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“Are you making vegetables?” she asked suspiciously.
There was a loaded question. More data was required before answering. “Do you like them?”
“No.”
“Hmm. Does your mom make you eat them?”
“Yes.” It didn’t seem possible for such a small, sweet face to hold that much loathing and hostility.
“They have vitamins and minerals that make you strong and healthy.”
“That’s what my mom says. They still make me want to throw up.”
“I feel your pain.” He thought about what he’d planned for tonight. “What’s your opinion of corn on the cob?”
“I like that. We have these things that go in the ends so you can hold it better. But they’re in my house.” Phoebe’s anxiety that her house might be gone was easy to read in her expression.
Sam wanted to fix things so this little girl didn’t have to worry about whether or not all of her worldly possessions were gone. But he wasn’t God. All he could do was fix this moment for her.
“I have corn holders. In that drawer.” He pointed out the one closest to the table. “Why don’t you put them by the plates?”
She opened the drawer and spotted them. “They’re sharp.”
“Technically, but you’re not going to cut anything with them. I think you’re big enough to do the job without hurting yourself.”
“Hurt yourself on what?” Faith walked into the kitchen. Her blond hair was a shade darker because it was still wet and the store tags were still hanging from her T-shirt and sweatpants.
The jeans he’d always seen her in were a good look but what she was wearing now hugged every curve in soft, clingy material. His fingers ached to find out for himself if she felt as good as he thought she would.
“Mommy.” Phoebe proudly held up the sharp objects. “Sam has corn-on-the-cob holders. They’re animals, see? It’s a cow. This one is the head and here’s the tail.”
“Very cute.” She met his gaze. “Something so whimsical seems out of character for a high-powered businessman like you.”
“I’ve got layers,” he said.
“Apparently.” She looked at Phoebe. “You’re not supposed to touch anything sharp and pointy.”
“Sam said I could. And I didn’t hurt myself.” She held up her boo-boo-free hands. “See?”
“I did give her permission,” Sam said. “It was actually the lesser of two evils. I wanted to give her a moratorium from vegetables while she’s here.”
“I see what you mean.” She smiled at her daughter. “Good job, Phoebs.”
“Can I watch TV now?”
Sam put the chicken in the oven. “Dinner won’t be ready for about forty minutes.”
“Okay, then, kiddo.”
“Yay!” She ran into the family room and carefully picked up the remote, handling it as he’d shown her.
When they were alone, Sam said, “Speaking of sharp things, you could use scissors.”
Faith looked down at her hastily purchased clothes. “I forgot to pull them off.”
He grabbed a pair from a drawer and moved close. “Let me.”
The sweet scent of her freshly washed hair filled his head and twisted his senses into knots. Without thinking it through, he grabbed the tag that was just inside the neckline of the shirt to cut it off and his fingers brushed her skin. Her eyes darkened and her lips parted slightly. He was almost sure her breath caught for a moment. He knew for a fact that his did.
She swallowed once and glanced at the tag on the waist of her pants. “I’ll get that one.”
“Okay.”
She took the scissors, careful not to touch him, and quickly did the job. It was time for him to break the spell so he opened a bottle of red wine, letting it breathe normally, which was more than he could say for himself. Then he took three glasses from a cupboard, one of them a champagne flute, and poured clear soda into it.
“For Phoebe,” he explained. “Just this once. Because she’s evacuated.”
Before Faith could say no, he brought it to the little girl on the leather sofa in the family room. “Tonight is a special occasion.”
“What?” She took the glass he held out.
“I get to have the pleasure of your company for dinner.”
“Wow.” Carefully she took a sip. “I promise I won’t spill.”
“I know you won’t.”
He walked back into the kitchen where Faith stood with her back braced against the island. She was giving him a look. “What?”
“You’re very good at this,” she said.
The tone didn’t make her words sound like a compliment so he decided to clarify his actions in a positive way. “If you mean taking care of friends going through a rough time, then yes I am.”
“I actually meant you’re quite practiced at charming women.”
There was a whole lot of subtext in those words. “Charm isn’t a bad thing.”
“It is if it’s not sincere.” She folded her arms over her chest.
“Look, as far as I’m concerned we’ve become friends. So if what you see in my behavior is charm in a bad way, then I’m not sure what I can do about that.”
“Just stop it.”
“I can’t be what I’m not,” he pointed out.
“Neither can I.”
“Okay.” Sam dragged his fingers through his hair. He was going to say this and let the chips fall wherever. “You don’t have to tell me I’m right, but I think there’s a better-than-even chance some guy did you wrong.”
