She swiped at his arm. “That’s what I get for sharing the wonder of burgeoning life with a Carl Everett fan.”
Samantha Sykes was a born and raised Southsider like Sam. Which meant she was a tried-and-true Chicago White Sox fan. But they’d parted ways over Carl Everett, a homerun hitter who, despite being a key to the White Sox World Series victory in 2005, was more known for his whackadoodle ways on and off the field.
“I never said I was afan,” he corrected. “I just said we wouldn’t have gone all the way without him.”
“The man denied the existence of dinosaurs. He called the Apollo moon landing a hoax.”
“He also hit twenty-three homers and drove in eighty-seven runs that year.”
She rolled her eyes. “Anything for a win, right?”
“Notanything.But, babes, it was the freakin’ World Series!”
“I heard that!” Ozzie hollered from the second floor. “No one calls my woman pet names but me!”
Sam rolled his eyes and motioned for Samantha to proceed him up the stairs. When she alighted on the step next to him, he whispered conspiratorially, “He’s a little proprietary, doncha think?”
She made a face. “And it’s only gotten worse with little Hazel on the way.” She placed a protective hand on her belly the way pregnant women had been doing since the beginning of time.
“I vetoed Hazel last night, remember?” Ozzie yelled. “It sounds like that old aunt who comes to Thanksgiving toting fruitcake and smelling like mothballs!”
“You can’t vetoeveryname I choose!” Samantha hollered back, stomping up the steps.
Sam watched her go with a half grin on his face and a mile-wide ache in his heart.
There’d been a time at the beginning of his marriage when he’d wanted nothing more than to start a family of his own. To fill his life with all the laughter and love he’d missed out on as a kid. But his ex had insisted,“I won’t bring a child into this world knowing they might have to grow up without a father. The day you quit the Marines is the day I get my IUD removed.”
As it’d turned out, it hadn’t only been his job that’d kept her from wanting to bear his children. It’d been the next-door neighbor who’d warmed her bed every time he’d been deployed.
He’d forgotten that sense of longing in the years since his divorce, that desire to hold a child of his own in his arms. But feeling the baby move inside Samantha’s belly brought it all screaming back.
There was something missing in the center of him. A great, gaping hole he’d been desperate to fill his entire life. And no matter how far he sank into his job or his hobbies, or how much time and effort he gave to his friends and teammates, nothing filled the void because it was a space reserved specifically for the woman he’d love with this whole heart and the children he hoped they’d make together.
Will I ever find the one whose soul matches my own?he wondered.
When the memory of Hannah standing in the doorway to the bathroom with her purple hair all around her shoulders bloomed to life inside his brain, he quickly shoved it aside.
Even if somehow shecouldget past her older sister having been the one to take his virginity, even ifhecould get past the fact that, for many years, he trulyhadthought of her as a kid sister, he couldn’t start something with her because what if it didn’t work out?
What if, despite his best efforts, their romance crashed and burned?
He hated the thought of losing her as a friend. Hated thinking about how the sweet memories he had of her as a girl might be tainted if they were to start something that ended badly. Hated the idea of hurting her when all he’d ever wanted was to see her happy and whole and thriving.
The only way to make sure that happens is to never begin in the first place,he thought with a decisive nod as he made his way up to the second floor.The best thing I can do for Hannah is keep my hands and my heart to myself.
The instant he stepped onto the landing, however, he saw Samantha bending over Ozzie’s shoulder so she could plant a kiss on his mouth and doubt crept into Sam’s brain…
But what if?
What if he tried with Hannah and things worked out? What if shewasthe missing puzzle piece that could make the picture complete?
Is the reward worth the risk? Is it really better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?
“I love you, too, you furry little rascal.” Samantha’s words dragged him from his thoughts, and he looked down to see Peanut winding himself in a figure eight around Samantha’s legs.
The silly cat loved women, but pregnant women? Peanut couldn’t get enough of them.
As if on cue, after Samantha grabbed a seat at the conference table, propping her feet on the chair next to her, Peanut hopped into her lap.
