by Shirley Jump
With reluctance, he stepped back. But he didn’t let go. His hands cupped her cheeks, his brown eyes locking on hers. Heat filled the space between them. “Tomorrow, I swear I will work a half day. Libby has a half day at school, Henry will be back early from the community center. As soon as the kids are home, let’s take them to the beach.”
“Both of us? But you don’t need me there. You’ll be fine with the kids.”
“I don’t need you there. I want you there. Will you go?”
Her eyes were wide and shiny in the dim light from the porch. She hesitated only a second, then nodded. “You had me at beach day.”
He laughed. God, it felt good to laugh. To smile. To flirt. “Then I’m going to have to say that more often. Much, much more often.”
Chapter Eight
Bandit darted in and out of the water, barking at the small waves that rolled onto the sandy shore. Libby waded in up to her ankles, while Henry, the more adventurous one, sat in the surf and let the water wash up to his waist while he tried to build a sand castle in between waves. The remains of the kids’ sandwiches—a result of a quick pit stop at the Good Eatin’ Café on the way over to the beach—lay atop paper plates on a checkered blanket.
It was a perfect way to spend the afternoon. Absolutely perfect.
That didn’t mean that Sam wasn’t thinking about work, though, or worrying that the appointment he had rescheduled, the emails he hadn’t had a chance to send, and the calls that were going to his voice mail, were going to cost him down the road. The mall project wasn’t going to rent itself.
But then Sam thought about the surprise on his kids’ faces when he’d walked into the house, and the whoop of joy Libby had let out when he’d said they were going to the beach. That alone was worth him working late tonight or getting up super-early tomorrow to finish up. For now, there was the beach, the sandwiches, the kids and Katie.
Sam leaned back on one elbow and stretched his legs. The sun warmed his skin, danced sparkles on the sand. “Thank you again for reminding me to take time off,” he said to Katie. “This is...awesome. I feel like I don’t spend hardly any time outside anymore.”
“Me, too. I spent way too much time indoors at my job.” She leaned back on both elbows beside him and tipped her face to the sun. Her dark hair hung like a curtain down her back, and there was a look of pure contentment on her face. He could just catch the faint scent of her perfume stirring in the air between them. Something dark, floral. Tempting. “This is nice.”
“Very nice.”
He’d stopped noticing the weather and the ocean because all he saw was Katie. She was beautiful, graceful. He took in the long curve of her neck and the gentle ridges of her shoulders, the delicate lines of her arms. She was wearing khaki shorts and a dark blue V-necked T-shirt. Specks of red paint from this afternoon’s art project with Henry dotted her clothes, freckled her arms, and only enticed Sam more.
He wanted to ask her a thousand questions, wanted to know what made her smile, whether she was a chocolate or vanilla ice cream kind of girl, what movies made her laugh, which books made her cry.
Sam cleared his throat and returned his attention to the kids instead of staring at the woman he’d hired to be the nanny. That blanket of guilt still hung on his shoulders. He barely had enough time to be more than a token dad to his kids—what was he doing pursuing the woman working for him? If anything had cliché written all over it, it was the idea of falling for the nanny.
Libby came running up the beach, Bandit and Henry hot on her heels. Still wet from the surf, Henry’s shorts dripped onto the sand, while Bandit panted beside him, tail wagging. “I’m bored,” Libby said.
The most common words ever spoken by kids, Sam thought. How many times had he heard that from Libby? Heck, how often had he said it himself when he was a kid?
His father’s solution—if his father had been there at all—would have been to send his two boys out back and tell them to find something to do. Their mother, often overwhelmed by raising two rambunctious boys, would opt to lie down for a nap or get lost in a soap opera, leaving Sam and Dylan to fend for themselves. He refused to let his kids grow up that way.
“Why don’t we build a sand castle?” Sam said.
“I’m too old for that. That’s what babies do and I’m not a baby anymore.” She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “I wanna go home.”
