Safe at Home (Warm Springs Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

“I’m just trying to help you out. Don’t want you to miss an opportunity.”

“I can find my own dates, thanks. Plus, Sam is my employer, nothing more.”

“Yeah right, as if that would stop you. Spence, you’ve never met a pretty woman you didn’t like.” They watched more Sports Center in silence, Jake grinning and Spencer scowling.

“Dinner!” Ann shouted from the kitchen. Alex shot by them in his sprint for the table.

“You can talk to me now, Spencer. You don’t have to go all stony silence the rest of the night. I was just wondering about her is all. I mean, you should’ve seen her the day I met her. She was shy and it seemed like she felt guilty about living in the house when I told her who I was.”

“What are you two talking about?” Ann looked from one brother to the next as they entered the kitchen and sat down.

“Nothing. Your husband is just butting in where he isn’t welcome, as usual.”

“I was just asking him about Sam Parker and how things were going at the house.” Jake raised his hands in front of him, all innocence. “Did she seem to act weird to you when you told her you grew up in the house?”

Spencer shifted in his seat. If it weren’t for the plate of food in front of him, he would leave. He didn’t want to talk about Sam with his brother. Or anyone else. “It hasn’t really come up.”

“What do you mean,
‘it hasn’t really come up’
? You didn’t tell her your name or anything? Jeez, Spence, that really takes the cake.”

Spencer stared at his plate and pushed his mashed potatoes around. “I don’t really see the big deal. We’re on a first name basis. There’s never been a need to exchange last names.”

Ann raised a hand to silence their bickering. “Spencer, has Sam made any friends since she arrived? It can be hard on someone when they move to a new place.”

“Oh, Ann, I don’t know. I really don’t talk to her much.” Spencer looked from his brother to his sister-in-law and tapped his boot under the table. He felt like a ten year old getting laid into by his mother.

“I’m not saying ask her out, I’m just saying you should try to make her feel welcome. She’s all alone out there.”

After dinner, Spencer thanked Ann for another great meal, even though he hadn’t really tasted it, and headed home. What was wrong with those two? Since when did he serve as the town’s welcoming committee? It’d only been three weeks. They couldn’t seriously expect her to have completely settled in and have a new group of friends already.

Guilt gnawed at the back of his mind, chipping away at the last wisps of his good mood. He hadn’t seen her leave the house in those three weeks except to get supplies and groceries. He did help her carry them in one day. That had to count for something. He wasn’t a total jerk after all. But, even he wasn’t convinced. He thought of his mother. She would have killed him, or least chased him around the kitchen with a dish towel. Her voice echoed in his head, “Spencer, I raised you better than that, where are your manners? You could at least invite her to church.”

Frustrated, Spencer took his hat off and tossed it on the bed in the middle of the second room of his two-room loft. His little bachelor pad had served him well. It may be a small town, but a man has to live.

Spencer flopped onto the couch and flipped on the television. He settled for ESPN, but he was distracted by thoughts of Sam. His first impression of her had been wrong. She was no priss. She worked her ass off, and wasn’t afraid to get dirty. He fell asleep thinking about the brown-eyed girl with the great legs who now lived in his old house.

Sam spent the better part of three weeks avoiding Spencer. The way he looked at her made her uncomfortable. But, regardless of her comfort level, he did fine work. It was as if he knew exactly what she wanted for the house, without her having to tell him.

He seemed to know how to bring it back to its natural beauty. The front porch looked great with its new banisters, railings, and stairs. Spencer had proven himself a true craftsman, and Sam couldn’t wait to get some rocking chairs and a swing.

She’d managed to get a great deal of the painting done inside the house over the last few weeks, which probably had something to do with the fact that she barely left the house. She went out for groceries and a ridiculous amount of paint. On Sundays, which had become her favorite day of the week, she ate dinner at the hotel with the first people she met in her new town, Earl and Betsy. A little ritual they insisted upon and one she had begun to love despite all her initial protests.

