Fortune Finds Florist Page 10

  “Yeah,” Tyree said helpfully. “Your top’s a lot better than that one, and besides, you’re littler than me. This one probably wouldn’t even fit.”

  Kim gazed uncertainly at Sam. “Yeah. Probably. I’ll just wear mine then.” She gave the shirt back to Tyree with a bright smile for Sam.

  Sam abruptly rose from the table and strode from the room, muttering, “I’ll start the truck. Lana’s waiting.”

  Kim shot a look at Sierra, saying in a small voice, “Better hurry, I guess.”

  “You go ahead,” Sierra told her gently. “Tyree and I will clean up here.”

  Kim nodded and hurried away, head down.

  “What’s the matter with Sam?” Tyree wanted to know, coming to stand next to her mother.

  Sierra brushed a lock of hair from her daughter’s shoulder. “I think he’s embarrassed that he can’t buy the nice things for Kim and Keli that I buy for you.”

  Tyree frowned thoughtfully. “Yeah. Dad says that, too. He says it’s not fair that you can have all the money and he can’t have any of it.”

  “He’s wrong, baby,” Sierra told her gently. “It’s not fair or unfair. It just is. They’re both wrong, Dennis and Sam, because money isn’t what matters. It’s the kind of people we are that matters most, and Sam is one of the very best people I’ve ever known.”

  “Kim and Keli, too,” Tyree said matter-of-factly.

  “Yes.”

  Tyree bit her lip. “Mom, do you think Sam’s a better dad than Dad? I mean, he’s more like their dad than their brother.”

  Sierra felt a brief impulse to enumerate all of Dennis Carlton’s many faults as a parent and a human being, but she didn’t follow it. Instead, she drew her daughter onto her knee and said, “I don’t think I’m a good judge of that, Tyree, and I don’t really think it matters. Dennis is your dad, good, bad or indifferent, and you love him. That’s all that counts as far as I’m concerned.”

  Tyree nodded, a small smile gently lifting the corners of her mouth. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, sounding very adult. Sierra hugged her tightly for a moment.

  “I just want you to be happy, and I understand that your father is part of that. Now let’s get this table cleared. Okay?”

  They both stood and began clearing the table.

  “Mom?” Tyree asked after a moment. “Is Sam your boyfriend?”

  Sierra froze, her hands laden with dirty, sticky dishes. “Sam’s my p-partner.”

  “But you like him.”

  “Well, yes, but I don’t think…that is, Sam doesn’t… Actually, I like Sam a whole lot, and I think we’d be good together, but we’re a long way from making any kind of commitment. Do you understand what I mean?”

  Tyree shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I hope you get married, though. That way the twins would be like my sisters.”

  Sierra couldn’t seem to get her breath. “You hope Sam and I get married?”

  “Sure,” Tyree said, flashing a smile. “If you want to, I mean.”

  Sierra wrapped her arms around her daughter “You know what, I just might. But I don’t think Sam’s ready to think about that yet, so it’s best that we keep any talk of marriage to ourselves.”

  “I won’t say anything,” Tyree promised.

  “Good. I don’t think Sam would like it if you mentioned it to the twins.”

  Tyree nodded. “Okay.”

  She began gathering dirty dishes and after a moment moved off into the kitchen. Sierra sat down, a little weak in the knees. Even her little girl could see that she and Sam would be a good match. What, she wondered, would it take for Sam to understand that?

  Sam felt as though he was being eaten alive from the inside out. He thought every moment about making love to Sierra, alternately castigating himself for having allowed it to happen and mentally reliving every incredible sensation. He knew that he would remember for the rest of his life what it was like to make love with her.

  That was where it had to stop, however, for all their sakes. People would talk if he and Sierra went public with a romantic relationship. Shoot, they were already talking. Sam had heard from Gwyn Dunstan that Heston Searle was going around making cracks about Sierra buying herself a younger man. It would be worse if they went public, and he couldn’t subject the twins to that. God knew they’d had enough gossip swirling around them already. Knowing that Tyree would be out of town with her father all weekend, he decided to take the time on Saturday morning to set Sierra straight about their relationship.

