A Better Father (Harlequin Super Romance) (23 page)

“Where’d you learn to talk like that?”

“I’ve spent almost two decades listening to you,” she snapped.
“Where do you think I learned it?”

Cosmo tugged on the strap of his apron. “How bad is it?”

She shook her head. If she tried to tell him the details she
would end up thinking—of Casey, of Sam, of what could happen when the judge saw
whatever lies Dani had put in that article, because it had to have been Dani,
there was no other way—and then she would freeze, just freeze, and be unable to
think of how to help. Later, maybe...when she faced Dani and squeezed the truth
out of her and tried to find a way through this...then, she could freeze and
fall and shatter. But not now.

Now she had to fix what she might have helped create.

Rule number two: don’t let your happiness
show.

She pressed her fingers to her eyes and allowed herself one
deep, centering breath before heading for the door.

“I’ll be in the office,” she said over her shoulder. “I have to
make some calls. Can you handle the main phone for a while?”

“Sure.”

She took two steps toward the kitchen exit before Cosmo’s hand
landed on her arm. “Hang on there, missy. I got one last question.”

“What?” She bounced on her toes, needing to be out of here, on
her way to the office, to hunt down Dani, to help Sam.

“Are you doing this because you messed up something, or because
you’ve been damned fool enough to fall for Catalano again?”

Her first instinct was to deny, pretend, hide. But this was
Cosmo. When push came to shove, he was like the father she’d never known. The
concern in his eyes was real.

Hiding her feelings hadn’t done such a great job for her thus
far. Maybe it was time to be honest.

“Maybe a little of both,” she said softly.

He sighed. “I figured.” He patted her shoulder awkwardly.
“Whatever you did, I know you wouldn’t have done it on purpose. If he doesn’t
believe that, he ain’t worth your time. But I got a feeling he’s just as damned
a fool for you as you are for him.”

She managed a grin, then impulsively reached up and hugged
him—quick, before he could dissolve into a panic attack. “Thanks,” she
whispered. “For everything.”

He nodded, his gaze firmly fixed on a spot on his apron, but
she could see the faint wash of pink in his cheeks. “You’d best get going,” he
said gruffly. “Sounds like you got a busy day ahead.”

She ventured back into the wall of noise that was the dining
hall, where she caught Phoebe’s eye and pointed to the door. Two minutes later
they were both outside, back beneath the Sneaky Tree.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Phoebe said as she joined Libby
beneath the shade, “but I have no idea where she is. She said she was running to
the bathroom, but that was a good half hour ago,”

“What?” Preoccupied with thoughts of Sam, focused on asking
Phoebe to handle any problems for the next hour or so, Libby was left dizzy by
Phoebe’s unexpected words. “Hold on. What are you talking about? Someone’s
missing?”

“Not a kid,” Phoebe was quick to say. “Tanya. And not missing,
just weirder than she’s been all summer. Isn’t that why you dragged me out
here?”

“Believe it or not, I hadn’t noticed. About her disappearing,
that is. The weirdness...” Libby shook her head. “What happened?”

Phoebe stepped closer, eyes rolling. “Don’t know. She brought
her kids to breakfast, said everyone was set and asked me to keep an eye on them
while she ran to the bathroom. No problem. I figured she meant the dining hall
bathrooms, but I saw her sneaking out the back door. That was right after
breakfast started, so yeah, it’s been almost half an hour.”

“Crap, crap, crap.” Libby pressed her fingers to her forehead.
Her duty was clear: if a staff member was missing, that needed to be her top
priority. Anything could have happened to Tanya. Even annoying idiots could have
accidents. But the fact that she had misled Phoebe and obviously orchestrated
her disappearance left Libby convinced that the only problem facing Tanya was
how long Libby would let her live once she tracked the girl down.

The hell with the rule book.

“I’ll take a quick look to see if she fell down and knocked
herself out or something. If she didn’t, she’ll wish she had by the time I’m
done with her.”

