A Better Father (Harlequin Super Romance) (20 page)

She wasn’t going to stay there, waiting for him. She’d waited
enough over the past dozen years. Making sure her walkie-talkie was secure on
her belt, she headed for the one place at camp where she could be pretty sure
Sam would never think to look for her: the pavilion.

As she walked down the hill, automatically checking in with
counselors and kids on her way, Libby replayed the weeks since Sam walked into
the office. The secrets. The laughter. The moments alone in the dark, when for a
brief period everything seemed to work. The flutters in her stomach all week
when she relived his kisses. The excitement that had gripped her after the
request for an interview, and then the crash when the mystery woman appeared and
she realized Sam was hiding even more from her than she’d thought.

Playing it all together, piece by piece, made it impossible to
dodge the truth any longer. And the truth she saw was a frightening prospect
indeed.

She was falling in love with Sam all over again.

She came out of the woods and into the clearing. The pavilion
rose from the ground like a tree from the forest floor, graceful and strong and
dappled green and brown and gray. Her breath caught at the way the structure
seemed to grow from the river on one side and the trees on the other. The ground
was still churned up and the fireplace was only half-complete, but it still
looked aged. Settled. She walked into the largest section and let it surround
her.

What was it Sam had said when she asked what would happen to
the pavilion if she left the camp? That the work would stop on it immediately.
That if she were to leave, it would stay unfinished. Abandoned. A permanent
reminder of what could have been.

“You idiot,” she whispered to the half-finished structure. “You
stupid, silly, forgetful, total dumb-ass idiotic—”

“Practicing your speech to me, Lib?”

She jerked and whirled around.

“How did you know I was here?”

“I saw you walking this way and followed you.” He moved swiftly
into the space, dodging toolboxes to stand before her. He clutched a baseball
cap in his hand and it gave him an earnest, almost shy look. She longed to tug
it away from him and demand an explanation and then kiss him until there were no
brain cells left to carry on a conversation.

And that scared her most of all.

“We need to talk,” she said.

He nodded and stepped toward her. She stepped back.

“That woman—” he began, but she raised a hand to stop him.

“Let me go first. It will simplify things all around.”

“Lib—”

“Please, Sam. Just let me say it.”

He opened his mouth.

“Please.”

He shook his head but clamped his lips tight. She pulled in a
deep breath, wishing she could get everything out before she had to inhale
again, knowing that was impossible.

“First, let me assure you that Ms. Farne never said a thing to
me other than her name. Whatever it was that you were trying to keep secret,
well, it’s safe.”

“I wanted—”

She raised a forefinger. “At first, when she showed up, I was
curious, you know? No. Wait. More than that. I was worried. She looked so
official and she was being so secretive and I felt this need to—I don’t know. To
protect you. I was worried she posed some threat to you or Casey, and—”

“Dammit, Lib, would you shut up and listen to me?” He flicked
the baseball cap to the ground, sending it skidding like a forgotten Frisbee.
“She’s a social worker, okay? A goddamned social worker. And I had to play nice
with her because Robin’s sister is trying to take Casey away from me.”

Libby stepped back. Her hands flew to her face then clawed at
the air as if trying to turn the clock back to the instant before Sam spoke. But
one look at the bleakness in his eyes told her that there could be no
pretending.

He needed her. No matter what he had done, he needed her to
keep it together for him.

She twisted her hands together. “Tell me.”

“That’s it. There’s nothing else to say. Sharon wants Casey.
She thinks she can give him a better home than I can. She’s fighting me for
custody.”

“But you’re his father. You love him.”

“So does she.”

Questions poured through her, one on top of the other, layered
with realizations as the whole summer did a fast rewind through a new filter. So
much made sense now. So much still left her grasping for answers.

“This doesn’t— Has she ever seen you with him? Because
seriously, how could anyone watch you with him for more than five minutes and
not know that you belong together?”

He gave her a hint of a grin. “Thanks.”

“What’s going to happen?”

He leaned back against a half-finished pillar, lowering himself
slowly to the dusty stone floor. “We go to court in September. My lawyer says
I’ll win.” He sounded unutterably weary as he added, “Of course, with what I’m
paying her, it’s not likely she’d say anything else.”

Libby knelt beside him, placing a tentative hand on his arm.
“How can I help?”

He shrugged and stared up at the rafters. “You have any moral
objection to kidnapping?”

“I have a feeling Brynn would be the best bet for that
job.”

“You have a point.”

His hand settled over hers. She knew what he expected—that she
would flip her hand over to meet his, palm to palm. That she would curl her
fingers through his and lean forward and kiss him and promise him she would be
there for him. She knew it was what he wanted, what he needed, because every
kind and decent instinct in her was urging her to do just that.

But there was a wall between them, and she couldn’t push
through. A wall he had built. One secret at a time.

