“You got any idea what you’re so scared of?”
Tears bit at Carly’s eyes. “All of this. The town…my options. You.”
Sam’s eyes flashed as he quietly said, “I don't suppose you’d care to explain that.”
“I don’t know that I can. It’s just that this all seems so real. And I’m—” she met his gaze, sadly shaking her head “—not.”
Sam’s face hardened. “That’s crap, Carly.”
He withdrew his hands from his pockets, then took three or four slow, deliberate steps toward her. “Funny thing,” he said, “but I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on the difference between illusion and reality, And as far as I’m concerned, you are one of the most real women I’ve ever met. So deal with it.”
He headed for the door, only to turn back and say, “By the way, I’ll be picking you up for the dance tomorrow night around seven. I’d appreciate it if you’d wear something to make every male in the room regret not being me.”
KAREN TEMPLETON
Swept Away
Books by Karen Templeton
Silhouette Intimate Moments
Anything for His Children #978
Anything for Her Marriage #1006
Everything but a Husband #1050
Runaway Bridesmaid #1066
†Plain-Jane Princess #1096
†Honky-Tonk Cinderella #1120
What a Man’s Gotta Do #1195
Saving Dr. Ryan #1207
Fathers and Other Strangers #1244
Staking His Claim #1267
**Everybody’s Hero #1328
**Swept Away #1357
Silhouette Yours Truly
*Wedding Daze
*Wedding Belle
*Wedding? Impossible!
KAREN TEMPLETON,
a Waldenbooks bestselling author and RITA® Award nominee, is the mother of five sons and living proof that romance and dirty diapers are not mutually exclusive terms. An Easterner transplanted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, she spends far too much time trying to coax her garden to yield roses and produce something resembling a lawn, all the while fantasizing about a weekend alone with her husband. Or at least an uninterrupted conversation.
She loves to hear from readers, who may reach her by writing c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279, or online at www.karentempleton.com.
Thanks to Debra Cowan, Pam Martin, Teresa Harrison, Kari Dell and Leta Wellman, who patiently answered all my farming questions—I trust I gave you guys a good laugh or two along the way. Trust me, I’ll never look at bacon the same way again!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 1
In the three years since his wife’s death, Sam Frazier had prided himself on not tumbling into the abyss of helplessness common to many widowers, especially those with young children. Whether his refusal to let chaos gain a toehold stemmed from his wanting to do Jeannie proud or just plain stubbornness, he had no idea, but he thought he’d been doing okay. Until this bright and sunny September morning when his teenage daughter tried to sneak past him wearing more makeup than a Las Vegas showgirl and not a whole lot more clothes, and he realized he had one foot in that abyss, anyway.
Not that Libby was having a good morning, either, having attempted her little maneuver when the kitchen was filled with her five younger brothers, several of whom thought girls had cooties as it was. Girls who were related to you and who had suddenly taken to looking like women were clearly the embodiment of evil and hence to be thwarted at every opportunity. Or at the very least greeted by a chorus of disgusted gagging sounds, which even Sam—inured as he generally was to such noises—would be hard put to ignore.
Sam caught Libby’s hand and spun her around on her army-tank shoes, the ends of her long, dark hair stinging his bare arm. Silence shuddered in the room, broken only by one of the dogs lapping at his water dish, as something damn close to terror shot through him, that his little girl—especially in that skimpy, midriff-baring top and dark lipstick—was no longer “little” in any sense of the word. And he knew damn well exactly how every teenage boy in the county was going to react to that fact.
“More fabric, less makeup,” Sam said calmly, his gaze riveted to Libby’s defensive light brown one. He felt a twinge in his left leg, an old ache trying to reassert itself. “Go change.”
“No time, Sean’s already here—”
“He can wait.” Sam dropped her hand, nodding toward her room, an old sunroom off the kitchen he’d converted so she’d have more privacy and because five boys in two small bedrooms upstairs was no longer working.
“I’m not changing,” she said, chin out, arms crossed, in a pose that would have been the picture of defiance but for the slightly trembling lower lip. Sam felt for her, he really did: teenage angst was bad enough without the added indignity of being the only girl in a houseful of males. “All the other girls wear makeup, everybody’ll think I’m a total loser if I don’t.”
“First off, baby girl, all the other girls don’t wear makeup. Or wear clothes that look like they outgrew them four years ago.” Since Sam substituted up at the high school on a regular basis, Libby knew better than to argue with him. “And anyway,” he added before she could load her next round of ammunition, “I didn’t say you couldn’t wear any makeup. Just not enough for three other girls besides you. And you know the school dress code won’t allow a top like that—”
“Well, duh, I’ve got a shirt in my backpack to put on over it when I’m in school. This is just for, you know, before and after.”
“And this is, you know, not open for discussion. Go change. Or,” he added as the black-cherry mouth dropped and an indignant squawk popped out of it, “Sean goes on to school and you take the bus. Or better yet, I’ll drive you.”
A fate worse than death, Sam knew. “This is so unfair!” she yelled, then stomped away, only to whirl around and lob across the kitchen, “You’re only on my case because you don’t like Sean!”