“Can I help?”

Who could keep from grinning, if only for a moment? “Only after
I get my shot. Now listen. I have a crisis that needs my full attention for a
while. Can you handle any problems for the next hour or so?”

Phoebe’s eyes went wide. “What’s wrong?”

She gave Phoebe the condensed highlights of the morning. But
instead of the nod or questions Libby was anticipating in response, Phoebe broke
into a smile.

“What?” Libby whirled around to see if Phoebe could see
something she couldn’t, but the entry to the dining hall remained uncluttered.
“What’s with the Cheshire-cat thing? There’s nothing funny about this.”

“Funny? Nah,” Phoebe scoffed. “You’re just so cute when you’re
in love.”

Denial rose quickly in her mind, but Libby pulled it back just
in time. What was the point in lying? Phoebe was right. So instead of snapping,
Libby merely rolled her eyes.

“Thanks, smart-ass.”

Phoebe jerked her head in the direction of the office. “Go on.
Get out of here. You have a man to save.”

Libby handed over her clipboard and, finally free, headed up
the path to the office.
Hurry, hurry.
The words
pounded through her with every step. She tried to slow them down, fought to stay
calm. Panic wouldn’t help anything. But there were so many things she needed to
do and all of them probably needed to be done right this minute. Should she call
Dani? Call Brynn and alert her? Try to track down Sam’s lawyer and explain what
she was pretty sure had happened?

She rounded the corner before the office, emerging from the
woods to the clearing and had her Sam-centered thoughts knocked aside for the
moment by the sight of Tanya perched on the boulder near the staff parking lot.
What the...

“I seriously do not have time for this crap,” Libby muttered to
herself, but nonetheless she marched over to the boulder. The silly twit had
headphones in her ears so didn’t realize she was about to be pounced upon until
Libby jabbed her on the shoulder. After enduring a summer full of nonsense,
Libby found it immensely gratifying to hear Tanya’s shriek and see her hands fly
into the air as her whole body jerked and practically flew off the boulder.

Libby grabbed the cord leading to the earbuds and yanked them
free. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be at breakfast with your kids.
And where the hell is your sense, listening to this—” she hoisted the buds in
the air “—when you were all alone near the woods? There are bears up here, you
fool. You’re lucky it was me who got you.”

Tanya had stopped gasping for breath and was recovered enough
to assume the look of disdain she’d perfected so well over the past six weeks.
She plucked her earbuds from Libby’s hand.

“I’m waiting for a delivery,” she said in what was probably
supposed to be a very haughty and superior voice, but which sounded to Libby
like a little girl playing dress-up. “I’m sorry I was away from breakfast for so
long but my delivery is late. I didn’t mean to impose on Phoebe.”

Oh, so imposing on Phoebe was bad, but messing around with Sam
and Libby was just fine?

“Back to your group,” Libby snapped. “I’ll be here for a few
minutes. I can pick up whatever it is you’re waiting for. Though why you chose
to have something delivered here today, of all days, when you know everything
is...” She stopped and peered at Tanya, who met her gaze for a moment, then slid
her focus somewhere off into the distance.

“This was deliberate, wasn’t it?” Libby parceled the words out
carefully as she put pieces together. “You knew things would be crazy with the
Tour de Camp, and you chose it on purpose. What are you hiding, Tanya? Is there
more fake skunk scent on the way? Though Sam’s not here, so you can’t use this
to try to get into his house this— Oh!”

The pieces tumbled together in her mind. Tanya’s tendency
toward drama. The sudden, intense nature of her infatuation with Sam. The way
she had disappeared when Sam walked down the hill with Casey that first day,
right before Libby found the files open. The skunk and the disappearing medical
file and the fact that Dani would have needed someone here at the camp to feed
her information and Dani used to work at Tanya’s uncle’s hunting supply store
and—

Holy crap, she was going to kill the girl.

