"But Mickey never failed at anything," Sam repeated, still unable to accept that Mickey could fail at anything.
"Michael wasn't perfect, Sam. He was as mortal as you and I, and he let love blind him to reality."
Was she about to admit she'd duped him just as Stuart had insisted?
"He built a restaurant for you and me," she said, "because he thought it was what we both wanted—because he loved us and wanted to take care of us."
Sam swallowed over the lump in his throat. "And I rejected his offer to be his Head Chef."
"You knew you weren't ready."
I knew I would mess up, run when the pressure got to me, and screw things up for him.
"And I never wanted a high-end restaurant," she said. "I just wanted a little place where people could gather for good down home cooking."
"Like The Farmhouse."
"Yes."
"Seems in the end Mickey gave you what you wanted."
She sighed. "I'd rather have a lifetime with Michael."
"Yeah. No doubt." If it was the truth. He badly wanted to believe it was. One way to find out. "At least he left you a life insurance policy that enabled you to turn your Gran's house into the restaurant you wanted."
A half snort—half laugh escaped Dixie.
"That sounds like sarcasm," he said.
"I didn't spend Michael's life insurance money to start over here."
Here it comes. The answer he'd been waiting for.
"I spent it fighting Stuart for custody of Ben."
This time, the sarcastic snort came from Sam. He should have guessed—should have known. Nothing in Dixie's persona suggested she was the type to squander an inheritance…or use another person.
"We've got an early morning," Dixie said and excused herself from the balcony with, "Better sleep while we can."
Like he would be able to sleep after learning all he had. Motherhood personified, this woman who'd been forced to spend hers and her son's financial security on a high priced lawyer who could fight Stuart's battery of attorneys. It was the kind of mother he'd wished he'd had—the kind of mother who wanted her son enough to fight for him. His mother's response to his young tears when she'd married a man who didn't want him had been to chastise him and remind him he would be financially secure with his uncle. But there was no love in money, only escape and even that was fleeting.
But money could wipe away The Farmhouse's second mortgage. All it would take was a few months allowance from his trust fund.
He looked up at the stars. Mickey, Mickey. Is that why you're keeping me here, for the financing I can provide? Sam shook his head. But, I give her one dime and Uncle Stu will cut me off.
One particularly bright star pulsed.
You know he'll find out. He always does. And you know what a coward I am.
CHAPTER NINE
Dixie entered the restaurant kitchen, reading the order off the guest ticket in her hand. Sam gave his usual "got it," response. But, when she glanced up to tuck the ticket into the carousel, she saw Sam wasn't alone.
From the far side of the prep table, the twins giggled.
"Who's watching Ben?" Dixie asked
"He's napping with Nana."
"Still, you girls know you're not supposed to be in the restaurant kitchen," Dixie said. "Out."
They began sliding off their stools. Sam turned, jabbed a spatula at them, and commanded, "Stay."
Dixie blinked at him. "We have health regulations as you well know. Besides, it's too dangerous for them to be in here, for them as well as you."
"And our customers," Sam said, giving the girls a meaningful look…at which they giggled.
He met Dixie's gaze. "I caught them trying to add sugar to my salt bowl."
Dixie folded her arms across her chest and leveled a no-nonsense look on the girls. "You two know better than to mess with my restaurant."
"We weren't really going to do it," said Lulu.
"We knew Sam would catch us," said Lola, all but batting her lashes in Sam's direction.
Dixie bit the inside of her cheek to keep a smile from escaping. So this was about the girls having a crush on Sam—about trying to get his attention. But the no unauthorized personnel in the kitchen rule was a serious one. She raised an eyebrow at Sam. "They pull their shenanigans on you and you let them stay in the kitchen for it?"
As he assembled two club sandwiches, he called over his shoulder of the girls, "What did I say when I caught you?"
In unison, they answered. "If you wanna play you gotta pay."
"And how are you two paying?" Sam asked.
Through a Cheshire cat grin, Lulu said, "He's making us peel potatoes."
