"Sam. And I kissed him back."
"All right!"
"Is it, Annie? Is it right?"
"Let me see. He's cute. He's fun. He's warm-blooded. Duh!"
"Come on, Annie. He's a cousin."
"Only by marriage and you're not married anymore."
Dixie twisted the wedding band still on the third finger of her left hand. Not married any more. She'd come to grips with that fact long ago. She'd even had an erotic dream or two in recent months. But the lover in those dreams had been faceless. Sam Ryan wasn't faceless. He was…
"He's Michael's cousin."
"And you want me to play Dr. Freud," Annie said.
"Something like that," Dixie said, gazing across the room, through the window at the barn.
She heard Annie send her girls out to play before continuing. "Did he drool?"
"What?"
"When he kissed you, did he drool?" Annie asked.
"No!"
"Did he mash his teeth against yours? Did he draw blood? Did he leave his eyes open?"
"No. No. And I don't know. I closed my eyes."
"Okay. We've established that you were into it."
"Annie! I wouldn't be calling you if I wasn't having a problem with this."
"Aaah, to have such a problem."
"Knock it off. Lou worships the ground you walk on and you love it."
Annie sighed. "Yeah."
"Annie, are you fantasizing about him right now?"
"Just a minute."
"He's been home from a run for a week. You shouldn't have to fantasize."
Was that a kissing sound she heard?
"You're not fantasizing. You're kissing him right now, aren't you?" Dixie demanded more than asked.
Annie panted out, "He leaves tonight on his next cross country haul and, for some reason, every time I send the kids outside he thinks—"
"I get the picture. Just tell me what to do about Sam and I'll let you off the phone so you two can take it to the bedroom."
"Go for it."
"But—"
"But nothing. Michael loved you and would want you to be happy, right?"
"Right."
"And, from everything you've told me about Michael and Sam, Michael loved his cousin and wanted him happy, right?"
"Right."
"If you and Sam getting together makes the both of you happy…"
"But Sam's not an in-it-for-the-long-haul kind of guy."
Annie's voice turned serious. "Is commitment what you want from him?"
"I-I don't know. I just don't think I can rely on him to stick around."
"Then let him be your transition guy."
"Transition guy?"
"The man who comes between the love of your life and your next serious relationship."
"I know what a transition guy is," she said, but tasting the two words on her tongue and finding them less than sweet.
"Have some fun."
"I have fun."
"Not the adult kind."
True.
"Let Sam take a little of the pressure off. Use Sam to get back in the saddle, so to speak."
"Yeah, thanks," she said, slow to hang up, knowing this issue was far from resolved.
She'd never been the fling sort of girl. But then she'd never before been attracted to a fling sort of guy. Maybe it was time. Maybe it was serendipitous that Sam came along when she needed him and not just to be her chef. Hadn't Michael always said, "Wait until you meet, Sam. You'll love him?"
#
"What the hell am I doing?" Sam asked himself.
The hay bales on which he sat pricked the backs of his legs and his body still tingled everywhere Dixie had touched him, and even some places she hadn't. She was Mickey's widow. He had no business kissing her. Maybe she'd had the same thought in the moment reality intruded on them…when she'd pushed herself out of his arms.
But the fact remained, he had kissed her.
And he wanted to kiss her again…everywhere.
That's why he'd fought the urge ever since coming to the farm. He'd known, once he let his lips have their way, the rest of him would want equal opportunity. And since one kiss was not going to be enough…
Sam groaned. "Now what am I going to do?"
The old barn creaked around him. He lifted his chin and peered up through the dusty sunbeams, past the patchy hayloft, at the ceiling high above. "What am I going to say to her, Mickey? I want you in every way a man wants a woman?"
Sunlight streamed in through the cracks between the ancient boards and around the hay doors just under the peak of the roof casting the trusses in an ethereal haze.
"Damn it, Mickey. I know she's your wife. But she needed kissing and you weren't here to do the job."
