The Temptation of Sean MacNeill (10 page)

Right. His fully loaded truck wasn't equipped for children.

"Can you double-buckle?" he asked.

"I guess." She sounded doubtful.

Sean fought to keep his attention on the road as they slipped and scooted and arranged the waist and shoulder straps.

"Okay?" he asked when things settled down again.

She nodded tightly.

"Sure?"

From the corner of his eye, he saw her look away, out the window. She didn't reply. Hell. He reached over, across Chris pressed against his thigh, and patted her knee.

"I'm here,
dollface
. If you need—" What did he know about what little girls needed? "Anything."

She nodded again.

"This is a cool truck," Chris said. "Can I turn on the radio?"

Sean was amused by the auto worship in his voice. "Yeah, sure."

Rock blasted from the custom speakers. Bass vibrated the cab. Sean adjusted the volume down, so he wouldn't be distracted while he was driving Rachel's children.

It wasn't until they were pulling up the hill to the house that Lindsey spilled what was on her mind. "I wish I knew what was going on."

Sean looked at her, sitting rigid against the cushioned seat. "Yeah. Me, too."

She gave him a brave half smile that would have melted the
Grinch
. A guy like him—a guy who'd always been susceptible to women—didn't stand a chance.

They pulled into
Myra
Jordan
's driveway. Rachel was waiting on the porch, like she waited every day she didn't pick the children up from school, and when she saw them her face got bright and soft in a way that hit Sean worse than her daughter's smile.

He walked around the front of the truck and then stood back while they ran to her.

"Mom, did you see?" Chris shouted. "Sean brought us home in his truck!"

Lindsey didn't say anything. She slipped her arms around her mother's waist and held on tight. Sean watched the gratitude on Rachel's face slide into question and then fear.

"Is everything all right?" she asked brightly.

Like she could make everything better by pretending. He ambled up the walk, meeting her gaze squarely over the children's heads.

"We have to talk," he said.

Well, damn, thought Rachel.

His jaw was set, his mouth a determined line. The hardness of his expression made him look years older. Intimidating, even. Her stomach sank. It was comforting to think that all that determination was inspired by concern for her children, but she didn't kid herself.

She was pretty sure they were going to talk. She was positive she wasn't going to like it. She would have to lie, and if Sean ever found out, he would hate it. Hate her.

You gonna get other people involved, somebody's gonna get hurt.

She felt Lindsey pressing against her, thin arms and smooth hair, and straightened her spine. Not her children. Her children were not going to get hurt. Even if she'd had to move them in with her mama, even if she had to scrape up another thousand dollars a month, even if she had to look this new, hard Sean straight in the eye and lie her head off.

She brushed back her daughter's hair and smiled reassurance at her son. "You two go in the house and see what Grandma has for your snack. I'm going to talk with Mr. MacNeill a minute."

She waited until the inner door closed behind them before she turned to Sean. He hadn't budged from the bottom of the porch. His usual grin was missing. Her heart bumped. What had provoked this change in him? And what was she going to do about it?

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

He hitched his thumbs in his belt loops. "This is going to take a while. Why don't we go to the shop?"

Trying to test his mood, to find the man she thought she knew, she teased, "Maybe because every time I pay you a visit, I wind up plastered all over you?"

"Don't worry. This time I'm keeping my hands to myself until we talk."

"Is that a threat or a bribe?"

His eyes narrowed in appreciation, but he didn't smile. "A promise."

She paused on the last step, clinging to the momentary advantage of height. "You're frightening me," she said lightly.

"Good. Because your kids scared the hell out of me today. Your friend Frankie showed up at their school."

She covered her mouth. "Oh, God."

He cupped her elbow, his warm hand calloused and reassuring.

"It's okay. You raised them right. Lindsey wasn't going anywhere with that guy, and Chris told me he wasn't supposed to accept rides from strangers. They would have been all right."

