The memory of how he’d smelled up close after Joy’s crisis, like grill smoke and laundry detergent. She wanted—she needed—to feel safe again. When she was with him she felt protected. Or was that just a delusion? She could use a delusion of safety right now, with the anxiety still cramping her stomach.
Before she allowed herself to think more about it, she found Tim’s number, pushed the button so it would automatically redial and handed the phone to Joy.
“Hello, Mr. Tim.” Joy’s voice when she spoke with him held a note of confidence it lacked when speaking with her father. She jabbered away about her day at school and her friend Nancy Jane. Then paused when Tim said something. “Uh-huh. Mommy says you can come eat pasghetti with us.”
Sam bit her lip to keep from laughing.
“She’s right here.” Joy shoved the phone at her. “He wants you.”
Heat climbed into her face at her daughter’s words. Sam pressed the receiver to her ear. “Hello.”
“Was that invitation from you both?” he asked, his deep voice holding a note of amusement.
Her heart leapt at the sound of his voice. She had missed it, missed him. “Yes, it was.”
“I appreciate it. And I really like pasghetti.”
Sam chuckled. “It was either that or hot dogs, and I wasn’t ready for those yet.”
“I hear you.” He paused. “Does this mean I’m forgiven for screwing up?”
“I guess so.” She didn’t want to talk about Will or even think about him. He had dominated her world long enough. She needed to learn to block him from her mind. It was time she moved on. “Dinner will be ready in about an hour, but you can come whenever you like.”
“I have to finish loading the van with some electronics for a job for tomorrow, but I can walk over in about twenty minutes.”
“That would be fine. We’ll see you then.”
She placed the receiver back on the base. She had to get the sauce in the microwave to thaw and make a salad, and if there wasn’t any garlic bread in the freezer, there might be some rolls. She hustled into the kitchen and got things going. She’d just put the salad into the refrigerator and poured the defrosted sauce into a pot to heat when the doorbell rang.
Joy leapt from the couch and ran to the door. “Do what we practiced, Joy,” Sam said from the kitchen.
Joy looked through the window next to the door.
“It’s Mr. Tim.” She grinned.
“He’s a friend and we’re expecting him. You can unlock the door and let him in.”
Joy fumbled at the deadbolt and finally got it unlocked. She opened the door. “Come in, Mr. Tim.”
“Hey, sweet tart.” Swinging open the storm door he flashed Sam a smile that set her heart racing. He knelt before Joy, whipped a rectangular box out from behind his back, and held it up for her to see. “I brought dessert.”
“Chocolate ice cream!” Joy bounced with excitement.
“Not just chocolate. Rocky Road. It has nuts and marshmallows in it too.”
“I eat marshmallows in my cereal.”
“I haven’t tried that. But I bet it’s pretty good.” He rose to his feet. “We better put the ice cream in the freezer until we’re ready for it.”
“’Kay. It’s in here.” Joy grabbed his hand and tugged him in the direction of the kitchen.
His gaze fastened on Sam as he sauntered toward her. “Hey.”
How could such an innocuous word sound so sexy? He offered her the ice cream.
“Thanks for bringing desert.”
“I didn’t have any wine. And beer doesn’t go well with pasta.”
She smiled. “I don’t drink anyway.”
Joy opened the freezer door. Sam took the half-gallon carton and put it in the freezer. “Joy why don’t you go clean up all your Barbie doll mess, while we finish fixing supper.”
Joy’s bottom lip popped out. “Mommy—”
“If I get up in the middle of the night and step on one of those little plastic high heels, they’re going in the trash,” Sam warned.
Joy shot her a grumpy frown but went into the living room to do as she asked.
“Plastic high heels?” Tim asked.
“Barbie has spiked heels about a quarter inch long, and they’re lethal. I stepped on one and drove it into the bottom of my foot and limped for a week.”
“Ouch.” He grimaced.
“How’s your week been?” she asked while she filled a pot with water.
“It’s been okay. Quiet.”
“When he’s quiet that means he’s plotting something. Stay on your guard.”
His expression grew solemn. “Understood.” He looked about the kitchen. “Can I do something to help?”
“I think I’ve got everything under control. The sauce is hot and the oven’s heating up for the bread.”
“I can set the table.”
“Thanks.” Sam pointed to the oak cabinet above the sink. “Plates are there and the silverware is in the cabinet drawer below.
She stirred the sauce again. Salted the water for the pasta and checked the oven temp.
“A watched pot never boils,” Tim said, placing a napkin beside the last plate and arranging the silverware next to it. He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down. He looked around the room. “Were the cabinets built by hand?” he asked.
“Yeah. My grandfather loved working with his hands. He had plans for every room in the house.” She sat down in the chair diagonal to him and scanned the room. The floor was terracotta tile. The hand-built oak cabinets gleamed with care. Tiled countertops framed in with a decorative motif added an artistic flair to the decor.
“He did good work. I can do a few things, but nothing like this.”
“Don’t say that too loudly. Joy thinks there’s nothing you can’t do,” she teased.
“I wish she didn’t. It’s too hard to live up to perfection.” He grew serious. “She’s very trusting.”
