Rolling her eyes at that ludicrous thought, Rachel focused on the chapter entitled “Accounting Procedures.” Within five minutes she was yawning and putting her book aside. She wondered what Sam would think if he knew that he kept her awake at night. Moot point, she decided, because Sam was never, ever going to know how he affected her. He wouldn’t get the chance, because she was going to continue to keep her distance from that pesky man who kept popping up in her dreams.
“It’s time, Rachel,” she assured herself as she sank deeper into the pillows. With the passing of the last few days, Annie had begun to grow used to her new home and her new situation. She was beginning to chat, to smile more and more. It was time to introduce her to the community and other children...to begin the whole process of bringing Annie full circle, back into life. And when that was done, Rachel would have to step aside, out of that little girl’s life, or risk becoming too big a part of it, a hindrance rather than a help. Then she would find someone to care for Janey and Zach on a permanent basis. She would walk away from Sam’s world and away from Sam.
Again.
That pesky man. She missed him already. But he would never know.
The sound of the phone on the nightstand woke Rachel at seven the next morning.
Groggy, she rolled over and grabbed for it, knocking the receiver off and sending it skidding over the wood.
“Hello,” she finally managed to say, shoving the mouthpiece up under her long, tangled hair.
“Hey, Rachel,” a creaky voice rasped. “Sorry to wake you up on a Saturday morning, but I heard that you were looking for some lilacs to set off that big, white house of Sam’s. Truck just came in with the most beautiful spread of bushes you ever did see. Thought you might like some before the crowds come in and they’re all picked over. These babies are somethin’, all right.”
“Ray?” Rachel said on a yawn. Ray owned the local hardware store, and he was a lifelong friend. Secretly she’d always thought he’d been just a little in love with her mother. “Thanks, Ray,” she said, after the man had elaborated a bit more on just how great these lilacs were. “I’ll have to see if Sam wants to have a look at them. If not, save one for me, anyway. A person can’t have too many lilacs.”
Ray laughed. “I can see Sam’s in trouble already. I’ll just set a few of the better ones off to the side.”
Hanging up the phone, Rachel swung her bare legs over the bed and sat staring at the phone. She didn’t really want to call Sam. She shouldn’t call him. Not at all.
No, remembering the way it had been the last time she’d gone too near the man, she didn’t even want to think “Sam.” What’s more, it was Saturday, and she wasn’t scheduled to work on the weekends, but Ray had been right about the effect of white houses and lilacs. Besides, Annie and the twins would love the scent of the blossoms and—and it was Saturday. Everyone would be in town. All the kids would be at the playground. It was a good time to ease Annie into new relationships in a nonthreatening way.
Her enthusiasm had nothing to do with Sam himself or the I-want-you look she’d imagined she’d seen in his eyes last week. No, she was calling him simply because she was being a good neighbor, a faithful employee and his sister’s friend. Those were the only reasons.
And that was why, less than an hour later, Rachel found herself packed into the passenger side of the Grayson family van. She looked tentatively across the width of the van to where Sam was staring at her as he revved up the engine.
“Lilacs?” he asked, raising one brow and tipping his hat down over eyes that still blazed blue even this early in the morning. “You think we need lilacs at eight in the morning?”
“I love lilacs,” Annie said dreamily from her spot in the back between the twins.
Rachel stared at him, smiling. “Well?” she asked.
“You know, I always did like lilacs,” he agreed. “Almost as much as I like roses. It’s just that—well, I kind of like to wake up slow and smooth on the weekends, Rachel. Preferably with a cup of hot coffee,” he admitted on a groan. “This couldn’t have waited ten minutes, could it?”
He sounded so frustrated that Rachel almost reached out to console him with a touch. But she remembered too well the feel of muscle and bone and soft masculine hair beneath her palm. She knew that if she touched him, Sam would turn those soul-searching eyes on her. So she didn’t touch.
