Faceoff

Chapter Three

Kyla spent the rest of the week buried in work while fielding calls from various family members inquiring when she was coming up to the cottage, including her brother Scott, who’d called from Vancouver.

“Hey, dude.” She’d broken into a smile on hearing his voice. “I hear you’re coming home.”

“Yeah. We’ll be there Friday.”

“Awesome! I can’t wait to meet my new nephew!” She’d have to find time to pop out and buy presents for both the baby and her niece Emily. Except…she swallowed…what if she didn’t get to see them to give them to them?

“I talked to Mom and she said you weren’t sure if you were going to get up to the lake while we’re there.”

She sighed. “Yeah. I’m just looking at my schedule to see if I can rearrange things. Maybe you guys could all come into the city for a couple of days while you’re here?”

“Maybe.” He sounded doubtful. “I’m really looking forward to relaxing at the cottage. So, Kyla, you’d better be there.”

“Oh man. Now pressure from you too?”

“Mom says you’re working too hard. She thinks you’re about to collapse from exhaustion.”

“I am not! Yeah, I’m working hard, but I have to.”

“Look, Mom’s been sick. I feel awful that I couldn’t be there for her.”

“I was here for her then.” A faintly defensive tone crept into her voice.

“I know you were. But this is a chance for us to all get together. With all our schedules, and with Mom’s cancer scaring the hell out of us all, this is really important, Kyla.”

Her heart tightened in her chest. “I know it is. I’m working on it. Okay?”

“Okay. Good. Emily’s all excited about seeing Auntie Kyla again.”

“Sure, sure, play the guilt card,” she muttered, rubbing her temples. “Mom already did that too. God, even Dad did! What is with you guys?”

“We love you,” Scott said and she heard the amusement in his voice. “Not sure why sometimes, you workaholic bitch, but we do.”

She laughed. “Thanks a lot. I’ll have you know I come from an entire family of workaholics.”

“I know you do. But lately…well, family’s important.”

“Becoming a father is making you go all soft.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “That along with Mom’s cancer. So we’ll see you next weekend. Right?”

“I’ll try.”

It wasn’t going to happen. She tried to figure out a way to rearrange things so she could take that week off and make her parents happy without pissing off her superiors at work. It hadn’t looked promising, and then they’d announced they were going to name the new partner at the end of the week.

She hated to disappoint her family. And herself. But she was stuck in the city. In the office.

Then it was Friday, the end of the week, the day the decision was supposed to be made. She could barely concentrate on her work, so much nervous energy sizzled through her veins. She could hardly sit still. If she got partner, maybe she’d take the weekend off and go up to the lake just for a couple of days. So she could make the announcement and celebrate with her family. She smiled as she anticipated their reaction, her parents’ pride, her brothers’ teasing, which she knew would hide their own pride in her. God, she so wanted that. She bounced a little in her chair. It would be the perfect way to announce it, even if maybe she did have to take some work with her to make it happen.

By mid-afternoon she was getting tired of waiting for it, so she wandered by Jim’s office. The lights were out and the office was empty. She stopped at his assistant’s desk. “Where’s Jim?” she asked, frowning faintly.

“Golfing.” Sandra smiled at her.

Kyla’s eyebrows flew up. “Golfing? I thought they were announcing the new partner today.”

Sandra tipped her head to one side. “Oh. Didn’t he tell you? They decided to put it off for a few more weeks.”

“What! No, he didn’t tell me. He just told me on Monday they were going to do it this week.”

Sandra shrugged. “I guess they changed their minds. Jim’s on holidays for the next two weeks and the other partners start their holidays week after next. Nothing much will be happening around here until August.”

Kyla fought down the pressure rising inside her, the disbelief and…yes, anger. “I see,” she said quietly. “Thanks, Sandra.” Then she paused. “Who’s he golfing with?”

“Alex, Hugh and Joe Pittman.”

Kyla nodded, pressing her lips together. “Great! Nice day for it.”

She returned to her office and stared out the window at the city twenty-nine stories below her, the prairie city spread out so flat you could almost see to the very edges of it, much of the urban landscape richly green with mature trees and parks.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

She’d spent the whole week there busting her butt trying to show them she was ready for the promotion, feeling sick with guilt about that, but determined to show everyone at the firm she was there…and they went golfing. Without her. And didn’t even bother to tell her that everything had changed.

