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Because of what Alicia had done?
He had to figure out the answer before he could give Corrie a yes or a no.
Corrie was ready to jump out of her skin.
Spend the night with Sam Barclay in his cabin? She’d never imagined that in her wildest dreams. Well, maybe she had. Maybe that was the problem.
She felt Sam’s gaze on her as she pretended to watch Jasper romp in the snow. After Patches chased him, the smaller dog returned the favor. All the while, she knew Sam was trying to figure out exactly who she was.
She was a woman who’d had a crush on her boss since she’d been hired. She was a woman who didn’t really attract men because she didn’t want to…with good reason. Her father had been unfaithful to her mother. Corrie would never forget the day she had walked in on him and witnessed that infidelity firsthand. It had changed her relationship with her parents forever. When she’d fallen in love in college, she’d learned the guy hadn’t been in love with her. After they’d made love, he’d moved on to the next challenge, and she’d learned she’d been a dare and a notch on his belt. That experience had set her up to steer clear of any romantic entanglement.
She hadn’t wanted to be attracted to Sam Barclay after he and his partner had hired her. But there was something about his grin, something about his gentle eyes, something about the way he talked to animals that had gotten to her. And then there had been that New Year’s Eve kiss almost two years ago. But afterward he’d never looked her way again. He’d been too busy making a success of the clinic with Eric. And then, last year, he’d fallen hard for travel agent, Alicia Walker, whom he’d met when he was planning a trip to Africa to a game preserve. He and Alicia had been an item until this past August.
No one seemed to know why the couple had broken up, but Corrie had seen how devastated Sam was. She’d worried about him when he’d left for these woods before Thanksgiving, but she’d also realized she had to make something happen in her own life. That had been her New Year’s resolution. It had taken her the past two weeks to find the courage to drive up here.
She’d kept asking herself—What’s the worst that can happen? He could say no.
If he did, she’d go to a fertility clinic in Minneapolis.
But he hadn’t said no yet and that gave her hope.
The wind was picking up. Shivering, Corrie headed for the cabin with Jasper following. “See you inside,” she said brightly as if spending the night with Sam was no big deal, as if the quiet of the cabin wouldn’t have to be filled with conversation, as if she wouldn’t be aware of every move he made, every word he uttered, every glance he cast her way.
Sam was her boss. She had to play this right because whether he said yes or no, she didn’t want to get fired.
Just as he called to her—“Watch out, that bottom step gets slippery”—she found out for herself. Her boot slipped and she would have ended up as a pile in the snow if Sam hadn’t been right there, his arms circling her, his cheek almost brushing hers.
“Are you okay?” His voice was low and husky, his breath warm against her skin. “You didn’t turn your ankle did you?”
Because Sam hadn’t shaved for a while, the stubble on his jaw was as dark as his brown hair. He was so sexy that even with the temperature dropping, hers was warming up.
After gulping in one very cold breath, she managed to say, “My ankle’s fine.”
“I’ll help you up the steps.” He was still looking at her, and she had the weird sensation he was really seeing her for the first time. They’d worked around each other for three years yet this awareness hadn’t been there before. Maybe it was all on her part. After all, she’d always hidden her attraction to him, never let it peek out.
His large hand under her elbow, Sam made sure her footing was secure and steered her to the door. As she opened it and stepped inside, he whistled to Patches and the big dog came running.
Both dogs shook snow from their coats and sent flakes flying.
“Do you have a towel I can use on Jasper?” Corrie asked Sam. “I don’t want his fur to get all matted.”
“Sure, I’ll look for something for you to wear, too.”
“For me to wear?”
“You don’t want to sleep in your clothes do you?”
She hadn’t really thought about it. “I can.”
“No need,” he said with a shrug. “I have a flannel shirt that will probably fall to your knees.”
When Corrie thought about undressing and wearing one of Sam’s shirts, she felt all goose-bumpy; the reaction wasn’t from being outside.
After Sam brought her the towel and laid the shirt on the sofa, she rubbed down Jasper but she could feel Sam’s attention focused on her.
“What?” she asked, looking up from her crouch next to the dog.
“I’m just thinking about you being a mother.”
She felt her cheeks go warm. Was he going to say yes? “And?” She prompted.
He looked uncomfortable and she saw an expression cross his face that she couldn’t read. It looked like sadness. Maybe something even deeper than sadness. “I think you’ll be good at it.”
His words should give her confidence. They were a compliment. But she sensed something was troubling him and she didn’t know what it was. She wasn’t sure they knew each other well enough for him to confide in her. Did his thoughts have something to do with Alicia? Promises they’d made…hopes they’d had?
She’d come to Sam because he had so many qualities she admired—compassion and gentleness at the top of the list. He really was wonderful with his nephew and seemed to like children as much as animals. That’s why she’d imagined he might be open to this idea.
