A Sinclair Homecoming (The Sinclairs of Alaska) (6 page)

“I’ll never be on the street,” she said. “Besides, if worse came to worst you and I can at least get an apartment together.”

Morgan shuddered at the thought. “Oh, hell, no. I remember sharing a bedroom with you and you’re a terrible roommate.”

Mona scowled. “Okay, fine.”

“Just think about the job, please?” Morgan smiled, wishing she had her sister’s verve for life and her thirst for meaning in her life, even though she could be a bit of an irresponsible mooch at times. “Listen, I won’t tell Mom about the money you borrowed if you won’t tell our parents about my putting the house on the market. I know I’m going to get a bunch of protests from them. Particularly from Dad because he might call it foolish to let go of the house that I own for emotional reasons.”

“Sure. Your secret is safe with me. I got your back.” Mona paused, then surprised her by going back to her original topic. “Can I please set you up with George?”

“Mona,” she groaned, irritated. “I already told you—”

“Yes, yes, I know and I’m sorry but here’s the thing, I kinda already promised him that you would
probably
go to dinner with him.”

“And why would you do that?”

“Because George wasn’t going to let me into the gallery without the promise that I would ask you out for him.”

Morgan stared at her little sister. “Are you kidding me? I definitely wouldn’t go out with someone who would use that type of extortion to get a date. That really doesn’t say much for his character.”

“No, no, no, no, he’s a really good guy. I’m sorry it came out that way. He really is a good guy but he’s intimidated by you, I think.”

“Intimidated? I’m the last person who would intimidate anyone.”

“That’s not true. You’re highly successful, beautiful and you’re very independent. Men can be very intimidated by those qualities in a woman.”

That’s how her sister saw her? Talk about living a lie. “I don’t know, Mona—”

“Please just give him a chance. One date. That’s all. And then you can walk away and I won’t feel like I reneged on a deal and everyone is happy.”

Morgan made a sound of exasperation. “You know who’s not happy? Me. I don’t want to go on a date with this man. I feel like I’m being forced into it through emotional blackmail. Which I don’t appreciate, by the way.”

“Duly noted. And I really appreciate this. You’re the best sister ever. And who knows, you might really like him. And you know they say the first act toward making a change is taking a leap of faith.”

“Please don’t. I will go out with this man on one date. A dinner. And then I never want you to put me in this position again. Are we clear?”

Mona nodded, solemn. “I understand. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have but I am in a pickle.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re always in a pickle, Mona. That’s nothing new.” Morgan couldn’t help the frustration in her voice. “Why was it so important that you get into this gallery? I’m sure you could’ve gotten into a dozen other galleries on your own steam.”

“You have no idea how cutthroat it is out there in the art world. It’s all about who you know, not just about your art. You have to network and Facebook and Twitter and mingle and do all these things that I don’t want to bother with. I just want to get my work on the walls of somebody’s gallery without constantly kissing ass to make it happen. It’s exhausting. Who has time to actually make art if you’re so busy mingling?”

“Yes, the world has been taken over by social media,” she mused in agreement. Remy lived on Facebook, often when he should be working. His excuse was that without his involvement in social media, Morgan would never know what was going on in the world. She sighed and asked, “Why was this gallery so important?”

“Well, I was hoping this one particular art critic would take a liking to my work and possibly feature me in this magazine for artists. But as it turned out, my style wasn’t her cup of tea so she didn’t write something very flattering about my work.”

“So basically you traded me for no gain?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know that at the time. Besides, you need to get out more. Life is about more than just work and sleep.”

“What am I going to do with you?” Morgan buried her head in her hands. “You make it so hard to be on your side sometimes.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Well, at least Mona didn’t dispute that fact. “I hate to cut this visit short but I’m pretty tired. I have an early client tomorrow morning and I still have notes to go over.”

Mona nodded and then gestured at the cheese plate. “You mind if I take this with me? Kind of ‘ramened out’ right now. I could use some protein.”

Morgan nodded. “Yes, take the cheese and crackers. Would you like to look in my pantry to see if there’s anything else you’d like to take home?”

Mona allowed a tiny smile. “If you wouldn’t mind...”

“I don’t mind.” She stood and hugged her sister. “Just leave me the chocolate chip cookies. Anything else is fair game.”

“You’re the best. I really mean that.” Mona kissed Morgan on the cheek. “I really hope that you meet someone as great as David again. You deserve it.”

Morgan’s smile froze but she managed to nod. “Well, we’ll see.”