She tapped a pen on the desk. Her chest ached, the muscles in her neck and shoulders burned and even her jaw throbbed from clenching her teeth. Then she jerked when the pen in her hand cracked―she’d tapped it so hard on her desk she’d broken it. She stared at the broken utensil. More pressure built inside her. She wanted to get up and walk out. Just walk out.

She couldn’t do that.

But she could do something.

She hit her computer keyboard and the monitor flickered to life. She pulled up her email program and started tapping away. Half an hour later, she’d rescheduled and delegated and sent out an email telling everyone she was going to be away from the office for the next week. She closed down her computer, started to put some files into her briefcase and stopped. She looked down at them. Her stomach hurt with that familiar gnawing pain. She needed this break. She wasn’t even going to take work with her. She was going to the lake.

It was almost physically painful to leave the office empty-handed, but she forced herself to do it. Walking home along Rorie, she fought the anxiety that tightened her muscles to the point of making it difficult to breathe. This was going to be good. This would be fine.

In her condo, she didn’t even bother to change out of her suit, just grabbed a suitcase and started throwing things in. What did she need for a week at the lake? A few bathing suits. A few pairs of shorts and tank tops. Flip-flops. Sunscreen and a big can of bug spray.

She paused to download some books onto her digital reader, enough to keep her busy for a week of lying on the beach. No legal briefs or depositions or research materials for her. Just an assortment of romance novels by favorite authors she hadn’t had time to read for a long time.

She hauled her suitcase down to her car in the parking garage, heaved it into the trunk of her little BMW and slammed the lid down. She was outta there.

Traffic was already getting heavy heading out of the city. Friday afternoon and everyone else was apparently getting an early start on the weekend too. Once out of the city and onto Highway 59, she pressed the gas pedal until the speedometer needle was at a hundred and five clicks, just barely over the speed limit. She had about an hour drive ahead of her and that was time to do a lot of thinking.

She could kick herself for being such a pushover, such a sucker that she’d sacrifice her personal life, her family life, for the firm, for making partner. But just because Jim and Alex were golfing together didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean that Alex was going to be the new partner. But glumly, she couldn’t help feeling it wasn’t a very good sign. She turned things over and over in her head until the terrain on either side of the highway changed from scrubby to marshy as she neared Lake Winnipeg. Then she turned off the highway into the tiny resort town of Crystal Beach.

She was there. Even just driving down Main Street toward the public beach made her relax ever so slightly. She passed the familiar little businesses, the grocery store, the bar, the bakery, the tiny little movie theater that only played movies on weekends. She let out a long breath. Disappointment still weighed on her, though, that she wasn’t arriving here as a full-fledged partner in the law firm. She wasn’t yet a big loser in that race, but she almost felt like it. Damn.

She turned onto Maple Street, then Bluebell Lane, a narrow tree-lined street that followed the curve of the lakeshore with cottages on either side. On the west side of the street the cottages backed onto the lake, and one of those cottages was her parents’. She had to smile at seeing all the cars parked in the small driveway and on the narrow road in front. Some of those vehicles likely belonged to the Hellers, who had the cottage next door. A little ripple of excitement ran through her at getting to see all those old friends and family.

She found a place to park. She hadn’t called anyone to say she was coming. Maybe she should have. When she opened her car door, the freshness of the air filled her nostrils and she drew it deeply into her lungs―the combined scent of pine and freshly mowed grass and the faintly fishy smell of the big lake.

She approached the cottage, lugging her suitcase and taking in the familiar structure, a sprawling bungalow style painted white with neat grey shingles on the roof, black shutters on the windows and a bright yellow front door. She bypassed the front entrance, though, and followed the stone-paved path around the side, through a gate in a white picket fence covered with climbing pink roses, and around to the rear of the cottage, which she well knew was where everyone would be. There, the expansive wooden deck looked out over the grass sloping down toward the white sand beach, the lake spread in its magnificence just beyond that. The low sun drenched everything in vivid color, green grass, bright red, purple and yellow flowers hanging in baskets and overflowing out of pots, everything almost glowing. So beautiful.

The sounds of voices reached her as she rounded the corner of the cottage, talking and laughing. Then she saw everyone on the deck, a whole group of very big, very gorgeous men all standing, some leaning against the railing, beers in hand. Dad played down on the grass with Emily, Mom reclined on one of the lounge chairs. Scott’s wife Jessica sat in a chair nursing a baby and another woman Kyla didn’t know occupied a chair next to her. Doug and Laura Heller stood near the house.

