by Saxon, Diane
By the time the three of them came back downstairs, Sam had cleared the kitchen, and he had another mug of coffee ready to press into Lydia’s hand.
“Bring it with you, we may be a while.”
She noticed it was milky, just the way she liked it. Did nothing escape his notice?
Aaron raced toward the stable at break-neck speed, while Rosie walked along, holding onto Sam’s hand, the thumb of her other hand stuck firmly in her mouth.
Lydia had dressed Aaron in jeans and shirt, but Rosie had insisted on wearing a pretty yellow dress with white broderie anglais trim. She looked so sweet and feminine, but Lydia wondered how long it would take before Rosie was rolling in the dust of the stable yard, her cute little black patent leather shoes scuffed and ruined.
It seemed Sam was content to stroll along and let Rosie swing his arm back and forward as she skipped beside him. He kept his pace slow and his voice soothing and calm as he described various points of interest across the vastness of the ranch.
By the time they walked into the dim coolness of the stables, Aaron had pulled back to look at the enormous horses with eyes wide and frightened. His hand sought out his mother’s as she walked up behind him.
Lydia placed her empty mug on a ledge to free up both hands. Rosie lifted her arms and without asking, was lifted easily into Sam’s arms. His ease with the children was as natural as though he’d been doing it for years.
Lydia pulled Rosie’s rucked up little dress down gently and found herself smoothing it over Sam’s muscular forearm, which she stroked through the thin material twice before she realized what she was doing. Her eyes flew up to meet his to see if he had noticed as her hand moved to rest on her daughter’s leg instead. His eyes were calm and his mouth unsmiling, but the dimple in his cheek winked in and out as his jaw flexed. She opened her mouth, but he beat her to it.
“If you’re going to apologize to me, think again. You were just being instinctive. Any time you want to feel my muscles, you just go ahead, there’s no one stopping you.” Then he gave her a wicked smile that made her heart lurch and turned away from her to show Rosie the nearest stall with an enormous bay mare.
Lydia cleared her throat and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Sam murmured quietly to her daughter to encourage her to touch the horse.
“I was thinking how good you are with children.” She stepped forward, bravely touched the horse’s silken nose with her free hand, and felt the heat of its breath as it softly blew out.
“How many do you have?”
She ran her hand from the center of the white star of the animal’s forehead down its nose and underneath its mouth where the skin was soft and interspersed with short, hard stubble. Lydia smiled as the horse nudged at her, and then she glanced in Sam’s direction.
“I don’t have any of my own, to my knowledge, but we have a big family, and there are lots of kids running around at varying ages. With a place like this, you have to learn to pick them up and put them where you want them, otherwise one of the horses is going to stand on them.” A little jitter ran through her stomach as his intense eyes held hers. “Just for the record, I don’t have a wife or girlfriend either.”
He reached over and took Lydia’s hesitant hand, guided it to stroke the horse’s cheek, and then further down the neck, forcing Lydia to step forward.
“She’s a gentle old girl, this one, she won’t harm you.”
“She’s absolutely beautiful.” She knew her voice was filled with awe, but she saw no reason to disguise how she felt. She would have loved to have put her head against the horse’s neck and feel the silkiness of its coat against her face. She gazed into the mare’s huge, liquid brown eyes and felt a world of understanding there.
Aaron reached up as the mare lowered her head toward him. He stuck his small fingers inside the mare’s nostrils, and she snorted out a loud crackling breath that had him letting go of Lydia’s hand and stepping backward. The horse threw its head up and down and nudged Lydia firmly into Sam.
“It’s okay,” he soothed from behind her. “Aaron, you just made my horse sneeze, that’s all. Come on over here and I’ll show you how to touch her so you don’t spook her.” He reached down and hauled Aaron up into his arms. Aaron’s eyes were huge as he stared at Sam.
