“That he might get his heart broken?”
Air rushed from her lungs. “Dad and I might drive each other crazy, but we’re all each other has. I can’t prevent his getting hurt, if this doesn’t work out. But at least I can stick around for a while… I mean, if it takes off, great. I’ll be thrilled. But if it doesn’t…he might need me to help pick up the pieces.” Another wry smile. “Then again, he might tell me to go to hell.”
“Or at least back to Cincinnati.”
“To do what?” she said flatly, then let out another one of those hollow laughs. “See, this is why parents tell their kids who want to make a career in the arts that they need to have something to fall back on. A ‘real’ vocation of some kind. Except dancing was all I ever wanted to do.” She paused. “All I could do, really.”
“What makes you say that?”
After a second’s hesitation, she said, “Because I’m dyslexic. Well, mildly, anyway. Enough to make school a challenge, though. And almost any job that entails processing written information or entering numbers in the right sequence.” Her mouth twisted. “Dancing was my lucky ‘out.’ Or so I’d thought.”
“Well…our part-time housekeeper quit a few months back. I suppose I could use a replacement.”
Alarmed, pale blue eyes shot to his. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Yes. I am.” She let out a huge sigh of relief, and he chuckled. Then he said, “So let’s break your problem down into pieces. First off, you hard up for money?”
“Sam, this isn’t your problem—”
“I’m well aware of that. I also know sometimes it helps to talk these things out with somebody else. Unless you think I’m gettin’ too nosy…?”
“No, it’s not that.” Her earrings sparkled when she shifted to face away from him. “Exactly.”
“Then what is it? Exactly?”
She apparently decided it was easier to answer the original question than deal with that one. “Okay, fine, I’m not exactly rolling in it. But I’ve got enough to scrape by for a while. And Dad said he’d hire me to help with his new business. Not that I have a clue what I’m going to do to help him.”
“So you’re not in danger of imminent starvation.”
“No.”
“And you’ve obviously got someplace to live.”
“This is true.”
“And you could probably keep searching for teaching positions, right? Or is there some age cutoff?”
Her laughter ricocheted off the rafters. “Considering that some of the teachers I’ve had over the years could’ve given Methuselah a run for his money, I think it’s safe to say there’s no age limit.”
“So what’s the problem?”
She gave him an odd look, then clicked across the floor and back outside to the dirt-packed barnyard. Sam followed, but not too quickly. From the house, they heard thumps and bumps and lots of voices. Some fussing, but mostly laughter. His kids’ laughter, primarily, mingled with Lane’s, a moving guy or two. Then he caught sight of Sean’s Eclipse out front and thought, Hmm, even as Carly, who was hugging herself against the cool breeze, said, “The problem is, this is all way too…normal for me. And I don’t know what to do with ‘normal.’”
Sam tore his attention away from the Eclipse and the hmming and not wanting to think about where his daughter was and/or what she was doing to say, “You don’t feel like you fit in here?”
“Not much, no. Although that’s a reflection on me far more than on anybody else, believe me.”
“I doubt you’re anywhere near as different as you think. So maybe you should stop being so hard on yourself.”
She turned to him, a funny smile playing across her mouth. “Being self-aware isn’t the same as being hard on myself.”
“Isn’t it—?”
“Miss Carly?”
They both turned to see Frankie, standing there with a bunch of scarlet oak leaves clutched in his hand. “I brung you these,” the six-year-old said proudly.
“Brought,” Sam automatically corrected, then whispered to Carly, his mouth barely brushing her hair. “He doesn’t hear well out of his left ear, so make sure you direct anything you say to his right.”
She nodded, then knelt to take the leaves from the little boy. “Thank you, sweetie! They’re beautiful!”
