The Bachelor's Unexpected Family Read online

  She quivered at his sarcasm.

  Canyon had had enough of the attitude. “Let’s you and me get one thing straight right now, Grayson Montgomery. I will not tolerate disrespect to any woman, much less your mother.”

  Gray’s and his mother’s gazes swung to Canyon’s.

  “She cares about you or she wouldn’t have come looking for you. Good mothers don’t grow on trees. I should know.”

  Canyon grimaced. What on earth had possessed him to share that little tidbit from his less-than-stellar childhood?

  Her cheeks heated. “I apologize for my son’s extreme rudeness.” She swallowed. “And to answer your question, I have an accounting degree from the University of Richmond that I’ve never used.”

  Canyon recalled only one other person on the Eastern Shore originally from Richmond. “Any relation to Weston Clark? The ex-Coast Guard commander who remodeled the old lighthouse on the Neck?”

  “He’s my brother.”

  Canyon noted the likeness then. Weston Clark had been married for not quite a year to one of the Duer girls—Caroline. Those girls had been a few years behind Canyon in high school. Closer to Beech’s age.

  The thought of his brother put Canyon’s stomach in knots. He didn’t have time for this altercation with Kristina Montgomery. He still had a ton of stuff to get done before he met Jade and the social worker at the bus depot in Exmore.

  He crimped the brim of his cap. “I can’t allow you to work here without your mom’s permission.”

  Gray sputtered. “B-but she’s being unfair.”

  Canyon shook his head. “Nevertheless, she’s your mother, and she gets to call the shots.”

  “I have an appointment in Kiptohanock.” Kristina Montgomery swept a curtain of blond hair out of her face. “And I meant what I said, Gray. Go home.”

  The boy’s countenance fell. “But—”

  “Do what your mother says, Gray.”

  Gray threw his mother and Canyon an angry look before he stomped toward the wooded path. Kristina Montgomery remained rooted in place, watching her son.

  “I run a clean, safe enterprise, Mrs. Montgomery. Let me take you on a short flight and give you a bird’s eye view of the Shore.”

  Canyon bit the inside of his cheek. Where had that come from?

  Her forehead creased. Gray’s mother didn’t appear to smile much. Maybe she hadn’t had a reason to smile in a long while.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t trust airplanes.” She moved to follow her son.

  “Nor pilots, either, from the sound of it.”

  She stopped.

  “One word of advice, Mrs. Montgomery?”

  She crossed her arms but waited to hear him out.

  “If you refuse to let Gray pursue an interest he obviously loves, you might be the one risking everything.”

  Her mouth flattened. “What are you talking about, Mr. Collier?”

  “My name’s Canyon. And I’m talking about risking your relationship with your son. You could lose him for good.”

  She tilted her head. “And you, I assume, are an expert on parenting? Why do you care?”

  “Just being neighborly, ma’am.”

  Which was so not true. He must be lonelier than he’d believed. Though after Jade arrived today, loneliness was sure to be less of a factor.

  “Let me give you a piece of advice, Canyon Collier.” She jabbed her index finger in the space between them. “Mind your own business.”

  Exactly what he thought he’d been doing. Until a certain blonde widow walked into the path of his incoming plane.

  Pivoting on her heel, she trudged toward the woods without giving him a backward glance. And, discomfited, Canyon couldn’t for the life of him figure what had gotten into him.

  Chapter Two

  The tangy scent of sea salt filled Kristina’s nostrils as she rolled down the car window. In the sky above the rocky point of the lighthouse beach, a gull screeched and performed an acrobatic figure eight.

  Weston emerged from the keeper’s cottage and sauntered to the car. “Hey, big sis. How’s life treating you?”

  His elder by a mere eighteen months, her mouth quirked. “Where’s your beautiful wife?”

  As if on cue, the door opened. Caroline and ten-year-old Izzie spilled out into the milky sunshine of the late February morning.

