Summer Lovin (18 page)

They talked in hushed tones. Zoe handed Sam a tissue and helped her pat her cheeks and dry her tears, which had quickly turned embarrassing to the teenager.

Watching Zoe comfort Sam, Ryan's chest squeezed tight and he had trouble catching his breath. The realization hit him out of the blue. Not only was he fascinated with this woman, but he was falling for her, too. Enough that he needed time to learn even more about the raven-haired woman whose life he had turned upside down.

 

Z
OE CLOSED HERSELF
in her guest room at Ryan's and called Quinn as soon as they returned home. He cursed and muttered a few choice words about his own stupidity for not considering the possibility that whoever seemed to be after Sam would follow them to Boston. Until now, the notion that the guy was after Sam had been pure conjecture. He could have been after something in the house. Now it seemed clear he was specifically after Sam. Unless of course, he was looking to scare or punish the family and was using Sam to accomplish his goal. Until they caught the guy, they were in the dark as to his motives or what he actually wanted.

Zoe shivered. Quinn promised to call a friend of his to arrange covert protection for Sam while they were in town.

In the afternoon, she and Sam watched television, relaxing together and avoiding the topic of what had occurred earlier in the day.

Later that evening, they dressed and headed to Ryan's parents' home where Zoe and Sam suffered through stiff hellos and predinner drinks. She took in the mausoleum in which he'd grown up and realized the difference between her parents' small Jersey Shore home and this mansion couldn't be more extreme. Small versus big. Warm versus cold. She shuddered, grateful they'd finally ended up in the dining room for dinner because it meant the evening was progressing, however slowly.

Sam had been quiet during the introductions and Zoe had stayed by her side, offering silent security. Now she discovered that dinner at the Baldwins' was a formal affair, complete with too many plates, forks, knives and spoons for Zoe to handle, never mind a young girl like Sam. Zoe wondered if the place settings were so intricate on purpose, to test Zoe's breeding and Sam's place within this family. She chided herself for thinking the worst and plastered a smile on her face for Sam's sake.

“Zoe's an unusual name,” Vivian, Ryan's mother said.

Zoe waited for the help to serve their salads before replying. “It's Greek,” she explained.

“Her sister's name is Ariana,” Uncle Russ said, surprising Zoe.

That he remembered her sister's name was a shock. A sign that he'd been interested enough to take note of it.

“That's right,” she said, forcing a smile. For Ryan's sake she wanted to give the man a chance.

“Which fork do I use?” Sam whispered.

In reply, Zoe picked up her outside utensil on the left and Sam followed suit.

“I guess your family doesn't dine together often?” his mother continued.

“We eat as a family every night,” Sam chimed in. “Elena makes the best mousse cocka in the world.”

“Heavens!” Ryan's grandmother, who sat at the head of the table, turned pale beneath her heavily caked foundation.

Ryan coughed and Zoe tried not to laugh. “She means moussaka,” Zoe said. “If you saw the movie
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
, you'd understand the joke.”

“Well I'd prefer we don't speak that way at the table.” Ryan's mother shot Sam a stern glare.

“Sam's got a great sense of humor. Don't you, Sam?” Ryan defended his niece for the umpteenth time tonight, regardless of her outrageous words or shocking behavior, Zoe thought approvingly.

Unfortunately, each time he sided with Sam against his family, Zoe fell a little harder for the man.

Sam grinned. “I sure do. Bet I can tell you where you got them shoes,” she said, falling back on the old boardwalk joke.

Everyone around the table looked at one another with blank expressions, except for Ryan's grandmother who frowned and mumbled something about the child's deplorable grammar.

“I give up,” Uncle Russ said.

Zoe sensed he sought to make Sam more comfortable and she silently applauded his attempt.

“Where'd I get my shoes?” Russ prodded Sam.

“You got 'em on your feet!” Sam laughed and slammed her hand on the table for emphasis, knocking over Zoe's glass of red wine by mistake.

Zoe jumped up to avoid being soaked by the liquid, but the white tailored blouse she wore had already taken the worst of the spill.

“Oh jeez!” Sam grabbed for her napkin and helping Zoe, they began to blot the mess.

Suddenly Ryan's grandmother yelled at them both. “Stop!”

They paused.

“Those napkins were stitched by my mother and aren't meant to be used as dishrags.”

“But they're napkins,” Sam said. She looked at Ryan, who also stood. He surveyed the table and the situation, his cheeks turning a ruddy color.

“Then pardon me, ma'am, but why put them on a table where there's food, drink, and their designated use is for cleaning?” Zoe asked with the same mock sweetness she'd been treated to all evening.

“Clearly we're going to have to teach the young lady table manners if she's going to fit in.” Ryan's mother picked up a bell Zoe hadn't noticed before and rang for the help to clean up.

