportunity to take advantage of people, especially vulnerable women. They've all sunk money into this venture—”

“Willingly, it sounds to me.”

“—probably more than most of them can afford—and the end to the financial drain won't be anywhere in sight. Thanks to that sna—” He caught himself. Why was this woman getting to him? More than likely, because she was related to the snake. “Thanks to Brendan MacBride,” he continued softly, “who's spearheading this so-called project. And judging by what I've seen so far, he couldn't succeed at supervising a charity hall bingo game.”

“Why not? He's got plenty of enthusiasm about his idea.” She stopped, mouth open, then shrugged and went on. “All right, maybe he jumps into things with both feet before thinking them through. And maybe he doesn't have the greatest organizational skills. But you can't condemn a person because of a few faults.”

Matt rose and stared at her without answering.

Her freckles disappeared entirely in the flush filling her cheeks. She shook her head, starting those red curls tumbling.

“You've got to give him some time to get things rolling.”

“Thirty days.”

“What?”

“Thirty days,” he repeated, shoving his sunglasses firmly in place. “I'll give you that much time to find a buyer.”

The flush drained away, leaving her freckles standing out on her ashen cheeks like blood spatter in a crime scene photo. “W-what do you mean, a buyer?”

“Someone to take that white elephant off his hands—for enough to pay everyone back.”

“That's ridiculous. He can't—”

“He'll have to, if he doesn't want to face a lawsuit.”

She didn't respond, just stood staring at him so intently, he could almost hear the gears turning inside. She was up to something. Finally, to his surprise, she put her fists onto her hips and glared at him.

“Thirty days won't be nearly enough to get the park in shape. You'll have to give him the summer.”

“Now,
that's
ridiculous. Every month that goes by, those people lose interest income.”

The gears churned again. “Okay.” Her voice wobbled, and she cleared her throat. “Sixty days, then.”

He took a deep, steadying breath. He wanted that money back.
All of it.
And she was right—MacBride would never get this settled in a month.

“Agreed. Sixty days to make the sale. Or,” he added, trying not to snarl, “I'll do whatever it takes to see your uncle before a judge.”

Turning, he stalked away and across the parking lot to his Jeep. He slid into the driver's seat, slammed the door and cranked the motor.

Jaw locked into place, he pulled out of the lot, refusing to look in the rearview mirror. Not wanting to think how he'd backed down, when there was so much at stake here.

Hell, he'd gone into law to protect the innocent. To fight for truth and for justice. He didn't see a whole lot of either one in evidence here. As a result of MacBride's wheeling and dealing, most of the residents of Lakeside Village, including
his mom, had zeroed out their savings accounts. That's what he had to focus on now.

He couldn't let Kerry MacBride get to him.

But as he drove away, her image traveled along for the ride. An image of her fists clenched and shoulders stiffened in defiance.

And of her bright blue eyes widened in shock and dismay.

After a ride back to Chicago she barely recalled and a restless night, Kerry worked out her aggression the next morning by packing away art supplies in her classroom. The students had already finished, but the teachers had this final day to close up shop for the summer.

A summer that was starting off much differently than she'd planned.

She could hardly take in what had happened. Out of nowhere the afternoon before, a perfect stranger, so handsome with his dark good looks and tailor-made suit, had become the enemy. How else could you describe someone who wanted to put your uncle in jail?

Frowning, she shoved an armful of art books into a storage cabinet.

Matt Lawrence was wrong about Uncle Bren; that went without saying. She couldn't help resenting the man for his attitude. And for his part in derailing her schedule.

Still, no matter how reluctantly, she couldn't help but admire him, too. Obviously, he cared about his mother and about all the other residents at Lakeside Village. He was watching out for them, just as she was defending Uncle Bren. But, she thought with a shiver, it was exactly what she admired most about Matt that made him a threat to her family.

She wouldn't let this latest disaster ruin everything. Not
this time. She would go home for the weekend, do what she needed to do, then continue with her life as she'd intended.

“Bet you're loving this day, huh, Ms. MacBride?”

Startled, Kerry looked up at the teenager perched on the ladder in one corner of her classroom. She'd forgotten all about him. “The end of school, you mean?” she asked.

J.J. rolled his eyes. “No—the end of me.”

“Oh, I don't know.” Despite her worries, she didn't have to force her smile. “I have to admit, you've made some progress since the first day you strolled in here.”

Laughing, he jumped down to the floor—a short drop for J. J. Grogan, the tallest, lankiest ex-gang member she'd ever had in one of her high school art classes. And the most talented of all her students.

“Yeah, remember?” He self-consciously adjusted the baseball cap he wore backward, the cream-colored fabric pale against his brown forehead. “Me coming into Intro to Art with my sawed-off Number 2 pencil, thinking we were gonna sit around all semester drawing pictures of naked women.”

