HER ONE AND ONLY VALENTINE - (16 page)

'There was always method in Mattie's madness. I should have known there was more to it.' Kane shook his head this time, a wry smile crossing his lips. 'He knew rightly what he was doing.'

'All right—you've lost me.'

He pushed up off the desk, glancing towards the open doors before he smiled and cocked his head in their direction. 'Come for a walk and I'll maybe tell you what I think.'

He hit her with a raised brows silent challenge, and smiled more when she rolled her eyes and chuckled. All right, so maybe getting along better with Rhiannon wasn't that bad a thing. And he felt a little more in control again, which felt good, if a little ironic considering he'd just realized that they'd both been manipulated to where they were.

'All right then.' She pushed back from the desk, still smiling as she walked past him. 'You've got me. I'll grab a coat. I'm a sucker for a mystery.'

'Well, this one's not my doing.' He stood up, teasing her in a low voice, 'You've already wheedled out all my darkest secrets.'

She turned around and walked backwards for a few steps, her head tilting flirtatiously. 'I doubt very much that I know them all.'

Kane studied her for a long moment. 'You know enough.'

'Yes.' The word was spoken softly, with a matching small smile and a light in her eyes that he couldn't quite read from across the room. 'Enough to know what I need to know, I guess.'

He stood in the empty room long after she'd left, not waiting for her but just
thinking.
What
was it
with him and this woman?

They were halfway around the lake, their exhaled breath forming puffs of steam in the cold air before Rhiannon couldn't take any more of the suspense.

Not that walking side by side talking about nothing more difficult than Lizzie's antics with Winston and pointing out wildlife as it appeared wasn't a moment of acquiescence that she subliminally recognized as a rare experience of camaraderie. But she was still curious as all hell about what he'd figured out in the library.

Just in case it was something that would lead them to awkwardness or harsh words again, she savoured the moment, tilting her head back to watch the breeze push the clouds by overhead before she closed her eyes and filled her lungs with a deep breath of cool winter air. And she smiled contentedly.

'You really do love it here, don't you?' Kane's deep voice sounded close by her shoulder.

When she opened her eyes and lifted her gaze to his, she smiled a smaller smile, suddenly feeling shy again, which wasn't really all that surprising, considering the last time she'd been 'alone' with him. And, even with Lizzie disappearing and reappearing out of the trees from time to time, they
were
still alone, weren't they?

The thought made her pulse skip. 'Yep.'

He nodded and stopped at the edge of the water, his gaze searching the ground while he spoke. 'Did you know Mattie planned on leaving you this place?'

'No.' She frowned as he bent over and selected a few round, flat stones, tossing them into the palm of his other hand. Surely he didn't think she'd done something to influence Mattie's decision? They'd been friends, better than friends—more like brother and sister. Mattie had been her family when she didn't have one any more. When her own family had turned her away—the 'good child' who had made a horrible mistake proving too difficult for them to even look at...

'I think he knew he was leaving it to you for a long time. In fact—' inhaling, he stood up again, glancing briefly at her before he started sorting through the stones in his hand '—I'm pretty sure he knew when he offered to sell me the estate.'

Rhiannon stepped closer, watching as he selected one of the stones and stepped back on to one foot, swinging his arm out in an arc to throw the stone so that it skipped over the water's surface—once, twice, three times before it sank.

And he grinned across at her like a small boy. 'I was hoping I hadn't forgotten how to do that.'

Her heart caught.

'You have no idea how much you remind me of Lizzie when you smile like that.' Her eyes widened in surprise at the confession. They just seemed to constantly roll off the end of her tongue these days, didn't they?

But Kane merely continued grinning. 'Yeah.' He leaned back to toss another stone over the water. 'She's good-looking too.'

Rhiannon shook her head. Who
was
this man? Every day she was more and more enraptured by the different facets of his personality. And every day he would do or say something that knocked her off balance. She should have been mad about that, especially after the kiss that had still lingered on her lips hours after the event. But it was difficult to stay mad when he was like this—so charming, so good-looking, so damn irresistible.

'Well, thankfully she has me to keep her ego from growing to continental proportions.' She refocused on the topic of their conversation. 'What makes you so sure Mattie had planned that far ahead?'

Kane tossed the stones he had left in his hand up and down a couple of times, taking a breath of crisp air before he shrugged the shoulders beneath his heavy down-lined jacket. T think he knew for a long time that he was fighting a battle he'd lose. He fought for a lot longer than I had to with mine and I think he was resigned to just buying as much time as he could. But it gave him time to think about things and to make plans. It's the kind of guy he was. He thought about the people he cared about, and what would happen to them when he wasn't here any more.'

Rhiannon immediately wondered if Kane had had to make those kinds of plans once—had thought about not being here any more—about his own death. How must that have felt at so young an age to someone so very alive?

And who had he talked to? For a man like him to confess any kind of weakness would have cost dearly, wouldn't it? When going away and facing his illness, fighting it, coming out the other side, had taken more bravery than she could even begin to respect him enough for having.

Her heart twisted painfully at another thought. How would she have felt if something had happened to him? No one would probably have thought she should know, except maybe Mattie. Yes, Mattie would have made sure she didn't read it in a paper somewhere. But it would have hurt. She knew that. It would have hurt so very much, maybe even worse than losing Mattie had.

But it wouldn't have hurt anywhere near as much as it would if anything happened to Kane now...

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, a thoughtful expression on his ruggedly handsome face. 'Do you know how to skim stones?'

'What?' She shook her head, laughing a little to cover the dark thoughts that still hovered in her mind—troubled, confused thoughts that forced her to concentrate twice as hard to keep up with their conversation without giving anything away.

