ANNA WAS TALKING to the GED instructor at the library when she looked up to see Sean striding toward them.
Feelings rushed through her like a movie on fast forward. Simple happiness to see him, so broad shouldered and caring. Worry, because with her past, she knew better than to let down her guard.
And, oh no, he was going to find out why she was here. She stepped away from the Never too late to get your high school diploma! sign, heat suffusing her face. She’d thought she was safe from detection, safe from anyone she knew finding out her embarrassing secret.
It was one thing to talk to the GED teacher. He was accustomed to adult learners, and for him to know that she’d never finished high school was fine.
For Sean to figure it out was simply mortifying. “What are you doing here?” she asked as he approached.
“Tony had a setback, so I offered to pick you up. Did I interrupt something?” His tone was speculative as he looked from Anna to Rafael, the instructor.
But no time to figure it out. More important to hide the mortifying truth. She half turned away from Sean and stuffed her GED study guide into her backpack.
“Not at all,” Rafael said affably. “Can I help you?”
“What’s your business with Anna?”
Anna stopped what she was doing, staring up at him. “Sean, why in the world would you ask that question?”
Color climbed his face. “I get the feeling you’re hiding something from me, and I just want to know what’s going on,” he said, half apologetically, half not. “Make sure you’re safe.”
“We’re talking about a class I teach.” Rafael gestured toward the sign and then looked over at Anna, his expression concerned.
“GED classes?” Sean looked from Rafael to Anna, and his eyes fell to the guide she hadn’t succeeded in stuffing completely into her pack.
“Anna,” Rafael said, “are you okay here? Do you want me to call someone or stick around?”
“No. No, thank you. I’m fine.” She smiled at Rafael and then glared at Sean.
“All right. It was nice to meet you. Hope we’ll see you in a class soon.” Rafael headed toward the exit.
Eyes down, Anna tried again to zip her backpack. She couldn’t look at Sean.
His hand came over hers, stopping her movements. “Anna.”
She didn’t answer, but she went still as a difficult part of her past came rushing back at her. Young, pregnant and uneducated—she remembered all too well the looks her classmates had given her, the principal who’d refused her request for extra time on assignments when her morning sickness had gotten so bad, the teacher who’d lectured her on the importance of self-control. Dropping out had been a relief. And a huge mistake.
Being here with Sean, having him know that she didn’t have a degree, brought that helpless sense of failure back.
“You didn’t graduate?” he asked quietly.
She looked away. “No.”
He touched her chin, forcing her to face him. “Why not?”
“Because of the twins,” she said, gesturing in the direction of the children’s program.
“You love your girls and you’re trying your best to care for them,” he said. “What’s more, I admire that you’re working toward your GED now.”
She took a quick look at his face then, wondering if he was telling the truth. How could going to a GED class be admirable?
“Sometimes we can’t help what happens to us,” he said, “but we can choose how to deal with it. You’re choosing to improve your life.”
His gaze was approving, warm, caring. It felt like a healing balm.
Sean jerked his head sideways, in the direction Rafael had disappeared. “Sorry to act like a jerk around your teacher,” he said. “I thought he was bothering you.”
She shook her head. “No, he was helping me.”
He drew in a breath and let it out slowly, audibly. “Good. I got a little...jealous.”
She tilted her head to one side, surprised at the admission. “But you don’t... You’re not...”
“I don’t have any claim on you. But still.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off hers.
Anna sucked in her breath as every cell inside her came alive. He was being vulnerable. Almost admitting he cared.
The sound of children’s voices and feet tramping down the stairs indicated that their moment together was over. The twins ran to her, flinging their arms around her. Having Sean here didn’t seem to faze them.
They waved their craft of the day, paper bag puppets with googly eyes that made Anna laugh. Sean knelt to look, too, and Hayley boldly made her puppet grab his arm. He played along, feigning fear, making the girls giggle.
“Mr. Sean’s going to take us home, because our car isn’t ready yet,” she explained. Even as she said it, she thought about how the little cabin had become home so quickly.
The girls whispered in the back seat while they drove, the radio playing softly.
“Have dinner plans?” Sean asked.
She frowned. “Um...not sure. We might have sandwiches, fruit. I don’t feel like cooking.” Was he hinting for an invite?
“I have an idea.” He pulled over in front of a dilapidated wooden building with several hand-painted signs posted: Boiled Peanuts and Fresh Shrimp and Strawberries caught her eye.
A black man with white hair emerged behind another customer who was loaded with bags. When Sean jumped out of the truck, the man’s face broke into a wide smile. “You come for my fishies?”
“Depends if you’ll give me a fair price, old man.” Sean grinned. “I have some girls need to try boiled peanuts for the first time.”
“Bring ’em on, bring ’em on.”
