“No, it’s okay, Matt—you c’n have the last roll, if you want it, I don’t mind.”
Yeah, right.
Carly leaned over to Sam, took note of how extraordinarily good he smelled, and whispered, “Who are these kids, anyway?”
“Beats me,” Sam whispered back, cutting his chicken. “Never seen ’em before in my life.”
“Daddy,” Libby said, and Carly chuckled.
“Okay, guys?” she said. “You’re really giving me the creeps. I’ve seen you in action, remember? So please…drop the act. It’s too weird.”
“That does not mean, however,” Sam said mildly, “that the sanction against food fights has been lifted.”
“Damn,” Mike muttered under his breath, and Carly pressed her napkin to her mouth to cover her laugh.
But things relaxed after that. Not enough to degenerate into chaos, exactly, but when one of the bigger dogs snatched a chicken bone off Frankie’s plate and made off with it, and four boys went after him, all yelling their heads off, and Libby rolled her eyes and Sam just shook his head—and kept on eating—she began to understand how people did this.
And maybe even why.
A thought that she later shared with Sam, when she was getting ready to leave and Sam—and a dog or two—had walked her out to her car.
“Not that I’ve changed my mind about wanting any of my own,” she said, clutching the collar to her fake—faux—mink jacket closed at her neck, figuring she might as well be up front about that part of things.
“Not to worry,” Sam said. “I think six pretty much does it for me. Teachin’ six teenagers to drive…” He shook his head, and she laughed, only to breathe in sharply when his hands slid inside her coat, tugging her closer.
“What are you doing?”
“Let’s go with keeping us warm. You got any objections?”
“Nope, don’t think so.”
“Good,” he said, sort of sandwiching her between her car and his body, which, all things considered, was not a bad place to be.
She angled her head back at the house. “You think they’re watching?”
“Oh, I think you can pretty much count on it. So. You and your father gonna come for Thanksgiving?”
“Do we have a choice?”
He grinned. “No.”
His chest was so solid under her hands. “I’ve never been courted before, you know. Especially by six kids.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call what they’re doing ‘courting.’ Railroading’s probably more the word you had in mind.” She laughed. “So…they don’t scare you anymore?”
“Don’t kid yourself. Kids—your kids, any kids—will always scare me. All I have to do is think back to the hell I put my own parents through…”
“But you think maybe you’re closer to being able to deal with them?”
Well, that’s why she was here, wasn’t she?
She lifted her eyes to Sam’s. “For you, I’d be willing to deal with almost anything. Or at least try.”
Underneath her hands, even his heartbeat seemed to still. “What are you sayin’, Carly?”
“I’m saying…you’re making me want to try things I never dared to before now. I see you with your kids, and I think…” She focused on her hands on his chest, then back up at him. “I think, more than anything in the world, I want to be like that. Care like that.”
“Oh, honey,” he said, the tenderness in his expression wreaking havoc on her ability to stand, only then his hands lifted to cradle her face, and his mouth found hers, and her legs said, You have got to be kidding! “But don’t you see?” he whispered when he’d done kissing her (way too soon, in her opinion). “You already do care like that. And I suspect you always have.”
That’s when she finally understood what it felt like to be loved. Really loved, not just the hot stuff that burns out, but the warm stuff that makes you go around with a stupid smile on your face for, oh, fifty years or so.
Not that there was anything wrong with the hot stuff. The evidence of which was getting trickier to ignore by the moment.
She shifted against him. “Is this you, um, courting me?”
“No, apparently that’s me tryin’ to seduce you.” He glowered down at where their bodies were happily getting acquainted. “Although the timing sucks. I mean, it’s not like we can…you know…” He nodded back toward the house.
“No, I didn’t think so.” A tiny crease lodged between her brows. “Did…I just pass some kind of test?”
“Either that, or I just royally flunked.”
