“What? Why? So you can live vicariously through me?” she mocked. “Because you don’t have enough action on that front.”
“Not with billionaire businessmen, I don’t. You need to do this for all the women out there who read those kinds of romances, Sam. You owe your fellow sisters.”
“Or just you? Because you’re the only one I’d be sharing the details with, right?”
Jessica grinned. “Yes. All the details.”
Rolling her eyes, Samantha jabbed the air in front of her. “You’re salacious. You know that, right?”
“And you love me for it.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe.”
Chapter 14
Samantha
Singing, Samantha flipped the pierogis in the butter-soaked skillet. When they were nice and crisp, she danced a little to the tune in her head as she put them on a plate beside a dish of homemade tomato chutney.
The little meat pastries were one of Erin’s favorite snacks and considering she overdosed the entire thing with more vegetables than a vegetarian would be able to stomach, she liked him eating them.
She didn’t work, and she felt pretty useless for it. Like she was letting womankind down, but the truth was, she didn’t have to work. Besides she didn’t have any qualifications, as after her marriage, Jamie had insisted she drop out of community college to be his wife—a full-time job, according to him—and she had enough money to see to her needs because of Erin’s trust fund.
It would be wasteful to get a job when someone else who really needed it could miss out on the position.
She’d always argued that, anyway. To herself. But lately, cooking all these great meals for Erin, and keeping house, it just didn’t feel like enough. That was why she’d started turbocharging everything.
The backyard was now planted with veggies and a herb garden—she couldn’t wait to use her own produce, no matter how minuscule the yield was. She’d even started making her own bread and pasta from scratch…. But it wasn’t enough.
She just hadn’t figured out what enough was.
“Erin! Your snack’s ready!”
Little feet clambered up and pounded down the hall. She laughed as he rushed into the kitchen, braked to a halt at her side, then tugged at her skirt. “Guess what!”
“What?” she asked, cocking a brow at him as she ran a hand through his mop of curls.
“Uncle Josh is here.”
She scowled. “What?”
“He’s here. I saw his big car in the drive.”
Josh was here?
Clearing her throat, she passed Erin the small dish and said, “Go sit at the table and eat your snack.”
He pouted. “Can’t I say hi to Uncle Josh?”
“Of course you can. When I bring him through,” she warned, knowing her newly ebullient son’s need to get his nose into everything—he’d really taken to playgroup and, thank goodness, had come out of his shell.
She was taking it as a very positive sign.
“Now, you get started,” she told him, “I’ll bring him through soon.”
Erin huffed out a breath but grabbed the dish and plunked it on the table before he heaved himself up into his seat. When he started to eat, she watched him a second, grimaced at just how much tomato chutney he managed to get over the table without even trying, then the doorbell rang and her thoughts of getting chutney out of the tablecloth disappeared.
Nerves tumbled through her system for a second, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling when Erin perked up. “Told you.”