The True Love Quilting Club (17 page)

“I suppose I don’t think about it much.” He didn’t get down to the river very often. Once in a while when his family kidnapped him from his clinic, forced him down to their summer house for a barbecue.

“Come on,” she said, stripping off her cute little red shoes and heading into the water. “Let’s go wading.”

“Be careful,” he called as she plunged in. “That sandbar isn’t very wide and—”

Before he got the words out of his mouth Emma just disappeared, swallowed up by the water.

“Shit!” Sam exclaimed, and flung himself in after her, cowboy boots and all. He dived down, his heart pounding.

Emma bobbed to the top of the water, laughing and treading water. He came up sputtering beside her and swiping the water from his face with a palm. “It’s not funny,” he yelled. “Stop laughing. I thought you got pulled down by an undertow.”

“Nope, just stepped off the sandbar. Hey, the water is really deep right there. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was trying to tell you before you dived in so impulsively.”

“Oh well,” she said, swimming back to the river’s edge. “No harm done.”

“But harm could have been done,” he scolded, “lots of harm. You could have drowned.”

“But I didn’t,” she said impishly, pulling herself to shore.

Sam got out and collapsed on the ground beside her. “My pulse is racing. You scared the hell out of me.”

“BS. Let me feel.” She sat up beside him, splayed her palm over his chest.

Her touch was electric, sending bolts of awareness shooting throughout his body. He looked into her eyes, green as the sea, her face encircled by coppery wet curls. Sam did not plan what happened next. He was simply compelled by biology to act.

Who’s being impulsive now?

The thought flashed through his mind, but in the heat of the moment, it was washed away by a torrent of hormones.

His blood hummed, his brain sizzled. He sat up, reached out, spanned her waist with both hands, and pulled her into his lap. Beneath that soaking wet, red and white blouse her glorious breasts mashed into his chest and her soft, damp skin branded his flesh. The scent of her, always that dangerous watermelon shampoo and Ivory soap scent, inflamed his senses. Instantly, he had a hard-on. Never mind that he was wet to the bone. Didn’t he always get an erection whenever he was around her? It was damn embarrassing how little control he had over himself.

She didn’t move, just sat snugged in his lap studying him. Their noses were almost touching.

His hand slipped down her back to cup her butt, and what a heavenly ass it was. His palm seemed made for cupping her. His fingers had a mind of their own; they trailed lower. Still, she didn’t wriggle away, but
she did inhale sharply while her gaze stayed hooked on his face.

She caught her bottom lip up between her teeth and her cheeks pinkened prettily as she shifted forward ever so slightly.

The sounds of the motorboats cruising up to the boat ramp on the other side of the river faded from his ears. He forgot they were soaking wet and sitting on the banks of the Brazos River. He was aware of nothing except her mesmerizing green eyes.

“Your hand is on my ass,” she whispered.

“It is,” he confessed.

“I’m wet.”

“I noticed.”

“You’re hard.”

“I noticed that too.”

“This is a problem.”

“It’s one of the main reasons you don’t go running off half-cocked. It can result in unintended consequences.”

“Pun intended?” She arched one copper-colored brow.

“Not really.”

“You don’t do anything on impulse?”

“I pulled you into my lap, didn’t I?”

“Ah, but you stopped short of a kiss.”

“Are you asking me to kiss you?”

“Not asking, no.”

“Hoping?”

Her breathing was so shallow she was almost panting. “Praying.”

Blindly, without purposeful thought, Sam trailed his fingertips over the nape of her neck and leaned his head down to kiss the throbbing pulse at the hollow of
her throat. Her silky skin softened beneath his mouth, and a tight little moan escaped her lips.

His hand crept from her neck and down the hollow of her throat to her breast, heaving with each inhalation of air. A simple but lingering touch that escalated the erotic intimacy between them.

Sam could not fully comprehend the hold Emma had over him. She made him want to chuck all his values and restraint and just do what felt good. He was a lost soul, bested by her lips. He could think of nothing else but being melded with her in any way that he could.

She rocked her pelvis against him, lithe and graceful.

Blood surged through his body, pouring out from his heart and pooling into his crotch, setting his erection in stone. He closed his eyes, grappling for some semblance of control, but it was nowhere to be found.

He kissed her again, his clashing tongue hot against hers, tasting the vibrant flavor of her, absorbing her brilliant warmth.

She shivered in response, a tremor quaking through her slender body. He pulled his lips from hers and ran his tongue over the outside of her ear, and she shuddered even harder.

