“Uh-huh,” Sam muttered again, patently unenthused by the prospect of a get-acquainted session with the great outdoors.
Okay, so maybe his son wasn’t the only one who was failing to work up much enthusiasm in that regard, Adam conceded. They were both roughing it anyway. He might be wrong about this being his best chance to reestablish a closer bond between them, but it was worth a shot. Right now, he had to believe that.
“What did your mother have to say when you phoned her this morning?” Adam asked in another bid to keep the conversation going. He had no intention of mentioning that he’d spent a good part of the past several nights staring up at the ceiling and wondering if his ex-wife’s recent remarriage could somehow be a factor in the wall his son had built around himself.
Sam tapped the heels of his running shoes together. “She said I should be careful playing in the woods.” He paused. “She didn’t sound so good.”
Adam frowned and glanced toward the passenger’s seat. “What do you mean?”
Shrugging, Sam said, “Like maybe she was a little sick or something.”
“Well, she could have caught a bug, I suppose.” Adam slowed to negotiate a sharp turn in a road winding steadily upward. “You know you can call her on my cell phone whenever you want to while we’re away, but I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. Your mother’s always taken good care of herself and eaten healthy foods, even when she’s dieting.”
“I think she eats more than she used to,” Sam offered after a beat. “I heard her say something about buying bigger clothes.”
Ariel? Letting her model-slim figure go? Adam had a hard time imagining that. Still, he said nothing. What he’d really like to discuss was Sam’s relationship with his new stepfather, but something told him he wouldn’t win any real confidences, not yet, and the last thing he wanted was pat answers.
“Speaking of clothes,” he said, “how do those jeans feel?”
“Okay, I guess.” Sam looked down at one of three pairs of blue jeans bought during a whirlwind trip through the mall the day before. “They’re sort of stiff.”
“They won’t be once they’re washed,” Adam assured him. The same applied to his own dark Levi’s and black denim shirt, he imagined, both of which bore little resemblance to the knit shirts and cotton slacks he favored as casual clothing. His new boots would need some breaking in, too. But a few days of trekking through the pines would take care of that, even though he had always preferred jogging on the track at his health club to hiking anywhere—much less through a forest. Nevertheless, he would do it—with his son at his side.
“Once we get our bearings, we’ll be glad we added to our wardrobe. We’ll hike our way through the woods and do a fine job of it,” Adam contended with a determined set of his jaw.
“Uh-huh,” Sam muttered one more time with clear misgivings as they reached the faded wooden sign pointing the way to Glory Ridge Resort and Campground.
In a matter of minutes Adam brought the sedan to a stop in the gravel lot next to the resort’s office. Only feet away stood the dusty red pickup belonging to the resort’s owner, which had been parked there on his earlier visit. “We’re here,” he said.
Sam sat up straight and glanced out through the windshield. In the next breath, his jaw dropped like a stone. “Dad, there’s a skunk on the porch!”
Dad. For a silent moment Adam closed his eyes in sheer gratefulness at hearing that word from his son’s lips—a word he’d been waiting for ever since Sam had stepped off the airplane looking more wary than happy to see his father. Right this minute, he could only be glad—damn glad—that he’d made the decision to come to a place so foreign to both of them.
“It’s okay,” he said. “The skunk is basically harmless, I’m told.”
Moving with caution despite that assurance, Sam stuck his head out the car window. “I don’t smell nothing.”
“You don’t smell anything,” Adam said, automatically correcting his son, “because the skunk doesn’t have the usual equipment.”
“You mean he’s lost his stinker?”
“Actually, it’s a she,” Adam explained, “and yes, she’s lost her, uh, stinker.”
“Boy, the guys in school will never believe this.” Sam looked back at Adam. “Can I take a picture?”
“Sure.”
The one thing Sam seemed genuinely enthusiastic about these days was the camera his father had sent him for Christmas. At least you did well there, Lassiter, Adam told himself. He got out of the car, then walked around to open Sam’s door. The little boy grabbed his camera from the back seat and hopped to the ground.
The skunk calmly waddled down the steps and approached the new arrivals. “Her name is Sweet Pea,” Adam said dryly.
Sam carefully aimed his camera and took a picture, after which Sweet Pea gave both males a brief sniff and strolled off toward the trees. “You were right,” the eight-year-old whispered, watching the animal’s departure, “this place is like nowhere I’ve ever been.”
Adam didn’t add that Sam was about to meet a woman who probably bore little resemblance to anyone he’d ever met, either. He set a hand gently on his son’s shoulder and urged him toward the cabin. “Let’s see if the owner is in her office.”
Sam glanced around him as they climbed the porch steps. “Does she like living all the way out here?”
“Yes, she does,” Adam replied, sure of his words.
“Why?”
“Because she’s different from the kind of people who prefer living in towns and cities.”
Sam sighed mournfully. “Maybe she thinks it’s okay, but I bet there’s nowhere close around to even get the kinda hamburgers and fries I like.”
Adam recognized this reference to his son’s favorite fast-food restaurant, where they’d stopped for lunch before heading for the wilds of the mountains. “No, I’m afraid not,” he said.
Sam’s dark mood, lightened by the unexpected sight of Sweet Pea, seemed to return as he sighed again.
JANE STOOD IN THE rear of the cabin, surveying what she considered a job well done. She’d just completed rearranging the furniture to transform the room into an office for two. One of twin swivel chairs that continued to creak despite her liberal use of oil stood behind the small desk that had been cleared of everything but an antique brass banker’s lamp. The other chair sat behind an old card table, set up to face the desk and hold the combination answering machine and phone. Her consultant now had a desk at his disposal and could hook up to the phone line whenever he needed to, she thought with satisfaction, turning to welcome her guests with a polite smile when the cabin door opened. Her smile swiftly widened as she took in Adam Lassiter dressed in an obviously brand-new outfit, looking a long way from comfortable in crisp black denim.
Out of his element, she reflected with amusement.
Not that he wasn’t still attractive. He was. But he no longer appeared so self-assured, and that somehow pleased her, honesty forced her to admit.
“I was expecting you about now,” she said. For a moment her gaze met his across the room. Then she dropped it to the boy standing at his father’s side. Stepping forward, she held out a hand. “I’m Jane Pitt. We don’t waste much time using last names around here, so feel free to call me Jane.”
“I’m Sam,” the child replied after a beat, and placed his hand in hers for a brief handshake. Although his hair was shades lighter than Adam’s, his gray eyes were a duplicate of the man who had fathered him. “I already met your skunk. I heard she lost her stinker.”
Jane