Yeah, there were a dozen empty rooms in the house where she could go and not be disturbed, but she was strangely reluctant to leave. And anyway, she was here first. They were the ones who had invaded her space.
But maybe she’d go to her room to call Lauren or Brittany, to see if she could wrangle an invitation for a sleepover. Anything to avoid having to hang out here tonight and watch her dad and Samara make sappy faces at each other when they thought no one was looking.
She was on her way up the stairs when she saw Grandma Myra coming down. As she found herself in her grandmother’s arms, she felt a burst of warmth inside her chest, like a bubble of happiness that had popped.
She snuggled in close, breathed in her familiar scent. It was the same perfume Caitlin’s mom used to wear, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine it was her mother’s arms around her.
But while the scent was the same as her mother’s, nothing else was. Grandma Myra was always dressed up and her hair was always perfectly styled. Caitlin’s mom, on the other hand, had favored jeans and sweaters and usually tied her shoulder-length hair back in a ponytail. And her mom had spent a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking and baking, while she’d once told Caitlin that Grandma Myra couldn’t make macaroni and cheese from a box. At the time, Caitlin had found the statement wildly amusing. Now the memory of that conversation made her throat tight.
“Where’s your brother?” Grandma Myra asked when Caitlin wriggled out of her embrace.
“Can’t you guess?” She nodded toward the far side of the room where Tyler, intent on his game, was readying to serve.
“There he is,” she said, raising her voice to be sure he heard.
Tyler’s gaze finally moved from the screen. He dropped his racket-shaped controller and almost tripped over his feet as he came running. “Grandma.”
Grandma Myra smiled and kissed him on both cheeks, her lipstick leaving pink marks that Tyler immediately rubbed off.
Caitlin noticed that Samara had also stood up, though she stayed in the background, her hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans.
Then Grandma Myra spotted her, and though she was clearly startled to find someone else in the room, she recovered quickly. “Oh. Hello.”
“I’m Samara,” Samara said, offering her hand as she stepped forward.
“This is my grandma,” Caitlin told Samara, as Grandma Myra shook her hand. Then to her grandma, she said, “Samara’s a—” she made quotation marks with her fingers “—‘friend’ of Dad’s.”
“Oh?” Myra somehow made the word sound like a question and punctuated it with raised eyebrows.
“She’s my friend, too,” Tyler announced.
Samara responded to his kiss-up remark with a smile before she said to Grandma Myra, “I, uh, work with Steven.”
“Oh,” Grandma Myra said again.
“Samara’s a photographer,” Tyler told her. “She takes awesome pictures. I got to see her work in the studio and she even let me try out her camera. I think it would be really cool to be a photographer when I grow up. But only if I don’t get to play for the Blackhawks.”
Caitlin tuned out her brother’s ramblings and focused on her grandmother. She could tell she was a little confused about why Samara was there, but Caitlin trusted that she would pick up on the situation real quick. Then Grandma Myra would talk to Caitlin’s dad and make him remember how much he’d loved her mom so he would stop seeing Samara and their lives could all go back to normal again.
Samara quickly extricated herself from what was an undeniably awkward situation and headed upstairs to the kitchen.
“How are things going in here?” she asked, when what she really wanted to know was why Steven hadn’t said anything about his former mother-in-law coming to visit.
Or maybe former only applied in the case of a divorce. Whatever her appropriate title, Myra Bradley was Caitlin and Tyler’s grandmother, the mother of their dead mother, and a woman who didn’t seem pleased at the thought of another woman in her son-in-law’s life.
“Pizza should be here in about fifteen minutes,” Steven said.
That was it—no explanation about the presence of the politely disapproving woman downstairs.
“Can I help set the table or anything?”
He started to shake his head, then nodded instead. He held out a handful of cutlery to her, and when Samara reached for it, he snaked his other arm around her waist and drew her close.
She lifted her brows. “How is this helping?”
“It’s helping me,” he said, and settled his lips over hers.
And as she sank into the delicious pleasure of his kiss, she forgot—for just a moment—about his surly daughter and his mother-in-law and everything else.
Until he said, “I’m sorry about the in-laws. I had no idea they were coming.”
Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse…
“They?” she queried weakly, moving out of his arms.
“Myra and Ted.”
“I’m Ted,” a tall, gray-haired man introduced himself as he came into the room. “The father-in-law.”
She accepted his proffered hand. “Samara Kenzo.”
His smile was natural and friendly. “Sorry for dropping in this way. I mistakenly assumed Myra had contacted Steven about our plans to stop in on our way through from Wisconsin. It was only when we were almost here that she told me she wanted our visit to be a surprise.”
“It’s certainly that,” Steven agreed. Samara smiled back, though she couldn’t help thinking it wasn’t just a surprise—it was incredibly awkward.
“We can get a hotel,” Ted offered, “if it’s inconvenient for us to stay here.”
“Of course it’s not inconvenient,” Steven told his father-in-law. “We have plenty of room, and the kids would love to spend some time with you and Myra. I just wish we’d known your plans, because Tyler’s got a hockey tournament this weekend so we’re going to be at the arena a lot.”
