For one crazy moment, the temptation to accept her help swamped him. With Sophie caring for the children, he might even be able to consider keeping his commission, just take a few months leave to handle the mess Peter had left behind at Canfield Investments.
He discarded the idea before it could take root. This was Sophie. Sophie, who had more stamps on her passport than Peter had neckties, who had made a successful name for herself traveling around the globe capturing whatever she found in her unique photographs.
She had inherited the restless gene that seemed to have skipped over Shelly. Just like her mother, Sophie could never stand to stay in one place long enough to sprout.
And even if she did force herself to stay, he wasn’t sure he wanted her caring for the children. After she left ten years ago and the hurt had begun to fade, he had realized the Sophie he had known had been flighty and reckless, irresponsible and selfish.
He’d meant what he said earlier. The children needed structure, stability, while they tried to cope with the loss of their parents. He couldn’t risk their one safe harbor by introducing an alien species like Sophie Beaumont into the mix.
“Aunt Sophie? Uncle Tommy? Is everything okay?”
Ali’s voice sounded from the other side of the pantry door, the worry in it adding another couple bricks of guilt to his load. “Just fine, Al. We’re, uh, looking for more peanut butter.”
“There’s a whole jar out here.” Suspicion coated her voice in a thin, crackly layer.
“Don’t worry about it, Alison,” Sophie said calmly. “We’ll be out in a moment. We were just having a discussion we didn’t want the twins to overhear.”
“Are you sure?” Ali asked.
“Yeah, honey,” he answered. “We’re fine. Just go on back to the twins. We’ll be right out.”
Sophie opened the door as soon as they heard the girl walk away and he wondered if she was as uncomfortable in such close proximity as he was. “We don’t have to fight about this, Thomas. Not today. Let’s both sleep on it and give ourselves and the children a few days for things to settle down. We can talk about it again later.”
As far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. Whether she left this afternoon or a week from now, she would still leave. He had no doubt whatsoever.
The trick would be to make sure she didn’t break the children’s already fragile hearts when she went.
She could handle this, Sophie reminded herself hours later, up to her elbows in bathwater.
“Ow. That huwts, Aunt Sophie.” Zoe made a face beneath her crown of suds. “Mommy doesn’t go so hawd.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll try to take it easy.” This was a little girl’s head she was scrubbing, not a potato, Sophie reminded herself. This whole bath business was much harder than it appeared. Zoe insisted on everything just so—a water level exactly right, the precise temperature, her bath toys set out just where she wanted them.
She knew how vital it was for all of the children to keep to their usual routines as closely as possible, but she couldn’t help comparing Zoe’s elaborately complicated ritual with indigenous children she had photographed around the world who were perfectly content to perform their ablutions with a dirty puddle and a handful of leaves.
Maybe this wouldn’t seem such an insurmountable challenge if she wasn’t completely running on empty. She felt as wrung out as the washcloth Zoe was using and she wanted nothing more than to climb into that comfortable guest bed down the hall and collapse for a week.
But she could do this. She was strong, far stronger than Mr. Thomas Know-it-all Canfield believed her to be.
“Ow!” Zoe exclaimed again loudly and Sophie had to force herself to relax again.
“Almost done. Time to rinse.”
“I don’t like shampoo in my eyes,” the little girl informed her matter-of-factly.
“I’ll keep that in mind, honey.”
She hoped Tom was having just as challenging a time with Zach in another of the estate’s zillion bathrooms down the hall. After helping the nurse—Maura, she said her name was—settle his father for the evening, Tom had joined her to help with the children.
She found so much domesticity—the two of them working together at something so mundane and homey as putting the children to bed—unsettling. With any other man she probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but this was Thomas. Thomas, who had kissed her and held her and treated her with such aching tenderness. Playing house with him like this was bound to unnerve her.
She jerked her attention away from that precarious road and back to Zoe. “There you go. That should do it.”
“May I play for a while?”
It was past her bedtime but Sophie didn’t have the heart to say no, not when Zoe had spent the day solemn and confused. For the first time all day she seemed like a little girl again instead of a silent, sad little waif.
“For a few moments.” She rose on bones that creaked and complained with exhaustion, then made her way to the padded vanity bench across the bathroom. It didn’t take long for the steam in the bathroom in combination with the comfortable seat to relax her stiff muscles. After a few moments she even felt her eyelids droop.
She jerked them open. She couldn’t sleep! If Thomas came in and caught her dozing while Zoe splashed around amid so many possible water hazards, he would have all the proof he needed to show she was unfit to care for the children.
Not that he seemed to need any proof. He had made up his mind and changing it was going to be as tough as riding the Infierno Canyon rapids in Chile. She had to do her best to show him she could handle this, though. She couldn’t abandon the children when they needed her.
Not the way she had abandoned Shelly.
The thought slithered into her mind and Sophie opened her eyes, all temptation to sleep forgotten as she bleakly watched the tendrils of steam curl through the room.
There it was. The truth she’d been hiding from all day. Not only was she compelled to stay and care for the children because she loved them and they needed her but because on some level she supposed she was trying to atone for the pain she had caused Shelly these last ten years.
She hadn’t been there for her sister, but at least she would try for her sister’s children.
Shelly never understood why Sophie had begun to freeze her out. She had never said anything, but Sophie had seen the hurt in her eyes during the few visits she’d made over the years, had heard the unasked questions in her voice every time they talked on the phone.
She should have tried to explain, damn it. About Peter and William and Thomas and that terrible night. In her frenzied rush to escape, though, she had decided it was best to stay quiet, to allow Shelly her illusions. Her sister had been happy with her new life here at Seal Point—deliriously happy, with her husband and her brand-new baby and this elegant home by the sea. How could she destroy that joyful light in Shelly’s eyes by telling her about the den of vipers she had married into?