Good God, would fate be that cruel? It was the one thing Morgan feared more than anything.

Please, don’t let anyone like David in my life ever again.

Perhaps it was her sister’s talk about dating or maybe she was just tired after a long day but Wade popped into her thoughts, momentarily blotting out David.

If she were looking to date—and he wasn’t her patient’s son—Wade might be the kind of man she’d like to enjoy an evening out with. Strong, smart and ruggedly handsome, Wade was a man who would make any woman take a second look. She withheld a wistful sigh when she reluctantly allowed reality to intrude. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t trust the knowledge of her past with anyone, much less a potential date. She had to protect her public persona at all costs. There was no way she was going to allow David—or the threat of his influence—to derail another moment in her life. Was it lonely? At times. But then she remembered the pain, the humiliation, and the fear of living with David, and suddenly, being lonely wasn’t that bad.

So dating? Not even a blip on her radar.

Which meant Wade—that hunky mountain of sexy potential—would remain forever out of reach for her.

But a girl could dream, right?

As long as dreams never became a reality.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“S
O
TELL
ME
about California,” he heard his sister say before she stuffed a bite of her steak into her mouth. He realized he’d only been listening with half an ear to his sister’s conversation and he grimaced when she realized the same. She graced him with a scowl that he deserved and he started to apologize but she cut him off. “Come on, you have to at least make an effort, Wade. I’m trying to do eight years of catching up within one dinner, all the while trying to steer clear of topics that are triggers for us both, and you’re making me do all the work. At least make the effort, okay?”

“I’m sorry, sis. I’m being a jerk. There’s a lot of stuff running around in my head.”

She nodded in understanding. “Yeah, I get it. Being home is hard after a long time away, I would imagine.”

“Nothing’s changed,” he said, allowing his stare to wander the small steakhouse. “I remember our parents used to take us here on special occasions.”

“Which wasn’t very often because feeding four carnivore kids steak dinners was hard on the pocketbook,” Miranda quipped around her next bite.

He smiled. “I always loved this place, though. Made me feel important whenever we came to eat here.”

“Important? Why?”

He chuckled at his nostalgia. “Because when it first opened it seemed all the bigwigs ate here. I remember Mayor Gibbons used to eat here all the time and the Masons used to gather here for their monthly meetings.” He shrugged when he realized his own childish reasoning didn’t actually make much sense. He returned to her original question. “California is good. I’m very happy. My job is very fulfilling and I can’t wait to get back.”

“Wow, impersonal much? I’m not interviewing you for a job position. Relax. I want to know about the
real
California. I mean, Delainey’s told me a few things about Los Angeles but you’re on opposite ends of the state, way up in the mountains. I’m sure that’s gotta be different.”

“It’s vastly different. I personally don’t care for Los Angeles. I’ve had to go there a few times for meetings with other federal park officials but I much prefer my neck of the woods. You ought to come visit sometime, and bring Talen and Jeremiah. Speaking of Jeremiah...when do I get to meet this guy?”

“Oh, now you want to be the big brother?” she teased. “You’ll meet him. Don’t worry. You do plan to come to the wedding, right?”

He didn’t want to make promises but he’d sound like a real jerk if he didn’t agree to come to his sister’s wedding. “Of course, if I can get the time off. I’m using up a lot of my banked personal time right now for this impromptu trip.”

“Right. Well, you have some time to pencil that date in so I’m not too worried. What do you think of Morgan O’Hare?” she asked, somehow zeroing in on the topic that he’d just been thinking about when he’d zoned out. “You probably don’t remember her from school but she actually knew Simone. Well, not her, exactly, but her sister.”

“That’s not saying much. I think everyone knew Simone.”

“That’s true. She did have a way about her, huh?” Miranda paused and then said, “This whole situation with Mom has hammered home the fact that none of us has really dealt with Simone’s death. It doesn’t seem right that it’s been eight years and yet none of us has accepted the fact that it wasn’t our fault.”

He shifted in discomfort. He hated talking about Simone. “Not to be rude but I’ve moved on just fine. I miss her every day. She was a great kid but like you said, it’s been eight years. It’s time to move on.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you have not been home since she died,” Miranda pointed out gently. “I think we all know why you’ve stayed away.”

“I thought we were going to avoid touchy subjects?” he reminded her with a slight smile. He didn’t want to pick a fight with his sister over dinner. And he also didn’t want to talk about the things that kept him up at night. “Do you think Morgan O’Hare can be objective in Mom’s case? I know she was assigned the case by APS but I wonder if we can make an appeal to get someone else, maybe someone from another town to do the evaluation.”