“You’re strong,” he said. “Mummy can’t pick us both up together.” Rosie sucked her thumb and curled the fingers of her other hand in Sam’s thick russet hair, while Lydia’s heart stuck in throat.
“Well your mama’s just a little thing—she hasn’t got very big muscles.” He smiled at them both, and Rosie took her thumb out of her mouth to smile back at him.
“Grandpa can’t pick us up together either, and he’s strong. Not as strong as you. You’re stronger than fiderman.”
Sam’s deep, mellow laugh rumbled out of his chest. “Well, honey, Spiderman and me, we eat a good breakfast in the morning. That’s how we came to get big and strong.”
Rosie studied Sam’s dimple intently, and then pushed her wet thumb deep into the crevice. Sam’s smile simply spread further as he turned his head and kissed the little girl’s thumb, but it faded when he glanced back at Lydia, who stepped back and wiped her hands against her jeans. Trying not to meet his eyes, she stared at the concrete floor of the stables. She blinked rapidly to clear the sheen of tears she knew he must have seen. She turned away before he could make a comment. There was something about this man’s interaction with her children that brought a lump to her throat. She couldn’t believe how emotional she felt, but consoled herself that it must be the long journey still taking its toll.
“I think Aunt Kate may be awake now. Shall we go and see?” She could hear her own voice a little thicker than normal, but it could have been the dust from the horses and hay in the air.
Sam let the children down to run loud and wild out of the stables and across the field toward the ranch house. They whooped with joy at the thought of seeing their aunty.
Flustered, Lydia set off after them in the hope that Sam would not bother to catch up.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” She carried on walking, her pace fast, feeling the heat of a blush steal across her skin. He ambled along beside her, long-legged and relaxed.
“Lydia?” He took hold of her upper arm and pulled her gently to a halt. She looked down at his hand on her arm and tried to pull away. He held on.
“If I’ve done something to upset you, would you please tell me? I’m not in the habit of apologizing for something I may or may not have done, but you’re acting a little strange.” She jerked her arm away from him, a little more forcefully than she intended, and had to take a step back to avoid staggering.
“I don’t want you to touch me. Please stop touching me. You seem to do it all the time and … and it makes me uncomfortable.” She stared at the base of his throat so she didn’t have to look into his eyes. It wasn’t that she was lying. He did make her feel uncomfortable, just not in the way she intimated. It was her own feelings she was uncomfortable with. It wasn’t what he did to her, but how he made her feel.
He stepped forward into her space, but she kept her eyes on the same level they were before, adjusted them to his closeness, and stared at his chest.
“Lydia, it was you who touched me before. In fact, I think we could go so far as to call it a caress.” She knew his eyes gazed at the top of her head and couldn’t bring herself to look up at him. She was starting to feel like such a fool. “I don’t have a problem with you stroking me, but I’m damned if it’s going to be one-sided.” His voice was low, but it had lost the mellowness of before. “Lydia, honey.” Her startled eyes shot up to his. “I want to kiss you.”
She blinked. She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“And I will kiss you, because if I don’t, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life.”
She held her breath for a moment as they stared at each other. He brought his hand up and tucked her hair behind
her ear, trailing his roughened fingers down the side of her cheek and across her jaw line. He smiled and her heart kicked up a pace. Her limbs didn’t feel as though they wanted to move, but she thought she’d better, otherwise he might think it was an invitation. He leaned down, took hold of her hand, and jerked her gently in the direction of the ranch house. She had to trot to keep up with his long-legged stride.
She didn’t have a clue what to make of him. He’d said he was going to kiss her, and she was getting ready to run like hell if he tried. Well, she thought she might have run, but she wasn’t sure her watery legs would have allowed that. Then, he didn’t. Perhaps it was because they were in the middle of a field and anyone would be able see. Perhaps he didn’t want to be seen kissing her. She was so confused. She didn’t want him to kiss her. So, when was he going to kiss her?