  Married life looked good on her brother. After a disastrous first marriage to a woman who deserted her brother and baby Izzie, Weston had found a new life and love on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

  Kristina fought a stab of envy. She’d never begrudge her brother his hard-won happiness, but that didn’t stop her from longing for a new life of her own. As for love?

  She’d buried her chance for love when they lowered Pax’s coffin into the earth at Arlington National Cemetery.

  Weston propped his elbows on the window. “Thanks for taking Caroline into Kiptohanock. The completion of the marine animal rescue center is at a critical juncture, and with her car on the fritz...”

  “No problem. Opening day still set for May?”

  He grinned. “If my beloved aquatic veterinarian wife has anything to say about it, then yes.”

  Redheaded Izzie launched herself at the open window. “Hey, Aunt Kristina.”

  “Well, if it isn’t my favorite niece.” Kristina winked. “Hey, yourself.”

  Izzie giggled. “I’m your only niece, Aunt Kristina.”

  Auburn-haired Caroline nudged aside her husband with her hip. “I hate to further impose, but could we drop off Izz at my sister Amelia’s house? With today being a teacher workday...”

  Weston made a face. “And I’m on deadline with an engineering project for a Baltimore client.”

  Kristina held up her hand. “Say no more. Gray’s moping at my house, too.”

  Of course, he hadn’t moped until she grounded him for sneaking over to the airfield.

  “You need me to bring them home, Wes?”

  Weston rapped a beat with his palms on the car door. “I’ll finish in time to bring my girls home.”

  His girls. Kristina bit back a sigh. She’d been loved like that once.

  Izzie hugged her dad goodbye. “Maybe Gray could come play with Max and me.”

  Max—Caroline’s nephew and all-around Kiptohanock mischief maker. Gray would consider being left with a bunch of ten-year-olds nothing short of babysitting.

  Caroline smoothed a strand of Izzie’s hair. “I’m sure Gray has high school stuff to do, ladybug.”

  The little girl chattered nonstop until they dropped her off at the Dutch-roof farmhouse Max’s dad, Braeden Scott—commander of the Kiptohanock Coast Guard station—had recently purchased for his growing family.

  Kristina’s hands tightened on the wheel. With Gray usually at school, time moved in slow motion for her. Too often leaving her feeling without purpose and alone.

  She cleared her throat. “You’ve made my brother and Izzie so happy, Caroline. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure entirely.” A sweet smile curved Caroline’s lips. “They’ve made me so happy.”

  Happiness seemed forever out of reach for Kristina.

  “There’ve been adjustments.” Caroline stashed her purse on the floorboard beside her foot. “A good marriage requires work.” She raised her gaze to meet Kristina’s. “You know how it is. Letting go of the past with its fears and building something new together. Hard, but good work.”

  Letting go of the fear... Kristina’s problem in a clamshell.

  She slowed the car as they approached the town limits of oceanside Kiptohanock. “Including throwing my lovable but high-energy niece into the equation, too.”

  Caroline smiled. “Life is never dull with Izzie. I wouldn’t have it any ot
her way. Nothing worth keeping is ever easy. But in the long run, a risk so worth taking.”

  Relationships. Risk. Was that arrogant crop duster—aerial application specialist—correct? Was Kristina risking her relationship with her son because of fear?

  She steered the vehicle toward the waterfront. The town librarian passed the gazebo on the village green. Caroline threw out her hand in greeting.

  “Evy Pruitt,” Caroline added by way of explanation. “Newly married to Deputy Sheriff Charlie Pruitt.”

  After years of moving from one base to the next, Kristina loved the small-town friendliness. “Evy’s also Sawyer Kole’s sister, right? And therefore your other sister Honey’s sister-in-law. Got it.”

  Which in the hospitable South made the young librarian not only kin by marriage to Caroline, but in a weirdly, endearing kind of way kin to Kristina, too.

