A Better Father (Harlequin Super Romance) (13 page)

Live the goal, Catalano.

“You okay?” His voice came out a lot huskier than he’d
expected. Her shiver ran through him.

“Libby?”

“Fine. Perfect. No problem.”

Right. No problem for him, either. Except he was having the
damnedest time remembering what he was supposed to be doing, or why all these
people were gathered around. Or anything, really, except he was holding Libby
again, and she was warm in his arms, and nothing had felt so right in a long,
long time.

“How about you?” she asked, and there was a strain to her voice
that he would swear hadn’t been there before.

“How about me what?”

“Are you okay?”

“Absolutely. Hunky-dory. Never better.” Other than not being
able to breathe, of course.

“Then should we give this a shot?”

Hell, yeah. That was the best thing he’d heard in—

Oh. Right. She was talking about archery.

His arms tightened around her. She sucked in a breath, and it
was as if the air went straight into him, knocking him off-kilter.

“Come on, already.” It was Mick. “Shoot or something.”

Sam’s body voted for the
or
something
option, but his brain reminded him that he’d better start
thinking about archery. Fast.

“Here’s part of the problem. You have your arrow upside down.
See these?” He pointed to a trio of plastic feathers, two green, one red, that
circled the shaft.

She nodded.

“They’re called fletchings. Keep the red one pointing down
toward the ground. Then you fit the bowstring into this little notch on the
arrow—” he guided her fingers over the arrow, the string, but all he felt was
his skin against hers and the heat shimmering off her “—and then raise it to
your shoulder. You ready?”

“Ready,” she breathed.

He lifted the bow to her shoulder. His arm brushed the side of
her breast on the way past. She flinched. He jerked back, both from the
unexpected contact and the spark coursing through him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Let’s just shoot this sucker and get out of here.”

“Right. Uh, pull back on the bow, more, more, extend that
arm...tuck your fist in so it brushes against your ear...not so close, you’ll
hurt yourself...looks good, how does it feel?”

She cleared her throat. “I think I’m ready.”

That made two of them.

“Trust yourself,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t pick up on his
own uncertainty. “I’ll help you hold position while you line up with the target,
okay? Move slowly, attagirl. Just like that.”

Her tight nod sent her braid brushing against his chest. He
closed his eyes and let himself simply breathe for a second.

“I think I’ve got it,” she whispered.

“Okay, on three we let go. One...two...three!”

They released the arrow together. It soared through the air,
aiming for the ground. Sam sucked in a fast breath. If it tanked now...

As if it heard his request, the arrow stayed on course, rising
as it flew nearer to the bale of hay.

“Come on,” Libby whispered.

“Come on, come on,” Sam coaxed, squinting to follow the
movement, pushing the arrow with his will.

Thwack!
The arrow kissed the edge
of the paper target.

The kids broke into cheers. Libby leaped into the air. The bow
fell to the ground as she jumped round to face him, her arms upraised. Laughing
and shouting, Sam threw his arms open to gather her in—

Only to see the joy drain from her face, replaced by confusion
and something that looked a hell of a lot like fear.

It was like watching a window close over her eyes.

“Looks like you owe me some paperwork, Catalano.” She gave him
an exaggerated wink, no doubt for the benefit of the crowd. “But because you
helped me out, we’ll split the difference and I’ll go talk to the big bad
cook.”

With a finger wave to their audience, she gathered her
equipment and headed off, leaving Sam alone and bewildered as he watched her
walk away.

* * *

S
HE
HAD
TO
GET
OUT
OF
HERE
.

Libby took advantage of the cheers and excitement to duck away
from Sam and make a fast exit from the archery field. She replaced her equipment
and hiked up the hill toward the office, but before she hit the steps she
remembered that Sam would be there soon for his phone-and-filing shift. There
was no way that she was ready to spend an hour alone in the office with him. Not
yet.

Damn the man!

