A Better Father (Harlequin Super Romance) (6 page)

“You know, Libby, I can’t keep up with you. Ten minutes ago you
were ready to toss him to the wolves. Now you’re standing up for him.”

“Not for him. For the camp, and the kids and the parents and
the staff. The guy drives me crazy but whether I like it or not, he is the
public face of Overlook, at least for the moment. You can’t do anything that’s
going to bring the camp down. There’s too many people relying on him.” She
placed a hand over Dani’s. “You know better than anyone what the job market is
like around here. Do you really want to do something that will leave even more
people competing with you the next time you’re hunting?”

“Fine. Okay. You’ve made your point.” Dani sat back and crossed
her arms. “But you have to promise that if he does anything slam-worthy, you’ll
call me before you call the cops.”

Libby thought about Miss Personal Reasons with the Very Nice
Name and had to bite her tongue before she blurted out anything that could be
used the wrong way. Instead, she murmured something that Dani could interpret
however she wished, then asked about Aidan’s brothers and hoped Dani wouldn’t
return to the topic of Mr. Cold Ice.

She would bet her next paycheck that Myra hadn’t considered the
celebrity factor when she agreed to sell to Sam. Sure, it could mean great
publicity for them, but they operated at full capacity most of the time anyway.
All that could result from Sam’s visibility would be a nuisance at best and
trouble at the most.

Much like the man himself.

CHAPTER FOUR

Subject: Welcome, and a little light reading

Wednesday, June 6, 10:03 a.m.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sam: Welcome to Overlook. Thanks for your patience while we worked
out the techno bugs. I’m attaching files containing the staff handbook, the
disaster plan, the policies and procedures, and the parent handbook so you’ll
have time to familiarize yourself with everything before your arrival.

The timeline is much as it was when you last worked here.
Counselors and other staff will arrive Monday, June 25, for orientation and
setup. Counselors-in-training will join us Saturday 30th, and of course, the
kids arrive July 1. I’m still working out your daily plan and will send
ASAP.

Question: as you may remember, Myra always hosted a barbecue
the night before the campers arrived. Will you want to do something similar?
Cosmo needs to prepare the menus.

Subject: Re: Welcome, and a little light reading

Friday, June 8, 1:42 a.m.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Yes to the barbecue.

I have the timeline tattooed on my forehead.

The handbooks look great. Can’t wait to read them in detail.
Feel free to come pack up my house so I can dive right in.

Subject: Schedule

Friday, June 8, 8:56 a.m.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sam, I realize you’re quite busy these days, but I hope you will
make to time to at least skim the handbooks. The transition will be easier for
everyone if you are prepared for your duties.

I’ll tell Cosmo about the barbecue. Will you need any help from
me?

Here’s your weekly schedule, broken down by day. You’ll see
I’ve given you time with a group and time in the office to ensure you have a
well-rounded view of the entire operation.

Subject: Re: Schedule

Monday, June 11, 11:57 p.m.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

The barbecue is covered.

Handbooks: be honest, Lib. You’re going to tell me what to do
anyway, so I’m not wasting my time reading it.

You have me scheduled from 6:00 a.m. until after ten each
night. Not gonna happen. I can’t start before eight, and I need to be in my
house by eight-thirty or nine.

* * *

S
AM
FELT
A
TWINGE
OF
GUILT
as he sent the
email,
but the sound of Casey’s deep breathing
over the monitor helped him push it aside. He’d missed enough of Casey’s life
already. No way in hell was he going to spend the entire summer so busy working
off Libby’s anger that he had no time to spend with his own kid.

Carving out time for Casey wasn’t being selfish. It was being a
good parent.

Subject: Schedule

Tuesday, June 12, 9:02 a.m.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sam, do you have any memory of your time here at all? It’s a
twenty-four-seven job and everyone has to give three hundred percent. You can’t
set yourself certain hours and expect everyone else to pick up your slack. Not
without hiring a boatload more staff to help cover what you should be doing.

Subject: Re: Schedule

Wednesday, June 13, 11:36 p.m.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Then hire who we need.

Subject: Schedule

Thursday, June 14, 8:37 a.m.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Hire more staff now? Orientation starts in 11 days.

Subject: Re: Schedule

Monday, June 18, 1:56 a.m.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Then you’d better not waste any time.

