by Lily Everett
The clouds behind his eyes didn’t exactly scatter—there was a lingering darkness Andie didn’t understand. But the crinkle at the corners of his eyes and the wicked curve of his smile, the sweep of his huge, hot hands down her spine … those things, Andie understood.
“Daily kissing,” he purred, low and sexy. “I can live with that.”
Andie’s breath quickened. “You know, it’s been a week since the first time we kissed.”
With a subsonic groan, Sam tucked her against him and rolled them both back down onto the hay-strewn floor. This time he put Andie on her back and loomed over her, blocking out her view of everything that wasn’t him. She arched helplessly against him, breathless with desire as Sam lowered his head to whisper in her ear, “Hmm. Seems we’ve got a few days to catch up on, now don’t we?”
Chapter Fourteen
“Why did I agree to this?” Sam wondered aloud as a bead of sweat trickled a ticklish path between his shoulder blades. “Kissing every day, sure. A picnic with the kid, fine. Even a date. I can do that. But whatever happened to dinner and a movie?”
“There’s no movie theater on Sanctuary Island,” Andie pointed out languidly from the prow of the rowboat. “And I told you I’d take a turn at the oars when you got tired.”
Sam lifted the oars from the water and let them cross over his lap so he could rest his elbows on them. “Yeah,” he said, eyeing her long, athletic form reclined against the cushions with an appreciative eye. “You look like you’re ready to jump up from there and start rowing.”
Guilt stirred across Andie’s beautiful face. “I’m sorry. I thought this would be fun, but if you want to head back to shore we could just go to the Firefly and have lunch.”
It was the damnedest thing, but Sam would do anything to take that look off Andie’s face. “Nah, that’s all right,” he said, dipping the oars in and pushing the rowboat forward across Lantern Lake’s placid surface. “It’s just hot out here, and I’m in a mood. Ignore me.”
It was hot, the warmest day they’d seen all spring, but it wasn’t the cheerful sunshine beating down on Sam’s head and illuminating every pale freckle on Andie’s creamy skin that had him in this ugly mood. No, that was all thanks to another cryptic text from Lucas, back home. The cops had been by again, looking for Sam.
It was an unpleasant reminder that no matter how perfect the last few days had been, no matter how much he wanted to change his life—he was still caught in the tangled web of his past choices. And if he wasn’t careful, those choices would chase him all the way to Sanctuary Island.
For the thousandth time, he told himself he should quit while he was ahead, before any of the crap in his life touched Andie or Caitlin. It would be the right thing to do, and he knew it. But as he studied the concerned look on Andie’s beautiful face, Sam despaired. He couldn’t pull away from her now. He couldn’t bear to hurt her like that. Even the fact that he’d let his dark mood affect this date with Andie made Sam hate himself.
“I don’t want to ignore you,” Andie protested, sitting up and gripping the sides of the boat as it rocked. “I want to know what’s going on with you.”
“I’m just worried about Queenie,” he settled on, grimacing at his own cowardice. “She’s not progressing as well as I’d hoped.”
“I thought things were getting better, now that she and Lucky are joined at the hip.”
“Lucky” was what they’d all started calling the rescued colt once it became clear that his injuries would have been life threatening if Sam hadn’t found him in time and delivered him into Dr. Fairfax’s very capable hands. To Sam’s surprise, the wary, untamed horse had immediately taken to following Queenie around—so much so that he’d started to worry Queenie was going into heat.
She hadn’t yet, but he was keeping a careful eye on the situation. Barely more than a filly, she and the colt were a funny matched pair. They both tended to shy away from human touch; they both had the instincts of prey animals surrounded by predators. But they trusted each other. In the week since they’d brought Lucky into the stable, they’d become inseparable.
“Their connection is healthy and good for them,” Sam agreed, “but it’s not doing much to make Queenie safer around people.”
Andie frowned and trailed a hand over the side of the boat, her fingertips dancing across the water. “Caitlin won’t be happy about that. She loves that horse.”
