Missionary Daddy (4 page)

“The government officials who will make the decision know me, at least by reputation. They’re the same people I’m working with to develop the new African adoption program for Tiny Blessings.”

“So, when are the boys coming?”

“I don’t know. These things take time.”

“But why? They’re orphans, alone in the world. You love them. They should just get on an airplane and come.” She dragged out the chair beside him and sat down, turning to prop a fist on her beautiful cheekbone.

His pulse, already misbehaving, skittered dangerously.

Eric looked around and realized that the kids had moved away. A clutch of girls shot sly glances at him. One giggled when he caught her staring.

What was that all about?

Bewildered, he returned his attention to Sam’s question. “If all goes well, I’m shooting for Christmas.”

“Nothing will go wrong. You’ll get them. You and the boys are going to have the best Christmas ever.”

He wanted that with all his heart. Nothing could go wrong. He’d promised their father to care for them. He loved them. They loved him. Everything would work out. It had to.

“You’ll be a wonderful father, Eric.” Sam spontaneously pressed a hand over the top of his. Little jolts of electricity shot all the way up to his shoulder. “I saw you with them. You already are.”

Eric tried to remember why Sam Harcourt turned him cold, but with her sweet eyes looking at him this way and their hands touching, his mind was blitzed.

“Hey, you two. Any chance we can have a meeting tonight? Or is this a private party?” Caleb Williams ambled toward them, his wife Anne at his side. Their smiles had Eric wondering. Did they think there was something going on between him and Sam?

Man, were they ever confused.

“Time to get started, I guess.” By sheer force of will he got up and moved to the head of the table, leaving Sam where she was. Instantly, his vacant chair was filled by one of the girls and the chitchat began about Nikki’s haircut. Should she get a skunk stripe or not?

Eric was hard-pressed not to laugh but he noticed Sam took the question with complete seriousness.

He called the meeting to order and was pleased that the kids had followed through with their assignments. Very quickly, he collected price lists, tentative work schedules, booth ideas and a host of other details the kids had come up with on their own.

“We’ll need a full workday before the picnic,” he said. “To set up booths, put up signs, decorate.”

“What about the day before?”

“Can’t,” he said. “My calendar is full. I have to work.”

“I don’t,” Sam said. “The kids and I can handle it.”

With school still weeks away, most of the kids were at loose ends. So was Sam. Eric’s lip curled. She was on
hiatus,
a word the rest of the world barely understood.

“All right. Sounds good to me. I’ll leave the particulars up to you.”

Gina, usually quiet as a mouse, piped up. “Maybe the two of you should get together that night and go over everything. I mean, Eric can’t be there Friday. Sam needs to fill him in on the plans.”

“Great idea,” Nikki added. “Don’t you think, guys?” She gave the other teens a look that said they’d better agree and do it fast.

“Yeah. Sure. Eric, you don’t want to be in the dark. No telling what we might do without your input. You can’t trust a bunch of teenagers, you know. You and Sam should definitely get together that last Friday night before the picnic.”

Why were the kids behaving so strangely? He glanced at Sam, saw a flush on the crest of her cheekbones. He looked at Caleb and then at Anne. They both grinned like African hyenas.

What was up with this?

“All right. Sure. Whatever.” He looked at Sam. “Is that okay with you?”

She nodded mutely, an unusual turn of events, and Eric adjourned the meeting to the dining room.

As he pushed back from the table, Caleb came toward him, that annoying grin still on his face. “Might as well give up.”

“What are you talking about?” All these undercurrents were making him grumpy.

“The kids. They did it to Anne and me.”

Eric got a bad feeling. “Did what?”

“Played matchmaker.”

“And?”

“And now they have their sights set on you and Sam.”

“Me? Sam?” His blood pressure shot up. “You’re losing it, brother.”

At Caleb’s soft chuckle, Eric’s belly went south. He was having enough trouble with his own head on the subject of Samantha Harcourt. If this bunch of teenagers started in, he’d have no peace at all. Samantha was not the kind of woman he wanted to be interested in. Women like her aimed for the kneecaps and left you alone and bleeding.

