For The Sake Of His Heir
Her breath came in fast pants as one tear rolled down her cheek. Her normally olive skin had gone as white as the envelope she still clutched. Just a moment ago, she’d been teasing smiles from his son, her beauty naturally captivating even when she wasn’t making silly faces to entertain the boy.
“Read it.” She thrust the note at Gabe and his eyes scanned the short message from Rose Hanson while Brianne fumbled in the leg pocket of her cargo pants and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ve been saving money to move her down here with me. I was going to talk to her this weekend when we’re supposed to have a video call. I should have been connecting with her every day, but I’m calling her now.”
Brianne held the phone to her ear. Gabe could hear someone speaking on the other end, but the call must have gone straight to voice mail message because Brianne punched a button and tried again.
“It’s okay.” He moved around the high chair so he could be closer to her, and yes, put his arm around her again. He gave her a gentle, one-armed hug, hoping to comfort her somehow as he steeled himself for the shock of pleasure that touching her created. “We’ll send someone to check on her. A home health nurse.”
Brianne left a message for her grandmother, asking her to call her back right away. Shoving her phone back in her pants pocket, she slumped over the table.
He regretted that he didn’t know more about Brianne’s family background. All he knew was that her upbringing had been rough enough to make her grandmother cash in the last of her savings to send her off to Martinique with a friend who was retiring to the island. Brianne had been just twelve years old at the time. Her guardian had been little more than a stranger, but she helped Brianne finish her schooling and find an apprenticeship with a local botanist.
Gabe had been caught up in his own drama for so damn long he’d never really gotten to know Brianne as well as he would have liked to. Of course, there was always a hint—just a hint—of a spark with her. He’d ignored it easily enough when he’d been with Theresa, telling himself that the feelings for Brianne were of the creative-professional variety, that he admired her design skills and commitment to her projects.
But there was more to it than that, and it roared to life when he tucked her head under his chin. The scent of her hair was as vibrantly floral as the gardens she tended every day. He couldn’t ignore the feel of her against him, the lush feminine curves at odds with her utilitarian work clothes.
“There’s no one.” She shook her head, her soft, dark hair brushing his jaw. “My stepmother was living with Nana Rose, but then Wendy got a new boyfriend and moved out last month. I’ve been so worried—”
“I’ll find a home health-care service and make a call right now.” He pulled his phone from the back pocket of his jeans, hoping Jason’s caregiver returned from lunch soon so Gabe could give Brianne his undivided attention.
The protective instinct was too strong to ignore. Brianne had been a positive force in his life during his worst days. And her daily, sunny presence in his son’s world soothed a small portion of Gabe’s guilt and resentment over not being able to provide a mother for his own child.
“No.” Brianne straightened suddenly, tensing as she withdrew from his touch. “It’s my job, not yours, Gabe. But thank you.” She took out her phone again and keyed in a code with trembling fingers. “That’s a good idea to have someone check on her until I can get there.”
“Gah!” his son shouted behind him and Gabe turned to see the boy tossing a carrot in the air.
Even though she was upset and distracted, Brianne managed a shaky smile for Jason. She was so different from the baby’s mother, who seemed content to leave the parenting to Gabe no matter how often he’d offered to fly to the States so she could see their son. She had no plans to see her baby until Valentine’s Day, when she’d arranged a photo shoot in New York with a country-music magazine. As if a child was a prop to show off when needed.
Nevertheless, Gabe would be there to facilitate in the small window of time available for his son to see his mother.
“Maybe you won’t have to travel all the way to New York once you have a report on how she’s doing from an outside source.” Gabe hated to see Brianne return to a life that made her unhappy. No matter how much she loved her grandmother, he knew Brianne had bad memories of the home she’d left behind. “You can have a health-care aide for her as often as you want until you’re ready to move her down here.”
He wanted to fix this. To keep her happy and comfortable in a life she seemed to thrive in. Something about the gardens and Brianne was forever connected in his mind. She had a healthy vibrancy that was reflected in her work and he knew somehow the hotel wouldn’t be the same—nothing would be the same here—if she left.
