A Better Father (Harlequin Super Romance) Read online

  With a quick check that his collar hadn’t crept up on him, and a deep breath of the mild June air, he gave a sharp rap and opened the door.

  He found himself in the middle of a knotty pine office plucked straight from his memory, right down to the unforgettable mustiness of ancient wood tickling his nose. If not for the computers perched on the pair of battered metal desks, he would have sworn the past twelve years had bypassed this room.

  Two women occupied the space. Myra MacLean stood near the window with her hands clasped, a nervous smile lifting the wrinkles from her face. She always made him think of the great blue herons that nested along the banks of the river, with her long skinny legs and an even longer, skinnier neck. Three or four decades of eating Cosmo the cook’s famously decadent chocolate whipped cream cake hadn’t put an extra inch on Myra.

  But it was the other woman who made him brace himself, the one standing in front of a table loaded with binders, shooting looks of incredulity from him to Myra.

  Libby.

  Her hair was a darker red than when he had first dared twist her curls around his fingers. Disbelief widened her hazel eyes and parted the lips he still tasted in occasional dreams. Sam had figured out long ago that Libby’s lips were what God had in mind when He decided that people should have a mouth. The kind of lips that made a promise.

  “Hello, Sam.” Myra’s grin faded and her cheeks flushed as she glanced toward the other woman. “I’m sure you remember Libby Kovak.”

  Like he could ever forget her.

  Libby snapped that gorgeous mouth shut, slapping on a mask of politeness that was far too indifferent to fool anyone.

  “Sam. Well.” She hesitated, then moved slowly from behind the table and extended a work-worn hand. “Imagine seeing you again.”

  To tell the truth, he had imagined it. Many times.

  He took her hand more by reflex than thought. Her palm slid into his, melded to him, and even while the rational section of his brain reminded him to grip, shake, release, another, more primitive part of him urged him to grip, tug, pull closer. This grown-up version of Libby was even more magnetic than the girl he’d left behind. Sure, he’d caught glimpses of the woman she’d become in the pictures on the camp’s website, but in those shots she was usually buried in a sweatshirt, hugging a kid, or hiding behind a clipboard. In person she seemed...softer. More feminine, though maybe that was because she was wearing some floaty kind of skirt that swayed with her every movement.

  In their years together, first as campers, then counselors, Sam had seen Libby in tight jeans, short shorts and a bathing suit that made his mouth go dry. On one memorable night he’d seen her clad in nothing but starlight. So how could he still be amazed at the way the simple swirl of a skirt turned her legs into an invitation?

  “Libby.” His voice stuck somewhere between his throat and his mouth, so he coughed and tried once more. “Hello, Libby. It’s been a long time.”

  “Hasn’t it, though?” She pulled her hand away from his.

  Damn. He thought he’d let go about three or four heart-thuds ago.

  “What brings you to our neck of the woods?” She shot an unreadable look at Myra as he lowered himself onto a battered orange plaid sofa. “Just passing through?”

  Her I hope was unspoken but most definitely not unheard.

  He glanced at Myra for the assist. This was her cue. But Myra avoided his gaze while seating herself at her desk, leaving him gripping the arms of the sofa and readying himself to say the words.

  When Sam had first looked into the camp a couple months back, he’d been astonished to find Libby listed as the assistant director. That hadn’t been her plan. Last time he saw her, she’d been days away from heading off to university, to teaching, to a life beyond the small tourist town of Comeback Cove. Even though he knew that life had thrown a curve into those plans, he had never imagined that the curve was really a circle leading her back to camp.

  But once he got past the hope she’s okay stage, it had been a no-brainer to imagine how she would react to his appearance. And once she learned the reason why he was back, well...

  He shuddered.

  Live the goal.

  “Actually, I—”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Myra placed a hand to her heart, her tone far too bright to be spontaneous. “Where are my manners? Sam, would you like something to drink? Coffee, tea, hot cocoa?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” Good as a drink might be, he doubted that Myra stocked whiskey in the camp office.

  “Well.” She folded her hands together again and risked another beseeching kind of look at Libby, who had perched on the edge of a chair as if ready to bolt at any moment. “Have you had a chance to look around, Sam? There have been many changes since you were last here.”

  Twelve years would do that to a place. A person, too, he thought, assessing the wary cast to Libby’s posture.

  “We have year-round programming now, thanks to Libby’s efforts. We’ve added more cabins and expanded the dining hall and enclosed the craft building. Libby overhauled our curriculum and rewrote the staff and parent handbooks, and just last year she added an orienteering piece to the—”

  “Myra,” Libby cut in, “I’m sure Sam doesn’t need to hear that. After all, he’s just here for a trip down memory lane, right?” The look she leveled at him was half daring, half desperation. “Right?”

