Czytaj książkę: «Texas Vows: A McCabe Family Saga»

Nothing but a house full of boys and one very ornery McCabe man…

Sam McCabe	Widower, single father of five and spoiling for a fight with the new household manager—Kate Marten.
Will McCabe	High school senior and a chip off the old block.
Brad McCabe	Sweet sixteen and loving every minute of it.
Riley McCabe	In the midst of the terrible teens.
Lewis McCabe	The sensitive son.
Kevin McCabe	The baby brother.

Plus one very determined woman!

Kate Marten

Possibly in over her head and about to drown in too much testosterone!

Dear Reader,

Of all the books about love and family that I’ve written to date, my stories set in the fictional town of Laramie, Texas, have been the most well-received. First came THE MCCABES OF TEXAS, about John and Lilah McCabe’s four sons. Then, THE LOCKHARTS OF TEXAS. The four Lockhart women who grew up with the McCabe boys are no less spirited—and there’s still one sister who hasn’t yet marched down the aisle! Now, I am pleased to offer you what you’ve been asking for…another story set in Laramie, and one that is longer, more dramatic and even more emotional.

Sam McCabe is the nephew of John and Lilah McCabe. A highly successful businessman, he is overwhelmed at the prospect of bringing up his five boys, ages six to seventeen, alone. Sam has moved back to Laramie to be closer to family. He hopes his boys will be happier if they are living in the small Texas town where he grew up. As is usually the case, it’s just not that simple. His boys are acting up worse than ever, and he finds himself at his wit’s end.

Enter Kate Marten, the kid sister of an old friend with problems of her own. She knows what it’s like to lose a loved one, and she knows she can help Sam and his boys. Unlike the rest of his family, however, Kate refuses to cower in the face of Sam’s bluster, which makes for plenty of tension—sexual and otherwise.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as you’ve enjoyed the rest of the series. Your letters have warmed my heart and made all the hard work that goes into each and every book worthwhile. Thank you and happy reading!

Sincerely,

P.S. Don’t forget to pick up the final installment in the series next month—The Virgin Bride Said, “Wow!” from Harlequin American Romance.

Texas Vows

A MCCABE FAMILY SAGA

Cathy Gillen Thacker

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Charlie—For everything, always.

Read all of the Harlequin American Romance books in Cathy Gillen Thacker’s smash series and find out why Laramie, Texas, is the undisputed matchmaking capital!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS A BAD DAY and it was getting worse, Sam McCabe thought as he called all five of his sons to his study for an immediate accounting of what was just the latest event in a whole string of family catastrophes.

“Don’t look at me. I don’t know what happened.” Will shrugged his broad shoulders. “I was out running. I wasn’t even here.”

No surprise there, Sam thought wearily. At seventeen, the only thing Will cared about was getting in shape for the upcoming football season. He was never around to help out or hold down the fort.

Sam turned to sixteen-year-old Brad, who was busy combing his immaculately tended brown hair and checking out his reflection in the glass-front bookcase in Sam’s study. At Sam’s glare, Brad pocketed his comb and offered his version. “Actually, Dad, I think it was hormonal. You know, one of those ‘women things,’ that made Mrs. Grunwald pack up her bags and walk out of here on such short notice.”

“Hormonal,” Sam repeated disbelievingly. And “no notice” had been more like it. Sam had been called out of an important business meeting to be told she’d already left and wasn’t coming back—not now, not ever. When he’d tried to get an explanation from her, the irate woman had just said he needed to do something about his home situation and hung up.

Sam turned his attention to Riley, who at fourteen was definitely the most mischievous of his brood. And, unless Sam missed his guess, had probably been instrumental in pushing the retired lady-marine-turned-housekeeper to quit.

“I just don’t think she’s cut out to take care of growing boys,” Riley explained with a remarkably sober expression. “You know. Given the fact that she never had any kids herself.”

“Face it, Dad.” Sensitive as always to what was going on behind the scenes, Lewis stepped forward, suddenly looking much older than his eleven years. “We were never gonna be happy with her here, anyway. Mrs. Grunwald just wasn’t Mom.”

And no one ever would be, Sam McCabe thought solemnly. Ellie had been one of a kind. But that didn’t excuse what his boys had done here, chasing away their tenth housekeeper in six months. Not that they would ever come right out and admit that that was what they had done. No, they would continue giving excuses and shifting the blame.

Sam turned to Kevin, his youngest, and the only one of his five boys who hadn’t yet put in his two cents about the latest episode in their lives. “What do you have to say about all this?”

Kevin ducked his head. Sam wasn’t surprised his six-year-old had nothing to say about their housekeeper quitting. Kev hadn’t talked much to anyone about anything since Ellie had died. In a way, Sam could hardly blame him. Since Ellie had died, the light had gone out of all of their lives, and with it the need to even pretend their world would ever be normal again.

Sam looked up to see John and Lilah McCabe in the doorway of his study. His aunt and uncle were not just a gifted nurse and doctor and founders of Laramie Community Hospital, they had been his lifelines to sanity this past year. They’d provided moral support and guidance when Ellie was ill, as well as helped during the dark days after her death.

Sam had moved back to Laramie to be closer to them, thinking more of a sense of family might help his boys adjust to the loss of their mother. And it had helped, but only to a point. The boys still didn’t want a housekeeper, and indeed seemed to be doing everything they could to chase whomever Sam hired away.

After the ninth one had walked out on them, Sam had let his sons talk him into being responsible for themselves. Only to have Kevin end up in the hospital ER with a sprained wrist, numerous abrasions and a cut that needed stitches after a still-unexplained fall off the porch roof. So Sam had hired housekeeper number ten. Unfortunately, Mrs. Grunwald’s take-charge style had not worked well on his boys. And now here Sam was again, relying on his favorite aunt and uncle to come and save the day, when what they really should be doing was savoring the first heady days of their long-awaited retirement.

Gently, Lilah interrupted. “Guys, we need to speak to your dad alone. So why don’t you all see what you can do about cleaning up the kitchen?”

Sam waited until the boys had left, then shut the door to his study before turning back to John and Lilah. “Thanks for coming over. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.”

