Olivia slid her a look. “How he deals with overwrought female theatrics.”
Oh, boy. Becca had seen this, too, the night she’d heard a noise outside her door and gone into a full-blown panic attack. Sam hadn’t thought her ridiculous or made her feel stupid. He’d been too far away for his own comfort and had sent Cole to stand in for him until he could arrive. And then there’d been the unexpected visit from her parents. Whatever she’d faced, Sam had been there for her.
Two hours later, Becca came home and found a stack of boxes waiting for her. An assortment of brand-new instruments for the kids, including a horn, a percussion set, and a bass.
For your new music program, the card read. Nothing else, no name, no address, nothing.
An anonymous donation.
But there was nothing anonymous about how she felt. Overwhelmed. Cared for.
Loved.
And as she sat there, surrounded by the boxes of brand-new instruments, she realized something. She didn’t need a card. She knew exactly who the instruments were from. Damn, stubborn, stupid, wonderful man.
Chapter 28
On the morning of their Summer Bash, Sam got up extra early, knowing the day would be crazy. He was an hour earlier than usual, but he wasn’t the only one. Standing in front of his warehouse door, waiting for entry, were both Amelia and Mark.
They’d squared off and were glaring at each other, Amelia with her arms crossed over her chest, Mark looking guilty as hell.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked.
“Just making sure you don’t need anything today, honey,” Amelia said, tearing her hard gaze from Mark and moving toward Sam to hug and kiss him. “Summer Bash has taken over town,” she said, “and everyone’s so excited. I thought I’d come offer to help.”
“Me too,” Mark said.
Amelia snorted.
Mark frowned at her. “What the hell was that?”
“Dad,” Sam said.
“No, I mean it,” Mark said, staring at Amelia. “You got something to say?”
“I sure do,” Amelia said. “I came here to give whatever I could. Time. Encouraging words. Whatever it takes. And you—”
“I what?” Mark asked, eyes narrowed.
“Coffee,” Sam said. “Clearly, we need coffee.”
“You think I didn’t come to help,” Mark said to Amelia. “You think I came to take.”
“Isn’t that your MO?” Amelia said.
“Breakfast even,” Sam tried. “From the diner—”
“Shut up, Sam,” Mark said. “The lady’s got something to say.”
“Don’t you tell him to shut up,” Amelia said.
Sam moved to step between them but Mark pointed at Amelia. “No, son, I want to hear what she thinks of me.”
“You know what I think of you,” Amelia said. “I—”
“Caffeine,” Sam said. “The hut’s got—”
“Sam, baby,” Amelia said, eyes sharp on his father, “shut up.”
Sam opened his mouth, but Mark pointed at him. “Do what she says, son.”
Christ. Sam rubbed a hand over his jaw and wondered if this is how Cole and Tanner felt dealing with his grumpy ass in the mornings. “You know, usually I’m the one snarling at people before sunrise,” he said.
This didn’t lighten the tension.
“Maybe things change,” Mark said to Amelia. “Maybe people change.”
The words hit Sam. They were close to what Becca had said to him. He stared at his father. “What did you just say?”
“Maybe it’s not just my liver I’m working on healing,” Mark said, but he was speaking directly to Amelia. “I know what I’ve got here, Am. You’ve got to trust me on that. He’s given me everything. I know it, but I’m trying to give back now. Trying to be what he needs.”
Wait a minute. “I don’t need anything,” Sam said.
“You’re wrong, son.”
“Very wrong,” Amelia agreed, but she hadn’t taken her eyes off Mark. “What is it that you think he needs?”
“Nothing,” Sam said. “I don’t need shit.”
“He needs to learn to be happy, Let people in.”
“And depend on people,” Amelia piped up.
“Becca could make him happy,” Mark said to her.
“Which brings us to love,” Amelia said.
“I didn’t do a great job there,” Mark said. “I admit it. I’m trying to remedy that.”
“I said I don’t need anything,” Sam said with a frown, but no one spoke to him. Hell, no one looked at him.