Her quick intake of breath, low and excited, in the vast openness of water and sky, ignited his own need, sending it shooting to flaming heights.

She lightly bit his chin.

The feel of her teeth against his skin rocketed a searing heat to all his erogenous zones, and he groaned. God, she was one helluva woman, dragging him out on a limb with her.

Sam’s lips found hers again and as they kissed, he raised a hand to her breasts. Her nipples poked through the material of her lacy bra.

His thumb brushed against her hard little nipple, and she responded by sliding her bottom against his lap. The feel of her sweet little ass against the leg of his jeans made him crazy.

When he bent his head to gently suck at her nipple through her shirt, she gasped and ran her fingers through his hair, clutched his head close to her bosom.

This wasn’t good enough. He had to touch her bare skin or go insane.

Sliding his hand up underneath her shirt, he unhooked her bra from behind and set her breasts free. She moved against him, hot and fiery. No way could he resist the mounting pleasure, or the sweet little sound slipping past her lips. Desire consumed his body, snatched his soul.

“Sam,” she murmured, and rocked restlessly.

He couldn’t believe he was with her. Sixteen years vanished in the ethereal stream of time, and here was Steady Sam with the most audacious girl in the freshman class. He’d wondered then, as he wondered now, how on earth had he managed that feat?

You’re falling in love with her all over again.

It was true but he didn’t know how to stop it. Didn’t want to stop it even though he knew he was headed down a treacherous path. With a fierce growl, he pushed aside her blouse, exposing one of those perky breasts. Pure lust shot through him as he bent his head to draw her hard-beaded nipple into his mouth.

She let out a gasp. “Oh, oh.”

He teased her nipple with his teeth, biting down on it so softly. She gasped again and ground her pelvis against his. Her legs straddled his lap, and the crotch of her panties rested against the bulging zipper of his jeans.

Never in his life had he made out with a woman in the open like this. Any moment someone could drive up. Hell, someone could motor by on the river and catch a glimpse of them through the trees, but Sam couldn’t bring himself to care, which was completely out of character. He knew he just had to have more. To have her in his arms again was nothing short of a miracle, and he couldn’t help thinking it was all an erotic wet dream.

He pulsed with need for her. Awestruck, he suckled her tender nipple, extracting more exquisite sounds of pleasure from Emma’s sweet lips. How he wanted her, ached for her, craved her. But he shouldn’t do this. Not only were they in a public place, but he knew this relationship couldn’t lead where his heart wanted it to go. Emma was bound for bigger things. He couldn’t expect her to be happy in a place like Twilight. At least not for long. And he couldn’t be happy anywhere else. Besides, he wasn’t free to make decisions based on whims of the heart. He had a son, and that changed everything.

But even as he told himself these things, his body wasn’t listening. He had to kiss her again, practicality be damned. He tugged her shirt down over her swollen breasts and captured her lips. She kissed him back with a passion that rocked him to his core. He kissed her until he couldn’t breathe, and when, finally, he was forced to come up for air, she made a soft noise of disappointment.

The late afternoon sunlight fell through the leaves of the sheltering elm trees overhead, sending a cool breeze over their damp skin. He felt goose bumps rise on her arms and realized he had plenty of goose bumps of his own, none of them related to wet clothes and breezy air.

“You’re shivering,” he said. “We better get you warmed up, dried off.”

“You’re wet too, Doc.”

They looked at each other, sexual tension throbbing between them, an intense, undeniable force.

Emma leaned in for another kiss, but he cupped her face in his palms and shook his head. Then he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her off him.

“What’s happening, Sam?” she whispered.

He had to fist his hands to keep from kissing her again. He wanted her so badly. His masculine urges were all-consuming, numbing his conscience, short-circuiting his brain.
Take her, take her, take her.
A wicked, primal chant rang in his ears. He had to get away from her or do something irrevocable.

Emma, however, had a mind of her own.

The kiss she planted on his lips was as full of life as she was—energetic, spontaneous, generous. She kissed as she did everything, putting all her heart and soul into it. Intensity exuded from her mouth, lighting a brushfire inside him. She threaded her fingers through his hair, held him still while her eager little tongue went searching. She tasted so damn delicious.

He let it go on for much longer than he should have; he was going to get hurt, no two ways about it. Sam broke the kiss. “We gotta stop. I should never have started this.”

“No,” she agreed, nodding.

