CHAPTER THREE
Flynn awakened when the early morning light blazed through the living room windows and the Corgi barked in his ear. He glanced around, confused at first by the unfamiliar surroundings. Then he remembered the fall, the bump on the head, and Sami’s challenge.
He grinned, thinking of the negotiations they’d entered into. He’d gotten the time period down to seven days. They’d each written on a square of paper what each wanted as a prize. For Flynn, his prize took little thought. He scribbled it, folded the paper, and shoved it in his pocket. Sami had gnawed on her pen and finally written something short. She’d insisted that he surrender his paper and placed both squares into a Ziploc bag that she tucked into her purse.
The Corgi barked again. Flynn sat up slowly, relieved that his head didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had last night. The dog whirled its squat body around, heading in a beeline to the next room. A moment later, Sami poked her head around the doorway. “Good, you’re up,” she said, sounding extremely sleepy. “We need to get on the road in half an hour.” She yawned and stretched her arms over her head. She had to be only half-awake, as she moved into the living room wearing a baby-doll nighty that barely skimmed the tops of her thighs. Last night she’d wrapped herself in a far-too-sensible chenille bathrobe with a tightly tied sash when she’d escorted him through her bedroom to the house’s only bathroom. She yawned again and Flynn remembered she’d planned to set her alarm every few hours.
“Did you check on me during the night and not wake me?” He felt a bit guilty for having slept so well.
She nodded. “You seemed fine and rest is very important after a head injury.”
He was touched by her sacrifice. “You can sleep while I drive.”
“No driving. Remember, not for at least twenty-four hours.” She wasn’t using her lecture voice. “Sorry, Flynn, but if I get sleepy I’ll pull over at a rest stop and walk around with the dogs.”
“You’re taking the dogs?”
Sami looked at him as if he were speaking in tongues. “Of course they’re going with me.” The Corgi barked, as if to punctuate her statement. “What did you think I was going to do with them?”
“Board them?” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I have a friend in Beverly Hills who runs a dog service that’s nicer than a lot of hotels. Holly’s Helping Hands. You’d like Holly.”
“As I’m not likely to meet her, that’s of little importance,” Sami said. She glanced down and it appeared to dawn on her that she was half-naked. “Oh!” She scurried into her bedroom.
Flynn smiled. The Corgi barked again and started running in circles. Before Flynn could shout a warning, the dog squatted over his loafers and let out a stream.
“Damn dog!” Flynn jumped up. His head throbbed.
Sami raced into the room, zipping a pair of denim shorts beneath her baby-doll. “Oh, no, Ruby. Let’s go out, everyone.” She marshaled the dogs toward the back door.
“Hardly seems necessary for that one,” Flynn muttered, following the pack as far as the bathroom. He took care of matters there and then studied Sami’s bedroom. Sure enough, there was a lot of pink. And roses. And lots of throw pillows with lace and fringe atop the bed. Jeez, she’d already made the bed. Nice and neat, exactly as he’d predicted. He crossed to a small dressing table with a mirror in the center and a padded stool pushed into the knee-hole opening. He breathed in, recognizing what he realized was the scent of Sami. Floral. Fresh. A hint of something exotic he couldn’t quite place. He lifted a crystal bottle to see the name of the scent.
A door slammed.
Flynn jumped.
Dogs came hurtling toward him.
He just managed to clutch the bottle to his chest.
“I’ll take that,” Sami said, holding out her hand and eyeing him as if he’d been a naughty toddler. “Back in the living room with you.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, giving her a wink.
She laughed.
He smiled. She sounded happy when she laughed. She didn’t do it often enough. He’d help her work on that. That would give him something to do during the tedious road trip. But first they had to get underway. “I need to stop by my hotel,” he said. “Especially now that I have no shoes.”
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Sorry about Ruby’s accident.”
“If you can call it that. Looked pretty darn purposeful to me.”
She sighed. “It can take a while to stabilize a rescue.”
“And no longer than a moment to ruin a man’s shoes.” Flynn shook his head. “We can’t leave these here for your summer tenant to find. Point me to the trash. And then I’ll help you load the car.”
“I can do it myself,” she said.
He lifted a brow. “Gotta earn my ride, Sweet Stuff.”