Zoe clenched her jaw. “I wonder what good table manners will do her in a house when all other form of manners are missing.”

Ryan placed a hand on her shoulder. “Relax,” he said softly.

She couldn't begin to know how after all she'd endured.

“I'll handle this,” he promised both with his words and his touch.

“Ryan, there's no need to handle anything. I understand Samantha hasn't been raised in the best of homes, so rest assured we'll cut her some slack,” his mother said.

Zoe's temper flared. “How dare you insult my family and my home—”

Ryan's easy touch turned harsher, cutting her off. “This was a mistake.” He strode over to Sam and Zoe. “I wanted you to meet each other,” he said, facing the table. “You've done that. Now we're leaving.”

His dark eyes flashed angry sparks. He was obviously pained with emotions Zoe had never seen in him before.

Without realizing her intent, she reached up and covered his hand with her own, offering him the only support she could.

As they turned to leave, Uncle Russ spoke. “Wait. This situation has been difficult on all of us, can we at least agree on that?”

“He's got a point,” Ryan's father said.

The older women, Ryan's mother and grandmother, nodded their agreement.

“Zoe?” Uncle Russ asked.

She pivoted, met the older man's gaze and forced herself to nod as well.

“Samantha?”

“It bites,” she muttered, only to receive an elbow on either side from both Zoe and Ryan.

“The kid does have a point, albeit a colorful one,” Uncle Russ conceded with a smile. He gestured to their empty chairs.

For the sake of Ryan's relationship with his family, Zoe decided to follow Uncle Russ's lead, and grabbing Sam's hand, she sat back down.

“I think we need to start over,” Uncle Russ said, his pointed gaze settling on his nephew. “Tonight we get through this meal and as a thank-you, tomorrow we do something Samantha would enjoy more.”

Although Zoe hadn't liked Russ upon meeting him, she admitted that it was because she'd feared his effect on his nephew. Instead, he'd proven to be an unlikely ally and she admired how he pulled the family together, forcing her to reassess her opinion of the man. Besides if Ryan liked him, Zoe was determined to give him a chance.

“You always were the voice of reason, Russ.” Ryan's elderly grandmother smiled. “Ryan, please sit.”

Ryan stiffly and warily took his seat.

While they had been arguing, Zoe realized, the help had cleaned up the mess and replaced everything like new.

“So, Samantha, that's an interesting necklace you're wearing. Care to tell us about it?” Uncle Russ strove for a nonthreatening topic and Zoe was grateful.

“It was my mom's,” Sam said, her fingers playing with the keys that always dangled around her neck.

“Why, I don't think Faith would wear something so—”

Ryan coughed loudly, clearly warning his mother to tread lightly or they were leaving for good this time.

The other woman flushed and said, “I meant, I don't remember Faith owning those.”

Sam shrugged. “It's all they let me keep of hers when I went to my first foster family.” She glanced down, picked up the proper fork, and began to eat her salad.

The rest of the family did the same. Somehow disaster had been averted for tonight, but Zoe's stomach was in complete knots when it came to the notion of Sam coping with these people on a daily basis.

She glanced at Ryan's strong profile, the mask behind which he hid his pain. Zoe knew he'd placed unspoken hope in his parents' ability to come around and they'd disappointed him. Meanwhile she'd placed no faith in Ryan's ability to stand up to his parents. If he knew that, he'd be disappointed in her, as well. Heaven knew she was disappointed in herself. She shouldn't have needed to see evidence of where his loyalties would lie.

Ryan had proven himself tonight and the thought ought to give Zoe pure joy. Instead she was forced to acknowledge that it brought her and her family closer than ever to losing Sam for good.

I
T WAS MIDNIGHT
and Ryan lay in his bed, channel surfing because he couldn't sleep. Couldn't forget the awful night in his stifling childhood home. He'd disappointed the new women in his life, two amazing women who he realized had come to mean more to him than the family who'd raised him.

From the minute Ryan had walked into the house and seen the formality he'd tried to forget, he knew things wouldn't go well. Still, he'd tried to let both Sam and his parents be themselves and hoped that the adults would have learned from their past mistakes. Clearly that hadn't been the case and there were only two reasons he hadn't made good on his threat to walk out—his uncle and Zoe.

Zoe hated his family and all they stood for. He'd seen it in her eyes, her expression and he'd heard it in her tone and hurt voice, when she'd defended her parents. Yet she'd backed down and she'd done it for him.

When he heard the soft knock on his bedroom door, he thought he'd imagined it until he heard it again and the door slowly swung wide. He supposed he should have been surprised to see Zoe standing there, but he wasn't. Not when she was the answer to his dreams and prayers.

He pushed himself up in bed and crooked a finger her way.

She shut the door behind her and leaned back against it. “You don't mind my being here?”

“Why should I?”