“Well, I can’t say I’d mind watching my grandson play a game or two.”
“The first is at six a.m. tomorrow morning,” Samara felt compelled to point out.
Ted winked at her. “Six a.m. is precisely why the good Lord invented coffee.”
“I thought six a.m. was why the good Lord invented sleep,” she said.
The older man chuckled. “That’s sounds just like something my wife would say.”
If Samara and Myra shared a dislike of early mornings, she imagined it was the only thing they had in common. A suspicion that grew stronger as the evening progressed.
Caitlin was as typically uncommunicative as Tyler was chatty, but it was Myra whose attention made Samara uneasy as they all sat around the dinner table together. Several times during the informal meal, she felt the older woman’s gaze on her, not so much questioning Samara’s presence as challenging it.
Samara tried to understand how she was feeling. It had to be awkward for her, too, expecting only to visit her grandchildren and learning that her son-in-law had a new girlfriend. If that was the appropriate title to be applied to Samara.
Did a few casual get-togethers and two nights of passionate lovemaking elevate her status to that of a girlfriend? Or was she still just a friend, despite the intimacies they’d shared?
She contemplated those questions as she pushed her salad around on her plate, and she contemplated whether the definition of her relationship with Steven even mattered. As much as she enjoyed being with him, it seemed that there were new obstacles to be faced at every turn. And the one obstacle that was even bigger than Myra’s wariness or Caitlin’s resentment was Steven’s sense of guilt.
Steven was feeling guilty.
He knew it wasn’t reasonable or rational, but that knowledge did nothing to lift the weight from his heart. Seeing Liz’s parents always made him think about the woman he’d loved and remember the pain of everything he’d lost, and he felt guilty for moving on with his life when her life had ended. And while being wit
h Samara usually filled him with happiness, somehow her presence now made him feel disloyal to his wife, which only added to his guilt.
He reached for another slice of pizza as he listened to the conversations gong on around the table—Myra asking Ted to pass the ranch dressing, Samara giving tips to Tyler on how to beat the three-headed beast in Demon King, Myra interrupting to question Tyler about school, Ted inquiring about Samara’s work—and he wondered if he’d made a mistake in getting involved with Samara.
He glanced at his daughter, who was glowering at Samara in stony silence, and knew he’d made a major error in judgment in thinking he could have any kind of personal relationship with a woman when it was obvious Caitlin would resent anyone who wasn’t her mother. Because while he might be ready to move on with his life, his daughter was not, and any progress that might have been made in her attitude toward Samara had been wiped out by her grandparents’ visit. He didn’t blame Myra and Ted for that, but he knew their presence had reminded Caitlin of her mother and how much she missed her.
He missed Liz, too, but he’d finally started to move on without her, to enjoy life again. Because of Samara. His gaze automatically shifted, his eyes locking with hers. Samara offered him a tentative smile, and his heart was suddenly filled with an unexpected rush of joy and contentment that pushed the lingering guilt aside.
Yes, he’d loved his wife, but Liz was gone, and the warm and beautiful woman across the table was giving him a second chance at happiness.
It was a chance he was determined to embrace.
Chapter Thirteen
Samara seriously considered staying home. She didn’t do six a.m. on Saturdays—and six a.m. in a cold arena sounded like cruel and unusual punishment. So, when her alarm shrilled at five o’clock, she slapped her hand on the snooze button and snuggled deeper into her warm bed. But when she closed her eyes again, it wasn’t the darkness of sleep that beckoned her but the sparkle of Tyler’s blue eyes.
When she’d originally promised to go to his game, she hadn’t realized it would take place before sunrise—or that Tyler’s grandparents would be there. Both were legitimate reasons, she believed, for changing her mind. Besides, it was early in the season and there would be plenty of other opportunities for her to see him play.
Yeah, she had lots of reasons for not going to this particular game and only one reason to do so—she’d made Tyler a promise.
She sighed and pushed back the covers. She’d tried so hard not to fall in love with Steven, but she hadn’t thought to guard her heart against his son, and somehow she’d fallen head over heels for the little boy.
Which was the only reason that, fifteen minutes later, she was dressed and on her way to meet the cab she’d called. Her brain simply wasn’t prepared to muddle through a maze of public transit schedules at such an inhumane hour of the morning.
She made it to the arena with about ten minutes to spare and, after checking the posted schedule to see which rink Tyler was playing on, she joined the line at the concession stand to grab a much-needed extra-large cup of java.
She was stirring sugar into the coffee when she heard someone call her name. Turning, she found herself facing Tyler’s grandfather.
She’d thought the arena would be crowded enough that she could slip in to see the game and back out again without anyone knowing she’d been there—allowing her to keep her promise to Tyler but also avoid any further awkward interaction with his grandparents. But, despite there being plenty of other people milling around, she’d been caught.
“I thought that was you,” Ted said, and smiled. “How are you this early morning?”
“Not entirely awake,” she admitted, but managed to smile back as she casually glanced around looking for his wife.
“But you’re here,” he said. “Which is more than I can say for Myra or Caitlin.”
She exhaled a silent sigh of relief. “You mentioned last night that your wife isn’t a morning person.”