“This delivery isn’t coming from FedEx, is it?” Libby knotted
her hands together to keep them from committing a felony. “It’s coming from Dani
Cooper.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

T
ANYA
MIGHT
HAVE
BEEN
about to deny the accusation,
but it didn’t matter. For at that moment, a car pulled into the staff lot—a car
that Libby knew well, having seen it parked in the driveway next to hers for so
many years.

A moment later, Dani slammed her way out of the car, which
spilled over with her kids. She looked thinner and even more tired than she had
after Aidan’s tonsillectomy, and Libby’s first fleeting thought was to drag her
down to the dining hall and force-feed her before she passed out behind the
wheel of her car.

Then she remembered the article.

“Dani, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Dani smiled as if nothing in the world could possibly be wrong.
“Hey, Libby. How’s it going?”

Dear God in heaven, she was surrounded.

Dani pulled an envelope from her pocket and handed it to Tanya.
“Here you go. Cash, just like you asked. Thanks for your help.”

Tanya opened the envelope and smiled at the contents. “Pleasure
doing business with you,” she said to Dani, and then to Libby, “I’ll go back to
my kids now.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Libby snapped. “You’ll get your
stuff and get out of here within twenty minutes. Or I’ll have Cosmo help
you.”

Tanya shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She sauntered down the
hill.

Libby turned back to Dani, who was headed toward the car.
“Hey!” Dani’s head snapped around. “Get back here!”

Dani waved toward the kids in the backseat, who had rolled down
the windows and were now doing their level best to outshriek each other. “I have
to go. I promised the boys I’d take them out for a special treat brunch.”

“With the money you made selling Sam to the freakin’
wolves?”

Dani rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Libby. It’s not like anybody
actually reads those rags.”

“That didn’t stop you from selling your so-called journalism to
them, did it?”

“Hey! My kid was sick and I lost my job! I’m broke, okay? I had
no choice.”

Damn, but she was tired of hearing people say that. As though
it excused anything or everything they ever did.

“There’s always a choice,” she said sharply as she followed
Dani into the parking lot, but Dani just shook her head.

“Get real. Anyway, it’s over and done with. There’s no changing
it now. And he’s had worse than that written about him.”

“But he’s never been in the middle of a custody fight before
this!”

Dani stopped with her hand on the handle of the car door.

“What custody fight?”

The words were so low that Libby could scarcely hear them over
the squealing of the kids in the car. She started to explain, but was cut off by
a loud “Mom! He’s hitting me!”

“Hey!” Libby yanked the rear door open and glared at the three
suddenly silent boys, giving each of them the ultimate Glare of Death. “I need
to talk to your mother. You three can either sit down and be quiet, or be
prepared to scrub latrines for the rest of the day. Got it?”

Three heads nodded in unison. She drew a very deep breath and
turned back to Dani.

“Tanya told you Sam has a little boy, right?” At Dani’s nod,
she continued. “Mom is dead. Mom’s sister is fighting for custody. It’s being
decided today, the very day your little slander-fest hit the newsstands.”

To her credit, Dani seemed genuinely distressed. “Okay, look. I
never met the guy, and all I know of him is what other people have written and
what you and Tanya told me. But I— Damn. Is he a good father?”

Libby crossed her arms over her chest and gave a sharp nod.

Dani bit her lip. “Libby, I’m sorry. I never meant for anything
to happen because of this, you know?”

Libby knew. What Dani lacked in judgment, she made up for in
heart.

“I believe you,” she said heavily. “But there’s a judge
somewhere in Nova Scotia who might not.”

Aidan picked that moment to poke his head out of the rear
window. “Mommy, I hafta go potty.”

Dani rolled her eyes. “Is there a bathroom he can use? He just
started potty training. It’s kind of a big thing.”

Did she want Dani and her kids in her office, Sam’s office? No.
But she couldn’t refuse a wiggling toddler.

“Come with me. But don’t touch anything,” she said to the boys
as they piled out of the car. “If any of you so much as breathes on anything in
there, you’ll be doing chores for me until school starts. Understood?”