They’d been here only a half hour. If they went home, the kids would beeline for the TV, Sam would opt for his computer and this sweet moment in the sun would end. But when he tried to think of things that Libby might want to do, he drew a blank. When had it gotten this way? When had he lost track of his kids and what made them happy?
He knew that answer. When his wife had died and taken with her the gentle reminders to put down his work and engage with his kids, along with all that inside knowledge of a woman who had spent every spare second with her kids. Somehow, he needed to navigate these murky waters without Wendy.
“We could take a walk,” Sam said.
Libby rolled her eyes. “I don’t wanna do that with you. I wanna go home.”
I don’t wanna do that with you. The words pierced his heart. Sam could see Libby digging in her heels, and braced himself for the battle that was about to storm in. Henry lingered behind his sister, eyes downcast, face somber. Even Bandit had plopped down on the sand, his tail still, ears drooping.
There’d been a day when Libby would have rushed into his arms whenever he got home from work. When she had called out “Daddy!” like she’d just won the lottery. When she would have walked for hours with him, chattering on about her day or her toys or the little girl who lived next door. Now, Libby looked like she’d rather be anywhere but here with him.
He had only himself to blame. Those years of working too late, getting home after the kids were in bed, putting in extra hours on the weekend, or “spending time” with the kids while he was on his laptop and not really doing much more in common than breathing the same air, had taken their toll. There was no Wendy here to remind him to put down the keyboard or to take an hour off. There was just him, trying to balance everything without losing it all in the process. Judging by the look on Libby’s face, he wasn’t doing very well at either.
He might as well cave now to Libby’s request and stave off the foot stomping and tears. If she didn’t want to be here, the whole day would end up a bust, and that wasn’t going to help anything. “Okay.” He let out a breath. “Let me just get all this stuff packed up.”
“Before you do that, I have an idea,” Katie said, laying a hand on his for a second, saying trust me in that touch, before she turned her attention to Libby. “When I was a kid, and I got bored, my brother would take me on what he called adventure trips.”
“What’s an adventure trip?” Libby asked. She still wore that sullen look, but her eyes had brightened with interest. Sam shifted toward Katie, just as intrigued. Her idea already sounded a heck of a lot better than the two options he’d proposed.
“We didn’t have a beach in Atlanta,” Katie explained, “so we’d go down to a creek in our neighborhood or into the woods behind my school, and we’d look for animals and weird objects. Whoever found the coolest animal or the weirdest thing won a prize.”
“A prize?” That had piqued her interest even more. “What kind of prize?”
“Well...” Katie glanced over at Sam, saying fill in the blanks.
He thought of what would make Libby the most excited, what kind of prize would entice her to play the game instead of insisting on going home. “How about first dibs on what movie we watch before bed tonight?”
“Even if it’s Frozen?” Libby narrowed her gaze and propped a fist on her hip.
Sam bit back a groan. He had seen Libby’s all-time favorite movie twelve trillion times already and usually vetoed it at
bedtime because there was only so many times a grown man could listen to “Let It Go.” But it was the one thing guaranteed to bring a smile to Libby’s face, so that meant he’d listen to Elsa all night if he needed to. “Even if it’s Frozen.”
Libby turned back to Katie. She bounced on her heels. “Okay, I wanna do an adventure. What do we have to find?”
Katie got to her feet and brushed the sand off her palms. “It’s the most fun when you have teams. So...how about me and Henry go against your dad and you, Libby?”
Libby sobered and looked up at Katie. “But I wanna be with you, Katie.”
She caught Sam’s gaze over Libby’s head. He nodded, saying let it go. If he pushed Libby too hard and too fast, it would only make things worse.
“Okay, Libby,” Katie said, “but I think we’re going to have our work cut out for us.” Sam hoisted Henry onto his hip and ruffled Libby’s hair. Henry looked from his sister to his father, then rested his head on Sam’s shoulder.
