soccer ball with them, and Brendan mumbled, “You’re not very good at it.” Finally Lia saddled the horse and pony, something she didn’t do very often, and gave the boys a riding lesson. Afterward they were happy to help her comb out tangled manes and tails and learn to brush in the direction the animal’s hair lay. She showed them how to check hooves for stones and clean out packed mud and manure, and they were all sweaty and horsey smelling by the time they went in, which meant taking turns in the shower.
She told herself she was relieved that tonight was Jeff’s turn to join them for dinner. Brendan took Conall’s meal up to him and came back more quickly than usual, his shoulders hunched. He stayed quiet at the table, Lia watching him covertly.
What a jerk, she fumed. Conall must have been brusque with him. Hurt my feelings, she thought, fine. But not the boys’.
Not until after dinner, when Sorrel disappeared upstairs to spend time on the computer and Walker and Brendan decided to watch TV, did Lia have time to brood.
What had changed? She couldn’t figure it out.
The boys were upstairs getting ready for bed and Lia was rinsing plates and loading the dishwasher when she thought again about the way Conall was all but leaping out of her bed the minute he was done with her these past few nights. With an icy tingle, she remembered thinking, As if he longed to be gone.
Yes, that was it exactly. And it wasn’t only the sex. It was everything. He’d had fun here for a while, but he wasn’t anymore. Conall was ready to wind this operation up and move on to one that was more exciting. One that might give him a real shot of adrenaline.
She had gone completely still, scarcely conscious of the hot water pouring over her hands. The most awful pain tore through her, a brushfire that seared and blackened all of her as it burned. A small sound escaped her, quiet but raw.
She’d been fooling herself all along. He was using them as a diversion. The boys filled his idle afternoon hours, and she met his sexual needs. Full stop.
Lia felt cheap suddenly, no better than Sorrel probably had after some dirty old man had let her out of his car. Angry at herself, too, because she couldn’t even blame Conall. He’d never been anything but honest. He’d wanted to avoid case of terminal boredom while he was here, and she’d offered herself up because…oh, because she was lonely and probably starved for sex or maybe only for tenderness and the illusion that somebody actually loved her.
And because she could love him.
Because I do love him.
In her shame, she wondered if she really knew him at all. She’d speculated once that he was someone different depending on his assignment, but had come to believe that here, he was the real Conall. On no evidence whatsoever.
She was dry-eyed, thank God. Devastated, but too angry to cry. Yes, he was remarkable with the boys and even with Sorrel. He must have a gift for seeing what each person needed then meeting it. The grief-stricken boys. The confused teenage girl. And Lia herself, who tried to make a family out of children who never stayed long enough to really love her.
“I’m pathetic,” she whispered to her reflection in the steamy kitchen window. With jerky movements she turned off the water, dried her hands then got the dishwasher running.
Tired and lonelier than she’d ever been in her life, she went upstairs to tuck the kids in. It was a huge relief to escape outside. She sat for a very long time on the porch steps in the dark.
Finally, when she went to bed she did something she hadn’t in years—she closed her door and hoped Conall got the message.
* * *
CONALL KNEW HE SHOULD have talked to Lia today. He’d been curt with everyone. Grumpy. Of course she’d noticed. What had he expected?
The trouble was, he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t tell her how confused he was, how close to panic. He couldn’t admit to her how vulnerable he felt, or how much that threw him back to a time he hated to remember, when he was a kid and still let himself get hurt.
No, it was better that he hadn’t tried to explain anything to Lia. Whatever he was feeling, he’d get over it. He’d be more careful with her, that’s all. He was