Needs A Little TLC (Spinning Hills Romance 2) (14 page)

Cassie glowered at him, wondering how she could get him to leave without causing a ruckus and ruining her plan. There was no way.

“It’s good seeing your hair wild again, by the way,” he added, without opening his eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, you rock that bun, it really brings out your big blue eyes and makes you look sane, but that fiery halo suits you better.”

Seething, she got back into her sleeping bag, her back to him, but she was too mad to rest. Did a fiery halo belong on an angel or a demon? Was he flirting with her or insulting her?

Ten minutes later, she was listening to Sam’s snores, no longer angry. A small part of her was relieved he was getting some sleep. His snores were awakening a tenderness she didn’t want to feel. He was a hardworking man. A good dad. And there he was, sleeping on the floor next to her to make sure she was safe.

Two hours later, a noise outside caught her attention. She was up in a heartbeat. Sam’s snores stopped. She got up on her elbows and perked her ears. Sam lifted his head and she put her hand on his arm and a finger to her lips before getting on her knees and crawling to the window. Her eyes widened and she looked over at Sam, excited. She then crawled over to where the pooper-scooper was, picked it up, ran to the door, turned on the porch light, and yelled, “Gotcha!” before Sam could reach out and stop her.

 

Sam stepped outside, just as poor, hunchbacked Mrs. Ritty screamed and began to topple over. Sam leaped over the steps and caught her just in time.

“Mrs. Ritty, are you okay?” he asked. The elderly woman put a hand to her heart and began to cry, her terrier began barking up a storm, and his car alarm went off.

Sam didn’t consider himself a coldhearted person—quite the opposite, in fact—but somehow he wanted to laugh. It was unconscionable, when a poor old woman was crying in front of him, but with Cassie standing under the porch light, eyes wide, the pooper-scooper in her limp hands, the dog barking, and the alarm going off, the situation was too absurd. He managed to reach his key and shut his alarm off without letting go of Mrs. Ritty. “Let’s sit you down a moment. Cassie, get her some water.”

“What’s going on out there?” someone yelled from an upstairs window across the street.

“Nothing! It’s under control!” he yelled back, the need to laugh making his voice crack in the end. Cassie soon ran out and handed Mrs. Ritty a glass of water.

“I’m so sorry. I thought—I thought—I didn’t think—”

“I’m so ashamed.” Mrs. Ritty hung her head, her hands shaky, and Sam lost all will to laugh.

“It’s okay,” he soothed as he smoothed her wrinkled hand and tried to calm the older woman’s nerves.

Cassie looked about ready to cry, too. “No, I’m ashamed. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. I should’ve checked the situation out first,” she said, her lower lip trembling.

“I can’t bend down, so I wait until there’s nobody on the street. I was taking him to Ms. Bell’s lawn,” she said on a sob, motioning her free hand weakly toward Holly’s perfume shop. “But when you moved in, I decided to give her a break.”

“It’s okay,” Cassie said. “Now that I know what’s going on, I don’t mind cleaning up after him every morning.”

“It’s a she. Her name is Tinkle.”

A long time later, when Mrs. Ritty had calmed down, Sam walked both her and the dog home, and came back to see Cassie still sitting on the porch steps. “I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West.”

Sam sat down next to her. “Next time you should—”

“Don’t you
dare
say it! How was I supposed to know it was a little old hunchbacked lady? I swear I wanted to die.”

“Don’t feel too bad. She’s as rich as Croesus, and she can afford to have someone walk the dog. She’s just too cheap.”

“What! And I committed myself to picking up after her dog? Why didn’t you say something?”

“And risk making her cry again? No friggin’ way.”

They shared a look. Cassie bit her lip and Sam smiled. Soon, they were both laughing, hard.

“God, I needed that,” he said without thinking.

 

Cassie looked over at him, surprised at the vulnerability in his voice. She’d meant it when she’d said he could use some sleep. The care-weary look in his eyes grew more pronounced as the days went by, and she wondered how things were really going with his ex, his son, and his business. Something was worrying him, that was for sure.

