Any Man of Mine

Chapter Three

Any Man of Mine:

Likes Children

Autumn pulled her Subaru Outback into her garage a little after midnight. She’d stayed at the Rainier Club until the last vendor had packed up, and she’d written a final check to the band.

She grabbed her tote bag off the passenger seat and made her way into the lower level of the house. She’d purchased the split-level in Kirkland a year ago because it was on a quiet cul-de-sac and had a huge, fenced backyard that bordered dense forest. For the past three years, she’d saved a portion of Conner’s child support and paid cash for the home. She needed that kind of security. That kind of stability. She needed to know that no matter what happened with her job or with Sam, she would always have a home for Conner.

The house certainly wasn’t lavish by any means. It had been built in the late seventies and, while it did have new paint and appliances, it needed some work. The previous owner had been mad for wallpaper with flower borders, wood paneling, and faux bricks. It all had to be taken down, but unfortunately Autumn didn’t have a lot of time to take care of it, and remodeling the house got pushed farther down the to-do list. Vince said he’d help her, but he didn’t have a lot of time either.

In the family room, the overhead light burned, and the television blasted the Discovery Channel. Her tote pulled one shoulder lower than the other as she stepped over a Nerf Recon Blaster and a green plastic golf bag filled with two plastic clubs. She shut off the TV and checked the wooden dowel in the sliding glass door before hitting the light switch.

The blaster was the latest toy Vince had bought for Conner. It was Vince’s opinion that Conner spent too much time with girls and needed a manly influence and manly toys. Autumn thought Vince was ridiculous-but whatever. Conner loved Vince and loved to spend time with him. God knew he spent little enough time with his own father.

In the quiet of the house, the stairs creaked beneath her feet. Normally, she liked peace and quiet. She liked those few hours of calm after she put Conner to bed. She liked having that time to herself. When she didn’t have to work or make dinner or keep one step ahead of her five-year-old. She liked reading a magazine while soaking in the tub, but she didn’t like Conner not being there at all. Even after these past several years when he’d had overnight visitations with his dad, she still got a bit anxious knowing her baby wasn’t in his bed.

She moved across the dark living room and into the lighted kitchen. She set her tote on the table, then opened the refrigerator and grabbed some string cheese. On the outside of the refrigerator door, Conner had spelled out “hi mommy” in alphabet magnets, and he’d tacked up a new picture he’d obviously drawn while she’d been at work. In crayon, he’d drawn a figure with a red ponytail and green eyes, one arm longer than the other and holding the hand of a smaller figure with yellow hair and a big smile. He’d drawn a bright tangerine sun and green grass. Off to one side he’d drawn another figure with long legs and yellow hair.

Sam.

Autumn opened the cheese and threw away the wrapper. She pulled a long string and took a bite. For the past few months, Conner had started to randomly include Sam in his family pictures, but always off to one side. Which, Autumn supposed, was a true representation of his relationship with his dad. Random. Off to one side.

She grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured filtered water into it. Seeing Sam that night, it was hard to remember what she’d found so fascinating about him. Oh, he was still gorgeous and rich and as magnetic as ever. He was big and muscular and larger than life, but she wasn’t the fool at thirty that she’d been at twenty-five.

She raised the glass to her lips and took a drink. It was embarrassing to admit, even to herself, that she’d ever been that big a fool, but she had been. She’d married Sam after knowing him a total of five days because she’d fallen madly, desperately, in love with him. It had been foolish but had felt so real.

She stared at her reflection in the window above the sink and lowered the glass. When she looked back on that time in her life, it was difficult to believe she’d actually felt those things. That she’d married a man she’d known for so short a time. Difficult to believe her heart had turned so soft and squishy at the sight of him. Difficult to believe she’d fallen so fast and hard. Difficult to believe she’d been a woman who would do something so impulsive.

Perhaps it had happened because she’d been at a real low point in her life. Her mother had died of colon cancer a few short months before that fateful trip. Vince had been in the Navy-off doing his scary SEAL stuff. And for the first time in two years, she hadn’t had anyone to take care of but herself. She hadn’t had to run anyone to doctor appointments or to chemo or radiation therapies.