“And me bursting your bubble with the very first sentence of my opening lecture.”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “I almost got up and headed out the door.”

“Really? I'm glad you didn't.”

Nervous as she'd been that first day on the job, a student walking out would have devastated her. Instead, over the years, she and J.J. had learned and grown together.

“I'm proud of you, J.J. Lots of students have talent, but none of them worked as hard as you did. You
earned
that scholarship.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged and turned to the job of sorting clean paintbrushes into old coffee cans.

Praise embarrassed him, so she didn't push.

“Bet you're all ready for Europe, right, Ms. MacBride?”

“Right,” she admitted, knowing the fellowship was a dream come true. And knowing how well he understood that. Hours studying with master artists. Trips to famous museums in Paris, Florence and Milan….

J.J. lived and breathed art just as she did. It had made him the excellent student he'd become.

And, to her surprise, her love of art had made her a good teacher. Though she'd taken the job originally as a compromise, a way to help support her family while still having time for her dream, she'd found working with her students more rewarding than she had expected.

Teaching
kids in this high school was the goal; reaching them became her mission.

“Your granny okay with you leaving for the summer?”

“I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet.” Because of a superstitious fear, one she didn't want to admit. A fear that telling anyone in her family would destroy her chance for success. She couldn't let that happen. Frowning down at the table, she added, “I'll be seeing her this weekend.”

J.J. grew still. “What's up? You sound weird. She sick or something?”

“No, she's fine.” More or less.

Since J.J.'s freshman year, she'd shared bits and pieces about her eccentric family as a way to get him to open up. She hated to reveal the latest news but wanted to be honest with him. “Uncle Bren's here for the summer, staying with Gran again. He wants to renovate an old amusement park in Lakeside.”

“Hey, great! That would be some fun place to work.”

“You think?” She nodded weakly. “Maybe so. But it's not a done deal yet. There's a lawyer fighting the project.”

Unfortunately, J.J. knew all too many people in trouble with the law. “That's bad,” he said, staring wide-eyed at her and shifting his ball cap back on his head.

She recalled Matt Lawrence's unsmiling stare as he stood in front of her and shoved his sunglasses back in place. “Yes, it's very bad.”

“What're ya gonna do?”

She shook her head and sighed. “What I always do, J.J.,” she admitted. “Damage control.”

They stood silently for a moment, then she grabbed another armful of books to shelve. “But don't worry about that. Let's talk about you. What are you going to do to enjoy your last summer before college?”

He shrugged and looked back to the paintbrushes.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothin'. Just want to help you get this stuff packed up before you get out of here.”

Now he was the one sounding strange.

“J.J., what's going on?” She set the books down again and faced him over the broad surface of the art table. “Are you worrying about handling college this fall?”

“Maybe I'm not even going.” His tone edged into belligerence.

“J.J., you have to!” The thought of all the advantages he would be risking overwhelmed her. “You've got a free ride for four years—and more important, too much talent to throw it all away. Don't give up your dream when you're so close to reaching it.”

He said nothing, just kept stuffing paintbrushes into cans.

Her hands chilled. She pressed her fingers together. Could his unusual reluctance to talk mean something even worse?

Before he had set foot in her classroom his freshman year, she'd been informed about his unstable home life and his gang affiliation. It hadn't been too long ago that he had walked away from that kind of activity. But in this part of Chicago, sometimes walking away wasn't enough.

“J.J.” She braced her hands on the table and waited until he met her eyes. “You're not back with Benny and the guys, are you?”

“
No!
I told you, I ain't going that way again.”

“Then what's bothering you?”

“Nothing, Ms. MacBride. Stop, all right?” He waved his arm as if trying to push the subject away, knocked against an empty paint can and toppled it onto the floor. The clanging noise that resulted sounded both loud and ominous.

“J.J.!”

Ignoring her, he left the room at a run.

She sagged against the table, knowing she could never catch up. No matter how much he denied it, J.J. was upset about something, something he wasn't handling well alone. He needed help.

The words she had said to him echoed in her mind.
Don't give up your dream when you're so close to reaching it.

She
was so close to hers, too. She couldn't give it up. Not again.

But how could she help J.J. when she'd be leaving town for the summer?

How could she help anyone, when she'd be an ocean away?

 

A
FEW HOURS LATER,
Kerry stood in her apartment kitchen, shoving perishables from the refrigerator into a plastic sack to take down to Lakeside with her.

If anything else could go wrong with the beginning of her break, she didn't know what it would be.

J.J.'s angry departure that morning left her worried she'd mishandled the situation. A lot of that was going around.

Facing off toe-to-toe with an irate lawyer the afternoon before—and insulting him, for good measure—wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever done.

