A vague feeling of impending doom came over Sam, coinciding nicely with the sharp ping of sexual awareness as he took in a scrap of her springy hair toying with her long neck. And he thought of Libby and the hormone riots she was no doubt inciting these days and how Blair thought Carly was “cool” and how Libby would no doubt see in this woman a kindred spirit, and Sam marveled at his brain’s ability to produce so many thoughts simultaneously, not a single one of them reassuring in the slightest.
Except maybe for the briefly entertained idea of getting the hell out of there.
However. He pulled up beside them, and Carly leaned in the passenger-side window like she’d been expecting him and said, “Darryl said it’d take a week to get the axle, so it looks like we’re stuck,” and now he noticed just how full her bottom lip was and he thought This is nuts. He also noticed she wore that resigned expression of someone who was actually ticked but knew giving vent to those feelings would serve no useful purpose. “So I guess we need someplace to stay for a few days. Is there a motel around here?”
See, this is the part he was dreading. Because he’d known before she’d even opened her mouth what the options were, and what the outcome was likely to be, both of which tied nicely in with that impending doom thing. “There’s the Double Arrow out by me,” he said as if reading a script, “but it’s closed for the next couple of weeks while the owners finish up remodeling it.”
“No place in town, then?” her father put in from over her shoulder. “A rooming house or something?”
Here’s the funny thing: Any number of people could have been behind Carly and her father this morning when their truck went off the road. And any number of people would have made the offer he was about to make. But it hadn’t been any number of people, it had been him. He could practically hear Jeannie saying, “Nothing happens without a purpose,” although her voice wasn’t nearly as clear as it used to be.
Still, Sam shook his head, a gesture which apparently rattled loose the words he knew he was going to say all along. “No, the Double Arrow’s it. But if you don’t mind family living, you could bunk with us. Libby, my girl, has an extra bed in her room. And there’s a fold-out couch in the living room.”
“Oh, now,” Lane said, as Carly—Sam noticed out of the corner of his eye—simply stared at him as if not quite sure what to think, “we don’t want to put you out—”
“It’s no bother,” Sam said, because logistically, it wasn’t, really. “And besides, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of choice, does there?”
Father and daughter regarded each other for several seconds; then Lane said, “We insist on paying you for putting up with us, though,” and Sam laughed.
“You’re talking about a ninety-year-old farmhouse, six kids and one bathroom. Somehow, it wouldn’t seem right to take your money.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to take it out in trade,” the older man said. “If you need some work done around the place, stuff like that.”
Sam sensed an eagerness behind Lane’s offer which surprised him. “Thought you folks were on vacation?”
“Believe me,” Lane said, “if it was a vacation I wanted, traipsing around the countryside with this pain in the backside—” he jerked his head toward Carly “—would not be my first choice.”
“Hey,” she said, gently smacking him. But since nobody seemed to be taking anybody else too seriously, Sam figured he didn’t need to, either. So they tossed all their gear into the back seat next to the kid and the dog, and Carly and her father climbed up onto the truck’s bench seat and they took off. Within seconds, the truck was filled with conversation. And the faint scent of coconut, which Sam would swear he’d never in his life found arousing before now.
Six kids?
Carly stared straight ahead as they bumped and squeaked over the road, trying not to stare at how the veins stood out on top of Sam’s hand cradling the gearshift. Who the hell has six kids these days? Thank God they weren’t alone, was all she had to say, although she wasn’t in much of a mood to thank God or anybody else for the situation as a whole. Her last relationship had ended just long enough ago to leave her dangling over that emotional hellhole between still stinging (she’d never been much good at being the dumpee) and really, really missing sex. Not that she hadn’t dangled over this particular emotional hellhole a few—okay, more than a few—times before, so it wasn’t as if she didn’t know she’d survive. It was what she tended to do to survive that could be the problem.
She caught a whiff of Sam’s aftershave and shut her eyes, drumming, Wrong, wrong, wrong into her head.
There. That should do it.