“You don’t—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “You’re right. I don’t know for sure. But the fact that defensiveness is your default position makes it a very good possibility.”
She didn’t respond to that.
“I assure you that I have no ulterior motives. I value your friendship and don’t want things to get awkward between us. There’s nothing to worry about from me and you can take that promise to the bank.” He smiled. “No pun intended.”
Her lips curved up slightly. “Okay.”
Sam’s word was important to him and he didn’t give it lightly. He’d drawn a line in the sand and wouldn’t cross it, even though the idea of kissing her had occurred to him. But he was sure there was a jerk in her past and he wouldn’t be another one who played her.
When she could go back to her house in a day or two, this feeling would pass. There was no doubt in his mind that he could resist her for that short a time.
Chapter Four (#ue5bca3b3-68b7-5b47-b9d2-dd34c7ed68d4)
“You didn’t have to come with me and volunteer to help feed the firefighters.” Faith glanced at Sam in the driver’s seat, which was appropriate since this was his car. Although she was pretty sure that’s where he sat in every part of his life.
“This is my town now and I want to pitch in.” He slid her a look but the expression in his eyes was hidden by the dark aviator sunglasses. Very sexy glasses that amped up his appeal by a lot. “I want to make sure the firefighters’ staging area is a safe distance from the fire line.”
“You don’t trust Des Parker?”
“I don’t know him.” There was a hint of disapproval in his voice.
That was an interesting negative reaction to someone he’d never met. “He’s a good guy.”
“Jury’s out on that. All I know is you were pretty smoky when you got home last night.”
“That would sound so much better if you’d said I was smokin’ hot.”
Sam didn’t look at her but the corners of his mouth curved up. “You’ll do. And I’m here to make sure you’re not literally smokin’.”
He navigated the winding two-lane road in a confidently masculine way that made her stomach quiver in that feminine way it did when fascinated by a guy. Admittedly that reaction was just plain stupid, but, sadly, too real. The best thing she could say about the inconvenient feeling was that it took her mind off worrying about what condition her home was in.
But as they got closer to the staging area, visibility was reduced because of smoke hanging in the air and it got noticeably thicker every mile. The wind wasn’t as bad, but it was still a factor in battling the blaze.
“I heard firefighters are coming from as far away as California and Oregon to help put this thing out.” Sam glanced over.
“That’s the rumor.”
“They’ll get it contained.”
“Sure doesn’t feel that way right now,” she said.
“It won’t burn forever.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Wow.” Sam glanced over again. “I didn’t take you for a glass-half-empty kind of person.”
“It’s hard to be chipper and perky and optimistic when everything you have in the world might be gone.”
“I know. But you have to stay strong.”
“Says who?” She was feeling angry and resentful and looking to take it out on someone. It was his bad luck that he was in the line of fire, no pun intended. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to face the possibility of losing everything? Even with insurance there will be out-of-pocket expenses that I can’t afford. You would only have to write a check. Chump change.”
“I admit that having access to more resources makes the prospect less daunting.”
Well, pickles. She’d expected him to be all sunshine and unicorns, not agree with her. Now what was she going to argue with him about?
“So, I met Kiki.”
“Did you?” The corners of his mouth curved up.
“Yes. When I delivered the breakup bouquet.”
“I see.”
Faith wanted more of a reaction so she could push back on something because she was really in the mood to push back. “Don’t you want to know what my impression of her was?”
He shrugged. “Since I won’t be seeing her again, discussing it is like shutting the barn door after the horse got out.”
“I can see why you’d think that, but you could look at it like a debrief. Analyze what went wrong in order to not make the same mistake.”
He nodded slowly. “That logic would be sound if I considered her a mistake.”
“And you don’t?”
“Look at it this way.” He thought for a moment. “When you buy a dress, you try it on. See if it fits and that you like how it feels. That’s how I think of dating.”
“Like trying on a pair of jeans?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Yes.”
“So Kiki was nothing more than a fitting?”
“In a way.” His tone was unrepentant.
“I found her to be very pretty and nice. It seems so wrong to categorize her like that.”
“How else are you going to know what works?” he defended.
“Give someone a chance. Two dates is like making a decision on pants when you only try on one leg.”
“Why risk trying on the other leg and becoming emotionally attached?”
“Oh. You’re one of those,” she said, nodding knowingly.
“What?” He glanced over, obviously fighting a grin. “You make me sound like a nonorganic vegetable at a health food convention.”