His thumb rubbed the back of hers.

She slipped her hand slowly, gently from beneath his.

He searched her face, eyes filled with confusion. “Lib?”

“September isn’t very far away. I’m sure you’re going to need
to spend more time on this as your court date gets closer. I can cover for you.
Meetings, filling in with your group, whatever. Casey belongs with you. Anything
I can do to help make that happen, just say the word.”

And she would. She loved Casey too much to let him be batted
around by life the way she had been. He was happy here, here with the father who
adored him. Whatever she could do to make sure his life stayed stable, she would
do it.

But that was as far as she could go.

“Lib.” There was an edge of fear to his voice that she had
never heard before. “Look. I know what you’re thinking, that I should have told
you before this. The thing is—”

She shook her head, silencing him with her palm over his mouth.
“Don’t. Please.”

His eyes widened. She let her hand slip away—slowly, giving
herself the briefest chance to touch him one last time—and pushed herself
upright.

“I can’t do it, Sam.”

He lunged to his feet. “What do you mean, you can’t do it? Lib,
I— Look, I know I screwed up, but I—”

“You hid this from me, Sam. Deliberately, and with great
thought. Just like you did when you left me. Just like you did about Casey. And
if I hadn’t caught you with that social worker, you would have kept on hiding
it.” She pushed the words out even though her heart was breaking at his guilty
flinch. “You don’t trust me, Sam. I could understand it at the beginning of the
summer, but now?”

She pressed her fingers to her mouth to hold back the words her
heart wanted her to say, of forgiveness and understanding and reassurance. She
couldn’t do that. To say those things would land her straight in his arms and
then his bed and then—what? A lifetime of hovering around the camp, wanting him
and watching him while he kept his secrets?

Rule number one in Libby’s survival handbook: look after
yourself first. No one else is going to do it.

“I will do whatever I can to help you win this court fight,
Sam, but that’s it. No more.”

“God, Libby. I didn’t— I never meant to hurt you. I swear I
didn’t—”

“I know you didn’t. And that makes it worse, you know?” She
swallowed back the tears. “Because all I can think is that keeping secrets is
your default mode. You don’t mean to do it, but you do. And I can’t do this
anymore.”

“Lib. No.” He stepped forward, hands out, reaching for her as
if to stop her, but she moved back before he could get to her. Away from his
words. Away from his secrets. Away from the hurt.

“There’s two weeks left of camp, Sam. I believe that’s the
customary amount of notice that employers request.”

“Libby—”

“It’s too late, Sam.” She swallowed hard. “I quit.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I
N
THE
DAYS
FOLLOWING
her resignation, the truth became starkly
clear to Libby: her Overlook days were coming to an end. A complete and total
end.

She couldn’t come back next summer. Not after what she’d said.
Not with the way she couldn’t trust her stupid idiot heart around Sam. As for
the man himself, he wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon. It was time she
accepted the truth and moved on.

No matter that she had no idea who she was if she wasn’t the
assistant director of Camp Overlook.

It caught her at the most unexpected times. She stepped out of
the office and saw the greens and blues spread beneath her and got a lump in her
throat. Cosmo walked out of the kitchen in an apron that proclaimed himself A
Hunk-a-Hunk of Burning Chef and she laughed until she cried. And each night at
campfire, she had to fake singing the words to “Taps.” To do more than that
would risk breaking down in front of everyone. The kids. The staff. Casey.

Sam.

But she couldn’t think about Sam. Couldn’t let herself dwell on
the hurt or the disappointment or, worst of all, the way he had kissed her that
night.

It would be better when camp was over, when every breath and
sight and sound wasn’t a reminder of all she was losing. She forced herself to
think of the future. She remembered how much she had enjoyed talking to Mick’s
mom about teaching, and she focused on that heady feeling when she’d been called
for an interview. And three days after resigning, she drove to the Uplands
Central district office to talk with the hiring committee.

The school was small but vital. The interview itself was far
more enjoyable than she would ever have predicted. The enthusiasm she thought
she would have to fake came easily, no doubt because the more she heard, the
more she wanted to learn. She handled all questions with ease, save one, and had
plenty of points of her own. All things considered, she pulled out of the
parking lot feeling optimistic and more energized than she’d been since
resigning.

Well—at least about teaching.

Thinking about the interview made her remember Dani and her
résumé suggestions, which in turn reminded her that Aidan had been scheduled for
his tonsillectomy two days earlier. On an impulse she pulled into the first
grocery store she saw and cruised the aisles in search of treats that might
appeal to a very small boy with a very sore throat. She added a lightweight toy
plane to her collection of pudding cups and applesauce in tubes and headed for
Dani’s place.

