State of Shock

by Allison B Hanson

  “It was a very good date.”

  “Who is he? When will I get to meet him?” Roz pushed and the smile fell right off Riley’s face.

  “You’re not going to meet him. It was just a one-night kind of thing.”

  The look of disapproval that Riley expected took over Roslyn’s face. “You’re a mother. Mother’s aren’t supposed to be having one-night kinds of things. You need to find a—”

  “Father for my son, yes, I know.” Today was not one of those keep-quiet kind of days. “Because the world is overpopulated with men who love responsibility so much they look for opportunities where they can take care of some other guy’s child. Don’t worry, I’ve sent off for the Super Daddy catalog, so I’ll be picking one soon. He should be arriving in time for Christmas.”

  “Do you say stuff like that on your dates? Maybe that’s why you can’t find a suitable guy.”

  Riley wanted to argue, but the truth was she did say things like that on dates. Although Sam had laughed at most of her smart ass comments. She laughed at her sister and kissed her niece as the smile of contentment eased back into place. No one was going to steal this moment from her. She’d had a great time, and now had enough fodder for months’ worth of fantasies.

  Life was good.

  * * *

  It had been a few weeks, but Sam still found himself thinking about Riley every once in a while. The way she laughed, the way she didn’t play games . . . the way she’d lied. Except she hadn’t really lied, she just chose to keep some part of her life to herself. Could he begrudge her that? He’d done the same thing.

  He knew if he told a woman about waking up with night terrors, sweaty and shaking, or the reason his girlfriend left, he would most likely be turned down time and time again. So he kept that hidden. And luckily he hadn’t had an issue the night he stayed with Riley. Sleeping next to her allowed him to sleep more soundly than he had in years. It could have also been the fact that he was worn out from all the sex.

  “What’s going on with you?” Audrey asked as he stood by the coffee pot in the off ice. Though she was Dalton’s older sister, she still bossed Sam around as if she were his own.

  “Nothing.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re thinking about something.”

  “So?” He held out his hands, waiting for the insult that would no doubt be coming.

  “So, you never think.” There it was.

  “Thanks.”

  She laughed and didn’t press for more. But he understood what she was getting at. He certainly didn’t normally think about women this long after he’d been with them. But for some reason he couldn’t shake the images of Riley.

  “Do women ever act like they’re not interested in more when they really are?” he asked her.

  “Are you kidding me?” she said with a laugh. “You guys are never happy. You don’t want women to be clingy, but then the minute they won’t give you the time of day you figure out you don’t want that either. You always want what you can’t have.”

  He thought over her words and was shocked at her theory. “Audrey, you are brilliant! Of course! That’s exactly what my problem is.” He gave her a big lip smack on the cheek and left for the warehouse, happy to have his mystery solved.

  The allure he felt toward Riley was simply because he knew he couldn’t have her. She had a kid which made her off-limits to him. For some reason in his messed up head, that made him want her even more.

  Now that he knew the cause, he could finally get over it and move on.

  At least he hoped so.

  Chapter 4

  Sam had a date on Saturday after he got back from a business trip in Cleveland. It was with a little flight attendant he’d flirted with on the plane. She was giggly and sweet and had high hopes he wasn’t going to live up to. He’d asked her out in an effort to move on and stop thinking about Riley. It was better if he didn’t have time to think.

  By the end of dinner he was thinking over how he wanted to handle the rest of the night. Yes, he wanted the distraction. No, he didn’t want to be with this girl who wasn’t Riley.

  Christ, what was happening to him?

  “So do you want to come in?” she asked when they arrived at her door. She’d had a drink and was even more giggly now as she trailed her perfectly polished fingernail down his chin. Riley didn’t have long nails and they weren’t polished. Probably because she was a single mother working two jobs and she didn’t have time for such frivolous things as painting her nails.

  And why in the hell was he thinking about this girl’s fingernails?

