Think About Love (5 page)

And she would. Despite the way he'd been hovering this week, he knew she'd do exactly what she'd promised. But yesterday he'd realized that he didn't know anything
personal
about her, nothing beyond her relationship with Tremaine Software. She had an M.B.A. from the University of Washington's business school, but he had no idea where she'd lived before attending. He knew she was unmarried but didn't know if she had boyfriends, lovers, or even an ex-husband.

Hell, she could be living with a man and, if she didn't tell him, he'd never know. If she was in a relationship, she probably
wouldn't
tell him.
 

He didn't know where she spent those weekends she took away from Seattle. He didn't know where she lived, although he could probably find that out by looking in her personnel file.

The only personal details he knew were scraps gleaned over dinner yesterday. She had a sick grandmother, she'd grown up on Gabriola Island, and her parentage or birth circumstances must be such that she'd managed to acquire dual American and Canadian citizenship.

By the time he brought her back to Seattle, he fully intended to know more. Tremaine's relied heavily on Sam, and he had a right to know exactly who she was.

When he brought the helicopter to a stop outside the hangar at Nanaimo's Cassidy Airport, Sam immediately scrambled out.

"Customs," said Cal, gesturing to the uniformed man approaching.

The formalities were brief, and within moments they were alone on the tarmac again. "In that door," he told her. "I'll bring your bag to the car rental counter."

She snagged a tendril of hair that had blown free and tucked it behind her ear. "I'll carry it in. I appreciate the ride, Cal. I'll be back late tonight, in the office early tomorrow morning."

"I'll fly you back."

He saw her eyes widen, realized she didn't want him to hang around and decided immediately that he wasn't going anywhere.

"I'll find my own ride home," she said sharply.

He shook his head. "You'll want to be here for more than a couple hours. Stay overnight. If we take off at six tomorrow morning, we can be back in the office before nine."

The wind whipped around her, molding her jacket tightly against her breasts. She wrapped her arms around her midriff as if she were cold. "Cal—"

"Get inside, Sam. I'll bring your bag."

She hesitated, probably trying to think of a way to get rid of him; then she shrugged and turned toward the terminal.

He pulled her bag and his own out of the chopper before he locked it. Then he hurried into the terminal, keeping her bag with him while he reported in and closed his flight plan. By the time he was clear of the paperwork, she was just turning away from the car rental counter, computer bag slung over her shoulder and keys in her hand.

When she saw him, she held her hand out for her overnight bag.

"I'll carry it to the car. You can give me a ride into town."

He saw her drag in a deep breath. "Cal, I'm uncomfortable about this."

"We've shared a car before."

"Yes, but... that's not...." He was fascinated by her confusion. "I appreciate the ride—the flight—but this is my private life, and you have no—I shouldn't have agreed to this in the first place."

He shook his head and held the door for her. She stepped quickly outside, her words lost to him in the sudden gust of wind.

"Windy and warm," he said, catching up a few steps down the concrete walk. "I can't help wondering why you're so prickly about this. I need you back in Seattle to look after the open house, and I know you're determined to be there. I'm trying to make the business of getting here and back as smooth as I can for you. Why is it a problem for you to take some help with transportation?"

She stopped behind a white Ford Escort, popped the trunk, and swung her computer in. He put her overnight bag in beside the computer, then watched as she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her suit jacket and tilted her head up to meet his eyes.

"You're hovering, " she said, "looking for clues. I know my asking for time off makes you curious, but I won't let you treat me the way you treat a computer problem. You don't want a ride into town, you want a chance to find out what I'm doing here."

"If you told me what's going on, I wouldn't have to probe."

They'd clashed horns before, but it had always been business, and he'd never seen this hot, irritated look in her eyes. It made him wonder if her coolness was soul-deep, as he'd always believed, or a mask.

"I'll let you off in downtown Nanaimo at the Coast Bastion Inn," she said abruptly, "but I can't fly back at six tomorrow. I'll pick you up at the Coast at six-thirty. If you need to know why the delay, you can forget the whole thing. I've been working eighteen hours a day for weeks and I deserve a few hours off the leash."

He opened the back door and put his overnight bag in the backseat, then slid into the passenger seat. Sam reversed out of the parking space and before she flashed a glance at him, they were on the highway, headed north to Nanaimo.

"Did you intend all along to stay over?" she asked. "You brought an overnight bag. "

"I was a Boy Scout."

"Be prepared?"

"That's right."

He saw her gaze flick to the side view mirror. "I apologize if I've been a bit...."

"Touchy?" he suggested.

"Yes." She glanced in the mirror again, then pulled out to pass a transport truck. "I don't like mixing personal and business life."

"Why is that, Sam?"

Her lips parted on an answer, then snapped shut again. Fascinating how her lips could be so soft and full, then in a flash of irritation, could turn rigid and impregnable.

"It's just information," he said mildly.

"Knowledge is power. What will you do with yourself all day?"

"Perhaps I'll rent a car and explore Gabriola Island. I remember spectacular cliffs there. What are they called … those sandstone cliffs sculpted by the winter storms?"

"Malaspina Galleries. You'd better stick to Nanaimo. Visit the museum. You can find out about the old mining tunnels that run under the harbor from Newcastle Island."

"You'd prefer it if I stayed away from Gabriola Island?"

"I don't care," she snapped.

"You'd prefer that I go back to Seattle?"

"Yes." It fascinated him that she was uneasy, almost twitching.
 

"I'll have my cell," he said as she slowed for a speed-limit sign, "in case you need me."

She stopped at a light and turned to met his eyes with her usual cool directness, the familiar Sam he'd assumed was the real woman, until yesterday.

