Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (9 page)

He lifted his hand, and her skin tingled in anticipation.

“Mom, where’s my shampoo?” Caden’s voice was a deluge of cold water.

“Under the sink,” Sam called over her shoulder.

The bathroom door snapped shut.

Sam turned back to Landon. “Well, thanks for taking us tonight,” she said.

“Thanks for inviting me along.” Landon straightened, letting the screen door close. “Good night.”

Sam shut the door and leaned against it. She pictured the way Landon had looked at her. Her breaths fell heavily, and her mouth had gone dry. She let herself imagine what might have happened if Caden hadn’t broken the spell. Landon had wanted to kiss her, and the thought put a smile on her lips.

Sam was inside the lighthouse, and through the tiny window she saw her mom in her boat, the current carrying her farther from shore.

“Wait, Mom! Come back!” She screamed the words.

Someone in the boat stood. Landon. Landon was leaving. She called his name, but he didn’t hear her, didn’t see her.

Rain battered her face through the opening in the stone, and she turned to race down the stairs, but there were no stairs. Instead, she was in the yacht club at Landon’s going-away party. His parents were talking to their school principal, and his mom laughed at something.

“Someone help!” Sam called, but no one heard her. “My mom needs help! Landon’s leaving!” She scanned the room for Bailey. He would help her. But she couldn’t find him. Why wouldn’t anyone listen?

Across the room, Emmett lounged on the arm of a chair, a drink in hand. He stared at Sam, the only one who saw her.

She ran toward him and took his arm. “Help me! They’re leaving, Mom and Landon. I forgot to tie up the boat, and it’s floating away.” She tugged his arm, but he jerked it from her.

“I’ll leave you too. Everyone will. No one hears you, and no one cares.” He pushed himself off the chair and walked away.

“Somebody, help me . . . somebody, help me . . .”

Sam’s eyes opened, and the sound of her own breathing filled her ears. Darkness pressed in on her. She looked around to orient herself. The window, the closet, shadows of furniture.

She trembled, wanting to leave the bed but somehow afraid to. The dream had been so real. Emmett and the Reeds. Landon and her mom. The vividness of it hollowed her stomach, leaving a void. And Bailey. Dear Bailey.

Sam
stared at the ceiling, afraid to close her eyes again, afraid the dream would haunt her sleep. Beside her, Caden lay still, undisturbed. Sam turned to the window and looked toward Landon’s house. From where she lay, she could see the roofline in the moonlight.

She remembered the way he looked at her earlier, but this time the memory didn’t warm her. This time it chilled her skin, making her shiver under the quilt.

Nine

T
here was nothing on TV but old reruns and depressing news. She flicked the TV off and settled against the sofa. The nightmare had chased her from bed. While awake, she could rein in her thoughts, but sleep allowed her untamed mind to run wild. Now that she was wide awake, the quietness of the cottage haunted her.

It didn’t help that the smells and sounds of this house jerked her back to her past faster than the snap of a flag. Just being here made her feel like a lonely, motherless child again. She forgot sometimes that she was a full-grown woman with her own eleven-year-old child.

A knock sounded on the door, and she jumped. The clock read 11:32. Miss Biddle would have been in bed at dark, and Sam couldn’t imagine why Landon would come back. She slid her finger between the drapes and peeked out.

The porch was dark except for the little bit of moonlight, but Landon’s silhouette was easy enough to distinguish. She wondered what he could want.

Sam opened the door. “Hey.”

He looked up as if she’d interrupted his thoughts. “Hey. I know it’s late, but I saw your TV on. Can we talk for a minute?”

Sam glanced back toward the bedroom where Caden slept. “Sure.”

He stepped backward, allowing her to slip outside so they wouldn’t let the bugs in. The light flooding the window gilded his face. “I was wondering if you’d like to go somewhere next Saturday.”

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t this. “Where?”

“Anywhere.” He cleared his throat, then his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’m asking you on a date.”

The hollow spot inside her filled with something pleasant. Hope. For an instant Sam wanted to say yes. But just as quickly, fear funneled into the spot and washed everything else away. Her nerves clanged like pots and pans in the hands of her irritable mother. She wasn’t sure why or where the terror came from, but she didn’t need to understand it to react. She wanted him to take back the question, to set things back where they’d been.

“We’re just friends, Landon.”

He looked away, and the light from inside caught his eyes. When he looked back at Sam, she folded her arms across her stomach. “Come on, you know that’s not true.”

Her pulse skittered.
Fake it, Sam. Come on, say something. Anything.
She grabbed onto an idea like a drowning person to a life preserver. “Maybe you should ask Melanie out.”

He stared at her blankly. “Melanie?”

