One Big Happy Family

by Andrea Edwards

  Sam smiled at the thought. Like she had come alive since knowing Kevin. She seemed to laugh more, seemed to skip through each day. Seemed to have this urge to burst into song. Her smile turned into a grin. Now, that would startle the customers.

  She hurried down the stairs to find her dad refilling the big coffee urn in the dining room. She snuck a cookie off the tray.

  “Romeo and Juliet are doing their part,” she told him. “That’s the third couple that’s been at the windows oohing and ahing over them.”

  “How much bread did you have to hide along the shore to get them to come out?” her father teased.

  “None at all,” she said. “Maybe they’re finally just paying me back for my part in the rescue.”

  Her father shook his head. “I thought they were supposed to help you fight for your love, not put on a show for overnight guests.”

  Sam heard some voices in the living room, as if guests were arriving, and grabbed another cookie as she started toward the door. “I’ll settle for the show.”

  “That’s your problem,” her father muttered after her. “You’re too willing to settle for less than you deserve. Ask your banker friend. He’ll tell you it ain’t good business.”

  She just laughed and hurried out. Kevin was greeting a young couple and winked at her as she slipped around him into the office. It was great of him to come over to help out. She put the extra cookie by his chair when he turned back to the couple.

  “Now, if you’ll just sign here…” he said and pointed to the form. “And here.”

  “This is really a lovely place,” the woman was saying. “I can’t believe that we’re so close to town.”

  “Now, if you’ll just guarantee that the University will win the football game tomorrow…” the man said.

  Kevin just laughed. “I’m afraid that all we can do is guarantee you a room for the weekend. The team’ll have to win on its own.”

  They all laughed as Kevin handed them their receipt. Sam selected a room key.

  “If you’ll come this way,” she said, “I’ll show you to your room.”

  The man picked up the luggage while Sam led the way down the far hall. The woman was at her side.

  “You and your husband just open this place?” the woman asked.

  Sam blinked. “Husband?”

  “Yes, the—” Suddenly the woman laughed. “Ah, sorry. Let me rephrase that. You guys just opened this place, huh?”

  Now Sam found herself laughing as she opened the door to their suite. “He’s my banker.”

  The woman came to a complete stop, her eyes opening wide. “Banker? Oh, wow. How did you get a banker like that?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Sam felt-that she and her guest were talking on two different frequencies. “What do you mean ‘get’? And like what?”

  “Well, I mean—Oh, God.” The woman rolled her eyes heavenward. “This isn’t coming out right at all.” She cleared her throat. “He doesn’t look like a banker.”

  “Oh.” Sam nodded. “He usually dresses more formally, but he was over here helping out. So he dressed down.” She shrugged. “You know. Slacks. No tie. Comfortable shoes.”

  “Ah, yes.” The woman took a step and then stopped again. “Honey, you couldn’t hide all that testosterone under a tent.” Then, waggling her fingers, she hurried into the suite with her husband trailing behind.

  Sam managed to smother her laughter until she was back in the living room. But the woman was right—Kevin couldn’t hide his manliness, even with a tent.

  His eyebrows went up as she came toward him, still chuckling. “They find their room funny?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Nope. We were just discussing camping equipment.”

  He looked puzzled but let it pass. “Well, that was the last of the reservations,” he said. “Guess you’re not going to have any no-shows.”

  “Great.” She sat on the wide worktable along the far wall.

  He dropped down into a chair across from her and leaned forward on his elbows, exuding the calm of a lion. The kind where the person knew they were the strongest so they didn’t have to show off. Her breath was suddenly hard to come by, her heart was suddenly racing.

  She looked away and tried to think calming thoughts. “It’s nice to know we’re filled through the weekend.”

  “Your guests have paid for the weekend,” Kevin corrected. “Most of them probably won’t stay all three nights. In fact, if the University team loses, most of them will be heading back right after tomorrow’s game.”

  Sam made a small face and picked up the. credit-card receipts. “I know.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. “You had all of them pay for three nights up front, right?”

  “Yes.” She slipped the receipts into the cash box and put it into a drawer. “I know that’s the way it is on game weekends, but I feel guilty charging people for something they might not use.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “Feel guilty. It looks good on you.”

  She looked at him then, quickly snapping a frown in place.

  “I mean, it’s cute.’”

  “Lean over a little closer,” she said, shaking a fist at Kevin. “And I’ll show you ’cute.”

  “Oh, what’s this?” He took her wrist as he leaned closer and squinted at her fist. “I think I need glasses. I’m having a hard time making the shape out.”

  “Ha, ha. Ho, ho.”

  He covered her fist with his other hand, so much larger than hers, and looked into her eyes, smiling softly. “Now I don’t see anything at all.”

  The touch of his hand was doing crazy things to the air in the room. Crazy things to her ability to think. But strangely it didn’t change her ability to feel. “You may not see it,” she said, “but you’re sure going to feel it.”

  “Big talker,” he murmured.

  “Hey,” she replied. “When you’re my size, you take ‘big’ where you can find it.”

  His hand caressed hers as his eyes caressed her soul. He leaned forward slightly, somehow pulling her closer as he did so. There was no escaping him, even if she had wanted to. Which Sam didn’t.