“Poor Sam,” she said instead. “I’m sorry I rolled you out of bed without even so much as one breath of caffeine. But don’t worry. Ray always opens up early on the weekends, and he’ll have plenty of coffee brewing. I promise you. Strong stuff guaranteed to grow hair in all the places you’d rather not have any.”
Sam’s laughter was deep and husky. “That’s what I like,” he said, quirking one brow. “A woman who promises me buckets of coffee and a hairy body.”
“And lilacs,” she reminded him.
“Lilacs, too,” he agreed, ignoring her superior look. “By the way, I was going in to see Ray today, anyway,” he told her. “Later, though. Much later.”
Rachel looked askance at him.
He shrugged sheepishly. “I thought maybe I’d rototill a plot of ground over on the back corner of the lot. I remember you saying that the kids might like a vegetable garden. Thought we’d try it.”
“We?” Her voice nearly squeaked over the word.
“The kids and me,” he clarified, his voice perfectly expressionless. “Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to have the expert advice of someone who has a magic green thumb.”
Rachel couldn’t stop her smile. “We’ll pick up some seeds today,” she agreed, soothingly. “It’s a good idea, Sam. You’re a good father.”
“I wasn’t fishing for compliments,” he assured her.
“I know. I was just stating the obvious.”
He glanced her way and tilted his head in a silent thank you. Just then Zach decided it was time to sing a song. Within a few minutes, everyone was joining in on a chorus of Old MacDonald. Of course, the only words the twins knew were the “Ee-i-ee-i-oh’s,” but they joined in with great relish and a tremendous amount of noise when their parts came up.
Pulling into town with the windows rolled down and the enthusiastic but less-than-melodic music pouring out onto the streets of Tucker, Rachel shook her head and smiled. She was glad that she had listened to her heart and not her mind this morning and called Sam. A Grayson sing-along was not to be missed, and at the moment, she felt just like a Grayson. A temporary, but very real part of this family. It was important that she remember the “temporary” part.
~ ~ ~
Sam swung down out of the van and circled around the back to help Rachel get the kids out of their seats. He thanked his shining stars for Ray and his lilac bushes. For the last week and more, he’d been kicking himself for that last stupid act of his and trying to find out some way to patch things up with Rachel without looking like even more of a jerk. Other than the flower planting extravaganza last night, she’d been all business this past week, leaving just as soon as he got home, but today, when she’d called—heck, there was just something that felt right about this day, something that fit like jeans that had been worn to white comfort.
Last night he had gone to bed still wondering just how badly he’d dented his relationship with Rachel by stepping over the line again. Now it was as if he’d never even touched her. He wondered if that was what she was trying to do, make him forget that they had ever touched. Sam frowned at the ridiculous thought.
But then, trying to figure out Rachel Allyn’s motives had always been incredibly frustrating. He shouldn’t even be trying now. For sure he shouldn’t be reading too much into the fact that it was Rachel who had sought him out today. If he was smart, he’d just pick up his lilacs, his seeds and his Rototiller and then hustle the woman back to her house as fast as possible. He’d give her an extra paycheck for working on a Saturday, and everyone would be happy.
“Lead me to those lilacs,” he said, handing Zach into he
r arms as he took Janey and grasped Annie by the hand.
“Don’t you want a cup of coffee first, Sam?” she asked, flooding her voice with mock sympathy.
Sam took a good look at Rachel. Her long jeans-clad legs were parted as she rocked Zach back and forth. The white short sleeve of her sweater was pushed up where Zach had dragged against her. The soft honeyed skin of her upper arm was exposed. It was just a bare arm, Sam told himself. She was just a woman holding his child. But when she tilted her head, awaiting his response, and her hair slid across her throat, creating a peek-a-boo web of dark silk and pale, naked skin, Sam found that coffee was the last thing on his mind.
“You bet I want coffee, lady,” he said. “Lead me to it.”
