Family in Progress

“Okay, enough shop talk,” Samara decided. “How are you doing?”

“Other than being the largest mammal currently walking the face of the earth, you mean?”

“Other than that,” she agreed with a smile.

“I’m getting excited,” her friend admitted. “I can’t believe there’s only five more weeks to go before I’ll finally get to hold my baby in my arms.”

“Unless he’s late. First babies usually are.”

Jenny laid a hand on her rounded belly. “God, I hope not.”

Samara laughed.

“I wanted to thank you again,” Jenny said. “For painting the nursery. Richard’s been working a lot of long hours lately and I can hardly negotiate stairs in this condition never mind climb a ladder with a paint roller in hand, so I’m not sure the room would have been ready before the baby if you hadn’t done it.

“I know we could have hired someone,” she continued. “But I wanted the nursery to have a more personal touch, and I know the baby’s going to love the cars and trucks you painted above the crib.”

“It was the least I could do while I was living there,” Samara said. “And I had fun with it.”

“I’ll remember that if it turns out the doctors are wrong and my daughter refuses to sleep in a blue room.”

“It’s sky-blue, not boy-blue. And I doubt, with today’s technology, that the doctors made a mistake.”

Jenny’s lips curved. “From the beginning, I said the baby’s gender didn’t matter so long as he or she was born healthy, and I meant it. But I think I would like a boy—with blue eyes and a smile just like his dad’s.”

“And Richard’s probably dreaming about a baby girl with green eyes and copper hair like yours.”

Jenny’s lips curved. “Well, maybe we’ll try for one of each.”

“You’re really happy together, aren’t you?”

“I never dreamed I could be so happy,” Jenny admitted. “Especially not when I think back to the day we first met.”

“You mean the day you tried to brush him off?”

Her friend smiled. “Yeah, that day.”

But Richard had pursued Jenny with the single-minded focus and determination of a man who had found what he wanted and wasn’t ever going to let her go.

That was all Samara wanted—for someone to love her the way Richard loved Jenny.

Chapter Two

It was with a tremendous sense of relief—and no small amount of guilt—that Steven realized Tyler’s principal hadn’t tracked him down at work to tell him that his son was in trouble but that he was sick. Apparently he’d tossed his Honey Nut Cheerios all over the floor in his math class, an unfortunate accident which might have mortified anyone else but seemed to be a topic of tremendous interest among nine-year-olds in general and those of the male gender in particular. Even more so because on this particular day the necessity of vacating the classroom had thwarted the teacher’s plans to administer a geometry quiz.

Steven had known about the quiz, of course, and had assumed that his son’s complaints of a sore stomach at breakfast had been nothing more than pre-test jitters. Yet one more reason to question his judgment in parenting matters.

In the almost three years that had passed since his wife’s death, not a day had gone by that he hadn’t thought about her with longing and regret. But it was incidents like this one with Tyler that made him realize how much he’d relied on her for more than comfort and companionship.

It was possible that she might have sent Tyler off to school, too, but then they would have laughed about the incident together and reassured one another that no harm had been done. He missed that most of all—the talking, the sharing, the assurance that no matter what challenges they faced, they would get through them together. Losing his wife so suddenly and unexpectedly was tough. Being a single parent was sometimes even tougher.

As he packed up Tyler’s knapsack, he considered checking in with Caitlin while he was at the school. A quick glance at his watch confirmed that it was almost time for the third period bell to ring, so he could probably catch her between classes. But he was pretty certain his twelve-year-old daughter would be mortified to find her father hanging out by her locker and left a note for her instead so she would know she didn’t have to look for her brother before she got on the bus to come home at the end of the day.

He called Carrie from the road to tell her he wouldn’t be returning to the office that afternoon. After querying whether he had chicken soup and soda crackers at home, she assured him she could handle anything that cropped up in his absence. Steven knew that it was true and could only hope to find a photographer as efficient and reliable as his assistant.