Frankie beamed, showing off the gap where his front teeth used to be. Then the boy threw his arms around Carly’s neck and gave her one of his no-holds-barred, I’m-gonna-love-ya-til-you-cry-mercy hugs, nearly knocking her off balance. Sam quickly moved to rescue her, only to stop dead in his tracks when she hugged the little boy back, nearly as fiercely as he had her. Then the mushy stuff was over and Frankie took off back to Lane’s house, his little flashing sneakers raising tiny puffs of dust as he ran.
“Sorry about that. He’s always been the touchy-feely one of the group.”
Carly turned to him, her eyes glittering like icicles in the sunshine. “Actually, I think I really needed that.”
Well, hell, if it’s a hug you need…
Only then she said, “So who’s he take after? With the touchy-feely stuff, I mean? Your wife?”
He knew better, he really did. And nothing had changed since he’d had his heart-to-heart with the hamburger patties. Nothing except he’d forgotten just how much proximity counted for, well, a lot, really.
A hell of a lot.
“No, ma’am,” he said softly, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, thinking about how the harder it was to dig a gemstone out of the rock, the more precious it was. “He gets that from me.”
She froze, just for a second, her eyes locked in his. Eyes in which he saw, in that instant before she took off, disbelief tangling with hope.
And over it all, sheer, undiluted terror.
Head down, hands fisted, Carly veered away from the house and toward the woods forming a natural windbreak along the farms’ northern boundaries. A few minutes alone, was all she needed. A few minutes to catalogue her thoughts, deal with her reaction to Sam’s…whatever that had been back there. Her pulse raced; the distant highway sounds, the wind whispering through drying leaves and intrepid evergreens, were all muffled by the roar of panic in her ears. Bolting wasn’t her usual style. Especially from a man. Yeah, she’d spurned a few along the way, but she’d never in her life actually run away. That she should flee from someone as gentle and…and safe as Sam Frazier made no sense whatsoever.
Except it was Sam’s very safeness that made him such a threat, wasn’t it?
She hadn’t missed the hesitancy, before he touched her hair. Hadn’t expected the flood of need that simple touch had ignited, a need that went way past wanting to placate a few thousand jittery hormones…
The voices, soft and urgent, cut through her panicked musings. She stilled, cloaked in the deep hush of the woods, listening, before a flash of red caught her attention. She could barely see the couple, but she knew Libby’d been wearing a red sweatshirt, dimly remembered seeing Sean’s car parked in front of her dad’s house. And Sam’s silent, but no less readable, reaction to the car.
From what she could see, and hear, all they were doing was making out. And standing up at that. And the trees in this part of the forest were a little puny for anything too serious. Still, she knew better than to ever underestimate the ingenuity of a horny teenage boy. Let alone his persuasive abilities on a young girl in the heady throes of sexual self-discovery.
Damn.
To say she was torn didn’t even begin to cover it. As if it were yesterday, Carly remembered all too sharply her desperate craving for privacy as a teenager; she also remembered, even more sharply, why she’d craved that privacy, the hormone flood that had nearly drowned her good sense.
Nearly? Who was she kidding? At Libby’s age, younger, even, the path to adulthood had seemed excruciatingly long. Shortcuts begged to be found. And find them, Carly had. Just as she imagined Libby would do, given encouragement. Which, judging from the scene in front of her, she was defin
itely being given.
And if anybody’d told her twenty years ago that she’d feel impelled to break up the very thing she’d fought like the devil for the freedom to do at that age, she’d’ve never believed it. However, at the very moment she decided to make enough noise to let the teenagers know they weren’t alone, Sam barged past her from behind, all fury and fit-to-be-tied paternal protectiveness.
“Sam!” Carly hissed. “Don’t—”
But he either didn’t hear her, or chose not to. “Libby!”
A thousand shrieking birds shot from the trees; the couple sprang apart as if somebody’d thrown a firecracker between them.
“Daddy!” Carly could barely make out the girl’s sweeping her long hair out of her face as Sam continued his relentless approach. “I…I…”
“We weren’t doing anything, sir,” she heard Sean say, contrition soft-edging macho cockiness. “I promise—”
“Get back to the house, Libby.”
