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Sam lifted his glass in a mock salutation. “The lady wins a prize for that astute observation.”
Ignoring his sarcasm, Kate edged closer, her arms still pressed tightly against her waist. “I am that person.”
Sam poured himself another drink. “I thought I made it clear—I’m not interested in bringing them in for counseling.”
“You know what they say,” Kate replied. “If Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, take the mountain to Mohammed.”
“You’re not coming here to counsel,” Sam said flatly.
“How about I just sign on as your housekeeper then? Temporarily, of course.”
Unable to resist, he goaded her. “What happened? The hospital fire you?”
The last thing Sam needed was Busybody Kate underfoot twenty-four hours a day. Never mind that he knew how his five boys would react to having someone as pretty as Kate living in the house with them. All five of them would have crushes on her in no time. A complication he also didn’t need.
“On the contrary,” she retorted pleasantly, standing so close he could take in the alluring fragrance of her hair and skin. “We’ve had so much success we’re expanding the department. The second grief counselor started last Thursday.”
If she hadn’t been badgering him, charging in repeatedly where she so clearly was not wanted or needed, Sam would have congratulated her. As it was, he let the opportunity pass, and took another sip of his Scotch. “What does that have to do with me?” He studied her, wondering what he could do to incite her to leave and never come back.
Kate pulled around one of the straight-backed chairs from in front of his desk and positioned it so it was two feet away, facing him. Then sat. “You’ve got four weeks until school starts again.”
Four weeks with the boys home every day, able to get into plenty of mischief, while he was at company headquarters in Dallas, struggling to not let any more business opportunities go down the drain.
Had it just been him, Sam could have done with the lost opportunity and income. But he had two hundred and fifty highly qualified e-commerce consultants working for him. If his company went under, the lives of his employees and their families would be thrown into chaos, too. Sam wasn’t about to let that happen. Not if he could prevent it.
Still sipping his Scotch, he watched her gung-ho expression over the rim of his glass and waited.
“Meanwhile,” Kate continued, “I’ve been so busy building up my program at the hospital I haven’t taken any significant time off in two years and I’ve got five weeks of vacation coming.”
Wariness quickly replaced Sam’s willingness to listen. The muscles in his jaw clenched as Kate sank into the chair and crossed her legs.
“And you’re proposing what exactly?” he demanded with a curious lift of his brow, irritated to find he’d been paying more attention to her knees than what she’d been saying.
Kate smiled at him as if her solution were the most natural thing in the world. “That I move in here with you and the boys until school starts and or you find someone to take over the job permanently.”
Sam would have liked to think this was all a goofy impulse on Kate’s part, but he could see by her overeagerness that it was not. The earnest little do-gooder honestly thought she was helping here. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked impatiently.
“A lot of reasons.” Kate turned her hands palm up. “Your parents are gone now, so they’re not available to help you, and you never had any siblings.”
Sam forced a smile through stiff lips and, for his beloved aunt’s and uncle’s sakes, returned with a politeness that was even more strained, “But I do have an aunt and uncle right here in Laramie. Not to mention all four of their sons and their new wives.” That was, in Sam’s view, plenty of family.
“John and Lilah are leaving tomorrow evening to go to Central America to do medical relief work for several weeks. Or had you forgotten?”
Sam had been so wrapped up in his own problems he had forgotten.
“I’ve no doubt Shane, Wade, Travis and Jackson would be happy to help you. Only problem is, they’ve got jobs and responsibilities of their own.”
Sam frowned at Kate’s holier-than-thou tone. “And you don’t?” he countered, doing nothing to mask his disbelief.
Kate straightened her spine indignantly. “I worked as a high school guidance counselor before I worked at the hospital. As it happens, I know plenty about working with kids. But there are other reasons I want to help you out, as well.”
Sam released a long, exasperated breath. He was sorry he’d ever let her get started on this pitch. “Such as…?” he asked, disinterested.
“Our families have known each other forever. And in Laramie, we help each other when circumstances warrant it.”
That was true, Sam thought, but only to a point. He reached for the bottle of Scotch. “You’re forgetting the fact your father despises me.”
Twin spots of color appeared in Kate’s fair cheeks. “What happened between you two was a long time ago,” she countered.
Sam poured himself another shot. “I’m betting your dad hasn’t forgotten or forgiven.”
Beginning to look a little annoyed herself, Kate replied, “That’s not the point.”
