Heartbreak Cove (Sanctuary Island) (RE8) (8 page)

Figuring the only way to prove her wrong was to, well, prove her wrong, Sam shooed her toward the trunk of helmets and backed out of the tack room. He caught Andie just as she was about to stick her head into the office, probably to tell Jo and Taylor she wouldn’t be able to volunteer.

“Wait!” Sam called, jogging down the hall to pull her away from the office. His long fingers circled her wrist easily, her slender bones feeling somehow sturdy and capable against his palm.

Andie paused, glancing down at where they touched, but she didn’t pull away. Her shoulders were slumped and tired, the angle of her head exposing the vulnerable nape of her neck. “I’ve got to talk to Jo, then get down to the sheriff’s office. Is Caitlin okay in there?”

“There are no untamed animals in the tack room,” Sam assured her. “Although if she’s determined to get into trouble, I imagine she’ll find a way. Is she always so stubborn?”

To his surprise, red bloomed up Andie’s pale neck and into her cheeks. That creamy redhead’s complexion sure didn’t let her hide a thing. “I wouldn’t know. I met Caitlin for the first time last night. Before that, I didn’t even know she existed.”

A few things clicked into place for Sam. “That actually explains a lot.”

Andie bristled, challenge lifting her chin. “Like what?”

“Like the way neither of you seems to know what to do with the other,” Sam said bluntly.

The momentary defiance seeped out of Andie like helium from a balloon. “Oh, that,” she said glumly. “Yeah. I don’t know how common it is for kids to decide they hate you on first sight, but…”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Sam protested. When Andie only shook her head despairingly, he dropped her wrist to grab her by the shoulders and make her meet his serious stare.

“Caitlin does not hate you,” he insisted. “She just doesn’t trust you. Which makes sense—she’s in a strange situation and she doesn’t feel safe yet. It’ll take time, but she’ll come around. So long as you show her you care, and I know you do.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about it,” Andie muttered. “What makes you such an expert?”

Why did Caitlin immediately respond to you, and not to me?

Sam heard the question Andie truly wanted to ask, but he didn’t know how to answer it without giving away far too much about his own ugly past. Instead of admitting how much of himself he’d instantly recognized in Caitlin’s haunted eyes, he shrugged and let go of Andie’s shoulders to stick his hands in his pockets. “Sometimes it’s easier to see what’s going on from the outside. Anyway, the point is—just stick with her. She’ll come around. And in the meantime, I have a proposition for you.”

“What’s that?” Andie gave him a wary look.

Sam didn’t give himself time to weigh the pros and cons—the potential benefit of having the sheriff owe him one versus the dangers of getting closer to her—because when he looked into her tired, worried, unhappy eyes, there was only one thing he could say.

“Here’s the deal. I’ll watch Caitlin for you while you’re at work, teach her to ride, make sure she doesn’t get kicked in the head by any horses—and in return, you come back this evening and volunteer with me.”

Chapter Seven

Andie blinked. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this. “I can’t let you do that,” she repeated automatically. “It’s too much to ask.”

“Haven’t we been over this? I want to do it.” Sam rocked back on his heels, loose and easy in his big, muscular frame. When he gave her that half smile, white against the dark silk of his short beard, it was hard for Andie to remember all the reasons she’d had for wanting to stay away from this man.

But there were reasons. Good reasons, like the fact that the last time she fell for a smooth-talking man with an air of danger, he turned out to be truly dangerous—in more ways than one. Given that the pull she felt toward Sam was a hundred times stronger, Andie knew she had to keep her wits about her this time.

She shook her head with a smile that was hopefully cool and polite. “Thank you, really. But I’ll figure something else out.”

“Why can’t I stay here?” Caitlin’s high, angry voice demanded from behind her. Andie squeezed her eyes shut for a heartbeat. When she opened them, Sam had the decency to look apologetic.

