Currant Creek Valley - By RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,84
sexy carpenter.”
“He’s not my carpenter,” Alex said sharply. Too sharply, she realized, when her mother and Maura both gave her careful looks.
“He finished the kitchen at the restaurant,” Evie said with a teasing smile. “That makes him yours, doesn’t it?”
“Technically, that makes him Brodie’s carpenter,” she muttered.
“I guess that’s true,” Evie said. “Brodie has so many projects going right now, he’d probably like to keep Sam on permanent salary. He’s got several other jobs lined up once he finishes the work at the recreation center. That’s what happens when you do good work. Everybody wants a piece of you.”
Couldn’t she go anywhere without the conversation coming back to Sam?
“I hope you have a fantastic time, Charlotte,” she said firmly.
Her pretty features colored but her eyes sparkled and she somehow managed to look embarrassed and excited at the same time. Evie knew she was trying to reach out of her comfort zone socially. About time, she thought.
“It should be fun. Most of the guys in town still look at me as, well, the way I used to be. It’s refreshing to meet someone who has no preconceptions.”
Charlotte was one of the nicest people Alex knew and she had worked so hard to remake herself over the past few years. Around their circle of friends, she was warm and bright and funny but she tended to draw into herself when others were around.
“I’m a little nervous, if you want the truth,” Charlotte said.
“You’ll have a great time,” Alex said.
“Sam’s really nice,” Evie added. “He comes off as gruff sometimes but it’s all bluster.”
Sam? Gruff? She hadn’t seen that side of him, she supposed. From the moment they had met, that painfully embarrassing encounter at the restaurant when she had thought he was breaking in, he had been wry and quick-witted and extremely sexy but not at all taciturn.
Did he show a different side to her than he did to everybody else?
She really didn’t want to sit here and listen to her friends psych Charlotte up for her date with the man Alex was in lo—er, seriously lusted after.
“I should probably run. I’m going to swing by and check on Caroline.”
“I’ll walk out with you,” Charlotte said. “I need to pick up the dress I’m wearing at the boutique. I had to go shopping. Nothing I had in my closet fit.”
She received a round of high-fives for that, further evidence of how far she had come. Losing eighty pounds tended to completely change a person’s outlook. Alex could remember when Charlotte used to hate shopping for clothes, but now it was one of her favorite things.
She was a terrible person, Alex thought, as they walked out of the Silver Strike Lodge to the parking lot some distance away.
Charlotte was a close friend and Alex ought to be jumping handsprings for her that she had a date with a great guy she liked.
She was the one who had suggested Charlotte was perfect for Sam, right? And she was. He and Ethan both needed somebody just like her—somebody giving and loving who could nurture them.
Instead, just the thought of them together made her want to cry.
She was only emotional because of Caroline, she told herself, but the explanation rang hollow.
“Are you sure you don’t mind, Alex?” Charlotte asked when they walked outside the lodge. “That I’m going to the gala with Sam, I mean?”
Uh. She scrambled for some way to respond and tried to put on a suitably bewildered expression. “Mind? Why on earth would I mind?”
“I don’t know. I just...” Charlotte’s voice trailed off and she chewed her lip, one old habit she hadn’t managed to break. “I heard Claire say something to Maura earlier today, that’s all. About you and Sam. Going out a few times.”
She could feel her face go hot. “We hung out a few times, that’s all. You know how I am. Never happy for long with one guy.”
As much as she hated that mostly unearned reputation and the jokes her friends sometimes made at her expense, in this case it came in handy.
Charlotte scrutinized her carefully and she wondered if she had been too quick, too hearty, with her answer. “Are you sure? I like Sam, of course, I mean, who wouldn’t? He’s a great father, a hard worker, a decorated war hero.”
“Yes. He is.” And a fantastic kisser. Don’t forget that part.
“That’s how we met, actually,” Charlotte went on. “I knew he used to be in the army and I thought maybe he could have some suggestions for