“PARIS,” ALLIE REPEATED, and slid Sam an incredulous look. “I thought I made it pretty clear last night how I felt about that idea.”
“But that was before you had a chance to sleep on it.” He smiled at her.
That smile made the sun, already drenching the kitchen, seem to shine more brightly. Sam Walker looked rather amazing in the morning. His teeth were straight and white and perfect, and when he smiled one side of his mouth lifted up more than the other.
He was also totally sure of himself in the tight confines of the kitchen, as if he wore pajama bottoms and bare feet in front of women all the time. Which seemed likely.
The plaid pajama bottoms hung low on slender hips, and his T-shirt hinted he might have participated in an Ironman or some other equally challenging display of masculine agility and strength.
She, on the other hand, had made a choice to cover herself up this morning, and was wearing ugly sweatpants and a shapeless T-shirt. Her hair was sweat-slicked.
His dark hair was also slicked, but in a much more attractive way.
Obviously he had showered. He had not shaved and his whiskers were even darker on his chin and cheeks this morning. It was a criminally sexy look.
She could tell he was used to being both charming and criminally sexy.
But something about all that charm was not reaching his eyes and it grated on her that he was used to getting his way because he had become adept at turning on the charm and throwing around some money.
“I am never going to Paris,” she said, trying not to clench her teeth.
“Now you are being ridiculous. Everyone wants to go to Paris, someday. I can recommend a little café—”
Of course he could recommend a little café. He was obviously a citizen of the world, unlike her, a gauche girl from a small town who would fall for anything. Who had fallen and fallen hard. We will explore the world together, and I will kiss you in Paris and my kisses will taste sweeter than wine...
It made her stronger in the face of his considerable charm. “Mr. Walker—”
“I think we’re well past that kind of formality,” he insisted charmingly. She actually blushed, thinking of cuddling against him, and then doing her version of Flashdance under the stars.
She couldn’t let that memory make her weak when she needed to be strong.
“I am not going anywhere,” Allie said with all the firmness and sternness she could muster. She sounded like a schoolmarm speaking to an unruly boy. “I am not making a choice.”
“But—”
“No! You obviously have a great deal of money you don’t mind throwing around, so you go. I ran by a place for sale this morning. Go buy it.”
He squinted at her with patent disbelief. The smile faded.
“I have the contract,” he said.
“I don’t care. I looked on the internet last night. It’s debatable whether I have to honor a contract you signed with a deceased person.” It hurt, more than she expected, to think of her Gram as a deceased person.
Thankfully, Sam didn’t pick up on her sudden feeling of weakness. “You’re taking legal advice off the internet?”
She folded her arms over her chest. Under normal circumstances, she might consider what he was offering.
After all, Paris! Maybe it would be exactly the right recipe to get over the lies and duplicity of Ryan once and for all, to put the “kisses like wine” promises behind her. But now was just not the time to be distracted. She had an unfortunate history of throwing away golden opportunities, and Paris was a temptation, not an opportunity.
Plus, she had seen a video of how airlines treated guitars. Her guitar was sulky enough at the moment.
Naturally, Sam would think she was crazy if she shared the fact that the needs of her temperamental guitar were part of what she needed to consider.
Was she crazy? Who thought their guitar talked to them? Or didn’t, as the case might be.
“Have you heard the expression no means no?” Allie asked him.
“I’ve heard of it,” he said. “Have I heard it personally? As in addressed to me? No. Of course not.”
Of course not.
“I don’t think you are using it in context,” he told her. “I’m not propositioning you. The exact opposite, in fact.”
“Oh!”
“It seems faintly inappropriate for you and I to consider staying under the same roof for any length of time, when we don’t know each other. Red underwear notwithstanding.”
“I told you it wasn’t underwear,” she protested, but knew he would be satisfied by the blush she could not control making her face feel hot.
“I’m not sure if you have a boyfriend,” he continued persuasively, “or a mother, but I’m pretty sure neither of them would approve.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend, anymore,” she snapped.
Sam tilted his head at her, pouncing on the one thing she did not want him to pounce on. “Anymore?”
She regretted adding that anymore instantly, as if her whole pathetic history was now on display. She wanted her lack of boyfriend to make her sound like an independent woman and not like a loser.
She diverted the talk—she hoped skillfully—away from the boyfriend. “Of course I have a mother. I’m quite used to her disapproval.”
Used to it did not mean that she did not long for its opposite, had in fact spent most of her life longing for it, not that she would let that show on her face.
He looked surprised by that, as if she did not look like the kind of girl who earned her mother’s disapproval. She felt a ridiculous desire to defend herself: It’s not my fault. Instead, she stuck out her chin at him, and said, “I am not going anywhere.”
“You need to think about that.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
She suddenly became aware of the stillness at the table and cast her gaze toward Cody. He had lost interest in his muffin, and his wide eyes were going from her to his uncle anxiously.
His uncle looked at Cody at the same time. He glared at her as if this was her fault, and then he smiled reassuringly at his nephew. “How’s that muffin, big guy?”
Cody did not look the least reassured. Or like he thought the argument was her fault. He frowned at his uncle. At least one person seemed completely immune to Sam Walker’s considerable charm.