“I know. On the one hand, I’m grateful I was able to protect her from things that would make her fearful of everyone. But on the other, I worry that she’s not wary at all. I can’t teach her to be. I’ve tried. So, I’m trying to teach her to be safe. This week we’re practicing how she should answer the door. She looks out, and if it’s someone she recognizes and knows we’re expecting, she lets me know, then she’s allowed to open the door, but only after I’ve said it’s okay. If it’s someone she doesn’t know, she comes straight to me.” She glanced toward the living room. Joy sat on the floor doing more playing than cleaning up.
Sam bobbed up to stir the sauce and turn it off. She put the pasta in the water, stirred it, then slid the bread in the oven and set the timer. She smiled at him as she sat back down. “Next week we’re going to work on what she should do if a stranger approaches her outside the house.”
“I don’t know how you do it all.” He rested his fingertips on her wrist and ran them back and forth over a small patch of skin there. His eyes fastened on her face, a look in their depths that made her heart beat in her throat and stole her breath away.
The light brushing movement of his touch set to life a million sensations in that one spot on her arm and spread outward. Please tell me you really are a good guy. Please be a good guy. She wanted to trust him so much.
“I talked to a guy who does body work today about your car. He said he could do the work and repaint the side at cost, and he’d be willing to let you pay him in installments.”
“How did you manage that?”
“He called me for an estimate on a system and I just asked about it. I can run the car over to him tomorrow after you get home from work.”
“Why do you want to help me, Tim?”
He remained silent for a moment, his features thoughtful, solemn. “I keep thinking, if someone had tried to help my mom, maybe things would have been different for us.”
Her throat tightened with emotion.
“I stayed away this week, because…I know I shot my mou
th off and said some things I shouldn’t have. I thought if your ex thought what he was doing was pushing you in my direction, he’d stop.”
“I understood the psychology behind it.”
“I don’t want what he does to affect whether or not you take a step toward trusting me, Sam. I’m trying to earn your trust for myself.”
She swallowed. What could she say? The timer on the stove went off and she went to check the pasta and take out the bread.
Tim followed her and leaned back against the cabinet next to the stove.
“I do trust you,” she said her voice softening to a whisper. She cleared her throat. “But I’m not sure about…anything else.”
He stepped forward, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. Time stopped and so did her breath. Her hands came to rest on his taut muscular waist. He tasted like cinnamon. His lips covered hers, withdrew, then came back again, the pressure gentle but firm. The brush of his closely-trimmed beard was a sensual texture against her face. The urge to rest against him, to draw him closer, nearly overwhelmed her. It had been so long since she’d been kissed or held. And never with such care. When he raised his head, it took a moment for her to open her eyes. She drew in a breath.
He smiled and enveloped her in his arms, holding her close. She rested against him and found a spot for her head against his chest. And for a moment she knew contentment, and then more when he ran his hand down her back and drew her close enough to feel his reaction to the kiss.
“Mommy, my tummy is growling,” Joy called from the living room.
Sam laughed, happiness bubbling up inside her. She patted his chest and looked up at him. “You are a brave man.”
His intent expression softened to tenderness, and his lips quirked up. “A hungry one, too.”
His double entendre brought heat to her cheeks and she eased out of his arms. “The pasta.”
She drained the pasta and with his help dished everything up. “Joy, dinner’s ready. Come to the table,” she called.
Joy brought Barbie along and climbed up in one of the chairs. Tim pushed it in.
As they sat down together to eat, the normalcy of it all struck her. No rage. No tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. No fear. She drew a deep breath and a smile curved her lips.
Until Joy dropped Barbie into her plate, face-first.
CHAPTER 26
Flash jumped to his feet and grabbed Joy’s plate. “I’ve got it. Go ahead and start eating.” He carried the plate to the sink, fished out the doll, rinsed her off and placed her on the window ledge to dry. He dumped the spaghetti in the trash, wiped the plate clean, dried it with a napkin and dished up some more spaghetti and sauce.
Sam and Joy’s uncommon stillness at the table struck him as he placed Joy’s plate in front of her. His gaze leaped to Sam’s face. The small scattering of freckles across her nose stood out against the paleness of her skin.
“Mr. Tim doesn’t yell, Mommy,” Joy said, her voice just above a whisper.
Sam swallowed and her shoulders dropped as she relaxed. “No, he doesn’t.” She drew a full breath, color flowed back into her face, and she smiled. “It was just an accident, and people don’t yell when you do something without meaning to.”
Flash swallowed against the knot in his throat. Their reaction triggered memories he thought had been buried a thousand fathoms deep. But it had been over twenty years ago, and he wasn’t going there. He sat down, put a paper napkin in his lap, and picked up his fork. “This smells great.”
His words seemed to help dissolve the remaining tension, and Sam and Joy picked up their forks, too.
Twenty minutes later, with dinner over and Joy nibbling at a scoop of Rocky Road, he stretched his legs out under the table. “I can’t eat another bite.”
“Not even ice cream?” Joy asked.
He grinned at the spaghetti sauce and chocolate that circled her mouth “Not even ice cream.”