Sacrificing her first weekend off to help work up the proposal for the amusement park wasn't any better.

But what other choices could she have made? In both cases, she'd responded to save her family. Lord only knew, she didn't want to
be
like her family. But she loved them. All of them. And they needed her.

She didn't have any options.

And now, with her bag packed and her portfolio ready for the weekend trip, disaster had struck once again. Her secondhand sports car, always temperamental, had gotten her
almost
all the way home from school that morning before deciding to break down.

Which meant she didn't have any way of getting back to Lakeside, either.

Though Gran hated the cell phone Kerry asked her to carry, thank goodness she had answered it when Kerry called.

If anytime had been good for her to back out of her promise to come home, to unpack her travel bag and repack it with clothes for her trip to Europe, just then would have been perfect. But Gran had taken away
that
option, too, suggesting a friend who was visiting in Chicago could give Kerry a ride.

Gran had sounded practically giddy with relief when she relayed this news. So, she wasn't as comfortable with Uncle Bren's idea as she'd been letting on. Kerry couldn't back out now.

Gran had barely blurted out the pickup time—two o'clock—when the phone line crackled and sputtered, and her voice disappeared in a noisy haze of static. Then the line went dead. After that, Kerry hadn't been able to reach her again. Gran
did
have a point when she complained about the unreliability of cell phones.

The doorbell rang. Out in her tiny front hall, Kerry plopped the plastic sack with the last of her perishables onto her suitcase.

She swung open the door to greet the man who had agreed to take her back to Lakeside. To her dismay, she found herself staring into a familiar pair of mirrored sunglasses.

Her jaw dropped. She couldn't help herself. “You!” she said scathingly.

“You!” Matt Lawrence echoed, not sounding any happier than she did.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, glaring at him.

“Getting trapped in another of your family's crazy ideas, evidently.”

His attitude stung. So did his answer, but how could she deny it? “You mean Gran phoned
you?
”

“Ah.” He smiled grimly. “No, my mother called. But now I know who set me up. Not that I had any doubt to begin with. There were only a couple of likely suspects.”

Kerry tossed her head and counted to ten. By fives. “Sorry to inconvenience you, Counselor. And for your wasted trip. I'll find my own way back home, thank you.” She reached for the door and pushed.

He raised his hand to keep her from shutting him out on the stoop. “What are you going to do, hitch a ride?” He looked pointedly over her shoulder at her suitcase, art supplies and groceries.

A rustling noise came from that direction, followed by a plop and then a splat.

She whirled around. A half-full carton of eggs had slipped from the sack and smacked against the floor, spewing whites and yolks and eggshells across the ceramic tiles.

She whirled back. “How did you
do
that?”

He laughed, loud and long, a deep, full-bellied vibration that shook her with its familiarity. His laugh produced the same effect on her as the music she loved to listen to when
she was most immersed in her art. Drums and chants and gravel-voiced lyrics in a throbbing primal beat.

A wave of heat eased through her. She tightened her grip on the edge of the door.

That laugh was dangerous. So was the man.

“You think I've got extrasensory powers?” He smiled.

You've got power, all right.
She struggled to focus.

“All I have,” he said, leaning closer, “are the wheels to take you home.”

And a low, sexy laugh to take me other places.

“You might want to clean things up,” he suggested.

She started, stepped back. The ability to move objects
and
the power to read her mind? She could feel that heat, no longer languid, rising into her cheeks.

“The eggs,” he added, gesturing toward the hall behind her. “You wouldn't want to go off and leave them.”

“Oh…no. No, I wouldn't.” Glad for the excuse to get away, she turned and fled from the entryway and down the hall to her small kitchen. Immediately, she grabbed several paper towels from the roll, dampened them with cool water, then put them to her cheeks.

Forget the eggs. She had another mess to clean up first.

She tried not to think of Matt or his sexy laugh.
Or
his fascinating eyes. Hazel, she'd finally realized only minutes ago, as she'd stood toe-to-toe with him when he'd removed his sunglasses. Hazel eyes that changed color depending on his clothing color—and the intensity of his emotions.

Speaking of intensity… She dabbed the paper towel over her face. When she finally felt her temperature returning to normal—or at least as normal as it was going to get around him—she went back down the hall armed with fresh towels and a bottle of cleaning spray.

Matt was gone, and she sighed in relief. Then she noticed
the door stood open and her suitcases and art materials and the rest of her groceries had vanished along with him.

Much as she'd like to believe he'd turned into a simple sneak-thief who had taken off with her belongings, she would never get away that easily. Not with family problems, and not with men.

As she cringed at the thought, a flurry of unwelcome memories bombarded her. Dates that ended badly once either of her older brothers crossed her path. An engagement that had been broken after her fiancé had met her entire family….