Unbidden, an image of Samara Kenzo came to mind. Efficient and reliable weren’t the most obvious words to describe his sister-in-law’s friend, though she’d certainly made an impression. Her résumé had piqued his interest, her appearance had snagged his full attention. Stunning eyes, sexy mouth, tempting curves. It was entirely possible that she could prove to be efficient and reliable, but Steven was more worried that she could also be a dangerous distraction.

He pushed these discomfiting thoughts from his mind as he pulled into the driveway. His son’s unnatural pallor and clammy skin made him wonder if he should have stopped at the local clinic on the way home instead of relying on the principal’s assurance that there was a nasty—albeit short-lived—flu bug going around. The thought continued to worry his mind as he opened a can of chicken soup and dumped it into a pot to heat on the stove.

Tyler managed only a few spoonfuls and a couple of crackers before racing to the bathroom to throw it all back up again.

Steven hovered in the background, feeling completely helpless, while his son retched. He tried to remember what Liz had done when the kids were sick, but the fact was, she’d handled everything so competently and efficiently, he’d hardly noticed. Digging deeper back into his memory, he vaguely recalled his mother setting a cool washcloth on his forehead and giving him flat ginger ale to drink. There was only 7UP in the fridge, but he thought that might work and poured some into a glass for Tyler after settling him on the couch with a bucket close at hand.

Missing work to care for a sick child was yet another new experience for him. Though both Caitlin and Tyler had endured the usual bouts of colds and flu that plagued all children as well as suffering through nasty cases of chicken pox, it was Liz who had nursed them through every childhood illness, Liz who had kissed away their tears and soothed their spirits. And Steven guessed that, as much as he was missing Liz right now, Tyler was missing her even more.

He slid The Phantom Menace into the DVD player and sank down onto the sofa beside his son.

He was surprised, but pleased, when Tyler shifted closer to cuddle and pillow his head against his father’s chest.

“This is my favorite,” Tyler said, when the movie title flashed on the screen.

Steven lifted an arm and slid it around his son’s slender shoulders. “I know.”

The little boy snuggled closer, but when he spoke again, his voice had dropped. “Mom used to watch Bugs Bunny cartoons with me whenever I was sick.”

Yeah, Tyler was missing her, too. “Did you want me to see if I can find some on TV?”

His son gave a slight shake of his head. “This is okay.”

Steven took ‘okay’ as a positive endorsement and accepted that he would just have to figure things out as he went along.

“Guess I should have listened when you told me you had a tummy ache this morning, huh?”

Tyler nodded solemnly.

“I’m sorry, bud.”

“S’okay, Daddy. Mrs. Harper says we all make mistakes.”

It took him a moment to remember that Mrs. Harper was Tyler’s homeroom teacher. “Do you like Mrs. Harper?”

Another nod, then a yawn.

“And your new school?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“You’ve made some friends?”

“James and Aidan and Andrew and Marcus and Nick and Jake and—”

Steven interrupted the list with a chuckle. “I didn’t hear you mention any girls’ names.”

Tyler wrinkled his nose. “The girls are okay, I guess.”

“You’re not still mad that we moved from North Carolina?”

“I was never mad—just sad that we had to leave Grandma Warren and Grandma and Grandpa Bradley.” His voice dropped a little. “And Mommy.”

Liz was buried at Pleasantview Cemetery in Crooked Oak. Steven had been sure to take the kids to visit her grave whenever they wanted to visit their mom, but that trip was obviously a lot more difficult now and an event that would, therefore, occur a lot less frequently.

“Caitlin was mad,” Tyler continued, a reminder that was hardly necessary.

“Do you think she still is?”

His son lifted one bony shoulder in a halfhearted shrug and yawned again.

Despite the movie being Tyler’s admitted favorite, he was conked out before the podrace even began. And while Steven knew there were a hundred things he could be doing while his son slept, at the moment, none of them was as important as cuddling with his child.