* * *

A
T
THE
END
OF
THE
FIRST
DAY
of orientation, Libby walked into the office, took one look around her and let
the screen door slam behind her.

“I’m going to kill him.”

There was no answer, which was a good thing, since there was no
one else in the room. If there had been an answer she would have known without a
doubt that Sam had made her lose her grip on sanity. And he’d been back less
than twenty-four hours. His furniture hadn’t even arrived yet, for heaven’s
sake. She still had six and a half weeks to survive until the end of summer
programming.

She’d promised Myra she would play nice, but right now, all she
wanted to play was hide-and-seek—with Sam hiding in the Galapagos Islands and
her not seeking.

Bad enough that he had waltzed back to camp after all these
years, worse that he had bought the place, but now...now he was doing his
damnedest to charm her staff. Okay, technically
his
staff, but still. She had done the interviews and hired them. She had shepherded
most of them through at least two or three summers working at the camp. Many
were back for their fourth or fifth year. They were reliable and trustworthy and
dedicated.

And with one announcement of a pizza and karaoke night, Sam had
them all eating out of his hand.

“Maybe I will kill him,” Libby muttered as she sat down at her
desk. “The heck with agreements. I’ll kill him, the place will go back to Myra
and as long as I get a jury made up of women, I won’t get convicted. They would
probably give me a medal for taking him out before he could get to anyone
else.”

Work, Libby. Focus on the work.

A fresh pile of camper forms had arrived that afternoon. She
needed to get those logged in. After that, there were phone calls and emails to
answer, most from parents with last-minute jitters. The canoe paddles she’d
ordered hadn’t arrived yet. She would have to track those down. And she’d had a
thought for her résumé—

The pounding of footsteps on the steps made her clench her jaw.
She knew those steps.

The door creaked open. She glanced up with a sigh.

“Hello, Sam.”

He jerked at the sound of her voice, and she realized he hadn’t
known she was there—probably because he was so absorbed by the cell phone
pressed to his ear. He glanced her way, waved and turned back to the door he
hadn’t closed.

“Right,” he said into the phone. “Look, I have to go
now....Uh-huh, no rest for the wicked....Yeah. You, too. Later.”

Ah. Miss Personal Reasons must have called. Not for the first
time, she wondered if this mystery woman with the very nice name was responsible
for Sam’s inability to work regular hours. Or if she was behind the long lag
times between Libby’s emails and Sam’s replies. Or what she and Sam might be
talking about that had caused him to cut his many calls short every time Libby
approached.

It was more than him trying to have a private conversation.
Between his evasiveness the day of the meeting, his elusive emails and now the
parade of interrupted calls, she had the distinct impression he was hiding
something from her.

Gran used to try to hide things from her, probably because she
didn’t want to worry Libby. But Libby would rather deal with the worst
imaginable fact than walk around in dread, only to be blindsided.

Sam pocketed the phone and swiveled to focus on her, offering a
grin that only a fool would believe.

“The door?” she said before he could start.

He glanced over his shoulder. “What? Does it do tricks?”

“You didn’t close it. You haven’t closed it the last five times
you’ve entered this office.”

“Oh. Sorry. Didn’t notice.”

Well,
duh,
she thought as he kicked
the bottom of the door so it almost shut.

“So,” he said as though there had been no disruption in his
train of thought, “I thought you were down in your cabin. I was just gonna call
you. The pizza’s here.”

“I know. I saw the delivery guy. If you ever do this again,
make sure they know we want it delivered by someone who isn’t trying out for
NASCAR.”

“Fine.” He waited a moment, watching her, making her skin
prickle. She didn’t want him looking at her. Not while she worked, not while she
ate, not while she breathed. It was too unsettling. Too intense. Too inclined to
make her remember things best forgotten.

“Problem, Sam?”

“Aren’t you coming down to eat?”

“No.”

“You know this is it for food tonight.”

“Yes, I know.” She’d already had to deal with Cosmo’s grumbling
about last-minute changes and menus that would have to be rearranged and worries
that this was setting a new and unpleasant precedent.

“So—” he began, but she stopped him with a sigh.

“I understand. This is dinner. But I’m a big girl, Sam, and I
know how to take care of myself. Right now I am going to catch up on the work
that would have been done this afternoon if
someone
hadn’t made the morning sessions go overtime.”