There was no direct way to ask Sam anything. He was too guarded for that. “I needed a good laugh, too. I don’t know how you do it. You don’t even have a business manager. I’d sink without Jessica.”

Sam simply lay back on the open porch, one arm under his head, and looked up at the stars. Cassie leaned back, too. How many times had they lain, staring up at the sky, just like this, when they were kids? She’d talk and Sam would listen, but somehow she always knew what he was thinking and feeling.

“Why don’t you have an office manager?” she tried again.

Sam sighed. “Dad never needed one, so I figured I didn’t, either.” He turned to look at her then, and she caught a glimpse of that tenderness she was telling Jessica about. The smart thing would be to look away, but she couldn’t. Not when he was looking so tired and alone. Their eyes locked.

“But you’re handling a lot more than your father ever did. Maybe you need one now.”

“I’ll hire one, soon. You’ve got good instincts. You can help me find someone.”

She continued to study him, wondering why he didn’t go home and get some sleep. “Why did you come here looking for me tonight?” she asked next.

“You left Huffy’s, but your car was still there. Just wanted to make sure you were okay. Are you going to look at the sky, Cass, or are you going to keep staring at me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. We caught the culprit. I’m only trying to figure out why you haven’t left.” She looked up. The stars looked small and hazy against a midnight-purple, cloud-streaked sky. “Pixie dust,” she said.

“You used to say it was fairy dust,” Sam said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“I decided it’s pixie dust. Pixies are mischievous, and nothing I ever asked the fairies for came true, thank goodness. Everything I worked for ended up being better.” She was quiet for a while, thinking. “What would you ask for, right now, if you thought it could come true?” she asked after a long, companionable silence.

“Nothing. I don’t need magic. I need to sell some houses.”

Cassie wondered if he was kidding or if it was his small way of reaching out. Was his business in trouble? “We will. Soon. Our first open houses are the day after tomorrow.”

They were quiet again for a while, her tired senses entranced by Sam’s presence. It felt as if the world outside the porch had disappeared. He radiated heat and smelled so familiar, yet there were husky, sensual undertones enhancing the scent that was distinctly Sam. She wondered if Holly had crafted a signature perfume for him, too, and if the one she’d created for her, and which she loved and now wore every day, had the same effect on him.

“How did Holly and Dan get together? They seem so different, but so right for each other.”

“Are you asking me for gossip? Isn’t that something you ask a
friend
?”

Cassie kicked his foot. “Just tell me.”

“Fine. Don’t want to ignite your temper and end up like poor Mrs. Ritty—”

“Sam . . .” she warned.

“They met at the Craftsman on Rubicon. It was dark, they each thought they owned the house and that the other was an intruder. Holly beat the crap out of Dan.”

“Ha! Really? How? She’s tiny. And why did they both think they owned the house?”

“She threw a flashlight at him, twice, trying to get away. His knee’s fine, but he still has a scar above his eyebrow. And the bank had accepted Holly’s offer on the house, and since nobody had wanted it for years, she thought it was as good as hers. But Dan offered the bank cash, and closed on it, but they never told Holly.”

“Why did Dan want the house? I thought he was helping you with your load.”

Sam hesitated. “You’ll have to ask Dan.”

Cassie nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. There was a story there and it sounded like a personal one. She’d respect that and not ask Dan or anyone. “You know who I’d like to see fall hard?” she asked after a moment of silence.

“Johnny?”

“Yup.” She laughed. “He’s been going on and on about having found the right girl, but he won’t tell me who it is. The only clue he let slip is that there are people here in town who would kill him if they knew who she was.”

“Really? He hasn’t let that slip in front of me. But I don’t know anybody who’d want to kill him, except me and Dan once in a while.”

“Yeah. He’s too much of a charmer. But he was serious and seemed frustrated when he said it,” Cassie said, remembering the look on Johnny’s face.

