Fortune Finds Florist Read online

  Lana Houston smiled, her wide, mobile mouth stretching into a knowing curve. “Relax. Kim’s fine. I made sure they used a topical painkiller on the cut.”

  Sam leaned down slightly and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, Lana. What would I do without you?”

  Sierra felt a stab of white-hot jealousy. It was that exact moment when Lana Houston turned and realized that Sierra was standing in the doorway.

  “Oh. Hello.”

  Sam looked over his shoulder, and his brow lifted in surprise. “Sierra?”

  She suddenly felt like an interloper. “I—I just wanted to be sure she’s okay.”

  Lana Houston put out her hand, gliding swiftly across the floor. “She’s going to be just fine. Thank you so much for bringing Sam to us.”

  To her horror, Sierra found that she couldn’t summon up the same graciousness as the lovely Lana, so she merely nodded and allowed the other woman to squeeze her fingers.

  “You haven’t met the girls yet, have you?” Lana went on. Reaching back, she laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder, saying, “Sammy, why don’t you go see if you can locate that doctor, hmm? Meanwhile, I’ll introduce the girls to Sierra.”

  Sam nodded and set the girl he was holding onto her feet. He patted the shoulder of the other and promised to come right back. Then he slipped past Sierra into the hallway. Lana took each of the girls by the hand and made the introductions.

  “This is Keli,” she said, wagging the hand of the green-eyed, blond pixie Sam had been holding. She smiled down at the girl on the bed. “And this is Kim, who caused all this excitement by falling off the slide at school.”

  The girls were virtually identical except for the cowlicks at the crowns of their heads. Like true mirror images of one another, their short, pale blond hair swirled in different directions and stood up on different sides of their heads. Of the two, Keli seemed the more reticent. She clutched Lana’s hand tightly and stared up at Sierra with huge, soft green eyes a shade darker than Sam’s, while her sister gave a jaunty little wave with her uninjured arm and voiced a strong “Hi.”

  “Hello.”

  “Girls, this is Ms. Carlton, Sam’s new business partner.”

  “The flower lady,” Kim said, and Lana smiled.

  “Yes, the flower lady.”

  “I like flowers,” Keli announced shyly.

  “So do I,” Sierra replied.

  Sam returned then with the doctor, and Lana tugged Keli away from the bed, saying, “Let’s step out and give the doctor room to work now.”

  Keli shook her head. “I want to stay with Kim.”

  Sam smoothed a hand over the back of her head. “No, sweetie, you go with Lana and Sierra. This room’s too little for all of us. I’ll stay with Kim and make sure she’s all right. We won’t be long, I promise.”

  “But my arm hurts, too,” she persisted.

  “I know it does, angel, but it’ll feel better as soon as Kim does. The best thing is for us all to just let the doc do his thing and make you both well. Okay?”

  Kim lifted her head then and said, “It’s all right, Keli. I’m not scared.”

  Keli bowed her head and let Lana ease her from the room. Sam’s attention was already claimed by the child on the bed.

  “She’s a little scared,” Keli whispered.

  “Of course she is,” Lana said matter-of-factly, “but she’ll be fine.” She looked at Sierra and said, “There’s a waiting room down this hall. We’ll go there.”

  “All right.”

  They started walking sedately in that direction, Keli dragging her feet at Lana’s side and occasionally looking over her shoulder.

  “They’re very empathetic with one another,” Lana explained softly. “I don’t know that they actually experience each other’s pain and emotions, but they’re very sensitive to what the other is feeling.”

  “I’ve heard of that sort of thing with twins,” Sierra said, interested.

  Lana nodded and herded Keli through the door into the small waiting room, where a television played quietly even though the room was empty. Lana leaned her shoulder against the wall beside the doorway and said, “Sam was always very sensitive, too. I remember when he first came to us his mother would call on the phone, and she’d sound perfectly normal to me. Then the two of them would chat for a few minutes and Sam would hang up and say, ‘She’s been hurt again,’ or ‘She’s worried.’ He just knew somehow.”

  Sierra digested that, then asked, “When he first came to you?”

  Lana glanced at her with undisguised surprise. “Sam used to live with us.”

  “Us?”