They nodded and made their silent way to the office. As they
climbed the steps, Dani whispered, “Can you teach me how to make them listen to
me the way they listen to you?”

Libby’s hands curled into tight fists as she clamped her lips
together.

As soon as they were inside and Aidan had been dispatched to
the bathroom with his brothers, Libby turned back to Dani.

“We have to fix this. With Sam.”

“Look, Libby, I feel bad for the guy, but even if the paper
retracted everything—which they won’t—no one will see it in time to make a
difference.”

Unfortunately, in this case at least, Dani was one hundred
percent correct. “There has to be something we can do. I could call his sister.
Or try to track down what court it will be. I guess the one who really needs to
know is his lawyer, but I have no idea who that is.”

Dani sent her a sharp look. “Did you two spend any time talking
at all?”

“Excuse me?”

She shrugged. “Oh, come on. There’s no way you would be this
upset over the guy and his kid if you weren’t head over heels for him. Besides,
Tanya told me about the raft and the skunk night and all that. Why pretend?”

It was a sad day when she started taking advice from Dani. On
the other hand, she had known how to tweak the résumé that helped Libby get that
interview, so...

“Do you have any ideas?”

Dani seated herself in the chair across from Libby. “I’ll swear
that I wrote the article and twisted things out of shape. We type it up and get
folks to witness it. Then you fly to wherever he is and show up at family court
in time to give it to his lawyer before they have to go in.”

“I can’t go there! I have to be here!”

“Why?”

“Because that’s my job, remember? To keep things running. With
Sam gone, I have to stay.”

Dani stretched and hooked an arm over the back of her chair.
“You mean there’s nobody here who could look after the place for a day while
you’re gone?”

A burst of applause came from the bathroom. Dani grinned. “Yay,
Aidan!”

Turning back to Libby, she said, “What if, say, your appendix
decided to go wild on you? You’d have to go to the hospital, right?”

“Right, but that would be life or death.”

“You think that keeping his kid isn’t life or death for
Sam?”

“Of course it is. But I—”

Dani shook her head. “Work with me, Libby. I know you. You do
things right. I bet you have at least three people on staff right now who could
fill in for you if there was an emergency.”

Aidan burst out of the bathroom, followed by his brothers.
Libby pointed to the battered sofa in the corner. They seated themselves
quietly. Dani watched them in wonder then turned back to Libby and whistled.

“See what I mean? You do things right.”

Libby shook her head as she dropped into her own chair. “I
don’t know, Dani. Phoebe agreed to be assistant next year, but she—”

“She was trained by you, right? She’s been working beside you
all summer?”

“Five summers.”

“And you trust her?”

“Totally. So does Sam. But the parents—”

Dani bolted upright and waved to the boys. “See them? I’m a
parent. And if I, as a parent, heard that there was an emergency that made you
and Sam leave, but you put a trained, experienced staff member in charge, well,
I’d say if I trusted you enough to leave my kid here, then I trust you enough to
pick your temporary replacement.”

“But— Can’t I just call, or fax them something?”

“Court stuff usually has to be originals or certified copies.”
Dani sighed. “Look, Libby. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a job is
a job, and no one is irreplaceable. Unfortunately. But if you really have it for
this guy...”

“I do,” Libby admitted.

“Then maybe it’s time for you to walk away from the job and go
where you’re really needed.”

Doubts swirled in Libby’s mind. Could she? Did she dare?

But there was Phoebe. And Cosmo, and the nurse and all the
other folks she had trained herself.

She could put one of them on a plane to carry the documents to
Sam. That would work. It would keep everything running according to the
regulations. It would be the responsible thing to do and it would keep her here,
where she belonged.

Except...
did
she belong here?

Last night, she had told Sam that she had let the camp become
her destination. But it was more than that. She had let it become her whole life
because she had nothing else. But now she had more. She had a shot at the future
she had always planned. She had her love for Casey. She had her love for
Sam.