Hating how helpless she felt, Andie turned to face Caitlin’s accusing expression. “It’s just … not a good idea. Mr. Brennan has a lot of work to do, I can’t expect him to look after you. Besides, don’t you want to come see where I work?”

“No,” Caitlin said, with the heartless honesty of the very young. “Let me stay here with the horses.”

With Sam
, she didn’t say, but Andie could tell it was what Caitlin meant. Andie hadn’t known her niece for very long, granted, but she’d seen enough of the girl being silent and shut down to recognize how different she was with Sam. He had a way of getting through to her—something Andie had yet to figure out.

“It’s really no trouble,” Sam offered mildly. “In fact, I’ll put her to work. I could use the help mucking stalls and feeding the horses.”

“I don’t know.” Andie fisted her hands tight on her hips as she studied the sod floor of the barn like she’d find the answers she sought in the swirls of red clay dust and broken pieces of hay.

As if sensing her wavering, Caitlin marched over to stand next to Sam. A helmet covered in patchy, thinning black velvet trailed from her fingertips. “Please. I want to stay.”

Andie stared at her niece, who’d barely said two words to Andie since they met. All through breakfast and the drive to the barn, even while standing close as Andie helped brush her hair into a ponytail. Fiery wisps were escaping from the elastic band already. Andie’s fingers itched to smooth Caitlin’s hair, but the little girl would probably only pull away again. The way she’d done every time, in response to every question from “What were you studying in school back in New Jersey” to “Do you like pancakes better than waffles?”

Caitlin had sidestepped and refused to state a preference when asked, every single time—until now.

Forcing a smile, Andie said, “Okay. It’s fine with me, for today. As long as you promise not to wander off, pay close attention to everything Mr. Brennan tells you—and Sam, you call me if anything happens. I mean anything.”

Surprise registered in Sam’s dark brown eyes before a warm grin crinkled their corners. “Sure thing, Sheriff. Hey, Caitlin…”

Cautiously eager eyes peered up into Sam’s face. “Yes, Mr. Brennan?” Caitlin said primly, with a cautious sideways glance at Andie to make sure she was catching all this good behavior.

Andie bit back a real smile while Sam dug into the pocket of his worn Levi’s and produced a few plastic-wrapped peppermints. Handing the hard candy over to Caitlin, Sam pointed at a stall further down the hall. “That mare down there, third stall from the tack room, is Peony—and she loves peppermints. You’ll make yourself a friend for life if you step on over and feed her.”

The way Caitlin’s face opened up with eagerness stopped Andie from protesting about the dangers of being bitten. After Sam showed her the right way to present the candies to the horse—flat hand, thumb tucked in close so the horse didn’t mistake it for another edible treat—Caitlin raced away to Peony’s stall.

“She’s the gentlest horse on the property,” Sam told Andie, watching after Caitlin as if checking to make sure she followed his instructions. “Peony’s one of my personal favorites.”

“Is that why you always carry her preferred snack in your pocket?” The idea pleased Andie on some deep level, loosening the knot of instinctive wariness that clenched her guts whenever she was around Sam.

Kind to children and animals—wasn’t that most people’s definition of a good man?

But no pure, perfectly good man would be able to give such a sinfully tempting glance at her from beneath his lashes. Low and rough, his voice sent shivery shocks through Andie’s body. “You said yes. I didn’t really think you would.”

Andie cleared her throat. “It was the first time Caitlin ever told me what she wanted. In all of this mess, with everything she’s gone through—I can’t think of anything more important I can do for her than to show her that what she wants matters to me.”

Something soft and aching passed across his face, like the shadow of a cloud covering the sun for an instant. When it cleared, he said, “And then you told her to listen to everything I say. Aren’t you worried I’ll sow the seeds of anarchy in the kid, turn her into a rule-breaking rebel?”

Andie took a deep breath and plunged in. “I can’t believe you sent her away to give us a few seconds to talk in private and you aren’t using them to grill me about why I’ve never met my eight-year-old niece until now.”

