Missionary Daddy

Ashley chowed into a fourth slice. “Tastes even better.”

Sam forced the pizza to her lips and took a bite. “Mmm. Delish.”

The food lodged in the back of her throat. She grabbed her diet soda can and swigged, forcing the pizza down. During times like this, times of high stress or emotional unbalance, the anorexia tried to rear its murderous head. She’d done enough damage to her body already. Damage that might never heal. She couldn’t allow the disorder to take control again. Next time, it might kill her.

“Why don’t you come to church with us tomorrow, Sam?” Ashley asked as she handed LEGO blocks to her son with one hand and stuffed away pizza with the other.

“Chris is coming down after service.”

Ashley’s face glowed when she mentioned her fiancé, Chris Sullivan who pastored a church in Williamsburg. Some Sundays she and Gabriel drove up to spend the day with him. On others, he drove down to spend the afternoon with them. He was a great guy who’d helped Ashley forgive herself for past mistakes, and Sam was glad to finally see her sister so happy.

“The whole church thing seems weird to me.”

“There’s nothing weird about being a Christian.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Since coming home, Sam had noticed a radical change in her family. Once cold and distant, her parents suddenly wanted to be close, to make up for lost time. They’d started attending church with Ashley and Gabriel and wanted Sam to do the same.

“I wish Mom and Dad had been this enthused about family when you and I were kids.”

Gabriel threw a block onto the floor and laughed.

“Me, too, but if I learned anything through the ordeal with losing Gabriel and trying to get him back again, it’s that we can’t change the past. We have to move on, and try to do better in the future.”

Ashley’s teenage pregnancy had been a pivotal event for all of the Harcourts. Too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone, she’d given Gabriel up at first. When Sam had found out, she’d rushed home to help her sister regain custody of the baby. She couldn’t imagine not having this precious boy in their lives.

Since then, Ashley was working hard to complete a degree in fashion design and looking forward to a future as Christopher’s wife. She’d been lucky to find a man who not only didn’t hold her past against her, but who loved her son as his own.

“I’m glad you found your path in life, sis. Really, I am. But church is so foreign to us Harcourts. All we’ve ever needed was money.”

“Look what that got us.” Ashley ripped off a piece of pizza, blew on it, then slid it into Gabriel’s open mouth. Though the little guy had been well fed before the pizza had arrived, he responded with a toothy grin.

“Yeah. Reporters calling day and night to ask what we know about the adoption scandals. The whole town acts as if we personally stole babies and still have them hidden in the attic thirty years later.”

They both laughed at the silliness. Gabriel patted the side of Sam’s face with Bob the Builder. She caught his hand and kissed it, drawing in his clean baby smell as a powerful love welled up inside.

“I don’t know why Grandfather falsified adoption papers and birth certificates. I wish I could understand. He hurt a lot of people.”

“Money, Sam. Barnaby Harcourt was all about making money. That’s all I remember about him. He looked like a kindly grandfather but he spent every waking moment getting richer.”

“He could have made money by adopting out children honestly.”

To the deep embarrassment of all the Harcourt family, Barnaby had extorted money from people who had given up their babies and then had spent years blackmailing them. Even the town mayor had fallen victim.

“Life has been insane around here since the construction workers found those papers in your wall,” Ashley said.

“The Cavanaughs are nice people. Ben didn’t deserve to find out about his birth parents that way.”

Ironically, one of Ben’s construction-company employees, Jonah Fraser, had discovered the hidden files. Since then, reporters had been hounding the Harcourt family, trying to blame them for Barnaby’s misdeeds.

Hammering issued from the other end of the house.

“Funder,” Gabriel said, eyes wide. For some reason, he’d developed a fear of thunder and lightning. Even though the hammering had continued off and on for weeks now, the toddler considered every sudden noise to be an ensuing storm.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Sam crooned, raising the sturdy two-year-old body up to her shoulder. “Someday they will actually finish those rooms and stop hammering.”

Ashley chuckled. “And about the time they have the entire suite just the way you want it, you’ll run back to Chicago.”

“I don’t think so. I’m thinking of renting out my condo.”

“Are you serious?” Ashley’s face registered disbelief. “Why?”

“I’m not sure I want to go back to modeling.” Even while she was on hiatus, the pressure never stopped. Only today her agent had called, urging her to get back to Chicago. “Not full-time anyway.”

The idea horrified her sister. “Are you crazy? Why wouldn’t anyone want your life?”

“Africa,” she said simply.

Ashley titled her head, puzzled. “Now that makes perfect sense. Care to elaborate?”

Sam shrugged. “Africa did something to me, Ash. Poverty like I can’t even express and yet the people have this joy, this strength about them.”

“Excuse me if I have no clue what this has to do with your amazing career.”

“Everything.” Gabriel wiggled to be let down, so Sam turned him loose. He scooted toward the edge of the bed. “I want my life to matter more. I want to make a difference. Standing in front of a camera in pretty clothes seems so empty after what I saw there.”

“Well, half the female population would take your place in a heartbeat if they could.”

Sam knew it was true. She also knew a lot of things about the business her sister didn’t. Sure, hers was a great job, but money and success in modeling came with a high price. A price she wouldn’t share with anyone, even her baby sister.

