Fortune Finds Florist Read online

  “That’s a lie!”

  “You think I care if you’re getting down and dirty with that kid? All that concerns me is what you’re paying for it.”

  “That really is all you care about, isn’t it, Dennis? The money. You can’t bear the thought that someone else might get his hands on it!”

  “I’m thinking about Tyree,” he insisted. “It’s her inheritance.”

  “Funny, you sure weren’t concerned enough about Tyree to pay your child support when it was all I could do to keep a roof over her head. You weren’t concerned about our daughter at all until I inherited a million bucks.”

  “That’s not so. I just haven’t been as lucky as you. I’ve had hard times.”

  “So have I.”

  “Well, I’m still having a hard time, but you just don’t give a flip, do you?”

  “Not even a little one.”

  “You are one cold b—”

  “Don’t think you can stand here and call me filthy names on my own doorstep!” she interrupted hotly.

  “And some doorstep it is, too!”

  “This doorstep is mine, Dennis. What does yours look like?”

  “Oh, yeah, rub it in, why don’t you? Money gets dumped in your lap, and I’m living hand-to-mouth. I get that, believe me!”

  “Stop it!”

  Sierra whirled around to find Tyree in the open doorway, her face contorted, tears streaming from her eyes.

  “Stop it!” she screamed again. “Stop fighting! I hate you fighting!”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” Sierra began.

  At the same moment, Dennis accused, “Now look what you’ve done.”

  “What I’ve done?” Sierra exclaimed.

  At that, Tyree tore across the porch and ran around the corner.

  “Well, that’s just terrific!” Dennis shouted, throwing up his hands.

  “Get out of here!” Sierra told him angrily. “I mean it, Dennis. Go!”

  Dennis yanked open his car door. “Fine. You’ve ruined the whole day, anyway!” He dropped down behind the wheel and slammed the door. He was mouthing angry words as he drove away, but the window was up and the engine was running, and she didn’t really care to hear it, anyway. She felt physically ill as she swung off the porch and around the house to go in search of her daughter. This was one day that surely couldn’t get any worse.

  Chapter Four

  “Thank God!”

  Sam turned from a giggling Tyree to her mother. He’d been hanging the first sheet of rigid plastic that would enclose the framework of the greenhouse when the girl had stumbled into him, sobbing. He’d caught her midfall, set her down, calmed her and teased a giggle out of her, but he still didn’t know what the problem was. He wasn’t surprised, however, that her mother had shown up.

  “She’s all right,” he said encouragingly.

  Sierra flashed him a wary look and focused once more on her daughter, who perched on a board laid across a pair of sawhorses. “I’ve looked all over for you.”

  To Sam’s surprise, Tyree folded her arms and stuck out her chin. She was a cute kid. Her hair was darker and not quite as curly as her mom’s, but otherwise she looked just like a young Sierra sitting there. Sam hid a smile, bowing his head.

  “I’m not talking to you,” the child announced baldly.

  Sam spoke from pure habit, using the same easy, no-nonsense tone that he employed with his sisters. “Hey, now, that’s no way for a little girl to act. Your mom’s obviously been worried about you.”

  Tyree’s mulish expression intensified. “She was fighting with my daddy. I hate it when she fights with my daddy.”

  Sam shot a look at Sierra, who frowned guiltily. The sadness in her eyes pricked Sam’s heart. “Yeah,” Sam said to Tyree, “my parents used to fight, and I hated it, too, but you know what? Parents are just like kids sometimes. They get hurt and angry, too, and sometimes it spills out of their mouths without thinking. They’re almost always sorry about it later.”

  Tyree glanced at her mother, then down at her hands. “Well, it hurts my feelings when they fight, so I don’t want to talk to her.”

  “Uh-huh, the thing is, though, parents don’t stop being parents even if they do act like kids sometimes, and kids don’t get a pass on being respectful even when their parents behave like that.” Tyree flattened her lips in a gesture of pure disgust, and Sam laughed. She was her mother’s daughter. “Them’s the world’s rules, cupcake,” he told her, chucking her under that Sierra chin. She sighed profoundly.

