“It was? Then why are you so down? You said the cake was fine. Was it my scrambled eggs? Or the fruit salad?”
“Sam.” Kevin held both hands up. “Everything was fine. The food was great, the skating was fun. The whole darn day was so special that I’ll never forget it.”
Then what are you brooding about? But the words wouldn’t come out and she just sat there, her stomach jumping while the outside of her did nothing.
“And I’ll never forget you.”
He would never forget her! Why should he? Then she looked at Kevin—really looked at him. She saw the slump of his shoulders, the sadness in his eyes. And she understood.
But not really. And that lit a fire under her fears and turned them into anger.
“What are you talking about?” she cried. “What is all this?”
“Sam, don’t make it harder than it already is.”
She was on her feet, glaring at him. “This is just all some stupid birthday thing, isn’t it?” she demanded. “Now that you’ve crossed that great threshold of forty years, you’ve become a martyr.”
“Maybe I’ve just taken a good look at things.”
“Come off it, Kevin,” she snapped. “You’ve been dragging around for the last week. You’ve been looking for a reason to be more depressed.”
“I have not. I gave it my best shot, but it’s just not working out.”
That sent an icy sliver right into her heart. “What do you mean, it’s not working out?”
“Exactly what I said.” He took a deep breath and leaned forward slightly. “Look, Sam. We’ve both had a good time but it was never meant to be.”
“Why not?” she demanded. She had to talk him out of this insanity. He was just feeling glum about his birthday; she knew it. “What went wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, clearly exasperated. “It’s just that we’re too different. It was a short-time thing. A summer romance.”
“We had fun.” How could he forget all the laughing? The talking? The loving?
“Had,” he repeated. “Past tense.”
She just shook her head. “I should have seen this coming. I knew you were upset over your birthday, but I didn’t realize how much.”
“You make it sound like a case of the flu. Something that could have been avoided if I’d just had my shots. It’s not that way at all.”
She had to make him slow down. “Now is not the time to start making decisions,” she said.
“Now is the perfect time.
“Kevin, in a week or two—”
“I’ll feel the same.” He got to his feet and suddenly she saw something beyond his words, beyond her fear. She saw a flatness in his eyes, no feeling at all. “It’s over.”
“This is crazy,” she said, grasping at whatever straws she could find. “Age doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“I’m not giving up on us.”
Fear was strangling her heart, though. She had found love and she was going to lose it. Where were those stupid spirits who were supposed to come help her fight? It was probably their bowling night so they weren’t paying attention.
“There isn’t an ‘us’ anymore,” he said, his voice quiet. Resigned.
“This isn’t the end. I’m going to find a way to make you see how silly all this is.”
“Give it up, Sam,” he told her. “Unless you can find a way to make me ten years younger or you ten years older, it’s over.”
She wanted to stamp her feet and tell him he was being idiotic. She wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all and cry at the fear that she would never be able to get him to see it that way. She wanted to go over there and shake some sense into him. Or kiss some sense into him.
But the distance was greater than just the few feet that separated them. That look in his eyes put them miles and miles apart. She needed a map if she was going to find her way back into his heart. She needed to think this out.
“I guess I’d better be going,” she said. “See you around.”
She stomped to the door. A million different voices were shouting inside her, each with their own different plan. Kevin took a step after her, but she didn’t slow a bit.
“I’ll never forget you, Sam,” he said.
“You’re not going to get the chance,” she informed him before she let the screen door close behind her with a bang.
Even as it did, it let loose a demon of fear in her. What if she couldn’t find a way to convince him?
Chapter Thirteen
Sam spread the calendar out next to the reservation book and began to compare the two. She had too much free time, and needed to fill it, even if it was just on paper.
“You staying in on your day off?” Her dad was in the office doorway, a frown of concern on his face.
She chose not to look at him for too long, having found she tended to get a bit weepy at the slightest hint of sympathy. She had called Kevin twice in the last few days, and each time it was exactly the same—he said was it was over. He never listened to her arguments. He was like a broken record: It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.
Sam took a deep breath before smiling over in her father’s direction. “I was just checking the schedule for next weekend,” she said briskly. “I thought I’d switch days off with Amy so I can be here all day Saturday.”
“Hattie’ll be here,” her dad said. He came farther into the room and sat on the edge of the worktable.
Sam bit back a sigh. She had hoped this would be a short visit. She could only manage brief spurts of cheeriness. “I thought she was just working part-time.”
He shrugged. “Cassie and Jack are back from their honeymoon and she wants to give them some space.”
“I see.” She stared down at the reservation book as if it held some secret formula for cracking Kevin’s defenses. The words might as well have been written in some ancient rune, though, for she couldn’t make sense of them. But her heart felt just as terrified.
“Well, maybe I should take a look at the attic, then. You know, we were talking about changing it into a three-room suite.”
“Where’s your banker friend?”
She glanced at him only briefly before letting her eyes focus on the rain running down the window. The world outside was all blurry and distant, unable to touch her.