Until now, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed sharing this kind of closeness with his children, and he was suddenly, painfully, aware that as his children got older, the opportunities for doing so would be fewer and farther between. Even at nine, Tyler wasn’t much of a cuddler, except when he was sad or tired or feeling ill, so Steven had no qualms about taking advantage of this opportunity.

He brushed a hand over his son’s thick, dark hair—a legacy from the Warren side of the family along with his blue eyes and broad shoulders. But the shape of his face, the curve of his lips and the long, thick lashes came from his mother, and every time he looked at his son, he caught a glimpse of the woman he’d loved. A glimpse that was both painful and reassuring, because though she was gone from his life forever, she would always live on in the children who were the best parts of both of them.

Samara scoured the classified ads, searched the Internet and pounded the pavement, and the best job prospect she could find—aside from the position at Classic, of course—was at a photo studio in one of the big department stores. Not quite what she was looking for, but she filled out an application anyway. She needed a job or she’d end up on Jenny and Richard’s doorstep again, and her friends had already done so much for her.

She wasn’t sure where she would be right now if she hadn’t come to Chicago to see them—then fallen in love with the city and decided to stay. Two years earlier, she’d run away from her life in Tokyo. She wasn’t proud of the fact, but she couldn’t deny it, either. And in those two years, she’d continued to run—from one point on the globe to another, one temporary assignment to another. But no matter how far or how fast she ran, she never managed to outdistance the heartache.

Could a woman who’d been hurt so deeply by someone she’d loved ever learn to love again? She only knew that, after two years, it was time to stop running, to make a stand, to start her life again. A task made decidedly more difficult by her current lack of employment.

She sighed and tossed the useless newspaper into the recycle bin under her desk.

She wanted the job at Classic. It would be interesting, challenging and rewarding. And, as an added bonus, the project manager was quite a hunk.

Yummy, she couldn’t help thinking again, and realized she should have been prepared for the possibility that Steven Warren shared his brother’s good looks. But she’d thought of Richard as Jenny’s husband for so long now, she’d almost forgotten how attractive he was. Coming face-to-face with Steven had been quite the reminder—and a reminder that, though her heart might still be in pieces, her body was starting to show signs of life again.

She didn’t think Steven was quite as tall as Richard—probably just shy of six feet, she would guess, which meant that he still towered over her five-foot-two-inch frame. But he was as broad across the shoulders as his brother, and a little more…built, she thought was the term. Samara had never been attracted to sculpted bodies, but there was something about Steven’s strong muscles, evident even beneath the shirt and tie he wore during her interview, that made her mouth water. Yeah, the hormones were definitely alive and kicking.

She knew he was younger than his brother by half a dozen years, which put his age at thirty-five. She would have guessed he was older. Maybe it was the responsibilities of marriage and children that made him seem so, or perhaps it was the grief of losing his wife that had etched those lines around his deep-blue eyes and put the flecks of gray in his thick, dark hair. The loss of someone close always left scars, visible or not.

Jenny had told her about the death of Steven’s wife—how she’d died unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm, leaving Steven a widower and a single parent to their two children. The man’s life had been completely upended, responsibilities had been dumped on his shoulders beyond anything she’d ever had to manage, and she should focus on that rather than on the fact that he also had a first-class butt, eyes that made her want to melt at his feet, and a sensuously sculpted mouth that tempted her to forget he was a father and remember only that he was a man.

It made her question whether working at Classic would be such a good idea after all. Of course, that was assuming he offered her the job, and while she was keeping her fingers crossed, she wasn’t ready to assume any such thing.

He’d promised to be in touch by the end of the week, so Samara wasn’t surprised when he called Thursday afternoon, though she was surprised by the little quiver in her belly when she recognized his voice.

“Hi, Samara. It’s Steve Warren calling,” he said, as if the pounding of her heart against her ribs hadn’t already given his identify away.

“Hello, Steven,” she said, pleased that she managed to respond in a level tone that belied her nervousness.

“I’m calling to offer you the job as senior photographer of features at Classic.”