Sam shook his head grimly, wondering what it would take to get a housekeeper who was reliable and responsible enough to handle all five of his boys even half as well as Ellie. “You’d think Mrs. Grunwald could have waited to quit until I got back from California.” Instead, he’d had to cut short his Silicon Valley business trip and grab the first flight back to Dallas, then drive to Laramie, where John and Lilah had been holding down the fort, awaiting his return.

“We’re glad to help you with the boys anytime, you know that,” John said sincerely.

“But this is out of even our scope,” Lilah added as if worried.

Sam didn’t like the sound of that. It seemed as if John and Lilah were planning to quit on him, too. “What do you mean?” he demanded tensely.

John clapped a comforting hand on Sam’s shoulder and led him over to the leather sofa. “Your aunt Lilah and I both grew up in large families and reared our own. So we know firsthand how chaotic households with a lot of children can be, even under the best of circumstances. But what’s happening here, Sam, in the aftermath of Ellie’s death, is not routine.”

“Which is why we’ve arranged for Kate Marten to talk to you tonight.” Lilah sat on the other side of Sam. “She’ll be over as soon as she finishes with her grief group at the hospital.”

Sam grimaced. “You know how I feel about that little busy-body.” He and the boys had barely moved back to Laramie a month ago when she’d started bombarding him with literature—none of which he’d read—and phone calls—none of which he’d bothered to return—about her professional counseling services.

Lilah and John exchanged a pointed glance. “We know you haven’t given her a chance.”

What would have been the point in that? Sam wondered, even more exasperated. “She’s just a kid.”

“No, Sam, she’s not,” Lilah said firmly as she patted his hand. “And if you took a good look at her, gave her just a few minutes of your time, you’d realize that.”

Sam shook his head and pushed to his feet. “Even if I wanted to meet with Kate—” which I don’t, he amended silently “—I don’t have the time. I’ve got my hands full with the boys tonight.”

“No. You don’t,” John corrected. “Lilah and I are taking the boys to the ranch for the evening.”

Lilah added helpfully, “That’ll give you time to talk to Kate alone.”

Sam knew his aunt and uncle meant well. It didn’t mean they were right. “All I’m going to do is tell her I don’t need her.”

Lilah paused. “If that’s really what you think, then tell her that face-to-face. But at least hear her out, and listen to what she thinks you and the boys need to get your lives back on track.”

Sam knew what they needed—they needed for the damn cancer to never have taken hold in his wife’s body. They needed their family intact, with everything just as it was. But none of that was possible. Much as he and the boys wanted to, they couldn’t turn back the clock. They couldn’t make anything happen any differently than it had. They couldn’t bring Ellie back.

SAM WAS ALREADY two shot glasses into a bottle of Scotch when the doorbell rang. He was pouring himself a third when he heard the front door open, followed by the staccato sound of high heels crossing the foyer and heading his way. From beneath hooded eyes, he watched as Kate Marten paused in the portal, and squinted in his direction.

“Sam?” Her voice filled the dark room as she carefully made her way toward his desk. It was a you-can-tell-me-anything-and-I’ll-understand kind of voice. Soft, seductive, incredibly pleasing to the ear—and the last thing he wanted to hear.

Sam propped his elbows on the desk and cupped his hands over his ears. The last thing he needed right now was Kate Marten’s perky, professional presence.

Too late. As she neared he couldn’t help but catch sight of a pair of long, slender, sexy legs that would have put a swimsuit model’s to shame. Stopping his glance at her dimpled knees—he didn’t need a woman this beautiful around, never mind one of her incredibly aggravating persistence—Sam felt a familiar bitterness seep into his veins. “Go away.”

“Sorry,” Kate responded with a nauseating amount of good cheer. “No can do, Sam.”

Muscles tensing, Sam leaned back in his desk chair and lifted his head. Usually when he told someone to clear out, they went. Double time, when he used that particular tone of voice. Not pesky little Kate. She had to be—what?—thirty-one years old now, to his thirty-six—and still she pursued him with all the unending cluelessness and vigor of a love-struck teenager.

He glared at her, momentarily tabling his urge to punch something—anything—to smithereens. He didn’t care if she thought she was helping. He wanted her gone. Now. For good. “Which of those two words don’t you understand?” he demanded in a voice that wasn’t anywhere near cordial.

“My vocabulary’s fine, thank you very much.” Kate smiled. “As for the rest…” Stepping closer yet, Kate leaned over in a drift of citrus scent and turned on his desk lamp. “I understand you all right—maybe more than you think.”

Grimacing at the glow of the light hitting him in the face, Sam reached out and adjusted the shade so that the beam exposed less of him and more of her. She was dressed in a figure-hugging yellow dress that stopped just above her knees. The matching jacket clung to her breasts and fell away slightly at her midriff. Sam glared at her. Swore. He didn’t want to be this physically close to any woman, never mind a crusading little innocent like Kate. “When did you turn into such a pest?”

Kate’s lips curved into a wry smile. “If I were to believe what you think…the moment I was born.” Her light blue eyes softening, Kate perched on the edge of his desk. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

Sam lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “My house. My choice.”

“I see.” Kate continued to regard Sam steadily.

Sam turned his eyes to the framed picture of Ellie, half buried in a pile of papers on his desk. “You don’t see anything.”

Kate lifted her manicured left hand—which sported a very nice diamond engagement ring—then let it fall back to her lap. “I might if you gave me half a chance.”

“Then see this.” Sam knocked back another shot of Scotch. He set the glass back on his desk with a thud and stared at her. “I don’t want you here. I don’t need you.”

Refusing to back down in the slightest, Kate lifted her delicately arched brow. “What makes you think this is all about you?”

Stung, Sam shifted his gaze away from her, anything to avoid the faint hint of derision in her blue eyes. “What is it about then?” he asked gruffly.

“Your boys.”

Sam lifted his glance to Kate’s. Held it there with effort. “My boys are doing fine,” he said flatly.

“Are they now?” Kate’s goading smile widened as she casually reached over and recapped his bottle of Scotch. “I suppose that’s why they’ve just chased off their sixteenth housekeeper in six months.”

“Tenth.” Before the little know-it-all could get any ideas about dumping his liquor down the sink, Sam took the bottle from Kate’s hand and set it next to him, well out of her reach. “Mrs. Grunwald was the tenth, not our sixteenth, housekeeper.”

“I stand corrected,” she conceded. “And if they’re doing so fine, why did you get called back from California? From what John and Lilah said, that was an important business deal you were negotiating.”

