Bannon Brothers (14 page)
Authors: Janet Dailey
“I'm sorry. I guess I shouldn't have pried,” Bannon said quickly. She seemed distant all of a suddenâso much for the mood of intimacy that he'd been enjoying. Nothing much he could do about recapturing that. The scrapbook held poignant memories of a family she no longer had.
“It's all right. Really.” She turned more pages, looking thoughtfully at photos and pasted-in drawings here and there, signed by her in painstaking capitals.
There were no school portraits, but then she'd said she'd been homeschooled. The photos of her were shadowed or with her facing away from the camera. She stopped at one that showed her with braids down her back, in her father's workshop, standing by him.
Bannon did an automatic inventory.
Ernest Randall was ordinary looking, with no distinguishing features. Thick hair, sandy colored. Light eyes. Medium height. Older, somehow, than Bannon had expected, even though Erin had said she'd come along late in life for them.
He could make out shop equipment in the background of the photo, but he didn't know what all of it was. Tool-and-die gear, maybe. Machines for metalworking. He recognized a couple of different types of table saws, not like the heavy-duty one his own father had used. His mother still kept it in her basement.
Erin tapped the photo. “He never let me touch the shop stuff but he used to make puzzles for me on this one. Jigsaws, really complicated. Later on we did word and math puzzles. He tried to teach me geometry and a little bit of engineering. It did kind of help me with drawing.”
“How so?”
“If you know how things work, you can see how they should fit together.” She made a funny little face. “And then you can draw them without too much thinking. It's hard to explain.”
“I think I understand. And it sounds like he did too. Didn't you tell me he was an inventor?”
Her pleased smile told Bannon he'd remembered right. “Yes. And a tinkerer. I used to think there was nothing he didn't know how to do. He developed all those photos himself because he didn't trust the drugstore.”
“Now that's going pretty far into do-it-yourself territory.”
Erin waved a hand to indicate just how far. “He had a darkroom set up and rinsed the prints in an old bathtub and everything.” She wrinkled her nose. “I remember hating the smell of the developer chemicals.”
“How about your mother? What did she do?”
“She taught elementary school for a while. But not after my brother died. So she was always home for me.” Erin turned another page and showed him a photo of an older woman, thin, with a sad face, wearing a dress with a frayed collar. “That's her and me, of course, next to her. We're working on this scrapbook.”
“How about that.” The photo was faded but it was clear that the scrapbook was new. “I can't see your face, though.”
She gave a little laugh. “No, I was always looking down. I didn't like having my picture taken and they never told me to look at the birdie or anything like that.”
Bannon reached over on an impulse and tipped her chin up so she had to look at him. “Too bad. You must have been a pretty kid.”
She moved uncomfortably and he relinquished his light hold. “I didn't know it if I was. My parents didn't set much store on appearances or fancy things.”
He nodded. What walls he'd seen in the photos had been bare. “Hmm.” Maybe that was par for an old farmhouse way out in the country. It occurred to him that there hadn't been a single picture of the house from the outside or the land around the house in the scrapbook.
Erin closed the scrapbook and a card fell out of it onto the floor. He bent to pick it up, looking at the cut-out paper flowers that decorated it, underneath words written in flowing script.
To my girl of gold . . .
Looked like something her mother would have made. He handed the card to her, but she didn't even glance at it, just slipped it back inside the scrapbook, which she quickly put back in the box.
“Sorry,” she said in a controlled voice. “Last time I looked at that scrapbook was a few years ago. I don't remember it being so depressing.”
“Not to me.” He couldn't argue with her statement. “But I know what you mean. I don't go down Memory Lane too often myself.”
A chill had fallen over the room and both of them felt itâas well as the silent tension that sprang up between them. Fortunately, it was broken by the sound of clicking nails coming their way. They both turned, not startled, when a large dark shape loomed in the kitchen. Charlie stood there, looking from Bannon to Erin, his ears pricked.
“Enjoy your nap?” Bannon asked, holding out a hand to the dog. “Bet you're ready for a head scratch. I'll throw in a belly rub if you put another log on the fire.”
But the dog went to Erin, not him, sitting on his haunches and looking up at her adoringly.
“Look at that. I'm insulted,” he joked.
Erin smoothed and petted the fur on Charlie's back, sinking her fingers into the thick dark ruff around his neck. “Maybe we should take him out. It's getting a little late.”
“Good idea.” Bannon finished the wine in his glass and stood, helping himself to a last cracker and a chunk of cheese. “Not for you, traitor,” he said cheerfully to the dog. He was beyond glad that Charlie and Erin had bonded so fast.
Charlie blinked and scrambled to his feet when Erin got up. “Did I tell you that he stayed right at my side without a leash?”
“No. That's great. I wouldn't want to chase him. Especially in the dark.”
“Definitely not with his black coat. Speaking of that, I'm going to need something warmer than this sweater. Hang on while I change.”
She left him with Charlie and went off into a room he assumed was her bedroom, not giving him a glimpse of it when she ducked quickly through the door. Just as well. His imagination had gone off on too many sensual tangents as it was.
He kneeled and ran his hands over the dog's neck and back, amused by the way Charlie let his tongue loll out. “You're gonna get spoiled,” he murmured.
Bannon heard Erin come out and stood up, breaking into a big grin when he saw her. She'd put on jeans under her dress and added a short shearling jacket over the sweater. On her slender body, the oddball mix had its own charm.