  He dropped the girls off at Lana and Chet’s and headed back out to the farm. When he got there, he went in through the rear door, same as usual, and called Sierra by name. When she didn’t answer, he moved to the intercom mounted on the wall beneath a cabinet and studied the buttons. Choosing one which indicated that it would provide sound to the whole house, he spoke into the microphone.

  “Sierra? It’s Sam. Can we talk?”

  Her voice came to him through the speaker. “Sure. Come on up.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The study. Just come up the stairs, second door on the right.”

  He walked through the house into the rotunda portion of the entry and stood at the foot of the stairs. Making a face, he climbed the steps and warily approached the study. Before he got there, however, Sierra came out onto the landing. Her hair was down, and she wore soft black sweats and a bright smile, feet bare.

  “Hi. I’m so glad you’re here.” She waltzed closer.

  “Sierra, I need to talk to you.”

  “Absolutely. After.”

  “After what?”

  Smiling, she reached down and peeled the sweatshirt up. Sam staggered back. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The sweatshirt hit the floor, and before he could get his breath, she’d shoved down the pants and kicked them away, as well. He nearly swallowed his tongue. Sweet merciful heaven, the woman was as naked as the day she was born and so damned fine that he could’ve cried. She slipped closer, both dangerous and seductive. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Then suddenly she flew to him, throwing her arms around his neck. His own arms, operating independently of his brain, went around her waist, and then they were kissing, devouring one another with lips and teeth and tongues.

  His mind was screaming, “Run!” But his body was laughing, “Too late!” And so it was. She urged him backward, walking in his arms, feet shuffling and tangling, bodies bumping with electric results. He realized dimly that she was pulling at his shirt and automatically lifted his arms, trying to maintain the contact between their mouths. When she broke it, ripping his shirt off over his head, he felt such intense irritation that he grabbed her about the waist and hauled her right back again. Their naked skin made breathtaking contact, and he knew that if he couldn’t get inside her at once he was going to explode into bits.

  He scooped her off her feet. She pointed to a door, and he carried her through it. It was a large room, done up in yellows and golds, with a splash of hot pink. A white-rock fireplace filled the wall next to the big bed with its heavy, scrolled iron headboard. A matching bench stood beneath one window, and a comfortable armchair sat before another. A large dresser shared another wall with a door that opened into a large bath.

  The bed was unmade, the covers rumpled and bunched as if she’d just crawled from beneath them. Somehow, that only added to the dark desire pulsing through his veins. He dropped her on the bed and watched her pose herself for maximum effect while he stripped off the rest of his clothes. She need not have bothered; he was beyond control at that point. In point of fact, he fell on her like a ravening beast, no finesse, no patient stimulation or romantic caresses, just pure, blazing lust. If this was what she wanted, he told himself savagely, this was what she would get, but just this. Just this.

  Punitive in his attentions, he drove her straight to the edge and kept her there, prolonging the moment of release until she begged him, twisting and mewling, clutching and even pummeling his back with her fists, but he held her off as long as he could, jus
t because he could and because it was such devastatingly sweet torture. In the end, they went over together, with the husky cries of animals. Shaken by the magnitude of it, he found himself on his back sometime later, with Sierra beside him, panting softly.

  Damnation, why did it have to be so good? Why did something so wrong for both of them have to feel so blasted right? It made him helpless to resist what she offered so freely, and that demanded a certain ruthlessness on his part, which wasn’t how he wanted to play this at all. She just didn’t leave him any options. So be it, then. He rolled up onto his shoulder and looked down at her. The woman was sex personified—blatantly female, boldly arousing and downright greedy in it.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” he told her. “That’s what you have to understand. On the one hand we have the business, just as we laid it out. On the other hand, we have this.” For emphasis, he palmed her breast, fingers plucking the neat, coral nipple. “Sex. That’s all it is. That’s all it can ever be.”