  Bypassing the Sandpiper Café and the Coast Guard station, Kristina nosed the car into a parking space along the seawall outside the former seafood-processing building. Power tools buzzed as the renovations on the aquatic center neared completion.

  Caroline opened the door. “Thanks, Kristina.”

  “Before you go...”

  Caroline paused, one foot on the ground.

  Kristina took a breath. “I wondered if you might have heard anything about the crop—” She moistened her lips. “I mean, the aerial application specialist out my way. Canyon Collier.”

  Caroline’s brown eyes narrowed. “What has he done? Is he bothering you? If so, Weston will—”

  “It’s not that. Collier offered Gray a part-time job at the airfield, and I wanted to find out more before I agreed.”

  “He and his brother were ahead of me by a few grades in high school.” Caroline’s eyes dropped to her shoes. “And we didn’t run in the same circles.”

  Kristina’s lips tightened. “By your tone, I’m sensing their circles ran toward trouble.”

  Caroline let out a breath. “I’m the last person in the world to cast stones, but one of the Colliers got into big trouble back then. I don’t remember which brother.”

  Kristina’s heart thumped. “You mean trouble with the law?”

  “Like I said, I don’t remember which brother. They left the Shore soon after. By force or choice, I don’t know. One went into the Coast Guard, though.”

  Kristina assumed that would be Canyon Collier. Maybe where he acquired his aviation skills.

  “I don’t know much about the one who returned.” Caroline cocked her head. “Given my own history of being a black sheep prodigal, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Whether he deserves it or not?”

  Caroline nodded. “Whether he deserves it or not. But by all accounts, this Collier has built a solid agribusiness with the local farmers. A good pilot, I’ve heard. A trustworthy businessman.”

  “But what about Gray working there?” Kristina bit her lip. “This job and this guy have become important to Gray.”

  Uncomfortably important to her son. But if she were honest, she was equally disturbed by the fluttery feeling the man had evoked in her as well.

  Caroline turned toward the whine of a drill inside the building. “You should talk to Evy’s brother, Sawyer. He’s the general contractor on the renovation. I’ve seen him and Collier hanging out at the Sandpiper over Long John doughnuts.”

  Or maybe it would also be wise to talk to Evy Pruitt’s deputy sheriff husband.

  Caroline unfolded from the car. “And of course, you must pray about what to do.”

  Kristina’s gaze skittered to the white clapboard church whose steeple brushed the sky above the harbor. How could she tell her sister-in-law that since Pax died, her prayers felt as if they bounced off a Teflon ceiling?

  Where was God when Pax was killed? Had God been off duty when she was widowed? What kind of Father would leave Gray without a father?

  But she couldn’t say those things to Caroline, whose own rediscovered faith had been wrested from a dark abyss of despair. Kristina fidgeted in her seat at her blasphemous thoughts. She’d been raised to put her trust and hope in God.

  Which was exactly the problem. Her trust had been shattered and her hope as lost as Pax’s plane. Even worse, she didn’t know how to get them back. And she wasn’t unaware that her faith had ebbed at the same rate the fear had taken hold.

  Caroline closed the car door with a soft click. “Everyone deserves a second chance, Kristina. I’m so thankful God gave me a do-over, despite the bad choices I made in the past.”

  Everyone deserved a second chance. Until they didn’t. Kristina backed out of the parking space. Did that include her, too?

  * * *

  Canyon wrapped his hands around the steering wheel of the Jeep Cherokee. The tension was palpable enough to cut with a propeller. He shot a furtive look at the sixteen-year-old girl beside him.

  Shoulders hunched, Jade stared out the window at the passing scenery. She was no longer the little girl he remembered. But then, he’d last laid eyes on her almost a decade ago.

  He should’ve tried harder. With a mother like Jade’s, he should’ve kept in touch. But keeping in touch meant entangling complications. Cords binding him to a past he’d rather forget. Snares he thought he’d left behind when he ditched the Shore after high school and enlisted in the Coast Guard.