Anna expected the girls to hang back, but they were both unfastening their seat belts. Moments later, they were in the fish shack, watching Sean pick out large fresh shrimp and lush strawberries. Once Sean had several big bags, the old man—Ernest—fished some boiled peanuts out of a bin and showed the girls how to open them.
Hayley boldly took a bite and smiled, and then Hope did the same, more hesitantly. They both held out their hands for seconds.
Anna glanced over at Sean and caught him smiling just as she was. She felt a tug in her gut. This was so normal: a woman and a man, smiling over the cuteness of two great kids.
She looked down at the twins and saw that they were about to beg for more. “Goodness, we’d better get a big bag of them,” Anna decided, and moments later they were back on the road, crunching on the salty, delicious snacks.
A few minutes later, from the back seat, Hayley’s high, clear voice spoke up: “These are so good!”
She’d spoken in front of Sean. Joy exploded inside Anna, so intense that she didn’t dare express it. She just gripped the seat tighter and looked over her shoulder in time to see Hope nudge Hayley’s arm and point to Sean.
Hayley shrugged. “I don’t care. Can I have some strawberries, too, Mom?”
It hadn’t been just a fluke. Anna’s heart pounded. Hayley had spoken in front of Sean, and it wasn’t an accident, and she’d done it again. Now it was full-on fireworks inside.
And he’d noticed, because he was glancing over at her, one eyebrow lifted.
She was fumbling for strawberries—good heavens, whatever the child wanted—when Hope spoke up. “Can I have some, too, Mommy?”
Her throat tightened and tears pressed the backs of her eyes. Sweeter sounds she’d never heard. “Of course,” she choked out, and handed the whole box back to the twins.
She reached for Sean’s hand, and he turned it over to clasp hers, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile.
She was unprepared for the strength of his grasp, the size of his hand, the joy still dancing inside her. Her girls had spoken in front of a nonfamily member. That said such good things about Sean. They’d come to trust him.
It also said that their stress level was coming down.
Clearly, her girls were healing. She had to make it work here in Safe Haven.
SEAN HAD TO hand it to himself. He’d pulled off something nice for Anna and her girls.
Their dinner had been simple, just shrimp cooked over a fire on the beach.
But it was good to see the lines of tension fade from Anna’s face, replaced by laughter. And to hear those sweet little-girl voices. He felt touched and honored that the twins had spoken, quite a bit, in front of him.
It was easy to make the little family happy. Seemed like no one had ever really tried. So when the air got cool, on a run up to the cabins for blankets and sweaters, he got an idea: s’mores. He dug around and found the supplies—Lord knew why he had chocolate bars and marshmallows in his cupboards, probably stuff Ma Dixie had bagged up to send home with him the last time they’d had a bonfire at her place. In Anna’s cupboards, he found graham crackers to complete the snack.
As he approached them on the dark beach, three faces looked up at him, illuminated in the fire’s golden light. Longing tugged painfully inside his chest. I want this.
He’d known this little family only a couple of weeks, but they’d become so quickly intertwined in his life, his thoughts, his heart.
“Mr. Sean!” Hayley jumped up and ran to him, hugging his leg, and the strings around his heart wrapped tighter.
“Hayley,” Anna called. “Let go of Mr. Sean so he can walk.”
The sweet child let loose of his leg and looked up at him, her little forehead wrinkled. “I’m sorry.”
It still felt like a miracle to hear her voice. He drew a ragged breath. “It’s okay, honey,” he managed to say. “Carry the marshmallows for me?”
“Marshmallows!” she squealed. She grabbed the bag he put into her hand and ran to Hope.
“Maybe we can toast them like in the campout book,” Hope said, and they both turned to look at Anna and Sean.
“If it’s okay with your mom, we can. We can even make something called s’mores.”
“S’mores! S’mores!” They shrieked and giggled and dug through the bag he set down beside them.
He knelt beside Anna, and she put a hand on his arm. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Her lips were full and pretty. It was hard to stop looking at them. But he reined himself in and nodded. “Hope you don’t mind. I’m a sucker for s’mores.”
They taught the girls to roast marshmallows, comforted Hope when she dropped one into the fire, and helped them put the graham crackers, chocolate and toasted marshmallows together. Seeing their faces when they tasted the gooey treats tugged hard at his heart. So did the look on Anna’s face.
When the twins got sleepy, Anna had them lie down on one blanket and covered them with the other. Then she sang to them, her voice low and sweet. When she got to “Ash Grove,” he couldn’t resist joining in.
By the end of the song, the girls were out.
Anna scooted quietly back toward the fire, and he followed her like she was a flower and he was the bee.
“This might have been a mistake,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him. “Carrying them up to the cabins won’t be easy. I just couldn’t resist this chance to sit awhile longer and look at the waves.”
“We’ll work it out. I’ll help you carry them.” He stuck a marshmallow on a stick and handed it to her, making another one for himself.
