Sharon Swan - Husband In Harmony

“I’m Sam,” the child replied after a beat, and placed his hand in hers for a brief handshake. Although his hair was shades lighter than Adam’s, his gray eyes were a duplicate of the man who had fathered him. “I already met your skunk. I heard she lost her stinker.”

Jane nodded. “That’s right. Only thing to smell around here is the pines.” And a whiff of men’s cologne, she added to herself. The fancy suit might be gone, but he still wore an expensive sandalwood scent. Taking a short step back, she studied the two males staring at her. “I’ve got your cabin all ready for you.”

“I never stayed in a cabin before,” Sam confided.

And he didn’t seem too happy about staying in one now, Jane noted. She didn’t miss the fact that his jeans were as brand-new as his father’s. They’d probably gone on a hasty shopping trip to get ready for their visit to Glory Ridge.

Why, she had to ask herself one more time, had Adam decided to bring his son here? Again no ready answer came to mind. Yet, whatever his reasons, they’d arrived as promised—which suited her purposes, Jane reminded herself. So there was no sense wasting time puzzling about it.

“Staying in a cabin could be fun,” she told Sam. “You can pretend you’re back in an earlier time.”

Sam’s mouth drooped at the corners. “They didn’t have any rockets or spaceships back then.” And rockets and spaceships were what fired this boy’s imagination. Both his expression and the colorful images on his Star Wars T-shirt testified to that.

“Well, let’s get unpacked,” Adam said, his deep voice underscored with resignation, as though he believed Jane was fighting a losing battle in trying to put an upbeat slant on the situation.

Abandoning her effort, she followed them out the door. She smiled wryly when her gaze landed on the car parked in the lot. “No sleek black sports model today, hmm?” she murmured to Adam as Sam headed down the porch steps.

“I thought it would be smarter to rent something else. Besides, there wasn’t room for our luggage and the rest of the stuff I had to bring.”

She recalled yesterday’s phone conversation, during which she’d reminded him that he’d have to provide for his personal needs while he was at the resort. Glory Ridge had plenty of sporting equipment for guests to use, but… “I hope you remembered that meals aren’t a part of the deal.”

He looked down at her. “I brought some food to cook—don’t worry.”

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Can you cook?” She’d willingly bet that this man had grown up with a housekeeper to fix the family meals.

“I get by,” he told her. And that was all he said before he started for his car.

Jane shrugged. Whether he could cook was hardly her concern. “I’d be glad to give you a hand getting settled in,” she offered, as she would to any guest.

Adam kept on moving. “Okay,” he said, tossing the word over his shoulder. At the moment, he had to admit he was far from sure how he felt about Glory Ridge’s owner. He knew she was amused by the fact that surroundings so familiar to her were strange to him—just as she had been on the day they’d met. But he also knew that she’d attempted to make his son welcome, so he supposed he’d try not to let her amusement annoy him.

Besides, he thought with satisfaction, once they got down to business, his considerable experience in dealing with a world mostly foreign to her would display his talents. Even if he couldn’t pull off a miracle with Glory Ridge, he’d at least show her a thing or two.

Adam opened the hatchback trunk and pulled out two suitcases, plus twin canvas backpacks, the store tags still on. He handed the backpacks to Sam, then pushed aside two paper shopping bags filled with food and hefted a large cooler into his arms. “If you’ll take the grocery bags,” he told Jane, “I’ll come back for the suitcases.”

“I can take the suitcases,” she told him.

“They’re heavy,” he said. “Leave them for me to handle.”

She planted her hands on slender hips once again covered by battered blue denim and met his gaze. “I can handle them, trust me. I’m stronger—a lot stronger—than I look.”

“Well, nature usually favoring the male of the species,” he said with undeniable relish, “I’m even stronger than you are, so leave the suitcases for me.” With that, he stared her down until she retrieved the grocery bags and started up the gravel path to the cabins, Sam following a step behind.

Feeling better at having won that last round, Adam brought up the rear. Even his new boots felt better, he acknowledged with the beginnings of a smile. But that faint smile disappeared as he approached the cabin and got another look at the place where he and his son would be sleeping, bathing and eating.

Although he hadn’t gone into details earlier, he did know how to cook. In fact, since his divorce and return to single status, he’d become a man who could hold his own in the kitchen. Trouble was, none of his specialties—acclaimed by his occasional dinner guests—seemed to tempt the taste buds of a growing boy, so he and Sam usually went out to eat or brought something in.

Not that he was feeling guilty about his failure to produce homemade meals to meet his son’s tastes. Sam probably didn’t get much homemade fare back in Boston, either. Ariel had certainly never been keen on doing much cooking.

Adam blew out a breath. No, he wouldn’t feel guilty. He just wished they stood a chance of getting a pizza delivered out here every now and then—and knew they didn’t.

“Why is that old sign nailed over the door?” Sam asked.

“Because Squirrel Hollow is the name of this cabin,” Jane explained. “It’s been called that from the day it was first built.”

Sam conducted a short study and shook his head sadly. “That must’ve been a long time ago.”