“You’re on a path to the stars and I’m just Steady Sam, forever in Twilight. I can’t keep up with you, Trixie Lynn. You’re out of my league.”

“I’m not and I’d take you right here, right now, Sam Cheek, but I don’t want to cause you any more pain. You’ve suffered enough.”

“You’ve done some suffering of your own, sweetheart.”

“If I thought an affair with you would cure our aches instead of complicate them…”

“I know. I want it too, but there’s too much at stake.” Sam cringed. He hated the way that sounded, as if she wasn’t worth the risk. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. What I meant was—”

“No, no.” She held up her palms. “I get it. I really do. I have very little impulse control, so this is me, uncomplicating your life.” Emma hooked her bra, adjusted her blouse, got to her feet, and started for the Jeep, her clothes clinging wetly to her small, slender frame.

She looked so forlorn. Watching her walk away ripped Sam’s heart from his chest. But she was right. It was better to stop this before it ever really got started.

The question was, why did he feel as if he was making the biggest mistake of his life?

The conversation on the drive back to Sam’s house rested exclusively on driving dos and don’ts. The awkwardness between them hung heavily inside the confines of that little yellow Jeep. Emma didn’t know what to say to break the tension, didn’t know if she should even try.

Everything was such a mess between them. She wanted him so badly she couldn’t think straight, and it seemed he felt the same way about her, but they both knew the potential for hurt was huge. Their values were just too different. The things they wanted in life were polar opposites. She wished she could ignore that reality, but every time she looked at him, she saw it. The small-town family man who was happy with his life. He didn’t yearn for more the way she did. He had no desire to make his mark on the outside world. No driving need to be special. As long as he took care of Charlie and had animals to tend, Sam was content.

It wasn’t an indictment of him. In fact, she was jealous that he could be satisfied with such simplicity. She wished she was hardwired differently. That she could be less ambitious, less determined to succeed at all cost, but it was in her blood. She had no idea how to settle for less than the dreams that drove her with an unrelenting fire.

“What in the world happened to you two?” Maddie asked the minute they walked through the back door and into the mudroom.

“Long story,” Sam said chivalrously, not getting into the details of her stupidity.

“I decided to go wading on the sandbar where the old Twilight Bridge used to be and fell in. Sam jumped in to save me from drowning without any concern for his own safety.”

“That’s our Sam,” Maddie said. “Hero through and through.”

Sam’s cheeks reddened. “You weren’t drowning.”

“You didn’t know that.”

Maddie made a clucking noise. “Well, you were gone so long I was about to call Hondo to go look for you.”

Emma felt her own cheeks heat as she thought about what the sheriff might have come upon if the housekeeper had called him out to search for them.

“You went in with your boots on?” Maddie stared at Sam’s wet cowboy boots.

“When you’re jumping into the river to save someone’s life, it’s customary not to take time to strip off your boots,” Sam drawled.

“Don’t move.” Maddie pointed a finger. “Either one of you, until I can put some paper bags down for you to walk on. I just mopped the kitchen floor.”

Emma jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I’m going to go on back to the B&B, Maddie, and get out of your hair.”

“Hold it right there, little missy.” Maddie shook her index finger.

“What is it?”

“You promised that napping child upstairs you’d take him for ice cream when you got back.” She shifted her gaze to Sam. “And while I don’t approve of ice cream before dinner, you did promise him. He’s been waiting two hours for you to return, and he’s going to get his ice cream come hell or high water.”

“Sam can take him,” Emma said. The last thing she wanted was to spend more time with Sam and Charlie in a cute ice cream shop in their cozy little town.

“He’s expecting you to go too.”

“How do you know?” Emma asked.

“He drew this.” Maddie stepped from the mudroom into the kitchen, and removed a crayon drawing attached to the refrigerator with a magnet. She came back and handed it to Emma.

The drawing consisted of three stick figures. A dad, a mom, and a little boy eating ice cream. The mom had a mass of curly red hair.

Emma’s chest tightened, and tears pushed at the backs of her eyes. Charlie missed his mother so damn much he couldn’t bring himself to speak, but the picture said it all. “That’s not a picture of me.”

“Yes it is,” Maddie said, and Emma could see tears misting the other woman’s eyes as well. “Look what she’s wearing.”

The mother in Charlie’s drawing was wearing an outfit identical to the one Emma had on—red skirt, red and white striped blouse, red shoes.