She took a hard right and quickstepped to the staff parking
lot, scowling at the sight of his sporty silver hatchback with the PUCKY ME
license plates. He was everywhere. Even when he wasn’t physically present he was
still there. It had been the same on the archery field. He stepped up to do his
good-guy hero act, and he reached around her, surrounded her, and try as she
might, she still couldn’t erase the feeling of his chest against her back, his
arms sliding along the length of hers. And when his hand had grazed the side of
her breast—

She stopped beside her sensible little compact and pressed her
hands to her cheeks. She needed space. She needed perspective.

She needed a new job.

CHAPTER TEN

S
AM
FINALLY
CRACKED
midway through the
second week.

He’d been a model counselor/owner/trainee to that point. He
supervised his campers. When he dropped them at activity areas, he hightailed it
to the office to see what tricks of the trade Libby was waiting to teach him
while forcing himself to block out the memory of her in his arms. He mopped
latrines. He sang songs. He patted homesick backs and called parents and jollied
Cosmo and filed report after report after report.

In his spare time he talked to lawyers and finished unpacking
and hung with his kid. He was busier than he had ever been in his life, and he
loved every minute of it. Even when Libby was bossing him around. Even when she
juggled everyone and everything so effortlessly, even Casey, that he would have
felt inadequate if she hadn’t gone out of her way to make sure he was
learning.

She might not be in a classroom, but she was still a hell of a
teacher.

Nonetheless, he wasn’t so dedicated that he was going to miss
out on a golden chance that fell into his lap on the third day straight of hazy,
hot and humid. Casey was napping, no one had any urgent needs, and for once,
Libby hadn’t given him a list of chores to do while his kids were occupied. So
when it came time to lead his crew to the beach for swim time, he was only too
glad to grab his suit and jump in with them.

From his first dive into the mercifully cool waters, he knew it
was his best choice of the day. He paddled around while the lifeguards buddied
up the kids, then started a game of Marco Polo. He was still splashing and
shouting when he felt an unexpected tap on his shoulder.

Whirling in the water, he came face to face with Mick Blasting,
also known as The Camper Most Likely to Give a Leader a Heart Attack.

“Hey, Mick, what’s up?”

“I have to tell you something.” Mick paused to push long red
bangs from his eyes. “But you have to promise I won’t get in trouble.”

“Try me.” Keeping a straight face would be a chore.

“I heard that somebody carved swearwords on the bottom of the
dive raft.”

“Oh, you
heard
that, did you?” Sam
let his feet settle on the muddy bottom of the river as he turned to check out
the raft. Ancient and wooden, topped with faded green indoor-outdoor carpeting,
it bobbed just beyond the roped-off swim area and was officially reserved for
the counselors. But for at least as far back as Sam’s days, troublemakers had
taken great pleasure in swimming out to hide in the open space where the oil
drum floats raised it above the water. The fact that this practice was strictly
forbidden made it all the more attractive.

“I didn’t go out there myself. Really.” Mick’s eyes were far
too wide to be convincing.

“No problem, buddy. I believe you.”
Not.
Sam was pretty sure he was swimming into an ambush. But since
he’d been in the water the whole time the kids had been there, he doubted there
had been time for anyone to rig a booby trap. And if there truly was something
under there, it was better found by him than a kid.

“I’m going to take a look,” he said. “Make sure no one follows
me.”

With a deep breath, he dived beneath the line of buoys marking
the swim area and struck out for the raft. He hoped this wouldn’t take long. The
raft was tethered by a chain to a large, flat rock, so even though it was in
deep water, it was possible to stand on the stone and rest. But the last time he
hid under the raft, twelve years ago, he’d been with Libby. Resting had been the
last thing on their minds.

One final dive and he was under. When his feet grazed the
pebbly surface of the rock, he knew he was in position. He surfaced slowly.
Exhaled.

And almost lost his footing when he came face-to-face with a
wide-eyed Libby hiding in the shadows, staring at him with her hands over her
mouth as if to hold back a scream.

“Of all the— What the hell are you doing under here?” he
whispered.

“Well, I’m certainly not doing my nails.”

He bit back an unexpected laugh. The last thing they needed was
to draw attention to themselves.

“What are
you
doing here?”

“Mick sent me. Some story about swearwords carved in the
wood.”