With an economy of movement, Sam set the uncapped bottle back on his desk. He regarded her steadily. “Isn’t it?”
“Ellie used to baby-sit me when I was a kid. Did you know that?”
Sam shrugged. As far as he was concerned, that was of no significance. “She used to baby-sit a lot of people around here.”
“Yeah, well…” Kate’s voice took on a tremulous, emotional quality Sam liked even less. “Ellie was especially kind to me in the months after my brother died, and I’ve never forgotten it.” Kate paused and looked down at her hands. “I’ve been thinking—maybe this is the way I’m supposed to repay her kindness.”
Which was, Sam knew, exactly how Ellie would have seen it. Hadn’t that been one of her favorite sayings? One kindness begets another. He sighed again, more loudly, wondering how he had ever allowed himself to get into such a mess. Now he was going to have to do what Ellie would not have wanted him to do: turn down Kate’s offer of help. Aware Kate was waiting for him to say something, Sam finally allowed, “Ellie was a good person.”
“The best.” Kate’s eyes shimmered suddenly. Her voice grew even huskier. “Everybody loved her, Sam.”
But not as much as me, Sam thought, knowing as much as everyone still missed Ellie their grief was nothing—nothing—compared to his and the boys’. He looked at Kate. “The answer is no,” he said flatly.
Her eyes widened with disbelief. “Why not?”
Sam swore silently. She was really going to torture them both by making him do this. He didn’t want to put her down. But, damn her, she’d left him no choice. “Because you’ve never been married or had kids of your own,” he told Kate, giving her a look that immediately relieved her of any responsibilities, any past debts, she thought she had here.
“A fact that will be remedied soon enough,” Kate interjected, wiggling her left ring finger.
Sam blew out an aggravated breath. “The fact you’re getting married to Craig Farrell later this fall changes nothing, Kate. You still know nothing about being a mom.”
“Maybe not,” Kate conceded, clearly hurt he didn’t think her capable. “But I know plenty about being a friend.”
What little patience he had fading fast, Sam shoved a hand through his hair. He wished Kate would just give up and go home. “My kids have friends,” he told her gruffly. “They need a disciplinarian.”
A fact that, to Sam’s consternation, did not faze Ms. Kate Marten in the least. “If you think I can’t bring order to your five rowdy boys, think again, Sam. I worked as a camp counselor five summers in a row. I was an athletic trainer for my father’s football team all four years of high school. I can handle your boys, Sam.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “That’s what Mrs. Grunwald said. And she was a marine. They drove her out in two weeks.” Sam shuddered to think what his kids would do to someone as well-intentioned but as hopelessly naive as Kate Marten.
Kate shrugged and continued to regard him like the dynamo she thought she was. “All that proves is that she wasn’t the right person for the job,” she persisted amiably.
Sam took in Kate’s dress-for-success clothing and carefully selected jewelry. With her soft honey-blond hair falling about her shoulders in a style that probably took hours every day to maintain, she looked as though she belonged in an office, not a kitchen or a laundry room. “And you are?”
“You’re darn right I am.” Kate looked at him steadily. As she continued, her voice dropped a compassionate notch. “Furthermore, I can help you, too, Sam.”
Now that grated, Sam thought. To the point it really shouldn’t go unrewarded. “How?” Sam asked sharply, eyeing her with a brooding stare designed to intimidate.
“By giving you someone to talk to.”
Finally, he acknowledged silently, they were down to the tiny print at the bottom of every contract. “What are we talking about here?” Sam asked in a deceptively casual voice that in no way revealed how truly annoyed he was with her. “Some sort of informal grief counseling on the side?”
“Yes.” Kate beamed her relief that he was catching on. Her blue eyes gleamed with a mixture of gentleness and understanding. “If that’s what you want, certainly I’d be happy to help you with that.”
Sam drained the last of his Scotch. Setting his glass down with a thud, he got slowly, deliberately, to his feet. What was it going to take, he wondered, to get people to stop trying to examine his private pain and leave him alone? What was it going to take to get people to let him grieve, in his own time, in his own way, at his own pace? He’d thought if he left Dallas—where he and Ellie and the kids had made their life together—and returned to the town where he and Ellie had spent their childhoods, that the people would be kind enough, sensitive enough, to just leave him and the kids alone to work through their grief however they saw fit. Instead, everyone wanted to help. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had some method of coping they wanted him and or the boys to try. Leading the charge of the “Laramie, Texas, Kind Friend and Neighbor Brigade” was Kate Marten.
