Tana groaned.
Already, Adam’s brain raced for when he could see Sara again. Maybe he was coming down with something. A virus that made him act like a lovesick puppy.
He should get home, too, before he started thinking and saying things he didn’t need to.
He watched the care Sara took with her daughters, the way the obvious love shone in her eyes, and wondered if he even had the capacity for such caring. If he ever had, in all likelihood the Iraqi sun had burned it out of him.
Adam drove Sara and the girls home. When he stopped in her driveway, she jumped out so quickly he wondered if he made her nervous or if she was having big-time second thoughts about being involved with him at all. Not that they were involved. It was only casual, just as he liked it.
Yeah, right. Stop fooling yourself. This woman is different than all the others.
That’s what scared him.
He’d swear he could hear his former commander yelling, “Retreat!”
Before he could get out of the car, Sara leaned down and looked in the passenger side window. “Thanks for the pizza. The girls had a nice time.”
But had she? Sara didn’t say, but she did offer him an entrancing smile before she followed her girls into the house.
He sat there for several long moments, fighting the urge to drive out of Horizon Beach and keep going, before he backed up and headed home. Home to an empty house he had the strangest feeling was going to feel even more empty than normal.
“DID HE KISS YOU good-night?” Tana asked, her big eyes alight, as Sara stepped into the house.
“No.” She headed for the refrigerator to put away the leftovers.
Tana followed, undeterred. “Why not?”
Why not, indeed? He hadn’t even gotten out of the car.
You didn’t give him time. You jumped out of there like a scared rabbit.
“Just because two adults go out doesn’t mean they end up kissing.”
“Don’t you like him?”
“He’s fine.”
“Are you going out again?”
Sara shoved the pizza in the fridge, closed it and turned toward Tana. “Why are you pushing this so hard?”
Tana hesitated for a few moments. “Because you seem lonely.”
The revelation hit Sara in the gut, and she fumbled for a response. “How can I be lonely with you and Lilly here? And Ruby nearby?”
Tana gave her one of those disgusted teenager looks, the one that said adults didn’t have a clue. “It’s not the same.”
“Honey, grown-up relationships are complicated.”
“Don’t treat me like a little kid. I’m not stupid.”
Sara crossed her arms. “I didn’t say you were, but I’ll be the one to decide who the right guy is.”
Tana shoved her hands into her shorts pockets. “But you don’t think it’s Adam.”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“Why? Because he’s not some ‘perfect,’ boring CPA or something?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair,” Tana muttered.
The tinge of bitterness in Tana’s words had Sara looking at her more closely. “What’s this really about?”
Tana just shrugged. Did she miss her real parents? Or just having a father figure in her life? Sara couldn’t help the feeling of failure that washed through her. She did her best to be two parents, but she knew from experience that no one person could truly give a child what she should be getting from two. Her own father had been wonderful, but he hadn’t been a loving mother able to teach Sara all the girly things.
“I’ll find someone,” she said, feeling lame.
“Whatever.” Tana headed for her room. Moments later, the door closed, and music came out of her iPod dock speakers.
Lilly appeared in the doorway, her eyes wide and filled with unshed tears. “Why is Tana mad at you?”
Sara lowered herself to Lilly’s level. “Oh, honey, she’s not. She just doesn’t understand some of my decisions.” Or lack thereof.
“But she’s playing her mad music,” Lilly said.
Sara noticed the song playing did sound mad. Should she try to talk to Tana more, get to the core of her upset, or just let her have time to work through whatever was bothering her? An image of herself as a teenager, locked in her room and letting her own version of mad music block out the rest of the world, kept her rooted to the spot.
“Make up,” Lilly said, on the verge of letting her tears fall free.
“We will, sweetie pie. Don’t worry.” Sara leaned forward and kissed her precious baby on the forehead. “Now go on and play in your room for a little bit. Bedtime in an hour.”
Lilly hugged her before trudging down the hallway. Sara watched her go, saddened by the fact she wasn’t running or skipping like she normally did.
If this was what resulted of her going out with Adam Canfield, tonight had to be the last time. Sure, she wanted a wonderful man to make her family complete, and she had to admit Adam had been wonderful tonight. But no man was worth bringing unhappiness to the family she already had. For the first time, she wondered if the three of them were all there was ever supposed to be. Maybe fate didn’t have marriage or love or romance in store for her.
That thought caused a pang in her chest, and she suspected Tana would hate that idea.
Suddenly all kinds of tired, Sara sank onto the floor and leaned against the refrigerator door. Even though Sara could never admit it and make her girls feel like they weren’t enough, Tana was right.
She was lonely.
And Adam Canfield had made her forget that.
THE ONGOING DEBATE in his head was still being waged like a back-and-forth firefight when Adam pulled in to his own street. He wished he could turn off thoughts about Sara, but he couldn’t. He’d tried and failed.
What was it about her that had latched on and refused to let go? Sure, he’d realized at the benefit just how beautiful she was, but he’d dated lots of beautiful women, flirted with them every night at the Beach Bum.
Not recently.
That realization caused his heart to skip a beat. When had he last flirted with someone besides Sara?
