Читать книгу Suddenly Family - Christine Flynn, Christine Flynn, Mary J. Forbes - Страница 9

Something about her seemed familiar.

The thought distracted Sam Edwards from his phone call as the slender, almost waif-like woman in baggy bib overalls walked through the flight office door. Maybe it was the hair, he thought. A riot of deep-auburn curls tumbled down her back, practically begging to be free of their restraining clip. Or maybe it was the delicate line of her profile.

Definitely familiar, he thought, giving her a nod to let her know he’d be right with her. He just didn’t have time to figure out where he’d seen her before with his mother’s voice buzzing in his ear.

“You don’t need another housekeeper,” Beth Edwards informed him over 130 miles of telephone line. “You need a mother for these babies. If you won’t move back to Seattle so your father and I can help you, then at least think about finding a nice young lady to marry and help you raise them.”

His hand tightened on the phone. Turning his back to the woman who was glancing from her watch to the large aerial map on the wall, he kept his voice calm. “I don’t want another wife. I just need another baby-sitter. Preferably one who can clean house and cook.”

“Children need stability, Sam.”

“That’s what I’m trying to give them.”

“Well, I don’t see how hiring another stranger to take care of them is going to do that,” she returned with a sigh. “Jason is far too quiet for a six-year-old. I don’t think he’s said more than a dozen words to me and your dad since you dropped him and Jenny off here last night. And Jenny,” she continued, speaking of her four-year-old granddaughter, “that precious child is going to need braces if she doesn’t stop sucking her thumb. She should have been broken of that habit long before now.”

Sam didn’t for a moment doubt his mom’s concern or her caring. He knew she meant well. He knew she had only her grandchildren’s best interests at heart. But the last thing he needed from her or anyone else was to be told what his kids’ problems were. There wasn’t a soul on the planet more aware of those problems than he was.

He also knew that in another ten seconds his mom would launch into her lecture about how he spent too many hours away from his children, especially in the summer when the demands of the air charter business he and his partner owned claimed so much of his time.

He was doing the best he could. His best was all he could do.

Swallowing his frustration with life in general and his mother in particular, he lowered his voice another notch. “I can’t talk about this right now.” He wasn’t about to respond to her suggestions with a stranger pacing the polish off the floor behind him. “I have four fishermen outside waiting for me to fly them to Ketchikan and someone else just came in.

“No, I’m not avoiding the subject,” he insisted, forcing calm. “I’m just going to do what I said I’d do and find another housekeeper. Give the kids a hug for me, okay? I’ll call them when I get back tonight.”

He swore he could feel his mother’s displeasure vibrate through the line when she said she’d be glad to give the kids a hug and reluctantly said goodbye. Trying to get Beth Edwards to let go of an idea was like trying to part a rat terrier from a fresh bone. She simply refused to let go. Especially when she thought she knew what was best for those she cared about. His mom had been at him to move back to Seattle since his wife died three years ago. The suggestion that he marry again, however, was one she hadn’t sprung on him before.

The thought of moving his kids from the only home they’d ever known put a knot the size of a fist in his gut. As for finding another wife, the idea was incomprehensible. He couldn’t imagine ever again having what he and Tina had shared.

He dropped the receiver in its cradle. Masking a wealth of frustration, he glanced at the woman studying the huge map of the northwestern U.S. and Canada covering the wall. Her anxious glance focused on the red You Are Here arrow in the middle of Puget Sound.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

T.J. Walker took another cautious glance at the gaping expanses of water between the dots of land on the map and stepped closer to the long counter that bisected the small, utilitarian room. Mail and packages formed small towers inside the open door to the airplane hangar. The scent of industrial-strength coffee mingled with a hint of aviation fuel and the fresh sea air that filtered in from outside.

Her attention narrowed on the man behind the long expanse of gray Formica.

Sam Edwards was tall, remarkably built and undeniably impressive—in a rugged, commanding sort of way. His hair was short and dark, a color the same rich shade as that of the sables that had terrorized her baby deer until she’d trapped and moved them to the other end of the island. But it was the eyes beneath the dark slash of brow that caused her a split second of hesitation. They were a sharp, biting blue, as intense and clear as an Arctic summer sky.

From what she had heard, she was probably the only single female on Harbor Island who hadn’t shown up at his door at one time or another with a casserole and an invitation to call her sometime. Not that she would ever do such a thing. Even if she were in the market for a man—which she definitely was not—she’d been brushed aside too many times in her life to willingly seek rejection.

“I think so,” she finally replied. “Hope so,” she was quick to amend.

“I know you.” Those incredible eyes narrowed on her face. “You’re from around here.”

“From down the road a couple of miles, actually.” Anxious to get to the reason she was there, she offered a quick, easy smile. “I ship my pottery from here, and we’ve seen each other at the preschool. My son is the same age as yours. Andy Walker?” she prompted. “And I work part-time at Bert and Libby Bender’s bookstore.”

