SAM HADN’T BEEN BACK to Coach Marten’s office in the field house since the day he and Mike Marten had exchanged bitter, angry words over Sam’s decision to turn down the college scholarship Mike had worked so hard to get him. Walking in, just after 6:00 a.m., the time of day Coach got to the field house to go over his plans for that morning’s seven-thirty practice, Sam had a peculiar sense of déjà vu. A lot had changed: the paint, the conditioning equipment, even the athletic lockers that lined the walls. But Coach Marten hadn’t. And neither had he, Sam thought, and that was the problem.
Mike was in his office, seated behind his desk, reviewing practice films when Sam walked in. “I know why you resent me,” Sam said calmly, glad no one else was there to witness this. “I even accept it. I won’t have you taking the rancor you feel for me out on my son.”
Mike regarded Sam for a long moment. “Did Will complain to you?” Mike leaned forward and rested his beefy forearms on the desk. “Tell you I’m giving him an unnecessarily hard time?”
“No,” Sam returned evenly. “But I could tell by what he said that’s what has been going on.”
Calmly, Mike reached for the remote. “Before you make an even bigger jackass out of yourself, sit and take a look at this. This is yesterday’s practice.”
Reluctantly, Sam pulled up a chair and sat. He watched for several moments in silence. Will fumbled, overshot and undershot the ball time after time. He was uncertain, slow and clumsy to the point even his teammates looked exasperated. Watching along with Sam, Mike shook his head. “I don’t know what your son is thinking about out there on the field, but he sure as hell doesn’t have his mind on what he’s doing. Will’s talented. But he’s not going to be playing much this year unless he gets his head back in the game. So you want to tell him something, tell him that. I already have.”
Mike clicked the remote and stopped the tape.
Aware he had indeed just made a very big fool of himself by rushing to defend his son before he knew all the facts, Sam stood. “One more thing,” Mike said before Sam could even begin to formulate an apology. “Kate may be a grown woman but she’s still an innocent in so many ways.”
Sam tensed at the implied accusation. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded, slamming his hands onto his waist.
Mike regarded him steadily. “I want to make sure her virtue is safe.”
“Her virtue,” Sam repeated, both stunned and incensed.
Mike nodded grimly as he got to his feet, too, and squared off with Sam across the top of his desk. “I don’t want you making a pass at her or seducing her in order to satisfy any of your ‘needs.’”
Sam swore at the antiquated notion. He wasn’t some lord of the manor looking to bed the help—especially when the help was Kate Marten! And still resentful of him or not, Mike should know that! “Sleeping with your daughter is the last thing on my mind,” Sam said gruffly. But even as he said it, Sam knew it wasn’t true. Ever since she’d moved in—hell, ever since the night he had kissed her to try to scare her away—he’d been aware of Kate as a woman. And the more she was around, the more comfortable she was in his house, the worse it got.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Mike said grimly.
“But you still wish she wasn’t staying with us,” Sam stated, reading the look on Mike’s face.
Mike acknowledged this was so with a shrug. “I know Kate feels for you and your family and what they’ve been through. But Kate’s always had too much heart and too little self-preservation. I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
Sam did not see what that had to do with him. “I’m not out to hurt her,” he said curtly.
“You already have just by getting her so involved in your problems.” Mike shot Sam a narrow, warning glance. “As far as her mother and I are concerned, right now Kate should be thinking about only one thing—her upcoming wedding to Craig.”
KATE WAS NOT ABOUT TO miss her appointment to try on wedding dresses at Jenna Lockhart’s exclusive boutique. So she’d enlisted Sam’s cousin, Shane McCabe, to take charge of the boys for a couple of hours while she and her mother attended to that very important detail of her wedding. Kate started with a full-skirted satin dress, with a fitted, long-sleeved, high-necked lace bodice. The moment Joyce saw Kate in it, tears welled in her eyes. Jenna grinned and handed Joyce a box of tissues. “A little overwhelming, isn’t it?” Jenna teased.
“Very,” Joyce said happily, dabbing her eyes. Doing her best to compose herself, she looked at Kate, her lower lip trembling. “You’re just so beautiful, honey. And so grown up.”