Interest sparked in Sam’s eyes like a faceted piece of smoky dark topaz catching the light, but he shrugged his big shoulders as if he couldn’t care less. “If you think it’s important to me being able to keep an eye on her for a few hours, go ahead. Otherwise, it’s none of my business.”

Andie surprised herself by wanting to open up. The feeling was so startling that it was easy to repress. “Okay, then. Well, I need to get going—I can’t thank you enough for your offer, it’s very sweet of you.”

Sam smiled, slow like pouring molasses. “I’m a real sweet guy.”

Andie’s thighs tightened, a pulse of desire throbbing and expanding someplace deep inside her. “You have got to stop flirting with me.”

One dark brown eyebrow lifted into a perfect arch. “Why?”

Because if you don’t watch out, one of these days I’ll take you up on it.

Luckily, Andie had sufficient control of her tongue to avoid blurting out the truth. “Because I don’t date, so flirting is pointless.”

“Flirting is never pointless, as long as everyone involved is having fun,” Sam argued. “Wait, you don’t date—as in, you don’t date bad boys, or you don’t date nice guys who babysit free of charge?”

“As in, I don’t date at all. Ever.”

“Some men might take that as a challenge.”

Her heart jumped and started to race. “Men like that would do better to take me at my word. When I say I don’t date, I mean it. End of story.”

“Something tells me that’s only the beginning of the story,” Sam mused with a thoughtful expression that set off a thrill of nerves down Andie’s spine. “But it looks like we’re going to have to do story time later.”

Caitlin bounded back to them just as Andie’s gaze landed on the wall clock mounted above the tack room doorway. Shoot, was it already eight o’clock?

“And then she licked my hand because some of the mint melted and it was sticky but her tongue was really big and kind of rough and I thought it would be gross but I liked it,” Caitlin was telling an amused Sam.

When she paused to breathe, Andie broke in. “Hey, I’m going to run. My shift starts—well, now. I’ll be back this afternoon, Caitlin. If you need me for any reason, ask Miss Jo to let you use the phone in her office.”

“Okay,” Caitlin said, glancing at Andie briefly before turning back to Sam to demand more peppermints.

Andie’s heart sank, but the sympathy in Sam’s molten chocolate gaze helped to stiffen her spine. There was no call to go losing faith just yet. It was only their first full day together.

Before she could dwell on the fact that Caitlin would be spending “their first full day together” with someone else, Andie made herself nod good-bye to the two of them. She walked out to her black SUV, and all the duties and responsibilities that waited for her at the sheriff’s office, with the unfamiliar sound of her niece’s laughter ringing in her ears.

*   *   *

Caitlin turned out to be a good little helper. She mucked stalls, using the short-handled rake to scoop up the horse manure from the empty box stalls, without complaint. She decorated the chalkboard nameplates next to each stall with colorful chalk flowers and not-half-bad drawings of horses. She swept the hall and polished the brass tags on the bridles and did basically whatever chores Sam could come up with that didn’t involve letting her near the horses. Until Andie bought the kid a pair of steel-toed paddock boots, Caitlin wasn’t setting herself up for a broken foot on Sam’s watch.

Not that Sam had to watch her that closely. The kid followed at his heels like a duckling who’d imprinted on a mountain lion by mistake. She never gave him a moment’s trouble—except when he introduced her to Taylor and Jo Ellen.

Eyes down, sullen twist to her mouth, silence instead of chatter. Jo and Taylor exchanged glances then tactfully left Sam to his babysitting duties. And boy, if he’d thought Caitlin was sticking close to his side before, it was nothing to the way she superglued herself to him whenever Taylor or Jo were in view.

An ugly idea began to tickle at the back of Sam’s mind, but for the most part, he managed to ignore anything that didn’t have to do with earning Queenie’s keep by taking care of Jo’s barn duties for the day. If he let himself think about anything else, he might have to confront the fact that he was one single day into this adventure, and he’d already completely failed at steering clear of Sheriff Andie Shepard.