Relief flood her system in a wave, followed closely by excitement and anticipation. This was it. All she needed was a chance to prove what she could do, and he was giving it to her.

“Thank you.” Her damp palm clamped tighter around the receiver. “I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

“I’m counting on you to deliver on that promise,” her new boss told her.

“When do you want me to start?” she asked, anxious to pin down the details before he could change his mind.

He chuckled in response to her eager question. “Monday, if that’s not too soon.”

“Monday is perfect.”

“Good. I’ll see you then.”

But Samara was too excited to wait until Monday.

She wanted to check out the studio where she would be working, meet the people she’d be working with, and she wanted to see Steven again, to reassure herself that the immediate hormonal reaction she’d experienced at their first meeting was a fluke.

He was dressed more casually today—in jeans and a collared T-shirt, and it looked like he’d forgotten to shave. He looked like a man would look on a comfortable Saturday morning—a little bit rumpled, a lot sexy.

Okay, so the hormone thing was still a problem, but not one that she would let interfere with her job.

He glanced up from a stack of papers, obviously startled by her knock at the door—and by her presence in his office. “What are you doing here, Samara?”

“I was in the neighborhood,” she began, then shook her head. “Actually, I made a point of being in the neighborhood because I wanted to stop in and say a personal thank-you for giving me an opportunity with this job.”

“You can thank me by working your magic with the camera,” he told her.

“I will,” she promised, coming farther into the room. “In the meantime, how about a large double-shot?”

He accepted the proferred cup. “How did you know how I like my coffee?”

“I asked your assistant,” she admitted. “I called from the lobby when I got here, to make sure you were in your office, and Carrie told me your preference.”

“Did she also tell you that I missed a couple of days this week because my son was home sick?”

“No,” Samara said. “I hope it wasn’t anything serious.”

“Just a touch of a flu bug. But I’m a little behind schedule right now and—”

“I’m in your way,” she guessed.

“A little.”

She took a step back toward the door. Though her lips curved, he could tell it was a practiced smile and he was sorry to see that some of the sparkle had dimmed in her eyes, sorrier still to know he was responsible for it.

“I’ll get out of your way then,” she said, and started to turn.

He should let her go. He wasn’t ready to confront the feelings she stirred inside of him just by being in his office. But he also knew it wasn’t fair to blame her for the unexpected and irrational response of his hormones to her presence, and he didn’t want her to go away mad.

He pushed away from his desk and caught her before she reached the door. “I didn’t mean for you to rush off,” he lied.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I shouldn’t have assumed you would have free time to show me around. I’m just so excited about the opportunity you’ve given me that I wanted to get my bearings so I can get right to work on Monday.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be accused of damping your enthusiasm,” he told her.

“You didn’t,” she assured him. “You couldn’t.”

Still, he wanted to see that sparkle back in her eyes. “Are you interested in seeing the studio?”

Sure enough, those few words did the trick. Her eyes shone, her lips curved. “Are you kidding?”

He looked at the paperwork on his desk, the pile of phone messages to be returned, the classified ads to be reviewed, and he waved a dismissive hand over everything. “It’s not like this won’t all be here when I get back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said.

But as he led her out of his office, his thoughts were on Samara rather than the work he’d willingly abandoned for her smile, and he found himself wondering if maybe his fortunes were changing.

Caitlin took her usual seat at the back of the room. After almost a month of classes, she was still the new kid—and she hated it. Almost as much as she hated the fact that the neighborhood where her dad had bought their new house didn’t have middle school, so she was stuck in a kindergarten-to-grade-8 and had to go to school with her little brother. It was beyond humiliating and made her wish even more that she was back in North Carolina where she actually knew people and had friends to hang out with. Where she had a life.

“You’ll make new friends,” her dad had promised, as if him wanting it to be true could make it so.

He didn’t have a clue what it was like to be the new kid, the one everyone stared at and snickered about. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d tossed out most of her favorite clothes when they’d moved, suddenly concerned that her style was inappropriate for a girl her age.