“Daddy! Jeez…”
“Now. We’ll talk later.”
“This is so unfair!” the girl cried, then spun around and tramped back through the forest, too upset to notice Carly standing a few feet away. Carly ached for her, even as she realized she had no idea what she’d say. How she’d explain things she didn’t even understand fully herself.
But Sam had Sean in his sights by now, his arms crossed over his chest.
“It’s not what you think, Mr. Frazier,” the boy said, his obvious nervousness eroding his machismo a little more. “I really care about Libby—”
“I don’t doubt you do,” Sam said in a voice so low, so calm, shivers streaked down Carly’s back. “In your own way. But Libby’s not yet fifteen. And I remember all too well what it was like to be seventeen. And how easy it is to slip from ‘not doing anything’ to ‘we didn’t mean to.’ Judging from what I just witnessed, I think maybe the two of you need to cool things off for a few weeks.”
“But we’ve got a date for the Harvest dance next weekend!”
“I somehow doubt that, since Libby knows she can’t date until she’s sixteen.”
“But…” The boy scratched his head, clearly confused. “She said you said it was okay…I mean, we’ve gone out the past two weekends—”
Uh-oh, Carly thought as Sam’s “What?” cannonballed through the forest, rousting even more birds from their roosts. “You took her out? Alone?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“And she told you I gave her permission?”
“More or less. Sir.”
By this time, Carly figured the poor kid had probably wet his pants, a situation guaranteed to cool his ardor. For a while, at least.
She moved closer—what the hell, she was this far in, anyway—in time to see Sam let out a long breath. “Go home, Sean,” he said quietly. “And don’t bother coming to pick Libby up for school tomorrow. She can ride the bus.”
The kid nodded, his shoes crunching in the leaves as, head bowed, he started off. Except then he turned and said, “Does this mean she can’t go to the dance with me?”
Carly expected a bellowed “Yes!” Instead, after a moment’s obvious wrestling, Sam said, “We’ll talk about it later,” and the boy traipsed off.
Then he faced Carly, his face like stone. “Before you ask…yes, I followed you. Because I was worried I’d done something to upset you.”
After a split second to absorb his words, she hooked her hands in her back pockets and said, “That wasn’t necessary.”
“Maybe not to you.”
Above her head, wings rustled as a bird or ten reclaimed abandoned perches. “You didn’t…” She glanced away, then back. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Good.” His stare burned right through her. “But tell me something—if I hadn’t come along, how long would you have waited to break up the lovebirds?”
She should have seen it coming, but she was still blindsided by the “if I’d upset you” comment. So it took her a second to recover before she got out, “I was about to, as it happens. Only I’d planned on a taking a more subtle approach. Like making noise or something so they’d realize they weren’t alone.”
“And what good would that have done?”
“It wouldn’t have embarrassed them, for one thing! And you do realize that any obstacle you throw in their path is only going to fuel their determination to be together?”
“Spoken from experience?” he said softly, sending that chill up her spine again.
“Yes, actually,” she said, meeting his gaze. Which, annoyingly enough, she couldn’t read. But it was clearly time for a few offensive maneuvers.
“Look, Sam…I don’t know what that was about back in the barn. If it was even anything, I’m not making assumptions, believe me. But I think you need to realize that…” She stopped, trying to order her words. “There’s no point in our starting anything, because I can’t be the one thing you most need, which is a mother to your kids. No, hear me out,” she said when he started to protest, “because I’m not saying what you think I am. Not exactly, anyway.” She hauled in a breath. “This is about more than my inexperience with kids, although that’s no small thing. Your sons scare me, I won’t deny it. But even if that weren’t the case, even if I got all warm and tingly inside at the thought of being around the little darlings—” his mouth twitched into a half smile “—I don’t exactly have the right resume for the job. I can’t counsel your daughter, or anyone else, on how to stay on the straight and narrow, because I’ve never been there.”