At the sound of giggling, Eric glanced toward the dining-room doorway. Three pairs of teenaged eyes gleamed at him with speculation.

He was in trouble here. Serious trouble.

S
am gazed around at the group of kids once again gathered in the Youth Center. They worked in small groups, sipping Cokes and munching on the tray of melon she had provided. A few lettered signs and glittered banners while others organized lists of volunteers and donations for the various booths. They were a good team with minimal arguments. Although a few heated discussions had cropped up in their days of working together, the problems were easily resolved.

Thank goodness this was one of the last committee meetings before the picnic. Not that she didn’t like the kids or enjoy the work. It wasn’t that at all. In fact, she’d taken on the task of helping Andrew Noble with some of the advance publicity for the event and found a certain satisfaction in both tasks. If her agent would stop calling every hour she’d almost be content.

The problem with the youth group was Eric. Or rather, the teens’ matchmaking attempts between Eric and her. Just when he’d begun to warm up a little, the kids had come up with this ridiculously obvious scheme and made them both uncomfortable.

From her spot next to Gina, she slid a look in Eric’s direction. He, Caleb, Jeremy and a couple of the other boys hammered together the wooden frame for the concession booth.

The muscles in his athletic shoulders flexed with each hammer strike, reminding her of that day in Africa. Even in ordinary jeans and a yellow T-shirt that darkened his skin to bronze, Eric was by far the best-looking guy in Chestnut Grove. At least from her viewpoint.

He was nothing like most men of her acquaintance, but that was a good thing. Deep inside, Sam remained a small-town girl who admired a man with the common sense to change his own tires and wield a hammer. A man’s man. Masculine, strong, steady.

Gina’s voice interrupted her ruminations. “He’s cute for an older guy.”

Great, she’d been caught staring. “When are all of you going to give this up? Neither Eric nor I are interested.”

“Really?” Nikki asked, popping a square of juicy watermelon past her black-lined lips. She clearly didn’t believe Sam’s protest.

“Really. Now can we talk about something else?”

“Well, we do have another idea,” Gina said.

“Oh, good.” Sam rolled her eyes heavenward. “Now I’m really worried.”

“We want to know how you keep in shape.”

That question she could handle. She sprinkled glitter around a block letter and said, “I have a daily exercise regime, which I never skip.” Style would fire her in a New York minute unless she looked perfect in their clothes. “Why?”

She worked like crazy to stay in shape and worried constantly. Between the need to properly handle her eating disorder and the need to stay in perfect condition, she often felt as though she would never be enough. Not good enough. Not pretty enough. Not thin enough.

That feeling was part of the vicious cycle that had caused the disorder in the first place.

“We want you to start a workout program here at the center for us.” Gina pushed her paper plate of melon to one side. After cutting a single slice of cantaloupe into a dozen tiny bites, she’d left it mostly uneaten. A warning bell, one that had rung every time she’d been with Gina, went off in Sam’s head.

“You don’t need an exercise program,” Sam said earnestly.

“Gina doesn’t. She has great willpower, but the rest of us can’t stay away from the French fries. Won’t exercise offset the calories?” Tiffany asked hopefully.

“That all depends, but exercise helps. You need exercise anyway,” Sam said. “The most important thing is maintaining good health.”

“You sound like my mom,” Tiffany said.

“Sorry. But your mom is right. Your health is everything.” Sam had learned that the hard way. Some things lost could never be regained.

“So will you do it?” Nikki pressed. “Will you start a class?”

She worked out anyway. Why not encourage the girls to stay fit in the process? Exercising with them would be a lot more fun than doing it alone. “I could ask Scott if the church would mind. It’s easy to set up a combination Jazzercise/aerobics regime. It might even be fun.”

And in the process she could discuss healthy eating with the girls and get better acquainted with Gina. The girl worried her.

“We could meet here.” Tiffany’s round face was excited. A green marker in hand, she pointed around the Youth Center. “There’s plenty of room. And I would so love to go back to school this fall with a new, slimmer body.”

“Well, I’m a slave driver, let me warn you.”

Nikki grinned, the black lipstick a startling contrast to her white teeth. “We’re tough. We can take it.”