And this was really happening, Kate thought, beginning to tear up herself. She was really going to stop talking about it and thinking about it and dreaming about it and marry Craig. She turned back to the mirror and took a deep breath. As lovely as it was, somehow the gown did not feel right. Kate bit her lip as she tried to think how to articulate her concern. “I think it’s too…”
“Old-fashioned?” Jenna guessed.
Kate nodded. “Maybe something more sleek and sophisticated?” Something she’d feel comfortable in and Craig would really go wild over.
“Gotcha.” Jenna took a sleeveless silk gown from the rack and helped Kate into that. Kate looked in the mirror. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Jenna said as she caught the uncertain expression on Kate’s face.
“It’s so…plain. I almost look like I’m just going to a formal dance.” She wanted a dress that would make her feel as special and cherished as she needed to feel as she walked down the aisle on that very special day.
“Okay. Let’s try this.” Jenna assisted Kate out of that gown and into the next. It had a fitted satin bodice, a portrait neckline that left her neck and shoulders bare, and a beautiful tulle skirt.
“I really like that one,” Joyce said, beaming.
Again, Kate shook her head. “It just doesn’t feel like me.”
Over the next two hours Kate was in and out of almost three dozen gowns. Jenna quizzed her as she put on each one, asking what she liked, what she didn’t. By the time they had exhausted her current inventory of dresses, Joyce looked worried they’d never find anything to please Kate, and Kate was exhausted and discouraged. Only Jenna seemed to take their failure to find “the gown” in stride. “Don’t worry.” Jenna patted Kate on the shoulder, after Kate got dressed again, and had taken a seat beside Joyce on the sofa. “This happens all the time. Brides rarely find the dress they want the first time out. It often takes quite a few shopping trips to find the dress of your dreams.”
“That’s the problem,” Kate sighed. “I don’t know exactly what the dress of my dreams is supposed to look like.”
“No one does—until they put it on.” Jenna zipped one dress after another into protective plastic bags.
“Actually, now that I think of it, it took me quite a few shopping excursions to find my wedding dress, too,” Joyce soothed as she and Jenna exchanged understanding glances.
“I think I may know what you want now,” Jenna said, turning back to Kate. “I’ve got a couple dresses already under way, and another I’ve just dreamed up that might fit the bill. Why don’t I get those together and give you a call as soon as they are ready to try on?”
“Okay,” Kate said, relieved. After all this time, after all this waiting and “making do,” she wanted everything to be as wonderful and right as she had always dreamed it would be.
“In the meantime…” Jenna walked them both to the door. She laced a comforting arm around Kate’s shoulders. “I don’t want you worrying. We’ve still got plenty of time to find you the dress that’s going to make your wedding picture-perfect.”
“HEY, KATE. Do you know how to sew a button on?” Brad asked shortly after Kate had returned to Sam’s and Shane had left. It was obvious just looking at him that he had tumbled out of bed and into the shower not too long ago. His eyes still had a not-quite-all-the-way-awake look and his hair was damp and scented with shampoo. He was wearing shorts, and had a loud Hawaiian shirt crumpled in his hand, a needlepoint-covered basket in another.
“Yes.” Kate looked up from her perch on the front porch, where she’d been thumbing through bridal magazines, checking out the dresses, and keeping an eye on Kevin, who was riding his bike up and down the sidewalk in front of the house. She looked over at Brad, noting he hadn’t bothered to shave and was sporting several days’ growth of visible stubble. “Would you like to learn?”
Brad looked at her as though she had to be kidding. “No.”
Kate arched a brow, letting him know that answer was not about to fly with her. “So find something else to wear. You’ve got plenty of clothes. Or wear it as is, with the button missing.”
Realizing this was not a battle he was going to win, Brad released a put-upon sigh and continued rotely, “Okay, I’ll learn. But you’ll have to show me.”
Kate patted the place beside her on the wicker settee. “Have a seat.”
“So how’d the wedding dress shopping go?” he asked as Kate found a needle and some white thread. “Did you find a dress?”
“Nope. I tried on a lot but none of them was right.”
