isn’t the issue. I’m really not the man you’re looking for.”
Desperate for something to bargain with, she looked toward the telephone. “I’ll baby-sit your children.”
He opened his mouth, automatically prepared to decline. What came out was a disbelieving huff of air and a flat “You’re kidding.”
“No. No, I’m not,” she insisted, utterly determined to get him to agree. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation when I first came in. I wasn’t trying to listen,” she explained, looking as if she felt guilty, anyway. “But I heard you say you need to get another housekeeper. And I know how hard it’s been for you to keep help.”
“It hasn’t been that hard,” he muttered. Having gone through five housekeepers in the past three years might sound as if the problem rested with him, but that wasn’t the case at all. “There were reasons those women didn’t work out.”
“Oh, I know,” she assured him easily. “Your first one moved to be near her children, and I think you fired one because the kids didn’t like her. Two quit because your house is so remote, and they didn’t like being isolated all week. And I heard that the last one left because you weren’t interested in having her warm your bed. You wouldn’t have to worry about any of that with me,” she assured him, her beguiling eyes utterly sincere and steady on his. “Especially the sex part. I’m not going to bed with you.”
Sam wasn’t sure which threw him more. The way his stomach tightened as their eyes remained locked, the blunt way she’d just told him she wasn’t going to get naked with him or the casual way she proceeded to lay down her rules before he could even tell her he wasn’t interested.
“I know you’re looking for a live-in,” she told him, pushing her hands into the deep pockets of her pants. The tank top she wore was the same brown as the buttons on the sides of her overalls. It exposed the delicate line of her collarbone, the elegant line of taut, smoothly muscled arms. “I wouldn’t be able stay at your place, though. Or do your housework. I have other obligations during the day,” she explained, apparently referring to her son and her job at the bookstore. “But you can drop the children off at my house in the morning and they can come to mine after school until you find someone else.”
She tipped her head, a lock of her impossibly curly hair falling over her shoulder and curving against her small firm breast. “When are they coming back from your parents’ house?”
It wasn’t like Sam to be caught so completely off guard. As with any parent of two small children, his days inevitably unfolded around the unexpected. Then there was his job. Flying cargo and passengers in the unpredictable weather and rough geography of the San Juan Islands and the Alaskan panhandle pretty much demanded that he immediately adapt to the unforeseen. He was usually pretty good at it, too. The juggling aspects of it, anyway.
“Next week. The day after Labor Day,” he expanded, mentally shaking his head at both her proposal and her persistence.
“That’s when school starts.”
“Right. Look,” he muttered, needing to get a grip on the situation. “Thanks for your offer, but I really need a live-in. And I need her now. There are times when I’m late or when I can’t get back because of the weather. I never know when that might be.”
“It’s not an offer. It’s a proposition. Child care for flying lessons.”
Sam blinked at her undaunted expression. The woman was as tenacious as the barnacles clinging to the pilings of the float plane pier. “I said I don’t give them.”
“You could always make an exception,” she suggested ever so reasonably. “Besides, you don’t need to make up your mind right now. I’m sure you’ll want to check me out since you don’t really know me. I know your children, though. Your wife used to bring them to the bookstore. Your sister still does. Jason has always liked stories about anything with big teeth and claws. Jenny adores any cover with glitter on it, but The Little Mermaid is her favorite.”
Sam thought of the book atop the stack on his little girl’s nightstand. His sister had bought that very book for Jenny months ago and several other books since. But the story of the mermaid was what Jenny insisted he read to her nearly every night.
This woman knew his kids. She even remembered what they liked.
The breath he drew was long, low and vaguely reluctant. He wasn’t at all prepared to accept her impulsive proposal. He was, however, a practical, logical man who was somewhat desperately in need of child care.
Conceding that he might have been a little hasty in his dismissal, he made a mental note to ask around about her, stuffed his map tube under his arm and slipped his sunglasses in his pocket. “Let me think about it.”
Having everything but his lunch, he glanced at her across the counter. As dogged as she’d been, he expected her to be pleased. What he didn’t expect was the impact of her bright, easy smile.
“That’s fair enough,” she said and held out her hand across the beige Formica.
He automatically took it.
Her skin was soft, her nails short and unpolished. In his big hand hers looked as small and feminine as his daughter’s. But what struck him most was the warmth of her flesh against his as the pressure of their fingers increased in the businesslike handshake and the faintly erotic scent of wildflowers that lingered in the air when she turned a moment later and walked away.
With his focus on the baggy denim covering her hips, he heard the jingle of the bell and watched her slip out the door. Through the multipaned window, he saw her climb into the battered olive-green Jeep parked just outside.
Sam’s glance jerked to the black-rimmed clock above the water cooler. Realizing that he was now even later than he’d been five minutes ago, he headed for the door himself. He had no idea what to make of T.J. Walker’s energy, her off-the-wall proposition or the jolt of sensual heat he’d just felt. It had been over three years since he’d known the comfort of a woman’s body. He missed the softness. The feminine scents. He missed the feel of gentle curves and silken hair.
He didn’t at all appreciate T.J. Walker reminding him of that. The last thing he needed was to add that particular brand of frustration to all the rest.
Ruthlessly shoving aside the thought, he grabbed the mail sack and the bag of chips and strode toward the gleaming white Cessna parked near the hangar. Spotting their pilot, four fishermen rose from their coolers and hauled up their heavy backpacks.
He had a flight to concentrate on. He had people to tend to who were relying on him to get them safely to their destination. He wasn’t about to jeopardize anyone’s safety by being preoccupied.
Chapter Two
Two days, Sam thought. His kids had only been gone for two days, and he was already going stir-crazy in the too-quiet house.
Plowing his fingers through his hair, he turned his back on the fading view of the ocean and massive boulders beyond his lawn and leaned against the railing of the long redwood porch. He’d once loved this time of day, the peaceful moments between dusk and nightfall when people and creatures started settling down, settling in. Now he faced his evenings trying not to think too much about the night ahead and occupied himself with his children’s routine and whatever chore or task demanded to be done.
The problem tonight was that without the kids there had been no routine. There had been no coloring with Jenny, or roughhousing with Jason or cuddling with both of them on the couch while they watched the Disney Channel or some animated video for the hundredth time. There had been no cajoling to get them to brush their teeth. No bedtime stories. There had been nothing to claim his attention or to take the emptiness out of the rambling log home he’d had built for Tina and their family.
He needed his children back. He knew they were perfectly safe with his parents. They were undoubtedly being spoiled rotten at that very moment, too.