Outside The Lines (Love Beyond Reason Book 2) (24 page)

Unwanted Vows

To safely raise her daughter, Samantha Hollister must join wounded U.S. Army veteran Morgan Lawrence in rediscovering an old love that never truly disappeared.

WOUNDED

Samantha Hollister is done relying on other people to take care of—or abuse—her. Her ex-husband is out of the picture now…like her family home, the haven she intended to seek. Her father just sold it to her high-school sweetheart, the man who abandoned her many years ago for the army. The man who still makes her heart flutter. But Samantha has vowed to never be led astray again. She has a daughter.

WANTING

Despite being injured in action, Morgan Lawrence lives life to the fullest. Each day is a gift, and after five years he is finally one step away from opening a resort for wounded veterans like himself. Unfortunately, a woman stands in his way. And while she has changed, Samantha remains everything he’s ever wanted. Now it’s a matter of helping her see which promises are meant to be broken, and that being strong doesn’t mean one has to fight alone.

Chapter One

August

Hawkins Place, Ohio

Morgan Lawrence juggled the oranges and the bananas, along with the box of fruity rice cereal, milk, and chocolate syrup, as he made his way to the checkout line. He hummed along to the country music playing from the public announcement system. The smell of cologne and old lady’s perfume hung in the air, drifting through his senses with each pass of another body, and he grinned when Mrs. Harris with her blue hair gave him a wink and a hip check before heading down aisle six.

He wasn’t a recluse; he just liked some space and usually didn’t see the inside of the grocery store after seven a.m. or before ten p.m. But today, work had ended early and, desperate for food, he’d broken his usual habits.

When one more woman bumped into him, he forced a smile and got into the first open checkout line.

“Hi.” A small girl sat in a cart in front of him. She grinned with sweet, chocolate-covered lips and lifted her tightly clasped fist. “Doughnut!”

Her eyes were an amazing blue that reminded him of a northern summer sky when he’d been stationed at Fort Drum. She offered him the doughnut.

“No, thank you, miss,” he declined, as his bananas wobbled in the crook of his arm.

The cart moved several inches forward.

Oops.
He straightened, not realizing that he’d been crouched to the girl’s eye level, and smiled for the mother, quickly giving his attention to the magazine rack on his left.

But it wasn’t the magazines he saw.

The woman—graceful neck, toned arms, strong hands, and long fingers. Her dark hair, short and a little messy, made him want to run his hands through it. She had the same blue eyes as the daughter and was thin, way too thin for his liking, yet at the same time, seeing her punched him right in the gut, as if he should recognized her.

But he couldn’t quite place the face.

The wary, evil eye she sent his way made him scratch his chin to hide a grin. He hadn’t shaved in two days. He wore jeans with holes in the knees and an old Marlboro shirt that had turned gray and worn through.

He deserved the evil eye.

The woman was paying when he set his armload on the conveyer belt.

Morgan forced his attention to his own items when he really wanted to get one last look.

Woman with a kid!
Probably married.

Interesting though, he hadn’t bothered looking in a long time. Years.

“Bye!” The energetic and captivating voice forced him to look up, and he couldn’t help but smile and wave back at the chocolate-covered hand flapping frantically in his direction.

The mother gave him her back, officially blocking his communication with her daughter. He studied the rigid line of her spine and the slight sway of almost nonexistent hips and wished he’d gotten a better look at her face.

Something about her pulled at a part of him he thought he’d buried long ago.

* * *

Samantha pulled to a stop in front of the rundown, double-wide trailer on the west side of Hawkins Place, Ohio, and her heart sank. Same as it did every morning, every outing, every danged time she let her brain think.

One short month since she’d left Philadelphia to come home, and she still fought the urge to cry. This place was not what she’d had in mind for her little girl. But her father had failed to mention he’d sold their family home, the home she’d always thought would come to her some day. The home that had been in her mother’s family for almost a hundred years. The house had been her grandmother’s and then her mother’s…and it should have been hers.

