by Jeanne Allan
“Money troubles? Paint, even Emilie Pink, is expensive.”
“Hannah bought the paint in exchange for me repapering her bedroom. I don’t have money troubles. People buy more than they need to be happy anyway.” Putting down the roller, Addy started to pick up the ladder.
Sam put his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, firmly anchoring it. “Did the letter you received make you cry?”
Addy froze. “What letter?”
“The one I evidently grabbed off the table with my folders the other night. I found it in my briefcase a few minutes ago and read it before I realized it wasn’t mine.”
“The address on the envelope didn’t give you some kind of clue?” Then she remembered sticking the envelope in her drawer. It hadn’t occurred to her to check if the letter was inside. She grabbed the ladder. “Move your foot.”
Sam leaned his elbow on a ladder rung. “I assume the anonymous correspondent is Emilie’s father.”
“Emilie has no father.” She kicked the ankle on the ladder.
“Ouch!” He grabbed his ankle, and Addy swiftly moved the ladder as he hopped around the room. “The guy has finally wakened to his responsibility. You ought to be cheering.”
“We’ve managed fine without him.” She brushed a strip of paint along the top of the wall. Her unsteady hand left a pink streak on the ceiling. Addy tramped down the ladder for a wet rag to repair the damage.
Sam’s eyes narrowed to dark slits. “What are you afraid of?” he finally asked. “Having to share Emilie?”
“The only thing I’m afraid of is I’ll never finish painting these walls. Too many interruptions.” Her furious scrubbing turned the small pink smear into a large unsightly blotch.
“You’re making it worse,” Sam said.
“Your incredible powers of observation must be why you had to get out of scientific research.” Addy stomped down the ladder again, filled her brush with paint and stomped back up the ladder. Hearts exploded from her paintbrush to march defiantly across the corner of the ceiling.
“Father or not, there’s no way the man can take your place with Emilie,” Sam said.
“Tell that to the courts just before they rip her away from me and give her to him because he happens to have some of the same genes.” Retrieving the roller, Addy blindly swabbed the wall. “She’s a person with feelings, not a thing.”
“I thought you had custody,” Sam said slowly. “Didn’t you tell me you have a paper the man signed giving up any rights he might have as Emilie’s father?”
“You think that matters? He’s worse than slime, but he slept with my sister, so some people think that makes him Emilie’s father no matter how many stupid papers he signed.”
“It sounds to me as if you’re getting hysterical over imaginary bogeymen. Try thinking rationally with a little less emotion and a little more reason.”
“I do not need a lecture on logic.” Addy slammed the ladder against the next wall.
Sam moved out of her way. “Name one thing you know about Emilie’s father which would make it remotely possible he’d want custody of Emilie.”
“Who knows why slimebags do anything?”
“In other words, you have absolutely no shred of evidence he’s changed his mind and now wants Emilie. You don’t even know if whoever wrote the letter is Emilie’s father.”
“Who else could it be?”
“Your sister lived in Hollywood for a couple of years. She undoubtedly had other friends. Some of them must have known about the baby and wondered what became of it.”
“They might have wondered, and might even have tried to find out something through the lawyers, but they wouldn’t have issued sinister threats saying I needed to discuss issues concerning Emilie or tried to entice me to meet them with vague promises of me benefiting by such a meeting. Why not identify themselves?”
“Oversight. He or she dashed off a quick letter—”
“Two,” Addy said flatly.
“You received a second letter?”
“You read the second letter.”
“Get me the other one.”
Tempted to challenge Sam’s right to curtly order her around, Addy reminded herself Emilie’s welfare came before all else. She walked to the dresser, pulled out the letter and handed it to him. She waited impatiently as he scanned the letter, then slowly reread it, a frown on his face. “Well?” she challenged.
“What did your lawyer say?”
“I don’t have a lawyer. Lorie hired this man to handle the custody details, but he was never my lawyer.”
“I think you ought to take the letters to Jim Carlson and get his advice. He may be small-town, but he’s a good lawyer.”
