fine-boned and full-lipped, her smile quick and frequent—except when she looked at him. Then the stretch of her lips was slow and forced as if having him here were a pain in the rear.
Another thing he’d noticed this afternoon, Nicole was a toucher. Every time someone got close enough, she reached out and brushed a hand over their arm or shoulder or kissed a cheek. That’s why he’d kept his distance. He didn’t want a repeat of the zap she’d delivered with that first handshake the day they’d met. Chemistry was great. Unless it was unwanted. Then it was nothing but trouble.
He scanned the yard, passing over each of the Hightowers. He’d bet Nicole would look exactly like her mother in forty years. She possessed the same slender build, same features. Behavior-wise, other than the high energy level, Mamma Hightower was the opposite of her daughter. Whereas Nicole was friendly, but reserved, her mother was flirtatious, gregarious and sexually aware of every move she made in that way well-maintained wealthy older women exhibited when they’d been the type to bring men to their knees in their younger days.
Nicole’s father, a silent loner who nursed his imported beer in the shade of a tall oak tree, only spoke to those who sought him out. Her older twin brothers looked identical, but one was a player and the other appeared to be an unhappily married man with an eye that often strayed from his pregnant wife to the female guests.
Ryan’s gaze skimmed over neighbors and other company until it landed on Beth and Patrick Ryan huddled in the corner of the patio. They were arguing. Again. Ryan had caught several heated exchanges between them during the past three hours.
Nicole might believe this was the perfect setup for raising a child, but Ryan sensed trouble in this suburban, cookie-cutter paradise. The tension between the couple was palpable from fifty feet away, and it had been even more obvious when he’d presented his offer before the party. Just one more reason to make damned sure he got full custody. He didn’t want his kid to be a bone of contention in an ugly divorce the way he’d been. And he’d bet his Corvette, his boat and his motorcycle the Ryans would land in divorce court sooner than later.
Beth reminded him of his mother. She wore the same self-suffering martyr attitude his mother had pulled in the years after she’d packed up a ten-year-old Ryan and moved away from her husband. Millicent Patrick had spent the next eight years using Ryan as a weapon against his father and bitching about his father’s mistress—work.
Her complaints had fallen on deaf ears. A love of architecture was something he and his father had had in common even back when Ryan had been a snot-nosed kid. For as far back as he could remember, Ryan had spent hours beside his father’s drafting table asking questions, begging to be allowed to “help.” His father had always indulged him until the separation after which he’d had little time for his only son.
Work was the only mistress he and his father respected or committed to for the long haul. Women couldn’t be trusted or counted on. A lesson he’d learned the hard way compliments of his ex-wife, the lying, cheating bitch.
His gaze shifted to the youngest Hightower. She interested him because as much as she resembled her mother and Nicole, she didn’t fit in. The roar of her Harley splitting the silence of the neighborhood had been his first clue. Like him, she was an outsider here. Not even Nicole’s frequent attempts at drawing her sister into the crowd could breach the gap between her and the rest of the siblings. And Nicole seemed to be the only one making an effort to include her sister.
The Hightower in question looked up, caught his eye and headed in his direction. Her black leather boots and jeans-covered legs crossed the lawn with a long stride. In the past the rebel in her would have called to the rebel in him. But for some reason, her wild side didn’t twitch his interest today.
She stopped in front of him. “You don’t look like one of Beth’s snooty neighbors.”
Ryan smiled. He’d made the same assumption about the guests’ attitudes. He offered his hand. “Ryan Patrick and, no, I don’t live in the area.”
Her eyebrows rose when she heard his name, but she didn’t comment. Her handshake was firm and brief with no sparks despite her resemblance to her sister. “Lauren Lynch.”
She looked enough like Nicole that he would have sworn they were closely related. “You’re not a High-tower?”
“Jacqueline is my mother, but William isn’t my father. My father died a couple of months ago. And before you strain your brain trying to unravel that long, boring story, my mother had an affair with a Hightower Aviation pilot. I’m the byproduct. She delivered me, left me with my dad and returned to her husband and other children like a good little wife.”
That explained the tension between Lauren and the Hightower siblings. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
She shrugged. “Thanks. Losing my dad was hard, but his passing gave me the opportunity to meet a family I didn’t know I had. So what brings you here? Are you a Hightower Aviation client?”
He wasn’t ready to reveal the truth. “Not yet, but I’m considering contracting the company.”
Access to a plane would make his life easier since he traveled the country on a regular basis. He definitely wanted to contract one of the Hightowers. But not for flying.
“Married?” Lauren asked.
He gave her credit for being direct. “Not anymore. You?”
“No way. Never have been. Probably never will be. Do you have any children?”
“Not yet.”
Lauren glanced down at her beer bottle then back up at him through lashes as long and thick as her sister’s. “Can I give you a hint?”
About what? “Sure.”
“Nicole’s probably the most decent one in the bunch. Maybe even the only decent Hightower. But she’s going to be a hard nut to crack because…Well, she just is. I’ll let you figure out the whys. Stick with her. She’s worth it.”
Were all women born with a matchmaking gene?
“What makes you think I’m interested in Nicole?”
Lauren grinned and sipped her beer. “Could be the way you’ve been watching her all afternoon.”
Guilty. But how else was he going to learn about the mother of his child? He searched for her. Nicole had joined her sister and brother-in-law and was currently engaged in a hushed but animated conversation. Nicole covered her belly with one hand. Her gaze bounced over the crowd and landed on Ryan. He didn’t know what her sister had said to upset her, but the distress on her face was clear. Adrenaline shot through his system.
“Go ahead,” Lauren prompted.
“Go ahead and what?”
“Ride to her rescue. You know you want to.”
Smart girl. “Is Nicole the type to need rescuing?”
Lauren grimaced. “Let’s just say if I were her, I would have told this bunch of leeches to go to hell a long time ago. But she’s the one deputized to maintain the peace.”
Lauren was full of interesting factoids. One of these days he’d buy her dinner and pick her brain. “Nice meeting you, Lauren.”
“You,