  “My husband Chet and I. We were Sam’s foster parents at one time.”

  Foster parents? Sierra thought, stunned. “But you’re so young.”

  Lana laughed, the sound wafting musically through the hall. “Not as young as you might think. Let’s just say I won’t see forty again.”

  Sierra’s jaw dropped. “I’d have said thirty! I actually thought that maybe you and Sam were…” She blushed at what she’d thought.

  It was Lana’s turn to gape. “Not hardly. Sam’s like a son to us. Of all the children we’ve fostered, we’re closer to Sam than any of the others.” She folded her arms and declared ruefully, “Frankly, I’d be delighted if Sam had a woman in his life, but he won’t take time for dating. He’s too fixated on these girls, and when he’s not with them, he’s busy earning a living.”

  Sierra shrugged. “I know how it is,” she admitted. “I’m a single parent myself. I’m sure Sam has even less time to socialize than I do.”

  Lana sighed. “Well, if you ask me, it isn’t healthy. Young people like you and Sam should get out and enjoy yourselves once in a while, find someone to share your lives with.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Sierra hedged. “I tried that route once, and the experience doesn’t exactly encourage me to make a return trip.”

  Lana tilted her head and said gently, “Everyone has bad experiences, but the strong ones get past them. I want a strong girl for Sam because he needs someone who can be as strong for him as he’s always been for everyone else. He’s played nurse-maid enough in his life.”

  Sierra nodded, murmuring, “I’m sure the right girl is out there for Sam.”

  “I hope so,” Lana Houston said, “because our Sam is quite a catch. He’ll make some lucky woman a wonderful husband. He’s already proven to be an excellent father, and he deserves children of his own someday. Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we deserve in this life.” She straightened away from the wall, looked at Keli playing quietly with some beat-up toys left in the waiting room and added softly, “Then again, sometimes we do.”

  Sierra stayed where she was, watching as Lana Houston dropped to the floor and happily joined in Keli’s play. An unusual woman, to say the least. She seemed very good with the girls; she must’ve been good for Sam, too. They made an odd family of sorts, but no odder, Sierra supposed, than her own, and a good deal more supportive. A new envy assailed her. She wallowed in it for a moment, then allowed it to pass as she hovered there on the periphery. On the outside.

  Chapter Five

  “I’m surprised you’re still here.”

  Sam stood in the waiting room door, holding Kim, whose left arm had been bandaged and placed in a sling. Sierra sat in a straight-backed chair next to Keli, holding a children’s book from which she had apparently been reading aloud. Keli apparently hadn’t told her that, at seven, she and her sister both could read as well as or even better than any ten-year-old. Sierra looked at Sam now with studied indifference.

  “Lana was called away by Child Welfare Services. I told her I’d get you and the girls where you need to go.”

  Sam sighed inwardly. He’d been hoping to avoid this. It was one thing to ride into town with her when his mind was clouded with worry; it was another thing entirely once the crisis was past. He couldn’t help noticing how trim and cool she looked in slim turquoise slacks and a matching cowl-
necked sweater and jacket with her hair swept up in a neat roll on the back of her head. Curls had sprung up around her face, and a very pretty face it was. He’d mentally kissed that face a thousand times a night since he’d been stupid enough to kiss it in fact.

  “My truck’s at your place,” he said, “so I guess that’s where we better get.”

  Nodding, Sierra rose, and Keli rose with her. As they moved out into the hall, Kim smiled at her sister and announced, “It hardly hurts at all.”

  Kim giggled and continued, “Sam gagged and got dizzy, but he was just joshing to keep me from looking at the doctor poke in the needle.”

  “Heck, she was braver than me,” Sam insisted. “She’s so tough I could’ve sewed her up with my hemming needle and thread off the spool.”

  “Uh-uh, not the way you sew!” Kim exclaimed, laughing as Sam carried her toward the exit.

  Keli chortled as she followed, saying to Sierra, “Once Sammy sewed up Kimmy’s blue puppy dog with black thread. It was icky!”

  “Bluebell’s not icky,” Kim protested.

  “No, but Sam’s sewing is!” Keli joked. Both girls laughed gaily.

  “Hey!” Sam said, pretending offense, “Old Bluebell’s still holding his stuffing, isn’t he?”