  He could curse in six languages but as far as he could tell, none of the words were adequate for what he was feeling at that moment. He took a second to breathe, slowing his heart in preparation for the hell that was about to be unleashed, when Myra finally decided to do the right thing.

  “Libby. Dear. Sam’s not passing through,” she said with a heavy sigh. “He’s come to buy the camp.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  YEARS AGO, Libby had gone on a space shuttle simulator ride at the fair. She would never forget the pressure during the mock liftoff, the sensation that there was an invisible elephant squashing her chest.

  But compared to the impact of Myra’s words, that make-believe elephant felt more like a Chihuahua. “You can’t be serious.” She could scarcely get the words out past the breath she was holding. The camp was hers. It was more than her job. It was her safety, her security, her home. It was hers, dammit, hers by virtue of the hours and the thought and the work and the love she’d poured into it over the years.

  It was hers. It couldn’t go to anyone else. Especially not Sam Catalano. She would not, could not let him take it away. Not from Myra, and not from her.

  Sam leaned forward, earnestness practically radiating from his rounded shoulders and clasped hands. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

  It was a good thing she knew better than to be suckered in by his act.

  “You. Really? As serious as you were about—” She clamped her mouth shut just in time, glancing at Myra. Libby had no illusions. Of course Myra knew that for one lusty summer a dozen years ago, Libby and Sam had been an item. The whole camp had known. But Myra didn’t need to know that Sam had then gone on to break her heart.

  Nor did she intend to give Sam the satisfaction of knowing how completely he’d turned her world inside out.

  “Now, then.” Myra’s deceptively soft words cut into her mental meanderings. “Before you start to panic, Libby, dear—”

  “I’m not panicking.” Furious, lost and breathless, but absolutely not panicked. She’d dealt with worse than this in her thirty years.
There would be no panic needed or allowed.

  Murder, however—that was another option altogether.

  Myra slipped lower in her chair and spread her hands across the stained and wrinkled desk blotter. “You know about the situation with my sister,” she said softly. “Alzheimer’s is...well. Esther is going to need a lot of care. Expensive care. She doesn’t have many resources, and since I want to be with her anyway...” Her voice faltered. “I’m so sorry, Libby. I know this is a shock, and I meant to handle this better. It’s...well...things change.”

  So this was why Myra had been so reflective and nostalgic. Libby remembered her fleeting thought that Myra was planning to hand the camp over to her and winced.

  As if reading her mind, Myra looked at her with regret. “Please understand, Libby. I know I promised you that—”

  “Don’t even think of it.” And please, please don’t let Sam know that he’s just stolen yet another of my dreams. She swallowed the tears clogging her throat and reached across the desk to squeeze Myra’s hands, wishing she could ease their shaking with her touch. “I’m so sorry. Of course you have to do this. She’s your family.”

  “She’s all I have. Except you, of course.”

  Rule number one: no one else is ever going to put you first.

  Myra blinked and forced a smile. “When Sam called to ask if I would ever consider selling, well, it seemed like an answer to my prayers.”

  Much as she wanted to believe the Almighty had listened to Myra, Libby had a hard time believing that prayers could ever be answered through a newly retired hockey player currently riding a wave of popularity due to a stint as a naughty rogue in a series of body-wash commercials.

  Okay. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe she was too raw to be rational at the moment. But Libby didn’t trust Sam Catalano, and not just because he’d loved her and left her without a word of explanation. She had facts on her side. Widely reported facts, such as the string of starlets he’d dated and discarded during his NHL years. Or the undeniable fact that he had stuck with college just long enough to land a pro contract, turning his back on the degree she had fought so hard to obtain. Or the highly disconcerting fact that he’d walked away from his contract and his team the minute their season ended just last month, for nothing more substantial than personal reasons.

  Not that she had learned any of this on her own, of course. Sam had grown up just a half hour from Comeback Cove, so the local papers always treated his every breath as headline news. But there was no denying that the man had a lousy history when it came to following through on his commitments.

  Overreacting, hell. The more she thought about it, the more she felt she owed too much to Myra, had given too much of her own heart to the camp, to let someone with Sam’s track record get his unreliable hands on it.

  “Myra,” she said softly, “I know this might feel like your only option right now, but are you sure there’s no other way? Maybe if you waited a bit...”

  “Prospective buyers don’t grow on trees, Libby. Perhaps, if Esther didn’t— Well, that’s neither here nor there, is it?”

  Libby closed her eyes and tried to focus all her energy as a shield against the hunk of testosterone lounging far too casually on the sofa. She longed to ask him to leave so she could talk to Myra in private. She needed a minute to breathe, to pull herself together, to quell the little voice shouting Not fair! and focus on saving the situation.

  On the other hand, what could she lose by letting him hear her concerns? The situation couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  “Myra, I have to be honest. You’ve always said Overlook is special because everyone involved is so committed to it. Do you think that’s going to stay the same with an owner who is probably planning to be here part-time, if that?”