“Okay, then,” Sam replied, shaking loose glitter onto a clean piece of paper. “I’ll check with Caleb to be sure it’s okay. Maybe I could help you get started before I return to work.”

“Planning on leaving soon?” a masculine voice asked. Eric popped open a cold Coke and took a long drink, his eyes watching her over the rim.

“Sam’s going to start an aerobics class for us,” Nikki said. She slid another bite of melon into her mouth and smiled around it.

“Maybe.”
Sam softened the reminder with a smile. “I said I’d check into it.”

“Nice of you, but if you’re headed back to Chicago, how can you do that?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t have any set agenda at the moment except for a few things I can fly to and be back in a couple of days.”

Never mind that the agency was hounding her to do more public appearances for Style. But even the gig to hand out an award at some Hollywood awards program couldn’t tempt her to leave Chestnut Grove right now. Maybe she was burned out.

Eric scraped a chair away from the table and straddled it, leaning both arms on the back. The Coke can dangled from his strong, masculine fingertips. “Eventually, though, you’ll go back to Chicago.”

He seemed almost insistent.

“I haven’t decided yet exactly what I’m going to do.”

“What do you want to do?”

The question, much like something he would have said in Africa, surprised her.

“I’m reevaluating.” She wasn’t sure how much to tell him. Sometimes when they talked, he seemed genuinely interested. At others, he appeared to be judging every word and finding her unworthy.

“What’s to reevaluate? You have a great career that pays well. You get to travel all over the world. People know your face.”

“Sometimes that’s not a good thing.”

“Poor little rich girl?” he asked.

She studied his expression to see if he was making fun of her. He wasn’t.

“It’s not that. It’s having people make assumptions about me because of what I do for a living.”

The answer caught him off guard. He waited two beats before smile lines crinkled around his eyes. “I think you just took me down a notch.”

“Not intentionally. I’m an average person, Eric. Not a face. Not a celebrity. Just a person.” She capped the red glitter with a snap and reached for the blue. “How’s the booth coming?”

“Almost finished.” He motioned toward the structure with his Coke can. “Do you think we should paint it or leave it raw?”

Sam looked toward the girls for their opinion. “What do you think, ladies? Paint or not?”

The girls exchanged looks and Sam tried not to sigh in exasperation. Every time she and Eric spoke, the teens started up again. Before anyone could answer, a scrawny, hawk-nosed man entered the room.

Sam tensed. Her interior decorator. Why was he here? She thought they had everything settled with remodeling her suite.

“Miss Harcourt.” In his usual fit of hyperactivity, the man rushed to her. “I need your opinion.”

“At this time of night? Really, Dennis, you work too hard. You should go home and relax.”

“It simply cannot wait until tomorrow. I’ll be up all night fretting if we wait. When you left this afternoon, I was all aflutter, worrying what to do.”

Sam stifled a sigh. The decorator with his finicky ways and temperamental demands was wearing thin. Trying her best to remain positive and polite, she asked, “What’s wrong this time?”

Drawing up in a stiff, pigeon-chested stance, Dennis sniffed. “You know, of course, that I’ve designed rooms for other well-known clients. When I did the Manhattan suite for JLo, she gave me complete carte blanche.”

Sam longed to crawl under the table. The last thing she wanted was for Dennis to name drop in front of Eric and the kids. Her parents had hired the decorator as a gift to her, but sometimes she wished she had done the job herself. More than that, she wished she could cancel the entire renovation. She hadn’t wanted or needed the expensive work.

Dennis tossed his hands into the air. “I can’t work under these conditions.”

Sam glanced around at the group of fascinated teens and then at Eric. He seemed to be studying his sweating Coke can with unusual interest.

“Exactly what can I help you with, Dennis?”

“Your carpenter, that Jonah Fraser fellow, painted the east wall of the sitting room today. It’s blue. Robin’s-egg blue, a shade that simply will not work behind your mask collection.”

Oh, please.

Sam counted to ten before answering. In her business she worked with finicky people all the time. A people pleaser, she wanted to make all of them happy.

“I know you want perfection, Dennis, and the rooms are coming together beautifully, but the paint Jonah used is the color you and I chose last week.”