She buried her face in his shirt to muffle her laughter, only to have a sonic-boom-size Ohmigod! go off in her head. For a moment—if that—she longed for the good old days of no-strings, no emotions, no-hard-feelings-when-it’s-over sex, only to realize it was like trying to remember someone you hadn’t seen in a hundred years. Then she heard herself say, “Even if we do sleep together…”
Even if? said the voice inside her head.
“You still want to take things slowly,” Sam finished for her, and she nodded like a little kid asked if she wants ice cream, and he shrugged and said, “Not a problem. I’m not going anywhere.”
“And if it doesn’t work…?”
“Then it doesn’t work.”
“But the kids…”
“I’ll have a talk with them. Or better yet, you have a talk with ’em. Best chance we have of getting through this is if we’re both straight with them. Because if anybody understands that things don’t always go the way you hoped, it’s my kids.”
Tears stung her eyes. “You, too?”
“Yeah. Me, too.” Then he kissed her again—how could she have ever thought kissing was the boring part?—and held her in his arms long enough to reevaluate her long-held opinions on hugging, too, and dropped the hint that he’d started taking Travis to Didi Meyerhauser’s preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays so he’d have kids his own age to play with while his siblings were in school.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and got into her car.
She was a good half mile away before she realized she was shaking.
“Well?” Libby said the instant he walked back inside.
“Anybody ever clue you guys in to the concept of some things being personal?”
“Seems to me,” Mike said, from where he was sprawled on the sofa, “if you end up marrying Carly, that would make it pretty personal for us, too.”
“And how, may I ask, do you get from having her over for dinner to us getting married?”
“You took her to the dance, too,” Matt, ever helpful, put in.
“Uh-huh. Two dates. Neither of them alone. I think it’s safe to say it’s early yet. Besides, your mother and I dated for six years before we got married.”
“Yeah, but you were young then,” Mike said, scratching his pale head. “Time’s no longer on your side.”
Sam scowled at his oldest son for a second or two, but no comeback, brilliant or otherwise, came to mind. Then he thought about Carly’s obvious nervousness about all of this and let out a sigh.
“Okay, everybody—listen up. If it were up to me, yeah, I guess I’d get things moving a lot more quickly than Carly wants to. But that’s my point—she’s not in the same place I am. Or, apparently, you all are. Frankly I don’t think any of you realize how much of a coup it was gettin’ her over here tonight to begin with. But that only means she’s willing to put her toe in the water, not that she’s ready to jump in. And you know what? It might not work out between her and me. We might get to know each other better and decide, nope, not what we want. So don’t go getting yourselves all worked up about something that might not ever happen. Okay? Now. It’s past most of your bedtimes. So come on—” he clapped his hands “—teeth and pj’s, now.”
Grumbling, the boys all trooped upstairs to get ready for bed. Libby, however, hung back, waiting.
“She needs us, you know,” she said, then took off for her room.
Maybe so, Sa
m thought, sinking into the sofa for a minute before heading upstairs to do the nightly tucking-in. But that was one conclusion the gal was going to have to arrive at all on her own.
And that, heaven knew, was anything but a given.
Why Carly drove into town, she had no idea. By eight-thirty, there was virtually nothing open. But she couldn’t face either her father and his moroseness or the emptiness of her place, so she parked at an angle in front of the hardware store and got out to walk up Main Street. All three blocks of it. It was freezing, the wind cruelly assaulting her practically bare knees between her hemline and the tops of her boots; she huddled inside her jacket as she peered into store windows filled with Western clothing and fishing gear, the drug store running specials on Maybelline and Metamucil; at the Hair We Are, she chuckled at the faded color posters of ladies in hair styles that were outmoded thirty years ago. Life in Haven might not have been exciting, by popular definition, but there was a lot to be said for the comfort of tradition, of predictability in an uncertain world.