She never would’ve guessed that staying at a hotel for a few days upon her arrival in Warm Springs would introduce her to two of the most caring people she’d ever met. Earl and Betsy were wonderful to her. Even though Sam knew they wondered what drove her out of the city, they never asked. They were like stand-in grandparents and even though she hadn’t moved with the intention of making friends, she enjoyed their company. One Sunday dinner a week was safe enough. She was beginning to like her new life, busy and mainly secluded. Sam sipped sweet tea as she prepared to start painting the dining room, then her cell phone rang. She had only owned the phone for a week so the sound made her jump and chips of ice sloshed out of the glass. Sam wiped her wet hand on her shorts and answered. “Hello?”

“Sam, darling, you bad girl. Why haven’t you called me other than to leave your number?”

Sam grinned into the phone as her best friend’s familiar voice filled the line.

“Here I am stranded in Chicago without you, trying to plan the biggest party of the year, almost at wit’s end, and you can’t even call me and see how I’m doing.”

“Hi, Denise.” Sam laughed. Denise always had a way of checking up on her without acting like that was what she was doing. “I’m sorry I haven’t called, but I’ve been busy renovating my new house.”

“I was afraid you’d run off with some cowboy in tight jeans and forgotten all about poor me.”

“Oh, Denise, seriously,” she laughed, “No man could make me forget my best friend.”

“Well, as long as you’re doing all right, I forgive you.”

Sam leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. She could almost convince herself she was sitting next to Denise getting one of their weekly pedicures. “I’m fine. This little town is beautiful. The people are nice and my house is wonderful. Things are better now than they’ve been in a long time.”

“I miss you, Sam.” Denise’s voice softened, all teasing gone. “Things aren’t the same without you. You aren’t here to hear the stories of my latest weekend conquests.”

Sam laughed. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to get you down here to visit.”

“Oh my God, can’t you just picture it? Me, in the country. What would I wear?” They both laughed at the image.

“I bet I could tempt you with the promise of cowboys in tight jeans.”

Denise smacked her lips. “I bet you wouldn’t have to try very hard.”

After catching up on all the latest news, they said goodbye and Sam made her way back to the dining room to resume painting. She couldn’t stop her mind from wandering back to Chicago and the way Denise had stood by her through the threats and the police interviews. She would never be able to repay Denise for her support.

Chapter 4

Sam scrutinized her progress inside the house. She’d finished painting the den and hallway leading to the kitchen, her favorite room in the house, which was nearly complete.

It seemed a shame to pour all the work into a house that no one but herself would see. Maybe one day she would be able to use it as she had used her condo in Chicago. When she lived in the city, she always had parties and friends over for dinner, but here . . .

Her gaze wandered to the couch sitting in her living room and she remembered for a moment how it felt snuggling on the couch with Tyler. She sighed and tried to hold onto her memories. Just long enough to try to recapture how his body had felt against hers. His warmth.

She clapped her paint splattered hands together to snap out of her dream before sadness ruined her day, then crossed the kitchen to look out over her backyard. The sky was clear, the sun bright, and a slight breeze rustled the leaves. The outdoors beckoned to her like a siren. An assortment of flowers sat waiting for her on the grass.

She stepped outside, crossed to where her tray of flowers lay, and knelt in the dirt. The damp smell of earth filled her nose. Spencer had cleared the area and cut the grass, jobs she’d seen him do through her kitchen window, but the space needed some color.

As she pressed her fingers into the dirt she noticed the silence. In her old home, dogs barked and car horns honked at all hours from the street below her window. City sounds. She missed them, but she found herself beginning to enjoy the sounds of the country, too. The hum of bugs flitting through the air, the train whistling down the tracks, and the cows mooing in the distance were all beginning to feel familiar.

She tamped dirt around the last group of flowers and stood. Her muscles were sore from hunching over, but the reward was worth the effort and slight discomfort. She brushed the dirt off her hands and knees and inhaled deeply, admiring the mix of red, yellow, and orange flowers. They were bright and welcoming. She hoped they would help ward off the loneliness that always seemed to be lingering just on the edges of her new life.

He found her in the backyard, with her head leaning against a tree and her eyes closed. The faintest of smiles tugging at her mouth. Her beauty struck him like a punch to the gut. He couldn’t explain what it was at that moment that made his heart skip a beat.

