Fletcher's Baby!. Anne McAllister

Sam Fletcher never backed down from a challenge.

      CHAPTER THREE

      IT WAS fate, Josie decided.

      Surely God couldn’t have that warped a sense of humor. Surely in a twenty-odd room inn, He wouldn’t deliberately stick Sam in the room next to hers tonight, in the bed right on the other side of the wall from hers—again—just for old time’s sake!

      She’d actually entertained the notion that she might get away with not having him stay at all.

      The inn was fully booked—even the third-floor garret that had been hers while Hattie was alive. Just three days ago Josie had finished fixing it up as a guest room and, with Benjamin and Cletus’s help, had moved her things down one flight into Hattie’s quarters.

      “You ought to be pleased,” she’d told Sam when he realized the inn was full. “Another room to rent means more profit for you.”

      “The hell with profits. Where’m I going to sleep?”

      He’d tapped on her door about ten and she’d opened it warily, but he hadn’t said another word about marrying her. He’d been almost icily polite as he’d asked where he ought to put his things. The iciness had dissolved into irritation at the news that there were no rooms.

      “I’ll see if I can get you a room at The Taylor House.” It was another Victorian era B&B. Not, in Josie’s estimation, as nice as The Shields House, but still quite comfortable.

      “I’ll sleep in the sitting room,” Sam said, looking past her toward the small room that was part of her quarters. Josie knew Hattie had sometimes put Sam there when all the other rooms were full.

      But that had been Hattie. Not her. “I’m afraid not.”

      One brow lifted. “Why not? Did you rent that, too?”

      Josie sucked in a breath. “I am trying to do my best to run your inn professionally, and that means renting the rooms. So I have. That doesn’t mean I have to give up my own.”

      “You sleep in the sitting room?”

      “It’s part of my quarters,” she said firmly. The innkeeper’s quarters consisted of two rooms—a bedroom and a parlor—and a bath. And, no, she didn’t sleep in her sitting room, but she didn’t want him sleeping there, either. It would be too intimate, too close.

      “You certainly didn’t waste any time moving in, did you? Hattie’s been in her grave—what?—two weeks?”

      His words hit her like a slap, and her reaction must have showed on her face, for he rubbed a hand against the back of his head and muttered, “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m not usually so tactless.”

      “No,” Josie agreed, “you’re not.”

      His gaze nailed her. “But then I don’t usually discover I’m about to become a father, either.”

      She pressed her lips together and hugged her arms across her breasts protectively, but she was damned if she was going to apologize. “I’ll call The Taylor House.”

      “Don’t bother. I’ll sleep in the butler’s pantry.”

      Josie’s eyes widened. “You can’t!”

      “Why not? Did you rent that, too?”

      “Don’t be an ass, Sam. There’s only a love seat down there.”

      “Badly named, I’m sure.”

      Josie ignored that “You can’t,” she repeated.

      “Well, if you won’t let me use the sitting room...” He was baiting her, daring her.

      Josie gritted her teeth. “No.”

      “It’s not like we haven’t been closer than a room apart...” A corner of his mouth lifted mockingly.

      She felt her cheeks begin to burn. “I said, no!”

      Sam took a step back and raised his hands, palms out, as if to defend himself. “Fine. The butler’s pantry for me.” He started toward the stairs.

      “I’m calling The Taylor House!”

      “Go ahead. I’m not leaving.”

      Josie watched him go, frustrated, annoyed, and determined not to give in. “Go ahead yourself! Sleep on the love seat!” Get a crick in your neck. Serve you right for being so obstinate.

      She shut her door, barely managing to take her own advice and not slam it. Then she retreated to her bedroom, determined to ignore him. She had one more couple left to arrive, who would be getting there late. Ordinarily she’d wait for them downstairs in the butler’s pantry, reading or watching television.

      Obviously that wasn’t an option tonight.

      So she stayed in her room, alternately reading and hauling herself up to pace irritably. When the phone rang an hour later she snatched it up. The people who had been scheduled for Coleman’s Room couldn’t make it.

      “Sorry to call so late,” they apologized. “Family emergency.”

      “No problem,” Josie assured them. Then she hung up and closed her eyes. “Oh, damn.”

      She didn’t have to do it. She almost didn’t do it.

      But Josie had spent enough nights in her life sleeping in uncomfortable circumstances to have a modicum of sympathy—even for Sam. Reluctantly, she went down to the butler’s pantry.

      It was dark, but in the moonlight spilling through the tall, narrow window, she could see Sam lying on the love seat, his legs dangling over the end.

      “Come to see if I was comfy?” he drawled.

      “Came to tell you that you can have Coleman’s Room,” she replied through her teeth. “The guests just canceled.”

      In the moonlight she saw the slow spread of his grin. Her very own version of the Cheshire Cat. Then he stretched expansively and hauled himself up. He was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts.

      Josie had beat a hasty retreat up the steps.

      Unfortunately, the image had stuck in her mind.

      And having him in Coleman’s Room was turning out to be worse than letting him sleep in her parlor would have been. Her parlor was on the other side of the bathroom. Coleman’s Room shared a common wall with hers.

      She crawled back into her own bed and tugged the duvet up to her chin. Resolutely she turned away from the wall. From the memory. From Sam.

      It didn’t help. She knew he was there.

      Just like he’d been last time...

      

      It was her birthday. September ninth. And she was determined that it would be the most special birthday she could remember.

      For years she’d pretended an indifference to her birthdays. In foster families there were fewer disappointments if one didn’t expect too much. Even when she’d lived with her own parents, things had been so unpredictable that Josie had learned not to expect.

      When she’d come to stay with Hattie and Walter, they had celebrated with her. That was as close to having a real family—and real birthdays—as she could remember.