“Don’t count on it,” Sam said. “Us boys are serious competitors.”
“Want to put a wager on it?” Katie asked him.
When she looked at him like that, with that little bit of a tease in her eyes, he’d agree to pretty much anything. “What kind of wager?”
“Winning team—” she thought for a second, a finger against her lip “—buys dessert on the way home.”
“You’re on.” He put out a hand. When she slipped her palm into his, a little jolt ran up his arm. She had small, delicate fingers, but a firm grip. He didn’t want to let go, but didn’t think standing here and holding the nanny’s hand was going to do anything other than confuse everyone. Especially him. Not that those kisses hadn’t already muddled everything, anyway. He kept wavering between wanting to take her to bed and staying hands-off. Since he didn’t have an answer to any of those dilemmas, he got back to the game. “Okay, where do we start?”
“With the little stuff, Sam.” Her eyes met his, and in them he could read understanding, compassion. She had seen his struggle with Libby and stepped in, with this simple game. That made him like Katie on a whole new level. “The big stuff will follow.”
* * *
Katie didn’t know what it was about Sam, but every time she looked at him, she wanted to melt. It wasn’t just that he was handsome as heck, or that he had that sweet lopsided smile. It was the way he tried so hard to connect with his kids. She could see his heart breaking every time Libby gave him the cold shoulder or Henry refused to talk, and she wanted to do whatever she could to make that all better.
She’d lingered after lunch because she enjoyed spending time with Sam, with the kids. She’d have stayed even if she wasn’t getting paid. She enjoyed the kids, and most of all, enjoyed seeing Sam smile.
Then she’d proposed the adventure game, the same one Colton had played with her. Only, when she was little, he hadn’t taken her on adventures to stave off boredom or get her out of the house when their mother was in a bad mood. He’d done it to distract her from yet another disappointment. Another day in a house with a distant parent.
They had broken into two teams, with Sam and Henry running up ahead of Katie and Libby. Their goal: to find an intact clamshell. She’d given Henry and Libby each one of the plastic bags that had held their lunch, and told them there were extra points for finding the most interesting piece of trash.
“Look, Katie!” Libby held out her palm and revealed a sandy plastic army man, a little worse for wear. “I found this!”
“That’s pretty cool,” Katie said. “When I was a little girl, my brother had army men like this. I took them and buried them in the backyard.”
Libby gasped. “Did you get in big trouble with your mommy?”
Big trouble? Her mother had barely noticed Katie was home, never mind anything she did. “My mom worked a lot,” Katie said. “So she didn’t really know. But Colton, oh, he was mad at me for about a day. Longest day of my life.” She laughed. “I love my brother, even if he sometimes drives me crazy.”
“Kinda like how I feel about Henry. He’s kinda cute but he cries a lot.” Libby turned the army man over in her palm. “And he plays with my Barbies. I don’t want him to ’cuz he eats their hair.”
Katie laughed. “When he gets older, he won’t do that anymore. And you never know, you two might even become friends.”
Libby’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t think so.”
“Give it time.” Ahead of them, Sam was bent down, looking at something Henry had found, their two heads close together. Such a heartwarming image, with the sun glinting off their dark hair and twin smiles on their faces. For a second, Katie stopped walking and just stared.
There was something inherently sexy about a man who connected with children. Who could get down to their level. Sam was exclaiming over whatever Henry had in his hand, making as big a deal out of it as he would about finding a unicorn. Henry was smiling, clearly proud of himself.
She wondered for a second how things might have been different if she’d been dating Sam and gotten pregnant. Would Sam have left? Or would he have stayed by her side, every step of the way? Even in those dark days after she lost the baby?
“Katie, are we gonna find a clamshell? ’Cuz I really want to beat the boys.”
“Uh, sure, sure.” Katie turned her attention back to Libby and concentrated on scouring the beach.
