by Robyn Neeley
“Want to? Nope.” And to illustrate the point, he stuffed a forkful of food into his mouth, chewing slowly.
“Need to?” She licked syrup off the tip of her finger as she studied her friend.
She was starving, but this whole air of mystery was distracting her. She had to find out what was going on.
“You’re missing the show, Wyn. I don’t think we’ve seen this one before.”
“I don’t give a da—”
“Uh uh uh. Tiny, impressionable ears … ” He waggled a finger then gestured toward the bassinet.
Oh, good grief.
“Samuel Dennis, you tell me what is going on. I’m not stupid. Why are you bribing me with French toast?” She watched him squirm in his chair. “What did you do?”
She set the plate down on the coffee table, her appetite having altogether disappeared. Her stomach had begun to twist itself into knots. Her skin felt prickly, right up to her scalp. She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to keep her panic in check. Her gaze flew to the baby, sleeping so peacefully. Suddenly, nothing seemed more important than Charlotte’s welfare.
“You were napping. You needed your rest. I was heading past your door and I heard your cell ring. I didn’t want it to wake you.” He stuffed another bite of food into his mouth and she was forced to wait until he swallowed.
“It was your mom. She was concerned about you. She said you hadn’t spoken to her since the day after you got here.”
Wynter closed her eyes; her racing heart felt like it was ten times too big to fit inside her chest.
“I thought she ought to know. Her granddaughter had arrived. I sent her a photo from your phone.”
“Sam, you had no right.” Fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “She doesn’t know where you live, though. She can’t find us. She can’t come get us.” She looked up wildly. “Can she?”
“She will never take you back to Florida with them. I promise you that.”
“That’s not what I asked, Sam.” Wynter ground her teeth and tried again. “Can she find us?”
“I invited them to visit.” This time she noted he had tears in his eyes. But she’d be damned if it made her any more inclined to forgive him.
“Well, Charlotte, it looks like my dreams of a perfect life for you are over.” She spoke to the baby but her eyes glared daggers at Sam.
“Now just stop it right there!” He set his own plate down and stood up, hovering over her angrily.
“I told you I would protect you. I told you they would not take you away from here. Not unless you want to go.”
“Why Sam? Why did you do it?”
“Because they have a right to meet her, Wyn. She’s their flesh and blood. She’s their legacy. They might not have been the best parents in the world. But that doesn’t mean they forfeit the right to try to be the best damned grandparents they can possibly be.” He was breathing hard.
“This was my choice to make. I wasn’t ready for this.” Her entire body trembled from fear, from emotion. This was a scenario she hadn’t wanted to visit—possibly ever.
“My parents never got to meet Paulie’s kids. My mom never got to hold the baby she’d been knitting a whole freaking wardrobe for.” He turned away, his shoulders quaking.
She’d been so selfishly absorbed in her own reasons for not wanting her parents to know about Charlotte that Wynter hadn’t given any thought to Sam’s motives for taking that call. Oh, Sam.
She went to him, pressing herself into his back, resting her cheek against his ratty sweatshirt and wrapping her arms around his chest. His body was rigid. It was taking every ounce of willpower he had not to cry. She knew it.
“We’ll figure this out, Sam. We’ll let them see her. We’ll protect her. Together.”
He reached up and grasped one of her hands that rested just over his ribs.
“I’m sorry. I had to do it.”
“I know, Sam. I know.” Terror unlike anything she had ever known filled Wynter. This was not going to be a pleasant visit. She had to be strong. Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan were coming to town.
• • •
Sam clamped his mouth shut when Wynter pointed out a smudge he’d missed on one of the windows in his office. His office, for crying out loud! Her parents weren’t even going to see the inside of this particular room. Why? He swallowed the words he would have liked to utter, their taste bitter on his tongue.
