Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (23 page)

Landon wasn’t doing much better. When Aretha started on the chorus, he turned toward Caden, holding the roller like a mike, and belted it out.

Caden’s laugh was more melodic than the music. She turned her roller up and sang with him. They faced each other, cranking out the lyrics at the top of their lungs. Caden shimmied her shoulders, and Landon wiggled his hips like a defective backup singer.

A laugh caught in Sam’s throat.

Landon finished the chorus on an odd pitch. “Take it, Sam.” He pointed to her.

Sam said rather than sang the words. “Sock it to me.” No one wanted to hear her sing.

Caden called over the music, still bopping to the song. “You can do better than that, Mom.”

Next time the line came, Sam sang it. She couldn’t be any worse than Landon.

Landon whooped, then stepped down from the ladder and took the main part while Caden did the backup.

Sam watched, knowing a silly grin had spread across her face, but she couldn’t look half as silly as the two of them bebopping around the living room with rollers in their hands. They weren’t getting much done, but they were having a blast.

Watching her daughter interact with a man triggered something in her. The music’s volume seemed to decrease as she watched them together, behaving like father and daughter. How many days like this had Caden missed? She was nearly a teenager, and her formative years were quickly fading. How would the lack of a dad affect her future? How would she learn how to relate to a man when she’d had no role model?

Landon set down his roller and took Caden’s, setting it in the pan. He took her hand and twirled her toward him, then back out. Landon still had two left feet, despite his claim that he’d outgrown them. His jerky moves made Caden look all the more graceful.

Caden laughed
as she spun. “Is this the way they did it in the olden days?”

“Hey,” he said. “Watch it.”

“This is how they dance now.” Caden did a move with her feet, then wiggled her hips as Aretha crooned.

“Not bad. You must have gotten your rhythm from your mom.” Landon did a move that reminded her of a lame turkey, bobbing his chin in and out.

Sam and Caden laughed.

“Ha!” Caden shouted over the music. “Mom can’t dance.”

He raised his eyebrows at Sam. “Too bad about your bum ankle, or you’d have to show her your stuff.”

“Yeah, too bad,” Sam said sarcastically.

When the song wound down and the next one started, Caden turned the volume down. Landon gave Caden a high five, then handed back her roller.

Sam watched them paint side by side, wishing things were different for Caden. What if Bailey had lived? Would he have married her? How would Landon have reacted? Sam wasn’t sure she could have gone through with it. Either way, she’d cheated Caden out of a father. The thought stabbed her hard.

Sam shook the thought away. She didn’t want to go back to that dark night. Hard as it was to live in the present, it beat living in the past.

Caden finished a portion of the wall and moved the paint pan to the other side of the ladder, then loaded her roller.

Landon whistled to the tune on the radio while he rolled over a water leak on the ceiling. When he needed more paint, he descended the ladder.

“How about if we grill burgers tonight?” He addressed Sam. “I can grab some at the grocery.”

She was about to agree when she noticed his foot descending straight toward the paint pan. “Watch ou—”

His tennis shoe landed square in the middle of the pan. Paint sloshed out over the metal edges.

He looked down, going still, his mouth going slack.

Sam sucked in her breath.

“What?” Caden asked, then peeked around the ladder. Her mouth dropped. “Oh.”

Landon lifted his foot and watched the paint run off his shoe, trickling back into the pan.

A laugh bubbled up inside, and Sam pressed her lips together.

“How”—he paused, shaking his leg to get the paint off—“did the pan get over here?” He slowly turned toward Caden, a funny scowl on his face.

Sam could tell her daughter was torn between horror and humor. “I”—her mouth worked—“I had to move it.”

“You had to move it,” Landon repeated.

“It was in the way.” Her eyes were as wide as silver dollars. “I’m sorry.” A giggle sneaked out, contradicting the apology.

“You look real sorry.” He shook his foot again.

It reminded her of the way Max’s leg shook when his belly was rubbed.

Another laugh sneaked out of Caden’s mouth.

“That’s it.” Landon broke out toward Caden, his wet foot sliding on the plastic.

Caden squealed and took off toward the door. Landon followed, leaving white footprints behind on the drop cloth. Sam wished she could follow, especially when she heard a belly laugh from Caden that she hadn’t heard since she used to blow on Caden’s toddler belly.

When the phone rang, she reached for it and punched it on, realizing her jaws ached from smiling.

By the time Landon finished chasing and tickling Caden, they were out of breath. He’d forgotten how much fun kids were. He realized Caden was probably starved for male attention. She was eating it up.

He took off his shoe and ran it under the outdoor spigot, rubbing the paint away with his fingers.

Caden plopped down on the grass nearby, breathing hard and still smiling. “I’m tired.”

When he was finished cleaning his shoe, he took the other one off and helped Caden up. “Piggyback ride?” He turned and offered his back.

“I’m too old for that.” Her eyes said something different.

“Says who? Hop on.” It was all the encouragement she needed. He squatted, and she wrapped her little arms around his neck.

“Hang on,” Landon said as he stood, hooking his elbows around her knees. She laughed as he rose to his feet. The sound was the sheer delight of a child. If she was struggling with an adolescent attitude as Sam said, all traces of it were gone now.

