She smiled at that. “Is that really what you think?”
He frowned. “Are you telling me that you have been dating?”
“I’ve even had an overnight guest on occasion. One man in particular over the past several months.”
He had to snap his jaw shut. “I do not want to hear about your sex life.”
“Why not?” Amusement was evident in her tone. “Because I have one?”
“Because you’re my mother.”
“And you’re the father of my grandchildren,” she said. “But you’re still entitled to a life of your own.”
“The kids—”
“This isn’t about the kids,” she interrupted. “It’s about you.”
“How can you say that? They just lost their mother.”
“They lost their mother three years ago,” she pointed out gently. “You lost your wife three years ago. Don’t you think you’ve mourned long enough?”
He answered her question with one of his own. “Are you telling me that you don’t still miss dad?”
“Of course I do, but I’ve moved on with my life. For a long time, I didn’t even think that was possible. I was so determined to make someone pay for his murder that I let that mission consume me, destroy my relationship with your brother, and nearly suffocate you. But I finally accepted that nothing I could do would ever bring him back.
“You need to realize the same thing. You need to let go. Liz wouldn’t have wanted her death to paralyze you, and that’s what it’s done. She died, you didn’t. But until you learn to open up your heart again, you’re not really living.”
The truth in his mother’s words struck a chord, but still he resisted. “I just feel like it’s too soon,” he said, aware that he was making excuses. “The timing doesn’t feel right.”
“Maybe it’s not about the time being right, but the person.”
“Samara’s not my type.”
“Why do you say that—because she’s not Liz?”
“She’s nothing like Liz.”
“Then you won’t make the mistake of expecting her to do what Liz would do, be what Liz would be.” She tucked her knitting back into the bag beside her chair. “You can stay up and brood over that if you want, but I’m going to bed. Richard and Jenny are picking me up for brunch at ten-thirty tomorrow.”
Steven finished his beer.
“Don’t worry,” she said, before he could even ask, “I won’t tell them anything about your night out with Samara. But you should know that if you’re going to get involved with your sister-in-law’s best friend, you won’t be able to keep it a secret forever.”
“Then there’s no problem because I’m not going to get involved.”
But even as he said the words, he wondered if they weren’t already a lie.
It was Friday afternoon, more than a week after their first meeting, that Caitlin found Owen waiting for her by her locker when the bell rang for lunch. They hadn’t exchanged more than a few words in the interim, though he continued to sit beside her in English class and a couple of seats back in Science. He seemed to have an easier time making friends than she did, and by the end of that first week, she noticed that he no longer ate alone in the cafeteria or walked alone in the halls or waited alone for the bus.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” She swung open the door of her locker and tried to ignore the funny fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach as she reached for her backpack.
He moved aside as she began stuffing books into the bag. “You told me to ask you in a few weeks.”
“Ask me what?” she asked, as if she hadn’t memorized every word of that long-ago conversation.
“Is it really that bad here?”
She rolled her eyes. “What do you think?”
“I’ve lived in worse places,” he said.
“Lucky you.”
“I’ve never known a girl who carried such a chip on her shoulder, though.”
She grabbed her lunch bag and slammed her locker.
“And I’ve been trying to figure out if you brought it with you all the way from North Carolina or if it was something you picked up here.”
“Why do you care?”
He shrugged. “Because you’re too pretty to walk around looking angry all the time.”
The compliment, as much as the casual delivery of it, stunned her.
He grinned. “Come have lunch with me.”
She hesitated, surprisingly tempted. “I usually eat in the art room.”
“I know,” he said. “But why don’t we try the cafeteria today?”
“Because everyone in there thinks I’m a freak,” she admitted.
“No, they don’t.”
“You’ve been here barely two weeks—how do you know what they think?”
“Because I asked.”
She stared at him, not sure whether or not to believe him. “Why would you do that?”
“I was curious.” He nudged her with his shoulder. “And now you are, too.”
“I don’t care what anyone thinks about me,” she lied.
But he told her anyway. “Patti Linden said you were a stuck-up snob, but Brittany Caldwell thought it was more likely that you were just really shy. And Lauren McKittrick said you were an incredibly talented artist.”
“Lauren said that?”
He nodded.
And though she didn’t want him to know how much it mattered, she couldn’t hold back the smile that curved her lips.
“What do you say? You willing to brave the big bad cafeteria?”
“Maybe,” she finally relented. “Just this once.”
Steven didn’t know what had changed with Caitlin, or even if he was only imagining it, but he thought his daughter was acting a little less confrontationally these days. She still didn’t say very much when he asked her about school, but she didn’t protest every day as she got ready. And while no one would ever call her a ray of sunshine, she scowled less frequently over breakfast in the morning and even smiled at him on rare occasions.
Tyler had noticed the change in his sister’s behavior, too, and was characteristically slapped back when he teased her about having a boyfriend at school.