Sam sidestepped just in time to avoid having his toes crushed by an overzealous Wynter wielding the vacuum. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. Was it worth this effort? Would stepping into a spotless home make the couple see their daughter’s situation in a different light? Unlikely. But it was something she had to do. And he understood this.
“I’ll finish up in here. Why don’t you see what we need for groceries? I’ll make a quick run before I pick up your folks at the airport,” he said, the second she flipped off the vacuum.
“They’re renting a car. I got a text this morning. They want to be able to come and go on their own.”
“Okay.” He drew the word out.
“They’re expecting to bring back a car seat, stroller, and a bunch of other baby supplies.” Wynter snorted. “Too bad they are spending a fortune on a huge rental for nothing.” She yanked the plug from the wall and coiled it around her arm before dragging the vacuum from the room, her spine rigid.
She was still angry with him. And she was tense. Okay, she was beyond tense. He’d love to give her parents the benefit of the doubt, assume they had changed over the years. But watching Wynter prepare for their arrival was really putting a damper on any hope he might have had.
Wynter’s brother, Grant, had been a college senior when he and his girlfriend found out they were expecting. He had been planning to go to law school, continue his education. But real life has a way of stepping in and rearranging carefully laid plans. Grant and his girlfriend were thrilled about the baby. But his parents? Not so much.
They’d swooped in, as they were wont to do, issuing orders and telling the parents-to-be exactly what they expected of them. The pregnancy was to be terminated. Grant was to stop seeing his girlfriend, as she was obviously a loose floozy with no morals. She would never be the upstanding woman he needed to support his career and be a model wife. He would continue his schooling and keep up his grades, graduating at the top of his class and earning a spot in one of the most prestigious law firms in the country. They had big plans for their eldest child.
When Grant refused to give in to his parents’ demands, they turned to his girlfriend. They offered her money to pay for the abortion and to help set her up, preferably in a different state. Needless to say, she wasn’t cooperative. And that’s when the Allens resorted to threats.
Apparently, they claimed to have dug up dirt on Grant’s poor girlfriend. They threatened to call her out as an unfit mother and take custody of their grandchild. No one really knew if any of their accusations were true, or if they would have been able to gain custody of the child. But Grant and his pregnant girlfriend ran off together.
Sam’s frown carved deep creases around his mouth as he remembered how this all went down. Wynter was a junior in high school, at the time. She was getting excellent grades, was beloved by her teachers, her gymnastics coach, everyone who knew her. But when Grant disappeared, Burt and Gloria turned to the only children they had left, and punished them instead.
Wynter and her other brother, Corbin, were pulled from all extracurricular activities. They were to go to school and come straight home. Gloria was a stay-at-home mom who was more than happy to shepherd her children back and forth—the better to know where they were at all times.
That was when Sam first started sneaking into her room. The frown slid off his face. Nothing like a little martial law to make good kids want to break the rules. Well, it wasn’t like Wynter turned into a rebel wild-child. She just wanted to spend time with her friends. So she had shown Sam how to climb the twisted oak in the backyard to reach her bedroom
. Thank God her parents had never figured this out. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find bars on the windows, had they known about his little visits.
In a funny way, he supposed he owed a debt of gratitude to her parents. If it weren’t for the ridiculous restrictions they put their children under, Sam and Wynter probably wouldn’t have had so much one-on-one time together. She might have gone off shopping and doing whatever it was teenage girls did. Instead, she had asked him to visit. And the two idealistic teens had spent long hours talking about their hopes and dreams.
Shaking the old memories from his head, Sam grabbed his cleaning supplies and left the office. Wynter wasn’t downstairs so the baby must have woken up. She’d be in the nursery. He didn’t like to interrupt this important bonding time, but her blinding panic was starting to become infectious. He hurried up the stairs, visions of Wynter locked in a bedroom in a fancy Florida condo giving him extra speed.
“We need a plan,” he blurted out the moment he reached the doorway to the nursery.
“Ya think?” She arched a copper brow and threw him an exasperated glare. Yep, she’s still angry.
