A Better Father (Harlequin Super Romance) (5 page)

* * *

A
FTER
STUMBLING
THROUGH
the remainder of the day, preparing for camp,
preparing for Myra to leave and preparing to blot Sam from her mind until
absolutely necessary, Libby left work on time for the first time in forever. At
last she sat alone on the tiny back deck of the town house she had shared with
Gran. The slowly setting sun kissed her with warmth. Soothing instrumental music
sang through the open windows. She had an extralarge glass of white wine by her
hand, and her laptop propped open on the wrought iron table. With a hearty sip
of liquid fortification, she opened Google and typed in her search:
how to write a résumé.

She had said she would stay for the summer and she would. She
owed it to Myra. She owed it to the camp. But as the day went on, a lifetime of
self-preservation instincts had kicked in. She had no doubt whatsoever that Sam
would walk away. What she couldn’t predict was the timing. It was not out of the
realm of possibility that she could find herself out of a job at the end of
summer.

Rule number one in Libby’s book of survival: take care of
yourself. No one else is ever going to put you first.

If she’d ever doubted that truth, today’s events had proven it
with gift-wrapped vengeance. Not that she could blame Myra. Not really. But
still...

It hurt.

A long sip of Riesling washed down the lump in her throat and
sweetened the moistness from her eyes. This was her fault. Not Myra’s, though
she felt kind of...fragile...whenever she considered the way Myra had gone back
on her promise. Not that she’d had any choice. Myra was in a lousy position, and
Libby couldn’t blame her, not in good conscience.

No, the fault was hers and hers alone. She’d knowingly violated
rule number two. She had let herself be happy.

And just like that, her happiness had been snatched away.

She stared blankly at the screen as weariness washed through
her. She should be used to this by now. God knew she’d survived worse. From the
time her mother died when she was three, through the years when Gran did her
best but still couldn’t stay ahead of the wolves, right through to the double
whammy of Gran losing the tuition money and Sam’s slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am
abandonment. She’d lived through all of those and come out stronger, tougher,
fiercely determined to create the life she knew she wanted.

And she had done it. The diploma hanging on the wall, the town
house that had been her same address for years now, both financed by the job she
had found and made her own—all of these were proof positive that she knew how to
work her way through whatever that bitch Fate decided to throw at her next. That
she was indeed more than life had dealt her.

But how many times could one woman pull herself back up by her
bootstraps before those straps finally broke?

Then she remembered the way Sam had loomed over her while she
sat in her chair, so powerful, so damned sure of himself, and fresh anger gave
her the boost she needed to push the weariness aside. She might have been
knocked down again but she would be damned if she’d let her bootstraps break
while Sam was watching. She could do this. She would write a kick-ass résumé and
find a new job and bide her time. Save her money. And when he finally tired of
his new toy—as she knew he would—she would be ready. The minute the camp
reverted to Myra, Libby would be there, ready to turn over her life savings and
mortgage her soul to make sure it became hers. No one was going to come between
her and—

A child’s excited shout cut through her thoughts. It seemed her
neighbors were also taking advantage of the cool of the coming night. A moment
later, a toy airplane sailed over the row of spirea shrubs that divided her
backyard from the one next door, landing in the middle of her lawn.

“Mommy! My plane go Libby’s!”

Grateful for the excuse to leave her private pity party, Libby
left the shade of the deck for the fading sun of the lawn. She grabbed the plane
off the grass—oops, time to cut it again—just as three-year-old Aidan Cooper
squeezed through one of the many gaps in the row of bushes. Right behind him
came his mother, Dani, who barely had to turn sideways to follow her son’s
path.

“Hey, buddy.” Libby waved the plane in the air. “Are you
looking for this?”

“Mine!” Aidan crossed the lawn in a mix of hops, runs and
almost cartwheels. Libby held the plane just out of his reach and laughed as he
danced around her.

“I don’t know, Aidan. It’s a really nice plane. I might want to
jump on board and fly away somewhere.”

“Mine! Libby! Mine!”

“Hmm. Well, maybe I could give it back. But what are you going
to give me? I need something for fetching it for you, you know.”

