clutching the jeans in her arms, Andrea stiffened. With her back to the door, she could only hope Sam hadn’t witnessed her foolishness, hadn’t heard her declaration.
Glancing over her shoulder, she thankfully found his eyes focused on the open cedar chest, not her. He strolled over with hands in his pockets, then hovered above her like some dark, imposing monument to sheer male beauty.
He nodded toward the jersey laid out on top of the other items. “I remember Paul wearing that often.”
Andi tossed the jeans aside and shifted to where she could get a better look at Sam, his reaction. He hid his emotions behind that steel facade, those impenetrable eyes. Tearing her gaze away, she leaned forward again and produced another keepsake. “Do you remember this?”
Sam crouched beside her and took the baseball from her grasp, turning it over and over with his strong fingers. His expression mellowed with remembrance. “I recall this very well. My first major league game. Cleveland Indians. In April, the year Paul and I met.”
“And Paul caught the ball after a two-run homer.”
Sam grinned. “The ball rolled from two rows above us and landed at his feet. It was a foul, not a home run. Paul thought the other story sounded more favorable.”
Andi laughed. “That was just like him, making up something that sounded more exciting.”
“Yes. Exactly like him.” Sam’s tone turned weary and so did his eyes.
When he tried to hand the ball back to her, she said, “Keep it.”
“I could not—”
“He’d want you to have it, Sam. Besides, you two didn’t bother to take me along, so why would I want it?”
His smile reappeared. “We did not take you because Paul worried that you would distract me from the game.”
“He did not!”
“Perhaps he was not worried, but I was, the reason I didn’t encourage your attendance.”
Andi’s face flushed hot as a summer sidewalk. “Always the charmer,” she murmured.
“It’s the truth, Andrea. You were very distracting. You still are.”
Determined to move away from that topic, Andi patted the wooden floor next to her. “Have a seat. There’s something else I need to give you.”
Sam joined her on the floor, his long legs crossed the same as hers, and set the ball beside him. Andi reached into the corner of the chest and found the present in the same place she’d left it years before. The newspaper was yellowed, the blue bow tied around it somewhat flat. Tucked underneath the ribbon was an envelope that read “Sam, The Man.”
She offered it to him. “It’s Paul’s graduation gift to you. I found it in his room when we were converting it to Chance’s nursery.”
Sam took it from her and placed the present in his lap. Andi noticed a slight tremor in his fingers when he slit open the envelope and withdrew the card. While he read to himself, his expression took on a pain so intense it stole Andi’s breath.
“What does it say?” she asked.
He handed her the card and she, too, read in silence.
Hey, Sam. Just a little something for you to take back home. I’d send Andi with you, but she’d just give you grief. So I’m keeping her here for the time being, unless you decide to come back and take her off my hands. Seriously, if anything should happen to me, take care of her. She deserves to be happy.
Remember me.
Your bud, Paul
Tears burned Andi’s eyes. Her throat ached and her chest contracted with the sorrow that she’d kept at bay for more days than she could count.
“He knew,” she said, her voice shaking with the effort to hold back the threatening tide of emotions.
“Knew what?”
She raised her eyes from the card to Sam. “When we were cleaning out his things, we also found two Christmas presents, one for me and one for Tess. Paul never shopped until Christmas Eve. I think he knew what was going to happen.”
Sam sighed. “Andrea, I refuse to believe that Paul would drink himself to death, take his own life.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Tess calls it ‘angels’ intuition.’ The ability to know your fate.”
“And you believe this?”
“I think anything’s possible.” Or she had at one time.
Andi glanced at the unopened package still resting in his lap. “Are you going to see what’s inside?”
He carefully tore away the paper, revealing a framed photo that Tess had taken of Andi standing between Sam and Paul, arms wrapped around each other’s waists, all three sporting bright grins on their dirt-spattered faces, the result of a mud-slinging contest after the boys had dumped Andi in the trough.
They all looked so happy, carefree. If only they’d known what the future held. If only they’d played a little longer, clung to each other a little tighter, told each other what they were feeling inside…
Andi could no longer hold back the tears. They fell at will, rolled down her cheeks and onto her T-shirt. Sam wrapped his strong arms around her, absorbing her sobs against his solid chest. He rocked her back and forth as she had rocked his son so many nights. She didn’t want to need his consolation, his strength, but she did. She needed him, more than she should.
Tipping her face up, Andi brushed a kiss across his jaw, knowing that he could very well refuse this kind of comfort. But the possible benefit outweighed the probable rejection. Yet he didn’t push her away. Instead, he cupped her face in his palms and kissed her. All the sadness melted away and desire took its place, as it had before.
Oh, how she remembered this, his gentle persuasion, the soft glide of his tongue, the velvet feel of his lips, his extraordinary skill. Those memories had served her well. No one had kissed her this way before or since. No one.
Sam abruptly broke the kiss, pushed away from her and stood. “I apologize,” he said, sounding like the prince, not the man.
Andi felt angry, ashamed, weak. She lowered her eyes to the discarded photo and card, reminders that the kiss had come about from Sam’s need to provide comfort and perhaps receive some comfort in return, not his need for her. From grief, not from desire. Although they were in a dusty attic, not stretched out by a pond, history seemed intent on repeating itself.
“This cannot happen again, Andrea,” he stated, then quickly left the room without the jeans, Paul’s gift or the baseball. Left Andi alone to mull over what to do about Samir Yaman.
She agreed it shouldn’t happen again if she wanted to protect her heart, even if she still wanted him, and she did. Regardless, she had to accept that he was here, at least for the time being, and she needed to deal with it.
Andi gathered the jeans