She didn't believe him. "But you saw them. You gave them a ride home."

"Yeah."

She spoke stiffly, because the alternative was to cry, tears of fear and relief and gratitude. "I appreciate it."

"No problem."

"No, really." She couldn't let her guilt rob him of his due. "
Thank
you."

Her earnestness must have embarrassed him, because he colored under his tan. "They were okay. There were still plenty of people around. They didn't need me."

She walked beside him to the garage, waiting while he fished in his back pocket for the keys.

"They needed someone. I should have been there," she muttered.

He opened the door and gestured her forward. "How could you know?"

Because she'd been warned. She stopped in the empty space bounded by his workbench and his table saw. "I should have known, that's all."

He frowned and flipped on the lights. "Is this Frank following you? Who is he? An ex-boyfriend, a stalker, what?"

"He's a business associate of my husband's."

Sean raised his eyebrows. "Funny business?"

He was too close. "No. Doug … owed him money, that's all."

"And now he's hassling the widow for payment?"

"It's not like that." It was exactly like that. "I'm Doug's executor. We set up a payment schedule."

"So, what's the problem?"

He wouldn't believe her if she said there was no problem—legitimate businessmen did not go around frightening children—so she tried to fob him off with a piece of the truth. "Well, the, uh, business is having a little cash flow problem, and he—"

"He, who? Frank?"

"Yes. Well, no. His uncle," she said, rattled by his persistence. "He works for his uncle. And the uncle wants. to increase the payments."

"By how much?"

She didn't see how it could hurt to tell him. The money wasn't the real issue. "An extra thousand a month."

He whistled. "Tough."

Rachel sighed. "Tell me about it. At this rate, I'll be living with my mother until the kids are grown and in college. That's if I can afford college."

"Declare bankruptcy."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm good for the money."

Because if you're not good for the money
, Frank's malicious voice reminded her,
you still got to be good for something. I hate to use the word "example," but—

Sean scowled at her, frustration rolling from him in waves. "The heck you say. Have you called the police?"

She jumped. "No. No police."

"Why not?"

"I really don't see that it's any of your business."

He paced the length of the workshop. "Look, you don't want to sleep with me, fine. That's your decision. You don't want to tell me your problems, fine. That's your business." He stopped in front of her, and his gaze was clear and direct, and his voice was firm and a little angry. "But if somebody's coming after your kids, then I'm making it my business, because they're good kids and I can't help them if you keep me in the dark."

She blinked at him, dazzled by this view of him. Stunned that he saw her children as individuals worthy of rescue and not just as the baggage of a woman he was trying to ease into the sack. It made her want to trust him. It made her want to cry. She could see clearly now that Sean's pirate stubble and earring disguised a caring and honorable man. And Rachel had sold her own honor twelve months ago to protect her children.

"You can't help," she said quietly. "The police can't help. I'm not calling Walter Miller's little brother to tell him I'm being strong-armed by the mob."

"Mother in Heaven." She'd startled him, she saw without any satisfaction. "I thought your husband sold cars. What was he, a drug dealer?"

She'd lost the right to take offense. "No. Wrong addiction. He was a gambler."

"He lost money."

"Lost it. borrowed it. lost some more. And some of the people he lost to weren't very … nice."

"Look, if you're dealing with the mob, you could get the Feds involved. I know somebody—"

Alarm shivered through her. "No. Please, Sean. You have to let me handle this. They warned me. No police involvement of any kind. The one month I was late with a payment, they broke into my home. That time you hung up on Carmine, he sent his nephew to warn me personally. I don't want to think what they'd do if I notified the police."

"Rachel…" He ran a hand through his hair. "You can't fight this on your own. They never picked me for safety patrol, but even I know there are times you've got to tell the teacher. These guys are bullies. And you can't give in to bullies. They just ask for more."

She was afraid he was right. And her fear made her say coolly, "They aren't bullies, exactly. Carmine explained it to me. The Bilottis are businessmen. It's a business deal."