Cancer had taken her mother. Had it taken her hope for a decent future as well? With only an old letter from her grandmother years ago, she doubted there was a legal leg for her to stand on. But she had to try, had to find out just how screwed she was…
From the frying pan into the fire
.

Still, living with her father was affordable, and for that, at least, she could be thankful.

Olivia had fallen asleep in her car seat so Sam left her there while she loaded her arms with bags and carried them into the small kitchen. A line of beer bottles glared at her from the windowsill above the sink. Dirty dishes from her dad’s breakfast waited on the counter to be washed.

She’d agreed to take on some household duties to live here rent-free. Dishes were a small thing, but after her trip to the store, in which Olivia would not shut up until she’d gotten a doughnut and nothing she’d needed seemed to be on the shelves—
who didn’t have macaroni and cheese?—
she wished for a fantasy to hide in. A resort where the sun was always shining and pool boys served pretty drinks with umbrellas.

She stepped back outside and the warm air embraced her. Taking a deep breath, she let the scent of the milled wood that wafted up from the river ease her mind. If she was completely honest, there was only one reason to be as bent out of shape as she was right now.

Morgan Lawrence hadn’t even recognized her. He’d looked good, darn good, too good even. She’d expected he would have put on a bunch of weight. But no, that would be asking too much. He was trim as usual, not tall, just a few inches or so over her five six. He hadn’t seen a razor lately, but instead of looking unkempt and disorderly, he’d looked rugged and handsome. His forearms had bulged slightly from the pushed-up thermal sleeves he’d had on under the rattiest-looking shirt ever.

And he’d smiled at Olivia and distracted her daughter from the multitude of sweet attractions that were bound to grab her attention in the checkout line. Without trying, he’d earned a few bonus points.

He’d always been good at earning those points. His allure—and downright sexual appeal—had won her over years ago, and even after all this time, she’d never quite evicted him completely from her heart.
Annoying
.

Before opening the side door of the car, she peered into the glass. Had she really changed that much? She saw the same girl in the reflection, only this one had more baggage than the one Morgan had known. Maybe she was thinner and her hair was definitely shorter, but jeez…she would recognize herself.

Sam unbuckled and picked up her precious cargo, who snuggled against her shoulder, smacking her lips a few times before settling down. The best thing that had happened to her. She wanted to regret her marriage, but it was useless…because without it, she wouldn’t have her daughter.

As Olivia napped through midday, Sam straightened up the small home, throwing beer cans into the recycler and emptying ashtrays.

She finally sat down after an hour and opened her laptop. She really needed to find a job. She was a teacher and her choices were slim in such a small town. There was the public high school, a small Catholic school, and the McGarry Charter School.

With a tap on the flat surface of her laptop, she opened the teachers’ portal online and signed up to substitute. There were instructions on what to do, who to see, and what kind of paperwork needed to be done. She bookmarked the page so she could go to the library and print it out. It was her best bet for the time being, and it eased her mind to have it done.

“Sammy,” her dad hollered for her as he came through the front door.

She winced.
Why did he keep calling her that?

Olivia stirred in the Port crib that sat in the corner of the living room, the end to Sam’s productivity for the time being. She sighed. “You don’t have to yell.”

Even if he spoke in a normal tone of voice, the walls were so thin the neighbors on the other side of the street could probably hear them. She missed the privacy of having a house, the home she’d grown up in. The house that had been a part of her family for three generations.

But he’d sold it and bought this fire trap.

She knew people considered him the town drunk, and she’d had her moments of unrest over the issue, but at least growing up she’d lived on Hollister land.

This…well, living like this was unforgivable, which was why she needed a job. Olivia would not be raised in the town’s only trailer park.

Her dad came in to the kitchen and headed for the fridge to get a beer. He pulled the tab and took a long swig. He’d always been strong. Now he looked as if a gust of wind might knock him over. His slim fingers wrapped around the can. His hair was too long and his clothes had seen better days.

Scratching behind her ear, Sam watched. Love warred with disgust. “Have you had any lunch yet?”