She arrived in the kitchen, breathless, to find her sister besieged by the twins. Kate was laughing and crying, and the children climbed all over her like a rash. Lydia rushed forward.
“Aaron, Rosie, be careful. Aunt Katie has a baby in her tummy, we don’t want it to get hurt.” The children backed off, but Kate pulled them back into her arms.
“The baby’s fine, Lydia, and these two needed a little rough and tumble. Don’t fuss.” Kate glanced up, and her eyes narrowed as she took in Lydia’s flushed appearance and Sam’s long, lazy look.
“Is everything okay?” Her tone was sharp, and she directed the question to Lydia, whose face flushed a deeper color and caused Kate to turn her head slowly in Sam’s direction. With a look of disbelief and a coolly raised eyebrow, her mouth opened, but before she could say anything, Lydia stepped forward, holding her arms out for a cuddle.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you, you look lovely. Are you all right? Tell me what happened last night.” Lydia placed her hand on Kate’s stomach and laughed at the solidness of it. “Oh my, that’s really hard. That must be all baby in there, Kate. It’s going to be huge.” She laughed with delight as Kate gave her a warning look. Doctors made the worst patients, and Kate would be no exception. She knew too much and she was far too intolerant.
“When will the baby come out?” piped Rosie.
“Just as soon as it’s ready, honey,” Jack said from the doorway, where he’d been watching for some time. He sauntered over to the coffee machine and gave his brother a “come over here” jerk of his head.
*
As he pulled down coffee cups and pressed the grind button, Jack kept sending glances over at him as Sam leaned against the counter, a deceptive, calm look on his face.
“How long did it take you before you hit on her?” His older brother’s voice was filled with disapproval.
Sam flicked him a sideways glance, and then continued to watch the women and children across the other side of the kitchen.
“I haven’t hit on her.”
“Could have fooled me,” Jack muttered out of the side of his mouth.
“Well, you’re going to have to take my word for it. I haven’t made any inappropriate advances.”
Jack got the milk out of the fridge.
“But…?”
Sam leaned on the counter and gazed out of the window across the fields. “How long did it take you to know that Katie was the one?”
“Oh shit.” Jack’s voice was a little louder than he realized, and he lowered it as Kate gave him a look of disapproval and nodded toward the children. Sam smiled. He took coffee over to the women as Jack took juice for the kids, and then indicated for his brother to follow him onto the veranda. As they walked slowly around the house, Sam felt Jack glance at him several times.
“Jesus, you’re serious.”
“Yep.”
“She only just arrived last night. When the hell could that have happened?”
“The moment I saw her. She walked through the arrivals gate and … wham!”
“And Lydia? How does she feel?”
“Well hell, I haven’t said anything to her yet,” he blurted. “She’s scared to death of anything that moves. If I looked sideways at her right now, she’d run a mile. I’m going to have to gently bring her round to my way of thinking first.”
“Sam, Lydia comes with a lot of baggage. Sometimes you can’t have your own way just because you want it, you know. It doesn’t always happen that way.”
“It did for you.”
“Yeah, but it nearly didn’t.”
They both turned together and leaned on the balcony, cradling their coffee cups.
“I want her.” The second he had seen her, he’d had an immediate reaction to her looks, but since then he found he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The way she moved. The way she watched her kids. The way her eyes skittered away from his. He knew she felt the attraction.
“Jesus.” Jack stared down at the floor as he scuffed his boot back and forth. “You’re going to have to have a lot of patience, boy, because this ain’t going to come easy. What about the kids?”
“I like them. You know I like kids. They’re cute. They belong to her.” It was that simple for him.
“So, did you hit on her?”
“Nope, and I’m not going to. She’s going to come to me. I’ll let her make the moves. We’ll go at her pace.”
Jack snorted.
“Yeah, right. If you’re waiting for that to happen, it’s going to be a long time.”