“Bummer,” Brad said with genuine sympathy.
“Yeah. I was disappointed. But I’ve got plenty of time.” Kate paused to show Brad how to thread a needle and to find the place where the button had been. She got it started while he watched, then made him continue pushing the needle through the holes in the button to secure it in place.
“How long you been engaged, anyway?” he asked.
“Almost three years.”
“Wow. That’s a long time.”
“I know.”
“People must have been wondering if you’d ever get married.”
Kate grinned. Leave it to Brad to hit the nail right on the head. “You’ve got that right.” There had been some in town who had hinted that Craig should have been willing to give up his air force career to come back to Laramie and be with Kate, but she had never asked Craig to do that. As much as she loved living and working in the small Texas town where she had grown up, she knew Craig had always felt stifled there. While she had simply needed to help others, he had needed to achieve, to see the world, to do not just something important but something exciting and daring, something few people could do. And now that he had actually done that, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—just walk away from it, even when his commitment to the military was up.
His head tilted slightly to the side, Brad continued to study her. “So how’d you know Craig was the one you were supposed to marry?” he asked curiously after a moment. “Was there this lightning-bolt moment, like you see in the movies?”
“No,” Kate recollected fondly. “It was more gradual. We grew up together and went to school together and were always friends. We started hanging out a lot on weekends when we were in high school, and then started dating before he went off to the Air Force Academy.”
“But you didn’t go to the academy.”
“No, I went to college here in Texas.”
Again, Brad looked stunned. “So you waited for him all that time?”
Kate hesitated. “It’s not like we never had a date with anyone else. We both saw others from time to time, but in the end we always came back to each other.” And Kate had been happy to do so. Life with Craig was familiar, safe. He wasn’t volatile the way her dad and Pete and even Sam were. She dealt with enough turmoil and emotional upheaval at work. She didn’t want it at home, too. So, why, suddenly, since Sam had come back into her life was she feeling so restless, edgy, envious of the deeply passionate love he’d had with Ellie? She knew, even if Sam no longer did, that his relationship with his wife hadn’t been perfect despite the depth of their love and the wonderful family they’d built. Sam was a workaholic. Ellie, for all her public show of coping, had often been lonely. And she’d told Kate as much more than once in the early days of their marriage. Having lived with Sam for a few days, seen what long hours he put in at the office, and how wrapped up he was in his work, Kate could understand firsthand why Ellie had felt that way.
“What’s Craig like?”
Passionate about his career, reckless enough to fly fighter jets. She loved his bravura and confidence, and his devotion to his country, the way he had always been, would always be, her friend. Her only complaint, if she even had one, was the lack of fire in the bedroom. And even that was understandable. They were together so infrequently, and when they were, it seemed there were so many people waiting to see Craig that they were almost never alone for very long. He had been her first lover, she had been his. Hence, neither of them was all that experienced in bed. But she was hoping the sexy-as-hell dress Jenna had designed for Kate to wear to Craig’s homecoming next week, and the time alone they had arranged to have, would fix all that, and make her as completely, thoroughly irresistible to him as she had always wanted to be. In fact, she was sure it would.
Aware Brad was still waiting for her answer, Kate said, “He’s very nice. He’s an air force pilot.”
“What kind of planes does he fly?”
“F-16’s.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
“He must really be good if they let him fly one of those.”
“He is.” Kate acknowledged proudly. Deciding the button was now firmly sewed onto the shirt, she turned back to Brad. She let him know with a smile how much she appreciated his improved attitude. “Okay, now let me show you how to wrap the thread around the base of these threads, to make this button really secure….”
“WHAT TIME WILL YOU NEED me again tomorrow morning, boss?” Sam’s driver asked as he parked the limo in front of Sam’s house.
“Five sharp,” Sam said as he gathered up his laptop computer, briefcase and suit jacket. “I need to be in the office by seven.”
“Okay. See you then.” Looking happy he’d gotten off work at a reasonable hour for the first time in weeks, Sam’s driver left.