  “Yeah. I want to come in.” He stepped past her into the room. He needed to get Riley out of his head once and for all, and maybe this girl would make that happen. But when she stepped closer and leaned up to kiss him, the sense of wrongness that hit him nearly knocked him over.

  He tried to forge on. He pretended to check the lock to gain a moment. He hadn’t even kissed her yet, and he already wanted to run from the room. When she moved her hand from his chest down to his waist he had to step away again.

  It was becoming very obvious this wasn’t going to work.

  “I’m sorry. I really am, but I have to go,” he finally said in defeat. Even if he could get his head in the game, a very important member of the team was apparently on strike.

  “Are you married?” She frowned but didn’t stop moving her hand lower. He seized her wrist, stopping her descent and deliberated on the answer.

  “Yes,” he answered because it was the easiest thing to say. He couldn’t explain the actual problem, because he didn’t know what it was himself. Saying he was married would get his face slapped and kicked out of her room. He’d accept that gladly.

  “And you’re having second thoughts about this?” She started to unbutton her own shirt. “I can help with that.” What? Couldn’t anything go right?

  “No. No, you can’t. I need to go. This is wrong. I’m sorry.” He backed away and fumbled with the stupid locks he’d just checked before he dashed out into the hall. It was ridiculous to be running from a flight attendant as if she was chasing him down with an AK-47, but he felt like he was fleeing for his life. By the time he got back to his truck he was sweating and panting.

  What he needed was some time alone at the lake. Surely that would fix everything.

  * * *

  “Can I have the cabin this weekend?” Sam asked Ian from the airport in Dallas the following week. He was on his way home and while he knew going on a date was out, he also didn’t want to be alone in his apartment.

  “No. Sorry. Someone’s using it this weekend.”

  “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?” Ian asked.

  While Ian would understand, having gone through his own kind of hell a few years ago, Sam still wasn’t sure what exactly was wrong. And he wasn’t ready to talk about it. “I just wanted some time by the lake. Fishing therapy.”

  “If you just want to fish you could probably do that. I don’t think they fish. You just can’t stay at the cabin.”

  “I could put up a tent at the lake, and I’d stay out of their way,” Sam promised.

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “Thanks, man. I owe you big time.”

  “No problem.”

  Sam felt relieved to have a plan as the plane touched down. He wasn’t going to spend the weekend trying to hook up with someone he wasn’t interested in. He could sit by the lake with a pole in his hand and think about fish.

  Yes. Fish.

  * * *

  “Life is hard,” Riley said when she sat down at the bar. Luca was with Lexi’s kids on a playdate. Lexi and Nichole gave her a sad smile.

  “Oh, little sister, tell us,” Roslyn said with a pout.

  “Remember the guy I went out with the other week?”

  “The guy that made you so smiley?”

  “Yeah. We had a great night. I only wanted it to be for the night. I don’t want Luca involved with guys who could end up leaving and hurting him. B
ut now, I’m still thinking about him. How pathetic is that?”

  She thought the fantasies would be a good thing, but they started morphing from sexual scenes into cuddling together on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn, or Sam with Luca on his shoulders. Her perfectly safe daydreams had become extremely unhealthy.

  “How good was he in bed?” Nichole asked.

  “Pretty damn good.”

  “So maybe you’re shell-shocked, and it’s not a matter of falling for him,” Lexi suggested.

  “I guess so. It doesn’t seem like it’s my body that’s causing the problem, though. It’s definitely my heart.”

  “Crap,” Nichole said.

  “Yeah. I know. He’s completely off limits.” Riley sighed and rubbed her temples.

  “You need to meet a nice guy who wants kids.”

  “Yes, Roz. I know. The issue is that instead of putting in the store at the mall that carries nice guys, they put in another Target.”

  “I love Target,” Lexi said.

  “Let me buy you a drink,” Roz said. “That will make it better.”

  Riley felt even worse when her great horde of friends weren’t able to offer better advice than drinking away her problems. Was her future this dismal? “Lex, you said I could use the cabin this weekend, right? Is that still okay?”