She fiddled with the edge of the pizza box, tempted to have another slice. “What do you think of Eric Pellegrino?”

“He’s a hunk and a half. Almost as cute as my Chris. A nice guy, too. Everyone at church seems to like him.” Ashley poked a finger at Sam’s knee. “Why? What does Eric have to do with our conversation?”

“We met in Africa.”

Ashley’s mouth formed an O. “No kidding?”

Gabriel turned onto his belly and started to slide off the high bed feetfirst. Without breaking the line of conversation, Ashley helped him safely down. He toddled to his push pony and climbed aboard, saying, “Horsey, go.”

“I worked at Eric’s orphanage for a day,” Sam said. “It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I found myself wishing I could stay there forever.”

“You? In an African orphanage? With dirt and flies and poverty? And no beauty salon?”

Sam gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Yes. How weird is that?”

She told her sister the rest, about the children, the lack of food, the despair. Most of all, she talked about Eric.

When she finished, Ashley’s soft brown eyes danced with speculation. “Are you in love with this guy?”

Sam made a face to quell a sudden invasion of nervous butterflies. “I barely know him. And now that we’ve met again, I think he hates me.”

“Oh, come on, Sam. There is not a red-blooded male in this country who hates you.”

“Then let’s say he doesn’t like me much. He holds me at an arm’s length and when I try to talk to him, he’s as cool as a Frappuccino.”

Ashley grinned. Having found her own true love, Ashley saw romance everywhere. “I think you’re way off base. Maybe the guy likes you a lot. And maybe he’s intimidated because you’re famous and he’s just a missionary.”

“Eric Pellegrino is not just a missionary. Nor is he intimidated by anything. He seems to despise what I do. And maybe he should. He’s dedicated to a noble cause. I’m dedicated to shopping and accessorizing.”

“Yes, but you’re so good at it!”

They both laughed, but Sam wasn’t joking. Along with her desire to change her own life, she wanted to change Eric’s opinion of her. She just didn’t know how.

When Eric walked into the Youth Center arts-and-crafts room, the first person he spotted was Samantha. Like radar, he seemed to find her. It was maddening. Yesterday, he’d spotted her going into the Noble Foundation. The day before, he’d driven past the mall and amidst all the cars and people, he’d seen Sam.

Now, here he was, that funny feeling in his gut, watching her with the teens. She and the girls, plus Anne Williams, were hub deep in conversation about hairstyles of all things. The boys sat at the table, chins on hands, looking bored to the point of coma.

Tiffany had brought a fashion magazine and was pointing to a picture. Sam placed a finger on each of the girl’s cheekbones, indicated the shape of her face and said something that made the slightly pudgy girl smile.

Eric had to give Sam that much. She was kind to the kids although they still treated her with a star-struck adulation that set his teeth on edge. She was only a person. No better than the rest of them.

He felt in the back pocket of his jeans for the letter that had arrived today.

“Hey, guys,” he called to the dying-of-boredom boys. They whirled as if he’d saved them from a fate worse than death. Chuckling, he understood all too well. To a guy, discussing girls’ hairstyles was pretty deadly.

“What’s up, Eric?” Lanky Jeremy scraped a chair out from the table to make room for their leader.

“Got some news today.” He unfolded the letter and placed it on the table. “From Africa.”

Sam, who had been describing some bizarre thing called shine serum, stopped in mid-sentence and looked up at him. He hadn’t intended to notice her at all tonight and yet, here he was soaking in the way sprigs of blond hair framed her face and brought out the beauty in her gray eyes.

“Africa?” she asked, tone eager. “From your orphanage?”

Technically it wasn’t his orphanage anymore though he’d founded and built the place. The missions’ board was in charge. “From the boys I’m trying to adopt.”

Three of the teenagers in the group had been adopted. Those three always wanted up-to-the-minute details on Eric’s process to adopt Matunde and Amani. They huddled around his back, staring down at the letter. Telephone or Internet contact with the new director was spotty at best, so every time he received a letter from the boys, he was pumped for days.

To his surprise, Sam rose, too, and came around to his side of the table. “Matunde and Amani?”

His surprise doubled. “You remember them?”

“Of course I do. I have a picture of them that I treasure.”

“Oh, right.” The photo she used for publicity. That was why she remembered his boys.

Sam pressed in beside him, leaning onto the table to read the letter along with the others. Right at his elbow, she brought with her the luscious scent of some perfume that probably cost enough to fund the orphanage for a year. And as annoyed as he tried to be about that, his senses couldn’t help appreciating the warm, feminine fragrance or the way her slender arm grazed the side of his.

“Did you say you’re adopting them?” Sam asked, turning her head so that their faces were only inches apart.

A hitch in his chest, Eric was trapped between Sam, the table and a huddle of kids. He couldn’t escape if he wanted to—and he most definitely wanted to. Yes, indeed. He needed to get far away from Miss Rich and Famous.

“Trying to. International adoptions are long and complex. The rules change constantly.”

“So what are the rules saying right now? Can you or can you not bring the boys to America?”

She seemed genuinely interested, just as she had in Africa. Why was it that the Sam he talked to was not the Sam he knew her to be?

“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.

Chapter Four

Sam 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?”