“It’s a work in progress,” Mark said to Amelia. “It’s taking time. It took time to get him this screwed up; it’s gonna take time to unscrew him.”
“Hello,” Sam said, waving his hands. “Right here. Am I invisible?”
Amelia didn’t move an inch, but there was a very slight lessening of the grim set to her mouth. “You’re starting to get it,” she said to Mark.
Mark nodded.
“I wonder if I should use my invisibility for good, or for evil,” Sam mused.
At that, it was Mark’s turn to snort.
Amelia let out a very reluctant, very small smile and hugged Sam again, hard. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “It’s all going to be okay. Assuming you don’t do anything stupid.”
“Wait—me?” Sam asked.
“You,” Mark said.
Sam pointed at them. “You’ve lost it. Both of you, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
“Like I said,” Mark muttered to Amelia. “Work in progress.” He hugged Sam, too. “I’m proud of you,” he said. “Love ya, son.”
Sam waited for the usual anger over those words, so casually uttered, to hit. It didn’t. Because suddenly the words didn’t feel so casually uttered.
He wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Cuckoo,” he repeated, and tossed his dad the keys to the warehouse. “I’m going to check on the setup. Don’t kill each other.”
Becca was already at the beach when he arrived.
She was a tyrant in white shorts and a white tank top, whistle around her neck, clipboard in hand, a visor on her head, and a militant finger pointing out where she wanted what. She’d hired high school kids to help set up, and they were carrying out the equipment she’d rented. Benches. Trash bins. Awnings.
She’d gotten the Eat Me diner to cater, and they were setting up a food tent.
Cole arrived just behind Sam and watched along with him. “She’s really something,” he said.
Just then, Becca glanced up and met Sam’s gaze from across a stretch of a hundred feet of organized chaos. He stared into those fathomless eyes and felt a piece of him that he hadn’t even known was loose settle into place. “Yes,” he agreed. “She is something.”
“Something that you’re going to get back,” Cole said. “Right?”
He’d like to say yes, but the truth was, she was a woman who believed in the words, needed the words. She deserved a man who could give them to her. “Stay out of it,” he said.
Tanner came up beside them. “Stay out of what?”
“Nothing,” Sam said.
“He’s being a pussy,” Cole said.
“What’s new about that?” Tanner asked.
Sam blew out a breath and pushed past them both.
“Where you going?” Cole asked.
“Work. You oughta try it sometime.”
“He definitely didn’t get laid last night,” Tanner said. “He’s always an asshole when he doesn’t get laid.”
Ignoring this, Sam strode out to the beach. Becca was now on top of one of the tables, messing with the umbrella over it.
It shut on her.
He was grinning even before he heard the colorful swearing from beneath the canvas. All he could see of her now was her bare feet and a bit of her shapely calves. He reached beneath the umbrella and got two good handfuls of warm, pissy woman.
She squeaked.
He let his hands slowly glide up the entire length of her
body to reopen the umbrella.
Becca turned to face him and stared down at him from her perch. “Did you really just feel me up in front of all these people?”
“It was beneath the umbrella.”
“That’s not funny.”
His smile faded at the pain on her face. “You’re right. It isn’t funny. Becca—”
“You bought me instruments?”
“I bought the kids instruments,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because watching you teach those kids music, anyone can see how much it means to you,” he said. “And knowing it makes it mean something to me.” He tried to reach her with his gaze but she was closed off to him completely. “I was in a position to help,” he said. “So I did.”
“It had to be thousands of dollars,” she said, sounding worried.
“I had it,” he said simply. “And now you have a music program.”
“But—”
“Stop.” He put a finger to her lips. “Becca, you give your time to the program. You give your heart and soul. You give everything you have. Why can’t I give what I have to give?”
She shook her head, muttered something beneath her breath that might or might not have been a well-thought-out commentary on his ability to out-stubborn even her. Then she jumped down, strode to the next table, and climbed up.
Sam followed and leapt on the table with her just as she opened the umbrella. Reaching up, he closed it around them and whipped a still-sputtering Becca to face him.