Right on cue, Aidan stood on tiptoe and pursed his lips. Libby
leaned down for a sloppy wet kiss, then grabbed him around his soft waist and
held him close until he squirmed out of her embrace.

“Tank you!” he yelled over his shoulder as he zoomed across the
grass, toy in hand once more.

With a smile, Dani plucked a bit of branch from where it stuck
to the sequins of her halter top, then brushed leaves from the denim cutoffs
that barely covered her nonexistent behind.

“Sorry for barging in.” She flipped her long blond hair over
her shoulders. “We don’t usually see you this early on a weeknight this time of
year. Did you run away from camp?”

“More like the owner. Want to sit for a minute?”

“Sure.” With the supreme self-confidence of the eternally
gorgeous, Dani sauntered across the yard, cautioned her son against climbing the
trees and took the extra chair on the deck. Libby slipped into the house,
grabbed another glass and returned to the deck to pour a glass of wine for Dani,
who accepted it with a smile and a nod of thanks.

“Lord, what a day.” She sipped, then sighed with pleasure.
“End-of-the-year concerts at two schools, and a doctor’s appointment for this
one.” She nodded toward Aidan. “I just started a new job and the boss wasn’t
very happy about giving me the time, but what can you do?”

“Maybe you should try to get work as a juggler. It sounds like
you’re getting more than enough practice.” Libby raised her own glass in a
silent toast. “Aidan’s not sick, is he?”

“Not now. He had another bout of tonsillitis and the doctor
said one more this year and the tonsils have to be yanked.” Her fingers clenched
the stem of the glass. “Cross your fingers that it doesn’t happen. I can’t
afford any more time off so soon.”

“Fingers, toes and all nonessential appendages.”

Dani sighed and shrugged. “All we can do is hope. So what do
you mean, you ran away from the owner? I thought Myra worshipped the ground you
walked on.”

Libby reached for her glass. “Wait until you hear this.” She
launched into an abbreviated version of the events since Sam walked back into
the office, carefully leaving out the precise extent of her former relationship
with him.

“Then he said that if I play nice all summer, he’ll build a
waterfront pavilion for the camp. There’s no way I can walk after that. What
a...”

“Typical male. It’s a lot easier to look like a hero than to
act like one, that’s for damned sure.” Dani’s nod carried the weight of bitter
experience gained by bearing three children by three different baby
daddies—though as Gran had often said, given the guys Dani chose, it was
probably best that they didn’t stick around after the pregnancy tests came back
positive.

“So are you— Aidan Christopher Cooper, I see you. Don’t even
think of climbing that tree, young man. The last thing we need is for you to
fall and break your arm.” Dani shook her head. “So what are you going to
do?”

“Buy a muzzle. Stay for the summer.” She pointed to the laptop,
still smack in the middle of the table. “Learn how to write a résumé.”

“You’ve never written one?”

Libby shook her head. “I started at the camp right after high
school, and Myra knew me so well that she didn’t ask for one.”

“You mean you’ve been working at that same place for, what,
twenty years?”

“Twelve.” Libby ran her fingers over her neck in search of
wrinkles. Maybe it was time to buy a stronger moisturizer.

Dani whistled and pulled the laptop closer. “Okay. So the
experience portion of your résumé will be a bit empty, but we can make up for
that by highlighting the different duties that were part of the job.”

“Um...Dani, what are you doing?”

The soft clack of the keys paused as Dani looked up from the
keyboard. “Helping you.”

Libby suddenly felt as exposed as though she’d been forced to
remove her bra in public. “No, no, you don’t need to do that. I’ll figure this
out. Really.”

“Libby. Come on. What’s the one thing I know how to do, other
than pop out adorable kids?” Dani sat back triumphantly. “I can get a job from a
place that’s laying off and closing down. It’s just like men. I can’t keep them,
but by God, I can get them.”

This was true. But Libby couldn’t stop from squirming a bit at
the thought of Dani or anyone else taking over a task that should be hers.

“It’s okay, Dani. Really. Thanks, but I’d rather do it
myself.”