The mere idea had shocked Steven. Though he couldn’t deny his little girl was growing up, she was still a little girl. But the telltale color that flooded her cheeks in response to her brother’s remarks warned that Tyler might not have been so far off the mark.
Still—a boyfriend? He didn’t want to think about it.
But maybe it was no more impossible than the thought of Steven having a girlfriend, which was something he’d been thinking about a lot lately. Or maybe he’d just been thinking about Samara a lot. And maybe it was normal to think about a woman he saw at work almost every day. Except that his thoughts had a lot less to do with the work part than the woman part.
Of course everyone at Classic seemed to enjoy working with her. She was immensely talented and having her around definitely improved the scenery. Even Isaac, one of his restoration specialists, had been caught ogling the sexy photographer, and Isaac had never been known to show an interest in anything that couldn’t be described in terms of horsepower.
Steven had done his share of ogling, too, though he hoped a little more surreptitiously than the other man.
But the physical attraction aside, Steven knew he and Samara didn’t have anything in common, unlike him and Liz, who had shared a lot of the same interests from the beginning.
And yet, it was Samara who was on his mind now, Samara whose image plagued his thoughts and haunted his dreams.
With each day that passed, he was more certain he’d made the right decision for the magazine when he’d hired her. And equally certain he’d made the wrong decision for himself.
Of course, their respective responsibilities were such that he didn’t need to see her on a daily basis. There really wasn’t any reason for him to seek her out or wander into the photography studio. Somehow, however, he man
aged to find several—and always found himself looking forward to seeing her.
He tried to convince himself that the problem was purely physical. After all, three years was a long time for any man—even one still mourning his wife—to go without sex. But then he’d find himself in a meeting with Erin from marketing or Kathy from distributing, and he’d realize he didn’t feel the faintest stirring of any kind of sexual attraction.
It would be easier, he knew, if it was just a physical itch, because then any woman could help him scratch it. But after the kiss they’d shared the other night, he knew it wasn’t that he needed just any woman.
He wanted Samara. He wanted her with an intensity that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He wanted her not just in his bed but in his life—maybe even in his heart.
His decision would be a whole lot simpler if he was on his own, but he had children to think about. He didn’t want to be the type of man who introduced a new woman to his kids every month—though that hardly seemed a reasonable danger considering that he’d been a widower for three years now and hadn’t been out on a single date in that entire time. Not that there hadn’t been more than a few opportunities, along with plenty of encouragement from his mother, who thought he needed a new wife as much as his children needed a mother. But Steven wasn’t sure he was ready to start dating, never mind think about marriage.
Yet he couldn’t get that kiss—or Samara—out of his mind.
Chapter Six
She shouldn’t have kissed him.
That was the first thought on Samara’s mind when she awoke the morning after the hockey game, and it was the thought that continued to plague her throughout the following week. Alternating with the idea that maybe she shouldn’t have stopped kissing him, because that one kiss had churned up wants and needs that were now clamoring for attention.
She wanted to believe that the feelings stirring inside her had nothing to do with Steven and everything to do with the realization that she was finally ready to put heartache behind her and move on with her life.
Except that she spent her days surrounded by men—some of them quite attractive and incredibly charming—and none of them made her insides quiver the way Steven did just by walking into the room. Which was something he did very rarely over the next few days. It was inevitable, of course, that their paths would cross while they were working. But by Wednesday, it was apparent to Samara that he was determined to ensure their paths crossed as infrequently as possible.
She was sure he was avoiding her because of the kiss they’d shared. But she wasn’t sure if it was because he regretted the kiss or if their lip-lock had, as it had for her, churned up emotions he wasn’t ready to deal with.
She agonized over the possibilities for days. By Thursday, she was determined to get an answer. Since he’d been avoiding the studio, she tracked him down in his office.
She waited until the end of the day, when it was less likely he’d be on the phone or in a meeting or have some other ready excuse for brushing her off. Carrie was on her way out as Samara walked in, and Steven’s assistant gestured for her to go on into his office.
She smiled her thanks and hoped Carrie couldn’t hear her heart pounding as she stepped up to his door.
He was working at his computer and she watched him peck away at the keyboard for a few minutes before he sensed her presence and turned his head.
Her heart pounded harder, but she tucked her clammy palms into the front pockets of her jeans in a deliberately casual pose.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she said without preamble.
He finished typing, tapped the mouse button a few times, then pushed his keyboard away before giving her his full attention. “You’re right,” he said.
“Because of that kiss,” she guessed.
He nodded. “I needed some time to figure out what it meant.”
“Why does it have to be so complicated? Why can’t it just be what it was—a simple kiss?”
Even as she spoke the words, she knew that they were a lie. There was nothing simple about the passion that flared between them, a passion that was stirring even now.
“Is that all it was?” he asked.