Dixie moved to Sam's side, her voice barely more than a whisper. "You know they have a crush on you."
The look he gave her was incredulous. "They're twelve. I'm an old guy to them."
"A cute old guy," she murmured.
"You think I'm cute?" he asked through a crooked grin.
She thought of the first morning he'd been at the farm, when she'd woke him while getting Ben's toys from his room. There'd been a lot of innuendo in their flirtations that day, flirtations she wouldn't have minded pursuing. But Sam had pulled back in the days since and she could only assume it was for the same reason she'd cooled things between them. Michael.
Whatever the reason, teasing him seemed safer these days. She slanted a crooked smile at him. "Don't get a swelled head over it."
Still, to be on the safe side herself, she turned her attention to the bowl of peeled potatoes.
"What are these being used for?" she asked Sam.
"Boiling for mashed," Sam said.
Dixie scrutinized the spuds in the bowl. Much as she wanted to praise the girls for their work—encourage them toward more productive occupations like peeling potatoes, this was still a working kitchen.
"All the peel need to be removed," she said, pointing out several small patches of potato skin still clinging to the spuds.
The twins groaned.
Dixie turned back to Sam, her voice once more lowered. "Please tell me you made them wash their hands before they started handling the food."
"You touched your nose," Lulu said.
Sam winked at Dixie. "Listen and you'll have your answer."
"Did not," Lola countered.
"Did too."
"What's the first rule of the kitchen?" he called to the girls.
"Wash your hands," they said in unison.
"What's the second rule of the kitchen?"
"If you touch your nose, your eyes, your mouth or anywhere on your person, wash your hands again."
"Lola, go wash your hands," Sam said.
Lola groaned but slid off her stool and went to the wash sink.
"And that's another dollar for Lulu," he said.
"All right!" hooted Lulu.
Dixie chuckled. "Quality control, Sam Ryan style?"
"You got it," he said.
"I'm impressed."
#
So she was impressed with him. That Dixie thought well of him made Sam feel good. But, at the same time, he was still trying to figure out how to help her without Stuart finding out—without him losing his only means of support. That last—that selfish part of him negated Dixie's high regard for him as he saw it.
From the narrow staircase at the back of the house, he saw Dixie sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, Ben in her lap and red slippers on her feet. What was with the red footwear? First the high-tops then the rubber boots now these fuzzy slip-ons. She never wore anything else red. She didn't even decorate with red.
Not that he had any right to explore her penchant for red foot gear. He shouldn't have even been here long enough to discover she wore red slippers. She should have kicked him out on his wayward butt the night he arrived, not invited him into her home.
Yet, she had. And now the sight of mother and son so close together spread a toasty warm feeling through Sam that had little to do with the fre
sh jeans and gray turtleneck he'd donned following his cold shower. Cold showers seem to have become the norm for him lately.
He'd have given anything not to be the loser he was—to be somebody Dixie didn't need to fix…somebody worthy of her. He should tell her now, tonight, that he'd had enough. That he was leaving. Especially given the latest call from Stuart. The old man was growing ever more impatient.
Dixie whispered something in Ben's ear and the two of them giggled. He couldn't remember the last time his mother had invited him into her lap. Heck, he couldn't remember his mother ever sitting on the floor with him.
Ah, Mickey. No wonder you fell for her.
No wonder I want to be more than a cause to her.
No wonder I can't make myself leave her.
As though they had a mind of their own, his feet carried him into the living room. Dixie looked up from the game board spread on the floor in front of her and Ben and smiled that come hither smile of hers that hooked him every time.
"Wanna play with us, Sam?"
Does duck and orange sauce go together? Oh yeah. He wanted to play all right. But the game he had in mind had nothing to do with a game board and definitely didn't include a four-year-old.
"What's the game?" he asked, nodding at the game board on the floor in front of the pair.
Ben tipped his head back against his mother's shoulder. "Candyland."