Miranda frowned. “What’s wrong with Morgan? I like her. She seems nice. Although maybe we’d be doing Morgan a solid by requesting someone else,” she said wryly. “Mom’s not exactly a peach to be around. Especially now.”

Yeah, he hated to admit it but Miranda was right. He’d never seen their mother so eaten up with bitterness and pain and she didn’t hesitate to take it out on whoever was closest.

“Simone’s case was such a polarizing event in this town. I just wonder if we would be better served if we brought in someone who had no connection whatsoever to Simone.”

“I don’t think it’s right to hold that against Morgan. I believe she can be objective. Besides, if APS had concerns, they wouldn’t have assigned Morgan the case.”

“We have one shot to make this work with Mom. If we make one wrong move, she’s going to withdraw and shut us all out.”

“Um, hello? Have you not seen how she’s treating us? She’s already shut us out. So I don’t think it could get any worse.”

“It can always get worse.”

“Ugh. I’d forgotten what a stick in the mud you can be.” She tossed a tiny crumb of bread at Wade’s head. “I think you’re being foolish. Sorry, but that’s just dumb. Morgan is highly qualified to handle Mom’s case and not to mention, she specializes in this sort of thing. Mom is not the first hoarder she’s ever had to evaluate.”

Wade winced. He hated that term
hoarder.
When he heard that word, he envisioned someone far worse than his mother but then, he couldn’t deny that his mother’s house had been pretty disgusting. “Fine. If you think she’s qualified then I’ll let it go. It was just a thought.”

“Speak of the devil,” Miranda said in surprise, peering past him. “Looks like someone’s on a dinner date.”

Wade tried concentrating on his own dinner, but in the end curiosity won out and he nonchalantly turned around. It was hard not to notice how pretty Morgan was outside of a clinical, professional setting. Her hair was down, curled in lazy waves that she had tucked off to one side. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, which softened her face and the pink-champagne blouse she wore brought up the roses in her cheeks. He returned to his dinner plate and shoveled a bite of food into his mouth. “I guess all work and no play makes Dr. O’Hare a dull girl.”

“Something tells me the date isn’t going very well. She has a look on her face like she wants to escape.”

“Maybe it’s because her date looks old enough to be her father. I can’t imagine they have much in common.”

Miranda narrowed her gaze then her eyes widened with recognition. “I thought that’s who that was. That’s George Founder. He owns one of the nicest galleries in town. He mostly specializes in art that I don’t really care for but he has big-name clients. I’m talking big money.”

Wade shrugged. “Good for her. I guess money is the great equalizer.”

“That wasn’t nice. How do you know she wasn’t coerced into a dinner date with him? Or maybe she’s just being polite because basically the expression on her face right now is that she’d rather poke her own eye out with her salad fork than remain another minute with George.”

“Sounds like her problem, not mine.”

“Okay, okay. I get the hint. So tell me, are you dating anyone in California? You never talk about a girl so we never know. I have to ask, are you gay?”

He nearly choked on his mashed potatoes. “What do you mean, ‘am I gay?’ What the hell kind of question is that?”

“Not that there’s a problem with it if you are. You’re still my brother no matter what. It’s just a little weird that you never talk about your romantic relationships, which makes me wonder if you were afraid to admit something.”

“And neither do you. Up until a few months ago you were pretty single, as well. It’s not my fault that suddenly you’re all fired up to get settled down. Don’t drag me into that.”

She looked guilty and nodded. “Okay, you got me there. Up until Jeremiah I probably never would’ve imagined tying the knot with anyone. Or being tied down in any way. But now that I have Jeremiah, he’s made me realize that I was living a really lonely life. And now that Trace has Delainey, of course I think about what you’re doing and how your emotional life is going. And now that I’m in love I realized that it’s kinda weird that you have not had a steady girlfriend in a really long time. So the next logical question popped up.”

“Could it be that I’m just too busy to settle down? You have to jump to ‘are you gay’?” He wiped his mouth and took a drink of water. “To answer your question, no, I am not gay. I don’t have a problem with gay people but I’m not one of them. I’m not attracted to men in any way. Does that clear things up?”

“Well, it clears that question up. But you’re really not dating anyone? I mean, I’m sure you have
needs,
right?”

