She should focus on the dark circles, proof of too many nights spent tossing and turning, but she stared at her lips instead. Her mouth certainly didn’t look branded by Sam Pirelli’s kiss. Oh, but that was how it felt.
This was a man who could take everything from her. She’d already lost Marti; Kara didn’t know how she would survive losing Timmy, too. Yet somehow that risk, that horrible, heartbreaking choice she had to make—somehow that wasn’t bad enough.
If she stayed, she could be in serious danger of losing her heart, as well.
It was a crazy thought after only knowing the man for two days, but when Sam kissed her, when he held her in his arms, her heart felt lighter than it had in years. With her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, the weight of the secret she carried disappeared.
Right now, though, that secret pressed heavier than ever.
Meeting her gaze in the mirror, Kara felt as if she could see her sister’s blue eyes, filled with disappointment, staring back at her.
You should have told him.
* * *
Like most businesses in Clearville, Sam’s garage was closed on Sunday, but that didn’t mean he took the day off. He liked having those hours to focus on the cars without fielding phone calls and walk-in clients.
But today, not even the peace and quiet was helping him pay attention to the engine in front of him. A slam of the side door alerted Sam to Will’s arrival and to the news that the kid was in an equally bad mood.
Tension filled the teen’s skinny body as he stalked over to the car and slapped his hands down on the side of the open hood. “I told you I could take of myself. I can handle Darrell.”
Straightening away from the sedan’s engine, Sam wiped his hands on a nearby rag. “I was only trying to help.”
“Help. You know where my mom is right now? She’s picked up a double shift at the diner today so she’ll have the money to go bail that jerk’s sorry ass out of jail tomorrow! How does that help?”
Sam wanted to point out the fight hadn’t been his fault—which was the only reason his sorry ass wasn’t sitting in jail right then, too. But he figured that wasn’t something Will wanted to hear.
The teen glared at him from across the sedan’s raised hood. “I’m not some kid you need to look out for. I’m old enough to take of myself and my mom.”
As Will stormed out of the garage, Sam let the boy go. He needed time to cool off. Time that Sam had decided to give Kara, as well. He still wanted that second chance, but first there was someone else he wanted to see.
* * *
The ringing bell over the Hope Chest door announced his arrival before he set foot inside. Normally, the antiques shop wouldn’t be open, but over dinner Sophia had mentioned they’d received a large delivery of new-old items that she and Hope needed to arrange. He squeezed between the crowded shelves as he followed the sound of female voices to the back of the store.
Both his sister and Hope frowned as they caught sight of him, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t have a smart-ass comeback to deflect the disappointment and concern in their gazes.
Man, the Clearville grapevine was alive and buzzing if word of the fight had already reached them.
“Sam...” Sophia exchanged an unreadable glance with her mentor. “We didn’t expect you to stop by.”
“Yeah, well, I wanted to thank Hope for babysitting last night. I appreciate it.”
Hope cleared her throat. “Timmy’s a sweet boy.”
“Yeah, he’s a cute kid. I don’t suppose he gave you much trouble.”
“Oh, just the usual—seeing what he could get away with, with the babysitter. Multiple drinks of water, pleas for a snack, then a few trips to the bathroom.”
Sam smiled. He’d always hated bedtime as a kid. “That sounds familiar.”
“Does it now?” Hope murmured with another look at Sophia, this one weighted with enough unspoken urgency to grab hold of Sam’s attention and not let go.
“Okay, what’s going on with the knowing looks between the two of you?”
His sister twisted at the silver ring she wore, a dead giveaway to her nervousness. “You remember the slideshow Jake and I had at our wedding? The pictures of us as kids and growing up? Hope helped me and Mom go through all our albums to pick out those pictures and decide which music worked best and—”
“Sophia, dear.”
Shooting her friend a flustered look, his sister took a deep breath. “Right. Anyway, in looking through the albums, Hope saw a lot of pictures of you, too, Sam. Pictures of you when you were a little a boy. Pictures of you when you were...Timmy’s age.”
His sister let those words dangle and Sam waited for something more to come of the conversation. Something that might actually make sense. “And?” he prompted when the two women continued to look at him in anticipation.
Finally Hope stepped forward, pinning him with a knowing look. “And that boy, Sam Pirelli, is carbon copy of you when you were little.”
Sam narrowed his gaze at the older woman, not liking the direction this conversation was going. “What are you saying, Hope?”
“I’m not saying anything. I’m asking.” She took a deep breath. “Is Timmy...could Timmy be your son?”
“What?” The word exploded out of him with the force of disbelief and anger. “No! Do you really think I’ve had a kid all these years and didn’t bother to tell anyone? Is that the kind of man—the kind of father—you think I am?”
“Take it easy, Sam! I know you wouldn’t hide something like that,” Sophia reassured him. “But Kara is Timmy’s aunt, right? So what do you know about his mother?”
Nothing. He knew next to nothing about Kara’s sister. Which was only slightly less than he knew about Kara. The evasive answers, her silence when it came to talking about herself...
“Kara said he’d just turned four. Can you think back?” Sophia asked softly. “Around five years ago...”
