LITMIR.BIZ

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about his detached professionalism, his innate confidence that things would go exactly the way he wanted. No one who dealt with Conner Tarkington would ever have to worry about him changing his mind or backing out of a promise.

      She could handle her end of their deal just as professionally, she knew, the same as anyone he might have hired from the temp service. Although, Lucy admitted, as the CD player in the living room began a lush violin solo, maybe a temp wouldn’t answer phone calls while dancing to the Tarkingtons’ music collection….

      Conner reached for the message slips she handed him, then halted momentarily as the violin’s melody soared. “Thanks,” he said, but in his voice she could hear a thread of tension. “What’s that?”

      “I can turn it down,” she offered. Maybe Con was one of those people who couldn’t think with noise in the background, but the sound wasn’t loud enough to disturb Emma. “Or do you just not like music?”

      He hesitated, and she saw his knuckles whiten as he tightened his grip on the messages. “It doesn’t bother me,” he muttered. “It’s just… Do you have anything else?”

      “Practically everything,” she told him. “You should know, it’s your family’s collection.” But now that she thought of it, Lucy realized, over the past few days she hadn’t noticed him anywhere near the cabinet of jazz, big band, classical and contemporary CDs in the living room. “Are you sure you don’t mind music?”

      Conner squared his shoulders, picked up the portable phone from the dining room table and then met her gaze straight on. “I’ve been on the board of the Philadelphia Orchestra First-Nighters,” he answered gruffly, “for the past six years.”

      That didn’t really answer her question, but she sensed there was no point in asking anything more. Whatever bothered Conner Tarkington about music, it wasn’t something he intended to share with her.

      “Good for you,” she told him instead, and noticed the slight relaxation of his neck muscles…as if he hadn’t expected such matter-of-fact acceptance of that curious tension. “That’s one more nice thing,” she offered, “I can tell Emma about her family.”

      If he appreciated how easily she’d switched the conversation to neutral ground, he didn’t show any sign of it. “What, the Tarkingtons?”

      “Well, you know, kids need to hear good things about where they came from.” Which meant never saying their father had been a scumbag…not that she could say such a thing to Conner, in any case. He seemed like the kind of person who believed in family loyalty, and that was all the more reason to remember her vow of speaking well about Emma’s dad. “I already saved the articles that talked about Kenny in the Phoenix Open.”

      Crumpling the message slips onto his side of the desk, he set the phone down harder than necessary. “No kidding.”

      “For when she’s older, I mean.” Emma would grow up hearing only the best about a talented golf pro who needed to travel the world…the same reassuring generalities Lucy’d heard about a guitarist who had played twenty-six years ago at some festival in Santa Fe. “She needs to know I—” Lucy swallowed, wishing the statement didn’t take so much effort. “I fell in love with him the first time we met.”

      Conner stayed very still for a moment, then flexed his shoulders under the white broadcloth shirt that made him look like an ad for some old-money tailor. “Right,” he said abruptly. “I figured that.” With a quick gesture, he grabbed his stack of letters from the printer and sat down across from her at the dining room table. “So how come you won’t take any help from him?”

      She’d been prepared for doubt, but not for such a challenge. “We had this conversation already,” Lucy protested, trying not to notice the hard muscles of his shoulders as he reached across the table for his pen. She didn’t want any more Tarkingtons in her life, but sometimes watching Kenny’s brother made it difficult to remember that.

      “You want Emma to have the best of everything, right?” he persisted, picking up his monogrammed silver pen as if it were an ordinary felt-tip. “You want her to hear good stories about her father….”

      “She will!”

      Con drew the first letter into position and fixed her with a challenging gaze. “So why do you want your daughter to have stories, but not child support?”

      He made it hard to argue with him, Lucy realized, hard to think why he might be wrong. But he was wrong about Emma needing anything from Kenny’s family. “Because,” she answered, “I can support her myself.”

      Conner signed the letter with his usual swift, almost illegible scrawl, and folded it into the envelope she’d left beside him. Only then did he offer a flat objection. “Not like the Tarkingtons can.”

      Maybe not in terms of money, but… “It’s not about money, all right?” she protested. It was about love, about family, about building a home where children were cherished. “If Kenny doesn’t care about her, then why would your family? I mean, from what he said, it doesn’t sound like you’re all that close.”

      Con closed his eyes for a moment, as if weighing a series of potential arguments and rejecting each one. “We aren’t,” he admitted finally. “But it’s not like we fight or anything. I mean, we get along whenever we see each other.”

      “When was the last time your whole family saw each other?”

      His expression didn’t change in the slightest, but she saw his shoulder muscles tighten as he signed the next letter. “My mom’s wedding, I guess,” he answered while folding the pages. “She remarried a few years ago.”

      Kenny hadn’t mentioned that, although if he’d tried to share life stories about their mothers she would have quickly changed the subject. “Is your dad…” she began, and Con answered before she could finish the question.

      “He died when I was twelve.”

      She had learned firsthand how amazingly hard it was to lose a parent, but there was a world of difference between such a loss at twelve and at twenty-three. “Oh, Conner, I’m sorry.” Lack of family was even worse at this time of year, as the calendar moved from November to December. “So on holidays, you… What are you doing for Christmas?”

      “Nothing.” He must have heard how stark that answer sounded, because he offered a quick amendment. “Working. But you don’t need to stick around.”

      Darn right she wasn’t going to stick around—she’d already made her plans for the holiday. But nobody should be alone at Christmas! “Emma and I are spending the day with Shawna and Jeff,” she offered. “You’re welcome to come, if you’d like.”

      Although he smiled in response, she suspected Conner had no intention of accepting such an invitation. “Well, thanks,” he said noncommittally, handing her the stack of envelopes. “Anyway, these need to get out.”

      Okay, fine. Maybe he really didn’t want anyone in his life, even during the holidays. After all, not everybody enjoyed the kind of close relationship that Lucy wanted for herself and Emma. Yet still, it troubled her that Conner seemed so detached from not only his family, but from the rest of the world as well. Because, although she’d taken calls from acquaintances suggesting a round of golf, a lunch or dinner when he had the time, even a Riverdance performance that Lucy would have shrieked to accept, he declined them all with impersonal courtesy and concentrated on his work.

      Even on Saturday, which appalled her. “It’s the weekend!” she protested when she found him at the computer shortly after sunrise the next morning. “Don’t tell me you work Saturdays, too.”

      He gave her an unapologetic glance. “Yeah, pretty much. But if you need the weekend off, take it. I just need to finish some planning while there’s nobody calling in.”

      Her own plan was to take Emma shopping—well, window-shopping, because she couldn’t justify buying any gifts—but even so, they spent a pleasant few hours strolling

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