Just then her cell phone rang. She glanced at caller ID, then took the call. “Hey, Jess. What’s going on?”
She listened to her aunt, another smile spreading across her face. “Yes, you can short-sheet his bed, and no, I won’t be in it.”
She disconnected the call and grinned at Sam. “Mystery solved. Gram dispatched him to the inn to work on a proper presentation to make to me in the morning. Jess says he’s expecting me at nine.”
“You going to be there?”
She stepped closer, stripped off her gardening gloves and framed his face with both hands. “Yes,” she said, causing his heart to sink.
“Okay, I guess you need to hear him out,” Sam said, deflated.
“I’m not going to hear him out,” Carrie corrected. “I’m going to tell him goodbye once and for all. Then I’m going to find you and kiss you senseless, till you realize you’re the only man I want in my life now.”
Sam smiled at last. Now there was a plan he could definitely get behind.
“Stick to your guns, okay? I’d hate to have to find him and beat the tar out of him for hurting you again.”
“You’d probably have to get in line to do that,” she said. “But I love that you’re willing to go that far to protect me.”
“I’ll go as far as I have to,” he promised her quietly. She and Bobby were his life. As much as it surprised him, he knew he’d do whatever it took to keep them both safe and happy.
22
Carrie stood in the doorway to the inn’s dining room and studied the man she’d once thought she loved. The sight of Marc no longer moved her as it once had. It seemed she’d recently fallen for a guy whose shirt was rarely tucked in, whose idea of fashion was a formfitting T-shirt that these days was most often smeared with jelly and whose hair was usually in need of a trim. Sam was a man whose world had been shaken by loss, and then turned upside down by instant parenthood, and yet he’d found a way to cope. Marc couldn’t cope with making his own airline reservations.
In fact, Sam was quite a contrast to the man sitting at a table by the window, his attention focused on his tablet, rather than the spectacular view outside. Marc apparently couldn’t even deal with the loss of an assistant with public-relations skills, though Carrie had to wonder if it was those skills he missed or her all-around adoration and twenty-four-hour availability for any and all tasks that made his life easier.
Now he was tapping impatiently on the tablet screen, his brow knit with a frown. He was too absorbed to notice her approach.
“I heard you wanted to see me,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting across from him.
He glanced up at that, delight spreading across his face. She had no doubt that much at least was genuine. If he needed her, which was the only explanation for his arrival in Chesapeake Shores, then he’d be all but certain she’d respond to his distress call and turn her life inside out to accommodate him. He’d no doubt dismissed her continued avoidance of his calls, considering that to be no more than an insignificant fit of pique.
“You look great!” he said, his gaze intent. “I don’t recognize the designer, though. Whose line are you wearing?”
“No idea,” she said with a disinterested shrug. “I bought the clothes because they’re practical for work.”
He looked startled. “You have another job? I hadn’t heard.”
“I’m not surprised. News of my opening a day-care center wouldn’t likely be on your radar.”
He frowned at that. “A day-care center? You mean for children?”
“That’s usually who they’re meant for,” she said, smiling at his reaction.
“Hold on, you’re going to be a paid babysitter?” he asked incredulously.
She didn’t bother taking offense. “It’s a little more meaningful than that, but basically, yes. I should thank you. Had it not been for the whole fiasco with you, I never would have recognized what I was meant to do.”
“Taking care of other people’s children is not your calling,” he scoffed. “If you think that, you’re just settling. You were meant for much more.”
“Such as making your airline reservations, dealing with the media, planting little items in the gossip columns to keep your name out there?”
“Of course. All of that is almost as essential in the fashion industry as the designs themselves.”
“And no one’s been able to fill that niche for you the way I did? I assume that’s why you’re here. You discovered I’m indispensable? Or were my replacements too demanding? Maybe they expected time off? Or weren’t willing to go along with the bedroom perks?”