  “Because people will talk,” she said breathlessly.

  “That’s part of it, yes.”

  “Because, according to you, we’re not equals outside of bed and business.”

  “It’s not something I dreamed up, Sierra. There’s no question about it. You pushed this, but there’s no future in it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I understand what you’re saying perfectly,” she purred, but the look in her eyes troubled him, until she boldly reached down and took him in hand. He moaned, falling over onto his back. Well, hell, if a man’s resolve was going to be beat all to flinders, this was the way to have it done.

  She straddled him, and using both hands, had him crazy again in a twinkling.

  Just sex, he told himself as madness took hold again. Just the best damned sex imaginable.

  Sierra stayed in the bed when Sam finally rose, dressed and left to pick up the twins. He didn’t kiss her goodbye, but she didn’t expect it. She had proved to him that the attraction between them was too strong to dismiss, but this was a war that one battle could not possibly win, and Sam’s position was deeply entrenched.

  Flopping onto her back, she stared up at the ceiling. This was either the smartest or the stupidest thing she’d ever done. Physically, she felt so replete that her muscles were almost too relaxed to obey. Emotionally, she felt raw.

  She’d had to bite her tongue repeatedly in the past hours to keep from telling him that she loved him, and knowing that he wouldn’t want to hear it was tearing her in two. Yet, what else could she do? Allowing him to put distance between them wouldn’t get her anywhere. She had no choice but to fight with the weapons at her disposal, and if that meant sex, well, she didn’t suppose that she was the first woman ever to think of it. The risk, however, was extreme.

  Every time he touched her she loved him a little more and her heart grew a bit more fragile, so if this didn’t work, she knew that she would shatter inside. The price of failure was a lifetime without him. It was too late to abandon the fight, however, so all she could do was battle on and hope for the best. She would fight, using her body and everything else at her disposal, and pray that his heart could not hold itself aloof forever.

  Sam dropped the hammer he’d been using to tack up plastic water tubing along the framework of the greenhouse above the raised beds and looked at the small rectangular object that Sierra had placed in his hand.

  “What the hell is this?”

  Sierra answered him in the same disgruntled tone. “You know perfectly well that it’s a cell phone.”

  Frowning, he thrust it at her. “Take it back.”

  “I can’t take it back. I had to sign a contract when I activated it. Besides, I want you to have it.”

  The frown gave way to ire. “Damn it, Sierra! Do you really think you can buy me with the latest gadgets?”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Buy you? What kind of nonsense is that? I’m not trying to buy you. I just thought you could use a cell phone.”

  “I’m not a high-tech pet. I don’t come when I’m called,” he retorted smartly.

  She bit back a hot reply and put a hand to her head. Trust him to put the one spin on it that would most offend his vaunted pride. She’d assumed that he would grumble, but she couldn’t believe that he wouldn’t see the wisdom of being in easy contact. She folded her arms and said sarcastically, “You are such a man.”

  His whole stance changed from one of rigid rejection to one of smug sensual awareness. “I was pretty sure you’d noticed that already.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” she snapped, fighting the urge to fan herself. The weather outside was cool and cloudy, but inside the greenhouse, the temperature was downright toasty—and getting warmer. They’d need those fans Sam was getting set to install for summer use, just as they needed the cell phones. “Do you know how insulting you’re being? Do you really think I’m the sort of woman to buy herself a man? And if I were, isn’t a cell phone selling yourself pretty short?”

  His lips quirked. “I trust there isn’t a double meaning behind that.”

  “It’s not about us,” she told him, shaking her hands because she couldn’t shake him. “It’s about you getting ready to tackle that south field.”

  He looked skeptically at the cell phone in his hand. “What about it?”