Her hair was up in an untidy knot on top of her head. There was dirt on her face and she was wearing a tank top and shorts, but something in him stirred at the sight of her. Maybe it was because she looked so peaceful. Or, it was the way she looked perfect there in the yard surrounded by flowers. Whatever it was made him reluctant to break the silence.

He studied her a minute longer, trying to put his finger on what it was about her that made him look twice. She wasn’t his usual type. He doubted he would find her in a bar all dolled up in skinny jeans and sky high heels leaning over a pool table. Nevertheless, he liked what he saw and wasn’t sure why he hadn’t noticed before.

Spencer cleared his throat and took another step forward. “The flowers look nice.”

Sam sprang off the tree and whirled around, almost spilling her drink. “Thanks, I’ve been working out here all day.” She touched her hair and then brushed at her shorts. “I needed a break from the indoors.”

He took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair. “I usually don’t work on Sundays, and you probably have a lot you want to get done, so I’ll make this quick. I was wondering if you’d be interested in joining me and my brother Jake and his family for dinner next Saturday?”

Sam’s lips parted, but no sound came out, and then her lower lip curled inward as her teeth captured the sun-kissed rim. The backs of her fingers brushed against one of her escaped curls as she glanced away.

Was she stalling? Lord, she was killing him. He already felt like an idiot, and now it seemed as if she was just going to stand there all afternoon and try to think of some excuse why she couldn’t come. He didn’t care how pretty she was, he wasn’t going to beg. He could kill Jake and Ann for putting him up to this.

“Look, if you’re busy or something, it’s no big deal.” He put his hat back on and started to leave.

“No, I . . . well, it’s really sweet of you to ask, but I . . . Wait, did you say, Jake?”

“Yeah, my brother’s name is Jake. I usually refer to him that way. What’s the problem?” But, before the last word crossed his lips, he knew the real question she was asking. “You’ve met him I think, in town.”

“I think I have. So, you grew up here?”

The look on her face said it all. The rose color in her cheeks vanished and she took a step back from him, nearly tripping over a tree root. She seemed to retreat into some sort of invisible shell. Spencer tried to fool himself into wondering what the big deal was, but he knew better. “Yeah, I grew up here.” It sounded lame even to him, but he didn’t know what else to say.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I didn’t see the point.”

“Didn’t see the point? You grew up here, it was your parents’ house, and I come in and make all these changes. All the things I’ve said about things needing work and things being neglected.” Color flooded her cheeks.

“Look, I didn’t lie.”

“It’s called lying by omission.” Sam marched past him and up the ladder leaning against the house where she started attacking the gutters.

“I should’ve told you, but I didn’t see the big deal, okay?”

Sam’s shoulders tensed and through clenched teeth she said, “No, it’s not okay. I’m not interested in liars and as far as I’m concerned, that’s what you are. So, thanks, but no thanks for the invitation to dinner. I’m afraid I can’t make it.”

Without looking back, she climbed down the ladder but missed the last rung. Her ankle twisted sideways and she sucked in air between her teeth. He leapt into action, sweeping her off her feet with one arm behind her legs and one under her arms.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She struggled in his arms.

“I’m carrying you inside seeing as how you just twisted your ankle.” He glanced down at her face and then bent to open the back door. “This is the part where you say, ‘Thank you.’”

She chose to glare at him instead, but she stopped squirming. He set her down on the couch and returned to the kitchen without a word. Alone in the kitchen, he ignored the residual heat her skin left on his and filled a small plastic bag with ice.

“Here.” He knelt by the couch and placed the bag over her ankle. “Give this a few minutes.” His finger gently grazed her skin and it sent a rush of heat through him. Her skin was soft and her features delicate. His arms could wrap around her with ease.

“Thanks,” she spoke without smiling, breaking his line of thought. “I guess you better go then.”

“What? Oh right.” He headed for the door. “See ya around.”

Spencer stalked back to his truck and tried to figure out where that temper of hers had come from. Up until now, Sam always seemed quiet, timid even, but not today. He hated to admit it, but with the extra color in her cheeks and fire in her eyes she looked damned sexy.