“I’m done, Mommy,” she said after one last bite.
“Wipe your mouth, then say, ‘may I be excused,’ and you can watch television until bath time.”
Joy grabbed a napkin and scrubbed her mouth. “May I be excused?” she parroted.
“Yes, you may.” As Joy disappeared into the living room, Sam smiled at him. “Sure you don’t want ice cream?”
“No, thanks. Too much pasghetti in there.” He patted his stomach.
“Some coffee then?”
“No. I only drink a couple of cups in the morning to wake up.”
“I’ll get Joy settled then and clear the table.” She went into the living room and the sound of the channel changing to a cartoon network reached him. The basic, homey comfort of having dinner with them, breaking bread and sharing the everyday stuff, acted as balm to his homesickness. In the few weeks he’d been here he’d been alone. Except for Sam and Joy.
Some of the women he’d worked for had come on to him. And he’d had more than his share of opportunities for feminine companionship. But it was hard to be interested when you’d already found what you wanted. His gaze strayed to Sam when she returned. Now that she was relaxed again, soft color had bloomed in her cheeks. The lean line of her body as she removed the breadbasket from the center of the table drew his eye to her narrow waist. He remembered the first day they’d met, as she’d stepped out of the police car, how every one of the men’s eyes had been on her legs, including his.
He shouldn’t allow himself to feel for her. Shouldn’t get any more involved than he was. It was only going to hurt them in the long run. But he couldn’t seem to control it.
Flash rose and began to clear the table. He scraped the plates and stacked them in the sink.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, returning to the table.
“If we work as a team it takes half the time.”
“Is that how you do things in the military?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He should never have told her he was military. She knew too much already. “Though none of us had to do KP duty other than to hand out K-rations, which pretty much suck. They have the calories to keep you going, but they taste like…” He looked down at her as she ran water in the sink, his gaze tracing the curve of her cheek, then dropping to her breasts, small but firm beneath her blouse. He lost his train of thought.
“You don’t have to finish, I get the picture.” She chuckled. While she rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher, he finished clearing the table.
He reached for Barbie on the windowsill to distract himself. Though the spaghetti sauce had washed off, her hair was now an orange-blonde mix, and the dress was stained. He grimaced as he held her up. “I hope this wasn’t a favorite.”
“Periodic favorite.” She took the doll and dunked her in the soapy water, clothes and all. “The dress is probably ruined, but I’ll let Joy use her markers on the hair so she can turn her into Rocker Barbie.” She rinsed the toy, set her on a dishtowel to dry, and smoothed the doll’s hair.
He leaned against the counter while she finished up. “I thought maybe I could show you some of the self-defense moves tonight since we didn’t do it this week.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Okay.”
“How about I take off and do some things at my place, and when you get Joy to bed, you can call me and I’ll come back over. That will give our food time to settle, too.”
“That’s a good idea. She might not understand why Mommy’s trying to learn how to kick butt.”
Flash studied her slender frame. Again. And though she suited him just fine, she’d need to bulk up and gain weight if that was what she was aiming for. He offered her a smile. “If you seriously want to kick butt, you’ll have to start lifting weights and gain some upper body strength. But if you want to fight somebody off and disable them long enough for you to escape, I can show you how to do that right away.”
“I’m more interested in just being able to fight them off. I don’t know if I have the aggressive tendencies needed to try and do
more.”
“I guess that depends on how angry you are. But to fight when you’re angry clouds your judgment, too. Give me a call when you want me to come back over.” Though he wanted more, he brushed her cheek with his lips and smiled when soft color rushed into her cheeks. “Thanks for dinner.”
“You’re welcome.” She followed him to the living room.
He said good-bye to Joy on the way out and paused as she ran to him for a hug. He knelt, and her delicate arms went around his neck.
“Rocky road is good,” she said.
“Yeah it is, sweet tart.” He patted her fragile back, and released her when she pulled back. “It’s supposed to give you sweet dreams, too.”
“Visions of sugar pumpkins, like in the Christmas story?” she asked.
He chuckled. “I think that’s sugar plums.”
“What’s a sugar plum?”
“I have no idea. Maybe you better ask your mom.”
He left while Sam was busy explaining. The sun had gone down, leaving behind the sickly yellow haze. The streetlights hadn’t kicked on, nor the exterior lights on the garage.
He had reached the steps leading up to his apartment when a man stepped out from behind the edge of the garage. Every nerve went on high alert, and he froze and scanned the area, expecting to see more.
“Stay away from my family,” Will Cross said as he walked along the exterior wall to stand six or seven feet away. Dark brown hair lay thick against his skull, and his eyes were the same pale blue as Joy’s. He had a strong, angular jaw and wide, flat cheekbones.
He was easily thirty pounds heavier than Flash, and at two-twenty, more than a hundred pounds heavier than Sam. Jesus, how had she survived a blow from this guy?
Flash studied him, trying to see what the pull for Sam might have been. He was just as the cop had described him, wide through the chest and shoulders, a big guy, but he was carrying at least thirty pounds of fat.
Breaking Away (Military Romantic Suspense) (Book 3 of the SEAL TEAM Heartbreakers) Page 23