Serendipity (15 page)

Ethan shrugged. “I don't know the details on that either. Her sister dropped the bomb along with the guy's card. That's something else we need to get information on.”

“I'm a cop and she's a juvenile delinquent.” Dare let out a choking sound.

“He's a laugh riot,” Tess muttered. “Fine. So go on. You ditch me too,” she said to Faith. “Story of my life.”

Faith studied the girl, as if trying to figure her out. Finally she dug into her bag and handed her what looked like a business card. “My cell number's on here. If they give you any trouble, call me, okay?”

Tess bit down on one of her nails before grabbing the card. “Whatever.”

“I'll call you tomorrow to talk about the decorating,” she said to Ethan, obviously ready to leave.

“You don't have to go.” Ethan refused to let Nash run her out.

“Yes, I do.” Faith looked at Nash, who didn't ask her to stay.

His brother was a fool. From what Ethan could tell, Faith might be the only one who could get through to Tess. Not to mention that Ethan wasn't finished with Faith, despite the fact that their night had imploded hours ago.

But she clearly no longer wanted to be here and he didn't blame her. “I'll walk you out.” Ethan turned to his now
three
siblings. “Can I trust you all alone together?” He aimed for a joke.

“We'll manage,” Dare deadpanned.

With a shake of his head, Ethan placed his hand on Faith's back and led her to the front door, joining her outside on the porch for privacy. “This sure as hell wasn't how I planned for this night to end.”

“I can't even imagine how you must be feeling.”

“I'm reeling,” he admitted. “And I don't have a clue what to do with her. She's fourteen and pissed off at the world. I'm a stranger who doesn't even have a bed to offer her.”

She laughed. “That's easy. Give her yours for tonight. First thing tomorrow I can arrange for a bed to be delivered same day. Do you think she'd want to pick out the rest of the furniture in her room?”

“Do
you
?”

Faith shook her head and sighed. “Good point. Okay, I'll just come up with something that will get here fast. As far as the rest of the house, you're going to need a lot more furniture a lot faster than we'd planned. Do you want to meet to go over some ideas?”

“Do I want to see you tomorrow? Yes. Do I care what furniture you pick out or what you put on the walls? Hell, no. As long as the kid has a place that feels like home, that's all I care about right now.”

An unexpected, wide smile tipped her lips. A warm, sexy smile.

“What?” he asked, confused by her reaction.

“You're wrong,” she said sofly.

“About what?”

“You
do
know what to do with her,” she said, referring to his earlier declaration that he didn't.

Admiration filled her gaze and, as usual, her faith in him took him off guard. “I just hope you're right.”

“I am. I'll come by tomorrow with books and decorating plans anyway. You might not be in the mood, but you should still have a say in the furniture and look you're going to have to live with.”

As long as he could see her, he'd pick out curtains if he had to.

“You should get back inside,” she said, and he realized he'd been staring.

Acting on instinct, he reached for her, intending to pull her into a kiss—one that would hold him over and make up for what they'd missed tonight—but she backed out of reach.

Surprised, he narrowed his gaze. “What's wrong?” Unless he was mistaken, they'd been about to sleep together just an hour or two before.

Okay, so the notion of him having a sudden family under his roof wasn't ideal, but that didn't mean he'd changed his mind about her.

She took another step back. “Your life just did a one eighty. You won't have time for a fling, so let's not set ourselves up for something we can't have.”

She was backing away and he had no idea why. “What's going on, Faith? Why the change of heart?”

She waved a hand, telling him she wasn't going to discuss it. “I'll see you in the morning. Good luck with Tess. And your brothers.” She started down the path.

“Uh, Faith?” he called into the darkness.

She turned.

“I drove you here,” he reminded her.

In the end, Dare drove Faith home, leaving Ethan to deal with Tess, who refused to take his bed, insisting the floor was no big deal.

Ethan disagreed but didn't win the argument. Or any other one during the night. He had a feeling his version of “no big deal” and his new sister's version were worlds apart.

 

 

Needing someone to talk to, Faith wrapped her hand around her cell phone, planning to call Kate as soon as she walked into her apartment. She stopped herself before she could dial. As much as she wanted to confide in someone, she couldn't admit to her best friend what she could barely admit to herself.

She'd seen sides of Ethan tonight that surprised her. True, she'd been defending him to Rosalita and Nick, but even she'd been surprised by his softer side.

The idea of having an affair had been appealing for many reasons. Like Kate had said, she could dip her toe back into the dating game without a major commitment with a man who did it for her in a big way. But tonight Faith realized he wasn't just a hot guy, he was a hot guy with a heart, and that scared her. Because a guy with a heart, who would open his home to a fourteen-year-old girl and put her priorities first, was a man she could fall for. And she wasn't anywhere near ready. She'd backed off fast, but she hadn't fooled Ethan or herself. This unresolved thing between them was far from over.

If they were the only two people involved, she'd find it easier to wrestle with her personal demons and discover a way to be with him, but there'd been another reason she'd backed off tonight. Nothing meant more to Ethan than mending his relationship with his brothers. He'd said as much himself. Not even the successful business he'd built and the money he'd acquired meant more to him than Nash and Dare.

And Nash had made his feelings about Faith perfectly clear. He disliked her father and Faith by extension. As long as Faith was in the picture in any personal way, she'd be another obstacle standing between Ethan and his goal of reuniting his family. His new sister gave him an in with his brothers, a reason for the three of them to be together in a meaningful way.

Faith was grateful to Ethan for standing up for her, but she couldn't live with herself if she came between them. If that meant she had to give up an affair with the one man she'd always wondered about, so be it.

At least she'd be able to look in the mirror and know she'd put someone else's needs in front of her own.

