THERE, ALLIE THOUGHT, it was official. They were roommates.
She felt something when they shook hands. A jolt. A tingle. She couldn’t deny that. But she had spoken the absolute truth to him: she was done with chasing happily-ever-after. She hated it that he saw picket fences and baby carriages in her, as if wisps of her unrealistic dreams clung to her like a mist.
But he was done with dreams, too. He’d been married. And it hadn’t worked. For some reason that surprised her, maybe because of what she’d seen in his interactions with Cody in just this short time.
He didn’t look like a man who gave up on love. He didn’t look like a man who would take a vow and then break it.
But whatever, life had made him cynical and her cynical and what could be more perfect for both of them?
Except there was something about Sam Walker’s desperate I’ll-never-give-up-on-you love for his nephew that had just cracked open some barrier around her heart that she would have sworn was made of stone.
And that jolt she had felt when their hands touched? That was a power she might be very foolish to feel she could control. So, yes, the best plan was avoidance.
Easy for two weeks.
Strictly business.
“So do you owe me anything?” she asked, crisply.
He told her how much he owed her and her mouth fell open. It was everything she could do to prevent herself from dancing a little jig. She didn’t care how much she had to suffer for the next two weeks. It was worth it.
Three full days later, Allie realized she might have been a little overconfident in assessing her own ability to suffer the inconveniences of having two roommates thrust into her world, one totally adorable, and the other totally sexy.
Oh, they had managed to work out the small details of living together. Sam was startled that the television was gone, but adjusted quickly, and played morning cartoons for Cody on his tablet. They provided their own groceries and the top two shelves of the fridge were his, the bathroom was set aside at seven each night for Cody’s bath, she surrendered the porch and went for a walk and swim every afternoon so that Sam could have it to read during Cody’s nap time.
But still, sharing quarters with an absolutely gorgeous man, a sweet small child and a dog who could melt the heart of Attila the Hun, all the while maintaining a suitably aloof distance, was difficult.
The house took on their presence.
When Sam noticed things that needed repair, he just did it, casually, without fanfare, and with a certain enviable male confidence, as if wielding a hammer and a screwdriver so naturally was just what real men did, as if it was nothing to get things ship-shape.
The evidence of the men in her life was suddenly everywhere: a shirt left on the swing, large flip-flops beside small ones at the back door, a small truck on the table, a partially completed Lego structure on the back deck, a load of underwear left in the dryer.
A radio was left on. She had long since stopped listening to the radio, but thankfully it was on a classical station, no gossipy chit-chat. A book, a memoir of surviving the Second World War, not a suspense thriller, was left open on its spine on the table on the back deck. She told herself she hated people who left books open on their spines, even while she looked at his reading material with way more interest than she should. She overheard him having conversations with his office that underscored that he was as confident and powerful in that world as he was adorably inept in his “daddy” role.
She felt like a detective collecting clues to who he was.
And who Sam was, was in his voice as he read stories to Cody. It was in the kitchen, where she saw that his culinary skills were clumsy, and ran to peanut butter on crackers, frozen fish sticks and fries, order-in pizzas.
It was watching from the porch as the two of them, Sam and Cody, headed across the beach, in the morning. Cody’s little chest and face glistening white with generously applied sunscreen, his shoulders covered by his Superman cape. As far as she could tell, Sam wore no sunscreen at all.
It was feeling her heart squeeze at the sight of the small hand in a large one, towels tucked under Sam’s arm, sand toys and buckets held firmly in his free hand. It was feeling something sigh within her when they returned, sleeping pale boy over Sam’s broad, sun-kissed shoulder, as he juggled all their other items, the sand-encrusted Superman cape tied around his own shoulders.
But Sam Walker, not just as a daddy, but as a man, also emerged. The scent of him. The encounters. His hand accidentally brushing hers as they both reached into the fridge. The shared laughter when Popsy licked a spill off the floor.
She had practically smacked into him this morning when he had come out of the shower dressed only in a towel.
It had done things to her pulse that were not in the Roommates Rules of Order.
Now, within hours, she had nearly smacked into him again in the same hallway. This time he was wearing only shorts. “Thought you were out,” he said, by way of apology.
She had been out.
“I thought you were out,” she said. She had come back in that red bikini they had a shared history with.
“Cody needed the bathroom.”
There they were, nearly naked together again. It seemed criminal that he was so perfectly made, his skin turning golden from the beach days. She wanted to touch it.
Some unmistakable heat sizzled in the air between them.
“Thanks for fixing things,” she said, trying to find safe ground. “The front door bell, the kitchen faucet, the cupboard doors.”
“It’s nothing. I used to do it for Mavis, too.”
“I noticed you fixed the latch on my bedroom door.”
“I didn’t think you’d appreciate the nocturnal visits from Popsy.”
“I actually kind of like them,” she admitted. Then blushed, as if she had said she didn’t like sleeping alone. “Now that I know it’s not a burglar, that is.”
“I noticed you haven’t been locking the patio doors at night.”
“Should I?” She had felt totally safe since that night they had stood outside together rinsing off the dog.
He smiled. “I sleep pretty light. I’ll look after you.”
