Daddy Says, ''I Do!''. Stacy Connelly

have expected it, considering the soccer-mom minivan Kara drove, but what he hadn’t expected was the sudden jab of disappointment. Kids meant a level of responsibility miles above what he was used to, so he tended to stay away. From kids and from single moms.

      “Cute kid,” he said, almost automatically, before taking a second glance at the boy in the van.

      He was cute. All that blond curly hair sticking up in every direction, the dimple in one sleep-reddened cheek, the wide green eyes beneath straight-set brows. That sense of déjà vu tugged at Sam again. Maybe it was the look in the boy’s eyes, he thought. Something a little sad…a little lost, that reminded him of his niece, Maddie, who’d had the same sad, lost look to her eyes when she was that age and still struggling to understand why her mother had left.

      Or maybe it was simply the resemblance the boy had to his mother, standing still and silent a few feet away, her arms crossed at her waist. The defensiveness and vulnerability of her stance caught hold of something inside him. An unfamiliar feeling that made him want to shoulder whatever burden she was carrying, break down the carefully constructed walls around her, and let her know everything was going to be okay….

      Shoving the crazy thought aside, Sam focused on the one thing he could actually do for the woman and went in search of her spare tire.

      Tension had spun her nerves into glass in that brief moment when Sam Pirelli stared at her nephew, and Kara Starling waited for the words that would shatter the last of her composure into a thousand sharp pieces.

      Cute kid.

      Her breath escaped in a whoosh of sound hidden by the breeze blowing through the pines. Relief left her nearly weak-kneed, and she gave hesitant glance in the mechanic’s direction. A soft whistling came from the back of the vehicle as he worked on getting the spare from beneath the van’s undercarriage. He didn’t seem interested in anything other than changing the tire.

      He’d been interested in something more a minute ago, her conscience taunted.

      She hadn’t missed the spark of attraction that rocked them both when his hand met hers. Sam Pirelli was a gorgeous guy, but then, she’d expected him to be. Dark blond hair peeked out beneath a backward baseball cap that had seen better days. The same could be said for the washed-out gray T-shirt stretched across his wide chest and the threadbare jeans. But Kara was struck by the thought that even a designer suit would fade a little when a woman was caught by the spark in his green eyes and the bright flash of his smile.

      Sam Pirelli wasn’t the kind of man who tried to impress women. He was impressive without even trying. And his charmer’s grin told her he knew it.

      And as much as she longed to, Kara couldn’t pretend she’d been unaffected by the brush of his warm, rough skin against hers. With anyone else, that magnetic pull of attraction would have been inconvenient. With this man it stirred up feelings of guilt on too many levels to count and whipped already whirling protective instincts into a frenzy.

      This wasn’t how she’d expected her first meeting with Sam Pirelli to go. But then nothing had gone as Kara expected in the month since her sister had been killed in a plane crash.

      Opening the side door to the minivan, she kept her smile in place when Timmy scrambled back into the booster chair. He dragged his favorite stuffed animal, a slightly crosseyed green dinosaur, into his lap and hugged it tightly. The boy had always been smart for his age, but also shy and quiet. He’d withdrawn even more since his mother’s death, and despite Kara’s best attempts she’d been unable to draw him out. Her heart ached for the pain he was feeling and at her own inability to make that pain go away.

      “Hey, sleepyhead,” she said softly.

      After they’d stopped for lunch at a small gas station restaurant along the highway, the little boy had fallen asleep. She’d hoped he would rest for the final leg of their journey, but this unexpected stop had shot that plan out of the water.

      Along with her other plan of how to best handle Sam Pirelli.

      Awareness of the man working at the back of the van fluttered through her, but Kara pushed it aside and focused on her nephew. When Timmy stayed silent, staring at his shoes over the dinosaur’s furry head, she said, “We’re almost to Clearville now. Why don’t you come on out and walk around for a bit?”

      “Then can we go home?” he asked, a heartbreaking amount of hope filling his voice.

      Did he think going home would mean returning to the small apartment he’d shared with his mother? That going home would mean finding Marti waiting for him?

      Kara took a shallow breath, aware that anything deeper than the slight, tentative motion would cause more pain to her bruised and broken heart. She’d done her best to explain that his mother was in heaven now, where she would always watch over him. But Kara didn’t know how much the four-year-old boy understood.

      Some days, she still didn’t understand her sister’s death. Not when Marti had been the most alive person Kara had ever known. Her little sister had never done anything half measure. She embraced life and everything in it and rushed into every adventure with a live for the day verve Kara had long admired…and envied. But in the end, that never-consider-tomorrow attitude was partly responsible for her sister’s death.

      Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them back quickly. Timmy was all that mattered now, and Kara was determined to do right by him and by her sister. Even if it meant taking this trip to Clearville and proving to herself that life in this small northern California town was not in Timmy’s future.

      Though she longed to say they’d be back home in no time, she refused to make promises she might not be able to keep. As much as she loved her sister, Kara knew the young boy had heard his fair share of empty words and promises of tomorrows that had never come.

      And now never would.

      His mother wasn’t going to be there for any of the milestones of his life, or the simple everyday moments so easy to take for granted. The fresh pain of the loss of her sister combined with an old ache Kara refused to acknowledge.

      “We’re going to stay for a little while,” she finally told her nephew.

      He heaved a huge sigh. “Okay.” And then with the attention span of a typical four-year-old, he scrambled around onto his knees and gazed out the back window. “What’s that man doing to our car?”

      That man. Sam Pirelli was a total stranger to Timmy. If she kept quiet, he would stay that way. Indecision and guilt tied her stomach into knots. In the month since the reading of Marti’s will, Kara had done her best to ignore the feeling, but it was back. Stronger than ever, she thought as Sam caught her watching and flashed her a wink.

      “His name is Sam Pirelli,” she heard herself say softly before she could talk herself out of it. “He’s a mechanic, and he’s changing out a flat tire for us. Isn’t that nice?”

      Timmy shrugged, lacking the interest in cars and trucks that most little boys possessed. Reaching out, she smoothed the cowlick stuck up at the top of his head, her fingers sifting through his curls.

      Would the hair hidden by Sam Pirelli’s baseball cap be as soft?

      The wayward thought caught her off guard, and she snatched her hand back as if she’d actually touched Sam’s hair. “Why don’t we go take a look?”

      Timmy climbed from the minivan, clinging tightly to the stuffed dinosaur and to Kara’s hand as he looked around. “I don’t like it here. It’s dark.”

      “Dark?”

      “Uh-huh,” he said as he eyed the trees lining the edge of the highway. The thick, dense pines, a far cry from the light, airy palms in San Diego, cast long, jagged shadows and provided a formidable barrier beyond the road. “I think there’s monsters.”

      “Timmy.” Kara bit her tongue before she could provide the logical argument that there were no such thing. Monsters might not be real, but the little boy’s fears