Any Man Of Mine (23 page)

“Yeah.” He was quite for a long moment, then said, “But we have Conner. I haven’t always been a great dad, but I’ve always loved him. I’ve never regretted that he’s in my life.”

Which brought the conversation around to, “On the two-hour drive here tonight, did you think to call?”

“Of course, but you would have told me not to come.”

“You’re right. You can’t just invite yourself on our vacation because you want to see Conner.” Like Halloween and Thanksgiving.

“This isn’t about Conner.”

She looked across her shoulder at him. Into the shadows of his profile. “Then what’s it about?”

“I’m still trying to figure that one out.” He turned to face her and shoved a bare shoulder into the glass. “I think it might have something to do with unfinished business between the two of us.”

“Whatever ‘business’ we had was finished a long time ago.” When he’d divorced her.

He brushed his hand across her cheek and pushed her hair behind her ear. “That first night I saw you at Pure, you reminded me of the time when I was ten or eleven and mom took me and Ella to Washington, D.C.” His gaze moved over her face and hair. “It was night, and we were standing at the Vietnam Memorial, and I looked out and saw bright blinking lights in the darkness. My mom said they were fireflies. I was so intrigued, I ran after them. Trying to catch one.”

She tried to ignore the brush of his fingers on her neck. “Did you just compare me to a fly?”

“To a flash of fire. A bright intriguing light that I wanted to catch and hold in my hands.”

When he said things like that, it reminded her of exactly how and why she’d fallen in love with him so easily. If she didn’t know him, she might be in danger of falling all over again. “I’m not going to have sex with you again, Sam.”

He smiled and dropped his hand to his side. “Okay.”

Clearly, he didn’t believe her, and the wisest thing to do would be for her to send him home. Or make him go get a hotel room. She pointed to the sofa. “That folds out.”

She expected him to argue. To charm her. To kiss her until she gave in and shared her bed. Instead, he grinned as if he’d just gotten his way.

“See you in the morning.”

Recognizes the Need for Speed

S
am stood at the kitchen counter and lowered a couple of whole-grain waffles into the toaster. The previous night’s storm had blown over, and the bright morning sun poured in through the windows.

“Mom makes pancakes that look like hearts.” Conner knelt in a chair by his side, waiting for the waffles to pop up.

“You told me, but you shouldn’t tell anyone else.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause some guys at school might not understand heart pancakes and think you’re a sissy. You don’t want to get your butt kicked.” He put his hand on Conner’s head and ruffled his fine hair. Sam had risen with the sun pouring in through the windows and had already jogged five miles on the beach. He’d needed to clear his head. To think about the last two days. About Thanksgiving and last night. Had he been bored?

Yes. The Chinooks were on the road, and he was dying to get back in the game, but that wasn’t the real reason. He could tell himself that it was about Conner. That he wanted to spend more time with his son before he was cleared to play. And that was true. He did want to spend as much time as possible with Conner before he left again, sometimes for weeks at a time, but Conner wasn’t the only reason. And if Sam was honest with himself, he’d admit that his son wasn’t the reason he’d jumped in his truck last night and driven through a storm. It was Autumn and the hot compulsion he felt whenever he was around her. The percolating memory of a few days in Vegas and not getting enough.

He’d arrived on her porch last night, rain beating on his shoulders and running down his face, staring at the door. Hot compulsion and percolating memory churning in his gut. He’d stared at the door, a tangle of confusion and desire. For the first time in a very long time, uncertain about a woman. Uncertain whether she’d let him in or slam the door in his face. Uncertain whether she’d let him touch her all over with his hands and mouth. Uncertain if she’d get naked and let him do something about the hard-on she’d given him the night before.

Sam had had a lot of sex in his life. A lot of sex with a lot of different women, but he’d never had sex like that. Autumn had been so hot and turned on. So wild in a way that had nothing to do with whips and handcuffs and naughty outfits but everything to do with how much she wanted him. She hadn’t been faking it. Hadn’t been trying to impress him or play games. She’d wanted him. Maybe it was just because she hadn’t had sex in over five years. Maybe not. Either way, he wanted more.

A lot more.