  “We tied a ribbon ’round the icky stitching,” Kim divulged over his shoulder.

  Keli snickered, and Sam turned to find Sierra holding Keli’s hand, her eyes dancing with laughter, as well. His heart gave a strange kick, but he supposed it was a natural aftereffect of the panic he had felt at hearing one of the girls was injured. Stitches. He’d felt sicker at the sight of his baby sister getting sewed up than he’d ever admit. He held Kim a little tighter at the memory of it.

  He had a bad moment at the receptionist’s desk when he had to explain that he could only pay half of the charges and the remainder would be paid out in installments. They’d be eating macaroni and cheese for a while. He hadn’t wanted Sierra to hear that part and was much relieved when she offered to go bring the car around while he took care of it.

  True to form, Keli stuck right by him, standing pressed against his leg while Kim rode the other hip. Then when he was tucking the folded receipt into his pocket, Keli looked up at him and said, “Ms. Carlson’s real nice.”

  Sam smiled and nodded, cupping the back of her head with one hand as he moved them all toward the front door and the sidewalk beyond.

  “She’s got a little girl named Tyree,” Keli divulged importantly.

  “I know her,” Kim said. “Tyree. She’s that rich girl two grades up.”

  Keli’s eyes grew even larger. “They’re rich?”

  “Some people might think so,” Sam muttered, watching Sierra’s expensive luxury sedan pull up to the curb, “but it’s not a polite topic for conversation. Understand?”

  Both girls nodded. Smiling, Sam ushered them toward Sierra’s car, opened the rear door and belted them both into their seats before walking around and taking the passenger seat next to Sierra.

  “Do you mind if I swing by the school and pick up Tyree on the way?” Sierra asked, driving away from the clinic. “It’s a little early, but I’ll be late if I have to drive out to the farm and back first.”

  “No problem,” Sam said. “I can pick up Kim’s assignments for the next couple days. Doc says she can’t go back until Monday.”

  “Lana said to tell you that it wouldn’t be a problem if Kim needs to stay with her for a while.” Sierra looked into the rearview mirror and said to Kim, “There’s a baby coming to stay with Lana and Chet.”

  “A baby!” Kim gushed.

  “Oh, boy!” Keli exclaimed.

  Sam chuckled. “They love a baby almost as much as Lana does, and Lana loves the babies best. She loves all the kids, but she absolutely delights in the babies, and let me tell you, some of them are pretty pitiful.” He shook his head.

  “Has she had many foster children?” Sierra asked.

  “Hundreds,” Sam answered. “Me included.”

  “She told me. It takes a special person to be a foster parent.”

  “Especially the way Lana and Chet do it,” Sam said. “They pour their whole hearts into every child—and then let them go.”

  “I don’t know how they manage that.”

  “Special people, like you said,” Sam told her. “God knows they saved my life in more ways than one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For one thing,” Sam said carefully, aware of the girls in the back seat, “I saw a whole different sort of man in Chet than I’d ever seen before, a man as good as he is strong, and for another…let’s just say they kept me out of harm’s way.”

  Sierra smiled and glanced in his direction, saying softly, “I’m glad.”

  Sam felt his heart give that funny little kick again, but he ignored it, turning his gaze out the window as he muttered, “Yeah, me, too.”

  They made the remainder of the drive out to the school in silence, except for the girls whispering and giggling in the back seat. Sierra parked in the pickup lane behind one other vehicle while Sam went inside to report on Kim’s condition and briefly speak to her teacher. When he came out again, hauling Kim’s backpack with her books and assignments inside, Tyree was waiting with the others. All three girls were laughing and talking a mile a minute.

  Sam couldn’t help noticing that his sisters looked a little shabby in their knit pants, T-shirts, bulky sweaters and canvas shoes, compared to Tyree’s plaid slacks, shiny blouse, pink vinyl jacket with white piping and matching blunt-toed shoes with open heels. She looked like something out of a little girl’s fashion magazine with her long, dark red hair caught up in a frothy pink bow, while Kim and Keli resembled a pair of ragamuffins—cute little ragamuffins—but ragamuffins, nonetheless. He told himself that it didn’t matter. The girls were happy. Even Kim, sporting six stitches in her left forearm, was laughing and giggling with the others.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised when they reached the farm and Tyree begged for the girls to be allowed to come inside and play for a while.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Sam hedged, torn between personally protecting Kim and the tractor sitting in the field.