Although Ruby’s neon sign was turned off, the lights over the counter still glanced off Jordy’s gleaming head as he scrubbed down the grill; one of the waitresses, her bilious pink uniform sagging around her thin frame, filled salt shakers, while in a corner booth, Ruby sat with a cup of coffee clamped between both dark hands, deep in conversation with the brunette seated across from her.
Dawn, she realized. Ivy’s daughter.
Carly backed away, but not fast enough.
“Come on in,” she made out from behind the glass. “Coffee’s still on, no charge.”
Despite hand signals meant to convey, No, it’s okay, I need to get going, Ruby hustled over to the door, holding it open for her, as if knowing she’d never be able to resist the lure of French fry–scented heat. “Get yourself in here, out of the cold. Although the weatherman says we’re supposed to have unseasonably warm temperatures in a few days. Can you believe it? Cold enough to freeze the you-know-whats off a brass monkey now, back up in the seventies three days from now. Craziest damn weather I ever did see…”
Carly had no reason to feel uncomfortable around Dawn, really. Well, other than the whole thing between her mom and Carly’s dad. But that had nothing to do with either of them, did it?
She slipped into the vinyl-upholstered booth across from her, nodding her thanks as Ruby set a mug of coffee in front of her, vanishing to see what Jordy was goin’ on about.
Dawn smiled at her over her mug of coffee. “Considering how often I considered driving out to your place and giving your father a piece of my mind, it’s funny we’ve never really met before now.”
Carly mumbled something and sipped her own coffee, which was strong and scalding and would undoubtedly keep her awake all night. Not that she needed caffeine to accomplish that, but still. Then she raised her eyes to Dawn and asked, “So why didn’t you? Come out and read my father the riot act?”
“Probably for the same reason you never confronted my mother.”
“Because it was between the two of them, you mean?”
The brunette lifted her mug, confirming. Then she said, “But what would you have said? To Mama?”
“That if she hurt my father, there’d be hell to pay.”
Dawn laughed, deep in her throat. “Same here.” Then she set down her cup and asked, “Your dad really loved your mother, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. He did.”
“See, nobody ever loved mine. Not really. That’s why she called it off, because she didn’t want somebody’s leftovers. But you know what I think?” Carly shook her head. “I think what she’s really afraid of, is screwing it up. That she won’t be able to make Lane as happy as your mother did.”
Carly fingered her mug for a moment, then said, “For what it’s worth, Dad’s been miserable since they broke up. If you want my opinion, he’s got it for your mother bad. Real bad. But maybe, I don’t know…maybe he doesn’t think he’ll be enough for her, either?”
Dawn seemed to study her for a long moment, then finished off her coffee. “Could be. I mean, your father certainly doesn’t seem the type to just fool around for the heck of it.”
“There’s an understatement,” Carly said, and Dawn chuckled.
From the kitchen, Ruby fussed at Jordy, who fussed back at her; a second later, they were both laughing their heads off, making both women smile. Then Dawn sighed and said, “Falling in love is so damn scary, you know? Having to trust somebody else. Hell, having to trust yourself, that you’re not going to make a fool of yourself, mess everything up…” She glanced at her watch, then scooted out of the booth. “Lord, I had no idea it was so late—there’s a pair of guys at home probably both wondering what the heck happened to me…”
She shrugged into a voluminous cape, her expression suddenly turning puzzled. “It’s funny,” she said. “I had a late client, which is why I was in town late to begin with. But normally I would have gone straight home. Why I decided to stop here first, finagle a cup of coffee from Ruby before I drove home…” She shook her head. “Strange, the way things happen, isn’t it?”
After Dawn left, Carly sat in the booth, sipping her coffee in the half-light, listening to the Kennedys’ good-natured bickering, thinking strange didn’t even begin to cover it.
Over the next week, the weather warmed up considerably, pushing up near eighty in the afternoons. Since everything indicated it was going to hold out—which meant Thanksgiving, now just two days away, was going to feel more like Easter—Sam decided he might as well scrape and repaint the barn, a chore he’d been putting off since before Travis’s birth. And one he’d hoped to take his mind off all the Travis-free days that had passed, days when Sam would rush back from leaving Trav in Didi’s capable hands to change the sheets on his bed, days when he’d keep an ear out for Carly’s Saturn or the sound of his doorbell, days when he found himself getting more despondent than he had any right to be.
