by Hailey North
Sami definitely did not live in the same world. She glanced over at Flynn but he didn’t seem at all surprised with Kyle’s comment. Then it occurred to her she had no idea what world Flynn lived in. Did he live in a mansion in Beverly Hills? Had he thought her New Orleans shotgun the size of a dog house? She wrinkled her brow, thinking she’d like to ask him, but really why should she? His lifestyle was no concern of hers. She hadn’t realized he was flying back to Los Angeles so soon. No wonder he’d been in a hurry to help her find a place to stay. He needed to check out of his suite at the Hilton. He probably had a plane to catch any time now.
“The bedrooms and bathrooms are down the hall from the kitchen,” William said. “Two master suites. Pick whichever you prefer.”
“I’m almost overwhelmed at your hospitality,” Sami said. “Seriously, I cannot thank you enough. I suppose it’s in bad taste to ask about how much rent I can offer.”
The two caretakers looked at each other. “Very bad taste,” they said in unison. “We would never accept money for letting friends of friends stay here. Our employer would have our heads.”
Flynn grinned. “Told you so, Sami Pepper.”
“Then I will simply say ‘thank you,’” Sami said.
“The kitchen is fairly well stocked,” Kyle said. “Just let us know if there’s anything else you need. The wireless key is ‘Every day at Stone Lake is a happy day.’ ”
“What a lovely sentence,” Sami said.
“I’ll get your bags,” Flynn said.
William waved a hand. “You two look around. We’ll carry your things up.”
Sami gazed around the comfortably furnished living room, taking in the enormous media center, a well-stocked bookcase, two leather sofas with matching chairs and a small dining table next to broad windows. The piece that caught and held her eye was a gleaming black Yamaha upright on the wall opposite the windows. She walked over to it, almost tempted to open the keyboard and touch the keys.
Almost.
But not quite.
Flynn crossed to the kitchen, whistling a sadly melancholy tune. She turned away from the piano and followed him, listening and trying to identify the melody.
She ran a hand over the granite of the island that included a breakfast bar and waited till he paused. “What is the name of the music you were whistling?”
He shook his head. “No name. Just something I hear in my head.”
“You should consider writing it down. You have a gift.”
“Thanks, but I prefer managing the talent.”
“Hmm,” Sami said.
“Hmm what?” Flynn glanced at his watch.
“I was recalling what someone said to me, very recently, about stepping outside of one’s comfort zone.”
“Let’s check out the bedrooms.”
“I believe you are attempting to change the subject,” Sami said, following him along the hall past the kitchen.
He stopped and she bumped into him. Before she could back up, he turned. They were close. Close enough that her breasts brushed his chest. Too close.
Sami licked her lips.
Flynn muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like ‘what the hell.’
Sami tipped her head up.
He pulled her tight and kissed her. Hard. Hungry.
But only once.
He dropped his arms and strode down the hall.
Flynn walked through the first door he came to. Damn but he had to keep his hands off that woman. What was it with her, anyway? Bossy. Prissy. Telling him he had talent. He clenched then unclenched his fists and forced himself to look around the room. He was standing in a bedroom almost as large as the living room, done in a rainbow of shades of lavender, from the walls to the bedcovers and pillows and what looked like a purple leather loveseat. His eyes widened. Maybe Kyle and William knew what they were talking about when they made excuses for the apartment.
Sami paused in the doorway but didn’t enter. Good. He needed her to keep her distance. For his sake. He had absolutely no control around her. Flynn kicked a toe at the pale violet carpet.
“Pretty,” Sami said and moved on from the doorway.
Flynn let out a breath. He’d finished his meeting. Time to get his butt to the airport and get back to a life he understood. He walked toward the other master suite and this time he was the one who paused in the doorway.
Sami was in the room, this one done in soft blues and whites, with as many frills and laces as a girly-girl like Sami could wish for. She had her back to the door and was gazing out French doors beside the bed that evidently led to a balcony off the back of the garage. Slowly, she turned around and Flynn realized she was brushing at her eyes with the back of one hand.
“Did I upset you? Kissing you?” Flynn spoke softly. She looked more sad than mad.
She shook her head and waved a hand around the room. “It reminds me of my room. Where I would be staying this summer. Only everything is different now.” She dabbed at the corner of one eye. “I apologize for feeling sorry for myself. You have been so generous and thoughtful and I have absolutely no reason to feel sad.”
He wanted to hold her. To offer comfort. But he really didn’t think he should move into the room or touch her again. He had no right to start something he knew he couldn’t finish. “Sami, your world has been turned topsy-turvy. It’s natural to feel all sorts of emotions.” His jaw tightened as he thought of how his brother had looked stretched out in a goddamn coffin. “Loss is one son of a bitch.”
She crossed toward him and put her arms around him. “What am I doing complaining about a house when you lost your brother?” She stroked his back and then broke the contact by turning and pacing toward a door that stood open to the bathroom. She came back quickly, patting her nose with a tissue.
“Not to change the subject,” she said, “but the bathroom is amazing.”
