Wife in the Mail Read online

  What was the matter with him? She got underfoot, wedged herself into places she had no business being. Interfered with everything. He should have been glad for the opportunity to get rid of her.

  And yet, he wasn’t.

  He didn’t like the idea of her living out there all alone. Didn’t like the idea of her leaving. And liked, even less, that it bothered him the way it did.

  Damn it, he knew where such attachments led. Into gaping black holes. Why was he even thinking this way?

  Because he couldn’t help himself.

  Yet.

  But he would, by God, Shayne vowed silently. He would.

  Shayne jumped at the sound of the sudden, unexpected “thud” that smacked against his window, rattling it. The next moment he saw Sydney peering in, her face reddened by the cold and the wind. Brightened with laughter he could only partially hear. She waved at him and mouthed an exaggerated, “Sorry.” The remnants of the snowball she’d thrown clung to the pane. And then she disappeared.

  Curious, Shayne opened the window to see where she’d gotten off to and inadvertently offered himself up as the perfect target. Another white missile flew through the air. This time, without the glass to stop it, it went crashing into his face.

  Her laughter echoed loud and clear this time. Winding all through him. There was a chorus of childish laughter in its wake. Sara and Mac.

  “C’mon out,” Sydney crowed, beckoning to him. “The snow’s fine!”

  “The hell it is.” He wiped the last of snowball from his face.

  Shayne had no idea what possessed him. The last time he’d been in a snowball fight, he’d been ten, maybe eleven. After that, life had gotten too serious. But he hurried out now, grabbing his parka, determined to wash her face in snow and pay her back.

  Sara was the first to see him. “Daddy, did you decide to play with us, after all?” She clapped together snow-covered mittens in excitement.

  Shayne stopped long enough to pick up a handful of snow and mold it between his gloves. “Just for a few minutes. Just long enough to pay Sydney back.”

  Standing a good distance away, Sydney stuck out her chin, daring him to hit it. “You probably throw like a girl.”

  The next second, shrieking with laughter, she ducked out of range. He missed.

  He didn’t miss the second time. Or the third. Victorious, having done what he’d set out to do, he thought the battle over.

  He thought wrong.

  Sydney was more than ready for him with a cache of snowballs, waiting to be hurled, at her disposal. The wait was over the second Shayne’s third snowball hit its target. Winding up, she began depleting her arsenal at an incredible speed.

  Mac, his eyes bright with enthusiasm, rushed over to join Sydney. In less than a few minutes, the air was thick with snowballs.

  Sizing up the situation, Sara threw her lot in with what she deemed in her young heart to be the underdog. Ducking her head, she scurried over to him. “I’ll help you, Daddy.”

  “I appreciate it,” Shayne told her, although he knew that Mac would be much better at snow warfare than his sister. Sara threw a malformed snowball that landed a foot away from her.

  Just his luck, Shayne thought, but he smiled and said, “Good try.”

  Mac’s snowball made the distance, squarely baptizing his sister in the face. She gasped and Shayne expected the confrontation to instantly break down into yelling and tears. Instead, he heard Sara laugh and rush to make another snowball.

  His surprise cost him. Sydney hurled two snowballs in quick succession, striking him with a one-two punch. Shayne held his hands up in front of his face.

  “Uncle!”

  “Aunt!” she yelled, hurling another one at him.

  Shayne saw the arsenal that was still left. She was equipped to keep this up for half the afternoon. He saw no other avenue open to him. He could either stand and be pelted, or charge her.

  He chose the latter and ran straight into Sydney, grabbing her by the waist and sending her crashing down into the snow. Perforce, he went with her. It was a small sacrifice to pay. And an enjoyable one, layers of clothing notwithstanding.

  The next thing he knew, the children had piled themselves on top of both of them. The laughter and squeals fed into one another until it all formed one harmonious sound.

  Music to his ears, he realized, pleasure spilling through him.