Sami wrinkled her brow. What had he just called her? She decided to ignore it. She found the car keys, tossed them to him and suggested he leave the shoes by the outside garbage can. Then she hurried to finish getting dressed. She’d left her clothes for the road unpacked the day before. Gazing at the St. Charles U T-shirt she’d planned to wear with her shorts and then over at the sexy slip of a dress she’d worn the night before, she started to smile.
Sami packed the T-shirt and the dress and fished through her suitcase in search of the bikini top she wore at her parent’s pool when no one else was around. It was scantier than scant. Beginning to hum, she bent at the waist, arranged the wisp of fabric around her breasts, and tied the string behind her neck. Then she pulled on a soft, nearly sheer chambray shirt, still humming.
She wasn’t interested in Flynn. The last thing he was after in life was true love and commitment. But she thought it would add spice to the drive to see if she could trip him up on the challenge she’d issued last night.
Sami spritzed a hint of her fragrance into the air and waved her arms. She disliked too strong a scent, especially in a closed vehicle. But the exotic formula would be enough to distract and possibly entice Flynn.
She zipped her suitcase, shoved her feet into deck shoes, and headed toward the door, calling the dogs.
Flynn leapt out of the car at his hotel, hoping no one recognized him exiting a car holding the equivalent of three child seats. He’d been amazed when Sami fastened each of the dogs into a harness. In his current life, based in Los Angeles, the only dogs that traveled with their people were the spoiled bits of fluff that fit into a Gucci bag and went everywhere their neurotic owners did, including shopping and dining. In his early years, of course, dogs were large and rowdy and rode around in the backs of pickup trucks.
But those years were a world away.
Flynn hurried through the lobby and into the elevator. As kids, he and Sean had had dogs. His mother still had two. If Sean hadn’t been so fond of four-legged fur balls, he would probably still be walking the planet. Flynn jammed his hands into his pockets and willed his grief to go away, at least enough for him to function.
He tossed his belongings into his suitcase and collected the items from the bathroom, shoving them into his Dopp kit. He was on the road enough, despite his aversion to flying, that he had his packing system down. Shove it in, zip it up, hit the road.
After a quick stop at the front desk to check out, he headed outside. Instead of Sami waiting in the car, he found her and all three dogs milling about, the beagle and Lab’s leashes held in Sami’s left hand. The Corgi, naturally, required a hand all to itself.
“Adorable,” a lady was saying, patting the Corgi on the head. “This one is so cute he should be in the movies. Or commercials.”
Sami was smiling and nodding.
Flynn stared at both women. That dog wasn’t trained or trainable. “Ready to go,” he said, opening the hatchback of Sami’s Honda and squeezing his bag inside.
Sami went through the routine of strapping the dogs into their harnesses. Only the Corgi voiced an objection. Flynn tipped the valet and climbed into the passenger seat, wishing he was the one behind the wheel.
To his surprise, Sami headed quite sedately out of the hotel drive. She even waited for a bus to pass by that he would have bet she would normally have peeled out in front of. “Not feeling up to snuff today?” he asked.
“Would I be correct in assuming that statement was an observation as to my calmer driving techniques?” She slowed for the light at the intersection.
He nodded.
“Perceptive,” she said. “That trait is to your credit.”
“Why, thank you, ma’am,” Flynn drawled.
She smiled. “I am always more cautious when I have my animals with me.”
“They rate above humans?”
She shrugged. “Humans can generally look after themselves.”
“Hmm.” Flynn considered her comment. “Did you have pets when you were a kid?”
“Are you kidding me?” Sami looked over at him, but her sunglasses hid the expression in her eyes.
“Just asking,” he said.
“Emile and Nathalie were not what you would call touchy-feeling parents,” Sami said, zooming around a slow-moving car, but less frantically than he’d seen her do the evening before.
“You always call them by their first names?”
She nodded, seemingly intent on merging onto the interstate. “Their preference,” she said, laying on the horn.
The Corgi barked.
Of course.
“That dog always make that much racket?” Flynn asked, thinking the drive to Nashville was going to be painstakingly long.
“She’ll settle down,” Sami said. “It may be her first long car ride. The others are used to it. They’ve been with me the last several years. So, what do you call your parents?”
He had to admit she’d thrown him off by tossing in the question. “Mom,” he said.
She nodded.
He guessed she remembered what he’d said about his sperm donor of a father.
“That’s nice,” she said, and raced around an eighteen-wheeler. “Sorry we didn’t have breakfast. Or coffee. We can stop in Slidell.”