“I don’t need a lawyer.” Addy’s fingers tightly clenched the paint roller. What was she supposed to pay Jim with? A necklace? She swallowed the bitter laughter in her throat.
“I know lawyers are expensive.” Sam echoed her thoughts. “I would be—”
“No! I do not want money from you.” Jerking the letter from him, she thrust it back in the drawer.
“It wouldn’t be charity. More of a loan.”
“I don’t need your money. I have everything under control.” Addy slapped paint on the last wall. Sam watched her, but she sensed his thoughts were elsewhere. She wished he’d lurk elsewhere. Painting walls wasn’t a spectator sport. He stood in front of the window, and his elongated shadow crawled up the ladder with her. A passing breeze brought in the smell of sweet clover to compete with the strong paint odor. Any whiff of masculine scent had to be a figment of her imagination.
Without warning Sam said, “Oh, hell,” in an exasperated voice. “That’s what this ridiculous husband-hunting business is about, isn’t it? You really are looking for a husband.”
“I’ve never said so. You’re the one babbling about selling points and position in the marketplace.”
“For Pete’s sake, Adeline, I was joking.”
“Joking.” She looked down from the top of the ladder.
“Not exactly joking,” Sam qualified. “Teaching a lesson.”
“A lesson.” She had to quit repeating everything he said. As if repeating the words clarified anything.
“My mother and my grandmother married young and had children at a young age,” Sam said. “They are convinced everyone else should do the same. While I understand that Hannah at eighty wants to see her great-grandchildren, it’s hardly a compelling reason for me to get married. They disagree. For the past five years, since I turned thirty, they’ve been relentless in their drive to marry me off.” His entire body radiated irritation as he paced the small bedroom.
“I’ve told them I’ll get married when I’m good and ready and I neither want nor need their assistance in the matter,” he said, “but they are determined to play matchmaker. You wouldn’t believe how many women they’ve introduced me to, or the convoluted schemes they’ve tangled me in. They’ve involved Dad, my brothers, my friends, even co-opted my employees. I blew my top after the last little episode, and they promised they’d quit. Dragging me out here on a false alarm demonstrated I put too much faith in their promises. I decided to teach them a lesson.”
Addy opened her mouth as Sam braced a shoulder against the wall by the ladder, then snapped it shut and doggedly slapped paint on the upper portion of the wall.
“I considered romancing you, then jilting you at the last minute, after they had the wedding planned. I figured you deserved it for aiding and abetting their scheming.”
Addy resisted throwing the paint roller at him. “Since you didn’t follow through with the plan, I assume you have a better side.”
He gave her a wry smile. “What I have is a healthy respect for the kind of scene my mother would throw if I pulled such a trick. Not to mention a deep fear, if I went that far, that somehow I’d find myself married to you.”
Addy pressed the paint roller against the wall so hard her wrist ached. “I can see where the thought might give you pause.”
“Try nightmares.” He’d missed her sarcasm. “After considering the matter at great length, I devised the perfect plan to circumvent their scheming and frustrate the hell out of them. The only way they could accuse me of deliberately sabotaging their scheme would be to admit they’d been scheming again, in spite of their promises.”
The blood drained from Addy’s head, and she grabbed the top of the ladder for support as the extent of Sam Dawson’s treachery became clear. “You decided the best way to ruin their plans was to pretend to work enthusiastically to marry me off to someone else.” Her voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched. “No wonder you thought your plan perfect. Your counterfeit cooperation allowed you to sabotage my dates.” How dare he undercut her efforts to safeguard Emilie’s future for his own selfish, petty reasons? Forcing her hands to release their death grip on the ladder, Addy carefully climbed down to the floor.
“Adeline, it doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to figure out not one of the men on the ladies’ list is serious husband material for you. I assumed,” he added, “your dating was part of some grand plan to make me wild with jealousy.”