But her plan to spend a few minutes, drop her gifts and head
back out came to a shrieking halt when Dani answered the door. Her eyes were
red. Her cheeks were puffy. And from the amount of wrinkles marring her oversize
T-shirt and nothing else—Libby was pretty certain Dani hadn’t made it out of her
pajamas in at least a day.

“Dani? Are you okay?”

Tears spilled out of Dani’s glazed eyes. She wore no makeup.
Libby sucked in a breath. Dani had practically been born wearing blush and
eyeliner. Something was seriously wrong in Dani’s world when she answered the
door without at least a touch of lipstick.

“Aidan is miserable. He hurts so much, poor baby, and he
doesn’t know...and he won’t eat because it hurts, but he has to.... The other
boys are tired of being cooped up here in the house and they’re driving me
crazy. I haven’t been able to sleep for three nights. I can’t remember the last
time I had a shower. And I... Oh, Libby, I lost my job!”

Libby was in no position to give anyone employment advice, but
she absolutely knew how to take charge of a situation that was in jeopardy of
falling apart. Within a matter of minutes she sent Dani to bed, bribed the older
boys to put away the groceries and clean the house with a promise of outrageous
payment and settled herself in a rocking chair in the backyard with little
Aidan. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks, so much like his mother’s that it
was like seeing double.

“Shhhh, sweetie. Shhhhh.”

With the aid of some spoon gymnastics and a great deal of
distraction, she got some applesauce and a few sips of iced juice down his poor
little throat. It wasn’t much, but at least she felt she’d staved off
dehydration and starvation for a while.

The next thing she knew, he was asleep on her shoulder.
Reluctant to disturb him and with nothing immediate pressing on her, she sank
lower in the chair and shifted so his face was no longer in direct sunlight. The
other boys raced around the backyard, and Libby rocked and hummed and tried to
avoid thinking about the one interview question she’d fumbled. The one that
asked her where she saw herself in five years.

The one that had made her picture, suddenly and all too
clearly, an older Casey running around the camp while she and Sam stole kisses
in between chasing a curly-locked toddler.

The one that left her feeling as raw and aching as poor Aidan’s
throat. And the one, she knew, that was going to cause wounds that would take a
lot longer to heal.

* * *

O
N
THE
LAST
W
EDNESDAY
of camp, Sam took Casey down to the
just-finished pavilion and wondered how the hell he had blown things so
badly.

Not with the camp itself, which was drawing to a close as
quickly and effortlessly as a newly sharpened skate on freshly groomed ice. Nor
was the problem with Casey or the custody suit. He wasn’t looking forward to the
hearing, now less than a month away, but he was going to be damned ecstatic to
have it behind him. Soon it would be fall and the legal worries would be over
and he and Casey would be able to settle into a quieter routine.

The pavilion was done. Tanya had stopped crying when she looked
at him. Sharon had thanked him for the invitation to visit, but said, with what
sounded like true regret, that they couldn’t fit it in before school. And just
that morning, Cosmo had very stiffly handed in his resignation. It seemed he was
moving. The fact that he wouldn’t say where he was going told Sam all he needed
to know, and for a moment, he’d been happier than he had in days, especially
when he heard Cosmo humming as he walked away. Cosmo and Myra. It still blew his
mind, but thank God someone had finally got things right.

Yep, everything was just hunky-dory. Everything and
everyone.

Everyone except Libby.

She was polite. She took over his group in late afternoons,
freeing him to be in the house when Casey woke after his nap. She made sure she
passed on everything she thought he might need to know, and with the impending
end of the camp, there was a lot.

But when he tried to talk to her, she shoved paperwork in his
face. She stopped playing with Casey. She stopped laughing. She did her job and
kept everything running and it was killing him, because he could see she was
dying inside.

All because of him.

“Dada!”

Casey peeked out from the giant stone fireplace that dominated
the center wall of the pavilion. The delight on his face made Sam grin. The
pavilion had turned out perfectly—stone pillars, wood roof, open to the woods on
one side and the water on the other. It was everything he had hoped. Everything
Libby had wanted.

No. It was everything he had
thought
she wanted. But it seemed he didn’t know her as well as he
believed.

He looked around the pavilion again, at the open sides, and
shook his head at how blind he’d been. Openness. That’s all she had wanted from
him. But like an idiot, he had closed himself off, hiding away his fears and
worries long past the point where it was needed. And what did he have to show
for it? A pavilion that was going to remind him of her every time he walked into
it. A camp that was going to echo without her.

What had she said that first day? He had said he would build
the pavilion at the inlet, the spot they claimed as their own all those years
ago, and she had looked him in the eye and said she didn’t visit that area
anymore. Now he knew why.

So much for living the goal.

His cell phone rang, yanking him away from his self-imposed
misery. He pulled it from his pocket and checked the number. His lawyer.

