A Cinderella Story

He pulled away from her, and his voice dripped ice as he said, “Whatever it is you’re after, you should know I don’t want another woman in my life. Another child. Another loss.”

Her gaze never left his, and those big blue pools of sympathy and irritation threatened to drown him.

“Everybody loses, Sam,” she said quietly. “Houses, jobs, people they love. You can’t insulate yourself from that. Protect yourself from pain. It’s how you respond to the losses you experience that defines who you are.”

He sneered at her. She had no idea. “And you don’t like how I responded? Is that it? Well, get in line.”

“Loss doesn’t go away just because you’re hiding from it.”

Darkness beyond the windows seemed to creep closer, as if it were finding a way to slip right inside him. This room with its bright wood and soft lights and fire-lit shadows felt as if it were the last stand against the dark, and the light was losing.

Sam took a deep breath, looked down at her and said tightly, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her head tipped to one side and blond curls fell against her neck. “You think you’re the only one with pain?”

Of course not. But his own was too deep, too ingrained to allow him to give a flying damn what someone else might be suffering. “Just drop it. I’m done with this.”

“Oh no. This you don’t get to ignore. You think I don’t know loss?” She moved in closer, tipped her head back and sent a steely-blue stare into his eyes. “My parents died when I was eight. I grew up in foster homes because I wasn’t young enough or cute enough to be adopted.”

“Damn it, Joy—” He’d seen pain reflected in his own eyes often enough to recognize the ghosts of it in hers. And he felt like the bastard he was for practically insisting that she dredge up her own past to do battle with his.

“As a foster kid I was never ‘real’ in any of the families I lived with. Always the outsider. Never fitting in. I didn’t have friends, either, so I went out and made some.”

“Good for you.”

“Not finished. I had to build everything I have for myself by myself. I wanted to belong. I wanted family, you know?”

He started to speak, but she held up one hand for silence, and damned if it didn’t work on him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as he watched her dip into the past to defend her present.

“I met Holly’s father when I was designing his website. He was exciting and he loved me, and I thought it was forever—it lasted until I told him about Holly.”

And though Sam felt bad, hearing it, watching it, knowing she’d had a tough time of it, he couldn’t help but ask, “Yeah? Did he die? Did he take Holly away from you, so that you knew you’d never see her again?”

She huffed out a breath. “No, but—”

“Then you don’t know,” Sam interrupted, not caring now if he sounded like an unfeeling jerk. He wouldn’t feel bad for the child she’d once been. She was the one who had dragged the ugly past into the present. “You can’t possibly know, and I’m not going to stand here defending myself and my choices to you.”

“Great,” she said, nodding sharply as her temper once again rose to meet his. “So you’ll just keep hiding yourself away until the rest of your life slides past?”

Sam snapped, throwing both hands high. “Why the hell do you care if I do?”

“Because I saw you with Holly,” Joy said, moving in on him again, flavoring every breath he took with the scent of summer flowers that clung to her. “I saw your kindness. She needed that. Needs a male role model in her life and—”

“Oh, stop. Role models. For God’s sake, I’m no one’s father figure.”

“Really?” She jammed both hands on her hips. “Better to shut yourself down? Pretend you’re alone on a rock somewhere?”

“For me, yeah.”

“You’re lying.”

“You don’t know me.”

“You’d like to think so,” Joy said. “But you’re not that hard to read, Sam.”

Sam shook his head. “You’re here to run the house, not psychoanalyze me.”

“Multitasker, remember?” She smiled and he resented her for it. Resented knowing that he wanted her in spite of the tempers spiking between them. Hell, maybe because of it. He hated knowing that maybe she had a point. He really hated realizing that whatever secrets he thought he’d been keeping were no more private than the closest computer with an internet connection.

And man, it bugged him that she could go from anger to smiles in a blink.

“This isn’t analysis, Sam.” She met his gaze coolly, steadily, firelight dancing in her eyes. “It’s called conversation.”

“It’s called my family,” he said tightly, watching the reflection of flame and shadow in the blue of her eyes.

“I know. And—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry.”

“I have to,” she said simply. “And I am.”

