“Are you avoiding me?” Sam asked an hour later, when he finally caught up with Lulu in the walk-in pantry off the kitchen.
Actually, yes, I am.
Determined not to give her parents anything to discuss later, she looked behind him, saw no one in their line of sight and slid him a glance. If only he weren’t six feet three inches of masculine perfection, didn’t know her inside and out and didn’t kiss like a dream, this would be a whole lot easier.
Lulu continued counting out paper plates and putting them in the wicker basket at her hip. Wishing he didn’t look so big and strong and immovable standing next to her, she asked, “Why would you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” His lazy quip brought heat to her cheeks. “Maybe the fact that you’ve managed to stay as far away from me as possible since your parents got here this afternoon.”
Aware he was watching her, gauging her reactions as carefully as she was measuring his, Lulu lifted her chin. “It’s just...there’s a lot to do,” she fibbed, “if we’re going to get this meal on before the rain starts...” Hoping to distract him, she asked, “By the way, who’s watching the boys?”
“Your mom and dad.”
Lulu winced. Of all the people to tell he was going in search of her.
“Why? Is there something wrong with that?” Sam asked. Clad in a blue short-sleeved button-down, jeans and boots, he looked sexy and totally at ease. “They offered, and they’ve obviously got plenty of experience handling little ones.”
“I know.”
“Then?” he asked. His gaze roved her knee-length white shorts and sleeveless Mediterranean-blue blouse before returning to her face.
“It’s just...the boys can be a lot.”
They both stopped as the sound of...was that rain...?
“Oh no!” Lulu exclaimed, pushing past Sam, seeing through the kitchen windows that a sudden downpour had indeed begun. “Everyone’s still outside!”
They took off at a run.
Theo was in the sandbox, trying to protect his creation from the torrential downpour to no avail. He was screaming in distress, along with two of Jack’s daughters who also did not want to see their castles destroyed. Neither were listening to Lulu’s mom, who was trying to coax them inside.
Andrew was standing on the top of the play-fort slide, along with three-year-old Chloe, enjoying the downpour and also refusing to get down for Bess Monroe—who might have been able to handle one child but definitely could not pick up two simultaneously.
Ethan, wide-eyed with a mixture of surprise and dismay, had taken cover beneath an umbrella table and was also refusing to be coaxed out by Lulu’s dad.
Plus, the food on the long picnic tables needed to be rescued. Luckily, it was covered with plastic wrap, but still...
“You get Ethan, I’ll get the other two,” Sam said.
Every adult jumped in to help.
A frantic five minutes later, their meal had been salvaged, and everyone was inside. And while Jack’s Victorian was pretty spacious, the fourteen adults and fifteen children had the first floor bursting at the seams. So, as soon as the meal was over, cleanup done, the great exodus began.
Not surprisingly, the triplets were having so much fun playing with the other kids, they did not want to leave.
“Five more minutes,” Lulu said firmly.
“And then we’re going back to the ranch to see Beauty,” Sam added.
The mention of the beloved pet had all three boys hesitating but not for long.
“No! Stay!” Andrew shouted cantankerously.
“Play! More!” Theo added while Ethan pretended to ignore it all and kept right on driving his toy trucks around in circles.
Sam and Lulu exchanged the kind of looks parents had exchanged forever. A fact that, unfortunately, did not go unnoticed by Lulu’s mother.
“One way or another...” Sam murmured.
Lulu nodded. “I agree.” The kids had to have boundaries. And when they were overtired, their belligerence only got worse. So even if it meant they were unhappy, they were still going to have to leave when the time was up.
Sam moved off to talk to Dan, to see if there had been any update on Lulu’s bees. There had not.
Meanwhile, Kelly noted sympathetically, “The boys really seem to enjoy playing with other children. Did they go to preschool previously? Do you know?”
“From what Sam and I have been able to glean from their records,” Lulu said, “Theresa went back to work part-time when the triplets were a year old. They went to school five mornings a week, from nine to one, for about six months, then bumped it up to six hours a day. They usually got picked up right after nap time.”
“You could enroll them at the preschool where I teach. Especially if you think that would help them acclimate.”
Lulu hesitated.
Kelly continued, “Cece has the two-year-old class, and she’s great with them.”
Reluctantly, Lulu admitted, “Well, Sam is the one who has the say on that, but I don’t know that he’ll want to leave them. Especially since they’ve been moved around so much already in the last two months.”
Kelly smiled. “I understand. If you change your mind, let me know because I can really expedite the process for you all.”
“Thanks, Kelly.”
Sam approached. “Ready to give it another try?”
Feeling as much a mommy as he appeared to be a daddy, Lulu nodded.