Sam shrugged. “You’re two of the nicest people I know, and I was thinking you’d make a nice couple.” Even as she said it, her heart squeezed. She told herself to hang tight. Stand firm. Soon she would be back in the safety of Boston, and this unsettling fear would be a thing of the past.

The way he was looking at her with those wounded eyes didn’t help. Like she’d just slammed a two-by-four into his head for no reason.

“I don’t want to go out with Melanie. I want to go out with you.”

He wasn’t making this easy. On either of them. She looked at the boards on the porch floor. “I don’t think so, Landon. It wouldn’t work.”

“How will you know until you give it a chance?”

Why did his tone have to beckon her like that? She hated the clash going on inside her. Fear of saying yes versus the pain of saying no. It wasn’t a fair fight. “I can’t.”

He studied her, and she shifted, crossing her arms.

“No reason?” His voice was steady and deep—just like he was. “Just ‘I can’t’?”

Sam looked at the dark fingers of the tree limbs reaching into the sky, at the bits of sand that coated the deck, at anything other than Landon’s face. Her mind emptied of any rational response.

His hand lifted her chin until their eyes met. “Still pushing me away, Sam?”

“No.” The word was a breath. Her insides quaked with the turmoil. She prayed her feelings weren’t obvious to him.

He let go of her chin, but his attention remained fastened on her. “What are you so afraid of?”

“Nothing.”

He shook his head slowly. “It’s written all over your face. Just like it was that day out on the boat.”

She didn’t have to ask what day he was talking about. She looked away. How could she tell him he ignited the fear?

He stepped back, and the distance left an empty spot that opened a chasm. Her shoulders sagged.

“You win.” His lips tucked in on one corner. “For now.” He turned and left.

Sam wrapped her arms around herself, guarding against the coolness of the night.

Landon paced from the kitchen to the living room and back again. Max watched him, his forehead scrunched. Max’s toy frog lay in the middle of the floor, and Landon kicked it. From his spot next to the recliner, Max watched it bounce against the table leg, squeaking as it hit.

“Too tired to chase, huh, boy?”

He stopped by the window and looked across Miss Biddle’s yard at Sam’s cottage. He couldn’t believe she’d suggested he ask Melanie out. He wasn’t interested in Melanie. He only wanted Sam.

He’d wanted her a long time, since that last summer. Before that, if he was honest with himself. Ever since Scott had dated her during their sophomore year.

His friend had wanted to ask Sam out for weeks, and when Sam told Landon she was going out with Scott, something happened inside him. He wouldn’t define it as jealousy, more like protectiveness. Scott was a good friend, but he was fickle when it came to girls. Sam had been hurt enough, and the last thing she needed was someone toying with her.

Scott and Sam went out on two dates, and it was after the second that Landon heard Scott pulling into Sam’s drive. It took everything in Landon not to get up off the pier, cross into her yard, and see if Scott was kissing her good night on her front porch. A full eight minutes passed before the old Ford rumbled away.

A few minutes later, Sam had joined him, sitting beside him, her feet dangling in the water. Even in the moonlight, her face was flushed. She sat quietly, chewing her lower lip, still nervous from the date, he supposed. He didn’t know why that rankled him.

“Have a good time?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He hadn’t realized how weird it would be to have Scott dating Sam.
Weird
wasn’t even the word. He didn’t like it at all.

Sam leaned back, her arms supporting her weight. At fifteen, she’d grown into her long legs, and she’d filled out in a way that made hugging awkward. He’d bet it didn’t feel awkward to Scott.

He shook the thought. He was tired of thinking about Scott and Sam and tired of analyzing his feelings. “Emmett home?”

She lifted her foot from the water and brushed a strand of seaweed off with her other foot. “Nope.” A breeze blew in over the water and lifted her hair off her shoulder. She pushed it behind her ear.

It occurred to him that she’d shed her ponytail for the
date. He wondered if Scott had run his fingers through her hair the way Landon longed to now.

He scooted back, taking his feet from the water. “You’re quiet tonight.” She didn’t say anything for so long, he thought she’d let it drop.

She lay back against the boards, looking up at the stars. “Have you ever kissed anyone?”

He realized where the question was coming from, and his stomach tightened. “Sure.” He’d kissed Maddie Franklin in the second grade during recess. Elena Schwartz laid one on him on the bus during a field trip to the whaling museum in fifth grade, and he pecked Camy Smith on the lips at a football game in the sixth grade.

“You’re not counting Maddie, Elena, and Camy, are you?”

He smiled at her, watching her expression change as she realized he was. She jabbed him in the ribs, straight-faced. “I mean a real kiss.”