He condemned himself with his own words. With grim determination, Addy reloaded her roller with paint. He may have destroyed Emilie’s future, but he wouldn’t destroy her pleasure in her room. No matter how transitory that pleasure proved to be.
“I suppose the letters frightened you and you thought having a husband would make a difference if it came to a custody fight over Emilie,” Sam said.
“It’s none of your business.” Addy fiercely attacked the remaining section of white wall with the roller. She wanted to fling the paint can at his head.
“I did some research. Phoebe hinted to Jim Carlson that taking you to dinner would make Lois jealous. The management of the hotel where Christain works owes Belle a few favors for smoothing their way to getting permission from the town council for the addition. They repaid her with Christain.”
“Jim used me to get back his wife and John used me to further his career?” Addy asked in a tight voice. “The others?”
Sam shifted his weight to his other shoulder. “Grandmother chose Tom Erickson, the football coach over at the high school. Five minutes of research told me he’s practically engaged to the German teacher at the high school. He wants the job as coordinator of summer activities at the center next summer.” Sam paused. “Grandmother is involved in the hiring process.”
Addy took a deep breath. “And Cora?”
“She contributed Perry Wilson. I couldn’t find her hold over him, but he’s an overaged flower child who’s been married who-knows-how-many-times and currently dabbles in some kind of hocus-pocus New Age medicine. Hardly marriage material.”
Had her desperate search been a game to everyone but her? Addy sopped up more paint and carried the roller to where Sam stood.
He raised an eyebrow at the roller. “The ladies selected frivolous candidates. I assumed you knew that. The only logical conclusion a reasonable man could come to was that the stated purpose—to match you up with one of those men—was not the real purpose. What are you planning to do with that paint?”
“Paint the wall behind you.” She gave him a stony look. “Again.”
“Sorry. I thought it was dry.” Sam dabbed futilely at the pink on his shirt. “It’s as clear as the paint on your face, Adeline. Grandmother and the others never intended any of those men to fall for you. They were either red herrings to avert any suspicion on my part or intended to make me jealous. Grandmother wanted me to fall for you. Which explains her enthusiastically welcoming me to the matchmaking team. She figured my involvement would mean spending more time with you. It obviously never occurred to her I might resist your multiple charms.”
Addy’s tightly-wound restraint snapped. With a quick sweep of the roller, she painted Sam from head to toe in Emilie Pink.
After a stunned silence, Sam loosed a string of potent swear words. Appalled by her loss of control, Addy stood frozen. Searching her stunned brain for something to say, she failed to turn up a single word.
Sam confiscated the roller. “Get me a rag.”
The snarled demand rekindled her fury. “Get your own rag.”
“Fine.” He yanked at the front of the man’s shirt she wore. The ancient, threadbare, oft-laundered garment surrendered without a fight. Fabric parted and buttons flew. Wadding up the ragged front section of Addy’s shirt he’d ripped loose, Sam wiped his face.
At the dangerous look in blue eyes under paint-smeared brows, Addy turned to run. A locked fist around her braid stopped her in mid-flight. “Let go of me,” she hollered.
“Having two brothers taught me—” Sam reeled her back “—turnabout’s fair play.”
“Don’t talk to me about fair play.” Addy struggled to break free of Sam’s ruthless grip, at the same time attempting to cover her old bra and bare skin with the ragged edges of her shirt. “Not when you’ve been making a game of my life.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth in the beginning?” he asked defensively, momentarily loosening his hold.
Addy only needed a moment. Wrenching free, she rushed for the bedroom door. Sam seized a fleeing shirttail, and Addy half turned to slap away his hand. Her feet tangled with the slick protective plastic drop cloth on the floor and slid from under her. Stepping backward to recover her balance, Addy stuck her foot in the nearly empty gallon paint can, her arms wind-milling wildly. One elbow tangled painfully with the aluminum ladder. The other rammed Sam in the midsection as he lunged to catch her. The ladder, Addy and Sam all hit the floor at the same time. It was Sam’s bad luck to be on the bottom. It was Addy’s bad luck to fall sandwiched between the ladder and Sam’s outstretched body.