He frowned. “Ain’t none of your business.”

“I could make you something, Dad. That’s all.”

He hesitated, and she could tell he was embarrassed by his outburst only slightly more than her offer to serve him. “I’ll get it,” he finally answered.

“I was thinking of driving over to the old house.” Just to look, she told herself, which wasn’t a lie, exactly. She toyed with the idea of convincing the buyer to sell again. When she got a job, she could get a mortgage. The house had been standing for over one hundred and fifty years. Her family had received a few grants from the historical society for upkeep because of its significance to the town. Long ago, before her great-great grandmother had bought the place, it had been part of the Underground Railroad.

The property, twenty-three acres with a creek running through it, was twenty-three acres of freedom she’d craved after five years of living in the city.

Philadelphia, no less. She shivered.
Yuck.

“Sammy May,” her dad said, with a stomp of his foot against the linoleum. “Pay attention.”

“Sorry, Dad.” She cleared the daydreams. “What did you say?”

A tremor wracked his hand as he put together a ham sandwich. He eyed her pointedly. “You stay away from there. It’s gone to us and no one wants you being a nuisance and getting in the way. It’s gone, I tell you.”

“It wouldn’t be gone if you hadn’t sold it.”

He slapped the sandwich onto his plate. “Now, that’s where you’re wrong. I would have lost everything if I’d held onto it like some sentimental ninny without a thought for practicality. I was up to my eyeballs in debt.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

“How do you think you were able to go to that fancy college after your mom died? You think money just grows on trees?”

“Let’s not forget to mention your drinking while we’re at it, Dad. And what about that truck sitting out back? How much did you pay for that?”

“That’s for work,” he argued. “And I didn’t pay a damn thing. I got it with the money from the house.”

She couldn’t talk about the house, her house. Lisa hadn’t been too optimistic about her options. When her mom died, leaving her dad the beneficiary, Sam might have lost all rights to it. She wasn’t done looking into it, but for the moment, she was done fighting with her dad over it.

She focused on the delusion. “Work? What work?”

“Times are tough on everyone right now. Business is slow, but it’ll pick up.”

Finally awake, Olivia cried from her crib in the living room. Sam’s dad went over and picked her up, cooed at her a few times before bringing her back into the kitchen. The open floor plan had been a little rough with Olivia needing somewhere quiet to sleep.

The urge to argue with him, the same argument every time, came from exasperation
and
concern. Why couldn’t he see that things would never turn around if he didn’t change?

Olivia was heavy with her dirty diaper so Sam took her and crossed the living room to the bedroom. She wondered how life had gotten so out of control. She looked back. “Dad.”

He lifted his gaze to her, surprising her with the remorse in his eyes.

“I’ve got a few interviews in the next couple of weeks. Would you mind watching Olivia? Just for a little while, an hour or so. It’s okay if you can’t, but…I thought you might like to, and I could save a few dollars if—”

“Course I’ll watch my grandbaby.” He scowled. “I raised you, didn’t I?”

She chuckled. “Yeah, you did.”

He’d done an okay job, too.

It was after she’d left for college and she’d been on her own that things had gotten so messed up.

* * *

Later that night, Sam donned her jeans, a t-shirt, and sweatshirt without turning the light on. Creeping down the hallway, she paused outside her dad’s door to listen for his familiar snore. Long and steady. Down for the count, he used to say about her.

Dad and Olivia both slept—had been sleeping for hours. Sometimes it seemed that night was her only alone time. Maybe it was her father’s danged snoring, but Olivia had slept like a charm since their arrival. Yesterday Sam had found the two of them curled up on the couch together, softening her heart as she remembered doing the same when she was just a small girl.

She really needed to keep in mind the good memories.

Sam tiptoed past the crib in the living room and stood in the kitchen with a pounding heart. If what her dad said was right, the house she grew up in was being renovated. She could be there and back within an hour. Hell, she could walk if she wanted, it was so close. She tucked her hands absentmindedly into the pocket of her sweatshirt and sat at the table.