“Has nothing to do with whether I like him or not,” Sam said mildly, even though hormones poured off the boy like sweat off a long-distance runner. Locking Libby away in a tower somewhere for ten years or so was becoming more appealing by the second. “I don’t trust him,” he said, just so there’d be no mistake.
Eyes flashed, hands landed on hips. “What you mean is, you don’t trust me!” Four-year-old Travis snuggled up to Sam’s flank and asked to be picked up; behind him, he could hear muted clanks and clunks as Mike and Matt, his oldest boys, went about making sandwiches for lunch. “God!” Libby said on a wail. “I wish you’d find a girlfriend or get married again or…or something so you’d stop obsessing about us all the freaking time!”
Five sets of eyes veered to Sam as he idly wondered where the sweet little girl who used to live here had got to, even as he tamped down a flash of irritation that would do nobody any good to let loose. Smelling of Cheerios, Travis wrapped his arms around Sam’s neck, while eight-year-old Wade and first-grader Frankie, still at the breakfast table, silently chewed and gawked.
“You’re entitled to your opinion, Libby,” Sam said levelly. “But you’re upsettin’ your brothers, you’re keeping Sean waiting, and you’re gonna be late for school. So I suggest you keep those thoughts to yourself until a more appropriate time. Now get moving, baby girl.”
“Don’t call me
that!” she shrieked, then clomped out of the room.
Letting Travis slide back down to the floor, Sam turned to the boys and said, “It’s gettin’ late. Time to get a move on. Wade, is it my imagination, or is that the same shirt you had on yesterday?” He frowned. “And the day before that?” At the kid’s sheepish shrug, Sam swallowed back a smile. “Go change before your teacher makes you sit outside, okay?”
The eight-year-old trooped off as, with a time-honed precision that was truly a thing of beauty, breakfast dishes were cleared, lunches distributed, assorted arms shoved into jacket or sweatshirt sleeves, and Sam felt a little of his hard-won peace return. Farming was a challenge, no doubt about it; raising six kids by himself even more so. But it was amazing how smoothly things could run—or at least, had run up until the Attack of the Killer Hormones—by simply establishing, and enforcing, some basic parameters, making sure everybody did their fair share.
As all the boys except Travis filed out to catch the school bus, Sam shifted his weight off his complaining leg, deciding there was no reason at all why the method that had stood him in good stead since Jeannie’s passing shouldn’t continue to do so. Not that it hadn’t been hard at first. Lord, he’d missed her so much those first few months he’d thought he’d go crazy, both with grief and unfulfilled longing. But the pain had passed, or at least dulled, as had the collective ineptitude. Jeannie hadn’t meant to make them all dependent on her, Sam knew that, but it had simply been in her nature to do for them. She hadn’t wanted anyone else messing in her kitchen; there was no reason for the kids, or Sam, for that matter, to remember where anything was because Jeannie had a photographic memory. But when she died, of a freak aneurism that nobody could’ve predicted, let alone prevented, and it became clear exactly how useless they all were in the house….
Well. Never again, was all Sam had to say. And now that everything was running more or less smoothly, he saw no need to go mucking it all up by introducing another human being into the mix. He’d had his one true love. Maybe it hadn’t lasted as long as he’d hoped, but there’d be no replacing Jeannie, and he had no intention of trying. No matter how much Libby thought otherwise.
No matter how bad the loneliness tried to suffocate him from time to time.
His daughter clomped past again, her midriff now covered, her makeup more in keeping with what Sam considered appropriate for a girl who didn’t turn fifteen for another month. He grabbed her again, this time to inflict a one-armed hug, which she patiently suffered for a moment or two before grabbing her backpack and sailing out the back door. Now alone in the kitchen, except for a dog or two and a cat who must’ve slipped inside when everybody left, he silently reassured his wits it was okay to come out of hiding.
Like his mother used to say, it was a great life if you didn’t weaken.
He found Travis in the living room, on his stomach in front of the TV, watching a faded Grover through a scrim of wiggly lines. One of these days he was gonna have to break down and get a satellite dish, he supposed, except he couldn’t work up a whole lot of enthusiasm for making TV even more appealing to a houseful of kids.
“Hey, big stuff—you make your bed?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then go pee and get your jacket, we’ve got supplies to buy, fences to fix.”
A half minute later, the little boy returned to the living room, trying to walk and straighten out his elastic-waisted jeans at the same time and not having a whole lot of success. Underneath a pale blond buzz cut, big blue eyes the exact color of his mother’s met Sam’s as he squatted to fix the boy’s twisted waistband. “C’n Radar come, too?”
Sam glanced over at their most recent acquisition, who looked to be part Heeler, part jackrabbit. Biggest damn ears he’d ever seen on a dog. Mutt had shown up during a thunderstorm a month or so back and didn’t seem much interested in leaving. Despite Sam’s regular declarations of “No more animals,” every homeless cat or dog in Mayes County seemed destined to land on their doorstep, although Sam told himself this was not because he was a pushover.