“I just think he knows how badly we all want to see him get his ass handed to him and that’s why he won’t say.”

Cassie giggled, picturing it. They fell silent again, and Cassie stared at the sky, remembering how she and Johnny used to pretend they lived in Neverland, until somewhere in her brain something suddenly clicked. Two people who’d kill him. She looked over at Sam and whispered, “Sam? I think it’s either Marissa or Melinda!”

Sam turned, slowly, to look at her. “Marissa or Melinda . . . as in Rosa’s granddaughters and Marty’s little sisters?”

Cassie nodded, her eyes not leaving his, watching as it sank in.

“Rosa and Marty love him, but they know him too well. They
would
kill him. And he’d care,” he said, as he turned it all around in his head. “I don’t think it’s Marissa, though. She had that huge crush on him growing up, always stared at him all moony-like, but she wasn’t really his type.”

“Why? ’Cause she was a little on the skinny side?” Cassie asked, remembering how some boys described her as “all skin and bones.” “Men!”

“No.” Sam rolled his eyes at her. “Because she was quiet.”

“She was kind of quiet,” Cassie conceded, settling down again. “Oh. And Rosa told me she and Brian Golden are very serious.”

“And I think Melinda was in town visiting right around the time Johnny started waxing on and on about how he’s turning over a new leaf,” Sam added, pensively. “I just don’t see why Johnny wouldn’t tell me and Dan, though, if he’s that serious about it. We could help him with Rosa and Marty.”

“Do Dan and Johnny know why we broke up? Did you ask them for help when you tried to find me and explain?” She put her hand on his arm to soften her words because she was only trying to make a point. “I’m willing to bet nobody around here could ever even guess why we broke up.”

Sam looked away. “Heather knows.”

Of course she knew. They’d been married, had a child, and shared secrets and more. If things had worked out, he’d be home right now, under the same roof as Jake. Cassie knew he and his ex remained good friends, but he sounded so weighed down. It no longer mattered to her that he’d moved on. It mattered that he’d been through a divorce and it must’ve been hard on him. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, feeling awkward as heck.

“Not unless you want to talk about what happened with us, first.”

“No, I don’t,” Cassie said. He was right. She’d kept him at a distance and she had no right to try and act like a friend now. But she was in no mood to talk about them or the past. Not when they were looking at the stars in peace, talking about Johnny and Dan, as if she were still part of their lives. “That’s exactly my point. People have their own, private reasons for not wanting to talk about things, and Johnny must have his.”

They stayed that way a long time, each looking up at the sky, until they both fell asleep. Hours later, a chill wind blew over them and Cassie woke up, feeling cold. When she saw she was huddled next to Sam and he had one arm over her shoulder, she shot up and shook him awake. “Sam, wake up. We fell asleep. It’s dawn.”

Sam slowly rustled himself out of sleep. “Of course we did.” He yawned. “I told you, you’re exhausting.”

“Well, apparently you need exhausting people in your life because you finally look like you got some rest,” she shot back.

“You’re right. I do,” he said, before kissing her oh-so-softly on her cheek. Her senses reeled, her heart pounded, and for one moment, her universe consisted only of Sam’s firm lips and warm breath on her cheek.

 

Sam wanted to trail his lips down her smooth cheek and down to her soft, citrus-scented neck to take a small nip before pulling himself back up to her lips and tasting the burst of flavor her scent promised there, but he picked up on a coil of tension in her and, with effort, he disconnected, before the coil could spring open and he ended up like Mrs. Ritty.

H
eather had to go in to work that Saturday to catch up on some clerical stuff, so Sam picked up Jake and took him to the park. They grabbed a couple of small nets from the back of his truck, filled some old cups with water, and went about fishing for crawfish in the streams.

Jake had developed a fascination for them. He’d put them in a cup and study their claws for a good long while. At first, he’d asked tons of questions. The Internet had provided all the answers Sam needed and made him look like a genius in front of his son.

