A Better Father (Harlequin Super Romance) (15 page)

“Oh, crap. I managed to forget that one.” Libby shuddered at
the memory of the way the girl had collapsed on the office sofa, sobbing out her
need to see a doctor right away! Now! Because, oh, dear God, her hair was
falling out! By the handful!

She narrowed her eyes at Phoebe. “You know, we never did find
out how that hair removal cream ended up on her head.”

“You think I did that? To my best friend? Just because she was
flipping out over some idiot boy back home and she maybe needed a reality check?
Nah. I would never pull a stunt like that.”

“Right. From now on, as long as you and I share a cabin, I’m
sleeping with a guard dog.”

“I thought you already had your own personal defenseman for
that job.”

It took a moment for the implication to sink in. “Phoebe, I’m
sure you all had a lovely time wondering what happened beneath the raft, but
here’s a message for you and everyone else on the staff. There is nothing
between me and Sam. Nothing. Furthermore, there never will be.”

“That’s not how Cosmo tells it.”

Cosmo. The one person who had been around even longer than she
had. Of course she should have expected him to talk. “Cosmo is remembering back
to a time long ago, in the proverbial galaxy far, far away, when Sam and I were
as silly as—as—as Tanya is now.”

“Long ago, huh?” Phoebe pursed her lips and whistled the
opening notes of “A Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe.”

“Okay, that’s enough. I’ve had it up to here with everyone
fixating on that song. What’s the story?”

“Oh, come on, Libby. You must have seen it.”

“Seen what?”

Phoebe’s grin faded in wattage, though not in width. “You
really don’t know?”

“Clueless. And you know how much I hate not knowing what’s
going on in my own camp.”

“I thought it was Sam’s camp,” Phoebe said, then took a step
back at Libby’s glare. “Okay. Yesterday morning, somebody put a note up on the
staff bulletin board with a new version of that song. But instead of the little
canoe, it was a boy and a girl and a hideaway raft.”

“Holy—”

“It wasn’t me. I swear.”

“You know,” Libby said slowly, “I don’t really care who did it.
And I’m not surprised. If I saw two adults emerging from the raft together, I’d
be making jokes, too.”

“I think there’s a hell of a
but
on
the horizon.”

“A
but
...no. It’s an
aha.
Like that explains why Tanya has been shooting
daggers at me the last couple of days.” Another incident shifted in her memory.
“And those valentine hearts I found on the office door yesterday.”

“Hearts?”

“With lace and everything. I thought one of the little girls
must have made it in the craft hut, but now I think someone else was behind
it.”

Phoebe groaned. “You’re gonna tell us we have too much free
time and find more chores for us to do now, aren’t you?”

“Hmm. That’s a good idea. I hadn’t been thinking along those
lines, but now that you mention it, maybe I should have all the counselors help
haul those rocks you want moved from the waterfront.”

“I have a better idea. Why don’t you just move into Myra’s old
house with Sam so we can all stop wondering?”

Libby came as close as she ever had to telling a staff member
exactly what she could do with her suggestion, but sanity intervened in the nick
of time. It was good that Phoebe was saying these things, she reminded herself,
because how else would she know about them? And wasn’t it a testament to the
trust Phoebe had in her that she felt comfortable enough to say such things to
Libby without fear of reprisal?

Forget those tabloids Dani wrote for. For real intrigue and
slander, all anyone had to do was listen in on a conversation between any two
Overlook counselors.

“Make you a deal,” she said tightly. “You drop a few hints to
Tanya that she’s a bit old to be making puppy-dog eyes at the boss, and I will
let you both keep your days off for the rest of the summer. How’s that sound to
you?”

“Simple. I like it.” If Phoebe’s head nodded any faster, it
could spin into its own galaxy.

“Good. See you later.” Libby patted Phoebe’s shoulder and
headed back into the dining hall. On the way she passed Tanya, who subjected her
to a wide-eyed tragic glare before lifting her chin and sailing dramatically
toward the craft hut.

Great. Just great. Libby debated stopping her for about half a
second, then decided against it. Tanya wasn’t about to listen to her. The
message would be far more effective coming from Phoebe. Besides, the girl was
merely a symptom.

It was time to deal with the cause.

* * *

S
AM
WAS
PREPARED
for Libby to get pissed off when she realized he’d tricked
her into talking to him alone. But when she walked in with her eyes blazing, he
felt as discombobulated as he had when Cosmo already knew about his plan. Was
the whole freakin’ world a step ahead of him today?

“Problem?” he asked, when she drew close to the table he’d
staked out in the back corner. Whatever was behind her glower, he hoped to hell
it wasn’t him.