Suddenly Sam muttered in a low voice, “Being a mother is a twenty-four-hour-a-day job.”
She sank back on her heels and let Jasper run off with Patches. “I know that.”
“Some women don’t realize how much of a commitment that is. I guess that’s why they get depressed after they have a baby.”
“I know how much of a commitment motherhood is. I watched my mom raise me by herself after my dad divorced her. I know firsthand what being a single parent is all about.” She also knew what betrayal was all about and infidelity and a man’s inability to keep the most important promise he’d ever made. When she looked at Sam and felt a pull toward him, she had to remember that. She had to remember that attraction didn’t go very far, and neither did the first couple of years of wedded bliss. All she had to do was envision her mother’s tears and she could separate Sam the father to be, from Sam the attractive hunk.
“My parents divorced, too,” Sam admitted. “But my dad raised us. My mother walked out because she wanted other things. Having a family was a commitment that took too much out of her. I guess what I’m saying, Corrie, is that you have to be absolutely sure about this, sure it’s what you want. If you make this decision, you can never go back.”
“I’m not impulsive, Sam,” she argued, while at the same time realizing how hurt Sam must have been by his mother leaving.
He came a few steps closer to her. “It’s just with this, the idea might be a lot more rewarding than the actual reality. Having a baby isn’t easy and raising one is even harder.”
“I can’t let fear hold me back from doing something I’ve wanted my entire adult life. Sure, I love animals, but I want kids, Sam.”
His brows quirked up. “Kids?”
She sighed. “I’ll start with one then go from there.”
“Do you know how much it costs to raise a child nowadays?”
She put her hand up in front of her and almost touched his chest. Almost. “Stop! Just stop. I didn’t come here to ask your permission to have a child. Whether you’re willing to donate your sperm or not, I’m going to do this. It’s not a debate, it’s a dream I’m going to make come true.” She rarely showed her temper to Sam, if ever, but he was making her mad—as if he knew best…as if he were so much more experienced.
Although she thought he might back away, he didn’t. He studied her with his steady brown eyes and she felt all trembly inside. She just wanted his sperm. She didn’t want to feel…attracted. She didn’t even want to think about them parenting together. She knew she couldn’t count on Sam, just as she couldn’t count on any male. She’d thought he’d be good father material, but who actually knew? She was going to be the constant in her child’s life. She was going to make the important decisions. If Sam was the father, well, she’d just see how much he’d stick around. But the bottom line was, she didn’t expect him to.
Because looking into Sam’s eyes gave her an almost breathless feeling, she snatched up his shirt from the sofa. “I’ll change.”
His smile was mischievous. “Don’t you want supper before you turn in?”
She felt like a fool. “I’m really not hungry. I’ll change and then just curl up on the sofa.” Under the afghan. So Sam’s eyes on her wouldn’t make her feel self-conscious.
Sam nodded to his bedroom. “You can sleep in there if you’d like, but it will be warmer out here if I keep the stove stoked. The sofa’s lumpy—”
“The sofa will be great.”
He looked amused again. “It’s your choice.”
She’d rather be warm than sleep in Sam’s bedroom. If she slept in Sam’s bedroom, she knew exactly what scenes would invade her dreams. She wanted no part of imagining him in bed with her. The reality of Sam Barclay was much different than daydream musings she might have entertained while working for him. She wanted to have his baby but in a nonpersonal way.
Getting personally involved with Sam would be much too dangerous to her heart.
Chapter Two
The door to Sam’s bedroom opened.
Corrie sat up, keenly aware of his presence.
“Getting cold?” he asked, his gaze taking in her tumbled curls.
“A little.” He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just gray sweat pants. Her eyes followed the curly path of his chest hair down to the drawstring. She jerked her gaze up to his eyes again.
In the hushed shadows of night and the silence broken only by the snores of the dogs cuddled in the dog bed beside the sofa, something primitive and powerful vibrated between her and Sam. Because it was the middle of the night? Because he was shirtless? Because she thought he was the sexiest man she had ever known?
Breaking the spell, he turned away from her and went to the fireplace. “I’ll have this stoked up again in a minute.”
She couldn’t unglue her gaze from his bare back, his muscled arms and shoulders. “Do you cut your own firewood?”
“Whoever uses the stove has to replace what they burn. So, yes, I’ve been using and replacing since I’ve been here. Why? Are you interested in learning how to split logs?” He glanced over his shoulder at her and his smile was teasing.
“Hardly. I probably couldn’t even handle the ax.”
“I know for a fact you’re stronger than you look. You lifted Mr. Huff’s basset hound. He had to weigh fifty pounds.”
After Sam closed the door to the woodstove insert in the fireplace, he brushed his hands against his thighs.