“Not unless there’s a garage sale.”
Samara smiled again, though even knowing Steven’s in-laws had made their fortune in antiques she couldn’t picture the immaculately dressed woman pawing through dusty boxes dug out of someone’s basement.
“I hope you didn’t take off early last night just because we showed up,” he said.
“I had things to do,” she said.
“You purposely ducked out so that we could have some time alone with Steven and the kids,” Ted guessed.
She shrugged. “You came a long way to visit your family.”
“We did,” he agreed. “But it would have been nice to spend some more time visiting with you, too, although I’m sure we’ll have more opportunities to do so on future visits.”
Samara didn’t miss the implication, but she didn’t know how to respond to it, wasn’t sure there could be a future for her and Steven so long as his daughter was opposed to the relationship. So she only said, “We should get in and grab a seat before the game starts.”
Ted nodded and walked with her.
“It’s funny,” he said, “how many times we could have dropped in to see the kids when they were living in Crooked Oak but just didn’t find the time. Now that it’s not so easy, it seems we have a lot of time to miss them.”
Samara lowered herself onto a hard—and very cold—bench. “Then it was lucky that you had to be in Madison for business, wasn’t it?”
“Lucky?” He took a seat beside her. “Myra hunted up that sale, desperately looking for something in the general vicinity so that we’d have an excuse to stop by.
“She’s worried about Caitlin,” he explained. “The girl’s had a hard time adjusting to all the changes that have taken place in her life in the past few years.”
Samara only nodded and sipped her coffee.
“A few weeks ago, Myra got the impression things were starting to turn around. She got off the phone after talking to her and said the girl actually sounded happy. Then Caitlin called again last week and had a complete meltdown, claiming she hated it here and begging Myra to let her come back to North Carolina to live with us.”
Though Samara couldn’t pinpoint exactly when that call had been made, she would bet her presence had somehow precipitated it.
“Not that we would do that, of course,” Ted hastened to assure her. “Whatever issues they have to work out, Steven’s her father. And he’s a good father.”
She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“On the other hand,” he continued, “I can’t say I didn’t consider it—if only to make Caitlin realize how fortunate she is. I don’t think she’d last a week with Myra before she’d be begging her father to let her come home.”
“It looked to me like Caitlin has a good relationship with her grandmother.”
“She does now,” he agreed. “But Myra’s never been the warm and fuzzy type. Even when Liz was a baby, Myra didn’t know what to do with her most of the time. And she certainly had no intention of giving up our nomadic lifestyle to raise a child.
“Not that I was any better,” he admitted. “I was working so hard to establish the business that I had little time to spend with my child and even less knowledge of what to do with her. It was Ellie, our housekeeper, who raised Liz. And I’ll always be grateful that she did, because my daughter grew up to be a warm, loving woman, a wife devoted to her husband, and a mother who would do anything for her children.”
Samara knew her smile was a little brittle around the edges. She reminded herself that Ted was only thinking of the daughter he’d lost, that he wasn’t making a comparison. But the more she heard about Liz Bradley Warren, the more it was apparent that she could never compete with her memory.
“When Caitlin was born, Myra and I didn’t have any more of a clue about being grandparents than we’d had about being parents,” Ted continued. “But Liz helped us along the way. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say she pushed us to take a more active role where her children were
concerned. She once told Myra that if she was going to get upset over a little spit-up on her Chanel jacket, then maybe she shouldn’t wear a Chanel jacket to visit her six-month-old grandchild.”
He shook his head. “If I have one regret, it’s that we didn’t have a clue how much we were missing out on while Liz was growing up until it was too late. That’s one of the reasons Caitlin and Tyler are so precious to us—they’re the only part of our daughter we have left.”
It was the raw pain in his voice that had Samara pushing aside her own insecurities and reaching out to him. She touched a hand to his arm. “They’re great kids,” she said gently.
He chuckled. “And you’re a special woman if you can see at least the potential for that despite all of the attitude my granddaughter’s been giving you.”
Samara smiled. “Tyler’s unconditional acceptance helps balance it out.”
His gaze moved from her face to the ice surface, where the teams had just started their warm-up skate.
“That’s good,” he said. “Because you’ll find that being a stepmother is probably the toughest job in the world.”
“Whoa.” Samara held up her hand. “You’re jumping ahead quite a bit there.”
“Am I?”
“Yes,” she said quickly, adamantly. “Steven and I—we’ve only known each other a few weeks. And he hasn’t dated anyone else since…” She trailed off awkwardly.
“Since my daughter died,” Ted finished for her.
She nodded.
“And you think Steven is the type of man who needs to date a dozen women before he figures out what he wants?”
“I honestly don’t know him well enough to say.”
“I do,” Ted said. “And I know that Steven wouldn’t be with you now—and he certainly wouldn’t have introduced you to his children—if he didn’t have some pretty deep feelings for you.”
She expected to feel awkward, discussing her lover’s feelings for her with his former father-in-law. And yet, Ted was so genuine and likeable that it didn’t feel awkward at all. In fact, it occurred to her that if she and Steven were going to build a future together, it was nice to know that she had someone like Ted in her corner.
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