He pulled a quick U-turn and headed back through town, looking for the real Adam Canfield. The one who didn’t fixate on one woman and neglect his normal flirting routine.
The one who didn’t go home before midnight.
The one who didn’t feel happy and relaxed around two kids.
Well, all that nonsense was stopping right now. He parked and headed down the beach to the bar.
“Look who decided to show up,” Suz said when she spotted him slipping onto his usual perch.
“Dude, where you been?” Zac Parker asked from where he was pouring a beer from the tap.
“I bet I know,” Suz said, a self-satisfied smile spreading across her face.
“Sara?” Zac asked.
“Glad to know I’m such a topic of conversation when I’m not here.” Adam scanned the bar’s patrons, determined to find a lovely woman to occupy his time and his thoughts.
“What?” Suz slid a longneck in front of him. “Just because I tell your best friend you’ve got the serious hots for someone, suddenly I’m a gossip?”
Adam gripped the cold bottle in his hand. He didn’t know what reflected on his face, but Suz backed off.
“So, how’s married life treating you?” he asked Zac.
“I highly recommend it,” Zac said, the stupid-goofy look of a schmuck in love on his face. “You might want to try it sometime.”
Adam cursed in his head. What exactly had Suz told him? “Nah, I’m more the play-the-field type.” As if to prove his point to them, and himself, he met the eyes of a pretty brunette three tables away. “No commitments for me.”
He slipped off the stool and headed for the brunette. As he grew closer, he shoved away images of Sara looking at him from across the table at Freddie’s, of her in that sexy red dress. When he realized the
girl in front of him must be a decade younger than he was, Suz’s previous comment about him becoming a dirty old man came back to haunt him.
What the hell was happening to him? He’d never even paused before.
He made an effort. He really did. But by the time fifteen minutes had passed with Leila and her friends, all college students from Panama City, he had to get away. It didn’t feel right, and he hated that he could feel his carefree life slipping away.
Adam excused himself, left his unfinished beer on the bar and walked out without a word to Suz or Zac. Let them think what they would. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. As he drove home, he was now thankful an empty house awaited him. No one should be around him when he was in a foul temper. Damn David Taylor anyway. Adam’s life would be just fine if David hadn’t run away from home. If he hadn’t, Sara Greene would have remained only someone he saw in passing around town. He wouldn’t be all twisted up in knots about her.
Adam pulled in to his driveway and cut the engine, then slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. How much of an ass was he for wishing David hadn’t run away when the kid had been in danger?
God, if Sara was smart she’d tell him to take a hike. She deserved someone better.
AFTER SEEING TANA OFF to school and leaving Lilly with Ruby the next morning, Sara went for a run on the beach and deliberately headed toward the pier. She’d lain awake until nearly 2:00 a.m. thinking about Adam and how he’d turned her world upside down in such a short time. If Ruby, Tana and Lilly all liked him, could they all be wrong? Had Ruby been right that there was no such thing as Mr. Perfect?
As her running shoes beat against the packed sand at the edge of the water, she remembered how sad both of the girls had looked at breakfast. For some reason, they’d grown fond of Adam very quickly, and she wondered if maybe they saw things more clearly than she did. Were kids’ instincts about people better than those of adults because they didn’t overanalyze everything so darn much? Was fate trying to tell her something through those sad faces? Should she stop fighting it and give Adam a real chance? If he wanted it, that was.
She swallowed the nervousness that she’d come to this decision too late, that his not getting out of the car last night meant that sometime over pizza he’d decided two dates with her was enough.
Well, she’d find out soon. The pier was only a hotel length away.
Only he wasn’t there.
An older guy sporting a Hawaiian shirt and a bit of a paunch sat in Adam’s spot and blinked back at her. “You wanting to go out on the pier?”
“Uh, no. I thought Adam was working this morning.”
“Called in sick.” The guy sounded annoyed, like Adam’s call had torpedoed his plan to sleep all day.
“Oh. Well, thanks.”
Feeling awkward, she turned and hurried off the pier. Something told her the guy was watching her retreat, so she jogged in the other direction, up past the Beach Bum, over the dunes, through the parking lot back to the sidewalk along the street.
She refused to read meaning into the fact that Adam hadn’t been at the pier. He’d said he was sick. Maybe fate wasn’t trying to tell her something in code at every turn. Deciding to take the explanation at face value, she jogged toward home.
Once there, she showered and got ready for work. Her caretaker instincts nearly got the best of her when she opened the cabinet to grab a bag of pretzels to take with her and she spotted the cans of chicken noodle soup. Those helped when you felt bad, right?
With a groan, she shut the cabinet door. She did not know Adam well enough to go to his house bearing chicken noodle soup for what ailed him. She shouldn’t even know he was sick.
She determined not to try so hard, not to let this fixation take over. Work beckoned as a way to fill her thoughts with other things, so she hurried to the station.
Unfortunately, what waited for her there made her wish she could go back to conflicting thoughts about Adam Canfield. They would have been less disturbing.
Chapter Nine
Murder redirected Sara’s main focus back to her job. It took two days to figure out who had killed eighty-seven-year-old Betsy Turnbow in her little house at the edge of the county and another to find her grandson where he was hiding out in Crestview. Sara felt a decade older when she came home after his arrest. She wondered why she was always surprised when some new ugliness passed through her jurisdiction.
