Love Came Just in Time (40 page)

The driver's side door opened. “Keys.”

Sydney didn't move, so Sam reached in for the keys. She listened to him load their supplies into the back. By the sound of it, the supplies were numerous enough to last them through the winter. It was just as well. It would start snowing soon enough, and they'd be trapped together. Alone in her house.

Too bad nothing would happen.

“Move over, sugar.”

Sydney looked up at Sam—handsome, kind Sam who stood inside the open door.

“What?”

“I'm driving home. Move over.”

“But—”

He picked her up in his arms, carried her around to the other side of the car, unlocked the door, and put her in. He buckled the seat belt, returned to the driver's seat, and started up the motor. And he said nothing, all the way home. Sydney grew more miserable with each mile that passed. Maybe he was having second thoughts. Maybe Melanie had talked him into coming out to dinner. Maybe he was going to stay once he got there. She wasn't sure why it bothered her as much as it did, but there was no denying it.

She unloaded the groceries with Sam, then helped him put them away. And when they were done, he plunked her down on the counter as if she'd been a rump roast and slapped his hands down on either side of her.

“We've got a problem,” he said, looking her square in the eye.

She could hardly swallow. “You're going to dinner at Melanie's?”

“Hell, no. Her mother fondled me at Eunice and Jeremy's reception. At the reception, mind you. No, I am definitely not going to dinner at Melanie's house.”

Sydney couldn't stop a small smile. “That's really a compliment, you know. She doesn't grope just anyone.”

“I'd rather be snubbed. Which brings me to what I want to discuss.”

Sydney's smile faded. He was leaving. He was leaving and she was stupid enough to want him to stay.

“The way I see it,” Sam continued with his hands still resting on either side of her, “we both have what others would consider a problem.”

“We do?”

“We do. I can't find a wife because I can't tell one end of a hammer from the other. You can't find a husband because you can't cook. That about sums it up, doesn't it?”

She nodded slowly. “That's about the size of it.”

“So,” he said, clearing his throat and looking at something behind her, over her right shoulder, “I figure we can help each other. You can help me become mechanical and I'll help you learn how to cook. Of course, this means I'll have to stay here with you longer than I'd planned. Probably three or four months more.” He sighed. “I'm really hopeless when it comes to fixing things. It might take you that long to rectify my lack of studliness.”

He was staying. Sydney blinked back the tears that should have been there at his announcement.

“You think a man wants a woman who can cook?”

“Absolutely. And not just cook. She has to be a fabulous cook. It'll take me at least six months to teach you what you'll have to know. Maybe more if you really want to become marketable. Especially since I'll have to keep working on my revisions.”

“So you won't be able to help me every day?”
He was staying.

“We'll see. What sorts of things do you do during the winter? Will you be busy a lot?”

“I just read. And watch television.” She paused and looked at something behind his left shoulder. “I could fix you lunch and things while you work. Just to practice,” she added hastily.

“Of course,” he nodded, just as hastily. “All right, let's have a plan. We'll get up in the mornings and make breakfast together. Can you scramble eggs?”

“If it doesn't come prewrapped and precooked, I can't deal with it.”

Sam smiled. “Eggs first, then. Once we've finished breakfast, you can teach me something to increase my machismo. I bought boots today, so I don't have to worry about losing any toes.”

“Good point.”

“Then we'll make lunch. Then I'll either work on my book in the afternoon while you read up on your trail-guiding studies or I'll teach you how to bake. How does that sound?”

“Fair enough,” she said. In reality, it sounded like bliss. Maybe if she were exceptionally inept, Sam would stay until spring.

Or summer.

Or fall.

Or forever.

He tapped the end of her nose. “Go take a nap, sweetheart. Your eyelids are already at half-mast. I'll wake you up in time for dinner.”

“Apricot chicken?”

“What else?”

She hopped off the counter and pushed him out of the way. “I suppose this is a good thing,” she said, trying to sound businesslike. “I guess it's about time I got married, and I'm sure not attracting any prospects the way I am.”