Did his sister just ask him about his sex life?
Please tell me this is not happening.
“Not that I wouldn’t love to have a conversation with my little sister about my sex life, I don’t have a juicy story to tell. If you must know I was dating someone on and off but I broke it off before I left. Her name is Elizabeth and she’s an attorney. We’re both busy, our schedules are hectic and neither one of us is interested or even available for anything more than casual.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Elizabeth had been lobbying pretty hard to push their relationship to the next level but frankly, the idea just gave Wade hives. It was easier to keep people at a distance than bring them in close. He didn’t have time for romantic entanglements. Not to mention, the last serious girlfriend had wanted him to see a counselor because of his insomnia. She’d had a crazy idea that his sleeping problems were because of Simone. He found her idea to be ludicrous and when she wouldn’t let it go, he let her go.

“I’ll settle down eventually. I’ll need something to do when I retire,” he joked. “Besides, with you and Trace both looking to get married this year I don’t think there is any thunder left for a third wedding.”

“Well, shows how much you know. Trace and Delainey already got married.”

“They’re married? Hell, I didn’t even rate a phone call?”

“Oh, stop, like you were going to drop everything and show up for a quickie ceremony at the courthouse?”

“Well, no,” he admitted. “But it would’ve been nice to know.”

“Take it up with Trace but honestly, you and I both know that Delainey and Trace should’ve married years ago. It was just a formality and they weren’t interested in wasting more time.”

He supposed he could understand that, and Miranda had a point. Likely, even if Trace had called, he probably would’ve sent his brother to voice mail. Guess there was no reason to ruffle feathers over something already done and gone. “A quickie wedding, huh?”

“Yep. Lucky dogs. Nothing but a justice of the peace to make it official. I envy them. Jeremiah wants to have a big wedding so no quickie wedding for us,” she added with a grumble. “Frankly, this wedding stuff is exhausting. And then add in all of our parents’ crap...it’s murder on my sanity. Do you have any idea how many types of wedding cake there are? I think I’ve gained ten pounds just taste testing. And why does it have to be cake? I say let’s have pumpkin pie.”

He laughed. “I dare you to have pumpkin pie at your wedding. That would be awesome.”

“Right? Who likes wedding cake, anyway? The buttercream is always too sweet and half of the cake goes to waste. Oh, and those cakes are expensive. Our small wedding is quickly approaching the $10,000 mark. That’s ridiculous. I’d rather go to Tahiti.”

“Why does Jeremiah want to have a large wedding?”

Miranda sighed. “Well, he said it’s probably the one and only time he’ll ever see me in a dress so he wants to do it up big.”

Wade belly laughed at that. “You know, he’s probably right. The guy’s pretty smart.”

“Yeah, he’s a keeper.” At the warm smile on his sister’s face, Wade suffered a pang of envy and damn if his gaze didn’t stray briefly to Morgan before darting back to his sister. For some reason, the knowledge that Morgan was on a date kept sticking in his thoughts like a bee frantically struggling against a spider web. Did Morgan prefer older guys? He straightened and squared his shoulders until he realized he had no business thinking—or caring—what turned Morgan O’Hare’s crank. If she liked older guys, more power to her. Wade forced his attention back to Miranda, barely catching the tail end of her conversation but he must have covered well as Miranda didn’t miss a beat. “Of course, all this wedding planning could be a waste of time. How am I supposed to pull off a wedding when my family is imploding? What if Dad isn’t out of jail? Or what if Mom continues to go off the rails? It’s times like these that I want to beg Jeremiah to elope. Honestly, I just want to have a normal family again.”

At the quiet pain in his sister’s voice, Wade cringed and tried not to hear recrimination, but he’d left soon after Simone had died, and he hadn’t been around to help pick up the pieces. He hadn’t expected to be gone this long but circumstances had put him in California and he hadn’t made an effort to return. He liked California. And he loved his job. But his family needed him and he had to stick around. He purposefully brought the focus back to safe topics. “Tell me about my nephew. What does he like? It’s hard to get to know someone over the telephone. Do you think it would be okay if I picked him up from school and we went to the park?”

“Oh, he’d like that,” she said, lighting up with the kind of love that only a mother possessed, and he realized he didn’t know his little sister as a mother. He’d left before Talen was born and had only seen him in pictures. “He’s such a great kid. He and Jeremiah have really hit it off. It was hard for Jeremiah at first because he lost his only son in an ATV accident but Talen wiggled his way into Jeremiah’s heart and has been there ever since. I wasn’t looking for a father for Talen but I lucked out and got one, anyway.”

“Planning on having any more?”

“I don’t know...maybe down the road but for now we’re just focusing on being happy and healthy—both emotionally and physically.”