Still feeling a little guilty for having left so much at the office undone, Sam headed up the sidewalk. To his surprise, the front door was locked. He fished out his key and let himself in. He walked through the downstairs, expecting to be confronted by the usual sounds of dueling televisions and stereos and boys fighting. Instead, the house was silent, devoid of even the slightest aroma. Sure dinner couldn’t be over with already, he headed for the kitchen. The boys had been there. The evidence of their snacks and beverages was clearly evident in the dirty dishes and paper wrappers littering the counters. But there was nothing simmering on the stove, nothing in the oven. Beginning to be more than a little irritated, Sam searched the rest of the house and found no one was home. He sorted through the mail, then headed for his study. Finally, about eight-thirty, he heard the sound of a car in the drive. Sam moved to the window.
Instead of the casual clothes she’d been wearing around the house, Kate was dressed in a figure-hugging white dress with a matching jacket. High heels showed off her legs to spectacular advantage. Her sunglasses were pushed up on her head. Her bag looped over her arm, she was busy outfitting his son Lewis with her briefcase and laptop computer while she and Kevin both picked up several bags of groceries each. Lewis and Kate were still laughing and talking as they headed for the house, six-year-old Kevin tagging along wordlessly beside them.
Sam met them at the door. Kate’s eyes widened in surprise, but she looked pleased to see him nevertheless. “You’re home early,” she said happily. “When did you get here?”
“Six-thirty. I thought I’d have supper with the boys.”
Kate’s jaw dropped. Immediately she understood and shared his disappointment. “Only no one was here,” she said softly.
Once again, Sam found himself on the receiving end of Kate’s compassion. Once again, he found himself not wanting it. Knowing full well it wasn’t her fault, he was the one who had decided to “surprise” the family by coming home early and sitting down to dinner with them, Sam looked at Kate and said irritably, “If you’d let me know you would be late, I could have stayed at the office.” As it was, he had wasted most of the evening, unable to concentrate fully, while waiting and wondering where everyone was.
An anxious look on his face, Lewis took Kev’s hand. “Let’s bring in the rest of the groceries.”
“Kate and I will do that,” Sam said firmly. The boys didn’t need to hear what he had to say.
Kate smiled at the boys gently and, unlike Sam, still looking relaxed and happy and at ease, prompted cheerfully, “Yeah, why don’t you guys go on up and finish the game you started earlier? You’ve got the diskette I gave you, right?”
“Yup. Thanks for taking us with you.” Lewis gave Kate a quick, exuberant hug. “We had fun. Didn’t we, Kev?”
Kev nodded shyly. He hugged Kate, too, then headed off with Lewis.
Kate headed back out to the car. Sam followed, close on her heels. “You could have called me to let me know you weren’t going to be here,” he said.
“I would have except our not being here didn’t involve blood, fire or any other emergency that would warrant you taking a call from me.”
At the reminder of the way he had refused her calls when he’d been hip-deep in crucial meetings, it was all Sam could do not to cringe. “You could have left a message.”
Kate looked at him, her soft lips curved into a challenging smile. “Do you want me to do that next time?”
“I would appreciate it, yes.” Sam pushed the words through his teeth.
“Okay, then, I will.” Kate leaned into her trunk.
Sam tore his eyes from the fabric shifting gently over her slender hips. “Didn’t you just go to the store?” he demanded.
“Three days ago,” Kate affirmed as she took several bags of groceries and handed them to him. “Amazing, isn’t it, how much growing boys eat?”
Ignoring the way her skirt hitched up her thighs, Sam watched as she reached back into the trunk and struggled to push two bunches of bananas and a big bag of oranges back into the sack before lifting them, too. “What’s with all the fruit?”
Her arms full of groceries, Kate headed for the house. “The boys all need a lot of potassium in this kind of heat. Oranges and bananas are both good sources of it and they all like them. We were out of both.”
Sam watched her long legs as she headed up the back steps in her short skirt. He didn’t know how or why it had happened, but suddenly Kate was under his skin in a way no woman had been in a very long time. “You don’t have to explain in such detail,” he mumbled.
“I thought that was the point of the interrogation.” Kate set the grocery bags down on the kitchen table and headed back out to the car. “You wanted me to explain.”