The worst part of it? He couldn’t bring himself to regret it. In fact, he kept catching himself grinning in anticipation of seeing her again when she came to pick Caitlin up.

So when the low rumble of her SUV filtered through the cracks in the barn walls along with the late afternoon sunlight, Sam wasn’t surprised to find a smile on his face. Shaking his head ruefully, he nudged Caitlin with his booted foot. She looked up sleepily from her spot on the tack room floor, the forgotten bridle in her lap jangling in the quiet stillness of the barn.

“Your aunt is here,” he told her.

Caitlin sighed, tightening her thin fingers on the bridle before pushing to her feet to hang it on the empty wooden peg in the row of bridles lining the wall. “I don’t want to go with her. I like it here.”

“Here’s great,” Sam agreed, breathing in the familiar comfort of stable smell as they walked out into the main barn. “But I’m sure your aunt’s house is nice, too.”

“Does my dad live there sometimes?”

Sam paused. “I don’t know, sweetheart. Why don’t you ask your aunt about it?”

“I’m not supposed to talk about my dad,” she said with a matter-of-fact shrug.

He was willing to bet that wasn’t a rule Andie had imposed. “You talked about him with me a little bit,” he pointed out.

Caitlin gave him a withering look. “That’s different. You’re a boy.”

Sam wasn’t touching that one. “Well, I bet your Aunt Andie wouldn’t mind telling you about her brother. You should give her a chance.”

“A chance to do what?” Andie asked.

Sam couldn’t help it. His body tightened in a rush when she strode into the barn. It was a conditioned response to her voice, at this point—just the sound of her brisk, no-nonsense tones reached deep into his chest and grabbed on tight—but knowing it didn’t seem to lessen the impact. He turned to greet her, but the words stuck in his throat.

It was the first time he’d ever seen her out of uniform. And as gorgeous as that tall, athletic body was in crisp khakis and a black utility belt, Sam thought his heart might actually give out at the sight of Andie in dark wash jeans and a spaghetti-strap tank top. The shirt was a bright turquoisey blue color that made her eyes glow and her hair seem more strawberry than blonde. And those jeans …

They weren’t skin tight, but they hugged her lithe hips and long, lean thighs in a way that made Sam swallow hard against the swell of desire.

“What were y’all talking about?” Andie glanced between her silent niece and Sam, who did his best to force his brain back online.

Caitlin said nothing, choosing instead to pick at a loose thread along the hem of her purple T-shirt. But when Sam opened his mouth to fill Andie in, the kid shot him a sideways look that dried the words up before he could spill them. Caitlin didn’t want to talk about her dad with her aunt. Fine, it was none of Sam’s business anyway.

“We were just discussing how I’m bound to be way better than you at this volunteering gig,” Sam improvised, with a deliberate wink at Caitlin.

Andie’s mouth kicked up at the corners as if she’d seen the wink, but she narrowed her eyes and did a convincing impression of a fierce competitor. “Oh yeah? Well, I’m planning to smoke you. So get ready, Mr. Horse Whisperer. You’re going down.”

Only Caitlin’s interested gaze, bouncing between them like a tennis ball, kept Sam from stepping close enough to growl something in Andie’s ear about just how much he’d love to go down, as long as she went down with him.

He didn’t have a chance to come up with a G-rated response when Jo Ellen appeared in the office doorway with an amused grin on her weathered, handsome face. “Settle down. It’s not a competition. In fact, the two of you are going to have to figure out how to work together, not against each other.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said doubtfully, catching Caitlin’s eye to make sure she was listening. “The sheriff and I are kind of polar opposites in most ways. And we don’t know each other that well. It might be hard for me to give her a chance.”

Andie stiffened, but as her gaze drifted from Sam’s pointed stare to Caitlin’s wide, wary eyes, a stillness came over her. With a dawning smile that looked like hope, Andie said, “You’re right, we don’t really know each other. Yet. But I’m willing to change that, if you are. And if you’re not ready now, well … I can be patient. I’m not going to give up.”