“Hey, Marilyn, what’s up?”

“We have a complication.”

His feet dug into the ground as he twisted to check on Casey.
Reflex. It made no sense and he knew it, but somehow, if he could keep Casey in
his sights while talking, it made him feel more certain that all would be
well.

“What is it?”

“Don’t panic,” she said, the words a dead giveaway to him that
his esteemed counsel was childless. No one who had ever been a parent could hear
that there was a complication with a custody suit without jumping straight to
panic mode.

“It’s really not that bad,” she assured him. And once he heard
the explanation, he had to admit, it could have been worse.

There was a scheduling problem. Sharon’s lawyer needed to have
unexpected but necessary surgery and would be out of work for a couple of
months. The judge assigned to their case had an opening Friday afternoon and had
offered to move their case up so it wouldn’t have to drag on.

“The problem,” she continued, “is that I have another case
then, and I’m sorry, Sam, but I have to honor that first commitment. So you have
two choices.”

“Tell me,” he said, watching Casey grab a rock from the ground
and whack it against the stones of the pillars.

“Option one, we take the earlier date and my associate handles
the case. He’s very good, and since this really is nothing more than a
desperation suit on Sharon’s part, it shouldn’t make a difference.”

“And option two?”

“We wait until Sharon’s lawyer comes back and tackle it
then.”

One corner of his brain automatically noted that Casey was
doing his best to throw the rock for Finnegan, but the dog refused to budge. The
rest was already flying through logistics and scenarios.

“Why doesn’t Sharon just find a new lawyer?”

Marilyn sighed. “Her guy is a solo practitioner. He has no
backup. And honestly, Sam, things are so stacked in your favor that I’m sure it
took Sharon a long time to find someone willing to take the case in the first
place. Unless someone were to walk in with proof that you’re neglecting Casey to
run some kind of prostitution ring up there, you will be fine. So what do you
want to do?”

What did he want to do?

He looked out past the pavilion to the river. He knew what he
wanted to do. He wanted to say he’d call back, then find Libby and talk it all
over with her. By the time he looked things over with her, he would have a
clearer head, a new perspective and a hell of a lot less adrenaline prickling
through him.

She wouldn’t listen for him, and he couldn’t blame her. But for
Casey, she would.

“Let me—” he began, but Marilyn interrupted.

“Hang on, Sam. Joe just told me if you want him to do it, he’ll
need to meet with you first thing tomorrow morning. Someone else needs that time
if you don’t take it, so I’m sorry, but Joe needs an answer right away.”

Tomorrow morning? But he would have to leave—crap—tonight. He
would miss the last two full days. Worse, he would lose two full days in which
he might pull off a miracle and make Libby change her mind.

“Sam?”

But who was he kidding? She was going. She was going, and
nothing he could do or say would change that. All that would change would be the
amount of time he had this custody issue hanging over his head, tarnishing his
life with his son.

He sighed and dragged his gaze away from the river and back to
Casey.

Live the goal.

“Sorry, Marilyn.” He gripped the phone tight. “Ask Joe what
time he needs me. I’ll be there.”

* * *

L
IBBY
ENDED
HER
CALL
and set the phone gently on the
desk, leaned back in her chair, raised her fists straight up and let out a
glorious “Woohoo!” Then, because there was still excitement pushing to get out
of her, she stood and did a little dance in the middle of the office floor,
ending with a hip thrust and a loud “uh-
huh,
” that
seemed to bounce back around her.

She had a second interview. More than that, for the first time
in days, she had some hope. Not just for a job, though of course that had been
on her mind, but that life could still be full and worthwhile even if she wasn’t
at Overlook.

Even if she wasn’t with Sam.

She still wasn’t sure how she would get through her goodbyes to
the camp, but there was a core of excitement in her that seemed to grow every
time she thought about being in a classroom. Maybe this could be a good move for
her. Maybe having a new job—if she got it—would make it easier to leave. Maybe
it was long past time to resurrect those dreams that had been sidetracked, first
by others, and then by her powerful attachment to the camp.

She wouldn’t think about her attachment to Sam and Casey. She
wouldn’t think about the icy fear that stole her breath every time she
remembered the custody suit. Not now.

No, now, just for this moment, she would think about what she
should wear to the interview. And how she would have to shuffle her schedule to
make room for it. Luckily it was tomorrow, not Friday, when camp would be in
full insanity mode for the Tour de Camp. She would simply need to double up on
the paperwork she had planned for the morning, and run into town after
lights-out to grab something appropriate and tell Sam that she would be gone for
a while and—

The door squeaked open just then, and the devil himself walked
in. She gave a little jump and tried to will away the traitorous jolt of
pleasure that insisted on flaring up whenever he walked into the room. There was
still something inside her that whispered
finally
whenever she saw him again.