Flynn smiled. “Good. Good for the bathroom and for changing the subject.” He checked his watch again. “I’ve got to Uber to the airport. This new deal I’m working on for Cameron may put me back in town again soon.”
“Oh?” She tipped her head to one side, watching him, but not giving away any particular reaction.
“Yeah, so I’ll stop by and see how you’re settling in. If that’s okay with you.”
“I guess Ruby would like that,” Sami said, her tone not at all encouraging.
Flynn wasn’t a guy to beg. Well, damn, had he ever needed to from a woman? He didn’t plan to start now, especially with a woman he wasn’t even trying to pick up. He lifted a hand in farewell and turned on his heel before he could waver.
He hated to admit it, but he didn’t feel one bit like flying back to L.A. His reluctance had nothing to do with the hectic business awaiting him and everything to do with the bossy blonde professor he was leaving behind.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sami walked back and forth from the frilly blue and white room to the lavender showpiece, and after sighing over her uncharacteristic lack of decisiveness, she retrieved her roller bag and purse and plopped them onto the carpet in the blue and white master. She returned to the living room to collect the two boxes from her parents’ house. All three dogs followed her as she moved, no doubt working to explore and understand this new territory.
Opening the doors to the walk-in closet, Sami debated whether to unpack or live out of her suitcase. A need for normalcy won out. She hung her few items of clothing and used one built-in drawer for her lingerie and swim wear. When she picked up the gauzy shirt she’d worn during the drive from New Orleans, she held it to her face and inhaled.
Perhaps it was her imagination on overdrive, but as she breathed in, she felt Flynn holding her close, slipping the buttons free, and his mouth lowering—
Sami dropped the blouse.
“Stop those thoughts this very minute,” she said out loud.
Ruby barked.
“I accept that bark as a second to my motion,” Sami said, stooping to stroke Rub
y on the head.
There was no point in the useless mental exercise of dwelling on any fact or emotion relative to Flynn Lawrence. She’d be better served revising her dating questionnaire, perhaps simplifying it, and sending it out again. Sans the one to Sean, of course. Or better yet, make the most of Friday night’s introduction to Vonnie’s doctor friend.
She carried the two boxes from her parents and placed them on the floor of the closet. As she did, the bundle of old letters and what looked like a small journal caught her eye. She pulled the journal from the box, found a bottle of water in what was an impressively-stocked refrigerator and made her way to the balcony off the bedroom, dogs padding along.
Only once during her childhood had Sami kept a diary. It had been the summer before she turned twelve, the summer before Emile and Nathalie dropped her off at boarding school. She and Vonnie had purchased matching diaries with miniature locks and keys and devoted at least ten minutes a day penning their entries. Sami knew most of hers had been about boys, which embarrassed her to recall. Vonnie had made lists of medical terms and gathered notes on the best options for college and med school.
Sami opened the French doors and stepped onto the balcony. She settled into one of a pair of chaise longues and propped her feet up. The dogs found their choice of spots. After a sip of water, Sami eyed the journal, debating whether she should open it. It did not belong to her.
But it had been in the box her parents had left for her to sort, claim or dispose of.
She turned to the first page.
Her mother’s handwriting leapt out at her. Bold letters read PRIVATE. CONFIDENTIAL. PROPERTY OF NATHALIE SOLANGE.
Solange. Her mother’s name before she married Emile and changed it to Pepper, to Sami an act that had always seemed at odds with her feminist stance.
Sami read the first several pages, filled with details of her residency training. She smiled slightly, thinking Vonnie truly was the daughter Nathalie would have loved for Sami to be. Sami flipped through a few more pages, all pretty much in line with the early entries. She clearly loved her profession and had no doubt at all as to her choice to pursue a surgical specialization in neurology.
None of the entries contained a date, but Sami could place her mother’s history fairly well. Nathalie and Emile had met during their residency years. Oddly enough, Sami found no personal comments. She took another sip of water and decided the journal had been left in the box to serve the same purpose as Surgeon Barbie.
Yet another reminder from her mother that she’d pursued a less high calling than her parents.
Sami frowned. She closed the journal and then opened it at random, about the middle of the small book.
Philippe and I had coffee after evening rounds. We talked for hours. And hours. Talking. Nothing else. But I felt my heart alive in a way I have never known. Never thought possible. I must not see him again.
Philippe?
Sami opened the journal closer to the front. More medical incidents. Reference notes. And then, she spotted:
Emile and I have agreed we will not have children. We are perfect for one another and will devote our lives to research for the good of everyone with neurological diseases. We will marry in the fall. My parents are pleased. His mother is delighted and sorry that Emile’s father died so young. I believe it was that early death that inspired Emile’s professional goals and his decision not to procreate. I respect and embrace his decision. He has given me a two-carat diamond. It is beautiful but does not compare with the beauty of our love.
Sami inserted a finger to hold the page and stared out across the balcony railings to the spring growth of the woods surrounding her view. She squinted and tried to focus on the greenery, but the words she’d just read ran across her vision, over and over.
What had happened to change Emile’s mind? And where in the world had Philippe come from? How had he entered her mother’s heart at a time when she was engaged to be married?