Earlier, when he’d returned from his jog, he’d found Conner watching cartoons in the middle of the fold-out.

“Dad?” Some sort of long blue fruit snack had been hanging from one side of Conner’s mouth. “You’re on vacation, too?”

Sam had brushed the forearm of his sweatshirt over his sweaty forehead. “Yep. Is your mom up?”

Conner chewed, and the blue snack slipped up his chin. “Not yet.”

“What are you eating?” he’d asked.

“Fruit By The Foot. Want some?”

“No.” He’d checked the cupboard and was surprised that there wasn’t any real food. Just coffee, some milk, and kid snacks. “Get dressed, and we’ll go get some real food.” It took them about twenty minutes of driving to find a strange little market that smelled like a weird combo of fish and kettle corn.

“Get a few plates down,” Sam said as he slid his hand down Conner’s back.

Conner climbed up on the counter and opened a cupboard. “I saw a slug yesterday. Yuck. I hate slugs.”

“I smell waffles,” Autumn said from the bottom of the stairs. “This is a ‘no cooking’ vacation. Where did you guys get breakfast stuff?”

Sam looked over his shoulder at Autumn, moving toward the end of the counter in her dried wiener-dog pajamas, and his throat got a little tight. He’d seen a lot of naughty lingerie in his life, for some reason, the wiener dog was hot as hell. Maybe it had something to do with the memory of her cold wet breasts the night before.

Conner peeked around the cupboard door. “Mom, Dad’s here,” he announced. Like she hadn’t known that. Like she hadn’t jumped on top of him last night.

“I can see that.”

“We found a little store while you slept.” Sam pointed to the toaster. “Up for some waffles?”

She raked her fingers through her hair and pushed it behind her ears. “Coffee first.” Her bare feet moved across the kitchen floor, and she grabbed a mug above the coffeemaker. Morning light poured in through the windows and caught in strands of her red hair.

“What do we have planned for today?”

She looked at him as she poured. “Well,
we were
going to the Fireman’s Breakfast Feed this morning.”

“Oh.” The waffles popped up, and he quickly put them on the plates Conner had set on the counter. “Lucky you. Now you don’t have to go.” He put a little butter and syrup on both. “What else?” He handed the plate to Autumn, but she shook her head. Her hair fell across her shoulder.

“Kites.” She blew into the mug. “At some point, clam chowder at Paddie’s Perch.”

He carried his and Conner’s plates to a small kitchen table. He wasn’t at all surprised she had everything planned out. In Vegas, she’d had a long list. Most of which she never got the chance to cross off. Thanks to him. He smiled at the memory. “What about building sand castles?”

“We don’t have the stuff.”

He cut into his waffle. “You do now.” Her gaze narrowed and he held up one hand. “I know the world does not revolve around me, but it was Conner’s idea to build a sand castle.”

“Like it was Conner’s idea to invite you to Thanksgiving dinner?”

He shoveled a waffle into his mouth and chewed. Yeah, kind of like that, but sand castles were so much better than kites.

She raised the mug to her lips, then lowered it slowly. “Where did you get those clothes?”

He glanced down at his Chinooks T-shirt and jeans. “I brought a duffel.” He’d set out last night, spur-of-the-moment, sure, but he’d come prepared to stay. Prepared to figure out what it was about her. Now and five years ago that made him act like a kid again. Like he was thirteen, fantasizing about the girl down the street and riding by her house on his Haro Freestyler, just on the off chance he’d catch a glimpse of her. These days, he had a truck instead of a bike. He was a man not a kid. He liked to think he’d developed some skill with women. A little finesse. Maybe a little charm. That he didn’t have to hunt a woman down. Stalk her through the night.

Yeah, that was what he liked to think, but there he was, with Autumn in Moclips, feeling like he was a kid again. Uncertain and freestyling.

“I thought you just jumped up from Benihana and drove here,” she said.

She pursed her lips and blew into her mug, and his head got all twisted around with thoughts of what he’d like her to do with that mouth. Things he shouldn’t even think about so early in the morning but couldn’t help. “I may not have been an official Boy Scout, but I’m always prepared.” He looked at her and smiled around a bite of waffle, remembering her grabbing the condom from his hands and tearing it open with her teeth. “I always keep a duffel of stuff in the truck. Mostly to change at the Key.”