Five years? He couldn’t think back to the past five minutes. He felt like he’d been dropped into the middle of a nightmare with no way of knowing how he got there and no idea how to get out.
“This is crazy. You’re comparing twenty-five-year-old snapshots of me to a kid who has blond hair and making the leap that he’s my son? No way.”
“Why don’t you take me to meet him, Sam?” Sophia pressed. “I’ve looked at those same pictures Hope was talking about my whole life. I know better than she does what you looked like as a kid. We can stop by and invite Kara and Timmy to breakfast. If you’re right and there’s nothing to Hope’s idea, then no harm done.”
Say no. Tell her no. The words raced through his brain like race cars on a track, looping over and over again. If he said yes, if he entertained just for a moment that Hope might be right...his life would change. He could feel it in his bones, the pressure building inside, urging him to run now.
But he couldn’t run from this. Not if he ever wanted to look himself—to look his family—in the eye again.
“All right. Let’s go.”
The ride to the hotel took only minutes with Sophia sitting silently in the passenger seat beside him, but the car that he’d promised Timmy was fast enough to outrun monsters seemed to crawl through the town’s deserted, early-morning streets.
Everything still looked the same—the Victorian shops, the profusion of colorful flower boxes, the wrought-iron benches and old-fashioned light posts. But Sam already had the feeling his entire world had changed.
As he pulled into the hotel’s circular drive, he heard Sophia’s gasp and followed her gaze. Not to the front of the building but to the parking lot where Kara and Timmy were walking toward her minivan. “Sam.”
Sophia reached out and gripped his arm. She didn’t say anything other than his name, but it was enough to tell him what she saw
. What he’d refused to see.
Timmy was his son, and Kara had been lying to him from the moment they met.
Chapter Six
“Going somewhere?”
Kara stilled with her hand on the driver’s side door of the minivan, frozen by the chill in the masculine voice behind her. Sam’s voice.
He knows.
For a split second, she imagined diving into the seat, starting the engine and peeling out like a getaway driver in a movie. Motor racing, wheels screaming, she’d escape with Timmy in a cloud of dust. It was a crazy thought, and deep down, Kara knew she wasn’t going anywhere. “Sam...”
She turned to face him only to wish she hadn’t. The light in his eyes, his teasing smile, the spark of attraction simmering beneath the surface, all of it was gone. Regret slammed into her. She’d had the chance to tell him last night. She’d had any number of chances to tell him, but she’d been too afraid. And now, now her worst nightmare was coming true.
“Tell me the truth,” he demanded. “Is Timmy mine? Is he my...” He seemed to stumble over the word. “Is he my son?”
Despite the shock of Sam discovering the truth, the quiet intensity of his voice got to Kara. The way he’d spoken the words softly enough so Timmy, sitting in the booster seat in the back, couldn’t overhear. Putting the little boy’s well-being above his own feelings.
Because that’s what a parent did.
Silently, she nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” The muscles in his jaw hardened to granite as he forced the next words out. “Were you going to tell me?”
The guilt for keeping silent, for thinking even briefly about staying silent, must have shown on her face, giving Sam the only answer he needed.
Turning his back on her, he slid open the back door to the van, and Kara’s heart stopped in her chest. “What...what are you doing?” Was that it? One question about Timmy’s paternity and now Sam was going to take him away from her? “You can’t—”
“Hey, Timmy.”
Kara’s protest faded away as Sam addressed his son. Wonder filled his voice, and Kara could almost imagine another lifetime where Sam would have spoken those same words as he held his infant son for the first time. But Marti had stolen that from him along with all the moments since—Timmy’s first smile, first tooth. His wide, drooling grin as he gleefully learned to crawl, his far more cautious steps as he learned to walk. Fate had robbed Sam of those precious moments with his son.
Just as, years earlier, it had robbed her of a lifetime with her daughter.
How could she have considered doing the same thing to Sam? “Sam, I am so sorry.”
The whispered words barely made it past the lump in her throat, and if he heard them, he gave no indication. “Did you have breakfast yet this morning?” he was asking the little boy who shook his head.
“Nuh-uh. Aunt Kara said we could go to the diner.”
“Yeah, well, how about this? That’s my sister, Sophia, over there. She works with Miss Hope, the nice lady who took care of you last night. What do you think about going to the diner and having breakfast with them?”
Beyond the width of Sam’s shoulders, Kara could see the uncertainty written in her nephew’s face. “Sam.”
Ignoring her half-formed protest, he held out his hand to the little boy. Timmy hesitated, and as reluctant as she was to let him go, the anticipation tightening Sam’s body nearly broke her heart. She could feel him bracing for a rejection, and she had to stop herself from laying a comforting hand on his broad shoulder. But what could she say that wouldn’t turn him against her?
Give him time? He doesn’t know you?
Those platitudes would only point to the time Sam missed and the son he didn’t know.
But Timmy surprised her by scrambling across the backseat and sliding his dimpled hand into Sam’s wide, callused palm. “You and Aunt Kara have to come, too,” he declared as he reached for her hand, as well.