“Oh, at the bank, I imagine,” she said and went back to the reservation book. “We’ve both been kind of busy lately.”
“I see.”
But her father didn’t budge. Maybe her attitude hadn’t been quite as carefree as she’d thought it was. She picked up a pencil, but then tossed it across the desk in disgust.
“He’s decided he’s too old for me,” she said. “He broke it off.”
“I take it you don’t agree with him.”
“No.” Her voice sounded defensive, even to her, as if she was daring her father to take Kevin’s side. “I think we fit very well together.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know.” Sam sighed. “He’s being a stubborn idiot. He won’t listen to reason.”
Her father sat for a long moment, letting the silence build until Sam thought she wouldn’t be able to breathe. It was four days since Kevin had told her it was over. Four eon-long days for her to try to figure out a plan to refute his arguments. But all she did was relive every single thing he’d ever said to her. Every single look. Every single kiss. And begin to wonder if there was a way out of this maze he’d led them into.
“Why don’t you take a few days off and get away?” her father finally said. “You’ve got friends all over. Go visit some. Things might seem clearer from a distance.”
She glared at him. “You think he’s too old for me, too.”
He just shook his head. “I think love’s a rare gift and when the gods give it to you, you should run with it before they change their minds and take it back.”
“Kevin thinks he’s being noble.”
“A man ca
n dig his heels in mighty deep when he think he’s being noble,” her father replied. “All the more reason for you to get away. Give all that ‘nobility’ time to get tiresome.”
“I can’t leave,” she protested. “We’ve just opened the inn.”
“You can and you should,” he said, then reached over and took her hand. “Your heart’s not in this business, honey. You’ve given it your time and your head, but your heart’s not in it and never has been.”
“Dad, that’s not—”
“It is true,” he said. “And I love you to pieces for helping me get it started. But you’re too young to be cooped up here. Hattie and I get along just fine. It suits us to be tied down to the place.”
“I like working here.”
“You like any place where you can make people happy, but right now you’re hurting and you need to take care of that.” He paused, frowning. “What was that phrase Fiona said your other dad used to say? ‘Heal the heart.’ That’s what you’ve got to do. Heal your heart. Stop it from hurting like it is right now and maybe you can find an answer to Kevin’s argument.”
Sam just stared. “My other father had a medical problem. He meant he had to go to the hospital.”
“Did he?” her father said with a slight smile as he got to his feet. “I don’t know. Doctors fix stuff. Healing comes from rest and time and mostly love.” He patted her shoulder. “You think about getting away. It’d do you a world of good.”
She watched her father leave, then slowly closed the reservation book and wandered into the living room. Toby was lying in the window seat, his back to the pouring rain. She sat down by him, stroking him gently as she watched the rivers of water wend their way down the glass.
“It’s not me that needs to be healed,” she told Toby softly. “It’s that hardheaded fool over at the bank. Sometime between now and the next time he drops by to check our accounts, I have to figure out how to convince him that age doesn’t mean a thing.”
A knock sounded at the outside door and Sam got a sudden vision of a deliveryman out there, loaded down with a big box of answers. She gave Toby a last pat and got to her feet. There was no such thing as an answer man, of course, but the idea was nice. She would like it if there was someplace she could go with her woes, and be presented with a three-part plan of how to bring an obstinate fool to his senses.
She pulled open the door. A young man in a business suit stood there, briefcase in hand and a bright smile on his face.
“Samantha Scott?” he asked, his voice trying to come out businesslike but sounding more eager than anything. “I’m Gary McClain. From Michiana Savings and Loan.”
Sam just frowned at him. “Yes?”
He seemed only slightly daunted by her cool welcome. “I just wanted to drop by and meet you. I’ve been assigned to go over your accounts with you occasionally. Give you advice. Maybe suggest some sources you could go to for help.”
Her frown grew deeper. “I don’t understand. I thought Mr. Delaney was doing that.”
“Oh, no,” Gary said, his tone suddenly serious and his voice hushed. “Mr. Delaney’s a vice president. He’s far too busy to do this type of thing.”
Too busy, suddenly, or too chicken? “I see,” Sam said carefully, a slow anger festering deep in her soul. He wasn’t coming over again. He was avoiding her completely.
But Gary wasn’t too good at reading minds. “He’s a very important man at the bank,” he went on. “It’s up to us younger guys to handle this sort of thing.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed and she took a good long look at Gary McClain. Younger guy. He was certainly that. Probably in his late twenties, although he looked even younger. A suspicion fed her anger, stoking it until it was ready to explode. He was no better than her brothers!
“And did he assign you personally to this account?” she asked, hoping the question sounded casual.
“Yes, he did,” Gary admitted with a smile. “He told me that you were a special customer and that I should drop by often to offer my help.”
“How kind of him,” Sam snapped.
Gary frowned. Apparently her tone was finally penetrating his thick veneer of cheeriness. “Is there a problem?” he asked. “Is this a bad time to come?”