  “Honey, I’m sorry,” Sierra said, finally moving toward them. “Maybe your dad can take you to lunch tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Tyree said grudgingly. “I guess I can give him his stuff then.”

  “Stuff?” Sierra echoed, and Sam heard the anger and dismay in her tone.

  Tyree hopped down off the section of beam, saying smartly, “He doesn’t have an Internet account. Why shouldn’t I help him order his stuff?”

  “Because he doesn’t pay for the things you order for him, Tyree.”

  “So? He hasn’t got any money, and we’ve got lots!”

  “But what about his pride?” Sam interjected, shocked and alarmed by what he was hearing. “A man’s got to have his pride, you know, and his pride’s definitely going to sting if he lets his little girl pay for his stuff.” Tyree looked troubled by that, so he pressed on. “He may not say so because he probably wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings, and maybe he really needs the stuff, but deep down it’s gotta sting. You know?”

  Tyree bit her lip. Oh, man, her mom to her toe-nails, this one, which was good, since he was getting really bad vibes about her old man. What was it with some men? Tyree looked at her mom.

  “I want to call him. Can I call him? Please?”

  Sierra swallowed, then nodded. “Tell him to come tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay.” With that Tyree turned and ran toward the house, her figure blurring as she moved behind the thick, colorless plastic.

  Sierra pressed a hand to her forehead, then straightened and met his gaze. “Thank you.”

  He shrugged and looked away, but she drew his eyes back to her like metal shavings to a magnet. Even wearing a big, sloppy sweater and jeans with simple canvas shoes she looked sexy. She wandered a little closer, her shoes scuffing against the ground.

  “I shouldn’t have let him get to me,” she said, “but Dennis doesn’t care about Tyree. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

  Sam nodded. “Don’t know the fellow, but if he’s letting his eight-year-old buy him stuff over the Internet, he can’t be what he should be, not in my book.”

  “Letting?” Sierra scoffed. “Encouraging is more like it.”

  He frowned at that but couldn’t help asking, “What’s a kid like her doing with Internet access, anyway?”

  Sierra stiffened defensively. “The Internet is a valuable educational tool. All her friends have Internet access.”

  “So? I bet they’re not using it to shop. What are you doing setting up accounts like that for her?”

  “For books!” she exclaimed. “She’s just supposed to buy books. We don’t get the hot new kids’ books out here because we don’t have a bookstore in town.”

  “They can buy a lot more than books on those Web sites now.”

  “I know, but she’s only supposed to buy books, and until her father showed up again, that’s all she did buy.”

  Sam shook his head. “Kids shouldn’t have that kind of purchasing power.”

  “She’d be fine if not for Dennis.”

  “I don’t know. It seems a bit overboard for a little girl.”

  “Maybe it is,” Sierra admitted ruefully.

  He should have been satisfied with that, but no, he had to give that big old bear one more poke. “If I were you, I’d cancel the Internet service.”

  Predictably, Sierra lashed back. “Well, you’re not me, and I won’t deny my daughter one of her greatest pleasures just because her fathe
r can’t be trusted! Besides, everyone has access to the Internet now.”

  “Not everyone,” he said. “Kids can and do get along just fine without the Internet.”

  “Name one,” Sierra retorted skeptically, “just one.”

  The words burned like acid in the back of his throat. “I’ll name two. Keli and Kim Jayce.”

  Color blossomed in two spots high on her cheeks. “Oh. I—I didn’t realize…that is, I didn’t think before I spoke.”

  If that was her way of apologizing, he didn’t want to hear it. “We find the public library real helpful. Maybe you ought to try it sometime. They get all the hot new kid books. I don’t think my girls have missed a one.”

  “Sam, I’m sorry. That was very thoughtless of me.”

  “And they sure as heck don’t go buying stuff off the Internet. Might as well give her a credit card and turn her loose in one of those mega malls in Dallas.”