"Uh-huh," Sean said, plainly unconvinced. "Didn't this businessman just screw you for another thousand a month?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"And you're planning on paying it, aren't you?"

She stiffened at the censure in his voice. "To protect my children. Yes."

"So, he wins."

Anger flashed inside her. "This is not about winning or losing."

"Sure, it is. These guys are taking you for everything you've got."

"That is so like a man. Doug never could get up and walk away from a game. Don't you understand? I don't care about anything, as long as they leave my children alone. I'm not afraid of losing."

He came to her then, and took her hands between his big, calloused ones.

"You're wrong," he said quietly. "You are so afraid of losing, you can't win. You need the police."

She flinched from the compassion in his eyes. It was too seductive. "Easy for you to say. No one's threatening your children."

He released her hands. "That's right. But I'm not standing around while some goon threatens yours, either. I'm involved now, Rachel, whether you like it or not."

Chapter 9

«
^
»

S
ean watched Rachel walk away. Nice view. He wasn't getting any, but that wasn't what made him grind his molars in frustration. For the first time since Trina, he was involved with a woman who wanted less of him than he was prepared to give, and he hated it.

He hated that Rachel didn't trust him to handle things. But then, what had he done to earn her trust? Bringing her kids home had forced her to confide in him. So she would talk to him now, but she wouldn't listen to his advice. She wouldn't accept his help.

He rubbed his unshaven jaw.

Define the problem
. His brother Con, the smart one, the one who went to Harvard, said that all the time.

Know your enemy
. Patrick said that.

Maybe Sean wasn't the man Rachel needed or wanted, maybe he didn't have Con's brains or Patrick's military know-how, but he figured he had one advantage over his brothers. He waited until the screen door had closed behind Rachel's shapely butt and prickly pride. And then, picking up the phone, he dialed a girl he used to know in Boston.

"Mary Ann
O'Riley
," came crisply through the receiver.

"Hi, gorgeous."

"Sean MacNeill!" Genuine pleasure lightened the voice on the other end of the line. "I never thought I'd hear from you again."

"It's nice to hear you, too, Mary Ann." He shifted the phone to his other ear. "Listen, something came up down here I was hoping you could help me with."

"The FBI doesn't fix speeding tickets,
boyo
." Sean grinned. He'd always liked Mary Ann's sense of humor. But she had a ticklish sense of honor, too, that could be difficult to work around. "Now you know I wouldn't bother you for something like that. This is more a matter of information."

"Sean, we dated for six months and I never could get you to say the three little words that were important to me. What makes you think I'd risk my job telling you anything now?"

"I only need one word, Mary Ann. Just one." She sniffed, but she didn't hang up. "And what would that be?"

He took a deep breath. "Yes or no?"

"You asking me for a date?"

Hell. "I would love to see you again, but what I really need is more like background information."

"A background check? No way."

"No, not a background check. Just a word, like I said. I'm seeing this woman—"

"And you had to call to tell me."

"This is someone special. And she's in trouble. It would help me out a lot if I knew how bad the trouble was."

The line hummed. "What kind of trouble?" Mary Ann asked at last.

Sean released his breath. He had her. "That's what I don't know. Family trouble, maybe." He paused. "Maybe one of those big Italian families. Could you tell me that? If I gave you a name? Just yes or no."

"I could do that, I guess," she said slowly. "What's the name?"

"Bilotti. Frank or Carmine."

"That's two names."

"Pick one," Sean said, trusting Mary Ann wouldn't rest until she'd run a check on them both.

"Ha. You owe me,
boyo
."

"I know it," he said.

"Dinner next time you're in town?"

He hesitated.

"She's that special, huh? The woman you're seeing."

He could have told her no one was that special. Only the thought of Rachel with her little-girl ponytail and her woman's body and her schoolteacher's voice stopped him.

"Could be," he said.