Dixie wore another of her fuzzy sweaters, this one with a deep v neckline that the kid's movement pulled wider. All that creamy skin did not evoke a motherly image for him. Didn't the woman own anything other than fitted sweaters? Yes, she did. Tailored-to-her body camp shirts and tightly-cinched aprons?
"I don't know how to play Candyland," he said.
"You never played Candyland when you were a kid?" Dixie asked in an incredulous tone, the tilting of her head making the burnished gold curls dance around her head. His fingers itched to test which would be silkier. Her hair, or the pale skin exposed by the wide v of the sweater.
Not here. Not now. Not ever.
"Nope," he said.
"And here I thought you were the one with the privileged childhood."
Her tone teased. But he heard the underlying pity in her words. He wanted to tell her he didn't want to be her cause—that she and Ben were supposed to be his cause. That he was here to protect them because he owed it to Mickey who'd looked out for him all those growing up years under Stuart's watchful eye.
"Haul your deprived behind down here on the floor, Sam Ryan," Dixie ordered good-naturedly, patting the floor beside her. "Time you find the kid in yourself."
He grunted. "Most people would say I need to grow up."
"Most people? Or just Stuart?"
He winced. "Anyone ever tell you, Red, you have a tendency to get right to the point?"
She laughed and patted the floor again. "Get down here. We need a third player."
And you need a chef. Why can't that be enough?
He folded down next to Dixie. "Okay. How do I play?"
"It's easy enough a four-year-old can teach you," Dixie said through that hundred watt smile she kept turning on him—a smile that he never wanted to see fade. Yet, here he was an agent of Stuart's bound to ruin that smile.
Ben handed him a plastic gingerbread man playing piece—the yellow one. Appropriate, thought Sam, recalling how often he'd been tempted to take his usual coward's way out with them—how close he'd been to sneaking off without so much as a good-bye after brunch that first Sunday at the farm. Maybe he should have left Monday morning and shown Dixie then and there his true colors.
Dixie elbowed him in the ribs. "Don't look so grim. We don't play for blood."
He forced a smile. "Whew. That's a relief. For a minute there, I thought I might have to get cross-matched for blood type in case I needed a transfusion."
Dixie laughed, the sound lyrical and full bodied as bamboo wind chimes. He could easily lose himself in that low, breathy melody. Too easily.
"What do I do first?" he asked, plunking his game piece down on the game board's starting point.
Between chubby fingers and thumb, Ben held up a card with a colored square on it. "You take a card and then—" The kid slid his game piece along the colored squares. "—And then you move your gingerbread man to the color on the card."
"Got it. Now, how do we start?"
"We already did," Dixie said.
He looked at her in silent question.
"Rule number one," she said. "The youngest always goes first."
"That's me," Ben chirped.
"But of course," Sam said. "What was I thinking?"
In short time, the three of them left Plumpa the troll and his gingerbread plum tree behind, passed Lord Licorice, and traversed the peppermint forest. The first hitch came when Dixie took a shortcut through Gumdrop Pass.
"Nobody told me about any shortcuts," Sam said.
"You didn't land on any of the squares that would have let you take advantage of the shortcuts."
"I see," Sam said. "Anything else you haven't told me about this game?"
"It's a game of chance, Sam."
Chance. Yeah. Like he believed there was a chance in hell he could fix Dixie's problems and escape without her learning what a louse he was by coming to the farm to spy on her.
Sam eyed the game board, noting things he hadn't before, like shortcuts, pink spaces with pictures on them, and other colored squares with black dots.
"What are the dots for?" he asked.
"You get stuck if you land on them," Ben said.
"Stuck, huh?" Like he seemed to have gotten himself stuck at the farm with Dixie and Ben and Nana. Sam eyed Dixie.
She shrugged. "You'd have found out if you landed on one."
"Yeah. Sure. You want to tell me how I get unstuck if I land on one of those dots? Or is your strategy to keep me in the dark."
"Like I said, Sam. There is no strategy to this game. It's pure chance."