Pouring out a cup of Ray’s finest overbrewed, thick-as-mud, stick-in-your-throat java, Sam nodded as Rachel signaled that she was going to take the kids and go search out her treasure.
He watched as she placed Janey and Zach in a cart and made her way between the long tables of bedding plants. Along the way she and Annie stopped and discussed the flowers. He could see his daughter’s animated hand signals as she moved off into the distance.
And he saw the way men stopped what they were doing to take a closer look at Rachel, as if she hadn’t been in here a thousand times, as if they’d never had the chance to notice that she could make a man’s tongue melt in his mouth.
The half-empty cup crushed in on itself as he squeezed too tightly, and hot coffee sloshed over the edges.
Sam tossed the whole mess in a nearby garbage can and started purposefully in the direction his family had gone.
“Look, Daddy. Trees,” Annie said, pointing to an area at the edge of the bedding plants. “Can I take Janey and Zach to see?”
Sam laughed and nodded as Rachel turned the cart over to Annie.
After the children had gone, a strong silence began to spread out and surround the two of them. Sam let it spread. This was one of the few times, not counting the ride over, that he’d gotten within ten feet of the woman in the last week.
He realized, with some amazement, that he’d missed having her near. She was a pleasure just to look at, but more than that, there was a sort of sunshine that surrounded her. He found himself wanting some of that buttery warmth for himself.
“You fit into this town as if you’d been planted here,” he said quietly, thumbing the soft leaf of a nearby geranium.
A bubbly laugh escaped her. “I’m not quite sure if that’s a compliment or an insult,” Rachel said.
“Definitely a compliment,” he agreed. “It just means that I recognize your worth, Rachel. And I thank you for coming out on a day when you didn’t have to.”
She shrugged. “Well—I guess I just go with the flow. As Ray says, those lilacs won’t last forever, so we’d better get a move on. Besides, I thought we might take the kids over to the playground afterward. There’ll be plenty of children over there today,” she suggested.
He let his gaze rest on her, drinking in the softness in her eyes for as long as he could, before he was forced to speak.
“That sounds like just the ticket, Rachel,” he agreed, his voice a bit more gravelly than he had intended. “But are you sure about the playground? After all, this is supposed to be your day off.”
The small hesitation before she nodded was almost imperceptible. Another man might not have noted it, but then another man might not have been looking at Rachel as closely as Sam always did.
He blew out a breath, realizing just how much time he spent actually studying Rachel’s expressions. He guessed it had always been like that. Even when she’d been just a kid, too young for him to have thought of her as anything else, he’d spent a lot of time reading her reactions to him.
“What if I take you home and then bring the kids back?” he suggested. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was clearly the right thing to do.
To his surprise she shook her head.
“I promised Annie I’d introduce her around. Do you think I’d just dump her on a playground full of kids I already know without giving her a proper introduction?”
The woman never quit, did she? First she showed up on a Saturday morning so that she could help her plant-ignorant employer pick out lilac bushes, then she insisted on playing social secretary for his daughter.
Not that Sam was complaining. He’d missed sparring with her. He’d missed standing close enough to see the glitter in those gray eyes of hers. And even though he’d only experienced it once before, he already missed the feel of her lips moving beneath his own.
“No, I don’t think you’d do anything that you think would hurt Annie,” he said, tilting one corner of his lips up. “But I do think you might beat me to death with a lilac bush if I ever even suggested such a thing. I was just trying to show you some consideration, Rachel. You’re not my slave. You’re my...”
What was she really, anyway? It was obvious that she was his employee, but he’d had other employees, and Sam couldn’t think of a single one who’d ever affected him the way this one slender woman had.
Moreover, as his words trailed off and Rachel waited expectantly, he could almost swear he saw a look in her eyes that caught him totally off guard. She looked like a woman with more on her mind than lilacs and babies. She looked the way he was feeling inside, as if somewhere a small match was glowing within her.