“Wait—we’re eating more?”
“We’re eating grown-up s’mores.”
“Oh really?” She looked sideways at him, something speculative in her eyes. She was young, and mostly seemed innocent, but clearly she wasn’t unaware of vibrations between a man and a woman.
“Really.” His body stirred. Awareness of her flowed and crashed through him like the rhythmic waves of the Atlantic. He busied himself pulling out dark chocolate and thin, crisp cookies while he tried to get a grip on his own desires.
Anna needed a strong, steady man who would be the perfect father for her daughters. But what did he know about how to be a good father? His own dad had abused his mother and that same blood ran through his veins. How could he take the risk?
Yet Anna and her twins made him feel like king of the world. They seemed to think he was something special.
And Anna, with her soft hair and shy, wise eyes, the little tilt in her nose saving her from model-like perfection, made him feel protective. And, yeah, turned him on, too. She was a real beauty. Man, when he’d seen her in the library talking to that guy—he still wasn’t convinced the teacher didn’t have designs on her—he’d felt a primitive urge to claim her as his own.
“It’s on fire!” Anna whisked her marshmallow out of the fire and blew it out, and he could barely take his eyes off her lips. “What’s next?” she asked.
What’s next is that I kiss you senseless. He drew in a calming breath. “Next, you pop it right here with the good chocolate and a cookie—and we smash another cookie on top of that. Now taste it.”
She opened her mouth and took a big bite. Her eyes closed as she savored it. Her tongue flicked out to grab a little bit that was on the corner of her mouth.
And he was a goner.
She opened her eyes and caught him looking at her. Lifted an eyebrow. “Are you going to join in, or just watch?”
“I didn’t make one yet,” he said.
“I’ll share.” She held out her s’more, smiling.
He took a bite and she seemed to be watching him with the same kind of intensity he’d felt watching her.
They finished the s’more and he held up the bag of marshmallows. “Another?”
“No.” She shook her head, a dimple appearing in her cheek. “That was so good. Nothing else could be that good.”
Sean could think of something that would be even better.
But he didn’t say it, because he wanted to treat her well. She hadn’t been treated well enough.
He wanted to lean over and kiss her. With any of his good-time dates, he’d have done just that.
But Anna was different. He didn’t want to spook her. He needed to take it slow, nice and slow.
Anna was special. She was a loving mother, committed to her girls through the most difficult of obstacles, and that meant more to him than it probably would to most people, given his background. She had courage. And he admired the way she was trying to lift herself up. How many people would be working on their GED in the midst of escaping an abusive husband?
He wasn’t going to add to the pressures on her. Nor destroy the infinitesimal chance that something might, just maybe, be able to grow between them.
He pulled out the final blanket from his bag and spread it beside the fire. “Are you a stargazer?”
She shrugged. “Never had much of a chance, but...every now and then, in Montana, you’d see something amazing.”
He gestured to the blanket. “Lie down, and you can see some nice stars. I’ll let you have the side close to the fire.”
She bit her lip, studied him. Finally, she spoke. “This blanket, the stars...some guys might think it’s headed toward something more. But it doesn’t mean that for me, okay?”
She watched him steadily and he felt like a dog for the ideas he’d been having. Of course he knew what she meant; he’d thought that very thing.
But he wasn’t going to act on it, and that was what was important. “You’re a beautiful woman. And a complicated one, with a complicated life. I won’t add to that, I promise.”
She studied his face for a moment longer, eyes narrowing, then seemed to make a decision. She moved to lie down on the blanket. He lay down beside her, keeping a good six inches of distance between them.
“Do you have a favorite star?” he asked.
She moved a little, looking at the inverted bowl of the sky. Their hands touched, and it seemed sweet and natural to let their fingers intertwine in a quick squeeze.
She drew in an audible breath. “I don’t know the constellations, not really. I mean, we learned some in school, but I never put it together with the real world.”
He pointed out a couple, the Big Dipper and Orion. “He’s supposed to be a mighty warrior. Do you see it?”
“Nope, not at all. That’s clearly a ballet dancer.”
“No way! If anything, it’s a football player.”
She snorted. “Spoken like a man. Did you play, back in school?”
“Yeah, just for a little while. Did you take ballet?”
“No. But I got a book from the school library about it, and spent hours in my room practicing. I can do the five positions to perfection, or so I thought.” She paused, then turned to look at him. “How come you only played for a little while?”
“Kicked off the team. I was a bad kid.” He’d said it often enough that he could make it sound like a joke, but this time, he felt a qualm. He didn’t want to be a bad kid around Anna, didn’t want her to think of him that way.
She turned her head, studying him. “That’s hard to believe.”
“Well... I could be bad. I scared you the first time we met.”
Her mouth curved into a smile. “Yeah, to the point that I sprayed you with pepper spray.”