“Carly, everybody’s done a few things they later regret—”
“Not a few things, Sam. Lots of things. A whole boatload of things I’m sure you do not want to know about. And for sure you wouldn’t want any of your children to know about. Trust me on this,” she finished, briefly touching his arm before walking away.
And this time, he didn’t try to follow.
One of these days, Lane thought as he ran the USB cable from his printer to his computer, his daughter was going to figure out he wasn’t a total idiot. Not that he was holding his breath, but he was a great believer in miracles. But dammit, it was obvious something was bugging her, since she’d hardly said two words since Sam and his gang had left a couple hours ago. Which might lead him to think her foul mood had something to do with Sam.
“Okay,” she said, hands on hips, standing at the doorway to what would be his office. “I’ve lived here—” she glanced at her watch “—for exactly six hours and fourteen minutes and I’m bored out of my mind.”
Then again, maybe Sam wasn’t totally responsible.
“Spoken like a true city girl.”
“And your point is?”
Lane chuckled softly. “Kitchen unpacked?”
“Yep.”
“What about your clothes?”
“Dad.”
“Fine. What about my clothes?”
“That bored, I’m not.” Then she came in and slid bonelessly into the armchair that used to be in his bedroom in the old house. Lane took this as a good sign. That she was sulking in his company instead of in her own room. He sat down at his desk and booted up his computer, peering down at the screen through the reading glasses he absolutely detested.
“You want to talk about it?”
He could feel her eyes dart to the side of his face, sense the shrug that followed. “No, I don’t want to talk. I want…something to do. Besides unpacking your clothes. Or sitting outside and watching the stars twinkle.”
“Nobody told you to tag along back here,” he said mildly. At her grunt in reply, he added, “Can’t be easy, moving back in with your father at your age.”
“Try demoralizing.”
“Well,” he said, squinting—these damn glasses weren’t worth the $12.95 he’d paid for them, “Sam sure seemed glad enough to see you.”
Ah. Apparently that was worth one of his daughter’s famous Frozen Silences.
He decided to change the subject. Since the other would inevitably work its
way to the surface sooner or later, anyway. “So. You know anything about why Libby went storming past the house and back over to her own a while ago? Or Sean’s car peeling out of here like bigfoot was after him?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Sam caught them making out in the woods.”
“Oh, dear.” He peered over his glasses at her. “I take it he wasn’t amused?”
“No more than you would have been in the same situation.”
“You were there?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I saw them, too, but it was all between Sam and the kids.” She swung her legs down and pushed herself out of the chair to squat down by a box of books he hadn’t unpacked yet. “You want these in any particular order?”
“No. Now you want to tell me what’s really bothering you?”
“It’s not Sam,” she said, too quickly.
“Of course not.”
A blush the color of Bing cherries took possession of her cheeks. She clunked several volumes of the old Britannica they’d bought for Carly when she was ten up onto one of the shelves—she’d given him grief for carting it out here, but he still used it from time to time for research. “Okay, it’s nothing I can’t handle. That better?”
“Got any ideas why you think you should ‘handle’ it to begin with?”
“Yeah. Six of ’em. All sharing his last name.”
“He’s a good man.”
Instead of answering, she leaned back on her haunches, spearing him with her gaze. “Since we’re playing the butt-in game…you hear from Ivy yet?”
“As a matter of fact, I spoke with her this afternoon, while you were off with Sam. We’re meeting up in a little while at her house.”
“Her idea or yours?”
“What difference does it make?”
Another four or five books slammed up onto the shelf. Then she faced him, swiping a hand across her forehead, leaving a streak of dirt in its wake. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Dad.”
“What makes you think that’s going to happen?”
“You’ve fallen awfully fast, don’t you think?”
“Says the woman who’s been in love how many times?”
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