He offered her what he undoubtedly thought was a boyish grin.
“Sorry about that. If I’d known we were on such a tight schedule, I wouldn’t
have suggested the game, okay? It seemed like a good way to get people to know
each other.”

“Most of the staff has already worked together. The ones who
are truly new didn’t need to get roped into playing Never Have I Ever with folks
they’d just met. It was—” She stopped and rubbed the tightness out of her jaw.
“In any case, I have things to finish. I’d appreciate it if you could let me get
to it.”

She turned back to the computer, hoping he’d take the hint. But
after a full thirty seconds of tapping on the keyboard and ruffling the papers
in front of her, he hadn’t moved. She looked up and caught him watching her yet
again.

“Something wrong?”

His shrug was too casual. “There’s salad and wings, too. In
case you don’t want pizza because you’re doing some low-carb thing.”

Some low-carb—was he insinuating she needed to lose weight?
After she’d starved herself from the minute he walked out of that first meeting
until the start of orientation, just so she could wear her cutest shorts and
make herself forget the horror of meeting him in her Emergency Bloat skirt?

“Work.” She tapped the stack of forms and tried for a smile,
but it probably looked more like a nervous tic. “Not carbs. Work.”

His eyes clouded over, so fast she wouldn’t have noticed if she
hadn’t spent years watching the emotions play across his face, committing each
and every one of them to heart.

“You know,” he said slowly, “there was a time when you would
have been the first one down there, fighting to get your shot at the karaoke
machine.”

“There was also a time when I believed in Santa Claus and fairy
tales. Then I grew up.” Just in time, she stopped herself from suggesting that
he might want to try growing up, too.

Faster than she could blink, he crossed the room and trapped
her in her chair, one hand on either side just like before, as he squatted
before her, eye to eye.

“Here’s a radical thought, Lib. How about instead of hiding
here in the office, you come down to the dining hall, have some fun with the
staff and then we come back up here and I help you do the work.”

Well,
that
was unexpected. The Sam
she knew would never have been caught dead doing paperwork. She vividly recalled
him bribing her to fill out an incident report after one of his campers tripped
over a rock and needed stitches. If she recalled correctly, payment had taken
the form of kisses on the deck. Kisses and groping and—

Oh, no. No no no no no. She could not start wandering down
memory lane with Sam. Been there, done that, had the hair shirt to prove it.

She swiveled back to the computer, and Sam released his grip on
the chair. “Thank you for the offer, but I’d rather get the work behind me
first.”

“All work and no play makes Libby a dull girl.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Eyes studiously fixed on the monitor, she didn’t realize he had
moved until he appeared at her side. She gave a little start and covered her
mouth with her hand to hold back her squeak. Now she really knew why they called
him The Cat.

“Libby.” His voice was deep and warm and even more intimate
than his nearness would have made her expect. “I know this isn’t easy for you.
But you can’t avoid me all summer. I need to learn how to run this place, and
you’re the only one who can teach me. So how about we start over?”

A clean slate? Unlikely. Not without some serious explaining
and apologizing. He had walked away from her when she needed him most. There
wasn’t enough grovel in the world to atone for that.

But...she had promised Myra she would help ease the
transition.

And he was building the pavilion.

And she was going to have to work with him, be it good or
bad.

She couldn’t do anything about the sale, at least not yet. She
couldn’t undo what had happened between her and Sam. But for Myra’s sake, and
for the sake of everyone at the camp, she could show him how things worked.

“Fine. The most important thing to remember is that either you
or I must be on the premises at all times when kids are here. No taking off into
town on a whim, no scheduling off-site meetings for you on my day off, nothing.
One of us must always be available. It’s one of our biggest promises to
parents.”

“Got it. What next?”

If she wasn’t going to get rid of him, she might as well start
the training. “Pull up a chair for lesson one, camper information forms.”

He sighed. “Paperwork. Why did it have to be paperwork?”

She bit back a smile and waited for him to grab a seat.
Instead, he bent forward to read what was on the screen, looming over her. She
scrunched sideways but he was all around her. His hair fell forward and his
shirt gaped and she remembered the time she’d grabbed him by a similarly loose
tee and hauled him close to her and silenced some smart-ass comment with a kiss
that could have gone on forever if only the world hadn’t continued to turn.