“It’s inevitable at her age,” Sam said, pulling more easily on the oars as his shoulder muscles warmed and loosened. “She’s horse crazy in general, but lots of horse-crazy kids tend to focus on one specific animal more than any other. It’s like falling in love—irrational and insane, maybe, but when you’re in the midst of it, nothing feels better or more vital.”
Andie shot him a half smile that made his blood tingle. “Insane, huh? I take that to mean you’ve been in love before.”
Laughing, Sam shook his head. “No, actually. I’m not speaking from experience, just from a lot of observation. You?”
The smile dropped off Andie’s face. “Me what?”
Sam noted the stiffness of the words, the slamming down of a barrier behind Andie’s clear blue eyes, but he didn’t back off. “Have you ever been in love?” he asked deliberately.
“That’s complicated.” Andie looked away as if the tree-lined shore was suddenly extremely fascinating.
Sam wasn’t sure why he was edging closer and closer to the warning signs Andie was giving off, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “I don’t know. It kind of sounds like a yes or no question to me.”
“Spoken like a man who’s never been in love.” The bitter twist to her mouth couldn’t be called a smile. “It’s complicated because it turned out badly. Part of me knows it wasn’t love, but if I’m honest, what I regret the most is that I blew my whole life apart for something that wasn’t even real.”
The rowboat skimmed the surface of the lake. With one last strong push, Sam lifted the oars again and let the boat drift so he could focus on Andie. “What happened?”
She waved a hand as if it were unimportant. “Boring, predictable story. I fell for the wrong guy—he was handsome and charming and exciting, but he also turned out to be a liar and a crook. Which was a big problem, since I was with the Louisville police department.”
It was worse than Sam had guessed. Her past was repeating itself like a scratched record. Fate couldn’t have sent a worse man than Sam to Andie Shepard. “Is that why you left Kentucky?”
“I left because I found out my fiancé wasn’t an insurance adjuster—he was a highly placed member of the Dixie Mafia who’d been ordered to get close to me to exploit my position in the department.” The words were flowing fast and furious now, a waterfall Andie couldn’t stop, and Sam wondered if this was the first time she’d told the whole story to anyone.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said, painfully aware that there were no words he could say to close the raw wound in Andie’s heart. Even worse, by his very existence in her life, he was doing more to hurt than to heal her. Guilt scraped at his insides. “Please tell me you busted your ex and he’s serving time right now.”
“That’s the worst part. I never caught on. My dad was the one who figured it out—he was head of the department, and it turned out he was really the one my ex wanted to get close to. I was just his way in. It was never about me, but all I could see was what Damien wanted me to see. And when the dust finally settled, I’d lost more than a fiancé and a future I’d dreamed about and planned for—I’d lost the respect of every person I worked with. Especially my father.”
Clenching his fists around the oar handles was the only way Sam could keep from launching himself across the seat to grab Andie in a hug that would capsize the boat. “I’m no expert on how good parents are supposed to act, but it seems to me that your dad should’ve been on your side, backing you up through the worst that life had ever thrown at you.”
Andie’s eyes went bleaker than a winter sea. “You’ve obvi
ously never met my father. Owen and I were both disappointments to him even before I nearly married a felon. After? Well, let’s just say our relationship has improved since we stopped speaking.”
Casting around for some way to meet Andie’s incredible openness and honesty, Sam took a deep breath and deliberately cracked himself open. “I guess that’s one good thing about having no parents—no parental expectations to live up to.”
Andie sat up straight. “Sam.” Her voice was soft and yielding, something Sam could fall into if he let himself. “I didn’t know—I’m sorry.”
“Hey, everyone’s got it bad, somehow, some way.” He squinted at a rough spot on the starboard oar, worrying a splinter up with his thumb. “The way I grew up … it wasn’t so bad. Taught me independence, self-reliance.”