Why did it make her feel a little sad that it was his nephew? If the child was, indeed, his nephew.
“Let’s step outside for a moment,” Sam suggested.
“Good idea.” All the better to grill him about parental abduction!
“Why can’t you leave?” he asked her in a low voice once they were on the deck.
“I have a deadline.”
“For what?”
None of your business would be the appropriate answer, but she cast Cody another glance through the patio door, and knew she had to be civil for the child’s sake. There was something very fragile about the boy. Plus, if she gave a little information, maybe Sam would be lulled into reciprocating with a little information of his own. “I write. Songs.”
Not that her deadline was a song, exactly. In fact, once upon a time, she might have found her contract a bit humiliating. Apparently her guitar still disapproved, as if writing jingles for money was tawdry and superficial and would turn her into some kind of character from a sitcom.
But she had finally landed a contract for writing jingles. Paul’s Steakhouse was due next week. It could lead to other things. It would lead to other things. Charlie Harper’s success was nothing to sneeze at. If she delivered. If she showed she could be creative and commercial, plus disciplined enough to meet impossible deadlines.
“I knew it,” he said. “Artsy. Paris would be perfect for songwriting.”
“No, it would not,” she said firmly. She would not allow herself to be distracted by Paris, and he would never understand about the guitar liking it here. “Every single thing I’ve ever written that was any good has been written here.”
He looked like he got that, however reluctantly. “So, what do you suggest?”
“Couldn’t you go to Paris?”
“No. There’s nothing there for a three-year-old.”
Here was her opportunity. “What is you and Cody’s relationship?” she asked.
“I told you, he’s my nephew.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m his guardian.” His voice was low. “My sister was his mom.”
“Was?”
There was a long pause. For a moment the pain in Sam’s eyes was so white hot, Allie felt as if she could be burned to ash by it.
“She died,” he said, his voice low. “Her and her husband, in a car accident.”
This was as unexpected as a slap. Allie felt her indignation dying in the light of this much larger revelation. She could barely speak for the emotion that clawed at her throat.
“That’s why Cody doesn’t talk,” she whispered.
Something sagged in Sam’s magnificent shoulders, as if the weight of what he carried suddenly became too much for him to carry alone.
“His pediatrician says to give it time.”
“How long has it been?”
“Eight months.” He turned from her abruptly, looked out at the sea. “I don’t know about this time thing. I don’t know if it heals all wounds. My parents died in an accident, too, when I was just eighteen.”
He looked as if he regretted saying that as soon as the words came out of his mouth. But she was left with an almost stunning awareness, not just that he was alone, but that he would have a terrible time trusting life. Worse than her.
In fact, her own wounds suddenly seemed to pale into insignificance. She missed Gram every day, but Mavis had known she was sick and her attitude and acceptance had helped Allie deal with the loss.
I’m old, she had said, patting Allie’s hand. This is the way of it—the old ones go, and the new ones come.
But Sam’s losses were completely different. They were unnatural and unexpected and he’d been blindsided by them. It felt as if Allie should know what to say—Gram would have known what to say—but she didn’t and her silence coaxed more words from him.
“In some misguided moment,” he continued, his voice a rasp of pure pain, “where Sue and Adam thought nothing bad could ever happen to them—despite the fact our family already had had terrible things happen—they named me as Cody’s guardian in their will. They were probably having a glass of wine when they decided. I bet they laughed. I bet Sue said to Adam, ‘Let’s name Sam as guardian. That would be hilarious. He can’t even keep a plant alive.’”
Allie moved beside him. Where words failed her, an instinct made her put her hand on his arm. In that place where there were no words, she needed to touch him.
He looked away from the water, and glared down at her hand, and she withdrew it rapidly, remembering her instincts were often so wrong.
“We’re meeting some family here,” Sam said, his voice gruff. “They’ve rented a place down the beach. They’re coming from a great distance, and the arrangements have been in place for some time. That’s why we can’t go anywhere else.”
There was something about the formality of all this, and the way he said family, with just a touch of hesitation, that told her what the answer to her next question was going to be. Still, she had to ask.
“And you can’t move in with them?”
He shook his head, firmly, no.
“Well, then, we’ll have to share.”
“Share?”
Share—that concept five-year-olds learn in kindergarten. But somehow the sarcasm died within her before she spoke it.
“I’ll stay out of your way,” she promised. That was a vow she would keep, because looking at him she was suddenly aware there were distractions much bigger than Paris. “And you stay out of mine.”
He looked annoyed. “This house is probably less than nine hundred square feet. Pretty hard to stay out of anyone’s way.”
“You could consider the beach an extension of the house.”
“I don’t want the family to get the wrong impression,” he said, his voice a growl.
“The wrong impression?”
“Like you and I are cohabitating. Obviously, they would think that was bad for Cody.”
Suddenly, she understood something far more than what he was saying was going on here. He did not look like the kind of man who gave two figs what anyone thought.
“What’s the family connection of the people visiting?”
“It’s my brother-in-law Adam’s family. From Australia.”
Something shivered along her spine. She could not take her eyes off his face. “Are they seeking custody of Cody?”