Sam had tried ignoring her. Been rude and unapproachable. He’d even—for a few minutes tonight—gritted his teeth and tried to reason with her. To his chagrin, all he’d done was encourage her.
And that, Sam knew, as he stood in front of Kate, would not do.
To make everyone else cease and desist their well-intentioned yet misguided efforts to snap him and the boys out of their grief, he would first have to make Kate Marten back off. As disagreeable as he found even the idea of it, Sam knew of only one surefire way to do that.
“If that seems like too much at first, we can just—I don’t know…be friends,” Kate continued a little nervously, finally beginning to eye him with the wariness he’d wanted her to all along.
“Suppose I want more than that?” His idea picking up steam, Sam reached down, took Kate’s wrist, and pulled her to her feet. Ignoring the soft, silky warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips, and the widening of her astonished blue eyes, he danced her backward to the wall. “Then what?”
“Um—” Kate swallowed as she tried and failed to unobtrusively extricate her wrist from his iron grip. “We could get into other areas, too.”
Sam smiled cynically at the sheer improbability of that ever happening. Aware his plan was working, he said gruffly, “You’re not getting it.” Sam caged her with his body and braced an arm against the wall on either side of her head.
Her expectant look changing to one of alarm, Kate tried and failed to push past him. “Not getting what?” she asked, still smiling, albeit a lot more nervously now.
“That’s not what I want from you, Kate,” Sam murmured as he slanted his head over hers. Telling himself this was for both their sakes, Sam let his gaze slowly trace the contours of her face, linger hotly on her lips, before returning—with all sensual deliberateness—to the growing panic in her ever-widening eyes. “That’s not what I want from any woman.”
Fear turned to anger as he leaned impertinently close. “Sam…” Kate warned as she splayed both her hands firmly across his chest and shoved. Again to no avail.
Now that he’d found something that would work to rid himself of her, Sam wasn’t going anywhere.
“This is the liquor talking,” Kate continued in her pious counselor’s voice.
Knowing he would have to become a real bastard to remove Kate and her damnable interference once and for all, Sam merely smiled. “I’m not that drunk,” he said, his voice taking on a menacing tone. “Yet.” Before the evening was over, for the first time since the night of Ellie’s funeral, he would be.
“You don’t have to behave this way.” Kate lectured him with a mix of compassion and desperation. Ignoring his obvious disillusionment, she insisted stubbornly, “I can help you.”
Sam shook his head. Kate was wrong. She couldn’t help. No one could. The best thing anyone could do—the only thing—was leave him the hell alone. The sooner Kate Marten understood that, the better.
“The only thing I want is this.” Grabbing her roughly, Sam lowered his lips to hers and delivered a short, swift, punishing kiss meant only to inflame her anger and vent his. “And this…” His hands moved from her shoulders to her breasts in a callous way he knew would infuriate and frighten her even more than his brief, bruising kiss. Ignoring her muffled cry of dismay and shuddering breaths, Sam forced her lips open with the pressure of his and deepened the contact.
“Are you willing to give me that, Kate?” he demanded contemptuously, shifting his hands lower still. “Do your professional services…your unending sympathy for me and all I’ve been through extend that far?” He kissed her again, harder, more relentlessly than before as his hands slipped beneath her dress and closed around the satiny softness of her inner thighs. “Or are their limits on what you’ll take, too?” he taunted, wanting her—needing her—to share some of this pain she had so cruelly dredged up.
Breathing hard, Kate shoved him away from her. Hauling back her hand, she slapped his face. Hard. “That’s for kissing me, when you know I’m engaged,” she spouted angrily, fire in her eyes. “And that—” Kate kicked his shin even harder than she’d slapped his face “—is for the grope.”
“Got to hand it to you, Kate,” Sam drawled, mocking her, even as shame flowed through him at his behavior. Limping, grimacing, he let her go. “You haven’t lost your fighting spirit.” Nor your aim. Even through the numbing haze of alcohol and grief, his face stung and his shin throbbed even worse.
“Too bad I can’t say the same for you.” Hands propped on her hips, she regarded him with unmitigated disgust.
Ellie would have hated this. Hated what I’ve become….