But now that Jake knew the answers, he recited them—over and over again. Sam didn’t mind. He remembered being the same way when he’d become obsessed with different species of wood.

“Mrs. Flannigan told me they can feel a lot because they have tons of sensor stuff, but they’re completely covered in a hard shell. Like you.”

Sam stared at his son, dumbfounded. “Mrs. Flannigan told you I’m covered in a hard shell?”

“No, Uncle Johnny did. I told him about the crawfish and he said they’re like you. He said you feel a lot, too, but you have a hard shell. Do you have lots of sensor stuff?”

So he was a crawfish now. Sam rolled his eyes when Jake wasn’t looking. “As many as anyone. And, as you can see, I don’t have a hard shell.”

Jake looked up at him and giggled. “I know. If you did, you wouldn’t have grown. That’s what happens to crawfish. That’s why they molt. Mom says we have to molt on the inside.”

Sam ruffled Jake’s head. So his uncle Johnny and Heather were using crawfish to teach life lessons. He was fine with it, so long as they left him out of it.

“Crawfish don’t have mouths,” Jake was saying next. “They communicate chemically. I don’t know what that means yet.”

Sam smiled. “Yeah, well, communication is one of the great mysteries in life, bud. For all species.”

A car turned into the parking lot and Sam turned to see his mom. Marianne got out of the car, looking surprised and happy to see them as she walked over. “Heather told me she was working today. I was hoping to find you two here,” she said when she reached them. She wrinkled her nose at the crawfish before clearing her throat. “I know you have a lot of work to do, so I stopped by to see if you wanted me to watch Jake for a while.”

She was asking him to give her alone time with her grandson. She rarely got it, though Sam knew she needed it and Jake probably needed it, too. But he didn’t know if he could trust her not to say anything disparaging about Dan to Jake.

He, Johnny, and Jake were what kept Marianne from wallowing in loneliness. She was involved in different civic organizations, but they didn’t fill her days like having a family at home once had.

Marianne needed drama. That included needing to feel needed, being vocal about how much she gave, and always having a nemesis to complain about. Unfortunately, Dan had been the nemesis of her mind’s creation. Defending Dan or pointing out how unreasonable she was being only helped to make her feel like a misunderstood victim, and feed the drama. Dan had tried his damndest not to get in her crosshairs.

It all came to a head five years before, when Jacob died and made Dan executor of his will, stating for all to hear that he was his oldest child and he knew he’d be fair. Marianne had always treated Sam as though he were the oldest and had taken Jacob’s message beyond the grave to mean exactly what it meant: Her husband hadn’t thought she’d be fair and her husband knew who was what, no matter what Marianne had tried to make him and others believe.

With humiliation added to her grief, Marianne had become more unreasonable than ever, even telling Dan she’d always doubted he was Jacob’s son, and Dan, drowning in grief over their father’s passing, had let Marianne have it for the first time in his life. He’d left and hadn’t come back to town after that. The three of them would meet up, but Dan didn’t set foot in his hometown for five years.

Jake had been only two, and he and Heather had caught Marianne complaining about Dan in front of him too many times. They knew one day he’d start to understand. When Marianne started accusing Heather of being too jealous of her time with Jake, Sam had told Marianne the truth about why they didn’t leave her alone with Jake more often.

The drama resulting from that conversation had lasted years. She’d never asked to be alone with him again, but she took every opportunity to let him know how much he’d hurt her. The fact that she was reaching out and asking again, without bringing up the past, told him how truly lonely she was.

“I was thinking of calling a few of his friends’ moms to see if they wanted to meet us here. And I know you’re working on Maddie’s old house, so you can get some work done and watch him from the window.” She pointed toward the house.

Making him feel like he was treating her like an ogre who had to be watched over was manipulative, but it worked. He didn’t have the heart to say no. “Sure. It’ll do you both good, and I could stand to get some work done.”

Jake looked in the direction where Marianne was pointing. “You’re working on a house up there?”

Sam nodded and his son’s eyes turned into saucers. “A house that backs up to
here
?”