Not anymore, Sam thought, aware his quick exit and the client’s need for an extremely speedy resolution to the problem had put his company out of the running. “Don’t worry. There will be others.” His business never had and never would hinge on any single deal.

“I’m not worried. I know how well your business has been doing. Unfortunately—” Kate hopped down from the desk and began to pace the study “—money doesn’t buy happiness, does it, Sam?”

“You’re on very thin ice here, Kate. So in other words back off.”

Kate turned and looked at him as if she were pleased to know she was getting under his skin. She folded her arms in front of her and said, “You need someone to help you with the boys, Sam.”

Sam lifted his glass in a mock salutation. “The lady wins a prize for that astute observation.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, Kate edged closer, her arms still pressed tightly against her waist. “I am that person.”

Sam poured himself another drink. “I thought I made it clear—I’m not interested in bringing them in for counseling.”

“You know what they say,” Kate replied. “If Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, take the mountain to Mohammed.”

“You’re not coming here to counsel,” Sam said flatly.

“How about I just sign on as your housekeeper then? Temporarily, of course.”

Unable to resist, he goaded her. “What happened? The hospital fire you?”

The last thing Sam needed was Busybody Kate underfoot twenty-four hours a day. Never mind that he knew how his five boys would react to having someone as pretty as Kate living in the house with them. All five of them would have crushes on her in no time. A complication he also didn’t need.

“On the contrary,” she retorted pleasantly, standing so close he could take in the alluring fragrance of her hair and skin. “We’ve had so much success we’re expanding the department. The second grief counselor started last Thursday.”

If she hadn’t been badgering him, charging in repeatedly where she so clearly was not wanted or needed, Sam would have congratulated her. As it was, he let the opportunity pass, and took another sip of his Scotch. “What does that have to do with me?” He studied her, wondering what he could do to incite her to leave and never come back.

Kate pulled around one of the straight-backed chairs from in front of his desk and positioned it so it was two feet away, facing him. Then sat. “You’ve got four weeks until school starts again.”

Four weeks with the boys home every day, able to get into plenty of mischief, while he was at company headquarters in Dallas, struggling to not let any more business opportunities go down the drain.

Had it just been him, Sam could have done with the lost opportunity and income. But he had two hundred and fifty highly qualified e-commerce consultants working for him. If his company went under, the lives of his employees and their families would be thrown into chaos, too. Sam wasn’t about to let that happen. Not if he could prevent it.

Still sipping his Scotch, he watched her gung-ho expression over the rim of his glass and waited.

“Meanwhile,” Kate continued, “I’ve been so busy building up my program at the hospital I haven’t taken any significant time off in two years and I’ve got five weeks of vacation coming.”

Wariness quickly replaced Sam’s willingness to listen. The muscles in his jaw clenched as Kate sank into the chair and crossed her legs.

“And you’re proposing what exactly?” he demanded with a curious lift of his brow, irritated to find he’d been paying more attention to her knees than what she’d been saying.

Kate smiled at him as if her solution were the most natural thing in the world. “That I move in here with you and the boys until school starts and or you find someone to take over the job permanently.”

Sam would have liked to think this was all a goofy impulse on Kate’s part, but he could see by her overeagerness that it was not. The earnest little do-gooder honestly thought she was helping here. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked impatiently.

“A lot of reasons.” Kate turned her hands palm up. “Your parents are gone now, so they’re not available to help you, and you never had any siblings.”

Sam forced a smile through stiff lips and, for his beloved aunt’s and uncle’s sakes, returned with a politeness that was even more strained, “But I do have an aunt and uncle right here in Laramie. Not to mention all four of their sons and their new wives.” That was, in Sam’s view, plenty of family.

“John and Lilah are leaving tomorrow evening to go to Central America to do medical relief work for several weeks. Or had you forgotten?”

Sam had been so wrapped up in his own problems he had forgotten.

“I’ve no doubt Shane, Wade, Travis and Jackson would be happy to help you. Only problem is, they’ve got jobs and responsibilities of their own.”

Sam frowned at Kate’s holier-than-thou tone. “And you don’t?” he countered, doing nothing to mask his disbelief.

Kate straightened her spine indignantly. “I worked as a high school guidance counselor before I worked at the hospital. As it happens, I know plenty about working with kids. But there are other reasons I want to help you out, as well.”

Sam released a long, exasperated breath. He was sorry he’d ever let her get started on this pitch. “Such as…?” he asked, disinterested.

“Our families have known each other forever. And in Laramie, we help each other when circumstances warrant it.”

That was true, Sam thought, but only to a point. He reached for the bottle of Scotch. “You’re forgetting the fact your father despises me.”

Twin spots of color appeared in Kate’s fair cheeks. “What happened between you two was a long time ago,” she countered.

Sam poured himself another shot. “I’m betting your dad hasn’t forgotten or forgiven.”

Beginning to look a little annoyed herself, Kate replied, “That’s not the point.”

With an economy of movement, Sam set the uncapped bottle back on his desk. He regarded her steadily. “Isn’t it?”

“Ellie used to baby-sit me when I was a kid. Did you know that?”

Sam shrugged. As far as he was concerned, that was of no significance. “She used to baby-sit a lot of people around here.”

“Yeah, well…” Kate’s voice took on a tremulous, emotional quality Sam liked even less. “Ellie was especially kind to me in the months after my brother died, and I’ve never forgotten it.” Kate paused and looked down at her hands. “I’ve been thinking—maybe this is the way I’m supposed to repay her kindness.”

Which was, Sam knew, exactly how Ellie would have seen it. Hadn’t that been one of her favorite sayings? One kindness begets another. He sighed again, more loudly, wondering how he had ever allowed himself to get into such a mess. Now he was going to have to do what Ellie would not have wanted him to do: turn down Kate’s offer of help. Aware Kate was waiting for him to say something, Sam finally allowed, “Ellie was a good person.”

“The best.” Kate’s eyes shimmered suddenly. Her voice grew even huskier. “Everybody loved her, Sam.”

But not as much as me, Sam thought, knowing as much as everyone still missed Ellie their grief was nothing—nothing—compared to his and the boys’. He looked at Kate. “The answer is no,” he said flatly.

Her eyes widened with disbelief. “Why not?”