“I’m taking the next available flight.” Her fingers stilled on the phone as she scrolled through screens, her dark eyes meeting his. “That is, I hope you understand I’ll need some emergency time away from work.”
“Of course, that’s a given.” He didn’t want her to worry about her job. Although selfishly, he hoped her family wouldn’t somehow convince her to relocate to New York. He wanted her to return to Martinique eventually since this was his permanent home. He hadn’t realized how much he looked forward to working with her every day until he considered the proposition of not seeing her cutting fresh blooms for the lobby desk each morning. “Your position here is secure.”
“Thank you.” She nodded, long bangs catching on the thick fringe of her eyelashes. “I need to pack in case I can catch something on stand-by tonight.” Backing toward the door, she shoved the letter in her pocket. Her cargo pants momentarily pulled tight across her hips.
What was the matter with him that he noticed all the wrong things on a day she needed his friendship? She’d been a rock in his world. He wouldn’t allow her to deal with this family emergency on her own when she was clearly upset.
“Don’t fly stand-by.” He wanted to help her. She never asked for anything and worked hard every day to make the hotel a more beautiful place. She’d been a source of laughter and escape during the hellish weeks after his separation from Theresa.
And he couldn’t let her go this way.
“Gabe, I have to.” The passion—the vehemence—in her voice surprised him; he’d never heard her use that tone. “She’s hurt. Someone hurt her. She’s eighty years old and she gave me everything I have.”
Just like that, he knew he wasn’t going to let her go alone. Not when it was this important to her and she was so upset.
“And you shouldn’t figure all of this out on your own when you’re so distracted and worried.” He didn’t want her driving when she was still shaking. Or hiring a car from the airport that would take her the long way to Brooklyn because she was too rattled to notice. “I was planning to go to New York anyhow.” It made far more sense for them to go together. “I’ll take you there myself on my family’s jet. Tonight.”
“You can’t do that.” She lifted her arms in the air, exasperated. A long section of dark hair escaped the ponytail to tease against her cheek and she blew it aside impatiently. “You have a son to think about. You can’t disrupt Jason’s schedule to fly at the last minute.”
Brianne gave the boy a tender look, her expression visibly softening as she stroked the back of her knuckle along the baby’s arm.
Through the window Gabe spotted Camille, Jason’s caregiver, walking up the planked path. He was glad she was back so he could focus on convincing Brianne to travel with him.
“My grandfather has been trying to entice my brothers and me to spend time in Manhattan for months,” he explained, pulling Jason out of his high chair and giving the boy a kiss on his head. “I can move up my departure date. My half brother Cam gave me the number of a local pilot who can have a flight plan filed with an hour’s notice. If you want to go to New York tonight, I’ll call him to take us. It will be faster than navigating the airport crush.”
As Camille entered, he passed her the boy and asked her to pack the child’s clothes for a two-week trip. He planned to stay longer than that, but would buy more things once they were settled. Camille cooed at Jason and gave Gabe a nod to indicate she’d heard him while he ushered Brianne out of the kitchen and into the afternoon sun outside.
“Gabe, I could never begin to repay you—”
“Why would you have to?” he interrupted, unwilling to let her think in those terms. “I told you, I need to be in New York anyhow so it makes sense for us to travel together. I owe you more than I’ve paid you, Brianne, if it comes right down to it. But you never hear me complain when you work long hours and contribute more to this place than anyone else. Now it’s your turn to accept something extra from me.”
She seemed to weigh this, her lips pursing as she visibly wrestled with the idea of arguing. But in the end, she put up both her hands in surrender.
“You know what? For Nana Rose, I’m just going to say thank you and go pack.”
“Good.” He nodded, already making a mental to-do list, starting with booking the plane and contacting the nanny who would be making the trip with them. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got our flight time confirmed. After we land, we can share a car from the airport, so count on me to bring you straight to your grandmother’s doorstep.”
“Fine.” Her jaw tightened. “That is, thank you.”