  He struggled to his feet, succeeding on his second try, which necessitated untangling his body from his children. Shayne offered Sydney his hand. “I had no idea you were this bloodthirsty.”

  Sydney accepted his hand and found herself unceremoniously yanked upright. “A lot about me you don’t know.” Cheeks glowing, she paused to brush the snow out of her hair. She slanted a look at his face to see what he made of her comment. “The nights are long, maybe you’ll learn.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed. The remark was accompanied by a careless shrug.

  His tone sounded ambiguous, but she supposed his answer was better than a silent reproof. In any case, Sydney let it be.

  Dusting the snow off her legs and rear, Sydney looked around for Sara and Mac. Collectively, there was more snow on them than on the chalet roof. “Okay, who’s for hot chocolate?”

  Sara raised her hand excitedly. “I am.”

  It wasn’t cool to be too excited. But Mac’s eyes gave him away. “Me.”

  Shayne stared at her. “We have hot chocolate?” Since when? he wondered.

  She looked at him, surprised that he thought she’d be careless enough to make promises, however small, without backup.

  “Of course we have hot chocolate. What kind of a sadist would offer children hot chocolate if there wasn’t any?” she teased. “Mr. Kellogg got in a whole case for me.”

  Of course he did, Shayne thought, surprised the general store owner hadn’t ordered a private cow for her, as well. Everyone tried to be so damn accommodating to Sydney. “How much hot chocolate do you intend to drink?”

  The smile on her face was enigmatic. “Nights get cold here.”

  He had no idea if she was mocking him or not.

  The sound caught Sydney’s attention. At first she dismissed it, thinking that it was just the wind winding its way through the trees. She’d learned to tell the difference now between the mournful sound of the wind and other things that were only close in timbre.

  She listened again, harder. It was the sound of crying. Muffled crying.

  One of the children was crying. Curious, moved, she crept softly into the hallway and listened, holding her breath so she could hear more clearly. There was nothing.

  Her imagination was playing tricks on her. Turning away, she headed toward the stairs when the sound came again, escaping like a fugitive bound for freedom. It was coming from Mac’s room.

  Sydney tried Mac’s door and found it wasn’t locked. She debated, only for a second, giving him his privacy. But he was a little boy who needed comfort more than he needed a space to call his own. Pushing the door open slowly, she found Mac lying on his bed, his face buried in his pillow. The sobs escaped anyway.

  She approached with caution, knowing that the Kerrigan men were a pride-laden lot, even the smallest one. “Mac, are you all right?”

  Mac hunched his shoulders together, as if trying to sink further into his pillow. He refused to turn his head. “Go away.”

  She didn’t budge. Instead, she placed her hand on his shoulder and felt it stiffen. He and his father had a great deal in common. “Mac, what’s wrong?”

  “I said go away.” He sniffed, hard. Then the accusation came. “That’s what you’re going to do anyway, right? So go away now.” He raised his head to look at her, tear tracks down both cheeks like war paint. “I mean it, go away.”

  Instead of leaving, Sydney sat on the edge of his bed. “I’m not going to go away. Not until I find out what’s bothering you. And not even then.”

  He said nothing. And then, finally, struggling with his feelings, he looked at her
again. “Then you’re not moving out?”

  So that was it. He thought she was abandoning him. She knew how hard it had been for him to reach out to her in the first place. She ran her hand along his hair, smoothing it. “Yes, I’m still moving out. But I’m not going away. I’ll still be here in Hades. And I’ll come see you and Sara every day if you want.”

  “How?” He stuck out his lower lip belligerently. “It’s too far.”

  “It’s not too far with a car.”

  “But you don’t have a car.”

  “I will soon.” She saw the surprise on his face. “I ordered one, and they’re sending it all the way from Detroit.”

  It hadn’t been an easy process. It wasn’t like a large city, where she could have gone to a local dealer and pick out a car. She’d made her choice from a pamphlet, basing her decision on Shayne’s judgment by ordering the same kind of vehicle he used. She’d bought the car on her own, without his knowledge. She’d figured it was one less thing to bother him about.