A tomb-like silence answered him.
Sam blinked. "Okay. I wanted to kiss her."
More silence.
"This can't be what you intended when you looked at me through the kid's eyes and made me stay."
The barn groaned.
"And don't give me that business about her and the kid needing my help. They've got family. Lots of family. Family that's already helping them, watching out for them. Family that will be here come July 4th. Just a few weeks away. What if they take one look at me and see me for what I am?"
Sam listened for some sign that Mickey agreed. But he heard nothing in return except the settling of old timbers.
"I'm no good for them," he argued. "You know I'm the family screw up. The Carrington black sheep. I run when the going gets tough."
Something skittered along a truss overhead. A mouse? A squirrel?
The ghost of a brother-like cousin?
"Okay, it's been tough around here and I haven't run...yet."
Why, the old barn whispered around him?
"Because I owe you, Mickey."
Why, creaked the aged timbers?
"Because I promised her."
Why, whistled the wind through the cracks between boards?
"Because... Because..."
The memory of Ben running to him when he'd been frightened by a shadow in his sandbox wrapped itself around Sam. It made him feel warm and...needed.
Sam scanned the silent rafters. "He needed me only because his macho uncles weren't here at the moment to chase away an imaginary flying monkey."
He squinted through the dusty air at the highest peak of the roof. "And Dixie needs me only because her jerk of a chef ran out on her."
He peered into the deepest shadow where roof and walls met, waiting for Mickey's answer.
What came to him was the image of Mickey's eyes looking back at him from Ben the night he'd arrived at The Farmhouse. What bounded across his brain was Checkers the bunny and Bear the dog hopping one after the other beneath the apple tree in the grassy oasis in the middle of the circular driveway the day he'd tried to sneak off. What made him swipe from his brow raindrops that weren't there was the memory of rainfall that had come along at the very moment he'd needed an excuse to stay at Dixie's farmhouse.
Had all that been about only Ben?
Sam thought about the way he'd peered up at Dixie from the ground that day before the rain had begun. Mickey knew him better than anyone else. Mickey would have known what he was thinking…on the ground…staring up at Dixie.
And still, Mickey had sent the rain to keep him here.
Or had he?
Sam shook off the doubt. Of course Mickey would do whatever it took to keep him from leaving, because noble Mickey put his family ahead of all else.
Mickey who had loved him like a brother.
Who entrusted him with the tasks of watching out for his son and taking his place with his widow.
There was a thread out of place in the tapestry of Sam's reasoning, a wispy, blue angora-like thread that curled into a fuzzy ball in the corner of his brain like a bad dust bunny. But he didn't want to see the flaw in his conclusion, that the rain—that all of it was likely nothing more than coincidence…or his own wishful lo
ngings.
He folded his hands behind his head and flopped back into the hay to contemplate a happily-ever-after future with Dixie. Instead, he came face to face with the grizzle-bearded Rocky staring down on him from the next tier of hay bales.
Sam bolted upright, faced the goat, and reflexively rubbed his backside where the ill-mannered goat had butted him the first time they'd met. He'd argued why he should leave. He'd explored all the reasons why he should stay. But, what stared him in the eye right now was the one reason he had no business considering a forever after with Dixie.
Softhearted Dixie who'd given a home to a blind pony, dry cow, and three-legged llama had also rescued a goat because no one else wanted to deal with his butting bad habit. She'd taken them all in and cared for them. The used up. The unwanted.
And the outcasts like Rocky…and him.
Poor Sam. She'd spoken those words to him the day a run-away rabbit had thwarted his attempt to sneak off. They echoed through his hollow chest now.
Poor Sam. Abandoned by his father. Ignored by his mother. Cast out by his uncle. How could he have forgotten that he was just another of her causes.
It crossed his mind to argue that, when he'd kissed her, she'd kissed him back—that a woman doesn't kiss a man like that out of pity. But surely a young widow starved for passion could have easily gotten caught up in the moment.