  Canyon rubbed his hand over his face. Jade swiveled. They locked eyes for a moment.

  The vulnerability in her green eyes punched him in the gut. The fear in her gaze, however, was swiftly replaced by the all too familiar anger Jade wore like a cloak around her thin shoulders. For Canyon, guilt surged anew.

  How had he let himself get talked into the guardianship of a belligerent adolescent he barely recognized? Kristina Montgomery had hit the nail on the head earlier—what did he know about parenting?

  Especially parenting a teenage girl. This was going to be a disaster. None of this ought to be his responsibility. He let out a sigh.

  “This isn’t something either you or I wanted.” Jade waved her hand. “Take me to the ferry. I’ll go to the mainland. Child Protective Services will be none the wiser.”

  He gripped the wheel. “And exactly how do you think you’d survive alone over there?”

  “Just like I fended for myself before getting nabbed by the police.”

  “You were arrested because you broke the law by shoplifting, Jade.”

  Those green eyes of hers smoldered. “It was a pack of beef jerky.”

  “Why did you do it, Jade? To prove you could? For a dare?”

  “I—I...” She turned to the window. “I was hungry. Brandi had spent her paycheck, and I hadn’t seen her in a week.”

  Another punch to his solar plexus. He could only imagine how Brandi—Jade’s so-called mother—had spent the meager salary she earned at the Gas and Go Quick Stop. At the image of Jade on the streets alone, something inside him twisted.

  Far too reminiscent of what had happened to him and Jade’s father, Beech, before their mom dropped them off at their grandma’s in Kiptohanock and did everyone a favor by never coming back.

  “I guarantee you won’t go hungry.” His voice was gruff. “But like it or not, you’re stuck with me, kid.”

  From the set expression on her face, he concluded she liked it about as much as him. Still, he was supposed to be the grown-up.

  “It’s going to be all right, Jade.”

  She snorted. “Since when has anything ever been right for Colliers?”

  And that—he heaved another sigh—was the long and short of it.

  When he pulled off the highway onto Seaside Road, he gave her the ten-cent tour of town. Circling the square with the gazebo, he pointed out all-important landmarks like the library.

  She tossed he
r long black, magenta-streaked hair over her shoulder. “I don’t read.”

  “You mean you don’t like to read.”

  Rounding one side of the square, he gestured to the church.

  Prompting a churlish sneer from Jade. “So not happening.”

  He felt a surge of churlishness coming on himself. “You’ll do what I tell you to do, Jade.”

  Which was about as effective as when his grandmother used to lay down the law for him and Beech. His grandmother had been right about church, though. It hadn’t hurt him.

  “It’s a good way to get to know others your age in the community.”

  Jade gave him a nice view of her back and didn’t bother to reply.

  Fighting for patience, he pointed out the Coast Guard station, where flags fluttered. Recreational and commercial fishing boats bobbed in the harbor. He pulled into an empty space in front of the Sandpiper Café and cut the engine.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “For the famous Long John doughnuts. They’re the best.”

  She glared. “I repeat, why are we stopping?”

  He reminded himself for the hundredth time since the social worker had called last week, he was the adult. And he needed to act like one.

  Canyon rested his arms on the steering wheel. “This is where the locals hang out. This is where you get to redefine yourself, Jade. It’s a pretty little town. With lots of great people.”

  “The same people who ran you and Beech out of town.”

  He’d never once heard Jade call Beech father. Canyon knew enough to realize his feckless younger sibling had never earned the title.

  “I came back because it’s a good place to live.” He let his shoulders rise and fall. “It’s the closest to home this Collier could find.”

  Again, Jade curled her lip. “And courtesy of the Accomack County Sheriff’s Department, Beech found his new home in prison.”

  “That was Beech’s own doing, Jade. I wouldn’t like to see you travel the same path. Kiptohanock is your chance for a new beginning.”

  “Since when does anybody give Colliers like us second chances?”