After the funeral, after she’d packed up her mother’s life in boxes for storage, there’d been nothing left for her to do, and for the first time in her life, she’d felt alone. For the first time, she’d been alone-alone with only two things to check off her long to-do list. Sell the house and go to Vegas for an overdue break.

She would like to think she married Sam because she’d been lonely. That she’d had too much to drink and been stupid. Which was true. She had been alone and drunk and stupid, but she’d married Sam because she’d fallen head over heels, madly in love with him. It was embarrassing to admit, even now, how quick and hard she’d fallen.

But he hadn’t loved her. He’d married her like it was joke. He’d left her like she meant nothing. Less than nothing. He’d left her without looking back.

She set the glass in the sink, the sound of the glass against porcelain echoed in the empty house. He’d left her devastated and confused and with a lot of other emotions. She’d arrived in Vegas alone. She’d left married and alone. She’d been alone and scared when she’d taken her first pregnancy test. Alone and scared when she’d felt the first gossamer flutter of her baby in her womb, and the first time she’d heard Conner’s heartbeat. She’d been alone and scared when she’d discovered she was having a boy, and she’d been alone and scared when she’d delivered Conner with no one in the room but a doctor and two nurses.

A week after Conner’s birth, she’d called Sam’s lawyer and informed him that Sam had a son. A few days later, Conner had been given a paternity test, and a week later, Sam had seen his baby for the first time.

She turned off the kitchen light and moved down the hall. Autumn no longer felt alone and scared, but it had taken her a few years to stitch together a life from the shattered pieces. To make a secure place for Conner to live and forge a protective shield around her heart.

There was a part of her that wished she’d kept Conner a secret from Sam. A part of her that wanted to keep Conner to herself. A part of her that didn’t think Sam was worthy of her beautiful boy, but she knew that it was best for Conner to know his father. Autumn had hardly known her father, and she knew from experience it was best that Conner grew up having Sam in his life. Even if Autumn didn’t approve of him or his lifestyle, Sam was Conner’s father, and that was that.

She paused by Conner’s bedroom door and looked at the empty bed. His Barney pillow lay on the Barney quilt she’d made him, and her heart squeezed a little. Conner should be in his bed, hugging his Barney pillow. Sam didn’t deserve Conner. She’d seen him leave the Rainier Club with a group of his hockey buddies and the playmates. A child didn’t fit in with Sam’s lifestyle. He was an athlete, a playboy, and he was no doubt spending the night somewhere with one of those Playmates. Heck, he was probably spending the night with more than one while Autumn went to bed alone.

All by herself. Every night.

Not that she minded being alone all that much. She was too busy to be lonely, but… but sometimes, after she’d planned a wedding like Faith and Ty’s, she got a little wistful. She wanted that. She wanted a man to look at her the way Ty looked at Faith. She wanted a man to love her like that. She wanted to be the pinch in a man’s heart. The catch in his breath. The reason his stomach tumbled, and he lost sleep.

She’d married Sam, but he’d never felt those things for her. And if she married again, and she wasn’t ruling that out completely, she would not be fooled by a pretty face and charming smile. She wanted a man to look at her like he wanted to look at her for the rest of his life.

The problem was that between her job and her son, she didn’t have a lot of time and even less energy. She’d tried dating a few times, but men wanted girlfriends who had time for them. When Autumn did have a few hours, she longed for a massage or a pedicure more than she longed for a man. She could give herself an orgasm, but she couldn’t give herself a deep-tissue massage or paint daisies on her own toes.

She turned away from Conner’s room and moved down the hall. Dating was way down on her list of priorities. Maybe someday when Conner was older and her business wasn’t so demanding, she’d be ready to move dating up on her to-do list.

Light poured through the open door, stretched across the beige carpet and onto the dark blue and red Transformers quilt. Sam loosened his tie as he walked across the floor. He unbuttoned the neck of his shirt and stood within the spill of light at the side of his son’s bed. Conner lay on his side, his eyes closed and his breathing slow and steady. Like Sam, Conner was a heavy sleeper and threw off heat like a furnace. His blond hair stuck up in the back, and his hands were stretched out on the bed as if he were reaching for something.