She shrugged. “Sam's down the hall, for one thing.”

“After three nights I've learned the kid sleeps like the dead.”

Zoe laughed. “Isn't that the truth. I can't remember the last time I crashed that hard.”

“You haven't slept well since you've been here, that much I know.”

She tipped her head to one side, her dark hair falling over the white satin of her robe. “Snooping on me?”

“No more than you've been doing to me, I'm sure. These walls aren't that thick. So are you going to stand there and make small talk all night?”

She laughed and strode forward, sitting on the end of his double bed. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“How'd you grow up like that?”

He'd wondered the same thing himself. “I guess I was just lucky I survived it and came out sane.”

She nodded. “Well you were amazing tonight,” she said, taking him by surprise.

He laced his fingers behind his head and studied her. “You expected me to let my folks get away with belittling you and being so hard on Sam?”

“Let's say I wasn't sure what to expect, but…you impressed me, Ryan.” Her voice dropped an octave when she said his name.

The desire that he'd managed to hold at bay washed over him with desperate force.

“Weren't you afraid?” she asked, pegging his deepest emotions, the ones he'd thought were so well hidden.

Obviously they weren't and he wasn't about to explain it to her from a distance. He patted the empty space next to him and without hesitating, she scooted closer, curling up beside him. Only the glow of the television provided light in the room and they lay together comfortably.

“What could I be afraid of?” he asked lightly.

She reached out and caressed his cheek. “Losing your family the way Faith lost her family.”

He shut his eyes, unable to believe this woman understood him so well. “My whole life I lived with this double message that always tested me. In my heart I knew what my parents did to my sister was dead wrong and the only way I could make it right was to search for her. Every birthday of mine that passed marked another year closer to finding Faith.”

“You're a good man,” she murmured, as her soft fingers stroked his skin, encouraging him to continue.

“But I also knew the consequences for stepping out of those boundaries my parents set for us kids. I could lose my family and everything that was familiar to me if I misbehaved. Toeing the line was second nature.”

Zoe leaned her head against his shoulder, her breath soft on his neck. “Yet you became a lawyer and didn't go into the family business.”

“Only because J.T. did and because being an attorney would help me if they suddenly decreed it was time I helped run Baldwin's, too.” He'd just never faced the possibility that that day might arise.

“You became your own man,” Zoe insisted and he laughed at her determination to make him see himself the way she viewed him.

“Still, my sister no longer existed for them and I knew…heck, I
know
that if I cross them, I may no longer exist, either.” Despite himself, he shivered at the prospect.

“Yet you stood up to them tonight, and you did it for Sam.”

“And for you.”

She narrowed her gaze.

“You doubt me?” he asked. “Or do you just want to make believe what I said isn't true?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don't know. Every time things get intense between us, you back off in some way.”

A smile teased her lips, but it wasn't a happy one, more like an acknowledgment of his words.

“Care to tell me why?” he asked.

“If you want honesty, I'll give you honesty. You're a threat to me, Ryan. An honest-to-goodness threat.”

Her admission let him know that her feelings for him ran as deeply as his did for her. The difference was, he refused to run away.

“I'm a threat? Or your own feelings are?”

She breathed in deep and he felt the tremors wracking her body. “A little of both, I suppose.”

He narrowed his gaze, not surprised and yet confused at the same time. “You come from an open, loving family. One that isn't afraid of expressing their feelings, good or bad. You can't possibly be afraid of falling in love.”

Love? Not yet, but the possibility wasn't completely incomprehensible. Still, he couldn't believe he'd said the word out loud.

Neither could she. Her eyes opened wide, but to her credit, she held on to her composure as she tried to explain. “I'm thirty and I've never fallen in love. Never said the words to a man who wasn't a family member. I've watched my parents live the emotion and saw my sister fall firsthand. I've long since accepted that it isn't going to happen for me. And it definitely can't happen between two people as different as us.”

Well, he'd asked. Now he knew. And his stomach cramped as he realized how tightly she held on to her notions.

“Differences aren't always a bad thing,” he reminded her.

She shook her head and laughed. “You're determined to make this difficult, aren't you?”

“Not at all.” He reached out and stroked her cheek. “You're scared of feelings you never thought you'd have. Join the club, sweetheart. I'm thirty and I've never been in love. Never said the words or even thought I'd fallen hard.” And he wouldn't say them outright just yet, either. “It's something we
do
have in common.”

She glanced down at the comforter. “My life is at a crossroads. Surely you see that. I'm still living at home. My business, which doesn't even have a name, is barely up and running and I've already had to put it on hold to come up here.”

“To be with Sam. Who needs you. You didn't hesitate to drop everything for her and she's not even your flesh and blood. Compare that to the situation she's got waiting for her here and you're miles ahead of us.”

She laughed. “Looks like neither of us gives ourselves enough credit.”