The men, having no idea of the horde of nefarious demons intent on colonizing her brain, had fallen into an easy conversation about sports or whatever, she wasn’t paying much attention, while her thoughts orbited around a single idea (and those demons), which was that this little sidebar to their trip went way beyond her original proposal to “go wherever the mood struck.”
Not that she was all that upset about the axle business. These things happen. And it wasn’t as if they were on any kind of set schedule or anything. Nor did she have a problem with whatever the accommodations turned out to be. God knows—although her father did not—she’d spent more than a few nights in some pretty seedy places over the years. Her ability to crash almost anywhere had not, she didn’t imagine, fallen into disuse simply because she’d been living more or less like an actual grown-up for some time. As long as she had a can opener and toilet paper (which she did), she was good.
However…turning back to the hellhole business for a minute: It was not exactly reassuring to discover that, at thirty-seven, her hormones were apparently every bit as out of control now as they had been at twenty. Or—her mouth pulled tight—fifteen. Now, Carly had long since accepted the fact that she clearly lacked whatever instincts steered other women to their life mates. And that, at this point, it was downright disingenuous to chalk up her inability to form a meaningful attachment to simply needing to mature a little more. So finding herself attracted to some farmer with a batch of kids—in all likelihood, a married farmer with a batch of kids, since that was one thing she did not do—was very depressing.
Wait. If Sam was married…
Carly cleared her throat and said, “Um…shouldn’t you have cleared our coming with your wife first?”
She saw the muscles in his hand tense as he shifted gears to climb a hill.
“Jeannie’s been gone for coming up on three years now,” he said softly, then twisted to give her what he probably thought was a reassuring smile. “Nobody to clear this with but me.”
Her first thought—a slightly panicked realization that the marriage thing had been her ace in the hole—collided with the most bizarre sensation of…wait, the word was there, somewhere…caring, that was it. Not that she never felt sympathy for anyone, because of course she did, it wasn’t as if she was cold-hearted. No, it was the intensity of the moment that knocked her off her pins, the overwhelming rush of compassion for this perfect stranger who was opening his home to them. The obvious love in Sam’s voice, the residual grief—something she understood all too well herself—somehow made her feel very, very humble. And shallow.
“I’m so sorry,” she finally said, even as her father put in about how hard it must be for Sam, raising all those kids on his own.
Indeed.
Sam wordlessly acknowledged their sympathy, then said, “That’s the farm up ahead. It’s just a small operation, but we call it home.”
But Carly barely registered the small grove of fruit trees, the corn-stalk-stubbled fields, the modest two-story farmhouse, white with blue shutters, proudly standing underneath a huge old oak tree, its leaves rust-tinged. Because she was too busy processing the newsflash that even though there was no Mrs. Sam in the picture, the six kids should work quite nicely as a libido suppressant. Because no way was she messing around with a man with six kids.
No. Damn. Way.
Sitting by herself on a patch of hot, prickly grass outside the school cafeteria, Libby glowered at her bologna sandwich, then took a bite, seeing as she was hungry and it wasn’t like it was gonna change, anyway. The “cool” girls—mostly juniors and seniors—sat in a cozy bunch under the massive cottonwood, their laughter drifting over on the breeze. Lunch—a trial on the best of days—really sucked when Blair wasn’t there. And Sean was no help, since he liked to spend every spare moment working on whatever car was up on the blocks in Auto. So it was just Libby and her bologna sandwich. Oh, and chips and an apple. Big whoop.
Actually, in some ways it wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought it would be. Most of her classes were okay, although she could do without Mr. Solomon, her English teacher, trying so hard to act like he was everybody’s best friend. The homework was no big deal, and she’d already gotten a ninety-three on her first biology quiz, so she felt pretty good about that, but lunchtime—the girls giggled again—was the pits. Why most of the kids she’d gone all through school with had suddenly decided it wasn’t cool to hang out with their old friends anymore, she had no idea. Not that any of ’em had anything to be stuck-up about—for the most part, everybody here was a farmer’s or rancher’s kid, just like her. When she’d bitched to Dad, he’d told her to sit tight, reminding her how hard her first weeks had been in middle school and how well that had turned out.