“Don’t remind me.” He flashed back to that first night, his own suspicions, her actions and obvious fears. They’d come a long way since then.
“I’m sorry.” She reached out and gripped his hand again, lightly, and the sensation strummed along his nerve endings until she pulled her hand away. “I don’t know if I ever told you that, but I am. You’ve been more than kind to us.”
He shrugged. “Case of mistaken identities, or expectations, or something.” He looked up at the sky. “Kids like us—me, Liam and Cash—nobody expected us to accomplish anything. Just staying out of jail was doing better than we were supposed to do.”
“I know what you mean,” she said, low. “But you’ve accomplished a lot. You own your own business, you served overseas...”
He crossed his arms, a way to keep his hands to himself. “It was more than anyone expected of an O’Dwyer. And then look at my brothers. Cash makes a stupid amount of money, and Liam’s up for police chief. I’m proud of them.”
“You should be. You should be proud of yourself, too.”
Not hardly. He lifted himself on one elbow to look at her. “How come you didn’t get ballet lessons, if you were so good at it?”
She wrinkled her nose. “After my mom died, my dad wasn’t really...” She shrugged. “He just wasn’t really there. He didn’t know anything about girls, and he was scrambling to make a living and keep himself together. I was just kind of in the background, you know?”
He risked putting a hand out to cup her chin, lightly. “You shouldn’t be in the background, Anna George. You should be center stage, and someday, you will be.” He let his finger push a strand of hair away from her face.
She searched his eyes as if she wasn’t sure whether to believe him, as if she were thinking about what he’d said, weighing it. “I don’t want center stage,” she said finally. “But I want my girls to have the chance at it, if they like.” She sat up. “I want to stay here, Sean. They’re doing well, and it’s a good town, and...” She looked down at him. “You’ve been so kind. To them, and to me.”
Their eyes locked, and for a crazy moment he thought she was going to lean down and kiss him.
But she just turned and stared out to sea and he could see that the problems of their lives, of her family, had descended back onto her shoulders.
He wanted to give her a few more minutes of respite. “Show me the positions,” he said.
“What?” She looked back at him, wide-eyed.
“The ballet positions. Show me.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m embarrassed!”
He stood, reached down and pulled her to her feet. “Teach them to me, then. That ought to be good for a laugh.”
She held on to his hands, and they were just inches apart, and he almost ditched the whole ballet idea. He’d rather just hold her.
But she was nervous, looking up at him, then looking away. He didn’t want to scare her, so he dropped her hands. “I’m ready. What’s first?”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay. First position, you put your heels together and point your toes out, like this.” She demonstrated.
Sean did the same thing, less flexible than she was. “Like that?”
“Um, yeah.” She fought a smile. “Then for second position, you just keep your feet at the same angle and move them apart.”
“Easy. I could be on the stage,” he joked. “Do I do anything with my arms?”
“You think you can learn the arms, too?”
“No problem,” he boasted. “Bring it.”
So she showed him how to hold his arms low in first, and out in second. Then they moved on to third position, which was a little harder to balance, and then fourth, which left him feeling foolish, one arm up.
“Now, fifth position is the hardest,” she said, giggling. “Your arms go up like this.” She demonstrated, and then he tried to duplicate her efforts. She moved around him, adjusting his arms.
Every time she touched him, his body registered the fact with extreme interest.
“Okay, now your legs go like this.” She put her feet next to each other, one in front and one in back.
Sean tried to do the same and nearly lost his balance. “My feet don’t go that way.”
“Try again,” she said with mock sternness, and when he did, she knelt in front of him. “That’s good! Now straighten your knees. Especially this one. It’s way bent.” She touched his front leg.
Whoa. If she didn’t know what her closeness and touch were doing to his body, she was blind.
He stepped back, thinking this had been a really terrible idea, and then he looked at her face, tilted up at him, laughing. It was the most lighthearted he’d seen her. For once, she wasn’t thinking about her girls or her responsibilities. She was just having fun.
He put his hands down to pull her to her feet, but she surprised him, tugging him down, off balance. “Hey!” he said as he landed beside her.
“Hey, what?” She looked at him, her hand brushing back her hair in an unconsciously provocative gesture.
Or was it unconscious? Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
He ought to get up right now, load all their supplies into his pack and carry the girls to bed. Some good physical exertion was what his body needed. Physical exertion that didn’t involve being inches away from this beautiful, mysterious woman.
That was what he ought to do. But when did an O’Dwyer ever do what he ought to do?
He reached out, touched her cheek and let his thumb play along her lower lip. “That was fun.”
She laughed, shakily. “Yeah. Silly, but fun.”
“You know what else would be fun?” He tugged her just a little closer.
“What?” She whispered the word.
“This.” He closed the distance between them and lowered his lips to hers.