As she retreated, he wanted to offer more. To suggest additional ways he could help out since she might be facing more medical bills and travel arrangements where her grandmother was concerned. But he didn’t want to push his luck with his proud and prickly landscape designer. He had a whole plane ride to talk to her and convince her to let him give her a hand moving her beloved relative back to Martinique. He and Brianne made such a good team at work. Why couldn’t they carry that into their personal lives, especially when they were both going through some tough transitions?
The idea held a whole lot of appeal. Maybe that should have troubled him given that he’d just emerged from a disastrous marriage and divorce. Instead, he felt an undeniable pull of awareness that had been absent from his life ever since his wife was two months pregnant and had announced she was leaving him.
Two
Brianne paced outside her cabin in front of the huge strangler fig that listed to one side after years of leaning with the prevailing winds. Suitcase haphazardly packed and ready to go on her tiny wooden porch, she forced herself to take a deep breath while she waited for Gabe to pick her up. Dusk was just settling over the island, casting the resort in shades of pink and peach. Her cabin was already dark from the shadows cast by the wide branches of the tree.
Kneeling down, she scraped a few leaves off the plaque she’d placed there last fall, a final gift bequeathed to her from Nana’s friend Carol, who had brought Brianne to this place fourteen years ago as a smart-mouthed preteen. Carol had run out of her retirement funds by the end, her final years in a nursing home having depleted her account. But she’d left the plaque for Brianne, a wrought-iron piece with a Chinese proverb in raised letters reading, “When the root is deep, there is no reason to fear the wind.”
Brianne had understood the message—that she needed to rely on the roots Carol had helped her to set down in Martinique, and the values that Nana had tried to impart before Brianne’s world imploded with family drama. It didn’t matter that Brianne’s mom had been a junkie who deserted the family when her dealer moved to Miami, leaving eight-year-old Brianne with a father who was allergic to work but not women. Even then, Brianne had felt like the adult in the house, forging her father’s signature on papers from school, instinctively guessing her troubles would multiply if anyone found out how often she went unsupervised.
At the time, she couldn’t have known how much worse off she’d be once her dad’s girlfriend moved in with them, bringing kids from previous relationships and a surprise half sibling, whose combined support cost far more than the toxic couple could afford. If not for free school lunches, Brianne didn’t know how she would have survived those lonely years, where no one remembered to feed her let alone buy her new shoes or check her homework. But when puberty hit, delivering feminine assets no eleven-year-old should have to contend with, she suddenly had all the wrong kinds of attention.
She shuddered at the memories, grateful to hear Gabe’s SUV tires crunch the gravel on the far side of the cabin. He’d texted her two hours ago that they could leave at 7:00 p.m., and now here he was—as promised—fifteen minutes before their scheduled departure. Because apparently on a private jet they could take off almost as soon as they buckled into the seats.
Somehow, that kind of favor seemed far more generous than the extra hours she occasionally put in at the Birdsong carefully training a vine over an arbor or watering a temperamental new planting. But for Nana’s sake, she sure wasn’t going to argue with Gabe about a lift to New York on such short notice. With her bank account, she’d be hard-pressed to afford the rest of the trip and relocating her grandmother, let alone a plane ticket. Still, although she understood the McNeill family could easily afford this kind of travel, she was touched that he wanted to bring her. That was a dangerous feeling to have about her boss, who already appealed to her on far too many levels.
Wheeling her battered duffel bag around to the driveway behind the cabin, she got there in time to see Gabe open the liftgate on the back of the dark gray Mercedes SUV. In a nod to traveling with her employer, she’d dressed in her best dark jeans and a flowy, floral blouse in bright tangerine and yellow that slid off her shoulders and made her feel pretty. Gabe, on the other hand, looked ready to escort an A-list actress to an Oscars after-party, his jacket and slim-fitting navy pants the sort of clothes that came from a tailor and not the department-store racks. Even his shirt, open at the neck, was beautiful—it was snowy white and embroidered with extra white stitching around the placket. The dark tasseled loafers were, she supposed, his effort to keep things less formal.
“Any news about your grandmother?” he asked.