He peered deep into the goat's unblinking eyes, his suspiciously blue eyes. Mickey would have known it all, too. Mickey the responsible one. The noble one.
The one who had looked out for him most of his growing up years.
Sam looked deep into the blue eyes watching him, eyes that suspicious cool shade of Mickey-blue. "Did you plan this? Did you think poor Sam needs them as much as they need…someone?" He thought of the restaurant Mickey had bought for Dixie with plans to make him Head Chef.
"Damn it, Mickey. There's only one thing worse for me than making them dependent on me and that's making me need them."
The goat bleated.
"You're planning my life for me, Mickey. Just like your father tried to do."
Deftly, the goat hopped from one hay bale to the next.
"If you think this will make me stick around and take care of Dixie and Ben for you, forget it!"
The goat bounded several tiers to the floor.
"This isn't fair to me."
The goat lowered his head the way he did when he was about to butt something. Mickey driving his point home?
Sam fisted his hands at his sides. "Damn you, Mickey. This isn't fair to her."
As if an omen, Rocky raised his head, turned, and out the Dutch door into the paddock.
#
Dixie was halfway through the living room when she saw Sam crossing the yard toward the house, his shoulders forward, his strides long. She'd never seen Sam move with such purpose. Had he grown impatient waiting for her to return? Was he coming to finish what they'd started in the barn? Her stomach did a little flip and her lips tingled at the idea of more kisses.
She pushed the screen door open and stepped out onto the porch just as his foot hit the bottom step. She met him at the edge of the porch as he cleared the top step, their gazes locked.
She wanted to trace his set jaw with her fingertip. She wanted to tease apart his lips with her tongue. She wanted to sink her fingers into his thick, dark hair and pull his face into her cleavage.
She settled for plucking a shaft of straw from his temple.
"Don't," he said, catching her by the wrist and stilling her hand.
The tightness, the hoarseness of his tone confused her. "Sam?"
His gaze shifted to the side. She followed its trajectory and found Miss Weston hunched in a wicker chair, her ever present bag of a purse in her lap and its resident stuffed monkey pointed in their direction. So, he was concerned about what other people might think. Dixie peeked up at Sam through lowered lashes.
"I was only removing a piece of straw." She twirled the shaft in front of his face then flicked it away.
He wheeled around and towed her down the steps toward the far side of the house. She liked the firmness in his grip and decisiveness in his stride. She liked that he'd taken command of the moment—that, for a change, she didn't have to be the one in the lead. She'd missed this about Michael...even though he'd had a tendency to take charge too often.
She tripped around the corner of the porch after Sam, brushing at the hay chaff dusting the back of his t-shirt. "I didn't think we'd rolled around enough to cause this."
He released her just long enough to peel the shirt off over his head. The skin of his back wasn't bronzed the way Michael's had been, Michael who'd spent his summer leisure hours boating on Lake Michigan and his winter vacations diving in the Caribbean...before he'd married her. But Sam had sturdy shoulders and a strong, straight spine. She touched that track of backbone with a fingertip.
He groaned and glanced across the backyard toward where Ben played in his sandbox. The next thing she knew, he was ushering her ahead of himself through the service door to the restaurant kitchen, his hand warm where it touched her on the shoulder, her elbow, the small of her back. She wanted to lean into that contact. But, his hand moved with a nervous energy, not lingering on any one part of her body long enough for her to sink into its support.
Inside, she laughed, faced Sam, and placed a hand on his forearm. "What are you so nerved up about, Sam?"
He brought his hand down on the back of hers, pinning it from moving further up his arm, and he said, "We need to talk."
There were deep lines crimped around the bittersweet chocolate-brown eyes. Dixie sobered. "Because Ben almost caught us kissing? Because I jumped out of your arms when Ben burst in on us? I was startled." She leaned into Sam, close enough to smell the musty, masculine scent of barn and man. "That's all."