Pushing the guilt away, Sam went back to his bottle. He tipped it up, drank deeply. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve been through,” he said roughly, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
“But I will, Sam,” Kate promised. “Before all is said and done, I will.” She surveyed him with one last contemplative glance, then turned on her heel and stomped out of the study.
Sam followed her into the foyer, the Scotch he’d consumed doing nothing to abate his misery over either losing Ellie or this latest debacle in his life. “Leaving? So soon?” Since Ellie’s death, he’d been empty inside. Dead. Now Kate, with her endless prodding and pushing, had made him cruel, too. He wouldn’t forgive her for that, any more than she was going to forgive him for the pass.
Kate shot him a look over her shoulder, anger flashing in her eyes. “Go to hell.”
Can’t, Sam thought miserably, I’m already there.
Not about to apologize for what he’d known would happen all along if he spent any time alone with her, he shrugged. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”
Kate gritted her teeth. “Only because you’re behaving like such a self-centered jerk.”
“What can I say? You bring out the best in me.” Ignoring the hurt in her eyes, Sam forced himself to not feel guilty, to not take anything of what he’d said or done back, no matter how unkind it was. He hadn’t invited her here. He hadn’t asked her to stir up his pain to unbearable, unmanageable levels. She’d ignored all his signals to the contrary and barged in here at her own risk. What she had gotten was her own damn fault. Not his.
“The best or the worst?” Kate returned sharply. “’Cause if this is as good as it gets from here on out, I’d sure hate to be one of your sons.”
Sam had never slapped a woman—he never would. But she made him want to slap the daylights out of her. Another first. “Get the hell out.” Sam scowled. He jerked open the door, took her by the shoulders, and shoved her stumbling across the jamb. As soon as she’d cleared the portal, he slammed the door behind her, and didn’t look back.
There were some people it was best just to stay away from.
Starting now, Kate Marten topped his list.
CHAPTER TWO
FOOTSTEPS clattered across the floor, not stopping until they were precariously near. “I had a feeling this was going to happen.”
Sam McCabe groaned. That voice again. Do-gooding. Soft. Persistent. He struggled to bring himself out of his stupor, felt the sledgehammer pounding behind his eyes, and decided it wasn’t worth it. Sighing, he headed back into the blissful darkness of sleep.
Feminine perfume teased his senses. A small, delicate hand touched his shoulder.
“Rise and shine, big guy.”
Knowing full well who it was without even looking, Sam moaned and tried to lift his head. He swallowed around a mouth that felt as if it were filled with cotton and tasted like the bottom of a garbage pail. “Go. Away.”
“You keep saying that.” The low voice was laced with amusement. “Don’t you know by now it’s not going to work?”
Realizing the only way to get rid of the busybody was to face her, Sam grimaced and lifted his head as far as he could—which turned out to be several inches above the desk. Feeling as if he were going to throw up at any moment if he moved even the slightest bit in any direction, he struggled to open his eyes. Kate Marten was standing beside him, dressed much the same as she had been the night before, in some sort of dress-for-success business suit. Her hair fell in a gentle curve of silk to her shoulders, before flipping out and up at the ends. Her fair skin glowed with good health and just a hint of summer sun. Worse, unlike him, she looked and smelled like a million bucks.
“Do you know what time it is?” she asked with a sweet, condescending smile that made him want to throttle her all the more. Not waiting for him to answer, she replied for him. “Seven-thirty.”
Sam groaned again, even louder and, using his hands as levers, pushed his head up a little more. The last thing he wanted to be doing in his hungover state was noticing what a pretty face Kate Marten had.
“Do you know what time John and Lilah are due to bring your boys back this morning?” Kate Marten continued in a bright cheery voice that grated on his nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. Her long-lashed light blue eyes arrowed in on his. “Eight-thirty. That gives you an hour to look halfway sober. Unless of course you want your boys to see you this way.”
Sam regarded her with unchecked hostility. Damn her not just for seeing him this way but for coming back…after what he’d done. He turned his glance away from the determined tilt of her chin. “I thought you would have learned your lesson last night,” he mumbled, cradling his pounding skull between his hands. Hell, if putting the moves on her as crudely and rudely as possible hadn’t chased Miss Respectability of Laramie, Texas, away, he didn’t know what would. He’d been damn sure his actions would send her running as fast and far away from him as possible, never to return again, or he sure as shooting wouldn’t have grabbed her and kissed her in a way neither of them was ever likely to forget.