One of the men leaning on the railing looked up and spotted her.

“Hey! Kyla’s here!” Her brother Scott grinned and everyone turned to look at her. She smiled at them all, so happy and relieved and excited to be there, to see everyone. And then that feeling of pressure rose up inside her again, so unexpectedly she couldn’t get her breath. She tried to draw air into her lungs, but her head went light and dizzy. She put out a hand for the railing of the steps up to the deck, hoping it would help her balance, but her hand encountered only air and then her vision narrowed into a tiny circle of light before everything went black.

Tag stood on the deck of the MacIntoshs’ cottage and watched the woman walking toward them, a suitcase bumping over the stone path behind her. Her long dark hair, parted in the middle, hung in curls and waves past her shoulders. A smile lit up her perfect oval face, her dark eyes smiling too. She looked a little out of place there at the lake in a black pencil skirt and a fitted white shirt that hugged her slender curves and—holy shit—amazing breasts, but she was stunningly gorgeous. That was Kyla?

Yeah. That was her. The smile was familiar, the way her eyes crinkled up when she smiled, the glossy brown hair. Then her smile faded, her face went visibly pale, almost green, her eyes went out of focus and then next thing they all knew, she was lying face down on the grass.

“Oh my god!” Jenn cried, leaping out of her seat. Everyone else cried out, the guys cursing and hurtling down the steps.

“Auntie Kywa!” Emily came running across the grass. “Auntie Kywa! Is she dead?” She burst into tears.

The entire yard was a commotion of anxious cries and swearing and Emily’s sobbing. Jenn called for her husband. “Greg, come quick!”

Tag reached Kyla first and gently rolled her onto her back. Her long hair spread around her head and her eyes fluttered. He touched his fingers to her cheek. “You okay?” he murmured.

Everyone else crowded around and Kyla’s eyes opened. She stared up at them all blankly. “What…” she croaked. “What happened?”

“You fainted, honey,” Jenn said. “Help her sit up, Tag. Push her head between her knees.”

Tag helped her sit. He couldn’t help but notice how her white shirt tightened across her breasts, how the buttons were undone low enough to see cleavage, and how her skirt had ridden up on her thighs, revealing spectacular legs.

“I’m okay,” Kyla murmured, sounding dazed. With gentle pressure on the back of her silky head, he pushed her forward. “I can’t really…do this…in this skirt.”

No kidding. From where he knelt, Tag glimpsed red panties. He swallowed.

“Someone carry her up onto the deck,” Jenn ordered. “Scott, you do it.”

“Carry her!” Scott protested. “She’ll break my back.”

Tag snorted. Kyla looked like she weighed next to nothing, though she did have some nice curves on her. Scott was joking, of course. “Wuss,” Tag said to Scott, lifting Kyla easily into his arms and carrying her up the five steps to the deck. He lowered her to the lounge chair where her mom had just been sitting.

“Oh my god,” Kyla groaned. “I can’t believe this.” She put her hands to her still-pale cheeks.

“How do you feel, honey?” Jenn hovered beside her. “Hot? Dizzy?”

“Yes,” Kyla whispered. She closed her eyes. “I was so dizzy. I couldn’t breathe and I just got…lightheaded.”

“You probably haven’t eaten today, have you?” Jenn scolded, smoothing Kyla’s hair back and laying a hand on her forehead.

“I did eat,” Kyla protested feebly. “Um…I think.”

“Oh lord,” Jenn said. “I knew you were working too hard.”

“I’m okay, Mom.”

Tag shook his head and found the beer he’d left sitting on the wooden railing. She didn’t look okay. She looked like she was ready to puke. What the hell?

“You’re not okay,” Jenn said crossly.

“Mom. Leave it alone right now. Okay?”

Tag didn’t blame Kyla for not wanting to discuss her little health issues or whatever was going on with her in front of the whole crowd.

“Why are you here, honey?” Jenn asked. “I thought you couldn’t come.”

“I changed my mind.” Kyla’s eyes closed again, her head leaning back into the thick cushion of the chair. “I rearranged my schedule. I’m staying all week.”

“Well, I’m happy about that,” Jenn said. “But lord, you gave us a scare there.” She looked around at everyone and gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry, folks.”

“No need to apologize,” Tag murmured, and everyone else assented.

“You remember everyone, of course,” Jenn continued. “Tag and Logan and Jase and Matt.”

“Yes.” A smile whispered across her pretty lips. “Hi, guys. Long time no see.”