Sam felt a muscle tick in his jaw as his pique with her built. He was used to respect from the household help. “What I wanted to see, Kate, were my kids. Only none of them was here.”
Kate shrugged, “Then check with them on their schedules, so that next time you make a special effort to be home, they will be here.”
Sam watched her transfer her groceries to one hand, then slam down the trunk. “Where were you?” he demanded. And why was she dressed that way? She was supposed to be taking care of his kids. Period. Not gallivanting around in formal business clothes.
Kate sent him an exasperated look and marched toward the house. “I had to go to the hospital for a meeting. Lewis and Kev went with me. While I did business, they played computer games in the conference room next to my office.”
Sam moved ahead and opened the back door. “Have they had dinner?” he asked.
“Of course, they have,” Kate snapped as she strode into the kitchen ahead of him, teetering slightly in her heels as she juggled to transfer the weight in her hands up onto the table. “As reward for their excellent behavior, we ate dinner at the Wagon Wheel restaurant, and then stopped by the grocery on the way home to stock up on everything we were running out of around here.” Kate removed her sunglasses from the top of her head and set them on the counter. Her jacket came off next. She slung it over the back of a chair. Her figure-hugging sheath exposed her bare sexy arms to tantalizing view.
Sam frowned. “I thought you were taking time off from the hospital.”
Kate arched a brow his way. “Something came up.” She began unloading groceries.
To Sam’s aggravation, she didn’t say what. “What about the older three—have they had dinner?” he demanded grumpily.
Her exasperation with him clearly mounting, Kate sucked in a breath. “Riley is eating dinner with the marching band—their practice goes until nine tonight.”
“That late?”
“The next two weeks are considered their training camp. They practice from nine until nine, Monday through Friday.”
Sam’s brow furrowed with the depth of his concern. “That’s a long time.”
“Yes, it is,” Kate explained patiently, “but it’s the only way they can teach the kids the marching fundamentals, the music and the half-time show before school starts. Don’t worry.” She smiled at him in a soothing way he found even more irritating than the sarcasm she’d used on him earlier. “They’re not outside all that time. They spend a good half of the time inside, in the air-conditioning. It’s a very social activity as well as educational. The kids here love it, despite all the hard work. And I am sure Riley will, too.”
Sam frowned as he realized he had practically invited that long drawn-out explanation, when all he was really trying to do was cut the conversation short, after first making sure his kids were okay, of course. “Did I say I was worried?” he demanded belligerently.
“No,” Kate replied with the same maddening compassion. “You just look it.”
Irritated she knew more about what was going on with his kids at any given moment than he did—never mind had the wherewithal to be nice when he was acting anything but, Sam snapped, “Where about Brad and Will? Have they had dinner?”
Kate went back to putting away groceries, her every move as feminine and graceful as the clothes she was dressed in. “Will is going to pick something up with the team, after football practice this evening—he can’t eat and then go run in this heat, he’d get sick. Brad is having dinner with a friend at his house this evening.” She paused, studying Sam openly as she put two cans of soup away. “If you’re hungry…and don’t know how to prepare yourself a meal…if that’s what this is about…”
Sam released a provoked breath. She didn’t just think he was self-centered and a bad parent. She thought he was incompetent, too! “I can make myself a sandwich, thanks,” he returned bitterly.
Kate looked unconvinced as she slid the milk into the fridge. “Have you?”
“No.” Sam pulled an enormous jar of pickles out of the sack. “I was waiting for everyone else to show up.” He’d wanted to eat with his family. He’d wanted to talk to Will about how football practice was really going, and try to learn what was causing Will to screw up since joining Coach Marten’s team. Was it just nerves—something Will had never suffered from before? Or something more? Something specific Kate’s dad was doing? Sam didn’t want to think it was the latter, but he also knew how much Mike Marten resented the fact that his daughter was living in Sam’s house, helping out, even temporarily.
Kate carried an armload of canned goods to the walk-in pantry. She shot him a look over her shoulder, while struggling to put them away. “Do you want me to do it for you? Because if you do, I could—”
“No.” Sam didn’t want Kate doing anything for him. It was bad enough having her here underfoot twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, without her first trying to size up his mood and then cater to him the way Ellie used to do.
