The Mysterious Stranger (Triple Trouble) (8 page)

He stared at her. “You expect to pay me back?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

Because he was rich and no one ever tried to pay him back. Most people made it a habit to see how much they could get from him. Ariel stepped close and lowered her voice.

“I don’t know who your friends are, but you might want to think about hanging out with some different kinds of people. I swear, even if I’m working somewhere for minimum wage, I’ll pay you for these. It might take a while, but I’ll do it.”

Conviction burned in her green eyes. He figured even odds that she was lying…about everything else. He believed her about the clothes and her wanting to pay him back.

She climbed the stairs, her shorts showing off long, shapely legs. His reaction was as quick as it was predictable. Leona was right; he’d been living like a monk for too long. Yet there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He, of all people, knew the risk of getting involved.

Chapter Five

A
riel hung her new clothes in the spacious closet. Anna Jane curled up on the queen-size mattress and watched her. “It’s funny to have the weather so nice,” the nine-year-old said.

Ariel glanced at her over her shoulder. She still wore her hair in a pretty French braid. Anna Jane fingered her own short hair and wondered how long it would take to grow it enough to braid. She’d wanted it long, but her mother had always said it was too much work. Maybe she should talk to Uncle Jarrett. She didn’t think he would mind how she wore her hair.

“Where are you from?” Ariel asked.

“Manhattan. We wouldn’t always have snow for Christmas, but it was usually cold. Here it’s warm all the time.”

“I know what you mean. I keep expecting a little whiff of something chilly.” Ariel frowned.

“Do you remember where you’re from?” Anna Jane asked eagerly.

“Not exactly. I can picture fog and rain. But nothing specific, which means it’s not much help. It gets foggy and rainy just about everywhere.”

“Not here.”

Ariel grinned. “That’s right. Not here. Every day is a good-hair day on St. Alicia.” She sat on the edge of the bed and started folding T-shirts.

The clothes she’d chosen were different from what Anna Jane’s mother would wear. The casual shorts and shirts, along with a few dresses, wouldn’t suit her mother’s designer tastes. But Anna Jane liked them. It was important to dress up in the city, but here it didn’t matter.

“Do you miss New York?” Ariel asked.

“Some. My school.”

“Friends?”

Anna Jane wrinkled her nose. “I’d changed schools in September so I hadn’t made a lot of friends, but I miss the classes and the teachers.”

Ariel put down the shirt she’d been folding and reached forward, resting her hand on Anna Jane’s bare knee. “It’s tough being the new kid, huh?”

“Yeah. Some of the girls talked to me, but most of them were real snobs.”

“And really stupid,” Ariel said, giving her a quick squeeze before returning to her folding. “You’re a great kid and they were too dumb to figure that out. Hey, if they’d taken the time to get to know you, they could have visited you here. It’s their loss.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Her comments made Anna Jane feel better. It was funny. On the outside Ariel and Nana B. didn’t look anything alike. Her nanny had been nearly sixty and tiny, with white hair and snapping black eyes. Yet Ariel reminded her of Nana B. It was more what she said.

“Do you have any children?” Anna Jane asked.

Ariel glanced at her and opened her mouth. She frowned. “I’m not sure.”

Anna Jane rolled her eyes. “I keep forgetting you don’t remember who you are. I’ll try not to ask so many questions.”

“I don’t mind the questions. There’s stuff I don’t realize I know until I answer. But children. How strange.” She got up and put her shirts and shorts into the dresser at the foot of the bed, then returned to her seat. “My first instinct was to say that I don’t have children, but then I wanted to say yes.” She tilted her head as she thought. “I don’t think I have any of my own, but there are kids in my life.”

“Like friends?”

“Maybe. Or kids of friends. Maybe nieces and nephews. I’m not sure.”

Anna Jane realized she didn’t want Ariel to have other children in her life. She wanted to be the only one. Which was silly. After lunch Leona had explained to her that Ariel was just here temporarily. Anna Jane knew that. Yet part of her didn’t want to believe it. Part of her wanted to pretend that Ariel was going to be here for a long time.

She wanted Ariel to love her the way Nana B. had loved her. She wanted to belong to someone. Her mother had belonged to her father. Uncle Jarrett belonged to his empire. Anna Jane didn’t belong to anyone or anything. Belonging to Ariel would be very nice.

