Sun-Kissed Secret Baby by Leigh Jenkins

Chapter 18

Sam took in the sight before him, feeling his stomach roll. That smarmy creep in the chinos and spit-shined moccasins was still holding on to Allie’s arm, and from the grip, he guessed it hurt.

She’d turned her head in the direction of his voice, mouth set mutinously but eyes wide, staring at him in shock. There was rebellion there, maybe some resentment and embarrassment at having been caught in such a predicament, but he also sensed fear… and that was the reason he persisted.

“Let her go,” he said softly. The danger inherent in his words was muted, as a trumpeter mutes his instrument, but it was present, nonetheless.

“I’m fine, Sam,” Allie said miserably.

The jackass in the chinos smirked. “Hear that? She’s good.”

Of all the moments, Allie decided that this was the one to put her foot down. “I don’t need you to fight my battles,” she protested.

Sam looked down at the man’s hand, still encircling her arm and snorted. “Obviously, you do.”

She looked away, blushing red, and the guy snorted. “Why don’t you stay out of this?”

“Why don’t you let her go, before I embarrass you?” The calm of his voice betrayed the storm within, and he only managed it by returning mentally to the source of his Zen: the image of the waves, steady, rolling, eternal. If the sea could be stilled on a night like this, so could he.

But the guy seemed to be illiterate to subtext, because although he did let Allie go, he turned and stepped up to Sam. “Hey, tell you what. I know you own this crummy joint, so I pay your salary. You survive because of me, understand?” He was poking Sam in the chest with an index finger—hard—punctuating his words. “So why don’t you leave the lady and me to finish this, and crawl back to your third-rate little restaurant and make sure the salt and pepper shakers are full?”

Sam pictured Mama D’Leau, gliding below the surface of the dark sea beyond, her long tail undulating, thick hair floating in the water behind her. Give mestrength, he pleaded.

“Poke me again,” he warned in a low voice.

“What, like this?” Like a willful child rather than a grown man, Chinos prodded Sam on the forehead: once, twice…. Hard enough to produce a dull thud inside Sam’s skull. Echoing.

He didn’t manage to do it a third time. As a vine pulled taut finally snaps, Sam’s arm whipped out, hand grasping the idiot by the throat. He heard the squeak of Allie’s protest but didn’t give a damn. The other hand grasped the offending wrist and wrenched hard, contorting his body so that the guy dropped to his knees, groaning. Unable to move, well, theoretically, he could move, except that if he did so, the next sound he heard would be his arm popping out of its socket.

Allie rushed forward, pleading for Sam to get up, but once he requested and received the man’s assurance that he wouldn’t try anything, Sam only eased the pressure enough to thumb a quick code into his phone.

Then he said, close to the guy’s ear, “My security will be here in two minutes; they are going to escort you into your cabin, where you will be given five minutes to pack your things.”

Even from his vanquished position, Chinos was incredulous. “You’re kicking me out?”

“Sure.”

“But it’s the middle of the night! Where would I go?”

Sam shrugged. “How is that my problem?”

As promised, two uniformed officers appeared. Only then did Sam fully release him. As the guards hauled him to his feet, he was spitting mad. “You can’t do this. You can’t put me out! I paid in advance!”

Sam smiled lazily. “There’s a halfway house for street kids in St. Cillian. Once the holiday is over, I will be driving down to deliver your full fees to them, in cash.” He gave a mocking bow. “Thank you for your generous donation.”

Sam nodded at the guards, and the guy was led into his cabin, still cussing. This left him alone with Allie.

She was standing with her back to the wall, glowering at him.

Seriously?“You’re welcome,” he said sarcastically.

He knew she was embarrassed, rattled, and that made her almost grumpy. “We aren’t teenagers anymore. You don’t have to rescue me from any blue devils, like you did at Carnival.”

“You were doing a piss-poor job of defending yourself then, and you were doing it now,” he pointed out. “Somebody had to save you.”

“That how you see yourself? A savior?”

There was a crash from inside the cabin, slamming metal and breaking glass, and it occurred to Sam that he had just said goodbye to one of his desk lamps. Chinos was throwing a tantrum. He made a mental note to have his assistant deduct it from the credit card on file.

