A thoughtful frown drew his eyebrows together, and he looked at her as if he weren’t really seeing her. “I get it.” He blinked. “It’s the same with me and my family.”
She smiled, doubtful he truly understood, but that was okay.
The buzzer rang from the lobby, signaling that their driver had arrived. This was it. No turning back now. Within forty minutes they’d be in Tarrytown.
Dallas took a deep breath. “Okay. Showtime.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ERIC LAUGHED HUMORLESSLY TO HIMSELF as they passed through the double white iron gates that allowed them onto the Shea property. Not considered an estate—at least not by Tarrytown standards—but damn close. About an acre of sloping green lawn, large old pine and oak trees and a curving driveway that led to a stately white Victorian that had to be a hundred years old. Nope, this wasn’t the same at all.
If Dallas were to see the place where he grew up, her jaw would hit the ground. His parents still lived there. In a small three-bedroom row house where if you sat on the porch, all you could see was thick black smoke rising from the steel mill where nearly everyone in town worked, including his father and brothers. God, was he glad to be away from there.
When his pop had retired last year, Eric had tried to get them to move, offered to subsidize the cost after they sold the house, but they wouldn’t hear of it. That was home. They were happy. Eric couldn’t understand that mentality. But he did respect it and had backed off.
He looked over at Dallas. She’d lain her head back against the leather seat, and idly stared out the window. “You grew up here?”
“What?” She brought her head up. “Oh, yeah.”
“Nice. Very nice.”
“The house has been in the family for four generations. My father inherited it from my grandparents when I was about three. Before that we lived in the city.” She smiled. “Obviously I don’t remember. This has always been home to me.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen this much grass in two years. You must miss living out here.”
She smiled. “How quickly you’ve forgotten our ride in Central Park.”
“Oh, no.” He squeezed her hand and their gazes met and held. “I haven’t forgotten.”
The car came to a stop. The driver had pulled into the circular drive that put them close to the front door. He got out, dressed in a white dress shirt, black slacks, his graying wavy hair slicked back, and opened Dallas’s door.
Totally juvenile, he knew, but Eric hoped her family was watching. First impressions were important. He didn’t want them to think their daughter had come with some bum from Pittsburgh.
After they both got out, the driver, in accented English, asked what time they wanted to be picked up. Eric looked at Dallas.
She shrugged. “Ten minutes?”
The driver frowned.
Eric laughed. “She’s joking.” He glanced at his watch. Stupid, since he knew what time it was. Maybe he was a little nervous. “How about nine-thirty? Does that sound about right?”
Dallas nodded. “Fine.”
The driver got back in the car, and they started up the front steps. Before they got to the door, it opened. A short dark-haired woman of indeterminate age, dressed all in black, stood at the threshold smiling.
“Tilly.” Dallas took the last two steps at once and hugged the slight woman. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
“That’s because you don’t come to visit your parents often enough,” the woman scolded with gruff affection. She stepped back, holding Dallas by the shoulders to look at her. “You’ve gained some weight.”
“Uh, thanks for pointing that out.” Dallas glanced over at him, a touch of pink in her cheeks.
“It’s good. You were too thin.” The woman squeezed Dallas’s upper arm. “Give me another hug.”
Dallas obliged her and then turned to Eric. “This is Tilly. She’s been with us forever.”
Tilly extended her hand. Her palm was slightly rough. “I’m the Sheas’ housekeeper.”
“I’m Eric,” he said when it seemed Dallas had for gotten to finish the introduction.
“Sorry.” Dallas briefly covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle. She sounded like a little girl.
Tilly apparently noticed, too, and snorted. “I used to be the children’s nanny, as well. Sometimes I think they haven’t grown up yet.”
“I haven’t.” Dallas tossed her hair back and shooed Tilly inside. “Where is everyone?”
“On the back patio having drinks and watching the sunset.”
Eric sighed. So much for the grand entrance complete with car and driver. He followed the two women through the large foyer, catching glimpses of the dining room on the right and the living room on the left. Lots of polished hardwood floors and Persian rugs, large vases of fresh flowers, an eclectic array of art pieces, no doubt expensive, in unexpected places.