“Whatever you say,” Flynn said. He realized he wasn’t clutching the seat or the arm rest on this ride. Not yet, anyway. “So, what will you do this summer in Nashville?”
“I’ll be teaching a summer Introduction to Philosophy class and I’ve brought notes for an article I’m planning. Plus I need to work on an outline for a new course proposal.”
“All work?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I’ll see all my good friends.” Her voice rose and she sounded happy. “I have several girlfriends. They’re all married now, with kids, and of course their careers, so we work around their schedules. But that’s part of the reason I enjoy spending the summer housesitting for Emile and Nathalie. On the weekends my friends come over, we have a pool party, relax. You know, all the fun things.”
Flynn nodded, but he was thinking it sounded pretty dull. “You don’t go out? Nashville’s got some pretty hot clubs.”
Sami shrugged. “We did all that in college. It’s for the younger crowd.”
Flynn figured he had a good five or six years on Sami. “Or the young at heart?”
“Or the perpetually adolescent?”
“Ouch,” he said. “You know how to hurt a guy.”
She smiled, overly sweetly. “I’m going easy on you, given your concussion. Speaking of which, maybe you should lie back and close your eyes. Sleep is a critically important component to recovery.” As she finished her sentence, she smothered a yawn with one hand.
At least she kept one hand on the wheel as she pulled into the fast lane just in time to miss a slow-moving U-Haul. “Maybe I should pray,” Flynn said.
“As you wish,” she said. “Do you identify with a particular religious tradition?”
“Who? Me?” Flynn shook his head.
“I’m not addressing the canines,” she said, reaching one hand to the top button of her gauzy light blue shirt. “Gosh, it’s hot this morning,” she said, slipping not just the top button but the next one free.
The blouse gapped wide. Flynn couldn’t help but look his fill. She couldn’t be wearing a bra, or if she was, it had to be the merest scrap of fabric. He licked his lips. Tried to pull his gaze away. Didn’t succeed.
Sami fanned her face with one hand, and then shifted into sixth gear. Forcing down the grin threatening to break wide, she moved slightly, offering Flynn even more of a teasing view. She knew she was an idiot to play this stupid game, but once she embarked on a project, she always finished it. No wonder the lack of success with her Dating Analysis Questionnaire was so frustrating.
“Do you think you could put the air conditioner on high?” Flynn’s voice sounded slightly strained.
“Oh, are you hot?” She smiled at him. Tossed in a flutter of eyelashes.
“You are not playing fair,” Flynn said, leaning forward and shoving the AC to full force. “Please tell me you’re wearing a bra.”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Argh,” he said, or at least made a noise that sounded something like a man strangling, possibly on his own saliva.
“I’m wearing a bikini top,” she said, following her penchant for accuracy. A sea of red brake lights caught her attention and she hurriedly downshifted. “Oh, great, traffic delays already.” She caught another yawn. Waking up to check on Flynn had definitely lowered the quality of her sleep.
“I’m sorry I kept you awake last night,” Flynn said.
“You observed my yawns and concluded they were due to checking on your health?”
He nodded.
“Mmm,” she said. When he didn’t try to act like such a ladies’ man, he was a pretty nice guy. Thoughtful. And he’d been good with Cameron and Jonni’s kids. “It was my responsibility,” she said, sounded perhaps more prim and proper than she intended.
“I can think of a lot better ways to keep you awake at night,” he said as he stretched out his left arm and cupped his hand gently against the back of her neck.
“You’re not ready to surrender the seven-day challenge, are you?” The traffic log jam was clearing and Sami accelerated rapidly. His arm did not budge. “On Day One?”
“Oh, that,” he said, circling his fingers on the back of her neck.
“I never quit a project,” Sami said. “So if you can’t go seven days without seducing a woman, you lose and I win.”
He lowered his hand to his lap. Stared out the window.
“Maybe you should take a nap,” Sami said, relieved and frustrated with the loss of contact. She enjoyed the sensation, the feeling of tenderness communicated by his touch. And then she reminded herself sharply that it meant nothing, nothing at all, to Flynn Lawrence. “I’ll wake you up in Slidell.”
He grunted and kept his gaze fixed on the lanes of traffic to the right of the car.
Sami focused on staying alert, on keeping her attention on the road. But then Flynn shifted his body, stretching his legs out, obviously attempting to get more comfortable. Good. It would be best for both of them if he fell asleep and didn’t awaken until they reached Davidson County, Tennessee.
