Rock Solid. Jennifer Greene

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СКАЧАТЬ Trouble.

      He never had to warn himself to be careful around women. The female of the species had always been the bane of his life. That wasn’t to say his hormones couldn’t go into a wild tailspin for a woman with looks and brains—and brains were usually his worst downfall. He did turn on for a woman with a quick mind. But he was thirty-four, after all. Women-battle-scarred enough to recognize heartache before it had the chance to level him.

      His weakness, though, was how people treated Sammy. And Lexie, so far, was treating Sammy like he was the most terrific boy she’d ever laid eyes on. As if the kid were more important and more interesting than anything or anyone else on the planet—which he was, Cash thought. Only what that half-pint brunette didn’t know was that Sammy never—repeat, capital n Never—took to a strange woman.

      Sammy, at age eight, was as woman-battle-scarred as Cash was.

      Suddenly Keegan stood up at the far end of the table, his ponytail neatly clipped at his nape, a kitchen towel hooked in his belt loop in lieu of an apron. “Anyone up for dessert? I’ve got a big fancy chocolate mousse. Or a blackberry pie.”

      Although Lexie demurred from dessert, the others nearly rioted with enthusiasm—no surprise. Everyone except Lexie knew that Keegan could bake dirt and make it taste delicious. The kid was being wasted, working on his Ph.D., when guys were paying a fortune for someone with his old-fashioned wife qualifications. But once dessert came in—typically—the room instantly quieted down, which enabled Cash to watch her in action with Sammy again.

      And again, worry started pumping adrenaline through his veins. It wasn’t that he minded her talking to Sammy in any way. The problem was that the inconceivable was happening. Sammy was actually initiating conversation with her, too. And seemed happy to be talking to her besides.

      Cash had to strain to catch some words, and finally hooked into part of their conversation. Lexie was obviously answering a question.

      “Well, sure, I’ve got a picture of my family that you could see…just a second.” When she started digging in her wallet, naturally, her napkin whisked down to the floor. Then a spoon dropped.

      Sammy filched the photo she handed him, and then blinked in surprise. “Like this is your mom and dad? Are you kidding? You look way different than everybody else.”

      Cash happened to accidentally glance over just then, and he blinked, too. Usually there was nothing exciting in anyone’s family photos, but this one really was startling. The snapshot framed a family picnic in suburbia somewhere, summer, a hot day, with Lexie sitting cross-legged on the grass. She was flanked by four people her own age—two young men, two young women—and then two older adults standing up. Everyone looked related except Lexie. The others were all Nordic blondes, unusually tall and noticeably athletic and broad shouldered. And then there was Lexie—small, slight and dark, a changeling with those exotic oval-shaped eyes….

      “Well, Sammy, the reason I don’t look like them is because we’re not related by blood. I’m adopted. I lost my mom and dad when I was really little, like three years old.”

      “You’re adopted?” Sammy repeated, making Cash immediately tense, his slice of blackberry pie forgotten. She had no way of knowing this was an uneasy subject for the kid, but he did.

      “Yes, hon.”

      “So…what happened to your mom and dad? Did they die or leave you or what hap—?”

      “Hey, champ.” Cash’s voice was as lazy and easy as a western summer breeze, not clipped, not showing even a trace of nerves. “I’m sure Ms. Woolf understands that you’re just being curious, but it makes most people uncomfortable to be asked personal questions. You can ask her where she lives, stuff like that. General questions.”

      Cash tried never to duck a parenting issue just because there were outsiders around, because outsiders were around their lives all the time. So when he had to correct Sammy, he did his best to teach and explain a reason rather than to make him feel criticized. This time, though, Sammy wasn’t up for hearing any lessons.

      “But Cash, I just wanted to know how she got to be adopted—”

      “It’s all right,” Lexie said swiftly, before Cash could say anything else. And to Sammy, she bent her head again. “It’s not a secret or uncomfortable thing for me, hon, even though your dad’s right. It could be for some people. But I don’t mind answering you. My mom and dad died. They were killed the same night in a robbery—and it was pretty terrible—but after that, a wonderful family took me in, the Woolfs. They loved me as much as my first mom and dad did, and I love them enormously the same way, so everything turned out just fine.”

      “Well…” Sammy shoveled in a giant spoonful of mousse, some of which even made it inside his mouth, while he seemed to think this over. “I wasn’t just being curious. I was int’rested because I’m almost an orphan, too, only not exactly. I never had a dad. ’Course, I never wanted a dad, either.”

      “No?” Lexie asked gently.

      “No. Because I have Cash, and nobody’s dad could ever be better’n Cash. It’s just us guys against the world. We can do anything because we help each other.”

      “That sounds really wonderful.” Again, Lexie’s voice had softened to butter.

      “Yup. It’s wonderful. But I can’t be an orphan like you because I have a mom. In a way it’s the same, though, because you lost your mom, and my mom doesn’t want me. Sometimes she calls and pretends to be nice and all, but she never comes here. What I think is, I’m so much trouble that she just doesn’t want nuthin’ to do with me—”

      Swiftly Cash scraped back his chair and stood up. “Well, I want you, champ. In fact, I couldn’t run this place without you. Come on and help me in the office for a minute, okay? If you’ll all excuse us.”

      Sammy charged into the office, his face all lit up as if he were hot-wired to a joy button. Come hell or high water—or work—Cash spent private time with the boy every day, and before Sammy spilled any more private family information to strangers, he figured it was a politically good time to do their male bonding thing. Not that he was protective of Sammy…but he’d have used an elephant gun on a mosquito that dared threaten the boy. And not think twice.

      So first, there was Sammy-time. And then he had to sit down with Keegan to go over the week’s schedule. After that, George was driving Whitt into Coeur D’Allene, which meant that Whitt’s bill needed settling and the guest seen off and George given directions. Then the bills needed to be pawed through. Hell, there was always a ton of stuff that needed doing at the end of the day.

      But the new guest preyed on Cash’s mind. It wasn’t because he felt any unsettling, special pull for her—at all. In any way. But Sammy seemed to, and Sammy hadn’t talked to a woman like that in three months of Sundays. Probably longer. And since it was her first day, it was natural enough that he’d try to track her down and make sure she was settling in.

      Only she wasn’t in her bedroom.

      He tried the lodge living room, where the boys were playing pinochle. When he didn’t find her there, he checked the barn, the gym and hot tub building, the general grounds. Sammy had been stashed in bed by then, tucked safely in their private quarters, Cash wearing a pager so the squirt could always reach him…but in the meantime, he was running out of places to track down Lexie.

      Eventually he found her—on the third СКАЧАТЬ