When a big, muscled figure climbed out, followed closely by a very adorable dark-haired boy, she wanted to cry. Or throw something, she wasn’t sure which.
Of all the work projects going on all over town, why would Claire feel compelled to assign Sam here, where she knew full well Alex would be working all morning on the cleanup of Caroline’s overgrown garden?
She didn’t have to guess. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Claire suspected she had feelings for Sam. Despite all her efforts the other day to avoid talking about him—or maybe because of them—Claire must have guessed her feelings for him ran deeper than she would admit.
For all she knew, her mother and sisters likely connived with Claire to force her together with Sam today. Matchmaking busybodies, the lot of them.
She sat back on her heels and watched him and Ethan grab matching tool belts out of the bed of the pickup. Sam fastened his low on his hips but Ethan seemed to struggle with his. The boy’s father reached down and pulled the ends around with care then guided the end through the loop.
Watching a big, tough ex-soldier help his son just about turned her heart and her brain to mush.
Claire was definitely going to suffer for this, even if it was a little tough to come up with creative ways to wreak vengeance against a pregnant woman.
She couldn’t totally blame her, she supposed. Hope’s Crossing was a small town. She couldn’t avoid him indefinitely. If she couldn’t figure out a way to deal with seeing him on a regular basis, she would quickly find herself miserable.
With that in mind, she decided to try the casual, friendly approach one more time, pretending everything between them didn’t exist. She shoved her garden gloves into her pocket and headed over to the two of them.
He wasn’t surprised to see her, she saw as she approached. Had Claire warned him or had he simply recognized her vehicle when he drove up?
He straightened up from helping Ethan and watched her walk toward them, heat smoldering in his brown eyes for just a moment before he quickly banked it.
To give her heart time to settle down, she chose to ignore him and turned instead to Ethan. “Hey, there. You’re coming to work, I hope.”
“Yes. I have my very own hammer. My dad gave it to me this morning. And I got two screwdrivers, a flathead and a Phillips-head.”
The tools gleamed on his belt, obviously new, and her heart squeezed at the thought of Sam picking them out for his son.
“Those are some impressive tools.”
“I’ve been borrowing some from my dad but these are for my very own use. I don’t have to give them back. We’re going to build a tree house this summer. It’s going to be the very best tree house in town, with four walls and a roof and windows that close and everything.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“You can come see it,” he suggested. “Maybe you could bring Leo. And brownies, if you want to.”
She smiled. How could she help it when this boy was so very open with his heart? “I just might want to do that. Thank you for the invitation. You give me the word when you’re finished and I’ll bring over the brownies.”
Eventually she was going to have to meet Sam’s gaze, she supposed. She couldn’t avoid him forever. She gave a little sigh and straightened up.
The memory of that last, emotional kiss seemed to hover between them, fierce and intense, and she was amazed they didn’t catch all the overgrown weeds on fire.
“My orders are to fix some porch steps and a railing. I think Claire also said something about an arbor that needed some work.”
Those things did need attention but none was urgent. Even if they were, why did they have to be fixed by him? she wanted to whine.
“There’s plenty of work to be done,” she said instead. “Caroline hasn’t been feeling well the last few years. But she’s getting better now.”
She waved at her friend, who sat on her porch wrapped in a blanket watching her work and offering the occasional helpful comment.
Caroline lifted her hand to wave back but didn’t seem to have the energy to raise it more than a few inches. She looked more pale out here in the June sunshine.
“I guess we should get started, right, Ethan?”
His son nodded, though he continued smiling up at Alex. “Guess what? I finished the first grade yesterday.”
“Congratulations!”
“School is out for the summer and now I get to live with my dad here all the time. I don’t even have to go back. I can’t go back anyway because my uncle and aunt are in an entirely different country. We might go visit them sometime. Not soon, but sometime. It’s in Europe.”
“That’s terrific!”