  She felt like a heel, adding to Myra’s worries, but the woman needed to have all the facts before she could make an informed decision.

  A frown creased Myra’s forehead, but Sam was the one who spoke.

  “Not part-time,” he said. “Full-time. No more hockey, no more commercials, no more publicity except for charity work. As much as possible, I’m going to be Joe Average.”

  It must have been the trace of regret in his voice that made it impossible to believe him. Libby couldn’t stop herself. She snorted.

  Sam gave her a hard glance. “What?”

  “Come on, Sam. Do you honestly expect anyone with half a brain to believe you can walk away from the money and the fans and the endorsement deals to live in the boonies and run a camp?”

  He opened his mouth, but she rushed on before he could speak. “No. Wait. Wrong question. I do believe you can do that. After all, you’ve already taken the first step.” She glared at him through narrowed eyes. “But for how long?”

  Myra uttered a soft, “Oh, my.”

  “I’m here for good.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes.”

  No explanation. No justification. No discussion.

  And there was no way she was buying it.

  “Your actions have been pretty well documented around here, Sam. When you walked away from your team with no explanation, well, you were the top news for a week.” She ran clammy hands over the gauzy folds of her elastic-waisted Emergency Bloat skirt and cursed whatever hand of fate that had delivered Sam Catalano and PMS on the same day. “I don’t recall hearing anything that lets me believe you have what it takes to make a lasting commitment.”

  Myra’s lips pursed. So she hadn’t been aware of Sam’s track record. But being the fair-to-a-fault woman she was, she immediately turned to Sam.

  “Is there something I should know?” she asked quietly.

  Libby held her breath.

  The sudden lines around Sam’s mouth and the almost-silent tap of his finger against the arm of his chair were the only indicators of whatever internal debate he might be conducting. When he nodded, it was more of a jerk than an acknowledgment.

  “Yes. I’ll explain.” He focused on Myra. “To you. And only you.”

  Heat flashed through Libby, pulling her out of her chair. “Hang on. This was my question. My concern.”

  “But it’s not your property,” he said, and the impact of his quietly even words almost pushed her back down. As it was, she had to clamp her mouth tight to keep him from seeing precisely how wrong he was. He might have the money to buy the camp, but it belonged to her.

  “Libby.” Myra’s hands fluttered through the air like runaway thoughts before she clasped them together and set them in her lap. She closed her eyes for a moment, sighed, then looked Libby in the eye.

  “This isn’t how I would prefer to handle this,” she said. “You know that you are much more than an employee.”

  Libby forced herself to nod.

  “But if this is truly something I should know, and if this is the only way Sam will disclose the information...”

  “Yes.” Sam stood to face Libby. He looked past her—out the window, she presumed, to the river that was always there, always wearing down the rocks—then blinked and made her the center of his focus once again.

  “Yes,” he said again, gentler this time, almost regretfully, but there was no mistaking the resolve beneath the word. “This is strictly between us.”

  By “us,” Libby knew he did not mean him and her.

  “Fine.” She grabbed her clipboard and headed for the door. “I guess I’ll step outside. Because when I start something, I’m willing to do whatever is ne
eded to see it through.”

  * * *

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Sam crossed his arms and sat back in his chair. “So there you have it.”

  “Oh, Sam. I’m so sorry. Although...”

  “Let me guess. You can’t understand why I don’t want Libby to find out.” He shoved his hand into his pocket and rubbed Casey’s stone between his fingers. “You know there’s history between us.”

  She didn’t ask him to expand. Not out loud. The way she folded her hands in her lap and kept her gaze steady on him was question enough.

  “Things didn’t end well,” he said at last. “All my fault. But I feel... I think she’s had enough to absorb for one day. I don’t want to, you know. Rub things in her face.”

  “You mean, because you have a child and she doesn’t? You do realize that Libby spends a good deal of her life tending to other people’s children.”

  He grinned at her undeniable point. “But it’s more than that in this case. She’s sunk her life into this place. Having me waltz in and take it over has to hurt. She doesn’t need to know that I’m doing it because I’m building a new life with my kid, especially since she’s probably out there writing her letter of resignation as we speak.”

  “Fair enough.” Myra considered him for a moment, then nodded and leaned back in her chair. “We haven’t discussed her role thus far, but to be blunt, Libby is the sole reason this camp is doing as well as it is. In fact, you’re going to need her to stay on if you want to stay in compliance with our policies this summer.”

  He couldn’t keep the laughter inside. “You’re joking, right?”

  “No, I’m not. Because, of the two of you, she is the one with the education and experience to meet the guidelines for the position of camp director. She might not be happy with you, Sam, but she loves this camp too much to do anything that would be detrimental to its continued operation.”

  “Whoa. Time-out.” He made a T with his hands, then leaned forward. “Are you saying I need to keep her on for the whole summer?”