Being so near to this creep irked him. “At least let’s not hang around here,” he suggested. “If you want to bawl me out, do it in private.”

Her quick glance at the cabin and the ruckus inside seemed to convince her of at least that much. Mutely, she began walking deeper into the garden. He realized she was leading him to the bench where he’d been playing the guitar on that night they’d first seen each other. The peace of the garden engulfed him. One of his favorite places in the world.

“You don’t know about this guy, Allie,” he began. He tried not to make it sound like he was passing judgment, but damn.

She heard the tone of censure and defended herself. “He was nice to me—”

Sam pointed in the direction of the cabin they had come from. “That guy was nice?” At her stubborn look, he clarified. “I know you think I’m butting in, but he’s bad news. He’s been here several times, and it’s always the same story. Every other night or so he either shows up with a local woman from down in town, usually much younger than him, I might add, or does his hunting at the bar. He doesn’t just come to Sabina to work; he comes to play, too.”

Her eyes were upon his face, searching for the truth. She seemed to have found it, because she slumped, looking defeated and embarrassed.

When the light breeze lifted her hair, he noticed something. “Did you get your hair done today for him?”

“No, Sam,” she answered wearily. “Contrary to the overwhelming masculine opinion, most of us do our hair, our feet, our nails… for us. Not you. Your appreciation is incidental.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.” He could feel himself calming down, feel the tension between his shoulders unknot. The garden air was doing its thing.

He considered the battle a win, not over the man-whore he’d sent packing, but over himself. Because his overwhelming urge had been to smear him into the grass, and he’d resisted.

Good job, self.

Now that he was calmer, he confessed, “I’d been hoping to spend the evening with you.”

She looked incredulous. “What?”

“That trip to the movies? I asked Charlie to set it up at short notice. I figured it was a holiday, so why not? The kids would have a nice time, and I’d be able to ask you to dinner.”

She cringed, looking pained. “I had no idea.”

He smiled self-deprecatingly. “I guess maybe I should have asked you first.”

“Maybe.” She was smiling too, just a little, and that made his heart lift.

He sat on the concrete bench next to her. “It’s a long weekend.”

“I guess it is.”

He surprised himself by kissing her. He wasn’t surprised that he wanted to; because it had been on his mind ever since he’d seen her, and that pervasive desire had been exacerbated by that first angry kiss when he’d dropped her off from their one-car drag race along the coast. What surprised him was the fact that he’d done it, because he’d been sternly admonishing himself all along to steer well clear of that complication.

After all, what had passed between them was over a decade ago. They were different people, with different lives, different goals. They shared a kid, sure, but that didn’t mean—

Allie wound her hands around his head, fingers sinking into his curly hair, cradling him. Her mouth softened and opened, and her eyes fluttered shut. Then, his did as well, so that all he had to rely upon were his other senses. The feel of her lips and the softness of her cheek, and the sound of her breathing. It was hard for him to separate the different scents in the air, between her perfume and the florals surrounding them.

He was shocked by how swiftly his own response assailed him, a desire to pull her close, hold her, have her. Confusion reigned. A battle between then and now, present and past. The memory of what it had been like with her, both of them sharing their first time with each other.

A hell of a lot of water had passed under his bridge since then; there’d been many women, especially in the days when his soca career was at its pinnacle. But the desire he felt now was different; keener and yet softer.

She pulled away, frowning slightly, tucking her hair in that way she had. “I guess you think I’m just some lonely, desperate single mom too, huh? Drying up in a corner?”

“No!” He was shocked that she would even ask that. “No, Allie. You’re beautiful. You’ve given so much of yourself to our child, but no.”

He wanted desperately to prove it to her, prove how special and singular she was in his eyes. But then he felt his phone vibrate, almost as soon as hers began to ring. They both checked their devices.

The bus was back. The camp kids were home.

Allie shot to her feet, looking a bit unsteady. Her eyes were huge, and she looked at him with just the merest flash of longing, but then she shook her head. “I guess I’ll go down to the parking lot and get Daria. Been a long day; she’s sure to be—”

“Tired.”

“Yeah.” She pressed her fingers to her lips as if checking to see if the impression of his kiss had rubbed off.

“Allie,” he began, even though he had no idea what he was going to say next.

“Goodnight, Sam.” She turned and hurried back in the direction they had come from.