Mary Ann sighed. "All right. I'll see what I can do."

* * *

"
The Ed Sullivan Show
,"
Rachel said suddenly to Deedee Pittman. They were leaving school together, on their way to the teachers' parking lot. "Do you remember that? I must have been about five, but I remember this man running up and down this long table, and he was spinning all these plates up on sticks, and if he didn't get to one in time, everything crashed."

Dee paused on the broad concrete steps. "You are crazy today. Is everything all right? The kids?"

Rachel bit her lip, already regretting her outburst. "Everything's fine. They're fine." And they'd stay fine, too, as long as she got to the elementary school in time. She wasn't risking a repeat of yesterday. "What are you stopping for?"

"Oh, I left my grade book in my desk. I've got to get it. You go on ahead, if you're in such a hurry."

"Thanks. Yes. I'd better."

She hadn't slept, she could barely teach. She'd canceled her after-school help hour so she could pick up her kids. Until Rachel personally told Frank Bilotti she would pay the extra thousand a month, she wasn't taking any chances.

She didn't have his phone number, only the address of a post-office box in Philadelphia. Another plate, spinning out of her control. It was awful, not being able to reach him.

And then she reached the sun-flooded parking lot and saw him leaning against the hood of her mother's car, and that was maybe worse.

She blinked. He didn't go away. He waited, wearing a dark jacket that pulled across his square shoulders and cleaning his nails with a—her stomach flip-flopped—with a knife.

When he saw her, the knife disappeared smoothly inside the jacket. He pushed away from the car. "
Hiya
, Rachel."

No more "Mrs. Fuller." The omission made her feel as if some indefinable barrier had been crossed.

He looked her up and down. "Guess you got my message."

She unglued her tongue from the roof of her mouth. "Yes." That wasn't enough, she realized. She had to placate him. Get rid of him. "I'll pay the money. The extra thousand a month?"

"That may not do it anymore."

Dismay chilled her. "Excuse me?" she said, like she was asking him to repeat a request to pass the butter.

"I've got to check it with my uncle."

"But … you said—he said—another thousand a month. A gesture of good faith, you called it."

"You got a good memory. But, you know, we made this offer with the understanding that certain private matters stay private. And you—" he wagged one finger at her "—you are not honoring that agreement."

"I am. I haven't called the police."

Bilotti leaned back against the hood of the car, crossing his arms over his chest. "So, what's with the bodyguard?"

Sean
. Bilotti was smarting because Sean had made him back down, and now someone—Rachel—would have to pay.

"There is no bodyguard," she said wearily. "He's just a friend."

"Then you be a friend to him. Tell him to stay out of our business."

"I can tell him. I can't guarantee he'll listen."

"You better make sure he does. You don't want another visit like you got in Philly. Because this time when I come around I can't guarantee it'll be when nobody's home."

He pushed closer, so that she could smell his cheap suit and his sweat. Her stomach lurched. She was not going to throw up. She wasn't. She pressed her lips together.

His gaze dropped to her mouth, and lower. "Guess I wouldn't mind paying a visit to your room some night."

Anger flooded her gut, swamped her nausea, almost drowned her fear. That's it, Rachel thought. She was not standing here like some dumb deer frozen in the headlights while this overgrown delinquent threatened her with rape.

"You won't get the opportunity. I—"

"Rachel?" Deedee Pittman stood at the end of the line of cars, head cocked to one side. "I thought you'd be gone by now."

"I am. I mean, I'm leaving." She fumbled for her keys. "Tell your uncle to call me," she said to Bilotti. "I don't want to see you again."

She enjoyed slamming her car door inches from his hand. She drove off in a cloud of dust and righteous indignation that lasted until she was almost to the children's school. And then she remembered his scowl in her rearview mirror and shivered.

Who would pay for thwarting Frank Bilotti this time?