“Not at all,” Sam said, holding the door open for him. “Let me get my father for you. I was just on my way out.”
Kevin signed the document and reluctantly put it on top of the pile. Reluctantly, because it was last chore he had to do. He pushed himself slowly back from his desk and took a deep breath.
It was no big deal. There were lots of things he could to do to fill his time. Learn that new accounting program. Catch up on his reading. Write that article for Today’s Banking that he’d been mulling over for a few months.
He could avoid thinking of Sam. He had done all right for the past several days. Sure, he hadn’t been totally successful. And he hadn’t been successful at all, once he went home. But it would get better. It had to. He was right in breaking off with her.
There was a knock at the door and Cindy stepped in. “Miss Scott would like to see you,” she said. “I told her you were busy but she was most insistent.”
Kevin frowned. “Gary’s handling her account now,” he said. “Why don’t you tell her—”
Sam burst into the room. “Good old Gary’s not here,” she retorted. “He’s at the inn, going over the books.”
Kevin tried to keep his heart from leaping at the sight of her. She looked so wonderful, even with angry fire shooting from her eyes. It was all he could do to keep from rushing over to pull her into his arms. But he was strong.
“Sam,” he said evenly and nodded for Cindy to go. “What can I do for you?”
“Stop being a jerk.”
He winced slightly at her words, and then again when he realized that Cindy wasn’t quite out the door yet. He stood, waiting in silence until he heard the click of the latch; then he waved Sam into a chair.
“Sam, please,” he said softly when she just stayed there glaring at him. It hurt to see her so upset. And only made him more convinced that he had been right to break it off.
She finally gave him a dark look but stomped across the room to take a chair. He sank into his.
“Gary’s really a fine businessman,” he said. “I’m sure that he’ll be able to offer you lots of very good advice.”
“And I’m sure it was just a coincidence that he’s so young,” she snapped.
“Surely, you wouldn’t hold that against him,” Kevin said.
“And I bet he’s unmarried, too,” she went on.
“Most of our young executives are,” he noted.
“What a surprise.”
He leaned forward, remembering, against his will, the first time she’d been here. There had been such a glow about her, such a warmth in her eyes that it had drawn him. He had been unable to resist moving closer to her.
She looked far different today. The glow was from anger. The warmth in her eyes was from hurt. But he was drawn just as strongly. Maybe more so. He ached to take her in his arms, to kiss away that anger and soothe away that hurt. More than anything, he wanted to feel that wondrous rush of fire that would sweep over him at her slightest touch; that rush that suddenly made him feel alive again.
“I know what you’re doing,” she told him.
“Oh?”
“You figure if you push some young guy at me, I’ll change my mind about you.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.” The idea of her with another man actually hurt, like a knife being slowly twisted in his belly. “I just thought it would be easier for us both if I wasn’t coming over to see you.”
“It would be easier for us both if you’d just forget about all this age nonsense.”
He looked away from her, unable to keep his mind in order when her lips tempted him; when his eyes just wanted to dance over the soft curves of her slacks. He took a deep breath.
“This really isn’t accomplishing anything,” he told her
slowly. “My mind is made up. I’m not going to change it.”
“My mind is made up, too,” she said. She was on her feet and coming around to the side of his desk; coming into his line of vision once more. “And I’m not going to change it.”
She was too close to him; his will wasn’t that strong. He leaned back in his chair, but she was still too close. He just had be tough a little longer, he told himself. Just a few more minutes.
“Sam, I’m sorry that you’re hurting,” he said. “But you’ll meet someone else—”
“Don’t give me that nonsense about someone else,” she retorted. “You care about me and I care about you. We don’t need someone else.”
He frowned at her and wondered how good he was at bluffing. “I’m fond of you, certainly,” he said. “As I’m fond of a lot of people, but—”
“We shared more than a fondness for one another,” she insisted.
“It was just for fun,” he countered. “Didn’t we say that a number of times?”
“It changed. We changed.”
He just shook his head slowly. For her sake, he had to make her believe it was over. She had her whole life ahead of her. He had to let her start living it again. “I didn’t.”
She stepped back, then. Her eyes were flashing with emotion, but it still looked more like anger than pain. “You’ll admit the truth one of these days,” she said. “You’ll have no choice.”
“I won’t?”
“No.” Her eyes softened, and her voice held a touch of laughter. “You see, I have Romeo and Juliet on my side,” she said. “You know, the swans.”
He felt a chill race down his spine, remembering her brothers’ words at Cassie’s wedding. Something about when Sam told him the story, he would be a goner. But that was crazy. A story was a story.
“What are the swans going to do?” he asked, trying to sound amused. “Beat me into loving you with their wings?”
“Laugh all you want, but years ago Fiona, Cassie and I saved Juliet’s life and we were promised that the spirits would come fight for our love in return.”
His heart worried that he would have no chance, but he was determined not to show it. “What kind of spirits?” he asked.
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