“Okay. Let's go before I get too hot,” she said.
“You bet. I like the outfit.”
Erin shook her head as if she didn't believe him and didn't care whether he liked it or not. Then she smiled. “C'mon, boy,” she said to Charlie.
The three of them went out the back door and paused for a minute on the much smaller porch attached to that side of the house. Twilight blue was stealing from the sky the warm colors of sunset, but a couple of last rays hung in there, bringing out lighter glints in Erin's chestnut hair.
Girl of gold. The words still suited her.
She turned up her shearling collar and nestled into it. “Everybody ready?” Without waiting for an answer, she went down the steps, followed by him and Charlie. “There's a trail that begins over that rise.”
He caught up to her with a couple of long strides and walked beside her, catching her hand and giving it a squeeze before he let go. He could sense the energy she wanted to walk off. Once they were on the trail proper, he probably would have to fall back and let her lead. But he liked that view too.
Erin broke into a run and reached the top of the rise before he did, turning around to face him, her eyes and cheeks glowing from the fresh air. The ground they'd traversed must have once been farmland, left fallow for some time, but it still gave off a rich, loamy smell. The sun dipped below the horizon and the last rays vanished, but there was plenty of light to walk by for the next hour or so.
Bannon took in the sight of her. There was only one word to describe her. Make it two. Absolutely beautiful.
“What are you waiting for?” she teased him.
“I wish I knew.” Bannon laughed.
The big dog kept up with ease as they walked over the low, rolling land, talking and challenging each other now and then as playfully as a couple of kids. Then, suddenly, she stopped again on another rise, looking back at her house. So did Bannon. It seemed even smaller from this distance, and very alone.
“My borrowed home.” She sighed. “One of these days I'm going to drag my easel all the way out here and paint it.”
“Bring Charlie.”
Erin studied his expression for a moment, then nodded. “Scared of bears? Or whatever it was?”
“Not right now.” His gaze flicked over the countryside. He wasn't lying. But seeing nothing didn't mean much. Still, he had no reason to issue a warning or offer grim advice, not when she was happy again. Besides, he knew without asking that she'd take Charlie with her from now on. The big dog would protect her when he couldn't.
“Let's go back,” she said quietly.
She was nowhere near as bouncy on the return trip, slipping her ungloved hand into his as they walked. She gave his fingers a squeeze this time around. The contact was innocent enough for a church picnic, but it thrilled Bannon way down deep. He was going to claim another kiss tonight, that was for damn sure. When she wasn't wearing quite so many layers.
Maybe she was thinking the same thing. Erin just about tugged him up the back porch steps and he almost stumbled. They were laughing when they got inside, glad to be back inside the warmth. The dying fire was still heating up the old house, but not uncomfortably so. It felt right to him, to be with her this way. Like coming home.
The sharp ring of the phone broke the mood.
Erin scowled at it. “Who is that? Go away.”
The phone kept ringing.
“Probably easier to answer it,” Bannon said resignedly. “You know how it is. Wrong numbers keep calling.”
She gave a sigh of annoyance. “Maybe.” Then she picked up, softening her voice. “Hello?”
Bannon watched with curiosity as her expression immediately softened too.
“Oh, hi. I'm fine, Mrs. Meriweather. How are you?”
He ran the name through his mind. It clicked. The director of the Wainsville historical society. The woman who knew his mother.
“Wow,” Erin was saying. “Really? That would be fantastic.”
Sounded like something big and good was about to happen. Bannon didn't want to stand there as if he was listening to every word, so he moved into the next room. To listen to every word.
But she didn't talk for much longer. He heard her hang up and come looking for him.
“Guess what?” she asked eagerly.
“Must be happy news. Tell me.”
“That was Mrs. Meriweather from the historical society. She snagged a commission for meâfrom Hugh Montgomeryâshe recommended me,” Erin said breathlessly. “He wants a portrait of the best Thoroughbred in his stable, something impressive. Done in oils. He's prepared to pay me thirty thousand. I could live on that for a year, Bannon!”
“Oh.”
She seemed a little crestfallen. “You don't sound thrilled.”
“I'm not,” he said without thinking. He looked at her face and instantly regretted his blunt words.
But he hadn't forgotten his glimpse of Montgomery's collapsing financial empire. There was no way the guy could spare thirty thousand for a picture of a ponyâand there was no way he could tell Erin that. Only Doris knew that he'd gone over those confidential files. All the same, he was sorely tempted to tell Erin to collect her fee in cash, up front. Except that she would want to know why.
Hell. He'd put himself in a corner. From what he'd seen of Montgomery's wheelings and dealings, he ought to tell her to get payment in unmarked bills while he was at it. And lend her a black briefcase from the evidence locker to take the loot to the bank. Montgomery might get a kick out of that.
He just did not trust the guy. Not for a single second.
Finally he spoke. “Sorry. I don't know why I said that. Just be careful.”
“About what? It's a plum assignment. I don't really know him, but that doesn't mean I can't sell a painting to him.”
Bannon nodded as if he agreed completely. “Right. Make sure you get the commission agreement in writing, though. And specify half payment in advance.”
Oops. Looked like the know-it-all approach ruffled Erin. She frowned at him and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Thanks for the advice.” There was a trace of annoyance in her voice. “But it's unnecessary.”
He had to cover his remark. “Am I wrong?”
“You happen to be right,” she conceded. “But I'm not sure why you're telling me things I already know.”
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