* * *

Rachel stopped in the garage door to watch Sean work. He was completely unselfconscious, utterly absorbed in the grain of the wood and the movement of the plane in his hands, back and forth. Shavings floated to the floor. His arms flexed, his back bent, as he harnessed his cocky energy to work. The steady rasping up and down soothed her.

To her delight, he started singing, chopping the words and rhythm to fit the flow of his labor.

"'My love she won't have me, and I understand. She wants a rich merchant, and I have no land…'"

Her chest tightened. She thought she'd taught herself not to want this way. She was all grown up, with children and debts and responsibilities. But watching Sean, she felt as if she'd wandered into one of the stories she'd loved as a child, stumbled upon the woodcutter in his cottage, the prince in disguise.

"'…and I'll dream of pretty
Saro
wherever I go.'"

Yearning pierced her heart. But she was too old for fairy tales, and her ogres were all too real.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Is this a bad time?"

He straightened easily, awareness of her penetrating his posture. But his grin was open and unaffected and warmed her insides like a fire on a cold night.

"Not if you came out here to call me to dinner," he said.

"Twenty minutes? You have time to change."

"Sounds good," he said, stripping his T-shirt over his head. "I'm starving."

She was, too, and not for
Myra
Jordan
's seven-can casserole. Regret stabbed her. She looked away from his hard, naked stomach, his shadowed navel above the waistband of his jeans.

"After tonight, I think it would be better if you didn't take your meals with us for a while."

Sean lowered his arms, still bound together by his shirt. "Trying to protect me, Rachel? Or yourself?"

She wasn't used to having her motives read so easily. She wasn't sure she liked it. But the humor in his voice and the sympathy in his eyes made it difficult to take offense.

"Maybe I'm trying to protect both of us." She drifted from the doorway, trying not to watch as he tossed his shirt away. Water splashed in the utility sink. From the corner of her eye, she could see the long, smooth muscles of his back and the line of paler skin as he bent over the basin.

To distract herself, she asked, "What are you working on?"

"Table," he answered briefly from behind a towel. "I finished the rocker."

She turned to find it and smiled in pure pleasure. "It's … perfect." She let her fingers linger over the swell of the back, unable to resist its graceful strength. "It seems almost a shame to sell it."

"I'm not. It's a gift for my brother Con's wife. Val's expecting their first in November."

She was jealous, Rachel realized with a shock. Jealous of the beautiful chair, and the child growing in the unknown woman's body, and the man's love that had put it there. She snatched back her hand.

Sean raised his eyebrows. "It's not that bad a deal. Con paid for materials, and I'm using the plans to build two more. On commission."

Heat crawled in her face. "I wasn't questioning your business judgment."

"Well, you could," Sean said frankly. "But the chair practically sells itself."

"It does," she assured him. "It's beautiful."

The hardness around his mouth faded. "You want to test drive it?"

"No, I…"

He strode to the chair and sat. It rocked gently to receive him. "Come on."

Rachel was a grown woman. A tall, strong woman. Not since her daddy died had anyone invited her to sit on his lap.

She looked at Sean's long-boned thighs. "I'll tip the chair."

"No, you won't. It's solid. If you want to sit, sit."

"I don't know," she said, eying his lap with longing.

"I think you want to."

She met his gaze, and something inside her danced and laughed with the devil dancing in his eyes. "Maybe," she admitted.

"So?" He held his arms wide.

"What the hell," she said, and sat quickly, before she could change her mind.

The chair pitched under her. Sean was laughing, but she didn't mind, because she was laughing, too.

His arms came around her and tugged and coaxed until her upper arm pressed his chest and her hip was snug against his. His skin was cold from the wash water and warm with life, and his chest was rough, and his shoulders were smooth, and his mouth was ripe and firm and smiling. She laced her fingers together to keep them from straying into trouble.

He angled his head. Their faces were very close together. His breath caressed her cheek. "And have you been a good girl?"

She closed her eyes. He smelled wonderful. "I'm beginning to think being good is overrated."