“They aren’t taking you away. And they aren’t taking Charlotte. We just need to give them a reason to think that this is the best place for the two of you right now.”
“No place is better than theirs. You’d have to be … I don’t know.” She sighed, sad and defeated.
“Rich? Would that do it?” Excitement raced through his veins as Sam realized they may have a way to overcome this sticky situation.
“You want to lie about your income? That’s foolish, Sam.”
“I don’t want to lie. I want to exploit it.” He dropped to his knees in front of the rocker.
“I don’t understand.” She cocked her head to the side, her eyes squinting.
“Yeah, I live out here in the boonies. My house is modest. But I could just as easily own a mansion.” He sat down on the carpet, ducking his head to avoid looking as though he were bragging.
“So … I’m kinda loaded.” He chanced a look at Wynter, whose expression was more than a little skeptical. “It’s true. The gaming industry is huge. People pay big bucks for high-end software development.
When I balked at the idea of going to work at their company in Palo Alto, they made me an offer.”
“An offer you couldn’t refuse?” Again with the pointy brow.
“I guess you could say that.” His cheeks warmed as he realized that was exactly what it was. “They told me I could work from home. They doubled the offer if I’d just promise to come in once or twice a year to touch base. It’s a sweet deal.” He shrugged.
“Okay, so you’re rich. They aren’t greedy. That’s not what they’re after. I’m still a single mom. They would probably be more inclined to help you get rid of the burden. I’m only here because you are a kind and very generous friend,” she reminded him.
Sam pulled up his knees and dropped his chin to one, tapping his leg with restless fingers. She was right. Her parents would probably find that embarrassing. Their daughter was accepting handouts. He chewed on his upper lip, thinking.
“I’ve got it! They want nothing but the best for you, right? They wanted Grant to have a successful career. If he’d already been a top-notch lawyer when he found out he was going to be a dad, it wouldn’t have been an issue.”
Wynter shrugged, nodding.
“What if we convince them that we’re in a committed relationship? It’s probably too soon to announce an engagement, because of Holt.” He winced, hoping like hell that he wasn’t crossing the line.
“But if they think we’re in love, with marriage in the foreseeable future? You would be involved with a successful game developer. Your future would be ensured.” He cast a cautious glance at his friend.
“You’d do that for me?” She looked terribly embarrassed.
“I’d do anything for you, you know that.” Sam rested a palm on her knee, the awareness that jolted through him an uncomfortable distraction.
“I don’t know.” She looked pointedly at his hand until he removed it.
“It’s just for show. Once they’re gone, we go back to the original plan. You save up enough to move back to Scallop Shores.” He almost choked on the last few words.
Wynter set the baby on her shoulder and lightly tapped her little back with the heel of her hand.
“It could work. As long as there were no surprise visits.” She frowned.
“Your parents don’t do anything without a lot of preparation. I don’t think spur of the moment trips work for them. They need that element of control. They need to know that you are dropping everything to get ready for their visit.”
“Thank you, Sam. You know them so well. You know just how to get us through this.” Her grateful smile was his undoing. Sam stood up, his mood turned miserable.
“You’re forgetting one thing, Wyn. I’m the one that got us into this mess. Don’t thank me for a damned thing. We aren’t out of the woods yet.”
Disgusted with himself, Sam hung his head and trudged from the room. He had to get groceries for his ‘pretend’ future in-laws. What had he gotten himself into?
Chapter 11
If the baby continued to be this fussy, Wynter doubted her parents would push very hard to get her to go home with them. Her dad kept finding excuses to drive into town, needing a newspaper, insisting they pick up a new tube of diaper ointment, even making an early morning bagel run. He might as well. They were all awake anyway.
The poor thing had colic. The timing couldn’t have been worse, but there was nothing Wynter could do about that. She took perverse pleasure out of the fact that Gloria, who fancied herself the mother of all mothers, could not calm little Charlotte. The one person who seemed to have any soothing effect on the baby at all was Sam.