The first time he’d seen his son, his heart had shifted in his chest, and his world had shifted beneath his feet. The first time he’d seen Conner, he’d been afraid to touch him. He’d been so sure he’d bruise him or drop him or break him somehow. Conner had been about six pounds and wearing some sort of footed blue thing. The enormous responsibility had hit Sam like a club to his spinning heart. He hadn’t planned to be someone’s dad. Knew he probably wasn’t going to be good at it, and the irony of it all had not escaped him. For a guy who avoided anyone’s depending on him whenever possible, he’d been handed the biggest responsibility of his life. All because he’d been irresponsible.

He moved from the room, pausing at the door for one last look at his little boy. He loved his son. The kind of love he’d never known existed before he’d seen his tiny face for the first time, but he didn’t always know what to do with Conner.

He unbuttoned his collar and pulled the tie from his neck. By the time he’d seen Conner that first time, the paternity test had been a fait accompli, but he hadn’t needed a test to know the child belonged to him. Conner looked like him. Fair-haired and blue-eyed. Conner was tall for his age, and Sam had dreamed of teaching his son to skate. But as much as Conner looked like a LeClaire, the kid didn’t like to skate, which was just inconceivable given that the boy was a LeClaire, and half-Canadian.

The few times Sam had tried to teach him, Conner had cried every time he fell. There was no crying in hockey, and after about the fifth time of trying, Sam had given up. Hell, Conner hadn’t even been there in the stands last season when Sam had won the Stanley Cup. He’d stayed home with a cold. True, Conner was only five, but Sam had been skating for two years by the age of five, and there was absolutely no way he would have let a little thing like a cold keep him from attending the final game of the playoffs. He blamed Autumn. She’d never hidden the fact that she thought hockey was too violent.

He shrugged out of his blazer and moved down the hall. Because of all the Stanley Cup events the past summer, he hadn’t spent much time with his son. Now, with school and the hockey season, he was going to see him even less. He wasn’t thrilled, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

The door to the spare bedroom was ajar, and he shut it. The latest assistant, Natalie, slept inside. She was young and beautiful and seemed to be good at her job. Most important, Conner liked her.

The shades in the master bedroom were open, and the Seattle skyline poured its light across the floor and onto the king-sized bed. He hit the light switch and saw a note on top of the white-and-blue quilt on his bed. It was from Natalie, letting him know that she had to leave at 6:00 A.M. Since she’d come to work for him at the last minute, he wasn’t going to get all twisted about her leaving early. He folded the note and glanced at the clock on his nightstand. It was a little after midnight. If he wanted Nat to take Conner home, he’d have to get up with Conner at five thirty. He reached for a pen inside the nightstand. I’ll take Conner home, he wrote, and slipped it under Natalie’s door. As he moved back to his room, he realized that he didn’t know where Conner lived these days. He knew they’d moved to Kirkland last year, and he had a vague idea, but he hadn’t been to the house.

He walked into the closet and tossed his tie on the center island. Contrary to what Autumn thought of his assistants-heck, what a lot of people thought-he didn’t sleep with them. Most of them were part-time students who needed extra money, and he paid them well to be at his beck and call. Their job description ranged from general gofer to nanny, and they were too important, and he depended on them too much to mess it all up with sex.

His pants hit the floor as he stepped out of his shoes. And he knew why everyone thought it, too. Because the assistants were all pretty. If any of the assistants had been homely girls with hairy warts, no one would think a thing about it. But he didn’t worry about what other people thought. He was only concerned with himself and, as far as he was concerned, why have an unattractive woman in the house if he could hire someone nice to look at? It just made perfect sense.

He stripped to his boxer-briefs and, because Nat was down the hall, stepped into a pair of pajama pants. He didn’t like anything restrictive and tended to overheat. He preferred to sleep bare-assed.

Sam scratched his bare chest and turned off all the lights. He’d have to call Autumn in the morning and let her know, but he didn’t think she’d have a problem with him dropping Conner off home. And if she did, tough shit. Yeah, they’d agreed not be in the same room together, but tonight they’d been in the same room and hadn’t killed each other. Hadn’t even thought about it. Of course, he could only speak for himself.

A remote control lay on his dresser, and he picked it up and pointed it at the windows. The shades slowly lowered as he crawled into bed. Daniel and Blake and some of the guys had gone out after the wedding. This was the last weekend before the start of the season, and they’d probably party all night. One last blowout. Of course, they wouldn’t let a little thing like work stop them completely, but they would have to slow down.