He used to drive her to the mall, give her money and tell her to get what she needed. And if he’d sometimes scowled at her choices, it had been easy enough to convince him it was what all the girls were wearing. But this time, he’d decided that a new school warranted a new wardrobe, and he’d enlisted her Aunt Jenny to take her shopping.

It wasn’t that she had anything against her uncle’s wife, she just didn’t know what to think about all of the changes that had occurred over the past few years. For so long, family had just been her and her brother and their parents with the occasional visit from one or other of the grandparents. Then suddenly, her father’s brother came back from a business trip to Japan with a new bride and an interest in renewing family ties.

Up to that point, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen her Uncle Richard, and it had never been when her grandmother was around. But whatever had caused the family rift—and she knew there was one, even if no one would tell her what it was about—was now forgotten and they were all part of one big happy family.

And then her mom died.

Caitlin dropped her gaze to her book as other students continued to filter into the class. She was enough of a social reject already without being caught with tears in her eyes.

She’d thought she was past this stage. For the first few months after her mother died, she hadn’t been able to think about her without breaking down. But over time, she’d managed to control her response to the over-whelming waves of grief. Mostly. There were still unexpected occasions when the pain would surge up again and the sense of emptiness would make everything inside her feel hollow.

She became aware of the whispers before she spotted the battered sneakers that stopped beside her desk. Glancing up, she saw the owner of those sneakers—a boy.

A stranger.

Her first thought was that she was no longer the new kid in the class.

Her second was that he was kind of cute.

It took her a moment longer to realize he’d spoken to her and was waiting for a response.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t hear what you said.”

“I was wondering if it’s okay to sit here.” He gestured to the vacant desk beside hers.

She shrugged as if to say, “Go ahead.”

He slid into the chair. “I’m Owen.”

“Caitlin,” she offered grudgingly.

“Where did you move here from?”

Yeah, she was a reject. Even the newest kid had pegged her as a new kid. “North Carolina.”

“I’m from Minnesota,” he said, though she hadn’t asked. “My dad got transferred.”

“My dad just wanted to ruin my life,” she grumbled.

“Is it that bad?”

“Ask me in a few weeks.”

“I’ll do that,” he said.

Then he smiled.

And Caitlin started to think that maybe moving to Chicago wasn’t a totally bad thing, after all.

Chapter Three

Steven didn’t do dinner parties, so he wasn’t exactly thrilled to give up a quiet night at home with his kids to attend this one, but he just couldn’t say no to Jenny. She’d planned this event—an informal gathering, she’d called it—to introduce Samara to some other friends.

He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up on the guest list, except that Jenny seemed determined to turn him into a social being when he wanted to do nothing more than bury himself in oblivion. And though he’d given his word that he would be there, it had crossed his mind that he could beg off at the last minute or simply not show up. He figured there would be enough other people in attendance that his absence wouldn’t be noticed. Except that Jenny had preempted that possibility by enlisting him to drive Samara. While he trusted that one empty chair might be forgiven, a missing guest of honor was quite a different story.

Why Samara couldn’t find her own way to the party was beyond him—which brought another distinctly discomfiting thought to mind.

Though he’d just hung up the phone with his sister-in-law, it was his brother whose number he dialed.

“Is this some kind of setup?” he demanded when Richard answered his cell.

“Is what some kind of setup?”

“This dinner-party thing.”

“A setup for whom?” His brother sounded genuinely baffled.

“Me,” he admitted. “And Samara.”

Richard laughed. “You can’t honestly think that.”

Steven scowled. “Why do you think it’s so unlikely?”

“Well, to be blunt, she’s young and beautiful and vibrant—” definitely not words that anyone would use to describe Steven “—and you’re an overworked single father.”

“That is blunt,” he agreed.

“On the other hand,” Richard mused, “maybe it’s not completely unthinkable. If you’re interested, I mean.”