“Yes,” she acknowledged mildly. “Want to get the screen door? Your father and I sort of have our hands full.”

Silent now, Sam slowly climbed the steps, as though headed toward a harsh fate. He held the screen door ajar, then stood back as Adam and Jane entered.

“I left the other door and the windows open to air the place out,” she said.

Adam could hardly argue the wisdom of that plan, or that the breeze drifting through the place felt good, especially after leaving the hot desert regions to the south. “You can put the backpacks on one of the chairs by the fireplace,” he said to Sam. Then he strode to the kitchen area adjoining the living room and set the cooler on the tiled counter.

“I can start unloading the groceries if you want to show Sam the rest of the place,” Jane suggested.

“All right.” Adam brushed his palms on his Levi’s. “Let’s check it out,” he told his son, and walked beside the boy toward the back of the cabin.

“This is where I’ll be sleeping,” he said as they poked their heads into the bigger of the two bedrooms. There a sturdy pine bed and small nightstand shared space with a mirror-topped dresser, also made of rough-hewn pine, that stood midway between a single bare window and a narrow closet.

“And this will be your room,” he added moments later as they inspected the second bedroom, slightly smaller than the first. It, too, had a pine dresser, and a bunk bed with a short ladder propped against it to reach the upper bunk.

“You get to decide whether to sleep on the top or bottom.” Once again Adam tried for an enthusiastic tone, but his effort fell flat, met by a strained silence.

Finally, Sam walked in, dragging his feet every step of the way, and tossed his camera on the plaid wool blanket covering the lower bunk. “I’ll take this one, I guess.”

“Good.” Adam felt a stab of sympathy, but steeled himself against giving in to it. He wasn’t any fonder of his sleeping accommodations, but he and Sam would get through this, he assured himself, and with any luck at all become closer in the process.

God, he had to hope that would happen.

“I know it’s not what you’re used to,” he went on with determination, “but this cabin could be considered a part of the history of this area. You might want to take some pictures of the place later.”

The swift roll of Sam’s eyes said, You’ve got to be kidding! as clearly as if he’d spoken the words.

Adam let the subject drop with a slight shrug and turned from the doorway. “The bathroom’s down this way.”

It took them less than a minute to view the old sink, toilet and tub. They returned to the kitchen and found Jane still emptying a tall grocery bag. “I put the cereal, bread and canned stuff in the cabinet by the stove,” she said. “Candy bars are in the top drawer next to the refrigerator.”

“I could use a candy bar,” Sam mumbled with a sidelong glance up at his father.

“You can have one,” Adam said. At least, he reflected with more than a little irony, his son hadn’t lost his appetite.

Sam made his choice and took a seat at the square, Formica-topped table. He stared out a side window at a high wall of deep green forest and seemed to get lost in his thoughts.

Jane continued with her project. After pulling out a long, narrow box, she squinted at the label. “This looks like spaghetti, but I’ve never seen this brand before.”

“It’s imported from Italy,” Adam explained.

“Oh.” Her lips quirked. “Should have known.”

There was no reason for that comment to put his teeth on edge, Adam told himself as he opened the cooler and hauled out a gallon of milk and a six-pack of the cola Sam favored. He set a short supply of the bottled spring water he liked on the counter, then reached in and retrieved one of the bottles of wine he’d removed from a chrome rack in his large, modern kitchen that morning.

Jane’s gaze landed on the wine as she folded the now-empty grocery bag. “I guess that’s imported, too, huh?”

“Yes.” The word came out more clipped than he’d intended. He gave himself a second to regroup, then asked, oh-so-casually, “Do you like wine?”

She met his eyes. “When I’m in the mood for alcohol, I mostly drink beer—and not the imported kind.”

Of course she would. And so would many of the people who had occupied this cabin before him, Adam imagined. Well, he was different. And he wasn’t going to apologize for it.

“To each his own,” he said.

“Mmm-hmm.” She turned, reached into the remaining grocery bag and began to stack salad fixings on the counter. “I think you forgot the lettuce,” she remarked after a moment.

“There’s lettuce.” Adam set down another bottle of wine and pointed to a leafy green bundle. “That’s romaine.”

“Oh, a fancy lettuce.”

Jane didn’t roll her eyes as his son had earlier, but Adam had little doubt she wanted to. That threatened to put his teeth on edge for a second time. “I can handle the rest of the groceries,” he told her.

“Okay.” She stepped away from the counter and looked at Sam. “Bye for now,” she said with a friendly smile that became merely polite as she returned her gaze to Adam. “You can get settled in the office whenever it suits you.” She pulled two keys from a jeans pocket and handed them over. “One’s for this cabin. The other’s for the office if I’m not around.”

He dropped them into one of the front pockets of his new shirt. “I’ll show Sam the rest of the resort before I fix dinner. I may get a chance to set up at the office later tonight.”

Jane nodded. “If you need anything that I haven’t thought of, my cabin’s not far away. Just start walking toward the lake and take a left when you come to a small fork in the path. The place is hard to see through the trees, but it’s easy enough to find when you know it’s there.”