There was just enough light for him to see her eyes roll as she
groaned.

“He saw me coming out here. Waved at me and everything.”

“Then why didn’t I see you?”

“Because you were facing the other way, splashing like a
hyperactive seal.”

He spared a moment to feel insulted, then decided not to
bother. The situation was lending itself to far too many other thoughts to waste
brain space on any but the most pressing—such as fighting back memories of how
it had felt to hold her against him on the archery field, or wishing for a bit
more space under the raft. He could see her head and a couple of inches of
creamy neck, but that was all.

“You never told me why you’re hiding out under here.”

“How very observant of you.”

He looked her over again, more closely this time, lingering
over the bits of skin he could see. Maybe it was just the shadows, but for the
life of him, he didn’t see anything that resembled bathing-suit straps.

He grinned. “You’re skinny-dipping.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

Unfortunately, that seemed to be the case, especially when his
overactive imagination filled in the blanks conjured up by the words
Libby
and
skinny-dipping.
It was a darned good thing he was submerged. “Prove it.”

She fished around in the water and tugged a thin strap above
the surface. “See? Bathing suit.”

“Looks mighty skimpy to me. You sure that’s not string from the
raft?”

“No, it’s not, and speaking of the raft, why don’t you go up
there and leave me alone? Or go tell Mick that his joke wasn’t very funny.”

“Nah, I’d rather stay down here. You’re sure that wasn’t a
piece of twine?”

“Positive.” She raised her hands from the water and inspected
them. “Hmmm. Pruney. Maybe
I’ll
go up on the
raft.”

“Sure. Because you know, it’s mighty dark under here. You could
be holding up anything and I couldn’t tell what it was.”

“For heaven’s sake, Sam, I just said I’d go up top. Would I do
that if I was skinny-dipping?”

No, she wouldn’t. But he wasn’t sure if he was ready to see
long, leggy Libby stretched out on the raft—or to imagine her lying above him
while he dog-paddled below.

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“Prove that’s really your bathing suit.”

“No!”

But when he swam closer to her, she didn’t shy away. When he
held out his palm, reaching for the fabric, she swallowed, but slipped her hand
under the water.

She tugged the strap above the surface. He reached. His finger
slipped under the thin cord, marveling that such a skinny little thing could
hold up breasts that held such a large place in his imagination.

She gulped. “How is Casey—”

“Shh.”

The sound of breathing—his? hers?—echoed in the enclosed space.
Her eyes glistened in the dim light. He smelled water and wood and something
hauntingly Libby, that made him run his finger higher up the minuscule strap. He
moved in closer and ran his other finger along the line of her jaw and bent—

She gasped. Jerked back. And then went very, very still.

“Libby?”

“Turn around.”

“But what—”

“Turn
around,
” and then he saw the
hunch of her shoulders, saw a scrap of thin cord floating on the water and
understood.

He stepped back on the rock, as much to keep her from seeing
his grin as to honor her request. He doubted Libby would be too pleased if she
saw his delight at the thought of her unbound.

“Jeez, Lib, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do anything.” At least,
not that.

“It’s an old suit. I should have known better, but it’s my
favorite.
Was
my favorite, I mean.”

“Did it, like, break, or just come unfastened, or what?”

“I can’t tell. It’s too hard to see.”

“I don’t suppose I could—”

“No!”

He stared up through the cracks in the raft, squinting at the
stripes of sunlight leaking through. “You can’t stay here forever.”

“Yes, I can.”

“There’s going to be kids out there for another twenty minutes.
You’ll have to come out eventually.”

“I think I can— Ow!” A hollow clang echoed around him.

He spun around. “What happened?”

“I bumped my elbow on the oil drum. Turn around.”

He bit back his instinctive offer to kiss it and make it
better. “Lib, there’s not much room to maneuver here, especially when you can’t
see what you’re doing. Let me help.”

“I told you to turn around.”

He sighed and rotated. “Want me to go get one of the
girls?”

“And have everyone know we were under here together? No,
thanks.”