Sam swore silently. She was really going to torture them both by making him do this. He didn’t want to put her down. But, damn her, she’d left him no choice. “Because you’ve never been married or had kids of your own,” he told Kate, giving her a look that immediately relieved her of any responsibilities, any past debts, she thought she had here.

“A fact that will be remedied soon enough,” Kate interjected, wiggling her left ring finger.

Sam blew out an aggravated breath. “The fact you’re getting married to Craig Farrell later this fall changes nothing, Kate. You still know nothing about being a mom.”

“Maybe not,” Kate conceded, clearly hurt he didn’t think her capable. “But I know plenty about being a friend.”

What little patience he had fading fast, Sam shoved a hand through his hair. He wished Kate would just give up and go home. “My kids have friends,” he told her gruffly. “They need a disciplinarian.”

A fact that, to Sam’s consternation, did not faze Ms. Kate Marten in the least. “If you think I can’t bring order to your five rowdy boys, think again, Sam. I worked as a camp counselor five summers in a row. I was an athletic trainer for my father’s football team all four years of high school. I can handle your boys, Sam.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “That’s what Mrs. Grunwald said. And she was a marine. They drove her out in two weeks.” Sam shuddered to think what his kids would do to someone as well-intentioned but as hopelessly naive as Kate Marten.

Kate shrugged and continued to regard him like the dynamo she thought she was. “All that proves is that she wasn’t the right person for the job,” she persisted amiably.

Sam took in Kate’s dress-for-success clothing and carefully selected jewelry. With her soft honey-blond hair falling about her shoulders in a style that probably took hours every day to maintain, she looked as though she belonged in an office, not a kitchen or a laundry room. “And you are?”

“You’re darn right I am.” Kate looked at him steadily. As she continued, her voice dropped a compassionate notch. “Furthermore, I can help you, too, Sam.”

Now that grated, Sam thought. To the point it really shouldn’t go unrewarded. “How?” Sam asked sharply, eyeing her with a brooding stare designed to intimidate.

“By giving you someone to talk to.”

Finally, he acknowledged silently, they were down to the tiny print at the bottom of every contract. “What are we talking about here?” Sam asked in a deceptively casual voice that in no way revealed how truly annoyed he was with her. “Some sort of informal grief counseling on the side?”

“Yes.” Kate beamed her relief that he was catching on. Her blue eyes gleamed with a mixture of gentleness and understanding. “If that’s what you want, certainly I’d be happy to help you with that.”

Sam drained the last of his Scotch. Setting his glass down with a thud, he got slowly, deliberately, to his feet. What was it going to take, he wondered, to get people to stop trying to examine his private pain and leave him alone? What was it going to take to get people to let him grieve, in his own time, in his own way, at his own pace? He’d thought if he left Dallas—where he and Ellie and the kids had made their life together—and returned to the town where he and Ellie had spent their childhoods, that the people would be kind enough, sensitive enough, to just leave him and the kids alone to work through their grief however they saw fit. Instead, everyone wanted to help. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had some method of coping they wanted him and or the boys to try. Leading the charge of the “Laramie, Texas, Kind Friend and Neighbor Brigade” was Kate Marten.

Sam had tried ignoring her. Been rude and unapproachable. He’d even—for a few minutes tonight—gritted his teeth and tried to reason with her. To his chagrin, all he’d done was encourage her.

And that, Sam knew, as he stood in front of Kate, would not do.

To make everyone else cease and desist their well-intentioned yet misguided efforts to snap him and the boys out of their grief, he would first have to make Kate Marten back off. As disagreeable as he found even the idea of it, Sam knew of only one surefire way to do that.

“If that seems like too much at first, we can just—I don’t know…be friends,” Kate continued a little nervously, finally beginning to eye him with the wariness he’d wanted her to all along.

“Suppose I want more than that?” His idea picking up steam, Sam reached down, took Kate’s wrist, and pulled her to her feet. Ignoring the soft, silky warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips, and the widening of her astonished blue eyes, he danced her backward to the wall. “Then what?”

“Um—” Kate swallowed as she tried and failed to unobtrusively extricate her wrist from his iron grip. “We could get into other areas, too.”

Sam smiled cynically at the sheer improbability of that ever happening. Aware his plan was working, he said gruffly, “You’re not getting it.” Sam caged her with his body and braced an arm against the wall on either side of her head.

Her expectant look changing to one of alarm, Kate tried and failed to push past him. “Not getting what?” she asked, still smiling, albeit a lot more nervously now.

“That’s not what I want from you, Kate,” Sam murmured as he slanted his head over hers. Telling himself this was for both their sakes, Sam let his gaze slowly trace the contours of her face, linger hotly on her lips, before returning—with all sensual deliberateness—to the growing panic in her ever-widening eyes. “That’s not what I want from any woman.”

Fear turned to anger as he leaned impertinently close. “Sam…” Kate warned as she splayed both her hands firmly across his chest and shoved. Again to no avail.

Now that he’d found something that would work to rid himself of her, Sam wasn’t going anywhere.

“This is the liquor talking,” Kate continued in her pious counselor’s voice.

Knowing he would have to become a real bastard to remove Kate and her damnable interference once and for all, Sam merely smiled. “I’m not that drunk,” he said, his voice taking on a menacing tone. “Yet.” Before the evening was over, for the first time since the night of Ellie’s funeral, he would be.

“You don’t have to behave this way.” Kate lectured him with a mix of compassion and desperation. Ignoring his obvious disillusionment, she insisted stubbornly, “I can help you.”

Sam shook his head. Kate was wrong. She couldn’t help. No one could. The best thing anyone could do—the only thing—was leave him the hell alone. The sooner Kate Marten understood that, the better.

“The only thing I want is this.” Grabbing her roughly, Sam lowered his lips to hers and delivered a short, swift, punishing kiss meant only to inflame her anger and vent his. “And this…” His hands moved from her shoulders to her breasts in a callous way he knew would infuriate and frighten her even more than his brief, bruising kiss. Ignoring her muffled cry of dismay and shuddering breaths, Sam forced her lips open with the pressure of his and deepened the contact.

“Are you willing to give me that, Kate?” he demanded contemptuously, shifting his hands lower still. “Do your professional services…your unending sympathy for me and all I’ve been through extend that far?” He kissed her again, harder, more relentlessly than before as his hands slipped beneath her dress and closed around the satiny softness of her inner thighs. “Or are their limits on what you’ll take, too?” he taunted, wanting her—needing her—to share some of this pain she had so cruelly dredged up.