The intensity in his gaze warned that he knew it was more, but Samara wasn’t ready to acknowledge how much more. “It certainly wasn’t a marriage proposal,” she said.
He smiled, just a little. “Is that your not-so-subtle way of saying that I’m overreacting?”
“It’s my way of saying that it doesn’t need to be a big deal.” Another lie, she knew, but a necessary one if she didn’t want to reveal her growing feelings for him. Because she was afraid that if he knew she was in danger of falling for him, he would put the brakes on any hope of a relationship before they even started moving forward. And she really wanted to move forward.
“I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship, Samara.”
The pang of disappointment was sharp, but not entirely unexpected. “It was just a kiss,” she told him again.
“Maybe to you,” he said. “To me, it was the first time in fifteen years that I kissed a woman who wasn’t my wife.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say. He’d lost his wife almost three years earlier. It had never occurred to her that he hadn’t even kissed another woman in that period of time. And if he hadn’t kissed anyone, it was a safe bet that he hadn’t done anything else, either, which meant that his level of sexual frustration was probably even greater than her own.
“I’ve had other priorities over the past few years,” he explained. “The kids were—are—my number one concern.”
“As they should be,” she agreed, but she couldn’t leave it at that. “But they are kids. They’re going to grow up and move on with their lives, and you’ll be on your own.”
“They’re twelve and nine, I don’t think I need to worry about them moving out just yet.”
“How fast have the past three years gone?” she asked gently.
He sighed. “Okay. You’ve made your point.”
“But you’re still not going to ask me out on a real date, are you?”
“I’ll think about it.”
She told herself there was no reason to be disappointed by his response. After all, it wasn’t as if she was ready to rush into anything serious. But she wasn’t ready to close the door that had only just begun to open, either.
“While you’re doing that, there’s no reason we can’t spend time together as friends,” she pointed out.
“I’m not sure my thoughts about you would be described as ‘friendly,’” he told her.
She raised her eyebrows. “Are they unfriendly?”
His smile was wry. “Hardly.”
“Then let’s give it a hit.”
“A shot?”
“Right—a shot,” she agreed. “How about tomorrow night?”
“What about tomorrow night?”
“To work on building our friendship.”
“Tomorrow’s Friday,” he pointed out, and she thought there might have been the tiniest bit of disappointment in his words. “My usual movie night with the kids.”
She wanted to see Steven in his role as a father. But he didn’t seem inclined to issue an invitation, so she prompted, “Sounds like it could be fun.”
“You haven’t met my kids.”
She lowered herself into a chair facing his desk. “I’d like to.”
He seemed to consider that for a moment. “They’ve had a lot of upheaval in the past couple of years—the loss of their mother, the move to Chicago, away from everything and everyone they know. I’m not sure how they’d react to the introduction of a new woman into their lives.”
She gave him credit for being so conscious of their thoughts and feelings, but she wasn’t going to give up so easily. “I’m not a woman, I’m a friend,” she reminded him.
“You’re still a woman,” he said in a tone that made her very glad she was.
“So why can’t you be a man as well as
a father?”
“I’m sure there’s a point you’re trying to make, but I can’t see what it is.”
“Everything you’ve done, you’ve done for your kids,” she explained. “But being a parent shouldn’t be the whole of your identity.”
“No offense,” he said, “but I have a hard time accepting parenting advice from someone who isn’t a parent.”
She lifted a shoulder, refusing to admit that his words had stung just a little. If her life had gone according to plan, she would have been a wife and a mother by now. But then she wouldn’t be in Chicago or having any part of this conversation with him.
“I might not be a parent, but I was a child.”
“And your mother and father were both well-rounded people who managed to have successful careers and a happy marriage and be spectacular parents,” he guessed.
“Actually, my father was obsessed with his business and my mother walked out when I was four, leaving my sisters and I to be raised by my great-grandmother.”
“And this qualifies you to point out my parenting mistakes how?”
“I’m not pointing out anyone’s mistakes,” she said. “I’m simply pointing out that children learn to adapt to whatever their situation is, and you should stop feeling guilty and trying to compensate for something that isn’t your fault.”
“What am I feeling guilty and trying to compensate for?”
“The fact that your children lost their mother.”
“I don’t think there’s anything I could do that could make up for that.”
“But you’re trying your darnedest, aren’t you?”
He scowled. “I’m trying to help them adjust to the changes in their lives.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it with a snap. Because he was right, she wasn’t qualified to give parenting advice. So all she said was, “Well, no one can fault you for that.”
But though she was willing to let it go, he, apparently, was not. His gaze narrowed on her. “That’s not what you were going to say.”
She shrugged. “No, but I’m not a parent. And as you already pointed out, I haven’t even met your kids.”
He considered her comment for a minute before he finally asked, “Are you sure you want to?”
Family in Progress Page 6