They came to a sunroom, and beyond the French doors he saw them—three women and two men sitting around a glass table, looking casually chic with drinks in hand—and he suddenly wished like hell he hadn’t let Dallas talk him out of bringing a bottle of wine.
Dallas abruptly stopped. “Who is that?”
“Clair Sumner.” Tilly winked. “Your brother seems serious about this one.”
Dallas crossed her arms and briefly hugged herself. She seemed unduly annoyed. Almost panicked, which made no sense. “Mother didn’t tell me there would be someone else here besides family.”
Tilly’s brows came down in a perplexed frown. “Is that a problem?”
Dallas blinked at her and then darted a look at Eric. She turned back to Tilly with a forced smile. “No, of course not. It’s just— Oh, God, please tell me she’s not dull as dishwater.”
“Shush.” Tilly pinched her wrist. “Behave yourself, young lady.”
“Ouch.” She rubbed the assaulted area. “I’m not going to say anything.” She leaned close to Eric and rolled her eyes. “He’s had the most boring girlfriends you could possibly imagine.”
Something had clearly spooked her. She’d tried to cover up her alarm, but he knew the woman’s presence had somehow unnerved Dallas. Tilly seemed to know, as well.
An older woman with a remarkable resemblance to Dallas spotted them. She said something that made everyone turn around and watch him and Dallas go out the French doors. The two men stood.
“Before you start getting all chatty, tell me what you’d like to drink,” Tilly said.
Eric glanced at the drinks on the table.
“We have just about everything,” she said softly, her kind dark eyes putting him at ease.
“Scotch?”
She nodded.
“Thanks.”
“He likes it neat,” Dallas said. “And I’ll have—”
“I know what you want.” Laughing, Tilly shook her head and closed the doors.
Dallas cleared her throat and moved toward the others. “Hi, everyone, I’d like you to meet Eric Harmon.”
Lean and tall and looking remarkably fit, the older man, who had to be Dallas’s father, gave him a warm smile and a firm handshake. His hair was almost entirely white, yet he didn’t even look sixty. “Harrison Shea,” he said. Dallas’s father, of course.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Eric said, and was mildly amused that the man didn’t object to the sir part.
“That’s my mother, Andrea.” Dallas gestured with her hand, and the woman nodded, her smile not as warm as her husband’s, her gaze definitely speculative.
“That’s Dakota.”
No doubt they were sisters. The same high cheek bones and heart-shaped face, but her hair was a darker blond and her eyes were more gray than blue. And like Dallas, she had a great smile.
“And this is my brother, Cody.”
The man nodded, his lips barely moving. Eric didn’t take it personally. This was the kind of guy who wasn’t comfortable smiling. Dallas had warned him her brother was conservative. No kidding. One look said it all—the short haircut, the preppy white oxford shirt and khaki slacks, the serious gray eyes, no laugh lines there.
She looked at the woman next to him and smiled. “I understand you’re Clair.”
The brunette nodded and stood, petite, maybe five-two, a Lilliputian in a land of giants. Not a single Shea could be under five-eight.
They shook hands all the way around, Andrea the only one not getting to her feet. Which didn’t bother him. Feeling like one of her biology experiments being viewed under a microscope did. She was someone he didn’t want to end up alone with at any time this evening. She’d be too curious. No telling what she was liable to ask him.
She had to be in her late fifties yet looked more like Dallas and Dakota’s sister. And like her two daughters, she was truly beautiful. She sure as hell didn’t come off as a biology professor.
Tilly brought out their drinks and then took orders from the others for refills. No one demurred, which suited Eric fine. The more relaxed they all were, the better the evening was likely to go.
While Andrea instructed Tilly on dinner, he checked out the three Shea women. Any one of them easily could have enjoyed a lucrative modeling career. They had that look that brought ad campaigns to life. Horn had seen it in Dallas. That’s why he wanted her.