Summer Lovin’ (Costas Sisters #2)(38)
Author: Carly Phillips

Shaking his head at how different he was around Zoe, he adjusted himself, and while he waited for his most obvious reaction to Zoe to subside, he seated himself behind his desk.

Zoe stepped out of the bathroom at the same time Sam came barging into the office, barreling through like a tornado.

"Shouldn’t you knock before you just run into Ryan’s office?" Zoe asked. "What if he’d been having an important phone call?"

Zoe’s gaze never met his, but he noticed her non-Mediterranean blush remained.

"Yeah, well this is important." Sam paused at the foot of his desk, obviously unnerved and out of breath.

"What’s wrong?"

"I’m being followed," Sam said.

Ryan sat up quickly in his seat while Zoe grabbed for Sam’s hand. "What do you mean?"

He had no doubt they were both thinking about the two incidents in New Jersey . Could this be a third?

"The child has an active imagination, Mr. Baldwin," Ryan’s secretary, Nadine, an attractive brunette, said from where she stood in the doorway. "We went to Burger King and she kept looking over her shoulder, sure someone was behind us."

"But you didn’t see anyone?" Ryan asked.

"Not till I went to the bathroom," Sam said. "When I came out, he was standing outside the men’s room right opposite me."

Nadine’s mouth dropped open. "I had no idea."

"Did he touch you? Try to grab you?" Zoe asked.

Sam shook her head. "He didn’t have the chance. A woman was walking out with her kids and I latched on to the little one’s hand and pretended I was with them. Then as soon as we were out of the hallway, I ran to the table."

"I didn’t know. She just said she wanted to leave and only mentioned being followed in a general sense." Nadine glanced down. "I let her go alone," she admitted. "Sam said it would be okay. I don’t have kids. I didn’t realize."

Ryan nodded. "It’s okay, Nadine." Hell, he didn’t know how to handle a teenager yet, either. Both he and Zoe had let her go to the rest stop bathroom alone. "Don’t worry about a thing," he told the other woman. "Go relax and I’ll take it from here."

She nodded. "Thank you." She left them alone and shut the door behind her.

"What’s going on?" Zoe asked. "Was it the same man who broke into the house back home?"

Sam nodded. "I think so. He had the same dark hair and his face was familiar. It can’t be my imagination," she insisted. "And the whole time we were walking down the street, it felt like someone was watching me."

Ryan exhaled a sharp breath. "You were scared, I bet."

"Which is completely understandable considering all you’ve been through lately," Zoe added, exchanging a worried glance with him.

"We’ll call Quinn and see how the investigation’s progressing. In the meantime, how about we go back home for a while before dinner?" he asked, changing the subject.

Sam nodded. "Good idea. What’s on the menu tonight? I was thinking maybe Chinese food."

"Actually…" Ryan began, then glanced at Zoe for help. After today’s incident, he was sure Sam was even more fragile, although she’d never show it. After all the progress he’d made with her over the last few days, his next announcement could bring back the Arctic chill.

"I asked Ryan if we could meet his family tonight," Zoe said, unexpectedly taking the heat off him.

Sam narrowed her gaze. "How could you do something like that? I don’t want to meet his stinking parents!"

"Samantha!" Zoe said, clearly appalled.

"Well I don’t. They hated my mother. I remember her telling me we only had each other because they didn’t want her around. So why would you want to go there?" Her voice rose with all the anger and fear of a child who’d lost the mother she loved.

By meeting two people who might paint a negative picture of her mother, Sam obviously feared those good memories being erased and her mother being taken from her again in a different way than before.

Ryan stood and walked out from behind the desk. As grateful as he was that Zoe would put herself in Sam’s line of fire to protect him, he couldn’t let her shoulder this burden.

"Zoe isn’t the one who asked for this dinner. I did. It’s time you meet your family."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Don’t go defending her. She probably figures that she can dump me in that big old mausoleum I saw pictures of and go back home without me."

The tears in Sam’s eyes and quiver in her voice excused anything she said to him, Ryan thought. Still Zoe deserved better. "Zoe and her family took you in when you had no one. They’ve treated you like you were one of them."

Sam sniffed and turned away so she could wipe her arm across her face. "So?"

"So she deserves an apology now."

Sam hiccupped and then she ran straight into Zoe’s arms, shaking and sobbing, her muffled words tearing his heart in two. "I love you. I want to be with you and Elena and Nicholas and Ari and…" She rhymed off the names of the Costas clan while Zoe stroked her long hair hanging down her back.

"I love you, too," she said to Sam. But her eyes were on Ryan, both of them painfully aware that Zoe couldn’t offer Sam the reassurance she wanted most. She couldn’t promise that Sam could go back to the house she called home. Not as long as Ryan was in the picture, wanting something from this child, too.

They talked in hushed tones. Zoe handed Sam a tissue and helped her pat her cheeks and dry her tears, which had quickly turned embarrassing to the teenager.

Watching Zoe comfort Sam, Ryan’s chest squeezed tight and he had trouble catching his breath. The realization hit him out of the blue. Not only was he fascinated with this woman, but he was falling for her, too. Enough that he needed time to learn even more about the raven-haired woman whose life he had turned upside down.

* * *

ZOE CLOSED HERSELF in her guest room at Ryan’s and called Quinn as soon as they returned home. He cursed and muttered a few choice words about his own stupidity for not considering the possibility that whoever seemed to be after Sam would follow them to Boston . Until now, the notion that the guy was after Sam had been pure conjecture. He could have been after something in the house. Now it seemed clear he was specifically after Sam. Unless of course, he was looking to scare or punish the family and was using Sam to accomplish his goal. Until they caught the guy, they were in the dark as to his motives or what he actually wanted.

Zoe shivered. Quinn promised to call a friend of his to arrange covert protection for Sam while they were in town.