Her heart cracked wide open, then. This was all the more reason not to go eat ice cream with them. Charlie was getting attached to her. She shot a desperate look at Sam and saw the same concerns on his face.

“Maybe it would be best if Emma did go on back to—” Sam started but didn’t get to finish because Charlie came charging into the mudroom, a huge grin on his face. He stopped when he saw they were wet and canted his head.

“We fell into the river,” Sam explained.

Charlie spied the drawing Maddie held and pointed to it.

“Yes, we’re still going for ice cream. We just have to put on some dry clothes first.”

Charlie nodded.

Emma resigned herself to ice cream. “I’ll pop over to the B&B and change.”

“You don’t want to go traipsing through the B&B soaking wet,” Maddie pointed out. “Sunday afternoon is when all the tourists are checking out. I’ll find something here for you to wear.”

She wanted to argue but Maddie had already disappeared. She came back with dry clothes for both Sam and Emma and paper bags to put down on the floor. Sam peeled off his boots in the mudroom while Emma followed the brown paper bag trail that Maddie made leading to the downstairs bathroom.

Once she was alone in the bathroom with the door shut, she shucked off her wet things, took a quick rinse-off shower, and dressed in the bright purple dress with a fitted bodice and flouncy hemline that skimmed just above her knees. It molded to her body as if it had been made for her. She loved it—the color, the fit, the soft cottony material.

She knew at once the dress must have belonged to Valerie. It would never fit someone as tall and big-boned as Maddie.

Immediately, she wanted to take it off. Not because it had belonged to a dead woman, but because she was already sinking too deeply into Valerie’s old life. The longer she stayed, the harder it would be to shake off this town, that little boy, and the man she now realized she’d never stopped loving.

The line at Rinky-Tink’s old-fashioned ice cream parlor extended out the door; most of the patrons were tourists on this Sunday afternoon. It was easy to distinguish the locals from the tourists. The tourists had on fanny packs and walked with slow, loping gaits as they browsed store windows. They wore sunshades, festive straw hats, or visors, and they smelled of coconut-scented sunscreen after a day spent boating on the lake.

Charlie was impatient with the wait, wiggling like a worm and hanging on the metal bars set up to keep people in an orderly queue. Several times, Sam had to rest a restraining hand on his shoulder to hold him in check.

“Waiting gets boring, huh?” Emma said to him.

Charlie nodded so vigorously his glasses slipped to the end of his nose and he used his thumb to push them back up.

“I’m gonna get coffee ice cream,” Emma said. “Do you want some?”

Sam should have known her favorite would be something cosmopolitan and different. No plain vanilla for Trixie Lynn.

Charlie made a “yuck” face.

“What kind do you like?” she asked the boy.

He pointed at the large wooden sandwich sign posted just inside the door with all the flavors listed on it and numbered.

Emma looked over. “There’s a lot of flavors there. How am I supposed to know which one you want?”

He held up eight fingers.

“Ah,” she said. “Rocky road. I should have known that was your favorite. All little boys like rocky road.”

Charlie nodded again.

To distract him from the long wait, Emma started telling him a story about a little boy who was made out of rocky road ice cream. As she spoke, Sam found himself mesmerized. Her voice was so compelling, honed, he was sure, by years of acting lessons and stage plays. Her story spun out into the ice cream parlor, and soon several other kids had gathered around to listen.

“Your wife is a really good storyteller,” one of the lady tourists waiting behind them said. “She could make a living doing it.”

“Thank you,” Sam said, not bothering to explain she wasn’t his wife. There was no reason to go into that.

But his gaze ensnared Emma’s, and for a split second he saw a look on her face that he couldn’t describe—part sadness, part delight, part raw vulnerability—and it made him catch his breath. Was she imagining what it would be like to be his wife? He sure was wondering what it would be like to be her husband.

Well, stop it. You have no business imagining that.

Emma gave him a shy smile and then ducked her head, continuing her story to Charlie and the other children hanging on her every word.

Thirty minutes later their turn at the ice cream counter came. “One scoop of coffee ice cream in a…” Sam looked over at Emma.

“Cup,” she supplied.

“A scoop of strawberry on a waffle cone, and a scoop of rocky road…” Sam paused again as Charlie tugged on his pants leg. “What is it, champ?”

Charlie held up two fingers.

“You want two scoops?”

He nodded.

“Maddie will have my hide if I give you two scoops. You won’t eat your dinner.”

Charlie pressed his palms together in a gesture of entreaty. The look in his eyes said,
Please, please
.