She sounded a little too smug for his liking. "Nothing's pure chance, Red. Give me the whole scoop."
She gave him a wily smile and a quick overview as Ben took his turn.
"Is that everything?" Sam asked.
"Everything I know about this game," Dixie said.
"I picked you a card, Tin Man," the kid said, clearly impatient with the adults and their chatter holding up the game.
"Thanks, buddy." Sam said, moving his yellow gingerbread man forward.
Then Dixie drew a card that stuck her in the gooey gumdrops.
"So much for your shortcut, Red," Sam said, raising his eyebrows at her.
"A temporary setback," Dixie said. "Merely temporary."
Another turn and Sam was a scant two spaces behind Dixie.
He leaned in close to her. "That's my breath you feel on your neck, Red."
"You haven't caught me yet."
He and Ben were rounding the first bend by the time Dixie freed herself from the gumdrops. One more turn of good luck and Dixie jumped ahead of them both to Gramma Nutt's peanut brittle space.
She laughed and tickled Ben. To Sam she said, "Eat my dust."
"You are a competitive woman, Red."
"Moi? Why I haven't a competitive bone in my body."
"We'll see about that if I draw a skip forward card to Princess Lolly's lollipop."
He drew a card off the top of the pile, making a great show of palming it so no one else could see it—which sent Ben into a giggling fit. Dixie smiled at her son in her lap and then at Sam. He wanted to freeze the moment. He wanted to spend the rest of his life basking in the warmth of that smile. But that was impossible. He was nothing more than her current cause and one she would inevitably learn had deceived her. And once she learned the truth, she'd never smile his way again.
Sam peeked at the card in his hand and whooped.
"You didn't," Dixie said, clamping onto his forearm and forcing him to reveal the card he held in his palm. No pink square with a lollipop picture on it for him, no skip
forward card.
Dixie swatted him playfully on the arm. "You're a big tease, Sam Ryan."
"Not a competitive bone in your body, huh?" he teased back.
Dixie snorted and drew her next card, only to break out in laughter. "It's a double blue. I'm lost in the Lollipop Woods."
"What a shame," Sam said.
"You could come find me," she purred.
If only she meant it the way it sounded. He'd gladly rescue her from the Lollipop Woods. Better yet, lose himself with her in that land of fantasy and never again have to face reality.
Not going to happen. Never.
"Dream on," he said, letting loose with a sinister laugh. Ben and I are going to trample you in our race to the finish."
"Don't trample Mommy."
Ben lifted watery eyes at him. Swell, he'd reduced Mickey's kid to tears.
Awkwardly, Sam ruffled Ben's hair. "Hey, bud. I was just kidding."
Still, the kid gave him a wary look...which didn't lessen as they came out of the last turn from the Ice Cream Sea, Sam in the lead.
"Looks like Sam might win." Dixie flexed her knees, making Ben bounce in her lap.
But the kid didn't giggle. He just frowned. He clearly wasn't happy about that probable outcome.
Sam thought back to a time when he'd moped over something he'd wanted. How had Stuart handled it? Oh yeah. Stu had said, "Cater to the child's ploy and you weaken his character. Failing will teach him character."
A groove creased Sam's forehead and Dixie wondered what had put it there. He'd seemed to be having a good time, caught up in the fun of the game. He'd seemed relaxed.
Until now. Sam stared at the game board, the thought line in his brow deepening.
She took her turn, moved her game piece the requisite spaces to the color square on the board that matched the color square on the card she'd drawn. A mere two spaces. She sighed. "I can't catch a break."
"Can't catch a break," Ben mimicked as he studied the card he drew.
Then it was Sam's turn again. His long fingers slid the top card off the deck. He palmed it as he had the one he'd pretended catapulted him to the Lollipop Woods and studied the card in the cup of his hand. What did Sam Ryan see in that child's playing card that he appeared to be rubbing away with his thumb?
Finding Home (St. John Sibling Series Book 2) Page 12