  He owned the air she breathed, the light she saw by, the sounds that bombarded her. She could only move as he willed her to, only feel what he allowed her to feel. Only sing the songs of happiness that he placed on her lips.

  Ever so slowly she slid into his arms. His mouth took possession of hers, drawing from the very depths of her soul all her dreams and hopes and wild wishes. With a magic that came only from his touch, he brought the stars down to lie at her feet and grant her every wish. But she wanted only for those same stars to dance around him; to bring the light back into his eyes and the fire back into his heart.

  She wanted to see him laugh with a laughter free of memories. She wanted to see him smile without any shadows of yesterday lurking in his eyes. She wanted to erase not his past, but his pain. She wanted him to take joy in what he’d had but also in what he was having. She wanted him to believe in the future.

  What was happening to her? How had her hopes and dreams gotten so tangled up with him?

  “Excuse me.” Her father’s voice came between them, splitting them apart. “Hate to barge in here like this, but I wondered how we were doing.”

  Sam only loosened her hold on Kevin, not able to break the bond completely. “Everybody’s here,” she said.

  “Then why don’t you two take off?” he suggested. “Between me and Beth and Melanie, we can manage anything that comes up.”

  “Beth and Melanie?” Kevin repeated. “Someone else bring back some kids?”

  Sam just laughed and lay back in his arms. “They’re the two teenagers we hired to help out,” she said, then turned back to her father. “Are you sure you don’t need any more help?”

  “Like the kind you were just giving each other?” he asked. “Naw, I think I can manage without it.”

  Sam slipped from Kevin’s arms, but took his hand in hers.
“Well, if you’re sure.”

  She needed to be alone with Kevin; her heart had to explore the new directions it was taking. It wasn’t frightening, this new frontier ahead of her, but knowing there was someone else on her horizon did take some getting used to.

  “We’ll grab some dinner and I’ll have her back early,” Kevin told her father.

  “Don’t hurry her back on my account,” he replied. “She needs to let the swans work their magic.”

  “Dad!” Sam scolded, even as she gave him a quick kiss in passing. “See you later.”

  “What was that all about?” Kevin asked as they got into the Jeep.

  “Old family joke,” she said. “You know the kind. They aren’t the slightest bit funny except to a parent.”

  “I see.” But his voice said he was still curious.

  Not that it would make her tell him. The only magic she wanted from the swans was what they’d done today—enchanted the guests so that they would be back for future visits.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go out?” Kevin asked, his refrigerator door standing open. “I haven’t got much in here.”

  “I’m not that hungry,” she said and slipped around him to look inside. “Hot dogs. Eggs. Pickles. Celery. We could make a really weird omelet.”

  He just laughed as he pushed the door shut, then let his arms slide around her from the back, pulling her up against the length of him. She cuddled closer, but found it was not nearly enough. She turned in his arms, wrapping hers around his waist and laying her head against his chest.

  She remembered his first few visits to the house, when she’d worried that his magic male rays would zap her into submission. Well, they had. They’d zapped her good and hard, and she thought it was the best thing that had happened to her in ages.

  “I do have some frozen microwave dinners,” he said. “A reasonable selection, in fact.”

  “Is that all you can think about?” she teased. “You have a beautiful young woman in your arms and you’re thinking frozen dinner?”

  He looked down into her eyes with a steady gaze that sent fire into her blood. “That’s why I’m thinking dinner,” he replied. “I can’t afford to go weak at the wrong moment. She might trade me in on a newer model.”

  “Never,” she said and reached up to brush his lips with hers. “I like quality, not flash.”

  He frowned. “I might have some flash left in me, you know.”

  “Wow,” she teased. “Quality and flash. I certainly am a lucky lady.”

  “You certainly are.”

  When his lips took hers, all joking disappeared. There was a fever in the air, a hunger that consumed them both. A need to be one that could not be denied any longer. His mouth was hot and demanding, asking for a sweetness that would bring him peace and joy. His hands slid over her back, then slipped under her shirt. They felt hot and fiery against her skin, but wonderfully so.

  She opened her mouth to his pressure and their tongues danced and dueled. Needs blended into a throbbing pulse that warmed all her parts. Thoughts faded into nothingness along with time and sanity as her heart took control. She was a foggy night, drifting and gliding with the darkness. She was him and he was her; each uncertain where one began and the other left off. Their needs were one, as were their hearts.

  He pulled back slightly. His dark eyes glowed and gleamed, their sparks hot enough to singe even the bravest of souls.

  “Maybe we ought to take a look at those frozen dinners,” he said.

  “If you want to risk it.”

  He looked confused and she laughed.

  “We’re liable to melt everything in the freezer,” she said.

  He slowly let her go, his reluctance obvious. “I’ll risk it. Maybe the cold air will bring some sanity.”

  “Do we want it?”

  “I don’t know.” His eyes searched hers like a drowning man searching for rescue. “Do we?”

  She reached up, tracing the outline of his lips with her finger. Her touch was light, barely there at all, yet she could feel the quiver go right through him. The charge from her gentle caress had touched his soul.