“You OK?” Sam shoved the ladder off Addy.
“Yes.” Addy stiffened as he ran his hand over her body. “I said I’m OK.” Kicking away the paint can, she tried to scramble to her feet.
Sam snaked an arm around her, flipping her so she lay flat on her back beneath him. “You’re not going anywhere until we talk.” He caught her hands in one of his.
In spite of the clownlike pink splotches decorating Sam’s face, Addy didn’t have the slightest urge to laugh. Breathing heavily from her abortive efforts to escape, she struggled to free her hands. “You don’t want to talk. You want revenge.”
“You think I want revenge because you slapped paint on me?” Bracing his upper body with his elbows, his lower body held her against the floor, his legs easily corraling hers.
“You’re not seeking revenge because of a couple of drops of paint. You blame me for forcing you to come to Colorado, so you’ve tried to make my life miserable from the minute you walked into this house.” Gathering her muscles, Addy heaved in an effort to dislodge him from her body.
Sam’s weight barely shifted. “I want to know if you were part of the plan to trick me into marrying you.”
If he moved his shoulder a couple of inches lower, she could sink her teeth deep into his muscles. What was a little paint on her molars compared to the satisfaction of venting her fury? “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not the least bit interested in you and I had nothing to do with that letter you received?”
He raised a pink-frosted eyebrow. “Next you’ll tell me you’re not even looking for a husband.” Before Addy could speak, he said roughly, “Don’t bother. You think if it came to a fight with Emilie’s father over custody your position would be stronger if you were married to a responsible citizen. I’m considered a responsible citizen, single and, according to my female relatives, should be looking for a wife. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out the three of you conspired to lure me out here so you could somehow convince me to marry you.”
“I’d never marry a man as stupid as you. Your ego is so huge there’s no room in your head for a brain.” Catching her second wind, she tried again to eject him. “Move. My body’s going numb.”
“Lucky you.” His lips twisted. “The way you�
��re wiggling, numbness is the least of my problems.” He ran a finger along the inside of her elbow.
Addy barely controlled a shiver down her spine. The paint on Sam’s jeans seeped through her shorts and dripped on her bare legs making her legs, sticky and damp. His paint-soaked shirt brushed against her skin. Missing the front of her shirt, she should be cold. She wasn’t. The late afternoon sun heated the room. The smell of latex paint swirled about her. The thudding of his heart echoed in her ears. Not his heart. Her heart.
“Hell,” Sam said, rubbing a thumb over one of her high, prominent cheekbones. “I’m going to have to kiss you.”
She raised no objection. Not because she wanted to kiss him. Because he wouldn’t have listened anyway. She closed her eyes. Enhancing her other senses. The paint odor receded, replaced by Sam’s now familiar scent. Firm lips, warm lips, opened over hers. He released her hands and she wrapped her arms around him, cradling his head with one hand. His short hair tickled her sensitive palm. With her other hand she stroked his back, absorbing into her being the warmth and security of taut, muscled strength.
Sam removed his mouth from hers. “You’ve got pink freckles.” He brushed a fingertip over her closed eyelids, then slowly traced a path from the corner of her eye down her cheek.
Addy opened her eyes. Sam’s face hovered inches above her, his left eyelid drooping sensuously. He should have looked ridiculous with paint outlining his sunken cheekbones and squared-off jaw. He looked delicious. “So do you,” she said. “Have pink freckles.”
“Freckles, hell.” White teeth gleamed in a garden of pink. “Adeline, every square centimeter of my epidermis is pink.”
“Not just any pink. Emilie Pink.”
“Who wouldn’t want to be painted Emilie Pink?”
“My point exactly.”
“I’m glad to hear you say so.” Sexy, teasing laughter lit up his eyes.
Blue eyes could be so compelling. Dangerously so. Distracted by her confused reaction, Addy didn’t immediately grasp the significance of Sam’s remark. The sound of a can being rolled across the floor brought her to her senses. “No!”