“Great. Thanks.” God he wanted to get out of there. She was too close to him. He could smell her shampoo and the scent of flowers—Jasmine? Lilies?—fired a bolt of desire through him.

“But that’s not all I am,” she continued. “I’m also a little furious at you.”

“Yeah? Right back at you.”

“Good,” she said, surprising him. “If you’re angry at least you’re feeling something.” She moved in closer, kept her gaze locked with his and said, “If you love making furniture and working with wood, great. You’re really good at it.”

He nodded, hardly listening, his gaze shifting to the open doorway across the room. It—and the chance of escape—seemed miles away.

“But you shouldn’t stop painting,” she added fiercely. “The worlds you created were beautiful. Magical.”

That magic was gone now, and it was better that way, he assured himself. But Sam couldn’t remember a time when anyone had talked to him like this. Forcing him to remember. To face the darkness. To face himself. One reason he’d moved so far from his parents, his sister, was that they had been so careful. So cautious in everything they’d said as if they were all walking a tightrope, afraid to make the wrong move, say the wrong thing.

Their...caution had been like knives, jabbing at him constantly. Creating tiny nicks that festered and ached with every passing minute. So he’d moved here, where no one knew him. Where no one would offer sympathy he didn’t want or advice he wouldn’t take. He’d never counted on Joy.

“Why?” she asked. “Why would you give that up?”

It had been personal. So deeply personal he’d never talked about it with anyone, and he wasn’t about to start now. Chest tight, mouth dry, he looked at her and said, “I’m not talking about this with you.”

With anyone.

He took a step or two away from her, then spun back and around to glare down at her. In spite of the quick burst of fury inside him, sizzling around and between them, she didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. Another thing to admire about her, damn it. She was sure of herself even when she was wrong.

“I already told you, Sam. You don’t scare me.”

“That’s a damn shame,” he muttered, trying not to remember that his mother had warned him about lonely old recluses muttering to themselves. He turned from her again, and this time she reached out and grabbed his arm as he moved away from her.

“Just stop,” she demanded. “Stop and talk to me.”

He glanced down at her hand on his arm and tried not to relish the heat sliding from her body into his. Tried not to notice that every cell inside him was waking up with a jolt. “Already told you I’m not talking about this.”

“Then don’t. Just stay. Talk to me.” She took a deep breath, gave his arm a squeeze, then let him go. “Look, I didn’t mean to bring any of this up tonight.”

“Then why the hell did you?” He felt the loss of her touch and wanted it back.

“I don’t like lying.”

Scowling now, he asked, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Joy folded both arms in front of her and unconsciously lifted them until his gaze couldn’t keep from admiring the pull of her shirt and the curve of those breasts. He shook his head and attempted to focus when she started talking again.

“I found out today about your family and not saying something would have felt like I was lying to you.”

Convoluted, but in a weird way, she made sense. He wasn’t much for lies, either, except for the ones he told his mother every time he assured her that he was fine. And truth be told, he would have been fine with Joy pretending she knew nothing about his past. But it was too late now for pretense.

“Okay, great. Conscience clear. Now let’s move on.” He started walking again and this time, when Joy tugged on his arm to get him to stop, he whirled around to face her.

Her blue eyes went wide, her mouth opened and he pulled her into him. It was instinct, pure, raw instinct, that had him grabbing her close. He speared his fingers through those blond curls, pulled her head back and kissed her with all the pent-up frustration, desire and, yeah, even temper that was clawing at him.

Surprised, it took her only a second or two to react. Joy wrapped her arms around his waist and moved in even closer. Sam’s head exploded at the first, incredible taste of her. And then he wanted more. A groan slid from her throat, and that sound fed the flames enveloping him. God, he’d had no idea what kissing her would do to him. He’d been thinking about this for days, and having her in his arms made him want the feel of her skin beneath his hands. The heat of her body surrounding his.

All he could think was to get her clothes off her. To cup her breasts, to take each of her nipples into his mouth and listen to the whimpering sounds of pleasure she would make as he took her. He wanted to look down into blue eyes and watch them go blind with passion. He wanted to feel her hands sliding across his skin, holding him tightly to her.