He smiled. “We're doing each other a favor. All I'm getting is my butt pinched the way I am now. I'd like to be respected for my prowess in the tool shed.”

Sydney nodded and left the kitchen. She was happy. For the first time in years, she was happy. And that happiness lasted until she closed her bedroom door and flopped down onto her bed. Then her happiness was replaced by hollowness. How many nights had she lain in that very bed and dreamed of a man who would want her? Too many to count. She'd pretended it hadn't hurt her feelings. Men were stupid, and she hadn't wanted any part of them.

Until Sam. He was handsome and funny and kind. And he couldn't stand Melanie Newark's mother. That said a great deal about his character. He wasn't afraid to bake mouthwatering cakes. He couldn't start a fire on his own, and she half wondered how he managed to work the oven without help.

But she wanted him to want her. She wanted him to look at her with those leaf-green eyes, smile that secret little smile of his, and say, “Yes, Syd, I think you're perfect and I want you.” And if he thought the perfect woman was a woman who could cook like a French chef, then that's what she would become.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep, dreaming about flour and sugar.

SAM CAME OUT of the bathroom a week later to the sound of pots clanking and a certain wilderness woman cursing. He walked through the living room and stopped just shy of the kitchen, curious as to what Sydney was up to. The smell of burnt eggs immediately assaulted his nose.

“Damn it, anyway, I'm going to burn all the winter supplies before November if somebody doesn't start cooperating right now! Go down the disposal, you ungrateful little sonsa—”

Sam indulged in a grin. It was no wonder Sydney had such a tough reputation as a trail guide if she talked to her city boys the way she talked to her breakfast ingredients. The woman was adorable. Sam could hardly stop himself from striding into the kitchen and kissing her senseless.

No, that wouldn't do. In the first place, he'd promised to be a gentleman. In the second, he had the sinking feeling that she had her heart set on Frank Slater. Why, Sam didn't know. The guy was a wuss. All right, so he wasn't exactly a wuss. He could hunt and fish and do all those Alaska things, but he couldn't tell the infinitive form from the subjunctive, and Sam had his doubts he knew what a pronoun was. And he was dating Melanie. If that didn't say something about his character, and his intelligence, Sam didn't know what did. No, Frank Slater wasn't for Sydney.

Now to convince her of that.

Carefully.

Sam cleared his throat and entered the kitchen.

“Hey, Syd, what's for breakfast?

“Oh,” she said, blinking innocently, “eggs. Just like you taught me, Sam. I'm just getting ready to cook them,” she added, waving the pan around, probably to make the smell of burned eggs dissipate.

“It sounds great. Want me to make the toast?”

“No. You just go on in and sit down in the living room. I'll call you when it's ready.”

Sam let her off the hook and went to hide in the living room. After a week of lessons, Sydney still couldn't scramble eggs to save her life. They were either too runny or too dry. Sam didn't care either way. One day she'd be making runny eggs just for him, and he'd eat them with just as much gusto then as he did now.

Half an hour later, he sat facing a plate of quivering eggs. It was a lucky thing he usually liked his over very easy or he might have been slightly sick at the prospect facing him. Sydney looked like she wanted to cry, so he ate not only his breakfast but hers, then he made her some unburned toast. And he started to gird up his loins for his humiliating part of the bargain: his wilderness-man studies.

He didn't care about hammers. He didn't care about wrenches or screwdrivers or power tools. He didn't care about what made the generator tick. It provided light and heat, and power for his computer. He didn't want to know where that power came from or what to do when the power was off. Sydney would be around for that.

But today was different. He was going to learn how to fish. Sydney promised him she would teach him what kind of lures lured what kind of fish. Sam could thread a needle about as easily as he could jump over the moon, so he anticipated a great deal of difficulty in hooking the lures to the string. Fishing line. Whatever they called it, he knew it was going to give his fingers fits and Sydney would have to give him a great deal of help.