Everyone knew the elderly Bert and Libby Bender. Everyone but this guy, it seemed. The nod he gave her was vague, more expected response than actual recognition.

It was apparently her pottery that nudged his memory. “I didn’t recognize you without your packages. So,” he prompted, his smile polite, his manner all business, “what do you need?”

“Flying lessons,” she replied, voicing the idea that had occurred to her less than an hour ago. “Actually, I need to know what you charge for them, first. And how long they take. If I can’t learn in a few weeks, or if they’re too expensive, my idea won’t work.”

The lady had a plan. One that had her looking both uncertain and more than a little animated. Still trying to shift gears between the call from his mom and needing to hurry because he had paying passengers outside, Sam didn’t bother to ask what that plan was. It was none of his business, anyway.

“Sorry,” he murmured, prioritizing. He needed his flight log, flight map and his sunglasses. He figured he should grab the bag of chips off the desk, too. He hadn’t had time for lunch. “We don’t give flying lessons here. To learn to fly you have to take ground school first.”

“Ground school?”

“Classroom instruction,” he clarified, rolling his flight map and stuffing it into a tube. “There isn’t a ground school on Harbor, but you might try the community college in Bellingham. I can look up the number for you, but that’s the best I can do to help.”

The man’s expression was one of total preoccupation. His tone remained polite but utterly final.

Undaunted by the fact that she barely had his attention, T.J. snagged the cap of his tube from the near end of the counter.

“I don’t want to take ground school. Not yet, anyway. All I want is to see if I can get a plane off the ground, fly it around and land it. There’s no sense wasting time taking ground school if I can’t do that, is there?”

Her odd logic had him looking up from his search. Taking advantage of his silence, she held out the cap. “Your sister said you’re a very patient man. That’s what I need. Someone with patience who can help me figure out if what I want is even possible.”

Sam’s forehead lowered, his eyebrows forming a single slash. The mention of his sister immediately canceled his concern about waiting passengers. “You know Lauren?”

“Sure. I run into her at my mom’s shop at least once a week.”

“Your mom’s shop?”

“The Herb Shoppe and Video Store,” she clarified. “My mom is Crystal Walker. She owns it.”

He knew the place. He and his kids were in there at least twice a week. “And she told you I was patient?”

“No. Lauren did.”

“That’s what I meant,” he muttered.

“Aren’t you?”

Patient? he thought. Once, maybe. Anymore, he wasn’t so sure. “What I mean,” he said, forcing the patience he was beginning to doubt, “is why would Lauren tell you something like that?”

“Because I called her as soon as I left Doc Jackson’s office to see if her husband could help me with the flying thing. She said Zach is really strapped for time right now because they’ve started Lamaze classes, but I should talk to you. She thought you’d make a better instructor, anyway, because you’re so…patient.”

Sam purposefully ignored what he considered extraneous information—the woman’s references to Doc Jackson, the local vet, and Zach McKendrick, his business partner and brother-in-law—and focused on the uncomfortable sensation brewing in his gut. For the past year, his little sister had been after him to get involved in something other than his children and his work. With the conversation with his mother still fresh in his mind, he had the sudden and uneasy feeling that his female relatives might have begun a campaign to find him a mate.

The thought had him taking a closer look at the woman he now recalled having seen at the preschool with her small son.

Her long, wildly curling hair was the color of mahogany licked by firelight. Hints of ruby and topaz shimmered in its depths. The green of her eyes was more a smoky moss than emerald. She wore no makeup on her flawless skin, and there was a willowy look about her slenderness that struck him as rather graceful in a coltish sort of way.

Yet there was nothing immediately striking about her—not with her natural and well-scrubbed looks. And definitely not dressed as she was in the loose overalls that hid nearly every potential curve. She downplayed every asset she had. But he didn’t doubt for a moment that any number of men would find her attractive. Beautiful, he supposed, his glance slipping over the ripe curve of her unadorned mouth. She just wasn’t the sort of petite blonde he’d always been attracted to himself. The delicate type his wife had been.

Not that he was looking for a woman, he reminded himself. Blond or otherwise.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

“I’ll pay you double.”

“Money isn’t the issue. I’m really not the man you’re looking for.”

Desperate for something to bargain with, she looked toward the telephone. “I’ll baby-sit your children.”

He opened his mouth, automatically prepared to decline. What came out was a disbelieving huff of air and a flat “You’re kidding.”

“No. No, I’m not,” she insisted, utterly determined to get him to agree. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation when I first came in. I wasn’t trying to listen,” she explained, looking as if she felt guilty, anyway. “But I heard you say you need to get another housekeeper. And I know how hard it’s been for you to keep help.”

“It hasn’t been that hard,” he muttered. Having gone through five housekeepers in the past three years might sound as if the problem rested with him, but that wasn’t the case at all. “There were reasons those women didn’t work out.”