Breathing hard, Kate shoved him away from her. Hauling back her hand, she slapped his face. Hard. “That’s for kissing me, when you know I’m engaged,” she spouted angrily, fire in her eyes. “And that—” Kate kicked his shin even harder than she’d slapped his face “—is for the grope.”

“Got to hand it to you, Kate,” Sam drawled, mocking her, even as shame flowed through him at his behavior. Limping, grimacing, he let her go. “You haven’t lost your fighting spirit.” Nor your aim. Even through the numbing haze of alcohol and grief, his face stung and his shin throbbed even worse.

“Too bad I can’t say the same for you.” Hands propped on her hips, she regarded him with unmitigated disgust.

Ellie would have hated this. Hated what I’ve become….

Pushing the guilt away, Sam went back to his bottle. He tipped it up, drank deeply. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve been through,” he said roughly, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

“But I will, Sam,” Kate promised. “Before all is said and done, I will.” She surveyed him with one last contemplative glance, then turned on her heel and stomped out of the study.

Sam followed her into the foyer, the Scotch he’d consumed doing nothing to abate his misery over either losing Ellie or this latest debacle in his life. “Leaving? So soon?” Since Ellie’s death, he’d been empty inside. Dead. Now Kate, with her endless prodding and pushing, had made him cruel, too. He wouldn’t forgive her for that, any more than she was going to forgive him for the pass.

Kate shot him a look over her shoulder, anger flashing in her eyes. “Go to hell.”

Can’t, Sam thought miserably, I’m already there.

Not about to apologize for what he’d known would happen all along if he spent any time alone with her, he shrugged. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

Kate gritted her teeth. “Only because you’re behaving like such a self-centered jerk.”

“What can I say? You bring out the best in me.” Ignoring the hurt in her eyes, Sam forced himself to not feel guilty, to not take anything of what he’d said or done back, no matter how unkind it was. He hadn’t invited her here. He hadn’t asked her to stir up his pain to unbearable, unmanageable levels. She’d ignored all his signals to the contrary and barged in here at her own risk. What she had gotten was her own damn fault. Not his.

“The best or the worst?” Kate returned sharply. “’Cause if this is as good as it gets from here on out, I’d sure hate to be one of your sons.”

Sam had never slapped a woman—he never would. But she made him want to slap the daylights out of her. Another first. “Get the hell out.” Sam scowled. He jerked open the door, took her by the shoulders, and shoved her stumbling across the jamb. As soon as she’d cleared the portal, he slammed the door behind her, and didn’t look back.

There were some people it was best just to stay away from.

Starting now, Kate Marten topped his list.

CHAPTER TWO

FOOTSTEPS clattered across the floor, not stopping until they were precariously near. “I had a feeling this was going to happen.”

Sam McCabe groaned. That voice again. Do-gooding. Soft. Persistent. He struggled to bring himself out of his stupor, felt the sledgehammer pounding behind his eyes, and decided it wasn’t worth it. Sighing, he headed back into the blissful darkness of sleep.

Feminine perfume teased his senses. A small, delicate hand touched his shoulder.

“Rise and shine, big guy.”

Knowing full well who it was without even looking, Sam moaned and tried to lift his head. He swallowed around a mouth that felt as if it were filled with cotton and tasted like the bottom of a garbage pail. “Go. Away.”

“You keep saying that.” The low voice was laced with amusement. “Don’t you know by now it’s not going to work?”

Realizing the only way to get rid of the busybody was to face her, Sam grimaced and lifted his head as far as he could—which turned out to be several inches above the desk. Feeling as if he were going to throw up at any moment if he moved even the slightest bit in any direction, he struggled to open his eyes. Kate Marten was standing beside him, dressed much the same as she had been the night before, in some sort of dress-for-success business suit. Her hair fell in a gentle curve of silk to her shoulders, before flipping out and up at the ends. Her fair skin glowed with good health and just a hint of summer sun. Worse, unlike him, she looked and smelled like a million bucks.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked with a sweet, condescending smile that made him want to throttle her all the more. Not waiting for him to answer, she replied for him. “Seven-thirty.”

Sam groaned again, even louder and, using his hands as levers, pushed his head up a little more. The last thing he wanted to be doing in his hungover state was noticing what a pretty face Kate Marten had.

“Do you know what time John and Lilah are due to bring your boys back this morning?” Kate Marten continued in a bright cheery voice that grated on his nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. Her long-lashed light blue eyes arrowed in on his. “Eight-thirty. That gives you an hour to look halfway sober. Unless of course you want your boys to see you this way.”

Sam regarded her with unchecked hostility. Damn her not just for seeing him this way but for coming back…after what he’d done. He turned his glance away from the determined tilt of her chin. “I thought you would have learned your lesson last night,” he mumbled, cradling his pounding skull between his hands. Hell, if putting the moves on her as crudely and rudely as possible hadn’t chased Miss Respectability of Laramie, Texas, away, he didn’t know what would. He’d been damn sure his actions would send her running as fast and far away from him as possible, never to return again, or he sure as shooting wouldn’t have grabbed her and kissed her in a way neither of them was ever likely to forget.

“That works both ways,” Kate retorted. “How’s your shin?”

It still hurt like the dickens where she’d bruised it. But he wasn’t telling her that! “None of your damn business.” With a groan, Sam sat up all the way.

“I’m not afraid of some bad behavior, Sam. In my line of work, I see that all the time.”

Sam narrowed his eyes at her skeptically, taking in her finely arched brows, pert, slender nose and nicely curved lips, before returning to her wide-set, light blue eyes. “You get kissed and groped?” Sam didn’t know why, but the idea that Kate might have been manhandled that way by anyone else rankled.

“No, you were the first,” Kate said, crossing her arms against her waist in a way that accentuated the curves of her breasts beneath her sophisticated-yet-oh-so prim-and-proper dress. “No other patient has ever lashed out or acted out his grief and anger in quite that way. Not that I’m all in a tizzy about it, since I know darn well that what happened last night happened only because you were drunk.”