Craziness, is what this was, he thought, attacking the leprous-looking paint up near the eaves. Pure out-and-out craziness. Especially since it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been around at all. In fact, she’d come over for dinner again, and played video games with the boys, and even tried her hand at milking Bernadette (with little success). She just didn’t seem to be in any big hurry to test out those freshly washed sheets. Which was her prerogative, after all. No point in getting his drawers in a knot about something he’d agreed to, for crying out loud. So he’d best get over it, and get on with his life, and stop worrying over things that might not even happen. So when Carly called out, “Having fun?” he nearly fell off the ladder.
He looked down at her, standing there in some lacy little white top that fluttered around her midriff and a pair of those potato-sack pants she was so partial to, and his spirits lifted. Among other things.
“Don’t you have a class or something?” he called down to her, thinking maybe she wasn’t quite as skinny as she had been, although you’d still have to put three of her together to make one normal-size woman.
“Everybody’s too busy with the holiday. So they’re mostly cancelled until next week.” He started down the ladder. “But don’t let me interrupt you if you’re in the middle of something—”
“I’ve been putting off this job for five years. I somehow doubt a few minutes longer is gonna matter a whole lot one way or the other.”
One eyebrow lifted. “A few minutes?”
He’d closed the space between them to where he could see wisps of hesitancy clinging to the boldness, to get a whiff of coconut and flowers. Tropical paradise, right here in Oklahoma. “Hours, I meant. Days. Weeks. Your call.”
She smiled the smile of a woman who knows she’s about to get what she wants, and alarm spiked through him, that he might not be able to give her whatever that was.
“I’d pretty much decided you’d changed your mind,” he said.
“Oh, I did. At least six times.”
“And?”
“And I suggest y
ou quit yakking and get my clothes off before I change it again.”
He tossed down the scraper, very nearly pegging one of the dogs, then hauled her by the hand into the house.
Chapter 15
“No,” he said when she reached out to him, barely two minutes later. Completely naked, Sam reached over to hoist his blinds, watching sunlight streak Carly’s slender body as she lay on her side, her skin rich as caramel against the white sheets. A slightly puzzled smile teasing her lips, she stretched in the swath of white-gold light gilding her high, small breasts, glancing off her flat stomach, glistening in the darkness between her legs. He threw open the window, letting in an unseasonably warm breeze tinged with the rich tang of leaf-mold and sun-warmed hay, then turned around to indulge in a little visual feasting.
Her head in her hand, she grinned up at him, the earrings glistening. Beckoning. “Are you planning on just standing there all day, staring at me?”
“Not all day, no. But this is one image I definitely want embedded in my memory.”
Her eyes lowered. “I know what you mean,” she said, and Sam laughed and climbed into bed beside her, close enough to touch, if he had a mind to. And boy, did he have a mind to. But he hadn’t driven himself crazy all these weeks to have it all over and done with in thirty seconds flat.
So he continued to look, then look some more, smiling smugly at the flush of arousal that followed in the wake of his lazy perusal. Her nipples hardened; he swallowed in anticipation of how they were going to feel against his tongue. Eventually. Again, she reached out to touch him; he grabbed her hand, said, “Uh-uh-uh,” and she gave up an annoyed sigh.
“Just out of curiosity,” she said, “will there be any kissing or touching anytime soon?”
Sam pretended to consider this for a moment or too, then nodded. “Yeah. I think that’s a safe assumption.”
“How soon?”
“Impatient little thing, aren’t you?”
“So sue me. Well?”
“Betcha you were one of those kids who ripped open all your Christmas presents in five minutes flat without even bothering to look at ’em, weren’t you?”
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