“It taught you that you were completely alone in the world,” Andie realized. “That no one’s there for you. But someone should have been. How old were you when…”
“When the state finally figured out the bruises and welts all over me weren’t from a normal boy’s rambunctiousness? About thirteen.” Sam shrugged. “I hardly remember my parents—my memory of my dad is like something out of a nightmare, huge and hulking, unpredictable and angry. Always angry. I don’t know what happens in a life to make a man angry like that, all the time, but I know I was lucky to get away from him when I did. If my ninth-grade teacher hadn’t red-flagged me, I’d probably be dead now.”
Andie sucked in air, distress lining her beautiful face. “Sam, my God. What happened to you?”
“What happens to any kid who’s too old to be adopted by a couple looking for a cute baby?” Sam shrugged, feeling the pull of sore muscles along his shoulders. He made a conscious effort to not tense up. “I went into the system. Even though there actually was a couple that wanted to take me.”
Her eyes widened. “What? Who?”
This was the only bright spot in his sob story, and even this was bittersweet at best. Still, Sam smiled thinking of Ms. Endicott with her no-nonsense bun and kind eyes. “My teacher. The one who made the call to child protective services. Amelia Endicott. She and her partner fostered me for six months while they built a case to take away my parents’ custody permanently.”
“Her partner?”
“Sherry Rayborn, a gym teacher at the high school,” Sam said, his vision suddenly filled with Sherry’s big, booming laugh and short, cropped black hair.
“A lesbian couple,” Andie said softly. “They were the ones who wanted to adopt you?”
“The only ones,” Sam agreed, forcing his mouth into an ironic smile. “But it was a small town, twenty years ago. The authorities, in all their wisdom, decided I’d be better off shuffling from house to house with foster families who took in eight, nine kids at a time for the money they brought in, instead of living in a stable home with two women who actually gave a damn about me.”
Andie’s eyes slid shut as his harsh words resonated between them. “No wonder you don’t seem to have much faith in laws or rules. The authorities that should have protected you failed you when you needed them most.”
Sam gripped the oars until the rough wood bit into his palms. “I don’t have faith in the system because the system is broken. It takes care of the rich while ignoring the people who most need help, and it rejects anyone who doesn’t fit the mold of the so-called normal. And yeah, the system screwed me over in a bad way when I was a kid, but that’s not the only reason I have to hate it.”
“I get that,” Andie assured him, and Sam had to glance away from the earnestness in her eyes. “But don’t you see that all of us, you, me, Caitlin, everyone—we’re the sum of our experiences. The things we believe, the choices we make, they come from somewhere. I’m honest enough to admit I chose my path, devoting myself to serving and protecting in law enforcement, because it was what my father expected. But I grew to love it for its own sake, because I see over and over the difference I can make in the lives of the people who elected me.”
“It must be nice to have that faith.”
“But you have it too!” The boat rocked heavily as Andie knelt up in the bow, gripping the sides. “I mean, your whole life is about making a difference and protecting those who can’t protect themselves. We’re more alike than you want to admit.”
“I’m no hero,” Sam grated out, every part of him straining forward as if he could shove the words into Andie’s head and make her believe. “Remember that. You think we’ve got something in common, but I’m nothing like you.”
Heedless of the way the small rowboat swayed and threatened to tip them into the lake, Andie crawled over the forward bench seat to get her hands onto Sam’s granite-tense shoulders.
“I don’t believe that,” she said fiercely. “I may not know everything about you, Sam, but I know the core of you. Actions speak louder than words, and the things I’ve seen you do, the way you are with Caitlin and the horses—I know what kind of man you are.”
The words hammered at Sam’s guilty heart, cracking it right down the middle. “You don’t, Andie.”
“Yes, I do,” she hummed, ghosting kisses across his cheekbones and down the slope of his nose. She held him so lightly, the caress of her fingers like the flutter of a butterfly wing, but Sam couldn’t move a muscle to save his life.
Andie drew back to stare tenderly into his eyes, letting him see far down into the depths of her beautifully honest, transparent soul. “The kind of man you are, Sam Brennan, is the kind of man I could fall in love with.”