He sighed softly. His eyelids drifted shut.
A pickup with a bad muffler pulled alongside. Two hunting dogs were in the bed of the truck. At least they were fastened with safety leads. Sami frowned upon anyone who forced dogs to travel in unsafe conditions.
Whether it was the muffler or the sight of the dogs, Ruby started barking. Sharply. Loudly.
Flynn jerked to attention. “Damn, dog,” he said. “You are not restful.”
Sami recognized the truth in that statement. She slowed the car, letting the truck gain distance on them. They were just heading onto the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain.
“Is that the Gulf of Mexico?” Flynn asked.
“This body of water is Lake Pontchartrain.”
“This doesn’t look like the Causeway.”
“There’s more than one bridge over the lake,” Sami said. “As a matter of fact, there are three methods of crossing.”
Flynn leaned over and tapped a finger against her lips. “I like you much better when you’re not in lecture mode,” he said, a lazy smile on his face.
“You asked a question. I was providing information in response.”
“Stimulus. Response?”
“Exactly.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Maybe I’d better close my eyes again before that sexy neckline of yours provides way too much stimulus.”
Sami shook her head. “You really do have a one-track mind. Tell me, Mr. Lawrence, when do you find time to run your business?”
“Flynn,” he said. “No mister.”
“Flynn,” she said, liking the way his name felt on her lips. “What does a personal manager do?”
He reached into his pants pocket and tugged out his phone. “Oversees media. Brand management. Endorsement deals. Commercials. Discovers new talent. I live by this puppy.” He glanced at the screen. “Still early in L.A. but that’s just one of my time zones.”
“And you’re going to Nashville to work on a deal for Cameron Scott?”
He nodded.
“I imagine your charm and take-charge personality are valuable traits in your business. As well as your refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
He sketched a salute. “You nailed that description. What about you? What makes you good at what you do? And don’t tell me you’re not good, because I know you’d never accept less than perfect.”
“Did I tell you that?” Sami glanced over at Flynn. “Or did you figure that out on your own?”
Flynn tapped his temple. “Got my thinking box turned on,” he said. His voice sounded thoughtful but then he finished with a wink.
“Yes, well, we’re discussing you, not me.” Sami nudged the gas pedal. She checked the dogs in her rearview mirror. The beagle and the Lab had fallen asleep. The Corgi sat at attention, her head darting left to right, right to left.
Flynn could tell he’d hit one of her touchy buttons. But seriously, how could she not know her need to be perfect screamed its existence? Anyone who boned up on quantum theory before a second date with Sean was either nuts or perfection-obsessed. Sean hadn’t fallen for Mai because she understood his work. Other than their passion for skiing, they’d had almost nothing in common. Their instant courtship had been crazy. Nuts. Sean had told him so when they’d gotten engaged only a month after they met on the slopes at Breckinridge. Flynn could still see the expression on his brother’s face when he’d said softly, “Yeah, it’s crazy, but it’s the right kind of crazy.”
“Are you carsick?” Sami’s voice filtered through his thoughts.
“No,” he said, hearing the snap in his tone. “I never get carsick.”
“It must be the concussion,” she said, signaling for a lane change and giving a brief glance over her shoulder. “I’d best pull over as soon as we’re across the bridge.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Your face is pale. You have dots of perspiration on your brow. You look, frankly, as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Flynn stared at Sami. “I was thinking about… about… Sean,” he said, picking over his words, almost afraid to say his brother’s name.
She nodded. For once, she didn’t say a word.
Flynn touched the back of his hand to his forehead. Damn if she wasn’t right about the sweat. Observant, he had to give her that. He glanced at her. She actually had both hands on the wheel. She hadn’t fastened a single button of that flimsy top but for once, the swell of her breasts was not the first thought in his mind. Her lips puckered slightly. She looked toward him for a moment, her expression watchful. And sympathetic.
He could do without the sympathy part. He slapped his hands together. “So, when’s breakfast?”
Sami smiled at him, the expression one a teacher would give a student who turned in an A paper when she’d expected a D. “You were there. For just a few minutes, you were allowing yourself to be, to feel, to grieve.”
He stretched his arms over his head. “Yeah, well, the moment’s passed. I could eat a horse.”