Jack was right of course. Lydia was never going to come chasing after Sam, but Sam was a patient man. He could feel the attraction between them, but he could see she was hurt and running scared, so he could afford a little time. If he knew why she was scared, he could help her, but he needed her trust for that to happen. In order to gain her trust, she was going to have to spend quite a lot of time with him. He was just going to have to manipulate circumstances so she got in his way more than she expected to.
Chapter 3
It never ceased to amaze Lydia just how adaptable children were. They’d travelled such a long way, and while they may not have been perfect on the plane, they had certainly never made a commotion that disturbed anyone else. Except maybe the lady in front of Aaron, who’d been treated to an occasional kick in the back of the seat.
Having arrived, they’d slept like babies and revived so quickly she could barely keep up with them. It seemed their routine just slid straight back to normal. Children didn’t care where they were, provided they felt safe and secure and for the most part, entertained. Lydia provided that. From the moment they were born, she had been determined to prove to herself and everyone around her that she was a good mother. A responsible, caring mother … that she deserved these two wonderful children.
She may have run wild for a few years and paid the price, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of being a responsible adult. Her family trusted her. They had faith in her.
It was so good to get away from England and the attention she attracted. When she wrote her first hit song, she had reveled in that attention. When she played sax with her husband’s rock group, she courted the press. Even back then, she had felt she had a point to prove, something to make up for.
Since her husband’s death, she avoided anything to do with fame and fortune. She tried to live a normal life.
Things would be quiet for a while, and then the paparazzi would be on her again. Photographs of her would appear, and the past would be regurgitated. Now that the twins were getting older, she wanted to escape all of that. They didn’t need to live that life. Her children were innocent.
Kate suggested they come and stay for a few months to see what they thought of America. They were close, the two sisters. So close, it had been a terrible wrench to be apart for so long. Lydia would always know it was Kate who saved her, nurtured her, and rescued her. When she needed her the most, Kate had been there.
Now they were together again, but this time Lydia felt she would be the one to give more. She’d grown up a lot in the last few years, and since Kate had moved to America, Lydia had become far more confident and i
ndependent. Without Kate to lean on, she had surprised even herself. She could hold her own in the world now.
One thing she hadn’t counted on, though, was Sam.
A relationship wasn’t something that she had considered at all in her future. Since the day her husband lay dead at her feet, she avoided contact with men. Apart from her brother and father, she couldn’t think of one single male she even engaged in a conversation with. Despite the paparazzi attention and theories, she lived the life of a nun. All she wanted was peace to bring up her children, without the stigma of their parents’ deeds dogging them all of their lives.
She wasn’t stupid, however, and she knew the look in a man’s eyes that said he was interested, and Sam had that look. In buckets. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to handle it, though. She didn’t want to bother Kate with the matter. She had enough on her plate as it was.
It had been three days since they arrived and there had been no further signs of Kate going into labor, which had made her a little grumbly and a lot tired. She’d occupied the children as she always did with paints and toys, and their small, side yard was filled with climbing frames and swing sets so it looked like a playground. They’d never had such freedom, and Kate seemed happy to have them there. She was a second mother to the twins, and it was obvious that she wanted to catch up on lost time before her own baby came along.
So Lydia kept her thoughts of Sam to herself and watched as he sauntered into the kitchen like he did every morning to help himself to coffee, scrounge up a little breakfast, and fool around with her children.
Jack stood at the coffee machine, looking desperate as his caffeine fix drip, drip, dripped with agonizing slowness into an oversize mug. Kate sat at the kitchen table, absently rubbing her stomach as she pushed another slice of apple on to Rosie’s plate. Sam sat down with a heaped up plate of sausage, beans, and eggs. Lydia didn’t know another person who ate as much as he did. Even Jack didn’t eat as much. Then again, Jack wasn’t out on a ranch all day long in the fresh air.
Sam put his fork down, picked up his coffee, caught her staring at him, and smiled, his sexy dimples dipping into his cheeks, and before she could help herself, she found she was responding with a smile of her own.