Now they were nose-to-nose, chest-to-chest, thigh-to-thigh, pressed tight together inside the umbrella like a banana in its peel.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
“Helping.”
“I don’t need your help. And FYI—people I fall in love with who don’t love me back don’t get to cop feels, beneath an umbrella or not.”
“Let’s talk about that,” he said.
She stared at him incredulously. “You have five hundred people pouring onto this beach today. I’ve got a list of stuff to do a mile long, and—”
“I’ve had the words all my life,” he said quietly. “It was always I love ya, Sam, go get me my booze. Or I love ya, Sam, get lost for a few hours, will you? Or I love ya, Sam, where’s that money you got from Grandma for your birthday, Dad needs a little loan.”
Becca let out a long, shuddery breath and put her hands on his chest, her eyes not so closed off to him now. “Sam—”
“I’m sorry for how I reacted,” he said. “I was a total asshole. I—”
“Ms. Teacher?” came a little girl’s voice somewhere near their feet. “Is that you?”
Becca’s eyes flew open, and she stared at Sam wide-eyed. “Pink?” she called out.
“Yes, ma’am. You sure have pretty toenail polish. My daddy just brought me here, along with some of the other girls. The boys are coming soon, too. We’re gonna play the games you talked about. Who’s that with you? It’s a boy. I can tell ’cause he’s got hair on his legs, and his toenails aren’t painted.”
Becca tried to jump down, but Sam held on to her. She gave him a long look. “It’s my. . .” She hesitated. Narrowed her eyes at Sam. “Boss.”
“The drummer?”
Sam grinned at Becca, who rolled her eyes. “Yes. The drum player.”
“Whatcha doing in there?” Pink wanted to know. “Kissing?”
“No.”
“Are you gonna kiss?”
“No! We’re just—”
“We’re totally gonna kiss,” Sam whispered in her ear.
Becca gave him another long look, but as they were sandwiched together, he didn’t miss her shiver. And it wasn’t because she was cold.
“—Setting up the umbrellas,” she said to Pink. “I’ll be right there.” Then she shook her head at Sam. “We’re not going to kiss.”
“Gonna eat those words, babe.”
She didn’t smile at him, or soften in any way.
His fault. He wasn’t done fixing this with her, not by a long shot. He skimmed his hand up her back and into her hair. “You threw me the other day,” he admitted.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said. “The words, they just sort of came out. But I felt it, Sam,” she said, the pain in her voice tearing his guts out. “I meant it.”
“Becca—”
“No. I need you to hear this,” she said. “I was touching you, looking at you, and thinking, All I ever want is to feel like this, surrounded by you, consumed by you, warmed from the inside out by you.” She punctuated each word with a finger poke to his chest. “I’ve never felt that way before, and I thought, I honestly believed, you felt the same.” She dropped her hand. “And looking back, I can’t even say I regret letting you know. I still believe you felt it, too, I saw it in your eyes. I still believe that you’d have gotten there, that you’d have said it to me, too, eventually.”
Sam closed his eyes until he felt her body go still and then opened them again to see a look of defeat on her face.
“You were never going to get there,” she said flatly. “You were never going to say it.”
Chapter 29
Heart pounding, eyes stinging, Becca started to climb down off the table, but Sam caught her. He wrapped one arm low on her back to hold her against him, the other tilting her jaw.
She did her best not to be moved by his proximity, and failed spectacularly.
“It’s true,” Sam admitted. “I never intended to say the words.”
Oh, God. Face burning with humiliation, she began to struggle in earnest, knowing only that she had to get away.
Between them a phone began vibrating. Hers. She slapped a hand down to it, hitting IGNORE. The moment she did, Sam’s phone began ringing. He hit IGNORE, too. “Becca—”
“I let you in,” she said. “All the way in. I told you everything, things I’ve never told anyone, and you held back. You kept yourself distant—God forbid anyone walk into the Man Cave.”
“You didn’t walk in,” he said. “You blasted your way in.”
“Well, I’d have waited to be invited, but I’d still be waiting!” She drew a breath with what appeared to be great difficulty. “And you telling me to stop living in the past is