  “Think, Sam. When Kim fell, the urgent care staff wouldn’t touch her until you got there. Lana had to track me down, then I had to track you down. What happens if I’m out of the office next time? Or if I can’t find you?”

  His brow wrinkled. “People have and do get along just fine without—”

  “Right,” she interrupted, all too familiar with that argument. “And every day people are maimed, and even die, because they’re alone or can’t be reached when something awful happens. Everything new isn’t necessarily bad, Sam.”

  He clapped a hand over the nape of his neck, considering the miniature phone in his hand. Finally he asked, “How much?”

  “Forty bucks a month. Each. I have one, too.” She wouldn’t tell him just then that the phones themselves cost a couple hundred bucks apiece. “I think it’s a perfectly justifiable business expense.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “So the business is paying for it?”

  “If you want. I didn’t feel I ought to make that decision without consulting you first, but I certainly have no objections.”

  He frowned, but then he slid the thing into his pocket. She looked down to hide her smile and rocked back on her toes. “When you’re ready, I’ll show you how to use it. By the way, it clips on your belt, if you want.”

  “By the way, I knew that, and I think I can figure out the rest.”

  “Fine!” Throwing up her hands, she whirled and stalked toward the door.

  “Hey!”

  She stopped and turned, arms swinging out at her sides. “What?”

  He patted the pocket containing the phone. “Emergencies only. Okay? I don’t have time for chitchat.”

  “Who does?” She was halfway around when he stopped her again.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “What is it now?”

  He crooked a finger, his pale eyes darkening, and her heart rate sped up. “Come here.”

  She stabbed her hands onto her hips and gave him back his own words. “I am not a pet that comes when it’s called high-tech, low-tech or otherwise.”

  He grinned. “No, what you are is a royal pain in the butt.”

  “Well, at least we have that in common,” she said with sweet sarcasm.

  “Maybe. Now if you’ll get your sweet butt over here so I can get my hands on it, we’ll see what else we might have in common.”

  She wanted really badly to turn on her heel and walk out of there, leaving him hanging just this once, but she couldn’t do it. The pull of those sage-green eyes and knowingly tilted mouth was just too strong. She waltzed forward, intending to give as good as she got. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  His grin widened as she
came to halt within easy reach. “I just did.”

  “Your technique could use work.”

  He laughed and slid his hands across her shoulders to the back of her head. “I didn’t hear you complaining about my technique before.”

  “You are irritatingly smug,” she told him, but she couldn’t stop the smile that tickled the corner of her mouth. He leaned forward and tickled that same corner with the tip of his tongue, but instead of kissing her, he slid his mouth to her ear.

  “Maybe I have reason to be smug.”

  “I can’t imagine what makes you think so,” she retorted breathlessly.

  He dropped his hands to her bottom and yanked her hard against him, putting himself snugly between her thighs. “Maybe it’s the bruises you put on my back.”

  She gasped. “I didn’t! Did I? Oh, Sam! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize….” He was showing so much tooth that he was in danger of blinding her with the glare. She narrowed her eyes. “Either you’re lying or you’re very pleased.”

  “No and yes.” His hands flexed on her bottom. “Sweetheart, I’ll take all the bruises you can dish out.” His fingers began gathering up the bottom of her black miniskirt, and he ducked his head to nip the flesh of her throat. “In fact, I’ll take a few right now if you can get out of those stockings.”

  Sierra gulped, her eyelids fluttering. She fought to maintain reason. The first two times had been spur-of-the-moment, unplanned. The first was instigated by a sleepy man and a comfortable couch. The second had been pure impulse; he’d dropped the opportunity right in her lap and just at the moment when she’d feared he would succeed at putting distance between them. But she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t take any more chances. She sucked air, felt her breasts swell against his chest and made herself say it.

  “I don’t suppose you have a c-condom?”

  He did pretty much what she’d expected, dropped his hands, backed up and looked at her as if she’d just pulled the rug out from under him. “Is that a problem? Because we didn’t use one before.”