Sam had news for Kate: he hadn’t been that drunk when he’d made the pass. If he had been, he wouldn’t be able to remember it nearly as well as he did. He wouldn’t have had to spend half the night, and another quarter of the bottle of Scotch, trying to obliterate the soft, sexy feel of her lips or the responsiveness of her slender body as it molded sensuously to his. Because the last thing he had wanted last night was to get aroused. The last thing he had wanted was any proof he was still alive. When he had made that pass at her, he had just been angry, and looking for a way to vent.

Sam glared at her, wishing she would just go away. And stop acting as if she had something to do with the mess his life had become since Ellie died. “I’m not your patient.”

Kate looked at him as if she wished he were her patient. “I think before all is said and done I’m going to end up helping you and your boys.”

“That’s going to be hard to do if you never see us.”

“Oh, but I will see you, all of you, all the time, starting tomorrow afternoon.”

Sam tensed. “How do you figure that?”

Kate circled around the desk. She leaned against the edge, arms still folded in front of her. “Because you’re going to let me move in here until you find a suitable housekeeper for the boys.”

Sam blew out a contemptuous breath and tipped back in his swivel chair. “Dream on.”

Ignoring his hostility, Kate crossed her legs at the ankles and continued sweetly, “And you want to know why you’re going to do that…?”

Sam knew the sparring was juvenile. But he couldn’t help himself. Maybe because Kate was the first person in a very long time who wasn’t tiptoeing around him, oozing nauseating amounts of sympathy and pity. He rubbed a palm across the stubble on his face, and drawled in a voice meant to annoy, “I can’t wait to hear.”

“Because if you don’t, I am going to tell Lilah and John about your love affair with the bottle as well as the very un-called-for kiss and grope last night.”

Sam glared at her menacingly. He didn’t want to think about the way he’d tried to scare her off, his reaction to her soft body and softer lips—the fact he’d gotten turned on for the first time since Ellie’s death.

“And you know what they’ll do if that happens, don’t you?” Kate continued, oblivious to his pain. “They’ll cancel their trip to South America, and lose this chance to do medical missionary work.”

Sam knew how long his uncle John and aunt Lilah had been looking forward to that. This had been several years in the planning and was the culmination of a lifelong dream. He couldn’t do that to them. They deserved better.

“Not to mention,” Kate continued, “their month-long second honeymoon trip to New England in October to see the fall colors. It would be a lousy thing to do, depriving them of those two trips. And even in as bad a shape as you evidently are, you wouldn’t want to do that. Now would you?”

Sam didn’t need Kate reminding him how much John and Lilah had done for him and his family. For the past ten years or so, they had filled the void left by the deaths of first his and then Ellie’s parents. They had been “parents” to him and “grandparents” to his boys.

“I’m not asking my aunt and uncle to cancel anything,” Sam snapped.

“You and I both know John and Lilah won’t leave town unless they are sure you and the boys are going to be taken care of in their absence. And right now, for that, I’m your only option.”

Unfortunately, that was true, Sam thought. His cousins were all busy with their own lives, careers, families. As for housekeepers, they’d already run through quite a few. Finding another one was not going to be easy, given the bad rep in the state his boys had conjured up for the family. None of that, however, meant Sam wanted Kate’s help. He glared at her, resenting the position she’d put him in. “I know you mean well, Kate. But you living here will never work.”

“We’ll never know until we try,” she said practically, at that moment looking every inch the determined grief counselor she was. “So what’s it going to be, Sam?” Her fingertips curled impatiently around the edge of his desk. “Are you going to give me a chance to help you and your kids before this turns into the kind of crisis you can’t come back from, or do I call John and Lilah now and tell them you are in worse shape than even they realize?”

SAM DIDN’T ANSWER THAT. He didn’t have to. No one, not even the busybody Kate Marten, needed to tell Sam how important it was to shield his family from the way he’d given in to the pain and frustration and bottomed out the night before. Bad enough that Kate had been there to witness his behavior firsthand. Fortunately, he thought wearily, his kids hadn’t been around to see it. And by the time they got back from John and Lilah’s, there would be no evidence that anything had happened any differently than any other night.

He met Kate’s stare head-on, his anger under tight control. “I’m going to take a shower.” He gave her a hard look, making it clear he expected her to be gone when he returned. Then he dragged himself out of his chair, up the stairs, and into the privacy of the master bedroom suite he’d shared with Ellie on trips back to Laramie. Sam’s throat ached as he glanced at the huge four-poster where he and Ellie’d made love many times and he still slept. I love you, Sam, Ellie had whispered every night before they went to sleep as she cuddled close. I love you so much. He would murmur the words back without really thinking about what they meant, what she meant to him. Scowling, Sam shook his head. He’d had so much, for so long, and he’d taken it all for granted.

In the hierarchy of things to be done, Ellie rarely if ever took the time to see to her own needs. She was always busy seeing to everyone else’s. Had he just paid attention to those first signs, her sluggishness and unexplained weight loss. If he’d just insisted she go in for a physical, instead of letting her put it off… Instead, he had believed her when she said it was probably nothing. And by the time they discovered the tumor on her ovary, the cancer had spread. He’d known it was bad, but he still hadn’t believed she was going to die. Nor, when it came down to it, had she. After all, she was so young…just thirty-two when her illness was discovered. She had her whole life ahead of her, a husband to love and sons to raise. She’d been as certain as he that she would beat the disease. Realizing now how foolish and naive they had been, Sam shook his head and stripped down to his shorts. Leaving his clothes on the floor where they lay, he headed into the bathroom to shave. A glance in the mirror did nothing to lift his spirits. He looked even worse than Kate had indicated or he’d expected. His face was haggard beneath the stubble of his beard, his eyes puffy and red, the corners of his mouth drawn in an expression that revealed just how miserable he felt inside. There were harsh lines on his face; a grim look in his eyes. He hadn’t slept more than three or four hours a night in months and the strain showed in his gaunt, tired appearance. Kate Marten was right about one thing, Sam thought as his lips twisted in bitter gallows humor. He was a hell of a role model for his sons.

The regret inside him mounting, for all the times and ways he had failed his family, Sam picked up the can of shaving cream. Scowling, he spread the foam over his face and began to shave. He needed to start eating right and to get a decent amount of rest every night. But even as he thought it he knew: even if he hadn’t been drinking last night, he probably wouldn’t have slept. The insomnia was just one more thing he didn’t know how to deal with. It had started during the first days of Ellie’s illness, when their days and nights were filled with worry. This couldn’t be happening to them…her tumor wasn’t really malignant…her cancer hadn’t really metastasized. And even if it had, nothing was going to happen to her. Not with all the specialists he had flown in, the strings he and his uncle John McCabe—one of the most respected and well-connected family doctors in Texas—had pulled to get her the very best of care possible, the most up-to-date, comprehensive treatment.