  “Oh, sure! I almost forgot.” She searched around in her purse and pulled out a set of keys. “Here you go. Have a great time.”

  “Thanks. I think Luca and I just need to get away for a little while. Just us and nature. Maybe we can work on the potty training.”

  “Sounds like a perfect vacation,” Roz joked.

  * * *

  After the eighth trip to the car, Riley was pretty certain everything she and Luca owned was now inside the cabin. It was just a weekend, but with a toddler it meant a lot of “necessities.”

  “Luc, look what I brought,” she said with more excitement than a tiny potty deserved. “It’s your cool big boy potty. Do you want to try it out this weekend?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You could at least pretend to think about it,” she muttered as she dropped the bag of towels by the door.

  After Luca was set up on the rug with a stack of coloring books and crayons she went to the kitchen to unload the cooler.

  She tucked Luca’s juice boxes in beside the bottles of wine already in the door of the refrigerator.

  How nice it would be to kick back with a glass of wine on the deck. Except she needed to be responsible. What if Luca hurt himself and she needed to drive him to the hospital? She was it. Everything fell on her shoulders. With a sigh she moved on to lunch meat and cheese.

  Ten seconds later Luca was standing in the kitchen saying, “Fish.”

  “Buddy, there’s no television here. No movies.”

  Luca blinked at her as if he’d never heard of such a thing. He hadn’t.

  “Look, we’re poor which means this is the extent of our vacation. At least we’re not at home with the air conditioner that only works half the time.” More blinking.

  “Fish?”

  They’d been there all of twenty minutes and he was already bored.

  “Why don’t you go draw me a picture of a fish, and then when I’m done unpacking, we can take a walk out to the lake and maybe we’ll see a real fish?” He was gone before she had the entire sentence out.

  She took a breath letting out the tension, until she heard the sound of tiny sneakers on hard wood.

  He held up a piece of paper with an orange blob on it.

  “Fish,” he said again, and Riley wondered why she thought this was going to be a good idea.

  After checking the deck twice to make sure Luca couldn’t squeeze through the railing and fall to his death, she let him play out there while she picked up one hundred and fifty-two crayons up off the rug.

  “Why does a two-year-old need six shades of gray?” she cursed her sister for buying them. She left the door open to the deck since a cool breeze was blowing in off the mountain. Also so she could hear Luca if a large raptor swooped down to take him off the deck.

  She laughed at that thought. Surely he was heavy enough now that she could finally put that fear to rest. There were so many other fears to cause worry in a mother’s mind.

  “Luca, please don’t put your head through the railing. If it gets stuck, we can’t go to the lake.”

  Luca laughed and then said the one word she never expected him to say.

  * * *

  “S-S-Sam,” said a little voice from the deck above his head. Sam looked up into big brown puppy-dog eyes shaded by a fringe of white blond hair. Luca?

  “Do you see a snake, Luca?”

  He heard Riley’s voice coming closer. For a second he didn’t know whether to climb up the deck to her or hide behind a tree. Unable to decide he just stood there looking like a stalker with a fishing pole.

  “Sam?” she said in surprise. Of course she was surprised. He surely was.

  “Yeah. What are you guys doing here?” he asked, though it was obvious they were there first so it was he that looked like the crazy person.

  “The owners let me have the cabin for the weekend.”

  “You know Ian?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Lexi is one of my best friends. She works with my sister.”

  “Huh.” He considered that for a moment. Lexi had told him to look up her friend at the jewelry store. He hadn’t realized they were that close. He wondered why Ian and Lex had never fixed them up.

  “Wait, are you the Sam that works with Dalton?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” He couldn’t tell a lot from the tone of that one word, but it didn’t sound promising. “I went out with Dalton once.”

  So Ian had fixed her up with Dalton? Thanks a lot, Ian, he thought to himself.

