done it before?” she asked in surprise.
“No, but how hard can it be?”
The man didn’t know what he was in for. “He still sometimes spits up a bit when he burps.”
“So put a towel on my shoulder,” Sam said nonchalantly. “That is what you do, isn’t it?”
Erin nodded and rose, getting a small towel from a kitchen drawer and giving it to him. He laid it over his shoulder and then held his hands out for Riley, who happily went into the arms of the stranger.
She was unable to tear her gaze from her baby in this man’s embrace. “He’ll be more comfortable if you hold him like so.” She guided one of Sam’s arms under Riley’s diapered bottom. “And if you rub his back with your other hand, holding him against you.”
Sam did as she suggested. It looked wrong, and yet right at the same time, and it reminded her that Riley had missed out on a lot of male contact with his father gone. But should he be getting that contact with Sam Thornton? She didn’t even know the man, yet somehow she instinctively felt she could trust him. When Riley belched, Sam’s face took on a look of pride that made her laugh out loud. You’d have thought it was Sam himself who’d created the hearty sound.
“Wow, the boy can burp,” he said, still gently rubbing the baby’s back.
“And that’s not all,” Erin said, a smile still wreathing her face. “You should see what he does at the other end.”
A look of horror passed over Sam’s features. “I can just imagine. Here, do you want him back?”
“No, I’ll finish getting our meal together. You can put him back in his rocker if you don’t want to keep holding him.”
“Is it safe?” Sam said, looking at the rocker.
“Sure, and it’s a huge help. Short of having him strapped to me during his waking hours, it’s a great way for him to be a bit independent of me and still see what I’m doing around the place.”
“It’s okay,” he said, “I’ll hold him until we’re ready to eat.”
Erin grabbed a second place setting and laid the kitchen table for the two of them. Even with Riley there, it felt strangely intimate to be laying the table for two. The last time she’d done this it had been several months ago, while James was still well enough to leave his bed and come to the kitchen. She pushed the memories aside. She didn’t want to go there right now. She had more than enough to think about.
Sam held the tiny body in his arms and fought to swallow past the lump in his throat. As hard as it was to believe, he could actually be holding his son. Every instinct in his body wanted to hold this child to him and protect him from the ravages of the world, but he had no right to do that until he knew for certain that Riley was his.
He watched Erin as she competently moved through the kitchen, transforming a bare table to a convivial setting with effortless ease. The aroma of the dish she’d removed from the oven to stand on a trivet on the table spoke volumes to her ability as a cook. Even now, his mouth was watering. It all seemed to come so easily to her and reminded him uncomfortably of how natural she’d been with Riley when he’d entered the kitchen, following the sounds of the baby’s cries.
Seeing the baby at her breast had brought home a whole new range of emotions. Erin offered sustenance to her son from her own body. It was perfectly natural, and yet he’d never even stopped to think about the baby’s level of dependence upon her as his mother. He wondered if Laura would have been the same—if she’d have nursed their child. They’d never even taken their discussions that far. Instead, their focus had just been on the business of getting pregnant. That focus had been consuming to the point of excluding almost everything else.
Guilt swamped him anew, making him feel disloyal to his late wife’s memory. It seemed like a betrayal to Laura to be here, to be holding this child who might be his but not theirs. To be watching Erin Connell and not Laura. If he’d only been on time to pick Laura up for their appointment instead of insisting on attending to just one more issue that had cropped up at the office. One more issue that he’d since been forced, by his injuries, to learn to delegate. But it was far too late now. Too late for Laura and too late for the child conceived for them at the fertility center.
Even surrogacy was out of the question. As far as he knew, their viable embryos had been destroyed in the clinic failure that had resulted when several anomalies had been discovered in their business practices. Anger licked at the edges of his mind. A wasted emotion now, he knew. But, according to clinic records, one of those mistakes could mean that this child in his arms had been conceived with his sperm.
“Everything okay?”
Erin’s voice broke through his reverie, jolting him free of the pain of the past and dragging him, all too willingly, into her company and the warmth and welcome of her kitchen.
“Yeah, I’m fine. That smells great.” He nodded in the direction of the table.
“You didn’t specify any dietary requirements, so I hope this will be okay.”
She ducked her head shyly, making him realize he’d been staring at her for far longer than was probably polite. Erin took Riley from him and settled the child in his rocker, where he played and gurgled happily while they sat at the table.
“This is incredible,” Sam said as he tasted the casserole she’d ladled generously onto his plate. “Where did you train?”
“Train?”
“To cook like this.” He lifted another piece of succulent and richly flavored beef to his mouth.
She initially said nothing, just watched as he ate. For some reason, having her watch him wasn’t uncomfortable, unless you counted the state of semi-arousal he’d been in from the moment he’d arrived here.
She averted her eyes from his face and focused instead on her plate. “I’m self-taught, pretty much. Connell Lodge had a cook here when I arrived, but she preferred plain food without much seasoning. I started to experiment with a few dishes, and when she retired soon after I got here James offered me the cook’s role full-time.”
“You were staff here?” That was something that hadn’t been in the dossier his private investigator had put together for him. Mind you, the man had barely had a week to gather information about her, and at Sam’s insistence was still on a quest for more.
“Initially, yes.” A bittersweet smile crossed her face. “I was a bit of a cliché, really—marrying the boss.”
A sharp pang of envy lanced through him. Sam pushed it away ruthlessly. He had no right to feel any envy for the relationship Erin had enjoyed with her husband. He himself had been very happily married—hadn’t even so much as looked at another woman in the years he and Laura had been together, and in the aftermath of her death, he’d sworn he never would again.
Erin continued. “The rest, as they say, is history.”
“So, what brought you here in the first place?” He was keen to fill the gaps in what little he knew of her past.
“I applied for work—general house duties. It was heading into winter and one of their regulars had fallen and broken her leg, leaving them short staffed.
