The Fall of Shane MacKade (The MacKade Brothers 4)

“And you take your duty seriously.”

“You bet. He’s asleep.” Shane lowered his head and kissed Jason’s brow. “Want me to put him down?”

“Thanks.” She waited until Shane had Jason settled in the antique cradle. “Rebecca’s expecting me. I wasn’t able to catch her before she left for the airpor

t.” Frazzled all over again, Regan ran her fingers though her hair. “The babysitter canceled, Rafe’s in Hagerstown getting building material. Cassie’s got a full house over at the inn, Emma’s got the sniffles, and I just couldn’t ask Savannah to help out.”

“Last time I saw her, she looked ready to pop.” To demonstrate the condition of Jared’s wife, Shane made a wide circle with his arms in front of his flat belly.

“Exactly. She’s too pregnant to drive a three-hour round trip, and with a furniture delivery being rescheduled for this afternoon, I didn’t know who else to call and impose on.”

“It’s no trouble.” To prove it, he kissed the tip of her nose. “I don’t suppose she’s as pretty as you, is she?”

Regan chuckled at that. “How am I supposed to answer that and not sound like a jerk? In any case, I haven’t seen her in…five years, I guess. The last time was on a quick trip to New York, and she was hip-deep in some paper she was writing. She’s four years younger than I am and has two doctorates. Maybe more. I can’t keep up.”

Shane didn’t wince. He liked women with brains as much as he liked women without them. But he knew the old routine about smarts and wonderful personalities. He didn’t think he was going to be picking up a beauty queen at the airport.

“Psychiatry and U.S. history for sure,” Regan continued. “Kind of an odd mix, but then, Rebecca’s unique. I remember she minored in some sort of complex math, and there was science, too. Physics, chemistry…she did postgrad work on that at MIT.”

“Why?” Shane wondered out loud.

“With Rebecca it would be more a matter of why not. She’s got what they call a photographic memory. Sees it, reads it, files it up there,” Regan said, tapping her head.

“And she’s a shrink?”

“She doesn’t have a private practice. She consults, writes papers, lectures. I know she used to donate a day a week to a clinic. She wrote a definitive paper on…well, some psychosis or other. Or maybe it was a phobia. I’m a business major. Anyway, Shane—” Regan smiled brightly and patted his hand “—she’s into parapsychology. As a hobby.”

“Into what? Is that like ghostbusting?”

“It’s the study of the paranormal. ESP, psychic phenomena, ah…hauntings…”

“Ghosts,” Shane concluded, and this time he did wince. “Don’t we have enough of that around here already?”

“That’s the point. She’s interested in the area, the legends. It’s different for you, Shane,” Regan hurried on, knowing her brother-in-law’s aversion to local legends. “You grew up with it all. The Barlow house, the two corporals, the haunted woods. The whole idea of hauntings is one of the main reasons Rafe and I have been able to make such a success out of the inn. People love the idea of staying in a haunted house.”

Shane only shrugged. Hell, he lived in one. “I don’t mind all that. It’s just when tourists want to go tramping around the farm that—”

The look in her eye stopped him, made him narrow his own. “She wants to tramp around the farm.”

“She wants the whole picture, and I know she’d like to spend some time out there. But that’s totally up to you,” Regan said quickly. “You need to get to know her a little. She’s really a fascinating woman. Anyway, I wrote down her flight number and so forth.” Regan offered him a sheet of paper.

“You still haven’t told me what she looks like. I doubt she’s going to be the only woman off that flight from New York.”

“Right. Brown hair, brown eyes. She used to wear it just sort of pulled back, or…hanging down. She’s about my height, thin—”

“Skinny or slim? There’s a difference.”

“I guess more on the skinny side. She may be wearing glasses. She uses them to read, but she used to forget to take them off and she’d end up running into things.”

“A skinny, clumsy brunette with glasses. Got it.”

“She’s very attractive,” Regan added loyally. “In a unique way. And, Shane? She’s shy, so be nice.”

“I’m always nice. To women.”

“All right, be good then. If you don’t spot her, you can have her paged. Dr. Rebecca Knight.”

Airports always entertained Shane. People were in just as much of a hurry, it seemed to him, to get where they were going as they were to get back from wherever they’d been. Everyone hit the ground running, loaded down with carry-ons. He wondered what it was about the places people chose to leave that didn’t appeal enough to keep them there.