And instead of doing the right thing, pulling away and telling Andie exactly why she was wrong, Sam proved her wrong. He kissed her.
Chapter Fifteen
“Somebody had a good day off,” Ivy commented archly, flipping her coal-black Bettie Page waves off her shoulders with a petulant pout. “Good, that makes one of us.”
Andie wanted to ask how Ivy could tell, but she was a little afraid of the answer. Realizing she’d lifted a self-conscious hand to her tidy French braid, Andie dropped it and cleared her throat. “Yes, well. The weather is warming up, it was nice to spend some time outside.”
“Oooh, Sheriff!” Mischief flashed behind the black-framed cat-eye glasses Ivy wore some days, purely for fashion purposes. “Isn’t there a law against public indecency?”
Frowning repressively, Andie changed the subject. “Any calls for me?”
“Wyatt Hawkins, from the Gazette. He’s got some questions.”
Apprehension prickled a cool chill over Andie’s scalp. “I’ll call him from my office. Anything else?”
Ivy tilted her chin down to stare meaningfully over the tops of her glasses. “Not unless you’re willing to let me live vicariously with some down and dirty details about your date with Sam Brennan.”
All it took was one mention of Sam to restore Andie’s good mood. That afternoon on the lake had changed everything between them. Sam had let her see beneath his gruff, tough-guy shell to the bruised heart and lonely solitude at the core of him—and she’d told him her worst secret, but he hadn’t looked at her like she was an idiot or should have known better. He’d been angry at her father for not supporting her.
Sam’s anger on her behalf was like being taken by shoulders and shaken awake. Andie could look back at that time in her life now and see that while she’d certainly made mistakes and trusted where she shouldn’t—her crimes hadn’t been so terrible that she deserved to lose everything. She hadn’t deserved being abandoned by her father.
On the other hand, Andie couldn’t regret the way things had played out. If her father were a different man, if he’d been more understanding and loving, Andie would never have picked up and moved to Sanctuary Island.
She’d never have met Sam. At the moment, that seemed like a worse fate.
“Oh fine,” Ivy grumped. “If you’re not dishing the dirt, you might as well head out to the Firefly. Wyatt said he’d meet you there.”
“Perfect! I’m supposed to have lunch with Sam,” Andie sai
d without thinking.
Ivy brightened instantly. “Oooh, a nooner! That’s promising.”
“If by ‘nooner,’ you mean splitting my usual order of cheese fries with another human being so I don’t start the afternoon shift feeling like a blimp, then yes.” Amused despite herself, Andie flicked her fingers good-bye at Ivy’s stuck-out tongue, and headed out.
At this hour, before the lunch rush, the Firefly Café was almost empty. Other than Lonz, the owner and head chef, and an older waitress Andie didn’t recognize, the only person Andie saw when she stepped into the restaurant was slouched into the back corner booth, nursing a cup of coffee and scowling at the waitress’s attempts to get him to order anything else.
“I’m here for a meeting,” Wyatt groused, shoving ink-stained fingers through his disheveled brown hair. “Not to clog my arteries with animal byproducts and spike my blood sugar with high fructose corn syrup.”
“I see,” the waitress retorted, propping one hand on her hip above the flare of her sea-foam green uniform skirt. “So I’ll just keep the free coffee refills coming, and you can fill your veins with caffeine—which is so all natural and healthy, it’s basically medicinal. Is that right?”
Andie felt her eyebrows shoot up as she checked the woman’s nametag. Florene. Andie thought Florene might last—after the previous waitress left to get married, the Firefly had become a revolving door of women looking for work but unable to deal with the idiosyncratic demands of Sanctuary Island’s quirkier residents and Alonzo’s tendency to conduct every conversation at top volume. Florene was older than most of Lonz’s applicants—in fact, as Andie studied the woman, she had to revise her original estimate of middle-age up by a decade or two.
“That is right,” Wyatt insisted, sitting up straight and emphatically holding out his mug. “Coffee is the nectar of the gods, and besides that, studies show—”