  “I’ll keep a close eye on them, especially our patient here,” Sierra pledged.

  “Please, Sammy,” Kim begged.

  “Please, Sammy,” Keli echoed.

  “Please, please, please,” Tyree added.

  Finally, he gave in. “Okay, long as you’re not too rambunctious.” He smoothed Kim’s cowlick and cautioned, “I wouldn’t want to explain to the doc how you busted those stitches open.” The probability of that was actually quite small. The doc had said that infection was the only real concern, but that was minimal, too.

  “I’ll be careful,” Kim promised.

  “We’ll all be careful,” Tyree said.

  “Guess I’ll do a little work then,” Sam said as the girls hurried into the house.

  “Take as much time as you need,” Sierra told him, following behind the girls.

  It would be good, he decided, to finish up what he’d started when he’d been interrupted. Why, then, did he feel as if he’d just turned some important corner?

  “Good chicken,” Kim said, shoving another bite into her mouth.

  Sierra smiled. “Glad you like it.”

  “Mom’s a good cook,” Tyree said, waving a green bean around on the end of her fork.

  “Uh-huh,” Keli agreed, loading her spoon with rice swimming in gravy. “Sammy just cooks rice for breakfast with syrup.”

  “Syrup?” Tyree chirped. “Yuck!”

  “It’s good,” Kim insisted. Then she smiled at Sierra. “But this is better.”

  “Thank you,” Sierra said.

  “But let’s not tell Sam,” Keli said in conspiratorial tone.

  “Tell Sam what?”

  Sierra looked up to find Sam standing in the kitchen door. He looked tired and dusty and man enough to rope the moon. His sisters certainly thought
he’d hung it. Sierra got up and went for the tumbler of ice she’d stowed in the freezer.

  “That supper’s ready,” she answered smoothly. “Do you take tea?”

  “You bet.” He surveyed the table and the girls ranged around it, then turned back to the kitchen as she slipped past him. “Didn’t mean to be so late.”

  “No problem.” She took the tumbler from the freezer and filled it with tea from the pitcher on the kitchen island.

  “Thanks for feeding the girls.”

  “My pleasure.” She walked to the double-wall oven and turned off the warmer before taking up a hot pad and reaching inside for the plate she’d put back for him. “You can wash up in the sink.”

  He moved hesitantly to the sink and began soaping his hands. “Wasn’t expecting dinner,” he said carefully.

  She smiled at him over her shoulder as she carried his plate and glass to the table. “The girls were hungry.”

  He nodded and rinsed off. It seemed to take him an inordinately long time to dry his hands, remove his cap and walk to the table.

  “Sorry for just walking in,” he apologized, lowering himself onto the chair. “I did knock at the laundry room door first.”

  “No problem,” Sierra said lightly. “I guess we didn’t hear you.”

  He picked up his knife and fork and cut into the boneless, pan-grilled chicken breast. Winking at the girls he teased, “I know what happened. Ya’ll were talking at once with your mouths full probably.”

  “Uh-uh,” Tyree refuted automatically, then realizing that she had food in her mouth, she clamped a hand over it, much to the amusement of Kim and Keli, who nearly fell out of their chairs laughing.

  Sam grinned and forked up a bite of chicken. “Mmm.” He chewed and swallowed. “Beats those beans and wieners I was planning.”

  “Eewww!” Kim and Keli cried in unison.

  Sam put on a frown for effect and said to Sierra, “For some strange reason they don’t seem to like my beans and wieners.”

  Sierra laughed as Kim launched into a vivid explanation of why they’d starve before they’d eat Sam’s beans and wieners again—a concoction of salt, mustard, ketchup, beans and big, big hunks of onion and wieners burned so black that they crumbled. Sam just grinned and placidly concentrated on eating. Sierra had heaped his plate high, and before he was done, Tyree got up and suggested to the girls that they run back upstairs and play some more before they had to go, but the twins looked to Sam for permission before so much as budging from their chairs. He shook his head.