His kiss deepened farther, his tongue tangling with hers in a frenzied dance of desire that pumped through him with the force and rush of a wildfire screaming across the hillsides.

Joy clung to him, letting him know in the most primal way that she felt the same. That her own needs and desires were pushing at her. He took her deeper, held her tighter and spun her around toward the closest couch. Heart pounding, breath slamming in and out of his lungs, he kept his mouth fused to hers as he laid her down on the wide, soft cushions and followed after, keeping her close to his side. She arched up, back bowing as he ran one hand up and down the length of her. All he could think about was touching her skin, feeling the heat of her. He flipped the button of her jeans open, pulled down the zipper, then slid his hand down, across her abdomen, feeling her shiver with every inch of flesh he claimed. His fingers slipped beneath the band of her panties and she lifted her hips as he moved to cup her heat.

She gasped, tore her mouth from his and clutched at his shoulders when he stroked her for the first time. He loved the feel of her—slick, wet, hot. His body tightened painfully as he stared into her eyes. His mind fuzzed out and his body ached. He touched her, again and again, stroking, pushing into her heat, caressing her inside and out, driving them both to the edge of insanity.

“Sam—” She breathed his name and that soft, whispered sound rattled him.

When had she become so important? When had touching her become imperative? He took her mouth, tangling his tongue with hers, taking the taste of her deep inside him as he felt her body coil tighter with the need swamping her. She rocked into his hand, her hips pumping as he pushed her higher, faster. He pulled his head back, wanting, needing to see her eyes glaze with passion when the orgasm hit her.

He wasn’t disappointed. She jolted in his arms when his thumb stroked across that one small nub of sensation at the heart of her. Everything she was feeling flashed through her eyes, across her features. He was caught up, unable to tear his gaze from hers. Joy Curran was a surprise to him on so many levels, he felt as though he’d never really learn them all. And at the moment, he didn’t have to. Right now, he wanted only to hold her as she shattered.

She called his name again and he clutched her to him as her body trembled and shivered in his grasp. Her climax rolled on and on, leaving her breathless and Sam more needy than ever.

His body ached to join hers. His heart pounded in a fast gallop that left him damn near shaking with the want clawing at him.

“Sam,” she whispered, reaching up to cup his face with her palms. “Sam, I need—”

He knew just what she needed because he needed it too. He shifted, pulled his hand free of her body and thought only about stripping them both out of their clothes.

In one small, rational corner of his mind, Sam admitted to himself that he’d never known anything like this before. This pulsing, blinding, overpowering sense of need and pleasure and craving to be part of a woman. To be locked inside her body and lose himself in her. Never.

Not even with Dani.

That thought broke him. He pulled back abruptly and stared down at Joy like a blind man seeing the light for the first time. Both exhilarated and terrified. A bucket full of ice water dumped on his head wouldn’t have shocked him more.

He fought for breath, for balance, but there wasn’t any to be had. His own mind was shouting at him, telling him he was a bastard for feeling more for Joy than he had for his wife. Telling him to deny it, even to himself. To bury these new emotions and go back to feeling nothing. It was safer.

“That’s it,” he said, shaking his head, rolling off the couch, then taking a step, then another, away from her. “I can’t do this.”

“Sure you can,” Joy assured him, a confused half smile on her face as her breath came in short, hard gasps. She pushed herself up to her elbows on the couch. Her hair was a wild tumble of curls and her jeans still lay open, invitingly. “You were doing great.”

“I won’t do this.” His eyes narrowed on her. “Not again.”

“Sam, we should talk—”

He actually laughed, though to him it sounded harsh, strained as it scraped against his throat. “Talking doesn’t solve everything and it won’t solve this. I’m going out to the workshop.”

Joy watched him go, her lips still buzzing from that kiss. Her heart still pounding like a bass drum. She might even have gone after him if her legs weren’t trembling so badly she was forced to drop into the closest chair.

What the hell had just happened?

And how could she make it happen again?

Seven

Joy didn’t see Sam at all the next morning, and maybe that was just as well.