She nodded. “It’s a process,” she said. “McDonald’s is at the next exit.”
He made a face. “There’s a billboard for Waffle House.”
“McDonald’s.”
“Waffle House.”
“Can’t,” Sami said, edging between two cars and taking the exit ramp at a fairly sedate speed.
“Eggs over easy. Hash browns. Extra catsup. Couple of pancakes.” Flynn patted his flat belly. “What’s not to like?”
Sami jerked her thumb toward the backseat. “It’s not fair to Shelby, Rusty and Ruby. We go in and get waited on and they’re stuck in the car. Nope. It’s the drive-through for us.”
“All the way to Nashville?”
She nodded and headed into the McDonald’s drive-through lane.
He had to ask. He couldn’t help himself. “So how do you take care of your business?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you were driving by yourself without anyone to stay with your pooches, how would you go to the restroom?”
“That is a rather personal question.”
He gave her one of his slow grins. “Well, I am a personal manager.”
She tugged off her sunglasses and lowered her window. “And I’m hungry. Time to order.”
“What are you having?”
“Egg McMuffin. Black coffee. The dogs get a sausage biscuit.” The dogs started stirring and the Corgi barked. And barked. Sami turned toward the window and gave her order over the canine chorus. She glanced at Flynn.
“I’ll have what you’re having,” he said. “With cream and sugar for the coffee.”
She finished the order and rolled to the next window. Flynn tugged his wallet from his slacks and handed her a credit card.
Sami wrinkled her nose. “Your money’s not good here,” she said. “But thank you anyway.”
“What’s wrong with my money?”
“I am used to doing everything myself,” she said.
“Do you have any idea how many times you say that?”
Sami shrugged, opened her purse and thrust some bills at the employee working at the window. She turned around and somehow convinced the Corgi to cease barking.
“Thank you,” Flynn said. “That dog is hard on the ears.”
“It’s her nature to be in charge,” Sami said. “But she’ll settle down once she learns from the other two.”
“So, let me see,” Flynn said. “By extrapolation, does that mean by the time we cross the Tennessee border my money will be good?”
She halted the car at the pick-up window. “Hmm,” she said. “I gather by your reasoning process you are suggesting that it’s my nature to be in charge but once I’ve acclimated to your presence I will concede that you and I have some equal role in the human-canine pack traveling in this vehicle?”
Flynn couldn’t help himself. He started laughing and found it difficult to stop. “Sorry,” he finally managed. “It’s just that nobody really talks that way.”
“Well, I do,” she said, turning away from him and reaching for the order being handed to her. She thrust two bags at him. “And I do not like to be laughed at.” She handed him a cup of coffee and settled the second one in the cup holder. “No one does.” She sounded more sad than upset.
Flynn lowered the bags to the floor and balanced the coffee cup on his knee. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said. “I apologize.”
Sami nodded, planted her sunglasses over those gorgeous green eyes, and peeled out of the drive-through onto the four-lane in front of a giant delivery truck. Flynn closed his eyes as the inevitable honking and Corgi barking set in. In a few minutes they were back on the interstate, traveling at only a few miles above the posted limit.
“Apology accepted?” he finally asked.
She nodded. “It does occur to me that you have never known the effects of social ostracism, so naturally you would not understand that my feelings could lie so closely under the surface of my rather thin skin.”
“Right,” Flynn said, “I think.”
“Were you made to feel inferior as a child due to your household being led by a single parent female?”
“If you mean did other kids make fun of me, the answer is no. Hell, we weren’t the exception.”
Sami nodded. “So your missing father has not played a significant role in your adult behavior choices?”
Flynn thrust his jaw. Back. Forth. Why did she have to ask that question? He shrugged.
“I see,” Sami said. “The lack of a response is noted and filed away for further review.”
“Would you like your breakfast?” Flynn reached for the bags at his feet.
“Anything to get me to hush?”
Flynn tried for a grin. “It’s either that or I’ll have to kiss you again.”
She held out her right hand, palm up. “Egg McMuffin, please.”
His grin sprang to life. “Now I know where I rank.”
She smiled, which pleased him. When she relaxed and quit speaking in sentences long enough to trip a guy, she wasn’t bad company. She rolled her shoulders and the filmy shirt slipped open a bit more. Flynn opened her breakfast sandwich, wrapped it in a napkin and gazed his fill at the swell of her breasts. Not bad at all.