Corrie’s stomach grumbled and Sam heard it. “You’ve got to be hungry. You hardly ate any supper.”
That’s because she’d felt like an idiot. After she’d taken Sam’s shirt and changed in the bathroom, she’d returned to the living room realizing the darkness outside didn’t mean it was time for bed. She’d been so rattled by their conversation and just being alone with him, that she’d forgotten all sense of time and place. He’d warmed cans of soup. Wrapped in the blanket on the sofa, she’d eaten some, just praying the hours would pass quickly.
While she’d leafed through magazines, Sam had worked at his laptop. Later he’d insisted he take the dogs out. It had been too cold and too snowy for them to stay out long and within fifteen minutes, they were all getting ready for bed.
“How about cookies and hot chocolate?” he asked her now, looking like a kid who knew better but wanted to have a treat anyway.
“We really won’t get any sleep.”
“No, but our sweet tooth will be satisfied and I bet your stomach will stop growling.”
The room was warming already. Letting the blanket fall, she stood. She hadn’t taken off her socks. She felt a bit ridiculous with his shirt on, which stopped just below her knees, and her knee socks which came up to her shins.
“I’ll help you.”
In the small kitchen, they couldn’t turn around without bumping hips, rubbing elbows or standing practically toe to toe. She put two mugs of water in the microwave while he pulled the bag of cookies from the back of the cupboard.
The silence between them grew too full of everything they were both thinking and not saying. Corrie asked, “Did you really come out here to stoke up the stove?”
“I knew the cabin would get cold if I didn’t, but…My mind won’t stop circling around what you asked me. I mean, it’s not like I’m dating you and one night foolishly we’re not protected and suddenly we’re having a baby. That’s altogether different from what you’re planning.”
“Don’t you see, Sam, this is so much better than the scenario you just described? We’re both deciding if this is what we want. We’re planning. If you were to tell me you don’t want to be involved at all, that would be fine. I’ll take full responsibility for this baby. That’s what I want.”
He studied her with an intensity that made her uncomfortable.
“What?”
“I don’t understand why you’re so set on taking this on alone.”
“Alone isn’t so bad. Alone, I don’t have anyone else to answer to. Alone, I can make decisions for my child based on what I think’s best. Alone, I don’t have to worry about what someone else is going to do or say or think.”
“Where does your independence come from, Corrie? What happened to you?”
His question took her aback and she couldn’t just laugh it off. But she couldn’t confide in him, either. They didn’t know each other that well. “I told you, my mom and dad divorced.”
“There’s more to it than that. You’re a caregiver. You don’t hesitate to jump in and take care of a sick animal, to keep someone like Shirley company when she was lonely. What made you this way?”
If she clammed up and shut down, Sam would just turn away from her request as if it was a whim on her part. After thinking about Sam’s question, she finally answered, “When my dad left, my mom and I took care of each other. She was a very loving person and didn’t hesitate to help someone else when she could. I guess I just picked up on that. When she got sick—” She hadn’t meant to say that. She hadn’t meant to go into that.
The microwave beeped and she was glad for the interruption. Turning, she took the mugs of hot water from the small oven.
But Sam was right there, snagging the mugs from her, setting them on the counter. He towered over her while his bare skin, his male scent and his muscled arms seemed to surround her. “When did your mother get sick?”
“Oh, Sam. I don’t really want to—”
He clasped her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. “Tell me.”
“I had graduated from college and was in my second year of veterinary school when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She had no one but me. So I quit school to move back home and take care of her.”
“That’s why you didn’t finish?”
Corrie nodded, a huge lump in her throat, not because she had to quit school, but because she still missed her mother. She could feel the heat of Sam’s hands through his flannel shirt. She wanted to reach out and touch the stubble on his jaw. She wanted to let him hold her until his strength became hers and the missing and the loneliness went away.
“Why didn’t you go back?”
She remembered how her mother wouldn’t take any help from her father. They had both cut him out of their lives because he’d hurt them so badly. When a girl saw her dad with another woman, when he seemed to care more about that woman than about being a father and a husband, the pain of rejection cut deep. He’d made halfhearted attempts to see Corrie after he and her mother divorced, but Corrie hadn’t wanted to see him. The visits had been too awkward because Corrie had just wanted him to go away. Except, she really hadn’t. She’d just wanted her dad back—the dad he’d been before she’d caught him with a woman who wasn’t her mother.
“I didn’t go back to school because I’d used up my money paying for nursing care for Mom. I’m saving again. I’m still hoping to finish.”
“And if you have a baby?”
“I don’t have all the answers yet, Sam, but having a baby doesn’t mean I can’t finish school some day.”
He released her shoulders and stepped away, putting more than physical distance between them. “Better mix in the chocolate or the water will get cold.”