They tried reason, cajoling and firmly ordering. No approach worked when it came to getting their way-too-overtired children to cooperate. In the end, they had no choice but to carry all three boys out to Sam’s pickup in the still pouring rain. Jack loaned them some beach towels to throw over their heads to keep the boys from getting wet, but Sam and Lulu both got rained on nevertheless.
Sam seemed impervious to the chill. Lulu was not so lucky. Shivering, she draped one of the damp towels across her shoulders and chest, like a shawl, the other over her bare legs as they drove away.
By the time they reached the first stoplight in the downtown area of Laramie, the boys had stopped their protesting and were already yawning. They were sound asleep at the town limits.
Lulu told Sam what Kelly had said about enrolling them in preschool.
“Hmm.”
“What does hmm mean?”
He slanted her a self-effacing smile. “It means, like you, I’m on the fence. I think it would be good for their social development, but I worry that more change might make things worse.”
Lulu blew out a breath. Not really all that surprised to find them feeling the exact same thing. “Being a parent is hard.”
He reached over and squeezed her knee through the towel. “We’ll get used to it,” he promised.
We’ll...
He had said we’ll.
They really were in this together, Lulu thought.
It was still raining pretty hard fifteen minutes later when they arrived back at the ranch. Sam parked as close as he could to the covered front porch, and they carried the boys in one at a time, with Sam easing the sleeping children from their car seats and Lulu holding a towel over them to keep them dry. They put them all on the sofa, placed their stuffed animals in their arms and covered them with their baby blankets.
Beauty strolled in to say hi. After she’d been let out for a quick potty break, she sank down next to the boys and curled up with her back to the sofa to nap while guarding her little charges.
Arms folded, Sam stood back to look at them. Tenderness sweeping through him, he leaned down to whisper in Lulu’s ear, “Boy, they are really out.”
“I know,” she whispered back fondly.
And it was way too late for them to be taking a long nap. He glanced at his watch. “It’s five o’clock.”
She wrinkled her nose in concern, a sentiment he shared.
Hand beneath her elbow, he steered her a distance away. “Think we should wake them up? Or let them snooze a little while longer?”
She sent another affectionate look at the boys. As she swung back to him, he couldn’t help but admire the sheen of her honey-brown hair. “I don’t know.” Lulu bit down on her lower lip, and heat pooled through him as she came intimately close. “What do you think?”
As if he were the expert here.
Still, it felt good to be sharing responsibility with her. To be able to lean on each other, whenever, however, they needed. Had they been able to do that before, they probably never would have broken up.
“Maybe a little while longer?” Sam supposed, inhaling her intoxicating perfume. “Until six?”
Their gazes met and she drew a breath. “Then we can let them play a bit before dinner, give them baths and go through the normal bedtime routine?”
“Sounds good,” he said, his gaze dropping to her mouth, then lower, to the damp clothing clinging to her supple curves.
“What isn’t good,” Lulu said, holding her shirt out away from her breasts before allowing it to fall into place again, “is how I feel.”
His body hardening at the sight of her nipples showing through her drenched shirt, he looked down at his own clothes. “We did get a little wet, didn’t we, darlin’?”
Lulu grimaced. “I need to change. Unfortunately, I’m out of clean clothes, and I’m reluctant to leave you alone with the boys to make the run back to the Honeybee Ranch.”
Not wanting her to go, either, Sam shrugged. “You can borrow one of my shirts.” The way she had when they’d spent their spring break in Tennessee. When their attraction to each other was white-hot. Life was so much simpler back then.
Her brow pleated. She didn’t appear to be affected with the same memories. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Nah. Besides...” he let his glance sift over the damp, mussed strands of her sun-kissed honey-brown hair “...there’s no point in going home to get more clothes when you can throw your laundry in my machines, get it washed and dried in an hour and a half or so. Probably be easier than running back and forth.”
“Okay. Thanks.” She squared her shoulders and took another deep breath. “You want to get me a shirt, then?”
Sam studied the color that had swept into her fair cheeks. He shrugged. “Just go to my closet and take any one you want. They’re all on hangers.”
Her flush deepened. “I think I’d feel better about it if you went with me.”
Grinning, he gestured broadly. And tried not to think about how much he wanted to make love to her again. “If the lady insists...”
She led the way, with Sam behind her, admiring her every languid, graceful step. When they reached the bedroom doorway, she hesitated. He walked ahead to throw open the closet door, then stepped back. “Take your pick.”
Bypassing the nicer ones at the front, she selected a worn blue chambray at the very back. Holding it in front of her, she pivoted back to face him. “This one okay?”
He nodded. “Perfect,” he said huskily.
She read his mind, as their eyes met. “Oh, Sam...” she said, her hushed voice sliding like silk over his skin. The shirt she was holding fell to the floor. She stepped into his arms, rose on tiptoe and pressed her lips against his. Her kiss was everything he wanted. Tender. Searching. Sweetly tempting. A rush of molten desire swept through him. This was what he needed. She was what he needed. And damn it, he thought as her soft, pliant body surrendered all the more, if she didn’t realize it, too.