“She hasn’t picked up any of my calls or returned my messages.” Brianne didn’t know if the phone was dead or the ringer was shut off, but each time she tried Nana’s number and got no answer only made her worry more.
“Did you get someone to go over to see her?”
“No.” Guilt nipped at her, and she wondered if Gabe could have managed the feat if she’d allowed him to take the task as he’d wanted. “The agency I called said it was too late in the afternoon to schedule a same-day visit. They suggested I call the police if I was worried about her safety.”
“Did you?” His blue eyes skimmed over her, making her too aware of his nearness.
Nodding, she tried not to notice how good he smelled. “I did. I wanted to find out if Nana had reported the mugging, first of all, but there’s nothing on file with the police. Then, when I asked about someone checking on her, they promised they would send a car out in the morning.”
“We’ll be there sooner than that,” he assured her. “Is this all your luggage?” He reached for the soft-sided bag and retracted the handle into the bottom before he set it in the trunk of the SUV, muscles flexing in a way that pulled the fabric of his jacket taut across his shoulders.
“That’s it.” She peered into the vehicle and saw Ms. Camille’s daughter, Nadine, sitting beside Jason’s car seat and called out a greeting before returning her attention to Gabe. “I’m not even sure what I packed. I think I just grabbed something out of each drawer and tossed it in there.”
She kept picturing the nightmarish scene of a mugger stealing from her grandmother. She hated that anyone would target someone elderly and frail.
Gabe frowned as he walked with her to the passenger side of the vehicle and opened the door for her. “You should stay with me when we get to New York. My half brother Ian invited me to use his place for the next month while he and his wife are abroad. They have a spacious five-bedroom apartment in a hotel in midtown. There’s concierge service, so if you’ve forgotten anything—”
“No, thank you.” She buckled her seat belt and leaned into the soft leather chair, hoping he would drop it. She didn’t want to be rude, but she couldn’t accept more gifts from him. Her pride wouldn’t allow it. She’d been a charity case once and knew how demoralizing it felt to need a handout. “You’re already doing enough for me.”
Turning to Nadine and Jason, she gave the baby’s chubby knee a pat to say hello. Jason tipped his head sideways against the car seat, as if he couldn’t keep it upright any longer, but smiled at her sweetly. “Gah!”
The boy was so adorable, his dark curls and blue eyes already like his father’s. She wondered if it made it easier or more difficult for Gabe that Jason didn’t favor his mother more. How could Theresa have signed away her rights to raise this precious child?
Gabe took his place behind the wheel and they began the drive inland, leaving the hotel and everything she’d worked hard for in her life.
“Do you know I haven’t been on a plane since I arrived here fourteen years ago?” She made the observation as a peace offering, hoping he’d forget about her refusal to take up residence with him in a fancy Manhattan hotel.
It was tough enough to be around him as an employee today. She wouldn’t push her luck by getting closer to him personally.
“Are you a nervous flyer?” he asked, steering around a tourist caravan pulled off to one side of the road to snap photos.
She was only nervous about sitting too close to him. His kindness and attention were quickly wearing away the boundaries she’d put up, defenses she thought were solid.
“I don’t think so.” She didn’t recall much about the long-ago journey. She’d cried most of the way, convinced her life was over. “It was a stressful trip, but only because I was being uprooted. I should have returned home long before this.”
She had plenty of reasons, none of them good enough to fully explain her complicated feelings about her family.
“I’m glad you’re going with me.” He glanced her way as he rolled to a stop at a quiet intersection.
The remark was a garden-variety, friendly thing to say. But ever since he’d held her earlier—even though it had been strictly for comfort—she’d been hyperaware of Gabe McNeill. Her throat went dry.
“That’s kind of you to say, but I can’t imagine it was easy wrapping up your business at the hotel in just a few hours.” She smiled over her shoulder at Nadine, needing a distraction from the warmth in Gabe’s blue eyes. “Nadine, you must have been surprised to get a call with so little notice.”
“I have been asking my mother daily when Monsieur McNeill would be ready to take this trip. I am anxious to see New York City.” She grinned widely, her smile so warm and open, like her mother’s. “I started packing two weeks ago when I first learned this might happen.”