“Yeah. A couple of them.” She paused in front of the table as
if debating. Then, to his surprise, she boosted herself up beside him, resting
her feet on the bench below.

“Well, well, well, Miss Kovak. Do you know how many campers
would howl in delight if they saw you parking your heinie on the tabletop?”

“Right now I’m more concerned with other places they think I’ve
been parking it. Though I guess it’s the staff more than the kids.”

He looked at her, at those lush lips pursed somewhat with her
apparent disapproval, and wondered what would happen if he were to trap her chin
in his hand and slide his other arm across her back and—

He wanted to kiss her. Some parts of him wouldn’t mind doing a
whole lot more than that, to be honest, but his upper brain still had a stake in
this, so he would settle for kissing, at least for the moment. He’d been so
close beneath the raft.... So cold-shower, still-haunting-his-dreams
close...

But there was more at stake here than just a kiss. Or two. She
was working her magic on him again, and he owed her big-time, and he had no
business whatsoever thinking about kissing anyone who was his employee.
Especially when every time he looked at her with Casey, the doubts started up
again.

“So what’s up with Cosmo?” She glanced toward the kitchen.

“Uh—actually, Lib, I kind of made that up to get you to talk to
me. See, there was this song—”

“The one on the bulletin board? About you and me? Yes. I
know.”

Point for Libby.

“Oh. Well, I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t think you would
appreciate hearing about it with a dozen or so other folks hanging around, but
since you’ve been kind of avoiding me, I—”

Her shoulders drooped as she let out a long sigh. “And here I
thought I was being so subtle.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re right. I have been running away. Not because
I’m scared of being with you,” she added, pulling herself upright and sending
him a sideways glance that had him sitting straighter, too. She did it so well
that he almost believed her. “But I knew there would be—speculation—about us
after the raft. I thought that if we were never alone together, that might nip
the talk in the bud. Guess I was wrong.”

This definitely wasn’t the time to tell her that if conditions
were different and he wasn’t so damned unsure, they’d be giving folks more
material to discuss, not less.

She leaned back on the table, bracing her hands behind her.
Casual. Relaxed. No way could she know that sitting like that made certain parts
of her anatomy curve into prominence in both her profile and his
imagination.

Could she?

He shifted a bit farther down the table and kept his gaze
firmly focused on the massive stone fireplace.

“Avoiding you didn’t do anything except possibly make us look
guiltier,” she said. “And it was kind of inconvenient.”

“True.”

“So, I guess we should return to regular, everyday life. If we
carry on as normal and show people that nothing’s going on, well, that should
stop the talk faster than if we go to great lengths to disprove it. And,” she
added thoughtfully, “it might help with the Tanya problem.”

“What Tanya problem?”

The glance she shot his way was pure
oh,
please.

“You honestly expect me to believe you don’t know she has a
crush on you?”

Ah, crap. “I had a feeling. Hoped I was wrong.”

“Yeah, well, even you get it right on occasion.” She softened
the words with a friendly pat on his knee. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

As if she realized what she’d done, she froze, blanched and
jerked her hand back. Not soon enough, though. Not before his pulse jumped and
his breath caught and he leaned forward, ready to grab her hand and wrist and
anything else she would allow, doubts be damned.

“I’d better—” she began, and scooted partway off the table.

But he couldn’t let her go. Not yet. Instead, he blurted out
the first words that came to mind.

“I know you told Myra you would stay on for the summer, but
Lib, I want you to think about keeping the job for real.”

She stopped with her bum firmly on the bench, then tilted her
face up to him. Which would have been encouraging if she hadn’t pushed herself
backward at the same time, increasing the distance between them.

“Hang on. How did we get from people spreading rumors to
talking about Tanya to talking about my job?”

He shrugged and stuck as close to the truth as possible. “I
don’t know. It’s been on my mind for a while now, and this seemed like a good
time to say it.”

“But I...” She reached out and rubbed one finger along a scar
in the wooden planks, then flattened her palm over it. “I don’t know,” she said
without meeting his gaze. “Can I think it over?”

He shouldn’t be unhappy that she hadn’t jumped at his offer. It
wasn’t as if he’d given her any warning.

“Sure. Take all the time you need. It’s yours as long as you
want it, Lib.”

She seemed on the verge of asking something else, given the way
she glanced up at him, but then his phone buzzed. He grabbed it from his pocket
and checked the display.

Sharon.

