Nathan's Child - By Anne McAllister Page 0,29

and dropped a light kiss on her lips. He winked as he sauntered out the door past Nathan and down the steps. “See you later, sweetheart.”

Nathan didn’t budge. “So, sweetheart, are you coming or not?”

“Not,” Carin said. “I need to work.”

Nathan regarded her through narrowed eyes. “You’d better work,” he said. “You’d better be painting your sweet little heart out.”

As Carin watched, he turned on his heel and stomped down the steps. At the bottom of the steps he turned and looked back up at her. “I’ll have Lacey home at nine. So whatever you and lover boy get up to in the meantime, you be sure to be painting by then. Fair warning.”

As he drove away, Carin stuck her tongue out at him.

Dominic called to see how it was going.

“It’s not,” Nathan said testily.

Rhys called to offer advice.

“It’s not the same as with you and Mariah,” Nathan said with all the patience he could muster. “Mariah told you when she was pregnant. She wanted you to be part of Lizzie and Stephen’s life.”

Obviously, his brothers talked to their father. Next thing Nathan knew the old man was on the phone.

“What do you want?” Nathan growled.

“Nothing,” Douglas said airily. “Just called to shoot the breeze.”

“Uh-huh.” And pigs could fly. “And you’re not going to ask about my love life?”

“Don’t have to, do I?” Douglas said. “I think it’s pretty clear from your tone that you don’t have one.”

Nathan ground his teeth.

“Sure you don’t want me to come down and lend a hand?”

“Yes, damn it, I’m sure. And no, damn it, I don’t!”

“Giving you a hard time, is she?” Douglas said, sounding almost sympathetic.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He knew what he was doing. He hoped. Besides, for the moment progress on the Carin front was at a standstill. There was nothing to talk about. She was painting—or so she said. And he was spending the days with Lacey.

He and Carin talked stiltedly when he picked Lacey up or dropped her off. Occasionally Hugh was there when Nathan brought her home.

“Helping you paint, is he?” Nathan found himself snarling more than once.

She didn’t answer. It was hard to pick a fight with someone who ignored your provocation. And she did seem pretty paint-spattered much of the time, so he didn’t have much of a leg to stand on.

Still, having to leave Lacey there with her mother and Hugh didn’t make for restful evenings.

Actually, it made Nathan nuts. He took to going to The Grouper after he dropped Lacey off. There was sure as hell no point in going back to his place. All he’d do there would be to pace the floor and mutter things about Hugh McGillivray’s maternal ancestry. Knocking back a beer or two or three with the locals was a much better idea.

At least, though his relationship with Carin was nonexistent, he and Lacey were getting on like a house afire.

He spent most days with Lacey. The day after the dinner at his house, they’d helped Miss Gibbs move library books. Then they’d gone back to his place and had begun to look at slides and talk photography. They did that now almost every day. She was smart as a whip and she had a good sense of composition. When he explained something, she asked questions, and she got the point.

Every day he spent with her, he learned more about her—and her mother—and felt twin twinges of anger and sadness that he hadn’t had a part in her life until now. He blamed Carin. Sometimes he wanted to throttle Carin.

But if he was honest, he understood why she hadn’t told him.

He’d been so focused in those days. He knew he was going to be a photographer, knew in his gut he could do it. But he also knew how much it would demand of him, how hard the work would be, how single-minded he’d have to be.

Fighting his father’s determination that he go into the family business had been nothing compared to the obstacles he’d had to overcome to get where he was. He hadn’t needed more obstacles.

Carin had known that.

It wasn’t easy looking in the mirror when he thought about how self-absorbed he’d been.

He wasn’t self-absorbed now. He wasn’t single-minded. Gaby, his agent, was calling him every few days making offers and suggesting ideas—all of which would mean traveling—and every time, Nathan said no.

“I’m staying put,” he told Gaby.

He was enjoying his time with Lacey. He was opening up the world to her. And she was