"Red—"
"Really, Sam. It isn't going to hurt Ben to see us kissing," she said, taking him by the hand and drawing him deeper into the kitchen. "It would be good for him to see how a man and a woman show affection for each other."
He blew an exasperated sounding sigh and let go of her. Maybe she was reading him wrong. Maybe Sam didn't want to talk about anything at all. Maybe he wanted to find some place private as badly as she did.
"I can think of better places to finish what we started in the barn, Sam," she said, turning in front of him and leaning back against the prep table.
His gaze dipped to where her hip contacted the stainless steel table and he groaned. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Has my chef been harboring lascivious thoughts about the use of his kitchen?"
She caught him by the belt buckle and tugged him closer. He folded both his hands over her fist and held himself away from her.
"We can disinfect everything when we're done," she all but purred.
Still, he resisted. "I shouldn't have kissed you."
The little electrical charge tingling up her arm sputtered. He really did want to talk and she was beginning to think she knew about what. Or, more specifically, who. Good thing she'd called Annie with the same concern and had the answer to Sam's dilemma.
"Why, Sam? Because I'm Michael's widow?"
Sam winced. Why did she have to sound so reasonable, so gentle…so sexy?
"Sam?" she probed in that foggy voice that made his nerve endings beg for more. "Do you believe Michael loved you?"
He grit his teeth. "Yeah."
Hand still on his belt buckle, she pulled him closer. Why couldn't she just accept that he shouldn't have kissed her and let him go?
"Don't you think he wanted you happy?" she murmured against his chin.
Damn.
"Sure."
"Do you believe he loved me and would want me to be happy?" she whispered against his cheek.
"Yes, but—"
"Didn't kissing me make you happy?" she purred against the corner of his mouth. "It made me happy." She breathed the words across his lips in a way that made him want to accept the invitation of her p
arted lips—to tip his head, part his lips, and fit his mouth to hers. It would be so easy to stop fighting the press of her breasts against the backs of his hands—to sink into her warmth.
To slide his hands around her, take her in his arms, and—
Her lips brushed his…so like how his had hers that first tenuous testing touch…in the barn. He jerked back from her.
"Damn it, Red. I can't make you happy. Not the way Mickey wants you happy. I'm not the kind of guy who sticks around for the long haul."
One corner of her mouth twitched and she tilted her head in a way that made her have to peer up at him through her thick lashes. "Is that the problem, Sam? You think I'm expecting a commitment because you kissed me? I'm not."
"You're not a one-night stand sort of girl, Red."
"You don't know that," she countered. Still, that flirtatious smile of hers ratcheted down a notch. Whether she realized it or not, she wanted more from him than a fling.
He wheeled away from her. Just looking at her was more than he could bear. "Damn it, Red, I'm not your hero!"
"Sam Ryan, you are a fraud."
Finally, she'd figured him out. She'd caught on to what he was. He was glad he wasn't facing her—that he didn't have to see the disappointment cloud her beautiful eyes. He could just walk through that swinging door between the kitchens and out the back door to the garage where his bike waited for him. He could be gone in less than sixty seconds. He took one step toward the door.
"You call yourself the family black sheep," she said behind him, "but you're not nearly as bad as you'd have people think."
"Not nearly as bad?" He pivoted on his heel—faced her. "You have no idea how bad I can be."
"Stop buying into what Stuart would have you thinking of yourself."
He shook his head. "You have a blind spot where I'm concerned because you see good in everyone—everything. I'm just another of your damaged rescues."
"There is good in everyone," she said, advancing on him.
He shook his head.
She took his face in her hands, held it so he had to look her in the eye. "Did I kiss you like I thought you were damaged?"
He scowled. "Sooner or later I'll disappoint you."
"That's life, Sam. We all disappoint at one point or another now and then. A person works through those moments."
"I don't. I run away from them. Always have."
Finding Home (St. John Sibling Series Book 2) Page 15