He cursed softly and shoved the phone back into the depths,
hoping Libby hadn’t seen the name. But when he looked her way, she had twisted
away from him again to examine the fireplace on the far wall. He wondered if she
was pondering the thought tickling the back of his mind: What would happen
between them if she stayed?

“It does mean a lot to me,” she said softly. “The camp, that
is.”

He nodded and waited, forcing patience he didn’t feel. There
was more coming. He was sure of it.

“Can I—” She twisted round, facing him, another hint of pink
rising in her cheeks. “May I ask you something personal?”

Casey.
“Depends what it is.”

“Do you miss playing hockey?”

It was so far from what he’d been expecting that all he could
do was repeat the question like an overgrown parrot. “Do I miss hockey?”

She nodded and leaned forward as if to soak up his every
word.

“I— Well, yeah. Sure. Not all the time, and not the way I
thought I would.” Back when he thought he’d retire when he was ready, not when
life had twisted to hurry the process along.

“I’m glad I’m not missing out on Casey’s life anymore,” he said
slowly. “I don’t miss being on the road all the time, or waking up hurting so
bad that I didn’t know if I could get out of bed. But yeah. I miss the guys. And
the fans. And—”

“And what?” she asked softly.

“And— I don’t know. There were times, out on the ice, when the
game was going right and I was skating full-out, and the crowd was on our
side.... It was like— I don’t know. Like I was flying. Sailing away from
everything. Just...flying.” He shrugged. “Does that make any sense?”

“I think so.” She gave a sad little grin. “Though I wouldn’t
know for sure, since I’ve never flown.”

He looked at her then, letting himself drink in the sight of
her full lips and her wondering eyes and the curves that started at her neck and
moved down, teasing him, tempting him, and thought,
Ah,
Libby, there are so many ways to fly
....

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
T
WAS
THE
FIRST
T
HURSDAY
of the second
session, and Sam was in a whistling kind of mood as he walked away from the
campfire. One hand cradled a sleepy Casey against his shoulder, the other
ruffled young Mick’s hair, and his heart was full of “Kum Ba Yah.” Three weeks
down, and he finally felt as though he was getting a handle on this new way of
life. Not completely. Hell, no. And he developed a serious case of the jitters
every time he thought about next week’s home visit from the social worker.

But overall, life was good. Casey was in love with Mrs.
Collins, and had settled into his new routine and new home so completely that
Sam was cautiously optimistic he really had done the right thing for his little
boy. He himself had found his own rhythm at camp, Sharon hadn’t called in a
couple of days and Libby—

Okay, so Libby was still keeping distance between them. Not
enough to make it appear she was avoiding him, but he could feel it all the
same. It wasn’t an angry kind of distance, though. More like she was watching
him. Waiting for...something.

Though maybe that was just him, studying her for similarities
to Robin, doing a little cheer every time he spotted a difference—of which there
were plenty. Robin might have reminded him of the Libby of his youth, but the
adult Libby had evolved in ways he could never have anticipated. The physical
resemblance was undeniable, true. But he was starting to see that even if some
surface similarities had drawn him to Robin in the first place, their
relationship had developed so slowly and stayed so mellow that he knew it was
nothing like what he’d had with Libby back in the day. He and Robin had shared a
solid friendship with convenient benefits. It had never been that easy with
Libby.

The thing was, Sam would never have achieved the things he had
if he’d been drawn to the easy path.

He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky, drinking in
the stars crowding the blackness from the clear night. The moon was full and
smiling. Maybe he could convince Libby to sit on his front porch for a while and
talk over her future at the camp. And if, along the way, they ended up as close
as they’d been beneath the raft, well...

“Hey, Sam.” Mick’s voice cut through both the darkness and his
thoughts. “What was that?” He pointed to the sky.

Sam squinted in the direction of the boy’s finger, searching
the sparkles. “I don’t see anything, buddy.”

“Something moved. Up there. It almost looked like a
firecracker. Look, there’s another one.”

A long-buried memory rose to the surface. “It’s probably
shooting stars. Maybe a meteor shower. I know there’s one every summer, but I
can’t remember what it’s called. Or when it actually—”

A high-pitched scream ripped through the night. There was
nothing playful about it. Nor was it a child’s shriek when something went bump
in the night.

It was the scream of a grown woman.

Sam shoved Casey into Mick’s arms, ignoring the sleepy wail,
and pushed Mick toward the buildings. “Go to the dining hall,” he ordered the
boy. “Take Casey. Get in there and stay put.”

“But—”

“
Now,
Mick!”