  Sierra jabbed her fists into the tops of her hips and glared at him. “Look, I’ve apologized for being insensitive, but one slip of the tongue doesn’t give you the right to tell me how to raise my daughter.”

  Too angry to think first, he drawled, “Well, somebody sure needs to.”

  “Maybe so,” she shot back, “but it won’t be some wet-behind-the-ears kid with a sore spot!”

  Kid. That word whirled inside his head. It was the same word he’d used for Tyree, and now Sierra was using it to describe him. But not for long.

  “I’ll show you wet-behind-the-ears,” he muttered, striding toward her.

  He didn’t even know what he was about to do, didn’t realize what he intended until he was reaching for her. He only knew that the man in him very much needed to make himself known to the woman in her, and the most direct way to do that was with a no-holds-barred kiss. He yanked her against him, fixed his lips to hers. At first, they stood frozen that way. Then, boom!

  Heat exploded in that place, rushing down into his groin and melting her into him. He pressed his hands against her supple back, feeling the high, firm mounds of her breasts flatten against his chest. When her head fell back, he used that tiny break in the kiss to renegotiate the fit of their mouths. Her lips rose to meet his, and her arms slid around his torso. With an aching awareness he realized that she was every bit as engaged as he was. Bringing his hands to her face, he tilted her head, felt her mouth open beneath his and plunged his tongue inside, seeking a deeper connection.

  Her hands closed in the back of his T-shirt, and she pushed her shoulders forward, molding her body against his. No age issue stood between them now. Whatever years separated their birth dates were no more significant in that moment than a snap of the fingers. They were man and woman, pure and simple, with a wild, hot desire growing at lightning speed between them.

  A desire that should never, could never, be fulfilled.

  Sam groaned, and for one insane moment he considered the possibility of throwing it all away. He could back right out of the partnership. It would take some doing, but it was possible. He could sever their financial ties. And then what? Ask an older, wealthier woman to give herself to a day laborer? That’s what he would amount to if he crashed this deal. Maybe that was all he’d ever amount to if he crashed this deal.

  Stepping back from that kiss required an impossible amount of willpower, but he managed it. For one long, heart-stopping moment after he disengaged, she stood just as if the kiss were going on, her face turned up, mouth ajar, eyes closed tight. She was the sweetest thing he’d ever seen, and he wanted her so badly that it stunned him, but a man in his position could do nothing except walk away.

  So that’s what he did.

  Turning on his heel, he walked away as swiftly as he could. Their future—rather, their futures, since they had none together—depended on it.

  When the telephone on her desk rang, Sierra jumped and stared at it with horror. What if it was Sam? After that devastating kiss, she hadn’t been able to face him again. She still couldn’t quite believe what had happened. One moment they’d been arguing and the next thing her toes were curling inside her shoes.

  Everything had spun out of control then, and once her head had stopped going around and around, she’d found herself alone. She still felt scorched, branded, and she couldn’t bear to imagine what he must be thinking. She, after all, was the mature one. At least that’s what she’d tried to tell herself. Right now she wasn’t so sure. Would a mature woman be afraid to speak to a man because he’d kissed her?

  She snatched the phone from its cradle and answered in a very businesslike tone. “Sierra Carlton.”

  “Are you the Sierra Carlton who’s in business with Sam Jayce?” a woman’s voice asked.

  Sierra couldn’t decide whether to be alarmed or relieved. On one hand, it wasn’t Sam. On the other, it was about Sam. “Yes. May I ask who’s calling?”

  “My name is Lana Houston. I help Sam with his sisters’ after-school care.”

  “Oh. Um, is there a problem? Some message you need me to pass to Sam?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, I’m afraid,” Lana Houston said hesitantly. “The thing is, there’s been an accident.”

  “Oh, no.” The bottom dropped out of her stomach. Had something happened to Sam?

  “Nothing too serious,” Lana Houston hurried on. “Kim—one of the twins—has taken a fall, and she’s going to need stitches.”