He adjusted the pillow beneath his head and thought of Autumn. He hadn’t laid eyes on her for two years, but he still felt the same knot of confusion and guilt that he’d felt the day he’d walked out of the hotel in Vegas, leaving her behind. Sam didn’t like feeling those things and avoided them as much as humanly possible.

He pushed all that guilt aside and thought of everything he had to do the next day and the season opener against San Jose Thursday. He thought of the Sharks’ strengths and weaknesses. How best to exploit their lack of mental toughness. Within minutes, he drifted into a heavy dreamless sleep, and when he woke the next morning, he woke with a feeling of being watched.

“You’re up now,” Conner said, as soon as Sam opened his eyes. Wearing Incredible Hulk pajamas, Conner stood by the bed, his light blond hair sticking up on one side of his head. He looked at Sam as if he’d been trying to stare him awake. The morning sun lit up the blinds but left the room in dusky shadow.

Beneath lowered lids, Sam looked at the clock. It was just past eight. He cleared his throat. “How long have you been standing there?”

“A long time.”

Which could mean an hour or a minute. “You wanna climb in here with me?”

“No. I want Toaster Sticks.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in?” Sundays were his only days to sleep in. The rest of the week he was practicing or playing, often both in the same day. “I could turn on the TV.” He pointed to the big screen across the room.

“Nope. I’m hungry.” That’s one thing he knew about Conner. The kid liked to eat the second his feet hit the floor.

Sam groaned and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Get the toaster out while I take a leak.”

Conner smiled and took off out of the room, his little feet thumping across the carpet and hardwood floors. The bottoms of his pajamas fit snug around his calves instead of his ankles. Conner had always been tall, but it seemed as if he’d grown a few inches over the summer when Sam hadn’t been looking. He stood and, after using the bathroom, joined his son in the kitchen.

He’d bought the loft a year ago and had the kitchen remodeled with brushed nickel, glass, and Italian marble. Instead of a conventional wall, a waterfall separated the kitchen and the dining room. From the ceiling, continuous water slid down a thin piece of glass giving the appearance of a sheet of water. The interior designer called it a “water feature,” and it was Conner’s favorite place to play.

Everything in the loft was modern and masculine and suited him. Sam opened the Sub-Zero freezer and crouched to look inside. Freezing air hit his bare chest as his gaze roamed over the contents: frozen juice, ice packs and numerous bags of peas. “I’m out of Toaster Sticks.”

“Mom makes me heart pancakes.”

Which explained a lot. “I don’t have anything to make pancakes.” Not that he’d make them into little hearts even if he did.

“I like Egg McMuffins,” Conner piped up.

“Your mom feeds you that crap?”

“When we’re in a hurry.”

“Well, don’t eat that stuff. It’s not good for you.” He opened the pantry. “In the morning, a guy needs 80 percent carbs and 20 percent protein to start his day right.”

Conner sighed. He’d heard it before. “I hate oatmeal.”

Sam knew that and grabbed a box of Cheerios. “Oatmeal will fill you up, give you energy, and put hair on your chest.”

“I’m in the kindergarten.”

Sam laughed and turned to look at his son, sitting at the bar on a tall stool, his blue eyes bright and alert. “You don’t want to be the only kid in your elementary school with a hairy chest?”

His eyes got even wider. “No!”

He took the milk out of the refrigerator and grabbed a cereal bowl. “Well, maybe next year.”

“Maybe in sixth grade.” Conner lowered his gaze to intently study the dark blond hair growing across Sam’s chest. Then he pulled out the neck of his pajama’s and peered inside. “Does it itch?”

“When it first grows in.” He set the bowl in front of Conner and poured the cereal.

“My nuts itch sometimes.” He rested his cheek on his fist. “But they aren’t hairy. Mom says I can’t scratch my nuts in public.”

Sam smiled. That was such a boy thing to say. Sam sometimes worried that Autumn raised his son like a girl. Made him wimpy. Good to know he thought like a boy.

“Did you wash your hands?”

He looked up from the bowl. “What?”

“You gotta wash your hands when you cook.”

Sam rolled his eyes and moved to the sink. So much for sounding like a boy. “You obviously live with a woman.” He turned on the faucet and pumped some antibacterial soap into his palm.