“You see, Brianne?” Gabe downshifted as he turned into the private airfield, a little-used amenity for the island’s most privileged. “The trip was meant to be, and it was just as well you lit a fire to get us underway. I might have spent another week tweaking that archway molding.”
Grateful to speak about something besides the family problems waiting for her on the other end of their flight, Brianne seized on the topic with both hands.
“You do beautiful work.”
“It’s an indulgence. A hobby I invest too much time in.” His expression darkened as he parked the SUV beside an exotic black sports car in the small lot. “Now that I’m a father, I need to spend less time on personal pursuits and more time developing my business to provide for Jason’s future.”
In the back seat, Nadine unbuckled the baby, prattling to him about the great adventure they were going to have.
Brianne followed him to the back of the SUV to help with the bags. She’d never seen anyone restore historic woodwork with as much precision and commitment to craft as Gabe. “What you do is a gift few people have. It’s a dying art.”
She pulled out her bag and started to reach for a smaller suitcase when a uniformed attendant greeted them, a cart at the ready to wheel their luggage to the plane. A warm breeze blew strands of her ponytail around her neck to stick briefly on her lip balm. She peeled her hair aside, tossing it back behind her shoulder.
“And it’s dying for a reason,” Gabe replied as they followed the airfield staffer to a gleaming white Cessna with the stairs lowered and ready. “Not enough people care about those kinds of details when you can purchase a prefabricated piece for a fraction of the cost.”
He greeted the pilot while the ground attendant loaded their bags for them, leaving Brianne to consider his words. She would have never guessed he’d be so dismissive of the craft he’d spent years honing.
While the attendant ushered them on board the private plane, Brianne weighed what he’d said. Maybe she didn’t know him nearly as well as she thought she did. As if the sleek jet at his disposal didn’t already highlight that they came from different worlds, now she questioned how much value he placed on her chosen career field if he viewed his own as simply a “hobby.”
Bristling, she told herself not to let it bother her. She was worried about her grandmother and on edge to begin with. She buckled into the deluxe white leather seat as the attendant who saw them on to the plane briefly reviewed some of the amenities. There was a fully stocked bar, Wi-Fi access throughout the journey, global channels available and a simplified cold menu since there would be no server on board with them.
Gabe thanked her, then settled Nadine and Jason in a private compartment in the back. He returned to take the spot beside Brianne, his arm brushing hers briefly as he fastened his seat belt. The pilot pulled up the stairs and locked the exterior door before closing himself in the cockpit for the flight. Not long after, the engine rumbled as the aircraft taxied forward.
Now that they were settled, Brianne picked up the thread of their conversation. “I still can’t believe you’d put woodworking down like that. What about landscape design? Is that a dying art best left to wither?”
“Of course not—” he said.
But she wasn’t finished. Some of the agitation of the day came out now, her argument picking up momentum as the plane picked up speed.
“Because you can surely purchase a random tree or bush at your local nursery and throw it in the ground. Who needs beauty and refinement when there’s a buck to be made?”
As the plane left the ground and gained altitude, the view from the windows shifted from the scattered lights of buildings to a deeper darkness. The cabin lights dimmed automatically, casting them in deep shadow until Gabe switched on the reading lamp over the vacant seating across from them. Only then could she see the level look in those blue eyes as he studied her.
“You think I’m suggesting it’s all about money?” His voice gave nothing away.
“That’s how it sounds to me. Like your craftsmanship is less important than learning the art of moneymaking at the elbow of a business titan like Malcolm McNeill.” But some of the steam went out of her argument at his cool words, and she wondered if she’d misunderstood him.
He leaned forward in his seat and turned toward her, giving her his full attention.
“I have a son to think about. His future is more important to me than any job, passion or hobby.” The intensity in his expression was unmistakable. She used to see it, to some degree, when he worked on a restoration project. But this was different.
Powerful.
“I understand that.” Truly, she did. “I admire it tremendously given the careless way other people parent their children.” Drawing a breath, she ventured closer to her point. “But what if you teach your son that success can be found in things that make you happy?”