The thought that she might want him, too left Sam stunned—and burning.
Within less than a breath, she had blinked, extinguishing that glow he’d thought he recognized.
“We’d better go get the children and the plants,” she said quickly, her color high. “Ray will set the bushes aside for us until we get back from the playground and then I—I really should get home,” she concluded lamely.
Home. Her home. Not his home. And Sam knew suddenly, without a doubt he wanted her in his own home. He wanted her, plain and simple. But of course, that was out of the question. She worked for him, that was all. That was all this would ever be. You couldn’t ask a woman to marry you just because she made your eyeballs steam over whenever she looked your way, could you? And he didn’t want to get married again, anyway, did he? He sure as heck never wanted to wake up with a note on his pillow a second time—and Rachel had always shown definite signs of I-want-to-leave tendencies whenever he was around.
“Let’s go,” he agreed curtly. “With a little luck we’ll have you back on your front porch in just over an hour.”
~ ~ ~
Rachel stood side by side with Sam, each pushing a twin in one of the baby swings at the playground.
Zach and Janey giggled and kicked their feet. They held their chins up as the wind rushed at them. It was clear they were enjoying themselves.
Watching Annie, who had settled down next to Cynthia Watts’s little girl to dig in the sand, pleasure rushed over Rachel. Every now and then Annie would look back to make sure that she and Sam were still there, but not nearly as often as she might have a week ago, Rachel was sure. Sam had been right to bring his babies to this town. There was something about this place, something sturdy and reassuring.
There was also something about Sam. The thought darted in as Rachel watched him bracing his hands against the back of Zach’s swing with every push. Sam had big hands, capable and strong. Yet she’d seen him touch his children with infinite care. And when he’d held her in his arms, he’d gentled that strength. When he could have crushed her, he’d caressed.
A shiver ran through Rachel. It was time to get control of her wayward thoughts. She was trying to read Sam, even knowing that she’d read him wrong once before and gotten hurt as a result. Sam might be older, but he was still the man who had thought her a sorry little puppy and had taken pity on her. And if she hadn’t forgotten that, had he? Was she still that poor little Allyn kid in the back of Sam’s mind?
No, she didn’t think so. Time and her own determination had changed her circumstances. But that didn’t mean she could drop her defenses one bit around Sam. He
didn’t want or need the same things she did. She was looking for a long-term relationship, wouldn’t settle for less than heart-and-soul, till-death-do-us-part love. And Sam? Sam might want a housekeeper, a baby-sitter, maybe even a lover—but not more. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think about Sam as a lover. She refused to remember his supple fingers, his questing lips upon her skin. She would think about anything else but that.
“Is everything going well down at the lumberyard?” she asked, trying to clear her mind and hoping she sounded calm. “Uncle Hal is absolutely ecstatic to have you back.”
Sam gave Zach another push. “It’s good to be with him again. When I was young, I don’t think I appreciated the business or just how much he knows about it. But now I can see what a fine job he’s done of keeping things humming. He knows all his customers and all of their kids’ names. He knows the lumber business like nobody else. I’m lucky he wanted me back after being gone so long, and yes, everything’s going great guns. It’s good to be home. No regrets.”
Not like her, Rachel thought. And no, she didn’t regret Sam’s coming home, not like she’d thought she would. She loved watching his children. She loved watching and talking to Sam. But she did have regrets, and they had more to do with her own inability to control her reactions to Sam and his family than anything else. It wasn’t his fault she’d always had this weakness where he was concerned.
And she shouldn’t beat herself up about it, either. At least with Sam she had a living model of what she was looking for in a husband. She’d know when she hit pay dirt without even thinking twice.
“Okay, switch!” Sam said suddenly, catching her off guard.
In a heartbeat, he was in her space, standing right behind her.
“You’re supposed to move over to the other swing, darlin’,” he said, leaning down to whisper near her ear.
Babies and a Blue-eyed Man Page 10