She’d lain awake most of the night, reliving the whole scene, though she could admit to herself she spent more time reliving the kiss and the feel of his amazingly talented fingers on her body than the argument that had prompted it. Even now, though, she cringed a little remembering how she’d thrown the truth of his past at him out of nowhere. Honestly, what had she been thinking, just blurting out the fact that she knew about his family? She hadn’t been thinking at all—that was the problem.

She’d stared into those amazing eyes of his and had seen him shuttered away, closing himself off, and it had just made her so angry, she’d confronted him without considering what it might do to the tenuous relationship they already had.

In Kaye’s two-bedroom suite off the kitchen, there had been quiet in Joy’s room and innocent dreams in Holly’s. The house seemed to sigh with a cold wind that whipped through the pines and rattled glass panes. And Joy hadn’t been able to shut off her brain. Or her body. But once she’d gotten past the buzz running rampant through her veins, all she’d been able to think about was the look in his eyes when she’d brought up his lost family.

Lying there in the dark, she’d assured herself that once she’d said the words, opened a door into his past, there’d been no going back. She could still see the shock in his eyes when she’d brought it up, and a twinge of guilt wrapped itself around her heart. But it was no match for the ribbon of anger that was there as well.

Not only had he walked away from his talent, but he’d shut himself off from life. From any kind of future or happiness. Why? His suffering wouldn’t bring them back. Wouldn’t restore the family he’d lost.

“Mommy, are you all done now?”

Joy came out of her thoughts and looked at her daughter, beside her at the kitchen table. Behind them, the outside world was gray and the pines bent nearly in half from that wind sweeping in off the lake. Still no snow and Joy was beginning to think they wouldn’t have a white Christmas after all.

But for now, in the golden lamplight, she looked at Holly, doing her alphabet and numbers on her electronic tablet. The little girl was squirming in her seat, clearly ready to be done with the whole sit-down-and-work thing.

“Not yet, baby,” Joy said, and knew that if her brain hadn’t been filled with images of Sam, she’d have been finished with the website update a half hour ago. But no, all she could think of was the firelight in his eyes. The taste of his mouth. The feel of his hard body pressed to hers. And the slick glide of his fingers.

Oh, boy.

“Almost, honey,” she said, clearing her throat and focusing again on the comments section of her client’s website. For some reason people who read books felt it was okay to go on the author’s website and list the many ways the author could have made the book better. Even when they loved it, they managed to sneak in a couple of jabs. It was part of Joy’s job to remove the comments that went above and beyond a review and deep into the realm of harsh criticism.

“Mommy,” Holly said, her heels kicking against the rungs of the kitchen chair, “when can we gooooooo?”

A one-syllable word now six syllables.

“As soon as I’m finished, sweetie,” Joy promised, focusing on her laptop screen rather than the never-ending loop of her time with Sam. Once the comment section was cleaned up, Joy posted her client’s holiday letter to her fans, then closed up the site and opened the next one.

Another holiday letter to post and a few pictures the author had taken at the latest writers’ conference she’d attended.

“How much longer, though?” Holly asked, just a touch of a wheedling whine in her voice. “If we don’t go soon all the Christmas trees will be gone.”

Drama, thy name is Holly, Joy thought with a smile. Reaching out, she gave one of the girl’s pigtails a tug. “Promise, there will be lots of trees when we get into town. But remember, we’re getting a little one this year, okay?” Because of the Grinch and his aversion to all things festive.

“I know! It’s like a fairy tree cuz it’s tiny and can go on a table to put in our room cuz Sam doesn’t like Christmas.” Her head tipped to one side. “How come he doesn’t, Mommy? Everybody likes presents.”

“I don’t know, baby.” She wasn’t about to try to explain Sam’s penchant for burying himself in a loveless, emotionless well. “You should ask him sometime.”

“I’ll ask him now!” She scrambled off her chair and Joy thought about calling her back as she raced to get her jacket. But why should she? Joy had already seen Sam with Holly. He was kind. Patient. And she knew darn well that even if the man was furious with her, he wouldn’t take it out on Holly.

And maybe it would be good for him to be faced with all that cheerful optimism. All that innocence shining around her girl.

In seconds, Holly was back, dancing in place on the toes of her pink princess sneakers. Joy zipped up the jacket, pulled up Holly’s hood and tied it at the neck. Then she took a moment to just look at the little girl who was really the light of her life. Love welled up inside her, thick and rich, and she heard Sam’s voice in her mind again.

