Karen Templeton - Swept Away

“Then I guess we’ll have to take it out in trade,” the older man said. “If you need some work done around the place, stuff like that.”

Sam sensed an eagerness behind Lane’s offer which surprised him. “Thought you folks were on vacation?”

“Believe me,” Lane said, “if it was a vacation I wanted, traipsing around the countryside with this pain in the backside—” he jerked his head toward Carly “—would not be my first choice.”

“Hey,” she said, gently smacking him. But since nobody seemed to be taking anybody else too seriously, Sam figured he didn’t need to, either. So they tossed all their gear into the back seat next to the kid and the dog, and Carly and her father climbed up onto the truck’s bench seat and they took off. Within seconds, the truck was filled with conversation. And the faint scent of coconut, which Sam would swear he’d never in his life found arousing before now.

Six kids?

Carly stared straight ahead as they bumped and squeaked over the road, trying not to stare at how the veins stood out on top of Sam’s hand cradling the gearshift. Who the hell has six kids these days? Thank God they weren’t alone, was all she had to say, although she wasn’t in much of a mood to thank God or anybody else for the situation as a whole. Her last relationship had ended just long enough ago to leave her dangling over that emotional hellhole between still stinging (she’d never been much good at being the dumpee) and really, really missing sex. Not that she hadn’t dangled over this particular emotional hellhole a few—okay, more than a few—times before, so it wasn’t as if she didn’t know she’d survive. It was what she tended to do to survive that could be the problem.

She caught a whiff of Sam’s aftershave and shut her eyes, drumming, Wrong, wrong, wrong into her head.

There. That should do it.

The men, having no idea of the horde of nefarious demons intent on colonizing her brain, had fallen into an easy conversation about sports or whatever, she wasn’t paying much attention, while her thoughts orbited around a single idea (and those demons), which was that this little sidebar to their trip went way beyond her original proposal to “go wherever the mood struck.”

Not that she was all that upset about the axle business. These things happen. And it wasn’t as if they were on any kind of set schedule or anything. Nor did she have a problem with whatever the accommodations turned out to be. God knows—although her father did not—she’d spent more than a few nights in some pretty seedy places over the years. Her ability to crash almost anywhere had not, she didn’t imagine, fallen into disuse simply because she’d been living more or less like an actual grown-up for some time. As long as she had a can opener and toilet paper (which she did), she was good.

However…turning back to the hellhole business for a minute: It was not exactly reassuring to discover that, at thirty-seven, her hormones were apparently every bit as out of control now as they had been at twenty. Or—her mouth pulled tight—fifteen. Now, Carly had long since accepted the fact that she clearly lacked whatever instincts steered other women to their life mates. And that, at this point, it was downright disingenuous to chalk up her inability to form a meaningful attachment to simply needing to mature a little more. So finding herself attracted to some farmer with a batch of kids—in all likelihood, a married farmer with a batch of kids, since that was one thing she did not do—was very depressing.

Wait. If Sam was married…

Carly cleared her throat and said, “Um…shouldn’t you have cleared our coming with your wife first?”

She saw the muscles in his hand tense as he shifted gears to climb a hill.

“Jeannie’s been gone for coming up on three years now,” he said softly, then twisted to give her what he probably thought was a reassuring smile. “Nobody to clear this with but me.”

Her first thought—a slightly panicked realization that the marriage thing had been her ace in the hole—collided with the most bizarre sensation of…wait, the word was there, somewhere…caring, that was it. Not that she never felt sympathy for anyone, because of course she did, it wasn’t as if she was cold-hearted. No, it was the intensity of the moment that knocked her off her pins, the overwhelming rush of compassion for this perfect stranger who was opening his home to them. The obvious love in Sam’s voice, the residual grief—something she understood all too well herself—somehow made her feel very, very humble. And shallow.

“I’m so sorry,” she finally said, even as her father put in about how hard it must be for Sam, raising all those kids on his own.

Indeed.

Sam wordlessly acknowledged their sympathy, then said, “That’s the farm up ahead. It’s just a small operation, but we call it home.”

But Carly barely registered the small grove of fruit trees, the corn-stalk-stubbled fields, the modest two-story farmhouse, white with blue shutters, proudly standing underneath a huge old oak tree, its leaves rust-tinged. Because she was too busy processing the newsflash that even though there was no Mrs. Sam in the picture, the six kids should work quite nicely as a libido suppressant. Because no way was she messing around with a man with six kids.

No. Damn. Way.

Sitting by herself on a patch of hot, prickly grass outside the school cafeteria, Libby glowered at her bologna sandwich, then took a bite, seeing as she was hungry and it wasn’t like it was gonna change, anyway. The “cool” girls—mostly juniors and seniors—sat in a cozy bunch under the massive cottonwood, their laughter drifting over on the breeze. Lunch—a trial on the best of days—really sucked when Blair wasn’t there. And Sean was no help, since he liked to spend every spare moment working on whatever car was up on the blocks in Auto. So it was just Libby and her bologna sandwich. Oh, and chips and an apple. Big whoop.

Actually, in some ways it wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought it would be. Most of her classes were okay, although she could do without Mr. Solomon, her English teacher, trying so hard to act like he was everybody’s best friend. The homework was no big deal, and she’d already gotten a ninety-three on her first biology quiz, so she felt pretty good about that, but lunchtime—the girls giggled again—was the pits. Why most of the kids she’d gone all through school with had suddenly decided it wasn’t cool to hang out with their old friends anymore, she had no idea. Not that any of ’em had anything to be stuck-up about—for the most part, everybody here was a farmer’s or rancher’s kid, just like her. When she’d bitched to Dad, he’d told her to sit tight, reminding her how hard her first weeks had been in middle school and how well that had turned out.

Like Dad had a clue how she felt. He used to be pretty cool, too, until he’d gone on this overprotective tear. Like showing two inches of skin or wearing makeup was going to turn her into a slut, for crying out loud. She was in high school, for heaven’s sake! Why didn’t he get that?

Libby glanced down at her breasts—36C and still growing—and sighed, thinking maybe he got more than she wanted to admit. Then she noticed Blair striding across the grass from the parking lot, her red hair looking like it was on fire in the sunlight, and felt a little better.

“Where were you?” Libby asked, knowing she sounded short. But Blair only plopped down beside her on the grass, not taking offense.

“I told you, I had to go get my braces off this morning.”

“Oh, yeah, huh. I forgot. So let me see.”

Blair bared her teeth, like a dog.

“It looks weird,” Libby said. “I guess because I’ve only ever seen you with braces.”