Like Dad had a clue how she felt. He used to be pretty cool, too, until he’d gone on this overprotective tear. Like showing two inches of skin or wearing makeup was going to turn her into a slut, for crying out loud. She was in high school, for heaven’s sake! Why didn’t he get that?
Libby glanced down at her breasts—36C and still growing—and sighed, thinking maybe he got more than she wanted to admit. Then she noticed Blair striding across the grass from the parking lot, her red hair looking like it was on fire in the sunlight, and felt a little better.
“Where were you?” Libby asked, knowing she sounded short. But Blair only plopped down beside her on the grass, not taking offense.
“I told you, I had to go get my braces off this morning.”
“Oh, yeah, huh. I forgot. So let me see.”
Blair bared her teeth, like a dog.
“It looks weird,” Libby said. “I guess because I’ve only ever seen you with braces.”
Blair and her aunt Jenna—who’d brought Blair to Oklahoma from Washington, D.C., in search of Blair’s father, Hank Logan, only to fall in love with him and get married, which Libby thought truly one of the most romantic things she’d ever heard—had only been living in Haven for a little over a year. Blair and Libby had become best friends practically within minutes of meeting each other. Libby had sometimes thought maybe their instant friendship had something to do with Jenna being so much like Jeannie, Libby’s mom’s name, but this was not a theory she’d voiced aloud to anybody for fear of being thought silly.
“It feels weird,” Blair said, running her tongue over her naked teeth. “But I got used to having ’em, so I guess I’ll get used to not having ’em.”
“So, you ate before you came?”
“Yeah, Jenna took me to Ruby’s. Oh!” She sat up, her blue eyes all excited. “I almost forgot—there were these new people there, an old man and his daughter, she was so cool, like obviously not from around here—” Libby had found Blair’s previous big-city experience to be pretty reliable when it came to pegging somebody as cool or not “—and I think your father took them out to your place.”
Libby looked hard at Blair, because this information was not sinking in.
“What are you talking about? Why would Daddy be taking two strangers out to the farm? And how the heck do you know this?”
Blair snitched one of Libby’s potato chips—it wasn’t fair, since Blair could eat as many chips and candy bars as she wanted and never gain any weight, while all Libby had to do was think about the stuff and her jeans got tight—and said, “I saw your dad at Ruby’s, too, and he said something about being behind them when their truck went off the road and landed in a ditch outside town—”
“Ohmigosh! Was anybody hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so. But I got the feeling their truck was going to be out of commission for a while. Anyway, then Jenna and I stopped by Darryl’s to get gas, and we saw them get into your father’s truck with their backpacks and stuff and take off.”
“Honestly, Blair, you’d make a rotten detective, you know that? Just because he was givin’ ’em a ride doesn’t mean Dad was takin’ ’em home—”
Blair plucked another chip from the bag. “And where else was he gonna take ’em? You know the Double Arrow’s closed until Dad and Joe get it finished.”
Well, she had a point. But still. One thing did not necessarily lead to another….
“Hey, babe!”
Libby nearly choked on her Diet Coke, but she recovered in time to give Sean a bright smile as he dropped onto the grass beside her. She could feel at least ten sets of dagger glares coming from underneath the cottonwood tree.
“Hey, Blair,” Sean said, “how’s it goin’?”
“Fine,” her friend said, and Libby swallowed a sigh—along with the Diet Coke—because Blair and Sean didn’t really like each other all that much. Libby wasn’t really sure why, although she had a feeling it had something to do with both of them wanting her—Libby—all to themselves. Well, they were just both going to have to learn to deal with it, weren’t they?
Libby smiled into Sean’s amazing coffee eyes and tried not to sigh. She knew he wanted to kiss her, but the school had a zero-tolerance policy about shows of affection, so that was out. It was so weird—Sean was easily one of the cutest boys in school, he could have had any girl he wanted, so Libby had been totally shocked when he’d started hanging around her. And she really couldn’t believe it when he’d offered her a ride home a week ago and had leaned in and given her this really sweet kiss right before she got out. They’d kissed some more—okay, a lot more—since then, and to tell the truth, what she felt when they were kissing kinda scared her. Like when she was little and she’d spin around and around until she got dizzy and would fall over. But she figured it was like being new in school—eventually, she’d start feeling more normal about it.