A few minutes later, Sam ambled over, with Henry following right beside him. “Looks like somebody’s buying me a slice of coconut cream pie,” Sam said, then splayed his palm to reveal a complete clamshell, still hinged on one side.
“I don’t know about that. I think someone’s getting me a slice of chocolate cake.” Katie held out the army man Libby had found. “Best trash piece.”
“Hmm...looks like a tie.” Sam grinned. “And what do we do in that case, oh adventure master?”
“We treat everyone to dessert,” she said, thinking if he kept on smiling at her like that, she’d pay for dessert, dinner and breakfast the next morning. Damn, this man had so much power over her with something as simple as a smile.
“Ice cream?” Libby asked. “’Cuz I love ice cream!”
“I—scream,” Henry echoed.
Sam glanced down at his son, his face lit with wonder, and his smile widened when he leaned closer to whisper in Katie’s ear. “I’m never going to get tired of the sound of his voice. Thank you again.”
She inhaled his cologne, and tried not to let her gaze linger on the dark stubble along his jaw. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You opened a door that had been shut,” he said softly. “And for that, I should be buying you dessert. And much more.”
She wanted to ask what he meant by much more, but Libby was tugging at her arm and charging back up the beach toward the car. Probably just as well. She wasn’t staying here and wasn’t going to become mom to these kids. All of this was temporary.
A few minutes later, they were all settled in Sam’s Range Rover and heading toward downtown Stone Gap. She could see why Colton enjoyed this town so much. It was quaint, with pastel homes flanking tree-lined streets, small wrought-iron benches peppered between old-fashioned streetlights. Every couple blocks there was a green space, either a park or a giant water fountain or just a trio of benches, encouraging people to sit and talk awhile. And everywhere she looked, there were people, walking between stores or sitting together and sipping coffee, or tossing a ball for their spaniel to fetch.
“Is it always like this here?” She glanced over at Sam.
“What, boring?”
She laughed. “I think Stone Gap is the opposite of boring. It’s just so...quaint.”
“It is a great town. I’ve lived here all my life and as much as I complain about how things stay the same year after year, I love it here. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else
.” His gaze flicked to the rearview mirror’s reverse image of the kids, belted into the backseat. “Or raising my kids anywhere else.”
Even if Sam had gotten a little disconnected over the years, Katie could see he was clearly a man who put his family first. Her mind wandered again to the questions she’d had earlier. Would things have been different if she’d been with Sam instead of Leonard? She shook her head. It didn’t matter. Thinking of what could have been never led anywhere productive. “It does look like a great family town,” she said.
“Pretty much everyone who was raised here stays here. Every day is like a high school reunion.” He chuckled. “Which means everyone knows everything about everyone else. There truly are no secrets in a small town.”
“But there’s also connections, like you said,” Katie added, as they passed a group of women greeting each other with hugs. “I think that’s nice. Always knowing your neighbors, seeing friends you’ve known for years in the grocery store. Where I grew up, it wasn’t like that.”
“Because Atlanta’s a big city?”
“Because my mom was always moving us. She didn’t make much money, and every year or two we’d have to find a new apartment. Which meant a new school for me, a new neighborhood. Nothing ever stayed the same.” She danced her fingers across the window as they passed two families standing on the sidewalk, chatting, twin strollers between them. “I always wondered what it would be like to live someplace like this. I can see why Colton loves it.”
“He’s a good guy,” Sam said. “Really helped this town out after Ernie’s hardware store burned down. Colton and his brothers were there the next day, rebuilding it all so quick, Ernie barely lost a dollar of business.”
It made her proud to hear someone else say such good things about her brother. “He’s always been like that. Best big brother a girl could ask for.”
“I have a younger brother myself,” Sam said. “He was the one who got in so much trouble that by the time my parents got to me, they were plumb worn out. I hardly ever got grounded. But Dylan, well, let’s just say there was a reason I made a sign for the door to his room that said Detention Center.”