When he’d stopped talking, Charlie had gotten really expressive with his eyes. “You promise to eat your dinner if I get you two scoops?” Sam asked, knowing that more than likely he’d have to finish it.

Charlie nodded again.

“Okay,” he told the girl behind the counter. “Make that rocky road cone a double.”

The girl scooped up the ice cream, handed the orders out to Emma and Charlie while Sam reached in his wallet and pulled out a ten. “Keep the change.”

They headed for a table near the front window that a family of four had just vacated. Charlie stumbled over his shoelace that had come untied. Top heavy with two scoops of rocky road, his cone flipped over the side of his little hand and fell top down on the floor. Sam saw it all unfolding but couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

“Aww,” a couple of patrons said in unison.

A shocked expression crossed Charlie’s face, and it was quickly replaced by a look of utter heartbreak.
He’d waited all afternoon for this cone, and in an instant, it was lost. His son hovered on the verge of bursting into tears, his bottom lip trembling.

“I’ll get you another one,” Sam said.

Simultaneously, he and Emma swung their gazes to stare at the line that was even longer now than it had been when they’d first arrived.

“No need,” Emma said brightly, and crouched beside Charlie. “Only that first scoop touched the floor. The second scoop and the cone are fine. Hand me a couple of napkins, Sam.”

And as quick as that, she saved the day, separated the two scoops of ice cream, handing Charlie the one that was still clean, scooping the other off the floor with the napkins and tossing it in the trash. Charlie grinned and went to licking.

“Whew,” Sam said. “Smooth move. You saved the day.”

Sam couldn’t help thinking that Valerie would probably have scolded Charlie for not watching where he was going, and she certainly wouldn’t have let Sam get him two scoops of ice cream, especially before dinner. And germ-obsessed as she was, Valerie would have had a heart attack over Emma’s maneuver. But Emma had a valid point. The ice cream that hadn’t touched the floor was perfectly good. Disaster averted.

“Do you need a wipe for your hands?” asked the lady tourist who’d assumed Emma was his wife, and produced a moistened towelette from her purse.

Emma smiled and rose to her feet, rubbing her sticky fingers with the wipe.

“You’re a natural-born mother,” the woman enthused. “You’re so at ease with your son.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking embarrassed.

The woman went on her way, and Emma sat down to join Sam and Charlie at the table. The woman was right, Emma was a natural with kids. Probably because she was so bubbly and adventuresome herself, just like a kid.

“You ever think about having one of your own?” he asked.

“What? Me have a kid?”

“Yeah.”

“
Nooo
,” she said it like he’d suggested she climb Mount Everest.

“Why not?” he asked, not knowing why he was grilling her, but doing it all the same.

“It’s really difficult to be a good mother and have an acting career, and I’m a firm believer that kids should come first. Why do you think so many actresses wait until they’re in their late thirties or forties to start a family?”

“Do you think you’ll want one when you’re forty?”

“Honestly, I don’t think that far into the future. I’m just trying to make it day by day.”

He could look at her and see it was true. She was spontaneous, impulsive, free-spirited, the kind of person who lived in the moment. And while he supposed it was a gift to be able to exist solely in the here and now, he didn’t understand it. He was a planner, a plotter. He had to know how things were going to line up. Without a plan, Sam didn’t make a move. If he went on vacation, he had all the stops mapped out, right down to the gas stations. He didn’t go anywhere without reservations and a backup contingency plan.

Charlie, who was sitting beside Emma and across from Sam, reached out and lightly patted her hand. His little face was smeared with chocolate. She turned
to look at his son, and in that moment, he saw a flash of tenderness in her eyes so strong and true, he had to agree with the tourist lady. Emma was a natural-born mother whether she knew it or not.

“What is it, Charlie?” she murmured.

Charlie wiggled himself around on his knees and leaned over to kiss her softly on the cheek.

A tear-jerking mix of surprised delight and wistful longing crossed her face. “Why Charlie,” she said. “What a sweet kiss. Thank you.”

And then she kissed his cheek in return.

Charlie beamed as if the sun had come out after weeks of being trapped inside by rainy weather.

Sam’s gut contracted; a cold sweat broke out on his forehead as his heart ripped right in two. This was bad. This was really bad. His six-year-old son was falling in love with a woman who could never be his surrogate mother.

“I’ll bring this dress back over to you tomorrow,” Emma said when Sam let her out of the Jeep in front of the Merry Cherub.