  “I see.” He wasn’t sure why he felt a twinge of jealousy. Obviously they hadn’t hit it off, or Dalton would be standing on the deck next to her. Plus she’d said it had been years since she had sex, so . . .

  “It wasn’t that kind of date,” she stated, and he felt better. “Other than the occasional girl’s night, I don’t get out with the group very often so we must have missed each other,” she explained.

  “Fish. Walter,” Luca said. “Fish.” He pointed down at Sam.

  “Yep. I’m going fishing,” Sam told him.

  With that Luca was running toward the steps that led down to the yard.

  “I come too,” he repeated three times as he got to the first step and was swept into the air by his cautious mother. She propped him expertly on her hip and came down the stairs, her flip-flops making loud smacking sounds on the wood as she descended.

  As soon as she was down, Luca wiggled and squirmed out of her arms to the ground so he could run over to Sam.

  “Please,” he said, unleashing the full force of his brown eyes, and long lashes. Damn. Sam thought his dimples were a gift, but this kid had him beat with the lashes.

  “Do you want to come out?” Sam asked Riley, knowing this was her decision, not his. He tried not to hope, but his heart was pounding in a good way for a change. This was a disaster waiting to happen, but yet he couldn’t stop.

  “I wouldn’t want him to mess up your peace and quiet.”

  “I have tons of peace and quiet. Plus, fishing is kind of boring until something happens.”

  “You don’t mind?” Riley asked.

  Sam shook his head.

  “Do you know how to fish?” he asked Luca.

  Luca nodded while Riley shook her head.

  “Walter,” Luca said.

  “Who’s Walter?”

  “Willy the Whale. It’s a cartoon I hope you never have to see. Willy is actually friends with a fisherman named Walter who is really a walrus dressed in clothes. I don’t get it. Why would the walrus be able to walk around in clothes, but the whale is still stuck in the ocean? And why would a whale be friends with a fisherman? The nets? Harpoons? Hello?” She sh
ook her head as she walked back up the steps. “Stay there Luca. I’m going to get a blanket.”

  She got more than a blanket. She had a small cooler bag with her when she came down a few minutes later. While they were waiting, Luca stared excitedly at the fishing rod while Sam waited for him to do something like run away or ooze some kind of fluid.

  He hadn’t been around when McKenna was this small. Give him an eleven-year-old and Sam was fine. He knew how to deal with a smart mouth and an eye roll. He didn’t know how to handle a toddler. They didn’t seem to know how to handle themselves yet, so that made them an unknown.

  “I brought snacks,” Riley said as she picked up Luca. With the cooler over the opposite shoulder and the blanket, she looked like she would fall over.

  “Here, let me take something.” When Sam held his hands out, he was expecting to get the cooler, but instead Luca raised his arms and practically leaped into his open arms.

  The kid was like a monkey. He quickly clamped down around Sam’s neck and waist like he would never come off. He was surprisingly light, and Sam didn’t need to do much to keep him in place as he walked.

  “I can catch a big fish,” Luca said, surprising Sam by stringing together an entire sentence.

  “They have a fishing game at school. It has plastic fish with magnets in their noses,” Riley told him.

  “Blue fish.”

  “The blue fish is the biggest one,” Riley interpreted for her son. Sam didn’t think she even realized she was doing it. It seemed like second nature.

  When they got to the lake, the sun was glinting off the surface of the water. The green trees looked like a postcard against the flawless blue sky. It was a beautiful sight and the perfect place for peace and quiet. But he found he didn’t want peace and quiet.

  He liked the excitement of the little boy holding on to him as he pointed to the bird in the lake and shouted, “Duck! Duck. Duck.” Luca squirmed to get down and took off to go take a closer look.

  “Shit,” Riley said, setting down the cooler so she could run after him. “Luca! Stop!”

  It only took a second for instincts to kick in and Sam was chasing after the boy. Sam’s long strides caught up to him right before he got to the bank where he could have slid into the water.