  “I don’t want to be alone tonight,” she said simply. “I want to be held and touched and loved. You don’t have to promise me forever. Just tonight.”

  He captured her hand, bringing it to his lips as if he couldn’t bear not to be touching some part of her. “I’m not a one-night-stand type of guy,” he said.

  “Well, I’m not a one-night-stand type of woman,” she said.

  “I thought we were in this just for fun.”

  She let her gaze capture his, let her eyes tell him all the things that her lips couldn’t say. Let her heart speak to his without their words getting in the way. She wanted to tell him how alive she felt with him, how he made her feel whole. How she’d always seemed to drift, not certain what she wanted. Until now.

  She couldn’t say the things that lay deepest in her heartthat he had become her world and she hadn’t even known it until this very moment. That standing here in his arms, she realized just how much he’d come to mean to her. That his happiness was her lifeblood and his smile her sunshine. That she was no longer in it for fun, but for keeps.

  Instead, she just pulled back away from him. Maybe they were moving too fast. She was no great expert at relationships.

  “All right,” she said. “So let’s look at this great collection of frozen meals you have.”

  “I didn’t say they were great,” he corrected. “I said I had a reasonable number of them.”

  “Sure, change your story now,” she mocked. “Cover your tracks. Qualify everything.”

  He opened the freezer section and took out a few boxes. “Chicken Parmesan. Turkey divan. Spaghetti and meatballs. Spinach lasagne.”

  She peered over his shoulder. There was nothing else in the freezer but a loaf of bread and a carton of ice cream. Nothing else besides about a dozen of these frozen dinners.

  “Don’t you ever cook?” she asked.

  “Sure. I cook these,” he replied.

  “I mean really cook.”

  He shook his head. “Not just for myself. These are fine. Easier.”

  She took the packages from his hands and tossed them back into the freezer. “But they have no soul. It’s like eating cardboard night after night.”

  “They aren’t so bad.”

  “They’re terrible,” she said and for some reason, her eyes got all teary. “You need good meals. Real meals.”

  “These are real meals.” He pulled one from the freezer. “Look, they’re even healthy.”

  “They’re still not good for you.”

  He must have noticed the quiver in her voice, for he tossed the frozen dinner on the counter and pulled her closer. With his hands on her upper arms, he peered into her face.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You’re not going to cry over these frozen dinners, are you?”

  She sniffed back the wetness. “Of course not,” she insisted. “I just always get weepy when I’m offered horrible, soulless food.”

  She couldn’t tell him the truth. How they made him seem so alone. So resigned to being alone that she couldn’t bear it. She wanted to hold him and never let go. She wanted him to feel that he belonged, that he wasn’t alone anymore and never would be again.

  “We can order a pizza if that’ll make you happier,” he suggested. “Or we can call that dine-in service that’ll deliver meals from real restaurants.”

  “That’s okay. I’m just being silly.”

  “I think you’re being sweet,” he said and bent down to brush her lips with his.

  It was a mistake, like tossing a lit match into a pile of dried leaves. For as soon as his mouth was on hers, all her hungers came rushing back. The frozen dinners were forgotten, dinner itself was unwanted. She needed nothing more than Kevin, nothing more than to rest in his arms and taste the wonder of his love.

  The growing pressure of his lips, the heat of his touch sai
d he felt the same way. His hands moved over her as if driven by some desperate longing, some craving deep in his soul that only she could satisfy. His arms pulled her ever tighter, as if they could become one by merging their souls. They were kindling, set on fire by the heat of their desires. They’d been sleeping and were brought to life by each other’s touch.

  “This isn’t what I’d planned,” Kevin whispered, his breath so soft against her skin that it was a caress in itself.

  “I know.”

  “We can stop and have dinner.”

  “Can we?”

  “Or we can have dinner later.”

  “We could.”

  His lips came back to hers as if exhausted by all the talking. They drank of hers, pulling sustenance from her very soul. She felt drained and exhilarated. She felt slow and sensuous. She felt alive and strong. Her hands moved over his back. He felt so good, so male. She tugged at his shirt and let her hands slide beneath it.

  His skin was as hot as his kiss. As fiery as his lips. As trembling as her own heart. She let her hands roam over his back, delighting in the smooth hard muscles, then slid them lower. Her fingers eased down below his belt and the heat of his kiss grew.

  His touch grew more demanding, more urgent. His hands moved around to her chest, cupping her breasts and teasing the nipples until she could hardly breathe. Her body was afire, her heart was aflame. There was nothing but the feel of his hands on her, the need for his lips to be on hers. The hunger for them to be truly one.

  “If we’re going to stop, we’d better do it now.” His voice was hoarse.

  “I think it’s too late.” Hers was, too.

  “It was too late about a month ago.”

  She frowned at him. “What?”

  His only reply was to brush her lips with the gentlest of kisses. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Is this what you want?”

  His eyes held only concern for her, only a need to please her. “Actually, I’d prefer another room,” she teased. “Nice though your tile floor seems—”

  But before she could even finish speaking, he was sweeping her up in his arms. “How’s this for flash?” he asked.