“So isn't it great that we've got each other cheering us on? You know you're the first woman I've ever known who's truly an individual. You have drive, direction—”

“Ryan, don't.” She shook her head and didn't meet his gaze. “I need to resettle before I can consider myself a part of a couple or even seriously consider a relationship.”

He nodded in understanding, telling himself she hadn't completely closed herself off to the notion of
them.
She needed time to adjust to her feelings, which gave him time to confront her fears and find solutions. He needed to be able to deal with each point on a rational level or he'd never change her mind. A possibility he couldn't begin to contemplate.

She shut her eyes and leaned back, closing him out.

But this time he wasn't unnerved by her need to pull away because he understood now that she was scared. Scared of how an emotion as intense as love could change her life and threaten the freedom she held so dear.

He'd just have to take her fears as a challenge to overcome.

 

Z
OE STRETCHED OUT
on the lounge chair by the pool at Ryan's parents' house. She couldn't say she was comfortable with his mother and grandmother sitting beneath an umbrella on the opposite side of the patio, alternately staring and whispering. She felt like a pariah at a party.

But then she'd turned and looked at Ryan, who lay beside her in swimming trunks, and decided life could be much, much worse. His tanned chest was a magnet for her hungry gaze and she devoured him from behind her sunglasses.

Only she knew she'd spent the night in his bed. He'd managed to coax her into forgetting their intense conversation and making love, not once, but twice last night and then again this morning. Each time he'd come inside her, he'd shuddered and whispered her name, soft and low in her ear. He'd made her insides turn to mush, made liquid trickle between her thighs so she could clasp him in moist heat. Zoe crossed her legs and felt that sensitive spot tingle and shoot desire straight to her core.

As a distraction, she tried to focus on the afternoon sun, which beat down hard, but her mind strayed back to their too-serious conversation last night. What he was coming to mean to her, and her to him. And why she needed to back off.

Zoe shivered despite the hot sun. She grabbed for the sunscreen and slathered lotion on her arms and chest. All the while, she felt Ryan watching her, too.

“Hey, Zoe!” Sam yelled.

She glanced up, shielding her eyes with her hand so she could better see the teenager's antics.

“Cannonball!” Sam yelled and jumped, grabbing her knees midair prior to hitting the water, which splashed over all the chairs drenching everything in sight.

Thanks to the heat Ryan generated, Zoe didn't mind the cold shower. His mother, on the other hand, rose from her seat and shook her arms in fury.

“Samantha, there are other people in the vicinity!” Vivian chided.

“Sorry, Mrs. Baldwin.” Sam said the words in a singsong voice that failed to sound sincere.

The older woman, clad in a too-formal summer dress, glanced at Ryan. “Does the child have to call me that? I sound like a stranger.”

“You are,” Zoe muttered beneath her breath.

“What would you like Sam to call you?” Ryan asked.

That question seemed to stump his mother and she grew oddly quiet.

“How 'bout I call you Grandma?” Sam asked, stepping out of the pool.

Zoe chuckled. The kid might not want anything to do with Ryan's family, but she definitely knew how to push all the right buttons to annoy them.

“Why don't you just call her Vivian?” Ryan suggested.

Any replies were interrupted by shrieks from the side of the house.

“Oh, no.” Zoe ran, Ryan ahead of her, and the others followed.

They rounded the corner and Zoe nearly barreled into Ryan who'd stopped short. His grandmother stood on a white wrought-iron bench, pointing at the ground and shrieking.

“Mother, what's wrong?” Vivian asked.

“It's…it's…there's a
rat
in my roses,” she screamed loudly. “Call Hilton,” she said. Hilton, Zoe now knew, was the butler.

Nobody pointed out that, even in her panicked state, Grandma Edna directed that the butler be called to help when there were perfectly capable family members standing around uselessly. Meanwhile, Grandma Edna still gesticulated wildly with her hands.

“Have him call a terminator,” the older woman shouted.

“I think you mean an exterminator.”

Zoe turned to see Uncle Russ had joined the fray.

“I'm sure it's not a rat,” Vivian said, calming her mother and helping her down from the bench.

Zoe met Ryan's gaze.

“I'm quite sure it isn't,” he said, somehow keeping a straight face.

Despite the insanity around them, they shared intimate eye contact, causing her insides to curl with warmth.

“I thought we told you to keep the pig caged in the shade on the other side of the house,” Zoe whispered to Sam who stood wrapped in a towel behind her.

“I dunno what happened. Maybe I didn't lock the cage good enough,” she said, too innocently.

Zoe cringed and waited for the fallout while Ryan dug around the garden for the pig. Zoe vividly recalled the moment in her own mother's garden when he'd de scribed the prized roses, and decided all hope of keeping the peace, and Ryan on their side, was lost.