Sam and Marianne laughed. “That’s right,” he answered.

“The kid who lives there is luck—y,” Jake declared.

Sam looked back up at the house. Leaves were just starting to grow and the run-down exterior and overgrown yard were visible. He loved that Jake only thought about how great it was to have crawfish in your backyard and didn’t notice the condition it was in.

Soon, leaves would take over and hide it from view, while Sam’s crew worked their magic. When the leaves fell again, a new house would be revealed, hopefully with new owners and luck—y kids.

“Do you want to go and take a quick look at it?” he asked Jake. He got up and turned to look at his mom. “You can come along or you can wait here. I’ll have him back in twenty.”

“We’re having an unusually warm spring. I’ll stay here and enjoy the weather,” she said, and Sam smiled. They both knew she didn’t like the dust and debris of construction sites.

He hesitated a moment, but decided to give his mom the benefit of the doubt one more time. “Heather and I are closing on the house tomorrow. Would you like to watch Jake for us from one to about two thirty?” He’d already asked Dan to watch his son, but Dan would be the first to congratulate him on giving Marianne another chance with Jake.

Marianne’s eyes lit up. “I’d love to!”

Sam and Jake hiked up the trail, and Sam gave him a quick tour.

“None of the windows upstairs look out to the park,” Jake grumbled.

Sam grinned. “Well, the house is visible in fall and winter. The people who built it probably wanted privacy in their bedrooms.”

Jake shrugged, unimpressed with their reasoning. “There’s no kitchen,” he said when they went back downstairs. Is that ’cause they live near all the food downtown and can always eat there?”

Jake was serious, so Sam clamped down on his smile. “We gutted it because we needed a new, more convenient kitchen. I’m going to be building a big, long breakfast counter here—”

“A breakfast counter?” Dan’s voice came from the front door. Sam turned to see him carrying Holly’s little mutt, Stanley. Johnny was right behind him. Sam made a mental note to lock the door to this particular house whenever he was working on it alone.

“Uncle Dan and Uncle Johnny!” Jake ran over to leap on them. He landed with one leg wrapped around Dan’s left hip and the other around Johnny’s right thigh.

He looked like a crawfish.

His brothers walked him around for a bit, stomping and hopping until Jake slid down their legs and his butt hit the floor. Stanley began licking Jake’s arms and the two began to play.

“Why is he licking me?” Jake threw his head back and laughed.

“You’re salty because you don’t take good showers, just like your old man there. He’s probably salty, too,” Johnny teased.

Jake giggled. “No, really. Why?”

“He’s grooming you.” Dan smiled. “He grooms Ella, too. He thinks you guys don’t do a good enough job.”

“Ew. Does that mean he’s getting Ella germs on me?” Jake got up and brushed his arms vigorously.

“Uh, no. I brushed his tongue this morning.”

Jake looked like he didn’t believe him. “Can I go to the park with Grandma now?” he asked Sam.

“Sure thing.”

“Can I take Stanley?” he asked Dan.

“I don’t have his leash with me, but you can come by and play with him whenever you want, okay?”

“Okay.” Jake ran out the back door and Sam watched until he saw him reunite with his grandmother.

Johnny stood next to him and watched, too. “Mom told me you were here so I called Dan and we came over straightaway to hear your ideas. I know how you value our input,” he said with the tone of a helpful, mature man.

Sam turned away from the back door to see Dan’s eyes narrowed and his expression thoughtful. “You’re always saying how people want islands nowadays, so I’ve gotta say this idea of a breakfast counter
confounds
me.”

“Confounds, really?” Sam said dryly.

Dan ignored him and turned to Johnny. “Didn’t we know someone who always preferred counters to tables because she loved to swing her feet off of tall stools because she could never keep still?”

Wishing he could resist the need to defend himself, Sam tried to explain. “A breakfast counter makes sense here because there’s a stream that runs along the backyard, behind the ravine. It’s a major selling point, but you can only see it from here if you’re sitting on a tall stool. Hence, the breakfast counter.”