One corner of Tag’s mouth tipped up. “Nice entrance, Mac,” he said, calling her the nickname she’d insisted they use as kids. She’d tried so hard to be a tomboy. Never really pulled it off—it had been kind of funny. But cute.

She opened her eyes and focused on him. “Thanks.” Their eyes met and held.

It had been a long time. Over ten years. Maybe twelve. Oh, they’d seen each other the odd brief time since then, Christmases when he’d been home. But the last summer they’d spent any time together he’d been…what? Nineteen? And her, eighteen? That would probably be about right. As a younger teenager, she’d followed him and his brother and her brothers around. He might’ve thought she had a crush on them—maybe even on him—except she’d grown up with them like a sister and had always wanted to be one of the boys.

But then one summer, things had changed. She’d no longer followed him, except with her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking. In fact, she’d tried to avoid him.

It had been sexual tension, pure and animal and hot, and he’d felt it for her too. But she was like a little sister to him, and holy crap, both her brothers would have beat the shit out of him if he’d laid a finger on her. So the sparks had flown, the heat had risen and they’d both avoided each other like he avoided body checks head first into the boards.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dragging her gaze away from him to look at everyone else. “Didn’t mean to cause such a commotion.”

“Here’s a glass of water, sweet pea,” Greg said, handing her a glass.

“Oh thank you.” She took it from him and drank deeply, then leaned back. “Well. Where’s my favorite niece?”

Emily squirmed down from her father’s arms and ran over to Kyla. She laid a small hand on Kyla’s cheek. “Are you okay, Auntie Kywa?”

Kyla smiled affectionately at the girl. “I’m fine, Em. Give me a big hug.”

She wrapped her arms around the little girl, who squeezed her back, arms around her neck.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Kyla said. “And I heard you got a new brother.”

“I do, I do! Cay-web. He’s right there, Mommy’s feeding him. Bweastfeeding.”

Kyla grinned at her sister-in-law, who had taken her seat again and still held the baby modestly beneath a blue blanket. “I guess I’ll meet him in a few minutes once he’s done eating. Hey, Jessica.”

“He eats a wot,” Emily said. “And he cwies and poops a wot too. And one day he peed on Mommy when she was changing his diaper.”

“Boys.” Kyla shook her head in mock disgust. “I bet you never peed on your mom.”

Emily giggled. “No!”

Some of the worry and tension eased and Tag smiled at the interaction between Kyla and her niece. He’d never seen them together. He liked kids and he liked that Kyla liked them.

“You should get changed,” Jenn said. “Do you want one of the boys to carry you in the house?”

“‘The boys’.” Kyla smiled, sitting up straight. “No, I think I can walk, Mom.”

But when she stood, she put out a hand to steady herself. Tag shook his head and moved toward her.

“No,” she said. “I can walk.” Her voice came out thready.

“Stubborn,” he muttered. “Let me at least help you.” He set a hand on the small of her back and guided her through sliding doors into the cottage. She crossed the spacious living area, a combination of living room, dining room and kitchen, toward a hall that led to the four bedrooms.

“I assume I’m in my usual room,” she murmured.

Her mother spoke from behind Tag. “Yes, but Emily’s staying in there,” she said. “We didn’t know you were coming. But Emily loves the top bunk, so you can have the bottom one.”

“That’s fine.”

In the room she sank down onto the bed and lifted a shaky hand to her hair. She met Tag’s eyes and grimaced. “Still feeling a little dizzy,” she admitted.

“I’ll go get your suitcase.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

Leaving the two women, he strode back outside and grabbed the case still sitting on the grass. The others out on the deck were all having a low conversation about what had just happened. “She works too damn hard,” Michael muttered.

“Yes,” Greg sighed.

Tag gave a grim nod and returned inside with the case. “Here you go,” he said. “Where would you like it?”

“Oh. I don’t know.” She gestured vaguely. The bedroom wasn’t large and Emily’s things occupied a good deal of the space. “On the floor over there.”

“I’ll let you change, honey,” Jenn said “Maybe you want to stay here and have a nap or something?”

“No. I didn’t come to sleep,” Kyla said with a frown. “I’m fine, Mom.”

“Okay.” Jenn backed out of the room with her forehead wrinkled.

Tag started toward the door too, then paused. He glanced out the door to make sure Jenn was gone, then turned back to Kyla. “What’s going on, Mac?” he asked. “Are you pregnant?”