Kissing Sam again was going to be a risk, Lulu knew. And she had avoided risks like the plague since the two of them had broken up. But the last few days had ignited a fire in her unlike anything she had ever felt, then or now. For good reason, it seemed. Sam was right to think this was all part of some larger destiny that brought them back into each other’s lives, just in time to be able to help the boys and resurrect a replacement for the complete family they’d lost.
They were meant to be.
And what better way to prove it than through renewed lovemaking?
Giving in to the passion simmering between them, she dared him to take full advantage of fate and be as impulsive as she was. When he kissed her back with equal fervor, elation flowed through her. Caught up in the moment, she poured everything she had into their embrace. Her knees weakened, her whole body shivered. She hadn’t ever felt this much like a woman, or wanted Sam with such unbridled passion. But she wanted him now, wanted him to fill up the aching loneliness deep inside her. She wanted him to help her live her life fully again.
And still he kissed her, hard and wet and deep. Masterfully taking charge, until she shifted restlessly against him, wanting more. His hands slid beneath her blouse to unfasten her bra and caress her erect nipples. His lips parted hers, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, until her entire body was on fire. She moaned at the delicious pressure, the taste and feel of him. Yanked her blouse over her head, let her bra fall to the floor.
His eyes darkened. “So beautiful,” he said, his thumbs gently tracing the curves of her breasts, caressing her sensitive nipples. “More so...” he bent to lay a trail of kisses over her throat, collarbone, the tips of her breasts “...than I remember...”
Lord, he was gorgeous, too. All over. She tugged off his shirt, ran her hands over his chest. Explored the satiny warmth of his lean waist, muscled torso and broad shoulders. It had been so long since they’d made love. Too long, she mused as she ran her fingers through the crisp hair arrowing down into the waistband of his jeans.
Quivering with excitement, she slid her hands beneath. Cupped the hot, velvety hardness. He dropped his head, kissing her again, bringing forth another wellspring of desire. Their tongues tangled as surely as their hearts, and he groaned, resting his forehead on hers. “Lulu...” he whispered, the last of his gallantry fading fast.
She knew how easy it would be to fall in love with him all over again. Knew it and welcomed it. “I know what I’m doing, Sam,” she whispered. She went to shut the bedroom door, then took him by the hand and led him toward the bed.
“Do you?” Eyes dark, he watched her continue to undress.
She knew what he was thinking; there had been so much hurt between them in the past. Too much. But that was over. It was a new day. One that held the promise of so much more.
There would not be regrets this time, she told herself fiercely. Even if they’d been brought together again by circumstances not of their own making, and were moving a little too fast.
“I know this feels reckless,” she whispered. Her heart skittering in anticipation of the mind-blowing passion to come, she helped him disrobe, too. “But I want you. I’ve never stopped wanting you,” she confessed with a ragged sigh.
Shouldn’t that be enough?
Now that they were both adults with another full decade of life experience informing them?
With long-established ways to guard their hearts?
Suddenly, she wasn’t the only one shuddering with pent-up need. “Well, in that case...” His sexy grin widened. All too ready to oblige, he dropped a string of kisses down her neck, across the slopes of her breasts to the crests, then he sank to his knees and his lips moved lower still. The white-hot intimacy had her arching in pleasure. Making her feel ravished and cherished all at once.
Closing her eyes, she fisted her hands in his hair and gave herself over to him. Fully. Completely. And she lost what little was left of her restraint as a soft moan and a shudder of overwhelming heat swept through her.
Hands on his shoulders, she urged him upward. Not about to be the only one to find release, she whispered against his shoulder, “My turn now.”
Sam laughed quietly, as she’d hoped he would.
Determined to keep it light and sexy between them, she was eager to tantalize his hot, hard body as he had hers. She lay down beside him, kissing and caressing him until everything fell away but the feel and touch and taste of him. Until there was no more holding back.
He found a condom. Together, they rolled it on. Suddenly, she was on her back. One hand was beneath her, lifting her, the other was between her thighs. She surged against him, softness to hardness. He stroked his thumb over her flesh, and she was flying, gone. And still he kissed her, again and again, until there wasn’t any place she would rather be.
Needing him to find the same powerful release, Lulu wrapped her arms around him and brought him closer. He groaned, rough and low in his throat, and her muscles tautened as he found his way home in one long, slow, purposeful slide. Allowing her to adjust to the weight and size of him, he went deeper still.
Needing more, she wrapped her legs around his waist, opening up to him, and then there was nothing but the sensation of being taken, possessed. Treasured. And for the first time in an extremely long time, she felt connected to him in that very special man-woman way.