He leaned down and selected a larger handful of stones. 'They need to be fairly round, and as flat as possible or they don't bounce.'

'You're insane. I don't suppose you happen to know where Kane Healey went to? Big guy, pretty grumpy most of the time, prone to starting a topic of conversation and then gets easily sidetracked by children's games...'

She watched in amused amazement as he stepped closer, reaching out to tug at her elbow with his empty hand so that she was forced to pull her hand out of her pocket while he beckoned with his fingers.

'Give me your hand.'

'I can't do what you just did.'

'Don't be a girl.'

Even while his warm fingers curled beneath her hand so he could place a stone in her palm, she was looking up at his profile with raised eyebrows.

And he smiled again in response, his cheeks creasing into a hint of dimples as he glanced at her face and then down at her hand. 'All right then, try being
less
of a girl.'

The mischievous imp reappeared on her shoulder and forced her to bat her eyelashes frantically at him.

Still smiling, he moved round behind her, concentrating his focus on her hand as he moved her fingers into position. 'Curl your forefinger around the top, thumb round the bottom and then, when you throw, you flick your wrist back and, as you flick forwards, you let go. Try to keep it as flat as you can along the surface of the water and it'll skip.'

His hand still supporting hers, his gaze rose, and Rhiannon had to lean her head back further to lock eyes with him. It was disconcerting as all hell having him this close again, it really was. How was a girl supposed to do anything but stare?

The breeze caught his hair and ruffled it, his thick lashes brushed against the faint tinge of red the chilled air had created on his cheeks and his bluer than blue eyes warmed her as he continued softly smiling. And, just as it had done since the first day she had met him, Rhiannon's heart thundered against her breast and her nerve-endings tingled from head to toe in response. She even had to consciously stop herself from turning around and stepping in against him, tilting her head back in invitation, to...

She swallowed hard. All right, but just so you know, it'll sink like...' she grinned as the words formed in her head '.. .well, it'll sink like a stone,
obviously.
But it'll sink. Trust me.'

'We'll practise a couple of times.' He blinked down at her, then lifted his gaze and looked out over the greyish blue of the water. 'And once you have it mastered, you can come down here and skim stones with Lizzie when I'm not here.'

Rhiannon swiftly turned her face away, her heart still thudding hard, but now accompanied by a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. She knew he would leave, had known all along—this time round. And at least this time when he left they'd be on friendly enough terms to be able to arrange visits for Lizzie and times when he could come back down to Brookfield. And she would be able to hold a conversation with him. It was all good, right?

Hand still on hers, he guided her arm out in an arc to her side. 'Put your weight back on to one foot and then, as you swing your arm, move your weight on to your front foot before you let go of the stone.'

She let him guide her movements in a couple of practice sways, his large body cushioning hers, aware that the simple act of throwing a stone across the water had somehow morphed into a seductive dance movement.

'Now have a go.' He stepped back before she threw and watched in silence as the stone sank without as much as a hint of a bounce.

With a brief glance over her shoulder, she blew her cheeks out and announced smugly, 'I told you so.'

With a chuckle and a shake of his head, he stepped round her again, lifting her hand to tip the remainder of the stones into her palm. 'Keep practising; you'll get it.'

Gathering more stones from the ground while she watched, he then stood beside her and tossed another one on to the water—skip, skip, sink.

'So, anyway...' he watched her make another failed attempt at skimming a stone '...I think Mattie knew when he sold me the estate that one day you would own the house. It was his way of forcing us into a locked room so we'd have to talk.'

Rhiannon stopped mid-swing.
'What?'

'Yep.' His voice stayed calm as he swung again—skip, skip, skip, sink. 'He knew the estate and the house needed each other to survive, and he made quite sure I couldn't sell one without the other. I doubt he was even as badly off financially as he claimed to be. We were manipulated into dealing with all of this.'

Rhiannon couldn't believe what she was hearing, but in a heartbeat it suddenly made absolute sense. 'Why, that wily—'

'Exactly.' Kane stunned her by continuing to smile as he tossed another stone—skip, skip, skip, sink. 'He knew how stubborn we both were. And he knew we'd both built a firm set of misconceptions about each other—'

'So he decided to try and find a way
to fix it?'

He stood still, his focus on the horizon as he nodded. 'Yes, I think so. I've only just figured it out now, but I'm pretty sure that's what he did. I remember he said a lot of things about the house and the estate having to work together, about partnerships and how a history like that can tie people together, grounding them. And I listened, but I don't think I really understood what he was saying, until now.'

Mesmerized by the familiar deep rumble of his voice, laced as it was in that moment with a warm edge of nostalgia, it took a moment for her to realize that he was looking at her again. When she did, her gaze rose slowly, locking with his as she felt a sense of inevitability sweeping over her.

'You see this place as your legacy for Lizzie, don't you— something that'll be here long after you're gone?'

Rhiannon nodded silently, deeply touched in a way she couldn't even begin to quantify.

'Well, I want my part of her legacy to be the estate. The way it should be—the two working together to survive in the future. Half of it yours to pass on and half of it mine.'

'You don't have to do that.' Somehow she managed to choke the words out through her thickening throat.

He shook his head, his gaze steady and determined. 'Yes, I do. And I want to.'

Rhiannon remained frozen to the same spot as he stepped closer, his voice huskier, filled with emotion as he told her in the same steady, determined tone, with his gaze locked on hers, T love her, Mac, I do. Whether it's too soon to feel something that strong or not, it's there. My world now revolves around her.'