Sami freed her finger and snapped the journal closed. None of that mattered. Ancient history was best left alone, or to the study of historians and archeologists. She was neither. She was a woman with a professional calling she enjoyed, research that stimulated her mind, and a strong desire to achieve her goal of joining all her girlfriends in their married state.
Reading about her parents’ past would further none of her goals.
She jumped up. “Time for a walk,” she said to the dogs, and of course Ruby started running in circles and barking.
Sami left the journal inside on the white-stained oak bedside table, changed her shoes, found the dogs’ leashes and her pooch pickup bags and headed down the stairs.
Kyle was in the concrete swath in front of the garage, polishing an expensive-looking car. Sami didn’t know a lot about automobiles, but she thought it might be a Rolls Royce. He greeted her, smiled at the dogs, and said, “No need for the leashes while you’re on the property. Unless you prefer.”
“If you are quite certain,” Sami said. “I am grateful for your hospitality and would experience mortification if one of them should cause damage.”
Kyle gave her a quizzical look.
Sami blushed. “I perceive that you are thinking that I speak in an overly roundabout manner.”
“No judging here,” he said.
“Er, well, thank you,” Sami said, wondering why no one other than Flynn had ever remarked on her choice of language and sentence structure. Oh, sure, sometimes Vonnie and Toya teased her about taking the marbles out of her mouth. The guys she dated had never once made a comment.
But then, they didn’t ask her out again.
Kyle pointed to the woods Sami had been staring out from her balcony. “There’s a path through the woods. The fence surrounds the property, so you don’t have to worry about the dogs getting out.”
Sami smiled at him and unclipped the leashes. “Thank you again,” she said and headed to the woods. Exercise and fresh air would do them all good.
Entering the forested area, Sami took a deep breath, savoring the freshness of the soil and spring green, along with the tang of the conifers. Her dogs sniffed at the leaf-strewn path and snuffled happily along. Sami tried to enjoy the moment, but the information in the journal crowded into her mind.
It was none of her business. Her mother and her father lived their own lives. No matter the reference to the unknown Philippe, Nathalie had married Emile. They’d been together over thirty years.
Ruby ran ahead, barking at a squirrel. The other two dogs joined in. Sami picked up her pace. Another squirrel shot across the path and Ruby charged in pursuit. The squirrel dashed up a tree and sat on the lowest branch, chattering in a voice that mocked the short-legged Corgi. Sami called Ruby and they moved on, farther into the woods.
After another hundred yards or so, the trees opened into a small meadow. Sami spotted a bench along the edge of the trees and sat down, leaving the dogs to romp. They would be spoiled by their stay at the estate.
Sami sighed, wondering again if she had made a wrong move in accepting Flynn’s arrangement. But it had been so tempting, especially after her other options hadn’t produced a place to live for the summer.
And this way she might see Flynn once or twice more.
Sami leaned her head back and let the spring sunshine warm her face. Did it matter whether she saw Flynn again?
He was good company.
He was a flirt.
He made her feel, oh, special.
“Forget about it,” Sami said out loud. “He’s an expert in making any woman feel special.”
What had Nathalie written in her long ago journal? But I felt my heart alive in a way I have never known.
What Sami wouldn’t give to feel that way about a man, but not just any man. The man she would marry, the man who would be the father of her children.
Sami bolted upright.
She did need to read the rest of the journal.
Emile had pledged not to have children, presumably due to some
inheritable, genetic circumstance that had something to do with his father dying young.
Sami shook her head.
She must have cried out, because Shelby dashed over to her side and licked her hand.
Sami stroked her head and closed her eyes briefly.
If Emile had a genetic reason not to have children, why had he and her mother proceeded with the pregnancy? They were both doctors. People of science. They could have ended the pregnancy for medical reasons. After pledging not to procreate, as her mother had termed it, they had given birth to Sami. Sami thought she knew her scientific parents reasonably well.
But perhaps she didn’t know them at all.
She thought of the reference to Philippe.
Was it possible…?
No—surely not.
Sami took a deep breath,
Perhaps Emile was not her biological father.
Oh, don’t be ridiculous, she said to herself. Of course he was her father. But if so, and knowing how much she wanted children of her own, why had he not informed her there might be some condition she could be a carrier of and pass on to children? Surely he would have told her so. The only reason she could think of was that there was absolutely no danger of her having inherited any traits from Emile.
Because possibly, just possibly, some other man was her biological father.
Sami dropped her head into her hands. After a long moment, she rose from the bench, called the dogs to heel and headed back through the woods.
She needed to read the rest of the journal.
But she did everything else instead of opening its pages. She visited Toya and went shopping with Katarina. Before she knew it, Friday night was knocking on the doorstep and it was time to dress to meet Vonnie and Chase Carpenter, the man Vonnie described as her dream date. She had made sure to look him up and provide herself with a crash course in his specialty of pediatric ophthalmology. Standing in the middle of the large walk-in closet, Sami studied both new dresses with matching linen jackets, worrying her lip with her little finger. On the hangers they looked matronly. Why hadn’t she listened when Katarina attempted to veto her choice?