Sam watched only long enough to ensure the boy was running in
the right direction, then raced flat out toward the source of the screams,
pushing through a crowd of counselors herding kids to safety. The closer he got
to the source of the commotion, the harder his heart thumped, and not from
exertion. The scream had come from Libby’s cabin.

Please let her be okay. God, please let
her be okay
....

He was almost there when a second wave of uneasiness reached
him. This one had nothing to do with his hearing.

“Oh, crap!” He yanked his T-shirt up over his nose and mouth as
the unmistakable stench of skunk rolled over him.

Trying to breathe through his mouth, he pushed his way through
the wall of campers. He shouted a few instructions for everyone to get to the
dining hall and close the windows. He doubted that anyone heard him. Nor did he
really care. He was simply marking time until he found—

Libby.

She walked slowly away from her cabin, her arms around a
sobbing Tanya’s shoulders. The relief when he spotted her left Sam momentarily
unable to move. He felt almost light-headed, but then, that was probably just
the skunk. After a couple of breaths that were too deep for comfort, he hurried
to join them.

“Send a critter off the deep end, Tanya?” He patted her arm,
firm and bracing, but couldn’t stop his other hand from settling at the center
of Libby’s back. He wasn’t trying anything. He just had to touch her. To make
sure she was fine.

“Tanya got a little surprise when she walked into our cabin,”
Libby said. “So did the skunk that was hanging around the door.”

“By your cabin? Why would it be hanging out there?”

“I have no idea.” Libby sounded unutterably weary, but still
she urged Tanya forward. The only indication that she was bothered by the smell
was the tears running down her cheeks.

“Is it still around?”

Tanya hiccuped. “No. It took off into the woods. Oh, Sam, it
was awful!”

With no warning, she lurched out of Libby’s embrace and into
his. His arms closed around her automatically. Being Brynn’s brother had given
him plenty of experience with hysterical females. He patted her back and made
“there, there” noises on autopilot while wishing Libby was the one throwing
herself at him—and from a very different kind of need.

Unfortunately, the lady in question was currently frowning at
him as if he were personally responsible for the perfume in the air.

“Here.” She grasped Tanya’s arm and pulled her away from him,
though not with the tenderness he would have expected. “I’ll take care of Tanya.
Why don’t you close the cabin windows? We can try to keep some of the smell
outside.”

She wanted him to get closer to that stench? Sam groaned inside
even as he sprinted forward. The sooner he dealt with the windows, the sooner he
could get away from the cabin and into the shower. Or would he need a tub of
tomato juice?

He wrestled with the heavy wooden shutters as fast as possible,
rewarding himself when the stench grew too bad by imagining him and Libby
lathering each other head to toe with fluffy suds that smelled sweet and covered
little.

By the time he finished, Libby had guided Tanya out of the
wooded cabin area and onto the open space by the flagpole. Dim light spilled out
of the adjacent dining hall. Tanya sat on the grass, still sniffling to Phoebe
and one of the other counselors. Libby and her clipboard were issuing orders by
flashlight.

In other words, everyone was doing exactly what he would have
predicted.

“All set,” he reported when he reached Libby. “But we’ll have
to scrub it out tomorrow.”

“There’s a lot of things we’ll have to do tomorrow, but it’s
too late and too dark to even think of them. Right now we need to figure out
places for us to sleep.”

A suggestive comment now would be a very bad idea. “There’s
what, six of you in there?”

“Right. There’s two bunks open in the oldest girls’ cabin.
Phoebe and Tanya can go there. One with the twelve-year-old girls, we’ll send
Hannah there.”

“I’ll bunk in the infirmary,” said the nurse.

“Great. That’s three, right?”

“Four,” he said. “And I know you won’t like this, but since
it’s just for tonight, there’s two sofas in my living room.”

She rubbed her hand over her eyes and turned to the last
counselor. “In that case, Katie, you go with Tanya. Phoebe, you and I will take
the sofas.”

“Wait.” Tanya pushed to her feet. There was just enough light
from the dining hall and Libby’s flashlight to see the panic on her face. “Look,
the kids are going to be upset tonight because of this, and I’m not, you know,
up to looking after anyone else. I’ll take a sofa, and Phoebe can hang with
Katie.”

“Sounds reasona—
Oof.
” Sam’s breath
whooshed out as Libby’s elbow caught him in the stomach. He would have asked her
what the hell that was about, but she jumped in to talk before he quite got his
breath back.

“Call me heartless, Tanya, but I think the best thing for you
tonight would be to help someone else. It will keep you from dwelling on your
own distress.”

