“What do we have planned for today?”
She looked at him as she poured. “Wel , we were going to the Fireman’s Breakfast Feed this morning.”
“Oh.” The waffles popped up, and he quickly put them on the plates Conner had set on the counter. “Lucky you. Now you don’t have to go.” He put a little butter and syrup on both. “What else?” He handed the plate to Autumn, but she shook her head. Her hair fel across her shoulder.
“Kites.” She blew into the mug. “At some point, clam chowder at Paddie’s Perch.”
He carried his and Conner’s plates to a smal kitchen table. He wasn’t at al surprised she had everything planned out. In Vegas, she’d had a long list. Most of which she never got the chance to cross off. Thanks to him. He smiled at the memory. “What about building sand castles?”
“We don’t have the stuff.”
He cut into his waffle. “You do now.” Her gaze narrowed and he held up one hand. “I know the world does not revolve around me, but it was Conner’s idea to build a sand castle.”
“Like it was Conner’s idea to invite you to Thanksgiving dinner?”
He shoveled a waffle into his mouth and chewed. Yeah, kind of like that, but sand castles were so much better than kites. She raised the mug to her lips, then lowered it slowly. “Where did you get those clothes?”
He glanced down at his Chinooks T-shirt and jeans. “I brought a duffel.” He’d set out last night, spur-of-the-moment, sure, but he’d come prepared to stay. Prepared to figure out what it was about her. Now and five years ago that made him act like a kid again. Like he was thirteen, fantasizing about the girl down the street and riding by her house on his Haro Freestyler, just on the off chance he’d catch a glimpse of her. These days, he had a truck instead of a bike. He was a man not a kid. He liked to think he’d developed some skil with women. A little finesse. Maybe a little charm. That he didn’t have to hunt a woman down. Stalk her through the night.
Yeah, that was what he liked to think, but there he was, with Autumn in Moclips, feeling like he was a kid again. Uncertain and freestyling.
“I thought you just jumped up from Benihana and drove here,” she said.
She pursed her lips and blew into her mug, and his head got al twisted around with thoughts of what he’d like her to do with that mouth. Things he shouldn’t even think about so early in the morning but couldn’t help. “I may not have been an official Boy Scout, but I’m always prepared.” He looked at her and smiled around a bite of waffle, remembering her grabbing the condom from his hands and tearing it open with her teeth. “I always keep a duffel of stuff in the truck. Mostly to change at the Key.”
“Wel , Mr. Unofficial Boy Scout, I didn’t particularly want to dig around in the cold wet sand today.” She took a drink. “So I’l watch from the deck.”
“Can I have some juice, Mom?”
She moved to the refrigerator and opened the door. Sam’s gaze moved down her back and hips to her nice butt. “Do you want some, Sam?”
Oh yeah. “Yes, please.”
She poured the juice, and he purposely kept his gaze off her wiener dog as she moved toward them. She set the juice on the table, and his hand slid up the back of her thigh.
Her eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
“Eating my waffle,” Conner answered.
Sam didn’t know and dropped his hand. He hadn’t meant to touch her at al . It had just happened, like it was just a natural thing for him to do. Like they were a couple. A family, but of course, they weren’t either of those things.
Autumn was his son’s mother, but they weren’t family. She was hot and sexy and made him want more, but they weren’t lovers. She was the girl he thought about, but she wasn’t his girlfriend.
So what was she? To him.
It was fifty degrees, and a breeze blew Autumn’s hair across her face. She wore a heavy sweater, jeans, and Ugg boots as she lounged on a chaise above the beach. She was glad she wasn’t kneeling in the wet sand digging with little plastic shovels. Flying a kite had made much more sense, but she had to admit that there was a little piece of her that was glad she wasn’t down on the beach, holding a kite and getting chapped lips. Up close to the house, the wind was a bit calmer.
She lowered the Bride magazine she held in her hands and peered over the top at Conner and Sam. They’d been at it for a couple of hours. Longer than she would have thought they’d last. From where she sat, the castle looked like a pile of sand with a moat. Mixed with the sound of the ocean and seabirds, snatches of their voices came to her on the breeze. Conner’s childish giggles blended with Sam’s much deeper laughter. More than his charm or the lust in his blue eyes or the touch of his hands on her aching body, or just the pure beauty of Sam, seeing those two blond heads bent together over a pile of wet sand, pinched one corner of her heart. She was in no danger of fal ing in love with Sam. She’d been there, done that, learned the lesson the hard way. But she might be in danger of liking him, and liking him was scary.
It had been two months since the Savage wedding and the afternoon Sam had brought Con
ner home late. Two months since Sam had become more involved in Conner’s life. Somehow that had translated into Sam’s being in her life more. So much so that she’d ended her more-than-five-year sexual drought with him on the entry-room floor last night.
She wasn’t proud of herself, but not as appal ed as she should be either. Like she’d told him last night, she was mostly embarrassed. And confused that she’d given it up with the one man on the planet that she’d sworn she’d never let touch her again. She was stil confused about why he’d shown up at her door last night. Why she’d let him in and why he was stil there.
“Hey, Mom,” Conner cal ed as he ran up the path toward her. “Come see the castle.”
She set her magazine aside; she had known it was only a matter of time before Conner made her look at his castle. She stood and moved down the steps toward him. He met her in the middle of the tal grassy path and she cupped her hands over his red ears. “You’re cold. Don’t you want to go in now?”