“It doesn’t work. We have to get something else. You’ll hate it and my reputation will be ruined. Ruined, I say.”

Sam rose from her chair and gently guided Dennis toward the exit. She could feel Eric’s gaze on her back.

“Everything will be fine, Dennis. I’m sure with your exceptional creative talent, you’ll think of a way to make all the elements blend together. That’s why we hired you. Your reputation for turning the ordinary into the magnificent is impeccable.”

He simpered. “You’re right. I can do this. I can make the ugliest room into a showplace. Thank you, Miss Harcourt.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed. “I knew you’d understand. Should I order those plants we discussed this morning?”

“You do that. And I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay?” She pushed him out the door with a wave and turned back toward the room.

“Gee, Sam, you have an interior designer all the way from New York?” Tiffany asked in awe.

“He’s good at his job. Just a little sensitive.”

Sneaking a peek at Eric, she saw him watching her. What was he thinking? That she really was pretentious and shallow? That only a completely self-absorbed woman would hire an interior designer when children in Africa drank from mud holes?

The familiar ache pushed at her rib cage.

Maybe Eric was right. Maybe she was as superficial as he seemed to think.

For the next hour and a half, Sam tried to shake off the negative feelings by throwing all her energy into the project. Hands covered in glitter, she headed for the ladies’ room to wash up.

Once inside, she heard retching. Someone was sick.

“Who’s in here?” she asked.

“Me.”

“Gina? What’s wrong?”

“I’m okay.”

Sam stood against the wall, holding her breath, hoping she was wrong and wondering what to do if she was right.

After a couple of minutes, the stall lock clicked and Gina came out, as pale as Liquid Paper.

“You look sick, Gina. What’s the matter?”

The girl splashed cold water on her face. “Something I ate, I guess. The burger was kind of greasy.”

“Are you sure that’s all?” Sam’s nerves jangled with warning. Something was not right with this girl and she suspected an eating disorder. Whenever the group met, everyone else ate like starving dogs. Gina usually picked at her food, but tonight her boyfriend had brought in a burger and insisted she eat it.

“I’m not pregnant if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s not what I meant. But I’m glad to know you aren’t. That’s a complication you don’t need at your age.”

Gina looked at her, then looked away quickly, as if she wanted to open up but was too scared. Sam knew the feeling.

“Have you been dieting?” She tried to sound casual, knowing how deceptive and secretive an anorexic could be.

“I’m okay, Sam. Really. Stop worrying.” Gina spun away from the mirror and pasted on a smile. “See. I’m fine now. That greasy burger. That’s what did it.”

Then Gina hurried out of the restroom, leaving Sam to follow. Someone who Gina knew and trusted needed to talk to her.

“Obviously not me,” Sam muttered as she pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway.

Wrestling with what to do, she saw Gina back with the group, laughing at Eric. Someone had stuck a child’s birthday hat on his head, complete with a rubber band indenting his chin, and he pretended not to notice. The sight of the big, strong man pounding nails while wearing a birthday hat made her laugh, too.

Eric. The kids liked and trusted him. He was their leader here and knew the people of the church much better than she did. Maybe he’d know what to do about Gina.

“Eric,” she said. “Could I talk to you in private?”

He laid aside the hammer. “Sure.”

“Oooh, Eric,” one of the boys teased. “She wants to talk in private.”

Eric tossed the birthday hat at him. “Go paint something, Dylan.”

The boy and his buddies laughed. Sam tried her best to ignore their not-so-subtle innuendo as she led the way out of the center into the warm August evening. When she was certain they were no longer in earshot, she rested her back against the brick wall and told him her concerns about Gina.

Darkness had come and the pulse of cicadas served as musical backdrop to the quiet conversation.

Eric listened intently, his face dimly visible by the security lights. “You think Gina has some kind of eating disorder?”

“I do. And after she was sick a few minutes ago, I think my suspicion bears checking out.”

“She looked okay to me. Did you ask her what was wrong?”

“She said it was the greasy burger.”

“Too much grease
can
make a person sick.”

“Eric, haven’t you noticed how thin she is?”