“Let’s see . . . who was that?” Johnny tapped his finger on his chin, ignoring Sam’s explanation.

A spark went off in Sam’s head. They wanted to tussle? Fine. He’d tussle. “Yes, who was that?” he pretended to think. “Wasn’t it Melinda Medina?”

The look on Johnny’s face told him everything he needed to know. Cassie had been right.

“Melinda?” Dan scrunched his face and turned to look at Johnny, but his eyes took on a different gleam when he saw the look on his younger brother’s face.

Johnny was red. Johnny never turned red. He looked dumbstruck. Johnny never looked dumbstruck.

“Melinda Medina?
Seriously?
” Dan turned to Sam. “How’d you figure it out?”

Sam shrugged. No way he’d tell them it was Cassie. That would bring the attention back to him.

Dan raised his phone and took a picture of Johnny. The flash made Johnny snap back to attention. “Melinda? You’ve got to be kidding. Do I look like I have a death wish?” he scoffed, but it was too late for damage control.

“No. You look constipated,” Sam answered. “Text me that picture, will ya?” he said to Dan.

Dan hit a few buttons. “Done,” he said before looking up and shaking his head at Johnny. “Dude, Marty and Rosa are totally going to kill you. And you could’ve at least fallen for Marissa; she at least had a crush on you growing up. I don’t think Melinda knew any of us were even alive. She was too young to care.”

“Marissa never had a crush on me. She was just always happy to see me because I was the only one of Marty’s friends who paid her any attention. But we haven’t seen each other in years and we weren’t on friendly terms long before she left.”

Sam and Dan exchanged a look, but before either could ask what had happened between him and Marissa, Johnny spoke again. “And Melinda is only four years younger and she’s all grown up now. Why do you think I’ve been so vocal about finding the right girl and changing my ways? Marty knows me better than anyone, after you guys. I’ve been behaving like a friggin’ saint, hoping that when she moves back and they find out it’s her, they look back, see I’ve been serious, and consider not killing me.”

Sam considered that. It wasn’t a bad plan. “What happened between you and Marissa? Would it come between you and Melinda?”

“No. It wouldn’t. It wasn’t anything like that.” Johnny turned away, looking so dejected Sam didn’t have the heart to tease him further.

“Is Melinda moving back? What if she meets someone before she does?”

“Rosa said she was giving her acting career one more year and if it didn’t work out she was coming back here to go to school and study broadcasting and start a community theater. The year is almost up. And there’s nothing I can do if she meets someone. I wasn’t going to be the crazy stalker guy who shows up at her door in Los Angeles. Trust me, there are extenuating circumstances and it wouldn’t have worked.”

“Care to share?” Dan asked.

“No.” Johnny was quiet for a moment before straightening and pointing at them. “And if either of you teases me about Melinda in front of Marty or Rosa or anyone, I swear—”

“Make sure you come up with a good threat, ’cause I seriously doubt we’ll be able to resist.” Dan grinned.

Sam hooked an arm around his younger brother’s neck. “Don’t worry, little bro, we won’t let Marty hurt you and we’ll only let Rosa do a little damage.”

Dan slapped his back. “And we’ll do everything we can to help you get the girl.”

“That’s what I’m most afraid of.” He rolled his eyes. “Now, can we get back to Sam? It’s why we came.”

Sam knew they were genuinely interested in his ideas, so he took them around and told them his plans.

“That sounds like more storage than a normal person would need,” Dan observed when Sam was done explaining his ideas for various built-ins. “But then maybe you don’t have a normal person in mind.”

“And you’re talking about a cohesive design for the doors, when open shelving is popular right now. It’s as if the owner you have in mind is trying to hide something from view,” Johnny said in an annoying, probing voice while drumming his fingers against his chin.

Sam didn’t bother to protest that he had someone in mind. If his brothers wanted to read too much into his plans, there was nothing he could say to stop them.