And if that wasn't enough to make a man grin, he didn't know what was.

He buzzed through four chapters of the revisions his agent had requested, then cheerfully waited in the living room for Sydney to go get their fishing gear. She came in with a tackle box and two rods. Sam opened the box the moment she set it down and peeked inside. He held up a little silver fish with three hooks hanging from his underbelly.

“Cute,” he noted.

“No, not cute,” Sydney corrected. “Clever. Efficient. Practical. Lures are never cute, Sam.”

“I'll keep that in mind. Whatever happened to salmon eggs? Or worms?”

“Minor-league stuff,” Sydney said, reaching for a rod. “You're fishing with the big boys now, Sam.”

“Do your city boys know all about this when they come up?”

She shrugged. “Some do. Some would like to think they do.”

“Why do I have the feeling they don't like hearing what they're doing wrong from a woman?”

“Because you're very bright, Sam. Now, pay attention. I'm going to explain the parts of the reel to you.”

He leaned back against the couch and moved just the slightest bit closer to her. “I'm listening.”

“This up front is the drag knob. It adjusts the tension. Then we have the spool. See how the fishing line is wound around it, then fed through the guide?”

Sam nodded obediently.

“Now when you're casting, you release the line here, by pressing this button. Then you drag the lure back toward you by cranking the handle . . .”

Sam stopped listening after that. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in fishing. He didn't mind salmon, barbecued with lots of lemon on it. He found he just couldn't concentrate. Sydney was just so doggone beautiful. He wondered why in the world every male in Flaherty over the age of ten wasn't beating a path to her door. Frank Slater probably was. Sam didn't care for that thought.

“Sam?”

He blinked and realized she was looking at him. Her pale blue eyes were wide and her lips parted just slightly. Sam had the overwhelming urge to bend his head and capture her mouth with his.

“Sam, you look flushed. Did my eggs do you in?”

“I'm fine,” he said. But his voice sounded suspiciously hoarse, even to his ears.

“Do you want me to go back over the parts of the rod?”

“No. Keep going.”

She launched into a discussion of lures, and Sam did his best to follow. But her perfume kept getting in his way. He couldn't decide if it was something she'd put on, her shampoo, or the dryer sheets he'd used in the last load of wash. He leaned closer for a better whiff and bumped his chin on her shoulder when she suddenly leaned back.

“Sam!”

“Sorry,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “I was just moving in for a closer look.”

“Here, let's put the tackle box on your lap. It'll be safer that way.”

Sam let her put the heavy box on his lap, then he sniffed unobtrusively when she leaned over to pull out a lure. Could have been shampoo. Could have been the dryer sheet. Whatever it was, it was sexy as hell and it was making him lightheaded.

“Sam?”

“I'm just a little dizzy,” he said, drawing his hand over his eyes. “It'll pass. I must have stayed up too late.”

“Oh, no,” she said, lifting her arm and sniffing her wrist. “It's that insect repellent I put on. I'll try not to get it under your nose again.” She met his eyes. “Then again, maybe I should go wash it off.”

He felt himself falling. And then he felt himself falling. Literally. Sydney caught the tackle box.

“Sam!”

“Oh, this is bad,” he moaned as he lunged to his feet and ran for the bathroom, where he summarily lost both breakfast and lunch.

“Sam, open up!” Sydney shouted, pounding on the door.

Sam flushed the toilet, then rinsed out his mouth in the sink. He looked at himself in the mirror and smiled weakly at the pale shadow that stared back at him.

“Sam, good grief, what happened?” Sydney had pushed open the door and caught sight of his face. She blanched to about the same color. “I did this to you,” she whispered.

“Bad eggs. Not your fault. Just help me get to bed.”

She put her arm around him and helped him into his room. Well, now, this had been one way to get her there. Not exactly how his chivalrous self would have planned it, but drastic times called for drastic measures.