After all, their lives had been charmed up to that point. Sam had professional success beyond his wildest dreams, he and Ellie had a lively, loving family that was the envy of all their friends. They had money and clout. And Sam hadn’t been afraid to use it to help his wife. But none of it had done any good in the end. Through endless rounds of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, Ellie’s cancer had continued to grow and spread. She’d gotten weaker and thinner by the day. And all Sam could do was be strong for her and the boys. Behave as if everything was going to be fine, even when he and Ellie had been told by the doctors that she had very little time left. He’d wanted to level with the kids immediately. Prepare them for what was to come. Ellie had resisted—vigorously. “I don’t want them grieving while I’m still here,” she’d told him emotionally. “I want our last days together to be full of love and laughter and joy. Not weighed down with unbearable sadness.”

So Sam had prayed hard for a miracle and pretended she would survive, even when he knew her lungs ached with every breath and her pain required larger and larger doses of pain-killers to keep it manageable. When the boys had entered her sickroom she had smiled and been the mom they needed and depended on. Only with Sam, in the last few days of her life, had she let down her guard and told him the truth, that the suffering she felt was getting to be too much. She felt so unbearably weary. Weak. Sick. It was time to move on, Ellie had whispered tearfully as he’d held her in his arms, crying, too. She was beginning to want to move on. And quickly after that, she did. Slipping away from them peacefully in her sleep. Leaving him to face their boys’ wrath—at having been misled about the terminal nature of her illness—alone.

It wasn’t easy seeing the disillusionment and disappointment every time he looked into his sons’ eyes, Sam thought as a single tear slid down his cheek. Harder yet realizing just how much of their family’s happiness had centered around Ellie. His family and friends kept telling him the numbness, the disorientation, the relentless anger over Ellie’s fate would go away with time. But it hadn’t, Sam realized as the spasms shook his body and a harsh racking sob rose in his throat. Instead it seemed to get worse, Sam thought as he sank helplessly down onto the cool tile floor, buried his head in his arms, and wept the way he hadn’t, even on the day of her funeral. He’d loved Ellie so long and so much, he wasn’t ever going to get over this.

CHAPTER THREE

THE FOOTBALL TEAM had just started running drills Saturday morning when the black Jeep Wrangler pulled into the parking lot on the other side of the chain-link fence. Mike Marten frowned and glanced at his watch. Whoever it was, was late.

Seconds later, a lanky six-foot-plus kid strode through the gates and down the clay running track that rimmed the football field. He carried himself with an accomplished athlete’s confidence and was dressed in a T-shirt, running shorts and athletic shoes. Mike Marten didn’t have to see his dark buzz-cut hair, good-looking mug or familiar blue eyes to know who it was. The seventeen-year-old kid had arranged to see Mike that morning, through Laramie High School’s front office and Mike’s assistant coach Gus Barkley, and he was the spitting image of his dad.

Will McCabe tensed as he neared. “Coach Marten?”

Mike nodded, and tried not to let the gut-deep resentment he still felt for the kid’s father affect his treatment of Will as the two of them shook hands. If there was one thing he prided himself on when it came to his work, it was his fairness to every one of his players.

“I’m Will McCabe. I called about getting a tryout for the football team.”

“Right.” Mike nodded, forcing himself to put his personal feelings aside. “You played quarterback at your school in Dallas?”

“Varsity, last two years,” Will confirmed with a man-to-man glance at Mike. “I didn’t get much playing time my sophomore year, but last year I started every game.”

Zeroing in on the pride in the kid’s voice, Mike blew his whistle and waved one of his running backs over. He nodded at the sidelines. “Grab a football. Let’s see what you can do.”

Mike put them through a series of increasingly complicated passes. Given his obvious tension, he had expected Will to start out nervously and maybe get better as he went along. Instead he started out great and continued at the same level, no matter what Mike asked him to do.

When the rest of the team finished a series and took a water break, something that had to be done frequently in the summer heat, Gus Barkley came over to the sidelines to stand beside Mike and watch. He shook his head in awe. “Man, that kid’s got an arm. Speed and accuracy, too.”

All should have been qualities Mike welcomed. That was hard to do when every time he looked at Will, he saw Sam, and by association, Pete.

Gus frowned, seeming to read Mike’s mind. Gus, too, had worried about the potential for animosity between Sam McCabe’s son and Mike. Mike had assured him it wouldn’t be a problem. Now that it was happening, he wasn’t so sure. Especially when the loss he felt had returned—at the mere sight of the kid—like a sucker punch to the gut. Mike frowned. He thought he had buried all that years ago, along with Pete.

“Want me to get him outfitted with some gear?” Gus asked, the anxiousness in his eyes contrasting to the easy-going camaraderie of his voice.

“Not until after I talk to him.” Mike motioned Will over to him and Gus, and let his running back know, with a nod in the other direction, that he could take a break with the other players. Will trotted over. He looked at Mike hopefully.

“No guarantees about starting or anything else,” Mike warned gruffly. He didn’t care how naturally gifted a kid was. That went for Will and everyone else. “Whatever you get on this team, you earn. And you haven’t earned anything yet. Got it?”

Will nodded and, to his credit, kept his composure despite Mike’s underlying message that this was not going to be easy. Will was not just going to be “given” a slot as starting quarterback on Mike’s team.

“You’re also going to need a physical before I can let you on the team,” Mike said, turning away from the disappointment in the kid’s eyes. Obviously he had expected to be praised for his performance on the field. In fact, had probably been used to that in Dallas. “Assistant Coach Barkley will take you inside the field house and get you the forms. You can come back when you’ve gotten them filled out, and not before.”

WILL KNEW IF HE WANTED to get a football physical fast, he’d have to arrange it himself. He could hardly ask his dad to do it, he was so preoccupied and out of touch with what was going on with the rest of the family he might as well have been on a different planet.