“But I—”

“Besides, Phoebe is a third-degree black belt, so we don’t have
to worry about Sam behaving inappropriately with her. Not that he would, but
tomorrow morning when I get a dozen phone calls from parents complaining about
the mixed-gender sleeping arrangements, I want every possible argument on my
side. I’m sure you can understand.”

Ah. The Tanya-crush thing. Of course.

For a moment Tanya seemed ready to protest. She hovered nearby
but when Libby turned her back to her, she huffed out an exasperated breath.

“Fine,” she said in a tight voice. “But I need a shower first.
And I can’t sleep in these, and all my stuff—” She gestured toward the path, the
cabin.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam said. “I’m sure between me and the
other guys, we can come up with extra T-shirts and things you could use for
tonight. You, too,” he added, looking significantly at Libby.

“That bad?”

The stench could easily replace tear gas, but he wasn’t about
to tell her. “You’ll probably feel better.”

“Okay.” She must be tired, for all the determination she was
pushing at Tanya seemed to disappear when she talked to him. It was almost
like—like she trusted him.

Sam took off toward the dining hall with a smile on his lips.
The camp smelled to high heaven and Tanya seemed ready to spit bullets, but
Libby had let him help. She almost, maybe, perhaps, trusted him.

It was kind of like seeing a shooting star.

* * *

H
E
WAS
SLEEPING
right above
her.

For what had to be the forty-third time that night, Libby
yawned and wriggled to turn from her back onto her stomach—no easy feat when
lying on a sofa. She punched her pillow and shifted her legs and tried to forget
that Sam was right upstairs, tried to resist the lure to roll onto her back and
stare up at the ceiling and imagine him stretched out above her.

She wasn’t having much luck.

Sleeping—rather,
trying
to sleep
here—had been one of her worst ideas yet. But the thought of a real shower in a
real house with real privacy had been her undoing. Phoebe hadn’t been exposed to
the smell, so she had sacked out while Libby lathered and rinsed and repeated
until she was sure she had drained every ounce from Sam’s hot water tank. Then
and only then did she dry herself with a velvety towel and slip into the
oversize hockey jersey and boxers that he had left out for her.

Thank God Sam had been nowhere in sight when she tiptoed out of
the bathroom. A fast glance in the mirror had showed her that the jersey clung
to her in a way she was pretty sure it had never fit Sam. Bad enough that she
was spending the night trying to banish the thought of how the silky fabric
would have felt against Sam’s skin. There was no need for both of them to lie
awake all night, wondering...

Oh, jeez. She punched the pillow, shifted onto her side and
curled up tight.

* * *

T
HE
DULL
SMACK
OF
FIST
against pillow drifted up the
stairs and through the open door of Sam’s bedroom. He pulled his own pillow over
his head and tried to block out Libby’s restless rustling. But he did take
perverse pleasure in knowing she was having just as much trouble with this
arrangement as he was. There would be hell to pay tomorrow when the kids were
faced with two sleep-deprived leaders, but for the moment, he smiled grimly at
the knowledge that he wasn’t alone in this agony.

And
agony
was about the only way to
describe it. He’d kept his eyes down and his head turned when he ushered Libby
into the bathroom, then made sure his door was hermetically sealed until he
heard her creep down the stairs. He knew he’d been too tired for the test of
strength he would have faced if he’d seen her in his faded old Ice Cats
gear.

Too bad he had a vivid imagination.

All through his own shower he had pictured, too clearly, the
way his shirt would hang on her; the way the neck would gape, offering a hint of
her warm, firm shoulders; the way the fabric would drape over her breasts; the
way it would hit at her upper thigh, so all a man had to do was wrap his hands
in the worn fabric and hike it up a couple of inches and then, God, then...

He rolled onto his stomach and groaned into the pillow. From
downstairs, he heard her stir again. He should close the door. He would. Except
the batteries in Casey’s baby monitor had died an hour ago, and he wasn’t going
to risk sleeping through the little guy’s morning cries. Not that there was much
chance of that with the way his night was going, but still....

A sigh of pure frustration echoed through the night. He
wondered if she was lying on her back. If the bed and boards between them were
to disappear right now—if some twist of fate sent him free-falling through the
air until he landed on her—would they be face-to-face? Would she shift to
accommodate him, slide her arms around him, open to him?

This wasn’t going to work.

He sat up and shoved his feet into flannel-lined slippers. He
would go downstairs. Grab some batteries from the kitchen. Come back up and fix
the frickin’ monitor and close his door against all those nocturnal sounds that
seemed to be on a direct path to his groin.

Though how he was supposed to walk past the living room, see
Libby warm and restless on his sofa, and then keep going, was beyond him.