“Go away.”
“Honey, what’s wrong?” he asked, hunching down in front of her, only to find her staring blankly at the fire. He immediately scooped her up in his arms and took her place on the couch, setting her on his lap.
“What’s happened? Is it one of your seniors? Is someone sick?”
She buried her face in his shirt.
“Okay, we’ll just sit together for a while.” He kissed her hair as he held her head to his chest. She released a deep, shuddering sigh.
What had upset her? Or who? Sam knew it wasn’t his coffee gang; he’d spent most of the day with them inspecting the warehouse.
Cobb better not have bothered Willa. He’d run into Cobb in town today, and the bastard had actually tried to strike up a conversation. Sam had nearly laughed out loud when Phil Grindle, at five-foot-four and a hundred and fifty pounds, had stepped between him and Cobb and asked Barry if he wouldn’t like to go on an authentic lobster run with a young fisherman friend of his. Fearing that Phil planned it to be a one-way trip, Sam had pulled his friend away before Cobb could answer. Had Cobb visited Kent Caskets this afternoon and said something to upset Willa? Maybe one of her workers had taken ill. Or even died?
She shuddered again, as if fighting tears.
“Grammy Rose always told me that sharing a burden shrinks it by half,” he said against her hair. “Please, honey, tell me what’s bothering you.”
“I don’t like the people I work with,” she said in a ragged voice. “They’re selfish, manipulative snobs who are only interested in themselves, and I don’t ever want to see any of them again.”
“They’re people, Willa, not saints. Ordinary, flawed people, just like you and me.” Her rubbed his hand soothingly up and down her arm. “And though they might put on a happy face every morning when they come to work, it’s really a mask hiding their fear.”
She tilted her head back to look at him. “What are they afraid of?”
“Of growing old and no longer being in control. They’re actually more afraid of not being alive but still breathing than they are of dying.” He smiled sadly. “That was Bram’s biggest fear after Grammy died.”
“But we’re supposed to become less selfish as we get older.”
“What did they do to upset you?”
She settled back into the crook of his arm and stared into the fire. “I called a meeting to tell them all to stay out of my love life, but I might as well have been talking to the wall. They kept insisting that you were hanging around to get your inheritance.”
“And this surprises you?”
“Then they started trashing the coffee clubbers, dismissing them as simple-minded locals. And they scoffed at the idea of you opening a business just to give a bunch of old people something to do.”
“But you agree with them about my opening a business here.”
She sat up to look at him. “Not in principle, I don’t. But the real reason they don’t want me marrying you is that they’re afraid I’d sell Kent Caskets and move toNew York . As soon as they realized that if you opened a business I’d stay in Keelstone Cove, they did an about-face and decided I should fall in love with you.”
“I see. You’re afraid that more than wanting to see you happy, they really only want you sticking around?” He pulled her back against his chest and tucked her head under his chin. “So, fire the whole damn bunch of them.”
“I can’t,” she muttered into his shirt.
Sam smiled, unsurprised. “Okay, then sell Kent Caskets, and let some new boss deal with them.”
“I can’t do that, either.”
“Then quit. Give them the entire business—lock, stock, and caskets.”
“No.”
“Then I guess that leaves you only one option.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “What’s that?”
“You’re going to have to forgive them.”
“I will not.”
“Then you tell me what you’re going to do. You can’t fire them, because you’re too softhearted; you can’t sell your business, because it’s a big part of who you are; and you can’t quit, because that would mean they’ve won.”
“Forgiving them would mean they’ve won, too.”
He tucked her back under his chin. “Hmm,” he murmured. “Do you suppose that’s why you’ve never been able to forgive yourself? Because if you did, it would mean fate has won?”
“What are you talking about?” She wriggled to get free.
“I was just thinking out loud, trying to work something out for myself. I’m sorry they disappointed you, Willa.” He started rubbing her back in long, soothing strokes and felt her slowly relax. “So, does this mean you will support my new business venture?”
“You’ll just get stabbed in the back by your workers.”
“No, I won’t.”
She tilted her head back. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because, unlike you, I don’t trust people. That way, I’m never surprised or disappointed.”
“But you must trust your brothers. And Abram. Surely, you trusted your grandfather.”
“If I had trusted Bram, what do you suppose my reaction would have been to his will?”
She looked thoughtful, then laid her head back on his chest.
“I trust you,” he whispered into her hair.
She popped back up and blinked at him. “You do? Why?”
“Because I love you.”
She tried to scramble off his lap, but Sam tightened his arms and held her against his chest. “I’m sorry if that bothers you, honey, but it seems to be one of those fate things I don’t have any control over. I tell you what. I’ll try my damndest to stop telling you I love you, if you’ll try to stop seeing me as the enemy.”
She muttered something, and Sam realized he had to loosen his hold so she could breathe. “What was that?” he asked with a chuckle.
She scowled at him. “I agreed to go to dinner with you tonight, didn’t I? And I do not eat with my enemies.”
“So, that means Barry Cobb is your new best friend?”
Her scowl intensified. “How come you never confronted me about that? I went out with him five times.”
“Because I trust you.” And because as long as Cobb was with you, I knew exactly what he was up to . Sam cupped her face and pulled her mouth to his, giving her a big, noisy kiss before holding her so their eyes were only inches apart. “And because your going out with him to make me jealous actually gave me hope that you do care.”
She looked ready to smack him, so he kissed her again.
This time, she took his face between her hands and kissed him like a woman with something to prove. Sam was torn between wanting to shout hallelujah and groaning. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t make love to her again until she quit seeing him as a casual fling and started seeing them as a couple. But surely he could indulge himself a little bit. She was so soft and pliable, her body filled with promise…and she wanted him, dammit!
She darted her tongue into his mouth and pulled him closer. Sam sensed the world tilting on edge, not realizing that Willa was repositioning herself to straddle his lap until he felt her thighs gripping his. Her feminine heat sent shock waves coursing through him, every muscle in his body going instantly taut. He quickly grabbed her hips, stopping her maddening movements. She broke their kiss, her mouth moving over his jaw as her hands attacked the buttons on his shirt. Her lips soon followed, and Sam struggled to catch his breath against her passionate assault. She made little impatient sounds, her hips fighting his hold, her fingers fumbling with his buttons as she rocketed from zero to sixty in four seconds flat.
If he didn’t get her under control, he would spontaneously combust. “Willa. Honey. I’m not sure we—”
He yelped when her mouth found one of his nipples.
Then she lifted her head to look him in the eyes. “Please, Sam, make love to me.”
How in hell was he supposed to hold his ground against please ?