He bit his tongue to keep from reminding her it had been one of
the kids that had sent him over, fully knowing she was there. By this point they
had probably organized a pool as to who would come out first and whether or not
they looked happy.

“Let me help, Lib. I won’t do anything, I promise.”

Silence.

“Libby? You don’t have a lot of choices here, babe.”

He heard a sigh, then a soft splash. “Give me a minute. I just
need to— You promise you won’t make me regret this?”

“Scouts’ honor.”

“You were never a Scout.”

“True, but it sounds better than hockey-guy honor.”

At that she laughed, the sound wrapping around him and spinning
him back to the days when Libby and laughter were synonymous in his mind. When
he turned to face her she was still smiling. It suited her. There was no hint of
the tense look he’d seen on her at other times, like when she was planning
schedules, or the sadness he’d seen sometimes when she stopped at the top of the
hill to look out over the camp. This was Libby the way she was meant to be,
confident and strong despite the desperate way she clung to the top of her
bathing suit.

Better yet, with her hair wet and slicked back, she didn’t look
a bit like Robin. Libby’s face was longer, the bones stronger. The similarities
he’d seen were strictly coloring and posture. That had to be it.

“Ready?” he asked.

She nodded and started to move on the slippery rock, but with
her hands occupied it was too painful to watch.

“Stay there.” He paddled slowly to her back, close enough to
reach but not to scare her off. He couldn’t blow this.

“Do you see the ends?” she asked.

He squinted in the dim light. “I see something. Can you hand
them back to me, or should I reach over your shoulders for them?”

He saw her hands move, then stop. “You’d better do it.”

He could do this. Sam pulled himself closer, muttered a “sorry”
when he bumped against her bottom, tried to hold himself away from her while
peering over her shoulders for the loose bits of fabric.

“Okay, I see one. Hold on.” He reached over her right shoulder
and down, congratulating himself when he plucked the scrap from the water
without touching her. He pulled it up and rested it against the naked skin at
her neck.

“Hope it doesn’t slip.” He moved to the left side. “Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“I don’t see this one. Is it under your, um—” he gulped at the
thought of the possible locations “—your hand?”

When she bent her head to check, the skin at her nape called to
him. It was all he could do to keep his hands under the water instead of
reaching to caress, to stay upright instead of bending to press his lips against
that inviting bit of softness.

He had faced down the most aggressive defensemen in the NHL.
He’d looked into the eyes of players who had made it their mission to stop him
in his tracks, even if that meant colliding with him at top speeds and/or
throwing him against unforgiving boards. But none of those experiences had
tested his resolve like the sight of Libby’s bowed neck.

“It’s stuck. I’ll have to, um... Close your eyes,” she
said.

He closed them. But that didn’t stop him from picturing the
length of cord sheltered in the hollow between her breasts, from imagining how
it would feel to slide his hand down there in search of the elusive string
and...

Oh, jeez. He was in big, big trouble.

“Here it is.” Her words yanked him from his reverie. On the off
chance that she was a mind reader, he clapped his would-be-wayward hands to his
side, only to pull them back up when he slipped on the rock and started to go
under.

“How are you doing?” He took the glorified string in his palm,
certain he could feel the warmth from her body flowing through it. “Getting
tired?”

“Fine. How about you?”

“Wrinkled, but okay. Give me a second and— Wait, I lost it—hang
on, I think I— Damn!”

The string slipped back over her shoulder. He started to grab
it, realized his hand was way too close to a no-touch zone, jerked back and
slipped off the rock. Water raced into his open mouth and closed over his head.
He came up coughing and sputtering, but still able to hear Libby’s giggles.

“Go ahead and laugh,” he said darkly when he was able to speak.
“You’ll get yours.”

“Ooh, I’m scared.” Another snicker burst free. Either he or she
had shifted so they were facing each other again. There was just enough sunlight
striping through the boards for him to see that she now clutched her suit with
one hand while the other stretched behind her neck, probably holding both ends
of her strap in place.

A practical move, to be sure. She couldn’t know that, despite
the water that reached to her collarbones, the pose rendered her more alluring
than anything he’d ever seen on a locker-room calendar.