Sam had known it was a mistake to make love to Lulu on a whim. Because it was when Lulu did things on impulse that she was most likely to regret them later. But when she’d reached out to him, he hadn’t been able to resist. Now, he was beginning to wish he had, as he watched Lulu silently come to the same conclusion that he had already reached. That once again, they’d let their emotions get the best of them, and had gone too far, too fast. “Us being together this way doesn’t have to complicate things unnecessarily,” he said, stroking a hand through her hair and soothing her as best he could. “We can still take things one day, one moment at a time, darlin’. Do whatever feels right.”
Like make love.
And get closer yet.
“You’re right.” Lulu let out a long sigh. Pressed her hand against the center of his chest, insinuating distance between them. As their gazes locked, something came and went in her pretty eyes. “This doesn’t have to mean anything more than any other fling would.”
He held tight when she would have fled, aware once again she was taking his intentions all wrong. “That’s not what I said,” he told her gruffly.
“Isn’t it?” she returned with a casual smile that did not reach her eyes. Before he could say anything else, she lifted a hand. “It’s okay, Sam.” With typical grace, she eased away from him. “We’re both sophisticated enough to handle just having sex.”
Which was obviously all it had been to her.
“And you’re right,” she finished with a weariness that seemed to come straight from her soul. “It really doesn’t have to change anything.” She rose and pulled on her panties and his shirt, then, scooping up her damp clothes, padded down the hall to the guest room where she’d been stowing her belongings.
He rose and dressed, too, in dry clothing. Emerging from his bedroom, he caught sight of her as she headed downstairs, small mesh bag of dirty clothes in hand.
Sam went back to gather up his own laundry, then found her in the utility room, sorting clothes, her head averted. He noted she had added an above-the-knee denim skirt and pretty sandals to her ensemble.
“Are we really just going to leave it like this?” he said, dumping his own clothing into a separate hamper.
Cheeks slightly pink, she kept her attention on her task. “What’s there to say?” They both reached for the detergent at the same time. Their shoulders and arms brushed before they could draw back.
Wishing he could make love to her again—without driving her further away than she was at this moment—he stepped back to give her the physical space she craved. He focused on the tumult in her eyes.
“Maybe you should tell me.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “Well, it was probably important for us to satisfy our curiosity, given the situation.”
She focused on her task, added soap, set the dials and closed the lid. Turned on the machine.
He stayed his ground. “Curiosity,” he repeated. So that’s what they were calling it now.
“We probably also needed to find out if the sparks we used to have still existed.” She drew in a deep breath and finally pivoted to meet his gaze. Her chin lifted. “And now we know.”
Now they did know. Though he had the intuition that they had arrived at completely different conclusions...
“Meaning what?”
She walked past him, down the hall, peered around the corner into the living room. The triplets were all still fast asleep. She returned to the kitchen, still not clarifying what she meant.
Knowing nothing would ever be solved by pretending there wasn’t a problem, he edged closer. Needing to know where he stood with her. Guessed, “Meaning...it’s not going to happen again?” Or it would?
She leaned against the kitchen island, her back to the still-pouring rain, and let out a slow breath. “I’m not sure.”
He switched on the overhead lights, bringing light to the gloomy room. He moved so she had no choice but to look at him. “Hey,” he said softly, not about to let her deny it. His gaze roved her. “I know it was good for you.”
She blushed at his needling tone. “I know it was good for you, too.” Seeing Beauty heading for the back door, she moved to open it. Stepped out under the overhang. “But as you noted earlier, our life is pretty complicated right now, with the kids and all,” she said, keeping her voice low as the damp warmth surrounded them.
Sam gave his pet room to move down the steps, into the yard, then eased next to Lulu. “And making love just now makes it even more so. I get that. It doesn’t mean we can pretend it didn’t happen,” he pointed out. Or that he even wanted to.
Regret pinched the corners of her mouth. “Sure about that?”
Because she sure seemed able to do so, Sam noted bitterly as Beauty came back up the deck steps and walked on into the house.
Lulu grabbed a dog towel off the hook and bent to dry off Beauty’s thick coat. When she was done, she gave the Saint Bernard a fond pat on the head and watched as the dog padded soundlessly back to the living room, to stand guard once again over the kids.
Lulu hung up the towel, then, glancing over at the family room, zeroed in on the toys that had been left all over the place. She breezed past him and began picking them up. Although he didn’t care whether the toys were neatly put away or not, he followed and began to help.
An even more conflicted silence fell. Which was a shame, Sam thought, since they didn’t often have time to themselves. “You really don’t want to talk about this any more?” he said, wishing like hell that she would.
Still bearing the glow of their lovemaking, she bit her lip. Ambivalence flooded her expression. “I really don’t,” she returned, just as softly.
And suddenly, Sam knew what the real problem likely was.
“Then how about you tell me what happened at the picnic today, when you and your parents went off for a private chat?”