It was 4am on the third morning of the big visit and Wynter scuffed her way through the downstairs, staying away from the stairwell and trying to give everyone else a chance to sleep. Yeah, maybe if they were sleeping with their pillows over their heads and a few blankets on top of that. The shrill screeches that rent the air were probably enough to be heard at Riley’s house. As if he’d ever let her hear the end of that.
She entered the kitchen, lifting her gaze from the scrunched up, beet-red face of her miserable daughter to eye the coffeemaker longingly. Briefly she thought of setting Charlotte in her bouncy seat on the tiled floor while she made a fresh pot of coffee. But Mommy Guilt kept her from indulging her own needs. Lifting the baby to her shoulder, she began the ‘shh shh’ chant in her ear that occasionally worked to quiet her for a few moments.
“Hey, you look like you could use a break. Give her to me.” Sam had snuck into the kitchen, looking all rumpled in his baggy sweats and a T-shirt stretched tight across his torso; his longer hair was sticking up and his jaw was covered in scruffy stubble. Did she say rumpled? She meant sexy.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss on top of her head. Wynter looked up sharply, assuming one of her parents was around. When she realized they were alone in the kitchen she frowned, confused.
“You only have to do that when they’re watching, Sam.”
“Sorry. You looked like you needed it. I couldn’t help myself.” His grin was lazy, heavy with the last vestiges of sleep. It made her want to kiss it right off his mouth.
Wynter shook her head to rid it of the images that had no business being there. She transferred Charlotte to Sam’s arms, looked at the coffeemaker again and back to Sam. He chuckled, nodding. Ah, sweet cuppa Joe, come to Momma!
Sure enough, Mr. Baby Whisperer worked his magic, jiggling Charlotte on his shoulder until her cries turned to hiccups and her hiccups to a blissful snooze. He continued to sway in the center of the kitchen, his head resting against the baby, a content smile on his face.
“How do you do that? It’s not fair.” Wynter cringed at the petulant tone in her voice. “She’s my baby but I can’t calm her like you can.”<
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“I don’t know. Paulie’s oldest had the same problem. Started at about three weeks old and lasted about a month. I was the only one who could get him to sleep.”
Wynter peeled a coffee filter from the stack and stuffed it into the basket. She scooped enough grounds in for a full pot and then added one more scoop for good measure. Snapping the filter basket closed, she filled the carafe with water, watching as Sam settled into a chair at the table. He was humming softly. She poured the water into the coffeemaker, set the carafe on the burner and joined her friend at the table. She’d allow herself this one cup.
“I don’t know what we’d do without you, Sam.” The words held multiple meanings. He could take his pick.
“I’m just lucky I got a chance to have you back in my life.” Sam reached across the table with his free hand and clasped one of hers.
Wynter was about to remind him that the affectionate action wasn’t necessary when she heard her mother croon from the doorway.
“Look at you lovebirds, sharing a cozy moment.” She slipped in and stopped at the table. “Why don’t you two run up and get some rest. I’ll watch Lottie for a bit.” Wynter gritted her teeth at the nickname she’d immediately despised.
As it would be assumed that they were sharing a bed, Wynter had emptied her own room of her belongings and offered it up to her parents as the guest bedroom.
Wynter was sharing Sam’s room, sure, but by no means were they really sharing the bed. In reality, they took turns, one sleeping in the bed and one camping out on the floor. Sam had tried to insist Wynter use the bed every night, but she wouldn’t hear of it. They locked the door so her parents couldn’t sneak in and catch them in their ruse. If it looked like they wanted their privacy, so much the better.
“Uh uh. Too much at stake. I started that pot of coffee, I get to have one amazing cup of it,” Wynter said with an emphatic nod.
“Suit yourself.” Her mother bustled into the kitchen-proper, opening the fridge and taking out ingredients for breakfast.