“Thought you were working on Dawn Logan’s old GTO?” People could bring in cars for the advanced auto students to work on. They’d been working on that GTO since the first day of school, with no end in sight, from what Sean said.
Sean grinned, a crooked thing that made Libby feel a little like she might throw up. “I was. Except then I remembered if I spent the whole hour in there, I wouldn’t get to see my girl for another three-and-a-half hours.”
Blair made a strange sound in her throat. Libby tossed her a “Don’t say it” look before smiling back at Sean. Nobody’d ever called her my girl before and she was determined to squeeze every drop of pleasure out of the moment as she could.
The bell rang, bringing a chorus of groans, understandable since it was hot as hell inside. But before Libby could haul herself to her feet, Sean was standing with his hand out. Libby flushed, both with pleasure at being treated like a lady, and with embarrassment that he might not be able to heave her to her feet as easily as he thought. She resolved this dilemma by getting on one knee so he wouldn’t do all the work, flushing all over again when, once she was standing, he placed a kiss on the inside of her hand, making her tingle all over.
Behind Sean, Blair rolled her eyes. Libby decided it was only because she was jealous. However, she was gracious enough not to hold it against her.
Showered and changed into her favorite voile blouse over a tank top and a pair of bold, floral capris too tacky to resist, Carly sat stiffly on Sam’s porch swing, staring mindlessly out toward a clump of fruit trees—apple, mostly, she thought, but there were a few pears, as well, their leaves blushing scarlet—while nursing a cup of coffee long since gone cold. Sam had insisted she and her father were welcome to anything i
n the house, but she’d already started a list of what they used so she could replace it before they left. Since both she and her dad were big coffee drinkers, a can of Maxwell House went to the head of the class.
She’d hoped the shower and coffee would clear her muddled head. Wrong. If ever a situation brimmed over with “I know, buts…” this was it. Despite how well the situation had resolved itself, despite the shower and the coffee and a surreally perfect day with a sky so clear she felt buoyed by it, despite the rush of fond childhood memories brought on by the soothing, honest scents of hay and earth and animal, the ominous feeling that she was about to be tested in some way kinda shot all the good stuff to hell.
All the males, as well as a small pack of dogs, had been gone for a good two hours—something about repairing a fence, she gathered. Her father’s enthusiastic offer of help had thrown Sam, Carly could tell, but he’d relented once Dad convinced him he’d helped fix plenty of fences as a kid growing up on his parents’ dairy farm in Iowa. So off they’d gone, Sam’s apparent lack of concern about leaving a stranger alone in his house unnerving her even further, tossing her own cynicism back at her like a hot potato. And like that hot potato, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with such no-strings-attached generosity. Except she knew if she held on to it for more than a second, she’d get burned.
Carly downed another sip of coffee, only to grimace at its bitterness. The swing’s chain jingled, startled, as she got up and tossed the dregs out into the yard. Then she stretched her arms over her head, hauling in a lungful of air before slowly swaying from side to side, then bending down to easily lay her palms on the floorboards in front of her feet, taking care not to hyperextend her bum knee. Almost more than giving up performing, the thought of losing her flexibility and control over her body gave her the willies.
Speaking of willies…she actually shuddered when she walked back into the house, it was so impossibly neat. Fancy, no—the blue and beige early-American sofa had a decidedly weary aura about it—but everything was stacked or shelved or hung up or otherwise relegated to its appointed place. Not a single cobweb dangled from the ceiling or clung to a lampshade, not a speck of grunge huddled in the corners of the bathroom, and the clawfoot tub had been as white as Miss America’s smile. Creepy. While Carly wasn’t prone to letting dishes pile up in the sink, her housekeeping philosophy generally ran along the lines of when she got grossed out, she cleaned.
Swept Away Page 3