That was what had been creeping into her house without her being aware of it. A sense of being looked after. Protected. She could see how ferocious he would be if she and Cody needed protecting.
It made something warm unfurl in her stomach.
She could argue she didn’t need his protection. Or his fixes. But she didn’t feel like arguing about it.
In fact, she felt deeply and dangerously aware of what he had brought to her house. She lifted her hand. Was she going to touch him? Why?
Just some gratitude bubbling within her that needed to find expression...the bathroom door burst open and Cody raced out.
Sam stood, frozen.
Just for a second, until they heard small footsteps pounding across the back deck. It broke the spell between them.
“Hey,” Sam yelled, racing after him. “Did you wash your hands?”
The cottage was suddenly too quiet, and Allie stood there, feeling as if they had had a near miss of some sort. Had she been about to touch him?
She brushed her fringe out of her eyes, as if she could convince herself that had been her intention all along.
It felt more imperative than ever to put distance between them, but Cody went for his nap early that day, and their paths crossed again as Sam settled on the deck.
“See you later,” she said breezily, coming out the back door, a very proper swim cover-up in place.
“Yeah, have a good afternoon.”
Something in his voice stopped her. She noticed he wasn’t reading his book, but gazing out at the beach. The afternoon crowds had begun to arrive. The scent of coconut oil drifted up to her, and bright umbrellas dotted the sand. An inflated ball blew out to sea as a little girl shrieked her outrage at its loss.
There was something in the quietness around him that made her stop partway down the stairs and come back up them.
“Sam?”
He pulled his attention away from the beach.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Sure. Yeah.”
Something made her wait instead of taking his words at face value.
“It’s just that they’re arriving tomorrow. My in-laws. I guess they’re my in-laws. What do you call the relatives of your in-laws? Are they in-laws, too?”
She was seeing what she suspected was a very rare flagging in his confidence. Her need to preserve her own sanity fled. She pulled out a chair at the table.
“Cody’s aunt and uncle and cousins are arriving tomorrow,” he clarified.
“What are their names?” she asked him softly.
“Bill. That’s my brother-in-law, Adam’s brother. His wife is Kathy. Their kids are Nicole and Bryan.”
“Then that’s what you call them.”
He nodded. “Of course. Simple.” But his voice sounded strained. “It’s not as if they’re strangers. I’ve met them. Half a dozen times. We video chat. I video chat. Try to think of things to say, because Cody can’t.”
“They’ll see how good you are with Cody,” she assured him. “I have.”
Sheesh! She might as well admit she had been spying on him.
But he didn’t seem to notice. “Will they? Don’t you think they’ll look at him not talking, after all this time, and wonder what the hell I’m doing? I haven’t actually told them he doesn’t talk. Maybe I should have sent a memo, I don’t know.”
“They must have figured it out from the video chats,” she told him gently.
“His cousin, Nicole, is six. She fills all the silences. She sings to him, sometimes she’ll read a story. But surely they’ve noticed he doesn’t speak, surely they’ve wondered about it every time we’ve done the video thing. Maybe that’s why they’re coming.”
“I think they’ll look at you and see a man doing the best that he can.”
His voice was very low. “I’m afraid it’s not good enough. That’s my fear. That my best is not good enough. For Cody. And that that will be immediately obvious to anyone looking.”
She felt his pain and his desperation. “It’s not obvious to me,” she said softly.
She did what she had wanted to do since she had found herself cuddled up to him that first night. She touched him. Only not in the same way she had wanted to touch him then.
She reached across the space that separated them, and touched his cheek. She could feel the rough, sensuous scrape of his whiskers beneath her fingertips, beneath that, the sharp and glorious contrast that was the silk of his skin.
But more than the physical sensation of touching him, Allie felt what he was feeling. His tremendous insecurity. His desire to do the right thing by his nephew, even at personal cost to himself.
She could feel the depth and strength of his love, and she was tremendously moved by it.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said.
His eyes met hers, and she could see he longed to believe her. He looked like a drowning man who had been thrown a life preserver.
He covered her hand with his own. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world when he slid her hand toward his mouth, and kissed it.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice a soft growl of pure emotion. “Thank you, Allie.”
She looked at where her hand rested against his lips. She felt the exquisiteness of his lips touching her skin. She felt it as intensely as she had ever felt anything: as if the crowds on the beach and the slap of the waves, the dog at their feet, Cody snoozing away in his bedroom, all faded.
This became her whole world.
His lips.
Her skin.
Part of her was amazed that her hand was not smoking, pre-ignition. The awareness of him that had been building in her for days felt as if it exploded.
She grabbed her hand away from him.
Suddenly protecting herself felt imperative again. Sam as vulnerable and strong and loving was just too potent a combination. It made her heart hurt.
“Well,” she said, standing up, straightening her swim cover, “off I go.”
She tried to act casual as she went off the porch and walked through the sand, dodging umbrellas and people to find herself at the water’s edge. She tried to act as if her whole world had not just shifted on its axis.
Allie shucked her swim cover, and hurled herself into the waves, certain that she could hear a sizzle as her overheated self hit the cold water.
And she was sure she could feel his gaze as it followed her. And it was overheated, too.