“Don’t see why not,” Sam said, and boy and dog practically tripped over each other on their way out the door. Seconds later, they were all in the pickup, headed into Haven and Sutter’s Hardware. Granted, you could find bigger, fancier, and probably cheaper home improvement centers in Claremore and Tulsa. But what with gas prices being what they were these days, and the fact that Abe Sutter carried only what the local farmers needed and not a whole lot of stuff they didn’t, thus drastically reducing the temptation to spend money they didn’t have to begin with, most folks found Abe’s more of a bargain than you might think.
The sun had pretty much burned off the morning chill, leaving behind one of those nice Indian Summer days that could make a man feel in charge again, even of headstrong teenagers who craved their freedom right when they needed the most watching. Never mind that the thousands of black-eyed Susans bobbing in the breeze on either side of the road seemed to be laughing at him, that the golden fields falling away as they crested each rolling hill stirred up memories of another teenage girl, her face flushed with newly discovered sexual passion during some hot and heavy necking sessions with a certain teenage boy who’d ached to take them both to places they’d never been, even as he knew the time hadn’t been right for either of them, not yet.
Sam had respected Jeannie’s wish to remain a virgin until marriage, but waiting had nearly killed both of them. Especially as “waiting” had meant until after they’d both finished college and Sam was sure he could support a family. Was it any wonder that Jeannie had gotten pregnant on their wedding night? Or that Libby was the way she was, being the product of all that pent-up passion?
Considering how good his and Jeannie’s sex life had been, doing without all this time hadn’t been nearly the struggle he’d thought. The farm, though, was in better shape than it had ever been, leaving Sam to consider, as he crested a hill to find himself trailing a camper-shelled pickup with an Ohio plate, that he probably was the only farmer in existence who actually liked repairing fences.
His musings disintegrated, however, when, with a great deal of squealing, the truck suddenly swerved like a spooked elephant, lurched off the road into the shallow, weed-tangled ditch, then shuddered to a stop as if grateful the ordeal was over. Adrenaline spiked through Sam as he pulled up behind the listing vehicle, squinting in the glare of sun flashing off white metal.
“You stay put while I make sure everybody’s all right,” he said to Travis, unbuckling his belt and climbing out just in time to hear a female voice let loose with a very succinct cussword, followed immediately by a man’s admonition to watch her language. Which in turn resulted in an even more succinct cussword.
The driver’s side door popped open, slammed back shut—which resulted in a loud “Dammit!”—then opened again, this time to stay put long enough for the skinniest woman he’d ever seen to push herself up and out of the truck like a frantic, if emaciated, butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Pinpricks of light flashed from a series of earrings marching up her ear.
“You okay?” Sam asked, not realizing she hadn’t seen him. She jumped back with a startled “Oh,” one hand pressed to her flat chest, her long fingers weighted down with so many rings Sam wasn’t sure how she could lift her hand. Especially considering her wrist looked like it would snap in two if a person breathed on it hard.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said on a pushed-out breath, swiping one hand over dark hair yanked back from her face to explode into a surprisingly exuberant, curly ponytail on the back of her head. “Just pissed.” Startlingly silver-blue eyes glanced off Sam’s for a split second before, her forehead creased, she returned her attention to the still-open truck door. “Dad? Can you get out?”
Forget the butterfly image. The set to her mouth, the way her nut-colored skin stretched across her bones, brought to mind the kinds of insects that cheerfully devoured their mates after sex.
Sam moved closer to lend a hand,
if needed, just as a pair of chinoed legs in lace-up walking shoes emerged from the truck, followed by a white head and wide shoulders. With a grunt, the tall man levered himself out onto his feet.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” he said to the gal, then turned back to glare at the listing truck. “Although my state of mind pretty much echoes my daughter’s.”
Reassured that nobody was hurt, Sam chuckled, then extended his hand. “Sam Frazier. I’ve got a farm a couple miles up the road.” The older man’s grasp was firm, his ramrod posture bespeaking a military background. As did his direct, blue gaze, only a degree or two warmer than his daughter’s.
“Lane Stewart,” he said, then nodded toward the woman, his expression a blend of exasperation and amusement with which Sam was all too well acquainted. “My daughter, Carly. To whom a certain squirrel owes its life.”
That got an indignant roll of those clear blue eyes, the gesture not unlike Libby’s. Her outfit, too, was straight out of the Young and Reckless catalogue, complete with baggy, low-riding drawstring pants—revealing a small tattoo above her left hip—the filmy overshirt billowing out behind her in the breeze doing little to hide the expanse of midriff visible underneath her cropped tank top. But this gal was no teenager: telltale age lines fanned from the corners of her eyes, had begun to dig in on either side of a full mouth glistening in one of those no-color lipsticks. And whereas most teenagers seemed to think good posture somehow violated their right to free expression, Carly stood as though tied to a ladder, shoulders back, practically nonexistent—and unconfined—breasts thrust forward. Her feet—knobby, used-up looking things in lime-green, ridiculously high-heeled sandals—pointed simultaneously to the north-east and south-east, as if undecided which way to head. And yet, pissed though she was, bony though she was, she moved with an almost hypnotic grace that had Sam thinking things not normally associated with helping out strangers with car problems.
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