Ariel looked at the pretty young girl sitting so quietly on the bed. “You’re looking serious about something,” she teased. “Tell me what it is.”

“Nothing,” came the quiet response.

It was definitely something, Ariel thought, trying to read Anna Jane’s expression. Unfortunately she’d inherited the Wilkenson ability to hide what she was thinking.

“There are still a couple of hours until dinner. Maybe we could do something.”

Shrug.

“Do you want to play a game?”

Shrug number two, this one accompanied by a small hand picking at the bedspread.

“How about exploring the house? I haven’t seen very much of it. It’s big enough that we could even pretend to get lost and have Leona come look for us.”

Silence. Ariel replayed their conversation. They’d talked about Anna Jane not fitting in at school and her, Ariel, not being sure if she had children. Bingo!

She scooted up until she was sitting next to Anna Jane, then draped her arm around her shoulders. “You miss your mother, don’t you?”

Anna Jane raised her head. Tears filled her eyes, then one slipped down her cheek. The young girl slowly shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “I’m very bad.”

Ariel’s heart ached for the child. “Honey, you’re a lot of things, but bad isn’t one of them. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I can’t. You won’t like me.”

“Unless you plan on selling me to pirates or burning down the house, I can’t think of anything you could do that would make me not like you.” She gave the girl a gentle shake. “Come on. Out with it. I promise I’m not easily shocked.”

Anna Jane swallowed hard. “My mom died.”

She clamped her lips shut. Ariel resisted the urge to ask more questions. A voice inside her head whispered it would be better to wait. Almost as if she’d been through a similar experience herself. Had she?

Forget it, she scolded, pushing aside her questions. Her past wasn’t important right now. She focused on the child and waited.

“I miss her,” Anna Jane continued in a halting voice. “Sort of. But not like I miss Nana B.”

“She was your former nanny?” Ariel asked, taking a guess.

“Uh-huh.” More tears fell. Anna Jane wiped them away. “She retired in September when I went to the new school. She lives with her sister. I miss her so much.” She covered her mouth to hold back a sob.

“Oh, honey, of course you miss her. She was there for you every day. I know she misses you, too.” Without thinking, she pulled Anna Jane close and rocked her. “I’ve never had a nanny—at least, I can’t remember having one, but I understand it can be a very special relationship. This is so hard for you, losing your nanny and your mother within a few months. No wonder you wanted a friend.”

“They asked her to come back,” Anna Jane said, then hiccuped. Small hands clung to Ariel, holding tight as if the child would never let go. “I heard them. But her sister had fallen and broken her hip, so Nana B. couldn’t get away. But I wanted her to come back.”

“I know.” Ariel had to blink several times to hold in her own tears. She continued to rock the grieving child, smoothing her hair and rubbing her back. “You love her and miss her. Sometimes you’re afraid because you think loving her so much is wrong. But it’s never wrong to love someone.”

“But I love her more than Mommy. That’s wrong.”

At last. The heart of the problem. She inhaled the scent of little girl and felt the heat of her small body. There was something familiar about the moment. The whisper of a memory teased at her, but she couldn’t bring it close enough to grab it.

“There is no less or more in love. There’s also no wrong in giving with a full heart. You loved them differently because they had different places in your life. Nana B. shared the little moments of your life. We live in little moments, so we tend to remember them better and miss them more because there are more of them to miss.” She frowned. “Did that make sense?”

Anna Jane sniffed. “Uh-huh.”

“Good. So some days you really miss Nana B. and I bet there are some days you really miss your mom. Never think it’s wrong to miss someone or love someone who cares about you. Love is the best part of who we are.”

Ariel had no idea where her advice was coming from, but Anna Jane seemed comforted by it, so who was she to question herself?

“I’m scared,” Anna Jane said.

“Why?”

“What if they send me away? I heard the lawyer talking about that. About boarding school.” She raised her chin and met Ariel’s gaze. “But if Uncle Jarrett dies and I’m all alone, I’ll be poor and have to live in the attic, just like Sara Crewe. In The Little Princess,” she added, obviously reading Ariel’s confusion.