  Sierra practically wilted with relief, but stiffened with the recollection that a little girl was hurt, a little girl dear to Sam. “How can I help?”

  “I need Sam here at the Urgent Care Center,” Lana Houston told her. “The doctor won’t touch her unless her legal guardian is here. I—I think it’s because of the insurance situation. They don’t have any, you see.”

  There had been a time when she and Tyree couldn’t afford health-care insurance, but at least they’d had Frank to fall back on if the worst happened. Sam had no one but himself. And Lana Houston, apparently.

  “It’s not even lunchtime. Sam should still be at the farm.”

  “I’ve tried calling that number,” Lana Houston said, “but no one answers.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m here, and Sam is working outside. He wouldn’t hear that phone. Doesn’t he have a mobile number?”

  “No. No, he doesn’t.”

  “I’ll go get him,” Sierra decided aloud.

  Lana Houston gushed with relief. “Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I don’t want to leave the girls.”

  “It may take a while. The farm’s almost six miles out, and I’m not sure where Sam’s working today.”

  “We’ll be perfectly fine here until he comes,” the Houston woman assured her. “Just knowing he’s on his way will make Kim and Keli feel better, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can,” Sierra said, reaching for her handbag.

  A moment later, she was flying down the stairs and calling out to Bette to let her know that she was leaving. Ten minutes after that, she turned onto her own drive. In the distance she saw Sam climb down off the tractor in the field behind the house. She honked her horn and headed the car in his direction. By the time she’d reached the rough ground at the edge of the field, he was waiting for her. She hit a button and rolled down the passenger window. Sam bent and stuck his head inside.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They need you down at the Urgent Care Center. Kim fell. It’s not serious, but she does need stitches.”

  His sage-green eyes deepened in color. “Where?”

  “At school.”

  “No, I mean, where does she need the stitches? Where is she hurt?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. A Lana Houston called and said they won’t treat her unless you’re there.”

  “Right.” He straightened and looked around him as if hunting something. Seeming to find it, he bent down again. “Can you take me to my truck?”

  “I’ll do better than that,” Sierra said, realizing that he was pretty shake
n. “Get in and I’ll take you to Kim.”

  He opened the door and dropped down into the seat. “Thanks. Hurry!” he said.

  Sierra shifted the transmission into Reverse and backed the car around. As she placed the car in forward mode once more, Sam reached around and pulled his safety belt into place. Sierra concentrated on getting him to his sister as swiftly as possible while recounting for him her entire conversation with the mysterious Lana Houston. That didn’t take long, and pretty soon Sam was shifting forward in his seat as if by doing so he could urge her to a faster speed. More to distract him than for any other reason, Sierra broached the topic of cell phones.

  “I take it you don’t have a mobile phone.”

  He flashed her a resentful glance and curtly informed her, “People can and do get along without them.”

  “Just like the Internet,” she muttered, aware that she’d hit yet another nerve.

  “Yeah. Just like that,” he snapped, fidgeting in his seat again.

  Sierra let the subject drop. When they pulled up in front of the Urgent Care Center, he was out of the car almost before it came to a stop and ran inside. Sierra bit her lip and decided to follow just in case a cooler head was needed. After parking, she went into the neat brick-and-glass building. When she inquired about Kim, the receptionist told her to go on back to room three and buzzed open the door for her. Sierra didn’t argue or explain.

  The room was already crowded with people when she arrived in the open doorway. She zeroed in on Sam, who stood next to the narrow cot, one arm wrapped around a slight child with short, pale blond hair who was parked on his hip. A similar child lay on the cot, and Sam bent over her, smoothing back her pale bangs as he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  “You okay, sugar? Where does it hurt?”

  “It’s her forearm,” said the tall, shapely woman at his side.

  Sierra recognized the voice, and her gaze went unerringly to its owner. Lana Houston looked to be in her early thirties with long, golden brown hair and unusual gray eyes rimmed in deep blue. She lifted one graceful hand to Sam’s shoulder.

  “So where’s the doctor?” Sam wanted to know. “Why isn’t he here?”