Did he take Holly away from you, so that you knew you’d never see her again?

That thought had Joy grabbing her daughter and pulling her in close for a tight hug that had Holly wriggling for freedom. He was right, she couldn’t really know what he’d survived. She didn’t even want to imagine it.

“You’re squishing me, Mommy!”

“Sorry, baby.” She swallowed the knot in her throat and gave her girl a smile. “You go ahead and play with Sam. I’ll come get you when it’s time to go. As soon as I finish doing the updates on this website. Promise.”

“Okay!” Holly turned to go and stopped when Joy spoke up again.

“No wandering off, Holly. Right to the workshop.”

“Can’t I look at my fairy house Sam helped me make? There might be fairies there now.”

Boy, she was really going to miss this imaginative age when Holly grew out of it. But, though the fairy house wasn’t exactly inside the woods, it was close enough that a little girl might be tempted to walk in more deeply and then end up getting lost. So, no. “We’ll look later.”

“Okay, ’bye!” And she was gone like a tiny pink hurricane.

Joy glanced out the window and watched her daughter bullet across the lawn to the workshop and then slip inside the doors. Smiling to herself, she thought she’d give a lot to see Sam’s reaction to his visitor.

* * *

“Hi, Sam! Mommy said I could come play with you!”

She didn’t catch him completely by surprise. Thankfully, Sam had spotted the girl running across the yard and had had time to toss a heavy beige tarp over his latest project. Although why he’d started on it was beyond him. A whim that had come on him two days ago, he’d thrown himself into it late last night when he’d left Joy in the great room.

Guilt had pushed him away from her, and it was guilt that had kept him working half the night. Memories crowded his brain, but it was thoughts of Joy herself that kept him on edge. That kiss. The heavy sigh of her breath as she molded herself to him. The eager response and matching need that had thrown him harder than he’d expected.

Shaking his head, he grumbled, “Don’t have time to play.” He turned to his workbench to find something to do.

“I can help you like I did with the fairy house. I want to see if there are fairies there but Mommy said I couldn’t go by myself. Do you want to go with me? Cuz we can be busy outside, too, can’t we?” She walked farther into the room and, as if she had radar, moved straight to the tarp draped across his project. “What’s this?”

“Mine,” he said and winced at the sharpness of his tone. But the girl, just like her mother, was impossible to deflate. She simply turned that bright smile of hers on him and said, “It’s a secret, right? I like secrets. I can tell you one. It’s about Lizzie’s mommy going to have another baby. She thinks Lizzie doesn’t know but Lizzie heard her mommy tell her daddy that she passed the test.”

Too much information coming too quickly. He’d already learned about the wonderful Lizzie and her puppy. And this latest news blast might come under the heading of TMI.

“I wanted a sister, too,” Holly said and walked right up to his workbench, climbing onto the stool she’d used the last time she was there. “But Mommy says I have to have a puppy instead and that’s all right cuz babies cry a lot and a puppy doesn’t...”

“Why don’t we go check the fairy house?” Sam said, interrupting the flow before his head exploded. Getting her out of the shop seemed the best way to keep her from asking about the tarp again. It wasn’t as if he wanted to go look for fairies in the freezing-cold woods.

“Oh, boy!” She squirmed off the stool, then grabbed his hand with her much smaller one.

Just for a second, Sam felt a sharp tug at the edges of his heart, and it was painful. Holly was older than Eli had been, he told himself, and she was a girl—so completely different children. But he couldn’t help wondering what Eli would have been like at Holly’s age. Or as he would be now at almost nine. But Eli would always be three years old. Just finding himself. Just becoming more of a boy than a baby and never a chance to be more.

“Let’s go, Sam!” Holly pulled on his hand and leaned forward as if she could drag him behind her if she just tried hard enough.

He folded his fingers around hers and let her lead him from the shop into the cold. And he listened to her talk, heard again about puppies and fairies and princesses, and told himself that maybe this was his punishment. Being lulled into affection for a child who wasn’t his. A child who would disappear from his life in a few short weeks.