She needed to be with Sam. She needed to tell him what had
happened and help make things right. The judge might have questions, which only
she could answer. Phoebe could look after the camp, but who else could help
Sam?

Dani was right. There was only one place Libby needed to be
this afternoon. And it was definitely not at camp.

“Get ready to sign,” she said as she opened a blank document on
the computer. “I’m going for it.”

* * *

S
AM
WALKED
OFF
the longest flight of
his life and made a beeline for the rental car. Casey and Brynn would be with
Sharon for another couple of hours. He needed to get to the hotel and start
making some calls.

Sure enough, when he let himself into his suite he saw that it
was deserted. Good. It was going to be bad enough getting through this on his
own. He didn’t need to add to the mix by trying to talk in a roundabout manner
so Casey wouldn’t pick up on the fact that Daddy was ready to rip some throats
out.

He reached into his pocket for his phone but came up empty.

“What the...”

He patted all his pockets and grabbed for his overnight bag.
But as he unzipped it, he vividly remembered tossing the damned phone into the
seat pouch when the flight attendant started threatening him. He’d left it on
the plane.

He groaned and did the head-palm thing. Just what he
needed.

“This had better be the end of the lousy turns for today,” he
growled to anyone who might be listening. Then he grabbed the tiny hotel notepad
and the phone book.

An hour later, he’d managed to touch base with both his lawyer
and his manager. Joe still insisted that everything would be fine, that Sam’s
priority should be in staying calm so he would present the right kind of
appearance when they came before the judge. Joe was working on a couple of
different repairs and would take care of everything.

Taylor, his manager, wasn’t as complacent. Even though Sam was
no longer playing, he was still associated with different companies and
charities, not to mention the commercials. Taylor had spent her morning talking
down folks who had developed a sudden case of the jitters over their involvement
with him. It would all work out, Taylor said. But it was going to be more
complicated, that was for sure.

By the time he hung up, Sam’s ear ached and his feet were itchy
from pacing the floor. He needed to get out of the room. He needed some fresh
air and some calm, but most of all he needed to talk to Libby. He needed to feel
all the messed-up pieces inside him slide into place at the sound of her
voice.

Joe and Taylor had both dropped not-so-subtle hints that she
might have been involved in the article, but he refused to believe that for a
second. He knew her. He knew who she was, and that the biggest mistake he’d made
in ages was not trusting her with the truth about Casey right from the start. It
would have changed so much for them....

He dropped back onto the bed, and sank into the pillow, ready
to call the camp. That line he was straddling was pretty damned skinny now. More
like a thread, he figured. But he had this restless feeling...as if there was
something he needed to do before the thread could snap. Something he had to take
care of.

Or, he realized, some
one.

He’d used up the hotel notepad so he had to rip a page from
Casey’s coloring book to scribble a note for Brynn, who should be back anytime.
Then he raced from the room to the car. There was one last person he had to talk
to before he could move forward—with Libby, with Casey, with the rest of his
life. And he knew exactly where to find her.

* * *

L
IBBY
LEANED
BACK
against the seat and gripped
the seat rest as the plane lifted into the air. What was it Sam had said—that
hockey sometimes felt like he was flying? With the engines thundering and the
plane vibrating and the world sliding away beneath her, Libby couldn’t help but
be amazed.

She still could barely believe it was true. Getting her here
had taken a team effort, with Phoebe booking the flight while Cosmo escorted
Tanya off the grounds and Dani used Sam’s emergency contact form to call Brynn
and get the details of where and when. All the while, Libby had run around
making last-minute arrangements, because even though the manual she’d compiled
for Sam was thick enough to strain arm muscles, there was always the possibility
that she could have forgotten something.

But Cosmo and Phoebe assured her they could handle anything. As
she accepted a minuscule glass of ginger ale from the flight attendant, she had
to admit that her staff was right. Hadn’t she trusted them already, when she
opened up to them about the problem and asked them for help?