“Oh, I know,” she assured him easily. “Your first one moved to be near her children, and I think you fired one because the kids didn’t like her. Two quit because your house is so remote, and they didn’t like being isolated all week. And I heard that the last one left because you weren’t interested in having her warm your bed. You wouldn’t have to worry about any of that with me,” she assured him, her beguiling eyes utterly sincere and steady on his. “Especially the sex part. I’m not going to bed with you.”

Sam wasn’t sure which threw him more. The way his stomach tightened as their eyes remained locked, the blunt way she’d just told him she wasn’t going to get naked with him or the casual way she proceeded to lay down her rules before he could even tell her he wasn’t interested.

“I know you’re looking for a live-in,” she told him, pushing her hands into the deep pockets of her pants. The tank top she wore was the same brown as the buttons on the sides of her overalls. It exposed the delicate line of her collarbone, the elegant line of taut, smoothly muscled arms. “I wouldn’t be able stay at your place, though. Or do your housework. I have other obligations during the day,” she explained, apparently referring to her son and her job at the bookstore. “But you can drop the children off at my house in the morning and they can come to mine after school until you find someone else.”

She tipped her head, a lock of her impossibly curly hair falling over her shoulder and curving against her small firm breast. “When are they coming back from your parents’ house?”

It wasn’t like Sam to be caught so completely off guard. As with any parent of two small children, his days inevitably unfolded around the unexpected. Then there was his job. Flying cargo and passengers in the unpredictable weather and rough geography of the San Juan Islands and the Alaskan panhandle pretty much demanded that he immediately adapt to the unforeseen. He was usually pretty good at it, too. The juggling aspects of it, anyway.

“Next week. The day after Labor Day,” he expanded, mentally shaking his head at both her proposal and her persistence.

“That’s when school starts.”

“Right. Look,” he muttered, needing to get a grip on the situation. “Thanks for your offer, but I really need a live-in. And I need her now. There are times when I’m late or when I can’t get back because of the weather. I never know when that might be.”

“It’s not an offer. It’s a proposition. Child care for flying lessons.”

Sam blinked at her undaunted expression. The woman was as tenacious as the barnacles clinging to the pilings of the float plane pier. “I said I don’t give them.”

“You could always make an exception,” she suggested ever so reasonably. “Besides, you don’t need to make up your mind right now. I’m sure you’ll want to check me out since you don’t really know me. I know your children, though. Your wife used to bring them to the bookstore. Your sister still does. Jason has always liked stories about anything with big teeth and claws. Jenny adores any cover with glitter on it, but The Little Mermaid is her favorite.”

Sam thought of the book atop the stack on his little girl’s nightstand. His sister had bought that very book for Jenny months ago and several other books since. But the story of the mermaid was what Jenny insisted he read to her nearly every night.

This woman knew his kids. She even remembered what they liked.

The breath he drew was long, low and vaguely reluctant. He wasn’t at all prepared to accept her impulsive proposal. He was, however, a practical, logical man who was somewhat desperately in need of child care.

Conceding that he might have been a little hasty in his dismissal, he made a mental note to ask around about her, stuffed his map tube under his arm and slipped his sunglasses in his pocket. “Let me think about it.”

Having everything but his lunch, he glanced at her across the counter. As dogged as she’d been, he expected her to be pleased. What he didn’t expect was the impact of her bright, easy smile.

“That’s fair enough,” she said and held out her hand across the beige Formica.

He automatically took it.

Her skin was soft, her nails short and unpolished. In his big hand hers looked as small and feminine as his daughter’s. But what struck him most was the warmth of her flesh against his as the pressure of their fingers increased in the businesslike handshake and the faintly erotic scent of wildflowers that lingered in the air when she turned a moment later and walked away.

With his focus on the baggy denim covering her hips, he heard the jingle of the bell and watched her slip out the door. Through the multipaned window, he saw her climb into the battered olive-green Jeep parked just outside.

Sam’s glance jerked to the black-rimmed clock above the water cooler. Realizing that he was now even later than he’d been five minutes ago, he headed for the door himself. He had no idea what to make of T.J. Walker’s energy, her off-the-wall proposition or the jolt of sensual heat he’d just felt. It had been over three years since he’d known the comfort of a woman’s body. He missed the softness. The feminine scents. He missed the feel of gentle curves and silken hair.

He didn’t at all appreciate T.J. Walker reminding him of that. The last thing he needed was to add that particular brand of frustration to all the rest.

Ruthlessly shoving aside the thought, he grabbed the mail sack and the bag of chips and strode toward the gleaming white Cessna parked near the hangar. Spotting their pilot, four fishermen rose from their coolers and hauled up their heavy backpacks.

He had a flight to concentrate on. He had people to tend to who were relying on him to get them safely to their destination. He wasn’t about to jeopardize anyone’s safety by being preoccupied.