  “Is that going to take time?”

  She saw the hopeful look in Mac’s eyes and it tugged on her heart. Why couldn’t his father look at her that way? “Everything takes time here.”

  The answer satisfied him. Mac manfully brushed away the wet streaks his tears had left on his face. He looked at her sheepishly. “Pretty dumb, huh? Crying like a baby.”

  She couldn’t help herself any longer. She hugged him to her. It touched her that he let her. “Babies aren’t the only ones who cry, Mac. I cried when my dad died. A great deal. And men cry.”

  He shook his dark head. He knew better. “Men don’t cry.”

  She crooked her finger beneath his chin and raised it so that their eyes met. “Oh, yes, they do. They have feelings just like you do. Things hurt them.”

  Maybe some men, Mac allowed. But he knew of one who remained above all that. Above things like hurting and tears. And feeling scared.

  “Not my dad. He doesn’t have any feelings. Except maybe the hating kind.” Mac pressed his lips together, wondering if he’d said too much.

  Oh, God, was that what Mac thought? She took his face in her hands and said very carefully, “He doesn’t hate you, Mac. He loves you and he loves Sara. Very, very much. He just doesn’t know how to say it, that’s all.”

  The big, dumb ape, she thought in silent frustration.

  Sydney was just trying to be nice. He had proof that he was right and she was wrong. “He doesn’t love me. He never came once to see me, not until after…after Mom died.”

  She gathered the boy to her, wishing there was some way she could shield him.

  “He didn’t come to see you because he couldn’t. Your mother didn’t want him to.” It was a fine line she was walking and she knew it. Not wanting to upset any of Mac’s memories of his mother, Sydney tried to remember what Ike had told her. “She did it because she thought it was best for you and your sister not to have your dad come in and out of your lives. Your dad thought you’d be okay if he did, and they argued about it. He decided not to try to see you because he didn’t want the shouting to upset you.” She caressed his hair. “They both loved you very much.”

  There were fresh tears forming. “I don’t think so.”

  There had to be some way to convince him. And then she remembered. “If your dad didn’t love you, he wouldn’t have kept all those pictures of you in his desk.”

  “He’s got pictures of me?”

  “Tons of them. Pictures of you and Sara. I’d say there were probably six years’ worth.” She saw his eyes light up. Bingo. “I bet your dad spent a lot of nights just sitting in his chair, looking at those photographs over and over again. Missing you. Thinking he’d never get to see you again.”

  A warm feeling came over Mac, like when Sydney tucked him into bed and made the blanket all snug around him when it was cold. “How’d he get the pictures?”

  He wasn’t suspicious, she thought. He just wanted to know. “When someone loves someone else, they find ways.”

  Mac wanted to believe her, he really did. There was just one final question. “How do you know my dad has pictures?”

  “I saw them. I was looking for some paper one day and found them in a box in his bottom drawer,” she confessed. She’d never said anything to Shayne. She knew he wouldn’t have appreciated her going through his things, but even if he found out, the look she saw on Mac’s face now, made the risk worth it for her. “The deep one.”

  He wriggled off the bed. “Show me.”

  The boy clearly had Missouri blood in him. This made discovery almost a sure thing. Sydney debated, but the hope in Mac’s eyes cut the debate short.

  “My pleasure.” She took his hand and they headed for the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “What are you doing?”

  Startled, Sydney looked up to see Shayne standing in the doorway. She hadn’t heard him come into the house. Anticipating a scene, she moved from the desk where she and Mac had been looking at the photographs and placed her body between Shayne and his son.

  “Mac didn’t believe that you had photographs of Sara and him in your desk.” She glanced at the pile in front of Mac. “I could put them into an album for you if you’d like.”