 

 

Ethan woke up, took a quick shower, dressed, and headed downstairs to find Tess. His stomach was growling and he didn't have much in the way of food. He figured they could eat at the diner and then go grocery shopping together. He had no idea what a teenage girl liked to have in the house.

Nothing about Tess had been easy. She refused to talk to him and had insisted on crashing on the floor in the carpeted family room, unwilling to take his bed.

He walked into the room in silence in case she was still asleep. The blanket he'd given her lay in a heap on the floor, but no Tess. He tried the kitchen second. No Tess there either. He strode from room to room, his stomach sinking with each unsuccessful attempt.

“Son of a bitch.” He couldn't take care of her for one single night.

The kid didn't know the town, so he couldn't imagine where she went. Then he remembered her begging Faith not to leave.

He grabbed the phone and made the most embarrassing call of his life.

“Hello?” Faith's voice did little to soothe his panic.

“I lost her,” he said into the phone.

“Ethan?”

He gripped the receiver harder in his hand. “Yeah. I lost Tess. Woke up and she was gone. I searched the entire house. Any chance she came to find you?”

“No, but don't panic, okay?”

“Easy for you to say. I'd call the police—”

“Except they'd make you wait twenty-four hours before filing an official report,” she pointed out logically.

“And my brother Dare would have more proof of why I'm not worth believing in,” he muttered under his breath.

“He'd be wrong,” Faith said, her voice filled with a certainty he couldn't feel.

Dare had taken the job of looking into Tess's past. Nash had agreed to check into the family connection, and Ethan was supposed to look out for the kid.

Helluva job he'd done so far.

He grabbed his car keys. “I'll take a ride and see if she walked to town. Call me if by some miracle she shows up at your place?” he asked Faith.

“Of course. She's probably just testing you.”

If so, he was failing. He broke the connection and hung up. Cell phone still in hand, he started for the front entrance. He'd left the car outside after picking Faith up last night, so he didn't need to go through the garage.

He opened the door . . . and nearly tripped over his missing sister, sitting on the front porch, smoking . . . “Is that a joint?” he asked, shocked down to his toes.

He shoved the phone into his back pocket and stared at the kid. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Getting fresh air, what's it look like?” Tess scowled at him. “Is there a law against sitting in the great outdoors?”

“There's a law against possession of marijuana.” He reached out and snagged the joint from her hand. He snuffed it out beneath his shoe, grinding the rest of it into the ground.

She jumped to her feet. “Hey! That stuff's expensive!”

And he was sure he didn't want to know where she'd gotten the money to pay for it. But he did. He needed to know everything about her if he had any hope of turning the kid around.

Ethan pulled in a deep breath before dealing with her. “I thought you ran away.”

She eyed him warily. “I considered it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”

“Kelly's smart. She left me with no cash, no credit card, and you sleep with both right next to your head. I figured I wouldn't get far.” She shrugged. “So I came outside for a hit instead.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Sit,” he ordered.

She folded her arms across her chest in blatant defiance.

“Sit down, Tess.” He took a step closer to her, hoping his size would force her into complying.

To his shock, she did.

Begrudgingly, but she lowered herself to the stoop, glaring at him the entire time. “What now?”

“Now we talk.”

“How does a fourteen-year-old end up with a juvenile probation officer?” Ethan figured he'd start with the easy questions and work his way up.

“How do you think?” Tess kicked at the stone paving beneath her feet.

“I'm guessing you got into trouble. Want to explain?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

This was going well, he thought, memories of stonewalling his own parents returning to haunt him. “Vandalism? Got caught smoking pot by the wrong people? What?” he pushed Tess for answers.

“What's the difference? End result is the same.”

She had a point. He glanced out at the lush green shrubbery surrounding the massive house he now owned. A world away from the small track house on the outskirts of town where he'd grown up, where he hadn't wanted to face that his family was falling apart. Tess was just confirmation of something he'd known all along.

He studied her hard profile. “You know, I was always getting in trouble when I was your age. Drinking, stealing, racing cars.”

She raised an eyebrow. The ring pierced through her brow glimmered in the sun. “You're so full of shit.”

“And you need to watch your mouth.” Okay, so she didn't want to talk. Dare would get the information they needed and he'd figure out what to do with Tess then. “Let's go get food,” he suggested.

“Sounds good.” She jumped up. “Where are we going?”

“Got the munchies?” he muttered.

She glanced at him, surprised. “You know about that?”

He nodded. “I'm old, but I'm not that old. We'll get a decent meal at the diner in town, then we'll pick up groceries so we have something to eat in the house.”

“Fine. Whatever,” she said, back to her sullen self.

An hour later, they'd eaten at the Family Restaurant, the only diner in town. He'd gone to school with some in the family who now ran the diner, but despite going way back with them, Ethan had no idea if they'd treat him with disdain for running out on his siblings. To Ethan's surprise and relief, considering he had Tess with him, he'd been welcomed and treated with respect by the Donovans. The other patrons either ignored him as a stranger or stared inquiringly.

Either way, he'd take it, even if it was his money and current status as Harrington mansion owner that gave him a pass. He didn't care why as long as his new sister wasn't subjected to the
he's nothing but trouble
feeling shared by many people in town.

He didn't have much time to mull over how that little bit of acceptance felt because during their meal, Dare called to inform him that Tess's juvenile probation officer had been full of information about their new sister. Despite being arrested for breaking and entering, she'd skated serious trouble this time. Now all she had to do was behave for the next six months and the charges would be dropped. If she stayed out of trouble until she turned eighteen, her arrest record would be expunged. Ethan had had her with him for less than twenty-four hours. The next four years loomed long ahead of him.