Her gaze met Sam’s. For a brief moment, the image of Timmy caught in a tug-of-war between them flashed through her mind. She couldn’t let that happen. They couldn’t let that happen.
“That sounds great, buddy. Your Aunt Kara and I will meet you at the diner in a few minutes, okay?”
Timmy gave a sigh but rallied quickly. “Can I get waffles?”
“You bet,” Sam agreed, and Kara knew he would have promised the boy the moon.
“With strawberries?”
“Strawberries and whipped cream.”
The little boy beamed up at Sam. A sweet tooth was something they had in common, Kara thought as she remembered the piece of pie Sam had brought to her hotel room. The kindness he’d shown. “Sam...”
He turned his back on her as he led Timmy over to Sophia. Watching the two of them walk away—man and boy, father and son—Kara couldn’t help feeling she’d let something so much sweeter than chocolate silk pie slip through her fingers.
* * *
“Don’t worry.” Sam’s voice cut across Kara’s raw nerves as she watched Sophia disappear down the street with Timmy. “My family’s not going to keep him away from you.”
The verbal slap stung. So did knowing that Sam wouldn’t believe anything she said now that she’d lied to him. If she’d been up front, if she’d been honest...
Too late for that.
“Get in.”
“What?” Too startled by the demand, she was still standing outside the minivan’s open door by the time Sam circled the hood and climbed into the passenger seat. She’d assumed Sam had sent Timmy and his sister on to the diner so they could talk, but a ten second head start didn’t give them much time. “Are we going to the diner?”
“Not yet.”
“Then where?”
“I don’t care. Just drive.”
Kara wasn’t surprised when Sam rolled the window down all the way, letting in a rush of air as she drove through the quiet streets. She sensed he needed the feeling of freedom right then.
“Who’s Timmy’s mother?”
“My sister was Marti Starling.”
His breath escaped in a deep exhale. Because the name offered further proof that Timmy really was his? Because he’d just realized Marti was dead? Kara didn’t know, and Sam didn’t offer any explanations.
“How did she die?”
“In a small plane crash.” Kara’s hands tightened on the wheel, but she actually found it easier to talk with her gaze focused on the road ahead rather than looking into Sam’s eyes. She didn’t know what she’d see—sorrow, sympathy—but it was easier not to face it. “She’d been dating someone,” Kara blurted out. “I’m sorry. I feel like everything I’m saying is making this worse.”
“I don’t think you can make this worse,” he ground out. “But I haven’t seen your sister in five years. I’m sure she went out with any number of guys since then.”
“So you weren’t—”
“Weren’t what? In love?” he asked. “I don’t know what answer would make this situation better. That what we felt was love and yet she didn’t bother to tell me I’d fathered a child? Or that what we had didn’t mean anything—and yet, together we created a child?”
Kara didn’t think there was a right or wrong answer. But she did want to know the truth. Had Sam been in love with her sister?
Almost as if reading her thoughts, he said, “I cared about Marti. We clicked when we met, and I thought maybe we had...something. But I was only in San Diego for a few weeks, and when the calls and emails stopped, I thought that was it. I never imagined she’d keep something like this from me.” He gave a rough laugh as he pounded his fist against the padded door. “Guess keeping secrets is a Starling family trait, though, isn’t it, Kara?”
“That’s not fair—” The furious look he shot her backed the words i
nto her throat.
“You really want to talk about what’s not fair?”
Kara drew in a shaky breath that did little to calm her nerves. This wasn’t a conversation she could have behind the wheel of a car. Passing a sign pointing visitors to a scenic spot, she pulled off the road and into a small turnout overlooking the ocean. “If you’ll give me a chance to explain—”
“Like the chance you gave me?”
After shoving the gear shift into Park, Kara climbed from the vehicle. An early morning haze blanketed the ocean view, but the water was calm, the waves a soothing wash against the beach. Too bad the peaceful view did nothing to ease the storm of emotion raging inside her.
Or the one inside Sam, she thought, wincing as the car door slammed shut behind her.
“So, let’s hear it,” he demanded as he joined her near the guardrail at the edge of the overlook. “Explain why you didn’t tell me who you are. Who Timmy is. Explain why you played me.”
Kara gasped. Did he really think she’d used some kind of feminine wiles against him? She could only imagine how he would have laughed if he knew how pathetic and few her encounters with the opposite sex were. “That’s not what I was doing!”
“What else would you call it? You knew Timmy is my son. You knew I had no idea that I’m his father—”
“And I had no idea what kind of father you would be! I didn’t know anything about you except that you slept with my sister five years ago. And I was just supposed to hand my nephew over to a complete stranger?”
“Yeah, I’m a complete stranger. But whose fault is that? And who the hell gave you the right to decide if I’m good enough to be his father?”
“My sister did when she died and named me Timmy’s guardian!”
Her voice carried out over the water, and only then did Kara realize she was shouting and the dampness on her face wasn’t from the moisture in the air. Wiping at her cheeks, she took a deep breath. “I needed to be sure—so sure,” she stressed, “that you would be a good father.”
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