  Shayne had come home exhausted. The single patient he’d gone to see in the Inuit village had mushroomed to twelve. Though he hated admitting it, he’d sorely regretted not taking Sydney up on her offer to accompany him. Just having her around seemed to put people at ease. But he’d wanted to become less dependent on her, not more.

  The light coming from his den had drawn him there instead of to the kitchen for food to placate his growling stomach. He hadn’t expected to see her going through his things with his son.

  “What I’d like, Sydney, is for my things to remain where I put them.” Shayne frowned, looking at the contents scattered all over the top of his desk. “How did you know they were there?”

  Sydney heard the accusation, sharp and cold in his voice. It wasn’t a voice belonging to a man she’d made love with such a short while ago.

  Served her right for thinking that anything had changed between them. Or that they had a future together.

  Just her luck, she thought, to be doomed to give her heart to men who didn’t want it. She stepped closer to him, lowering her voice. She didn’t think she could be held responsible for what she’d do if he somehow ruined this for Mac. “That doesn’t matter right now. What does, is that Mac knows you care about him.”

  What gave her the right to presume to know how to run his life? Why did she think she could just interfere in it anytime she felt like it? “He doesn’t need to find photographs for that.”

  The look in her eyes cut him dead. “Everyone needs physical evidence of some sort.”

  Unaware of the storm brewing around him, Mac held up a photograph. “What does this say?” His question temporarily broke the tension.

  Not trusting himself to say anything more to Sydney, Shayne crossed to his son and took the photograph from him. He looked at the back, then paused, reading the notation. It was in his own hand. Barbara had never bothered writing anything on the back. But as soon as he received them, he’d meticulously written dates and events on the back of every photograph she’d doled out to him so stringently.

  “‘Mac, first day of school.’” And then he read the date. Mac was smiling into the camera, his wide grin shy, one tooth in the front. He clutched a lunch box in one hand, a notebook in the other. Shayne remembered the pride he’d felt looking at that photograph. Pride mixed so strongly with resentment because he couldn’t be there in person to witness it. Resentment because Barbara had barred him from his own children.

  Mac took the photograph back and examined the writing. He shook his head. His dad must’ve flunked penmanship. “You’ve got funny handwriting.”

  The remark, so guilelessly tendered, made Shayne laugh. “I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to have funny handwriting.”

  Mac looked at the box.
There were a great many photographs still in there, as well as the ones spread out all over the desk. The eyes he raised to his father forbade Shayne to lie.

  “Why did you keep these?”

  Shayne could feel Sydney looking at him, waiting for him to answer Mac. He didn’t like explaining himself, but he knew his son’s needs outweighed his own feelings in this case.

  “Because I couldn’t be there to see it happening first-hand.” It cost him to bare his soul like this. “I asked your mother to send them to me. I wanted to see what you and Sara looked like while you were growing up.”

  Mac rolled every word over in his head, examining it carefully from all angles. He needed to be sure. “So you really did care?”

  Shayne exchanged looks with Sydney. She was right, damn her. Mac needed to hear this, needed to be told and shown that he mattered. It wasn’t enough to assume that he understood.

  Emotion filled him as he gathered his son to him, trying to make up for lost time. Knowing it wasn’t possible. But at least he could try. “I did and I do.”

  Shayne heard the door close behind him. When he looked, he saw that Sydney had slipped out of the room. He’d underestimated her. She knew that some things required privacy.

  Like a man getting reacquainted with his son.

  Just when he thought he had the woman pegged.

  Arms tightening around Mac, Shayne did his best to reassure the boy. Privacy or not, the words didn’t come out any more easily. But he knew that they had to be said.

  “Just because I wasn’t there, Mac, didn’t mean I didn’t care. Didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about you and your sister every minute of every day.”

  Mac looked up and studied him solemnly. Shayne could see that the boy really wanted to believe him. “Every minute?”

  Shayne nodded, running his hand through the boy’s hair. He couldn’t help thinking how much Mac looked like Ben when Ben had been his age. “Every minute.”