Ariel remembered the story. “That’s not going to happen.” She hugged the girl close. “Your uncle is very rich and he’s not going to lose his money, so don’t you worry about living in an attic.”

“But what about boarding school?”

“I’ll talk to him,” Ariel promised, then wondered what on earth she was saying. Jarrett wasn’t a real fan of hers and wouldn’t take kindly to any parenting advice she had to offer. Still, this was about his niece, not him. He would just have to get over it.

She wondered if she would feel so brave when she actually faced the lion in his den.

At Anna Jane’s hopeful expression she added, “I’ll make sure he understands. It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

“Thank you.” Anna Jane rested her head on her shoulder. “I’m glad you were the one who found my bottle.”

“Me, too,” Ariel responded, sincere despite all that had happened and the potential for disaster in the future. “So how about a tour of the house?”

“Okay.” The nine-year-old bounced off the bed and wiped away the last traces of her tears. “It’s really big. There are six bedrooms and even a telescope up in a little room in the attic.”

“Sounds great. Think we’ll need to bring a compass?”

Anna Jane laughed. “I can find our way back.”

“You sure? We could ask Leona for bread crumbs. Of course, she’d probably want us to vacuum them up on our way back and I don’t want to lug a big vacuum cleaner with us on our travels, do you?”

“You’re weird.”

“I know. Isn’t it great?”

Still laughing, Anna Jane led the way out of Ariel’s room. As she followed the child, she tried to figure out why making friends with the girl was so easy. Had she been a nanny to some wealthy family? Was she a teacher? Maybe she worked in a pediatrician’s office as a nurse or physician’s assistant.

Anything was possible.

She decided to dwell on the questions later. For now she would enjoy the tour of Jarrett’s beautiful home.

They started at the top and worked their way down. As promised, a small widow’s walk led to a protected room containing large windows and an expensive-looking telescope. On the next floor were smaller bedrooms and a large game room complete with a pool table and big-screen television.

The second floor held the remaining bedrooms, including Anna Jane’s and Ariel’s, and Jarrett’s. Ariel didn’t go into that room, not wanting to intrude. Somehow the thought of seeing where Jarrett slept unnerved her. If possible, she wanted to keep the image of tangled sheets and the man himself very separate in her mind.

At the end of the hall, double French doors led to what looked like an exercise studio. “There’s weights and stuff,” Anna Jane said knowledgeably. “Uncle Jarrett is very strong.”

“So I’ve noticed.” She pushed open the door. As she did, she heard the low rumble of a motor, along with a rhythmic thudding of feet. She turned in that direction and saw Jarrett on the treadmill.

A television mounted on the wall was turned to CNN. He faced away from the door and so far hadn’t noticed their interruption. Ariel told herself to back out before they were spotted, but her feet didn’t obey the command.

So she watched him, watched the steady movements of his body. Powerful arms pumped back and forth. Long legs strode easily. He wore shorts and a cropped T-shirt that exposed his midsection. His back was broad and tanned. Sweat formed a V down the faded gray shirt.

Unable to help herself, she allowed her gaze to drift to the mirror in front of him…the mirror that reflected his image perfectly. Those long legs and taut thighs were just as alluring from the front. His belly was a hard, ridged plane of muscle, his shoulders impossibly wide. Even his face held strength and power.

He moved with the grace of a wild animal, and something unknown and primitive inside her responded. She tried to ignore the heat—the desire swelling and rising like a wave headed for shore. She couldn’t be attracted to him. Anyone but him. For one thing, he didn’t trust her. For another, she didn’t know if she was worth trusting. She wanted to think so; she believed so with all her heart, but she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t be sure until her memory returned. Regardless of her past, Jarrett was the kind of man who was trouble. Safe enough to admire from afar. Better yet, to not notice at all.

Neither she nor Anna Jane made a sound, yet he stiffened suddenly and shifted his gaze from the television to the mirror. Their gazes locked.

Something sparked between them. Fire, maybe. Or need. The sensation was unfamiliar but powerful. She felt herself drawn to him. Images of them together, wrapped in an intimate embrace, filled her mind. Her hands ached to touch his skin; her body heated at the thought of being caressed by him, of being claimed by his strength.