“Libby, I know that accepting help is against your religion,
but I love this stuff. Especially when it’s not for me.”

“I know, but...” Libby cast through her mind searching for a
way to make Dani stop without hurting her feelings. In her experience, letting
other people lend a hand, even with good intentions, only multiplied the odds of
something going wrong. “It’s just that...you know, I feel kind of silly being
this age and not knowing how to do this. It’s something I really should learn. I
need to teach myself.”

Aidan zoomed past making
bbbbrrrrooom
noises while jerking his plane so violently that any
passengers on board would certainly be pulverized. Dani watched him with a
smile, then turned the laptop back toward Libby and grabbed her wine.

“Okay. But at least let me review it for you when you’re
done.”

“Sure.” Libby could do that.

Maybe.

Dani toyed with the stem of her glass. “So you’re leaving
camp.”

“The minute summer’s over. The sooner I can get away from Sam
Catalano, the better.”

“Sam— Wait a minute.” Dani sat up higher in her chair. “The new
owner is Sam Catalano? The Cold Ice guy?”

Libby closed her eyes and tried to purge her mind of the image
Dani’s words had dredged up, the picture that had caused months of frustrated
channel flipping—Sam, clad in nothing but a towel, holding a bottle of body wash
next to his face while he winked at the camera. The commercials had been a hit,
spurring parodies on YouTube and lifting Sam from well-known hockey player to
media darling. And, not coincidentally, causing Libby to clench her teeth so
often that her dentist had had to discuss stress reduction techniques at her
last checkup.

“Didn’t I tell you it was him?”

“You were too busy calling him every other name in the book to
use his real one.”

“Oops.” Libby shrugged. “Anyway, yeah. It’s him.”

Dani leaned forward, straining the fabric of her glittery
halter in ways the designer had probably never intended. “I heard something
about him. What was it?”

“Probably about him leaving his team. He was supposed to stay
on for another couple of years, but at the end of this season he said, ‘So long,
I’m out of here,’ and never really explained why.”

“Those athletes are such divas. I bet he didn’t get everything
he wanted in his dressing room one night, so he took his puck and went
home.”

Libby started to agree, then stopped. Was Sam the type to storm
off because someone hurt his feelings? She wanted to believe it, but couldn’t.
He might not have been able to man up and help her when she needed him, but that
had nothing to do with his ego. Hypersensitivity wasn’t among his laundry list
of faults.

“I think, maybe, there had to be something else,” she said
slowly.

Dani pulled the laptop closer and typed in
Sam Catalano.
“I think... There was something, I swear... Yeah!” She
pointed at the screen. Libby leaned closer, read the headline and reared
back.

“Rehab?”

“Medical reasons.”
Dani framed the
words with air quotes. “The question is, was it drugs or alcohol? Maybe both.
Those hockey players take a beating out there. Painkillers would be a
natural.”

Oh, no. What had she started? With all the jobs Dani had
collected over the years, she was tied into the town’s gossip line tighter than
the hairdressers down at the Comeback Curl.

“Dani, that article came from one of those tabloids that lurk
at the checkout register. You can’t believe what they say.”

“You mean like the ones I’ve been freelancing for?”

Oops. How had she forgotten? After Dani had lost her job at the
town newspaper, she had started supplementing her all-too-erratic income by
watching for celebrities behaving badly while vacationing in the Thousand
Islands, then sending pictures and articles to the tabloids.

Libby had no problem encouraging Sam to leave, but she wanted
it to be a clean victory, not one brought about by slander.

“You can’t write about him.”

“Why not?”

“Because...because...” Much as she hated to defend the man, she
couldn’t condone splashing his life all over the tabloids. She fought hard, but
she fought clean and fair. “Well, for one thing, he’s not just here for a visit.
He’s a local business owner who is providing jobs for a good number of folks.
Including me.”

“You’re planning to leave anyway.” Dani tapped the screen on
the laptop.

Not forever. “Come on, Dani. You have kids. How would you feel
if you sent your kids to camp, then picked up something at the store that made
it sound like the owner couldn’t be trusted?”