“Mom yells at Uncle Vince about it all the time.”

Good. Someone needed to yell at the idiot. Sam grabbed a paper towel and dried his hands.

“Does that hurt?”

“What?

He pointed to Sam’s bare arm. “That?”

“This?” Sam ran a finger over the heavily inked veni vidi vici tattooing his skin from the inside of his elbow to his wrist. “Nah. It did a little when I had it done.”

“What does it say?”

At one time it had said his mama’s name. Something he rarely recalled any more. “It’s Latin and means: I came, I saw, now someone’s gonna get his butt kicked.” He wondered if Autumn had covered over his name on the inside of her wrist.

Conner laughed, showing his little white teeth. “Butt. That’s a bad word.”

“Butt?” He purposely cleaned his language up for Conner. Always did. He shook his head and threw the paper towel away. “What do you say instead of butt?”

“Bum-bum.”

“Bum-bum?” He was right. Yet more proof that Conner spent too much time with a woman. “Butt isn’t a bad word.”

“Mom thinks so.”

“Just because your mom’s a girl, doesn’t mean she’s always right. Bum-bum is a sissy word and will get you beat up. Say butt instead.”

He thought it over and nodded. “I got a picture.” He jumped off his chair and ran from the kitchen. When he returned, he set a piece of white notebook paper on the bar.

“You drew it?” Sam poured cereal and milk into the bowl.

“Yeah. I’m a good drawer.” He crawled back up on the stool and pointed to two lopsided figures with yellow hair and blue eyes. One was smaller, and it looked like they were standing on an egg. “This is you, and this is me. We’re fishin’. ”

“Fishing?” He grabbed a banana and sliced it up.

“Yeah.”

The only time Sam fished was in Cabo. And that was more about drinking with the guys than actually fishing. He dumped half the banana in Conner’s cereal, the other half in a blender. He grabbed a spoon and slid the bowl to his son. While Conner ate, he tossed some frozen strawberries, milk, protein powder, lecithin, and a splash of flaxseed oil into the blender. He pushed smoothie, then poured his breakfast into a big glass.

“I saw you on the boat.”

“What boat?” He was pretty sure no one had taken photos on those trips. It was kind of an unwritten rule. He turned and raised his glass to his lips.

“In the paper.” A Cheerio stuck to the corner of Conner’s mouth, and he pushed it in with the back of his hand.

Ah. That picture. The one taken of him on a yacht last June pouring beer from the Stanley Cup on a few big-busted bikini models.

“I didn’t like those girls.”

“That’s ’cause you’re five.” Sam lowered the glass and licked his top lip. “You will someday.”

Conner shook his head, and one disapproving brow rose up his forehead. Good God, he looked just his mama. “Take me on your boat. Not those girls.”

“That wasn’t my boat.”

“Oh.” Conner took a big bite and chewed. “Josh F’s dad takes him to the kindergarten,” he said around a mouthful of Cheerios. “Dads should take their kids to the kindergarten sometimes.”

How had they jumped from boats and fishing to kindergarten? “Doesn’t your mom take you?”

Conner nodded and swallowed hard. “You can take me, too.”

“Maybe when I’m in town sometime.” He took a drink. “How do you like ‘the’ kindergarten?”

“It’s okay. I like my teacher, Mrs. Rich. She reads to us. And I like Josh F.”

“Is he your friend?”

He nodded. “Yep. Not Josh R. though. He’s dumb. I don’t like him.” He scratched his cheek. “He punched me.”

“Why?”

Conner shrugged a skinny shoulder. “ ’Cause I touched his Barney backpack.”

“The purple dinosaur?”

“Yep.”

Sam licked his top lip. “Did you punch him back?”

“Oh no.” He shook his head. “I don’t like to punch people. It’s not nice.”

If the kid didn’t look just like him, Sam might wonder. He’d spent so much time in the penalty box for fighting last season, he’d been tempted to hang a picture and maybe set up a lava lamp, it had felt so much like home. “I thought Barney was for babies.”

Conner thought a minute, then nodded. “I liked Barney last year.”

“Barney sucks.”

Conner laughed, again showing his little white teeth. “Yeah. Barney sucks.”