He jogged up the porch steps, bouncing Caden as much as possible. She tightened her arms around his neck.

He gasped. “You’re choking me.”

He turned and let Caden open the screen door of the porch. After she let go, he stopped and let it swing into her backside.

“Hey!”

“Sorry.” He snickered.

“Yeah, you sound real sorry.” She tightened her arms around his neck in a chokehold.

He was laughing when he entered the house. “Your daughter—” He stopped when he saw Sam was on the phone.

She glanced at him, then quickly looked away.

He eased Caden off his back and went to retrieve his roller. Then he saw the wet paint he’d trailed across the plastic and went for the roll of paper towels. When he returned, he wiped up the mess. Sam’s quiet voice carried across the room.

“Well, uh—I really can’t. I fell off a ladder and twisted my ankle yesterday.” She explained the situation.

Landon wiped harder at the mess than necessary. He could tell it was Tully on the phone. Landon supposed the guy wasn’t going to give up until he got what he wanted.

Over his dead body.

“No, that’s okay,” Sam said into the phone. “I’ve got it covered.”

She was talking about the work on the house.
She
had it covered? He nailed her with a look, which she missed entirely because she was looking the other way.

“Sure. Sure. Okay.”

Was he asking her out? Sam couldn’t even walk across the room, much less go on a date with that idiot.

“All right. See you.” She punched the phone off, and it clunked as she set it on the end table.

The mood in the room shifted. Even Caden seemed to sense it and went back to work quietly. He moved the pan away and climbed the ladder. Was Sam going out with Tully again? Her ankle would only keep her off her feet so long, and then what? What if she wanted Tully?

The clock was ticking. Landon had six more days with Sam, and the reality of it hit him with new urgency. Six more days to make her see how much he loved her. Six more days to make her see she had nothing to fear. But would six days be enough, or would she and Caden go back to Boston and leave him forever?

Twenty-four

R
ain came later in the afternoon, changing their plans from a backyard barbeque to hot dogs under the broiler. Tully’s phone call had somehow deflated the fun. Landon brooded, and Caden looked between the adults with speculative glances.

Later that night, Caden took her bath, then Sam sent her to bed. She must have been tired, because she didn’t complain. Landon insisted on finishing the ceiling before he called it a night.

Sam sat on the couch, the pack of peas on her ankle growing soggy. Outside, rain still pattered against the leaves. The
damp carried through the screen, alleviating the smell of paint.

The afternoon had been filled with taut silences, and Sam never felt like more of a burden. She wished she could pay someone to finish the house, but she had eighty-two dollars left, hardly enough to get them through the week. A loan would take too long, even if she could get one, and she didn’t think she could.

Landon was giving up his vacation to help her out. As much as her helplessness rankled, she couldn’t forget that. “I’m sorry you have to do this.”

He was near the doorway of Emmett’s room, the ladder angling toward the wall. “I don’t mind.” His words were clipped.

Sam wanted to tell him to go. She wanted to get up and finish the work herself, but her pounding ankle stopped her. She still couldn’t set it on the ground without pain. There was no way it could bear her weight.

“It’s obvious you don’t want to be here. You’ve hardly said a word all afternoon.”

“I don’t mind being here as long as I don’t have to overhear conversations with your boyfriend.”

Heat flooded Sam’s face, and she looked away. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Could have fooled me.” The bristles of the brush jabbed at the corner of the ceiling.

Maybe he was remembering the way he carried her half-naked from Tully’s house. Sure, she almost slept with him, but she was drunk. That didn’t make Tully her boyfriend. She’d allowed herself to get wasted and made a foolish decision.

Hadn’t Landon ever done something foolish? She watched him painting, his lips pressed together. No, Landon was too prudent for that. But surely there had been other women. Girlfriends.

Sam watched his arm move the brush up and down in short strokes. His shirt revealed tanned skin and well-defined muscles. No man who looked like him had trouble attracting women. Especially when the inside matched the outside. She couldn’t say that about many people. So why was he still unattached?

“What about you?” she dared. “Have you had any serious relationships?” She was suddenly unsure she wanted to hear the answer. She wondered if anything was becoming of him and Melanie. “How are things going with—”

“If you so much as whisper Melanie’s name, I’m out of here.”

She held up her right hand, palm out. “I thought she liked you.”

He studied her, and his face softened, the corners of his mouth relaxing. “She only agreed to the double date to help me, Sam. She and I are friends, and we’ll never be anything more.”

“Oh.”

He descended the ladder. “As far as girlfriends, there have been a couple. Not very serious, though.” He leaned back, half sitting, and propped his foot on the lowest rung.

Sam waited for him to go on, curious about the women who’d captured his attention. “Anyone I know?”

He shook his head. “Don’t think so.” He crossed the room and lifted the bag of peas from her ankle. “Better get this back in the freezer.”

“Wait.” She touched his arm. When he looked at her, she withdrew her hand and returned it to her lap. “Tell me about them.” She tried for nonchalance. “Have pity on a bored, injured woman.”

“Are you implying my love life is boring?”

“On the contrary. I’m curious to know how the great Landon Reed has avoided the holy bonds of matrimony.”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“You first.” She said it like a dare.