“Well, Mr. Unofficial Boy Scout, I didn’t particularly want to dig around in the cold wet sand today.” She took a drink. “So I’ll watch from the deck.”

“Can I have some juice, Mom?”

She moved to the refrigerator and opened the door. Sam’s gaze moved down her back and hips to her nice butt. “Do you want some, Sam?”

Oh yeah. “Yes, please.”

She poured the juice, and he purposely kept his gaze off her wiener dog as she moved toward them. She set the juice on the table, and his hand slid up the back of her thigh.

Her eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

“Eating my waffle,” Conner answered.

Sam didn’t know and dropped his hand. He hadn’t meant to touch her at all. It had just happened, like it was just a natural thing for him to do. Like they were a couple. A family, but of course, they weren’t either of those things.

Autumn was his son’s mother, but they weren’t family. She was hot and sexy and made him want more, but they weren’t lovers. She was the girl he thought about, but she wasn’t his girlfriend.

So what was she? To him.

I
t was fifty degrees, and a breeze blew Autumn’s hair across her face. She wore a heavy sweater, jeans, and Ugg boots as she lounged on a chaise above the beach. She was glad she wasn’t kneeling in the wet sand digging with little plastic shovels. Flying a kite had made much more sense, but she had to admit that there was a little piece of her that was glad she wasn’t down on the beach, holding a kite and getting chapped lips. Up close to the house, the wind was a bit calmer.

She lowered the
Bride
magazine she held in her hands and peered over the top at Conner and Sam. They’d been at it for a couple of hours. Longer than she would have thought they’d last. From where she sat, the castle looked like a pile of sand with a moat. Mixed with the sound of the ocean and seabirds, snatches of their voices came to her on the breeze. Conner’s childish giggles blended with Sam’s much deeper laughter. More than his charm or the lust in his blue eyes or the touch of his hands on her aching body, or just the pure beauty of Sam, seeing those two blond heads bent together over a pile of wet sand, pinched one corner of her heart. She was in no danger of falling in love with Sam. She’d been there, done that, learned the lesson the hard way. But she might be in danger of liking him, and liking him was scary.

It had been two months since the Savage wedding and the afternoon Sam had brought Conner home late. Two months since Sam had become more involved in Conner’s life. Somehow that had translated into Sam’s being in her life more. So much so that she’d ended her more-than-five-year sexual drought with him on the entry-room floor last night.

She wasn’t proud of herself, but not as appalled as she should be either. Like she’d told him last night, she was mostly embarrassed. And confused that she’d given it up with the one man on the planet that she’d sworn she’d never let touch her again. She was still confused about why he’d shown up at her door last night. Why she’d let him in and why he was still there.

“Hey, Mom,” Conner called as he ran up the path toward her. “Come see the castle.”

She set her magazine aside; she had known it was only a matter of time before Conner made her look at his castle. She stood and moved down the steps toward him. He met her in the middle of the tall grassy path and she cupped her hands over his red ears. “You’re cold. Don’t you want to go in now?”

He shook his head. “Dad made a dragon. Come see.”

She took his cold little hand in hers and moved down the short trail. Sam stood in front of the “castle” with his hands on his hips. The knees of his jeans were as wet and sandy as Conner’s, and his ears were just as red.

A cold breeze ruffled his hair, and dirt smudged his cheek. “What do you think?”

She cocked her head to one side and studied the castle. Up close, it looked less like a pile of sand. It was square, with four turrets and a moat, but the most impressive thing about it was the size. Like everything Sam did, it was big and over-the-top. “It’s always been a dream of mine to go on a tour of European castles. Who knew I’d see one in Moclips.”

“You dream about touring old, stone buildings?”

“Oh yeah. I hear Germany has some of the best and most haunted.”

“See the dragon?” Conner pointed to what looked like a snake with a big head slithering through the sand toward the castle. “He protects the boy in the castle.”

“From what?”

He looked up at his dad and squinted against the sun. “From what, Dad?”

“Girls.”

She laughed and lightly socked him in the stomach. He grabbed her hand before she could pull away. “You’re cold,” she said.