"Cal, I won't need you."

By the time she dropped Cal at the Coast Bastion Inn, Samantha's nerves were frazzled. She was half an hour early for the appointment with Dexter Ames, not enough time to drive up to the hospital and visit Dorothy. Besides, she needed to calm down.

Why had she ever agreed to Cal's offer to fly her to Nanaimo?

Because it seemed logical, of course, but she should have known better. Yet how could she, when his helicopter had given her the time to approve the final changes in the caterer's menu, then spend an hour with Jason in human resources finalizing details on procedures for the screening of candidates at the open house.
 

She'd even managed a fifteen-minute telephone meeting with a local television producer, with the result that the TV station had decided to put
Around Seattle's
camera outside Tremaine's from three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Great exposure, and who knew: The extra publicity might tempt some hot but dissatisfied developer from Microsoft to print off a copy of his resume and meander down to Tremaine's.

Once Cal offered his helicopter, there hadn't been any real choice, but she wished she hadn't agreed to let him fly her back tomorrow morning. Unless Dorothy got out of the hospital today, she'd have Kippy with her, and she wasn't willing to spend two hours locked in a helicopter with Cal while he fired off a stream of questions about the baby in her arms.

Somehow, between now and tomorrow morning, she had to come up with an excuse to get out of that ride in Cal's helicopter.

She wasn't sure exactly when she'd be able to pick up Kippy from the foster home—shortly after the hearing, she assumed. If so, she would take Kippy to the hospital to visit Dorothy, then head to Dorothy's house on Gabriola to pack enough baby clothes to last a week or ten days—however long it took for Dorothy to return home able to care for the baby. Dorothy must have some kind of virus, stomach problems, maybe ulcers. Whatever it was, her grandmother had insisted it wasn't serious.

Samantha would straighten out the authorities, pick up Kippy, talk to the doctor, and head for one of the early ferries to Vancouver tomorrow morning. Hopefully, Kippy would sleep most of the journey, though she might be restless, upset by living with strangers, and then being taken off to strange places by her Aunt Samantha.

Why couldn't the social workers use their energy seizing children who
needed
to be removed from their homes? Any fool could see Dorothy had more mothering skills in her baby finger than any ten foster mothers.

Cal would be angry tonight when she called him to cancel tomorrow's helicopter ride. And curious. Better to have him angry at her ducking out, than to let him see Kippy. The last twenty-four hours had proved that given enough information and enough rope, Cal could end up running her life. He was good at running things, but she’d drawn a firm boundary of privacy around herself from the beginning. The rest of the world had to live with unsatisfied curiosity. Why should he be different?

Samantha parked the rental car outside Dexter Ames's offices and yanked out her cell phone. After a minute on hold, she was put through to June.

"How’s the nanny search going?"
 

"Two good candidates," June told her. "A fifty-year-old retired nurse who's an active grandmother, and a twenty-four-year-old single mom with her own two-month-old baby. They're both reliable, good references, both looking for full-time work but willing to take something temporary meanwhile. The single mom would be bringing her own child with her."

Yet June had short-listed the girl along with the grandmother. "If you were hiring one of them yourself, June, which would you pick?"

"The single mom. I saw her with her baby."

"I need her to start at eight tomorrow."

One more detail resolved.

She switched the cell phone off, locked the rental car, and crossed the street to Dexter Ames's office. She thought of Dorothy's house, empty, silent. What if her grandmother was much sicker than she'd said?

Samantha pulled open the door to the lawyer's office and announced herself. She'd expected to wait, but was shown right in.
 

Dexter greeted her with a handshake and a frown. "The Ministry of Children and Families took your niece into custody Tuesday night on the recommendation of your grandmother's family doctor. He says Dorothy needs to go into a nursing home and isn't fit to care for a child. At today's hearing the Ministry will ask for an interim order of custody. Once they get that, they must return within forty-five days for the protection hearing. Unless something changes with your grandmother's condition, our only way to keep custody at the protection hearing is for you to apply for custody yourself with Dorothy's consent."

"Can we do that today?"

"No. Today the judge must either rule that Kippy be in the custody of the Ministry or returned to Dorothy."

"But she's in the hospital."

"I think we can get them to agree to your looking after Kippy on your grandmother's behalf, but it would mean you can't leave the country until we get the custody agreement. With luck, you might be able to take Kippy to the States in a couple of weeks."

She couldn't walk out of her job for two weeks with no notice.

She couldn't leave Kippy with strangers.

"Yes," she said. "I'll stay."

An hour later, standing behind Dexter in front of the robed judge in family court, Samantha felt as if she were still in shock. At Easter she and Dorothy had walked together every evening, Dorothy pushing the baby carriage as often as Samantha. If Dorothy knew she had a health problem, she'd managed to hide the fact from Samantha.

Was Dorothy secretive? Samantha had never thought so, but as she listened to the social worker reading the doctor's report, it was obvious that Dorothy had sheltered her granddaughter from her health problems.

Congestive heart failure.

"Your honor," said Dexter. "Dorothy Marshall is in the hospital, but she's instructed me to advise you that she has appointed the child's aunt, Samantha Jones, to act as caregiver to the child while she's there. I have with me the child's aunt. We request that Katherine Morrison be returned to Dorothy Marshall's care, and that the protection hearing be scheduled as soon as possible."

The judge asked Samantha several questions, then the social worker murmured to the Ministry's lawyer, who protested, "Your honor, Ms. Jones is an American citizen who lives and works in Seattle. Does she intend to remove the infant from Canada?"