Of course, it hadn’t always been that way, with him and his brothers left to fend for themselves for practically everything. When his mom was alive all any of them had ever had to do with a problem was go to her. She’d be on the phone and two minutes later everything was all fixed. Didn’t matter what it was, Mom had known what to say and do to take care of it.

That had changed when she’d gotten sick, of course. But even when she was really suffering there at the end, she’d call the shots, while his dad stood around, helpless to do anything except comfort her physically and fly in more specialists.

On the domestic front, his Dad hadn’t a clue. And thanks to the succession of ridiculously bad and bossy housekeepers, he still didn’t. Will knew the reason why his dad wanted those idiotic ladies there. It made it easier for him to go off to work and forget all about the rest of them, the way he always had before Mom died.

Only it wasn’t like before, Will thought as he turned his Jeep Wrangler into the hospital parking lot. Life was hell. Home was worse. The best he could do was try to make this year as bearable as possible by finding a girlfriend and playing football. Then go to college and never look back. Maybe never even come back.

JACKSON MCCABE was waiting for Will, as promised, in his office at the hospital. Young, handsome, successful and newly—happily—married, Jackson was everything Will wanted to be when he grew up. “Thanks for doing this for me, Jackson.” Will handed over the forms. “I know it’s a Saturday morning and you’re a surgeon not a family doc, but I really need this physical right away. Otherwise, I can’t show up for practice Monday morning with the rest of the team.”

“Not a problem.” Jackson gave Will a look that let him know he understood how chaotic life had been for him and his brothers since their mom had died and that he didn’t mind the last-minute call one bit. He ushered Will onto the scale. “What are second cousins for, anyway? Besides—” Jackson shifted the metal weights on the bar until it hung perfectly in balance at one hundred and eighty seven. “I know what a stickler Coach Marten is for the rules.”

“That’s right.” Will stood perfectly still while Jackson measured his height. “You used to play on the L.H.S. football team, too, didn’t you?”

“A couple years after your dad.” Jackson paused to jot down Will’s weight and height on the form. “I sure did.”

Appreciating the way Jackson treated him—as a man instead of a kid—Will walked with Jackson into the adjacent exam room. Figuring Jackson was enough of a straight-talker to tell him the truth, he asked, “What did you think about Coach Marten?”

Jackson checked out Will’s ears and throat. “He’s an excellent coach. Tough. Demanding. A little blustery at times, but don’t let that worry you. His bark’s worse than his bite, if you know what I mean. By the time you finish playing on his team, you’ll know the sport inside and out. And probably a lot more about yourself, as well.”

Will watched as Jackson jotted down some notes on the paper, then fit a blood pressure cuff around Will’s arm. “What do you mean?”

Jackson took Will’s blood pressure. “This is going to sound like one of those really hokey sports metaphors, but it’s true.” Jackson paused to look Will straight in the eye. “Coach Marten doesn’t just teach you about football—he also teaches you about honesty, integrity, responsibility and commitment. Playing on his team changes a guy—for the better. If you let it.”

Funny, Will thought. Jackson, never a guy to wax eloquent about anything, was speaking almost reverently about Coach Marten. His dad hadn’t mentioned any of this. In fact, his dad hadn’t looked all that happy about the prospect of Will playing on Coach Marten’s team. Though, as usual, he’d done nothing to discourage that or any other extracurricular activity his kids wanted to pursue.

Puzzled, Will slipped off his T-shirt so Jackson could listen to his heart and lungs. He breathed in and out as directed. Something was going on here that they weren’t telling him, just like when his mom had died. Damn it all, if they were deliberately keeping something from him again, he was going to be pissed.

He looked at Jackson curiously. “Did Coach Marten and my dad get along?”

Jackson tensed slightly as he unhooked the stethoscope from his ears. “Why would you ask that?”

Gut instinct. Something was off here. Will just wasn’t sure what. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, doing his best to put all the little signs together to come up with something. “Usually when I do something around here that my dad or mom did when they were a kid, people get all nostalgic or something. Coach didn’t.”

Jackson sat on a stool. Suddenly he looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Maybe he just wanted you to feel like you were there under your own steam, not as a relation to anyone else,” Jackson finally said.

And maybe, Will thought, the bitterness that had been with him since his mother’s death rising up inside him once again, there was something else they weren’t telling him. Something he had every right to know.

KATE SPENT SATURDAY afternoon conducting two back-to-back grief groups and the evening juggling her schedule and calling her associates at the hospital to let them know she would be taking her accumulated time off to deal with a personal emergency. She waited until Sunday afternoon to tell her parents where they would be able to reach her, starting that evening. Her mom hadn’t said much when they spoke on the phone. But fifteen minutes later, both her parents were on the doorstep of her apartment, which was located on the second floor of a big white Victorian that had been converted into four separate dwellings, each with its own outside entrance.

Kate’s mom, a homemaker with gray-blond hair and pale blue eyes, had obviously been baking. She still wore her blue denim chef’s apron over her coordinating shorts set. Kate’s dad, wearing a burnt-orange Laramie High School knit shirt, shorts and coach’s cap, had a roll of antacids in his hand. A big bear of a man, he was known for his blunt speech, admirably strong character and often brutal honesty. He was also still extremely protective of “his little girl.” Part of it was that he didn’t want anything to happen to Kate. He’d already lost a son and he didn’t want to lose his one remaining child. The other part was his protectiveness of women in general. He just wasn’t sure members of the fairer sex should be out on their own, without a man to watch over them. Hence, he couldn’t wait for Kate to marry her intended, Air Force Major Craig Farrell. But that wasn’t going to happen until much later in the autumn. Right now, at the beginning of August, Coach Mike Marten, and his loving, dutiful wife Joyce, apparently felt they had a problem on their hands. As Kate suspected, it didn’t take her father long to get to the point.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, honey, but this is the dumbest idea you’ve ever had.”

Out of respect, Kate tried to not roll her eyes as she continued moving around her apartment, packing up a few of her things. “Thanks for being so supportive, Dad.”

Mike sighed, lifting his burnt orange coach’s cap off his head and running his hand through his short salt-and-pepper hair. “You’re a professional woman,” Mike declared, replacing the cap low across his forehead, “not a domestic hire.”

“Meaning what?” Kate interrupted, not about to let her dad talk her out of doing what she knew in her gut had to be done. “I can’t help out a friend?”

Mike Marten looked at her steadily. “Sam’s not your friend.”