When she got home and pulled in to the driveway, she spotted Tana chasing Lilly with the spraying garden hose, both of them laughing. Ruby sat on the porch, knitting needles in hand and a wide smile on her face.
For the first time, she wondered if a different job choice would have been wiser if she wanted a family. A job that wasn’t so steeped in the worst part of humanity.
The sorrow of what she’d seen the past couple of days prodded her to back out of the drive and not contaminate the happy scene before her, but she didn’t. As she sat, marrow-weary, someone parked behind her. A couple of fatigued moments passed before she realized it was Adam. Even with the extra jolt of adrenaline seeing him gave her, it still proved a colossal effort to drag herself from her car.
“Hey,” he said as he rounded the back of his car and opened the trunk.
“Hey. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
He pulled a bright pink-and-purple butterfly kite from the trunk. “I saw this at the kite shop downtown. I thought Lilly might like it.”
For a brief moment, an air of awkwardness enveloped him. He glanced at the kite as if he couldn’t believe he’d bought it.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he said as he met her gaze again.
She stared for a moment, trying to figure him out, but she honestly didn’t see an ulterior motive in his eyes. Something shifted inside of her, something that made her want to cry at his thoughtful gesture. “No, of course not. She’ll love it.”
The nearly overwhelming desire to walk into his arms, to soak in the fact that there was indeed goodness in the world, made her cross her arms and look toward where the girls came running from the opposite direction.
Lilly stopped and stared at the kite. Her mouth formed an O of wonder. “It’s bootiful,” she said, her words filled with awe.
Adam took a few steps. “I’m glad you like it because it’s for you.”
Lilly looked at Sara for confirmation, for permission. The moment Sara nodded that the wonder-kite was indeed hers, Lilly sprinted forward with a squeal of glee.
“Can we go fly it, Mommy? Please!” Lilly’s little body wasn’t big enough to contain all the excitement flowing from her.
Sara didn’t care how tired or drained she was, she wasn’t going to deny her daughter’s fondest wish—to fly her new kite.
“Sure, sweetie. Just let me change, and we’ll head over to the beach.”
“Will you come, too?” Lilly asked Adam, an uncharacteristic shyness in her voice.
Adam met Sara’s eyes. “If your mom doesn’t mind.”
“No, it’s fine.” An attack of nerves sent Sara fleeing for the house.
When she reached her room, she sank onto the side of the bed. She expected someone to follow her inside, but no one did. Instead, they stayed outside with Adam. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Big mistake. Dark half-moons under her eyes and the lines of fatigue stared back at her. It was a wonder Adam hadn’t fled at the mere sight of her.
But he hadn’t.
He’d brought a kite to her daughter—and a smile of purest joy to her face.
Sara rose and made quick work of washing her face, brushing her hair and pulling it into a fresh ponytail, and changing into a yellow tee and white shorts. It wasn’t a shower or twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep, but at least she felt marginally better. She could have put on makeup to camouflage the dark circles and remnants of the bruise on her cheek, but she decided if this…whatever it was…with Adam had the remotest hope of working, he had to see the real her. The one who sometimes worked lon
g hours and came home spent and a little worse for wear. At least she’d know the truth of his supposed interest.
When she made her way back outside, she found both of the girls at the edge of the lawn talking to Adam. She watched them, wondering if that could become a forever type of image.
“Give him a chance,” Ruby said as she stepped up beside her.
Sara watched for a moment more, trying to keep herself from judging Adam against the model of perfection she’d had in her mind for years. “I am.”
After tearing the girls away from Adam long enough to get them buckled into the car, Sara glanced at Adam. “We’ll follow you.”
The drive to the nearest public beach access only took five minutes, but Sara’s heart thumped in anticipation the entire way there. She barely heard anything the girls said.
Once they reached the beach, her concerns and anticipation stepped aside as her mothering instinct took over. She retrieved the new kite from the trunk and helped Lilly get it airborne.
“Oh, Mommy, look! The butterfly’s flying,” Lilly said as she ran as fast as her little legs would carry her.
Sara hugged herself and watched as Tana took her spot and helped keep her little sister’s new toy flying high. The steady sea breeze made the pink and green streamers at the base of the kite dance in the air.
“She seems to like it,” Adam said next to her.
“Yeah.” She looked over at him, trying to figure out what other hidden parts of Adam Canfield lay beneath his flirtatious and supposedly carefree exterior. “Thank you.”
He glanced at her and smiled. “You sound surprised.”
“Do I?”
He laughed a little. “Not that I blame you. Can’t say I thought I’d be buying a kite today when I got up.”
“Why did you? Buy a kite.” Had it simply been a ploy to get into her good graces? Something told her no, probably the honesty in his expression when he’d said he’d been as surprised by his act as she was.
Adam slipped his hands into his pockets and watched the girls laughing as they ran with the kite, making it snap against the salty wind. He shrugged. “Don’t know. I saw it and thought of Lilly. They just seemed to go together.”
The Family Man Page 9