“Fine, then.” Kate turned sideways to brush by him, her proximity inundating him with the delicate, womanly scent of her perfume.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Worse, Sam felt like the biggest jerk in the world for the way he was behaving.
Kate was doing a good job under extremely difficult circumstances, and instead of thanking her, the way Ellie would have wanted Sam to thank her, he was on her case constantly. Letting her know by look, word and deed that nothing she or any other woman ever did was going to be good enough to make up for Ellie’s absence in their lives.
Sam released a weary breath and shoved a hand through his hair. He had to do better here. Had to. For the sake of the boys. For Ellie. For Kate. It was the least he owed any of them. He had been acting like a spoiled child and for the life of him, he didn’t know why. He swallowed hard, and when she turned in his direction, he said, “Look, I’m…” Angry all the time. Furious at I don’t even know what. He swallowed again and forced himself to go on. “I’m sorry.”
Kate remained very still and said nothing, the look in her eyes willing him to continue.
Knowing he owed her this much, if not a hell of a lot more, Sam pushed on with effort as the ache of sadness and despair he’d felt for months now rose in his throat, choking him. “I was worried when I got home and there was no one here.” He looked into Kate’s eyes, wanting her to know it wasn’t, and never had been, anything personal. That it wasn’t her, it was him. Even when he didn’t want to admit it, he knew it. “I didn’t know where anyone was, and I just got worried, that’s all.” Sam shook his head, aware just how lame that sounded.
Understanding gleamed in her eyes, even as her low, sexy voice remained firm and direct. “If the kids had been hurt…if there was a problem and they needed you, I would call you, Sam,” she said softly. “They would call you.”
“I know that.” Sam looked down and away as the unwanted ache in his throat grew.
“Then…?” Kate crossed her arms in front of her and remained where she was, though Sam could see—feel—that she wanted to come closer.
That was just it, Sam thought helplessly as he leaned back against the counter and she waited for his reply. He couldn’t explain his bad mood. Except…seeing her come in like that, laughing and talking with the boys as they carried in groceries, reminded him of Ellie. Though Ellie had never dressed like that, unless she had a social function to attend. Ellie had never worked outside the house, either, juggled kids and career responsibilities. He couldn’t seem to do it. He resented the fact that at least for a few hours, Kate had done it, and done it well.
“I thought you didn’t want me to wait around for you to show up,” Kate said finally.
Sam grimaced. “I don’t.” It irritated him when she did. Reminded him of the way Ellie had always been there, waiting for him, whatever time of day or night he had come in. She’d always had dinner waiting, eagerly listened to the events of his day. He didn’t want Kate doing that, didn’t want her doing anything that reminded him of Ellie and all he had lost. And yet when she didn’t do that, when she didn’t make him feel as if he mattered, he resented that, too. It made no sense. Just as his awareness of Kate as a woman made no sense.
“Okay, then what’s the problem?” Kate demanded, clearly needing, wanting, to make sense of it all.
Not about to confess his physical yearning for her, Sam turned away abruptly. “Nothing. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’ve had a long day.” And I want to take you to bed. Here. Now. How sick was that? This was Ellie’s home. Kate was engaged to be married to someone else. The last thing either of them needed was to get sexually involved with each other. And yet, there it was. The desire he’d discovered the first night she’d marched into his house to help him and he’d grabbed her and kissed her. The desire that no matter what would not go away. The desire that even now was working to keep him away, because this was not what he wanted to feel, and he was pretty sure, if Kate knew about it, she would not want it, either. What was he supposed to say to her? I can’t be in a room with you, I can’t smell your perfume, without wanting to make love to you. She might have come to help out, but she sure hadn’t signed on for sex. And right now, sex—the oblivion, the release—was what he wanted.
Aware she was still looking at him, trying to read what was in his heart and on his mind, and if she kept it up, he might just tell her, Sam said, “I’m in a bad mood, okay? What else do you want me to say?”
Something came and went in Kate’s eyes. Abruptly, her demeanor became colder, less intimate, too. “Nothing,” Kate said. “Absolutely nothing.” And she walked away.