Chapter One
His new home.
Sam Catalano stood at the top of the hill outside the office of Camp Overlook, sparing a moment to drink in the sight that had lived in his memory for so long. Soaring pines. Brilliantly green maples. The browns and reds of cabins circling the group buildings. The St. Lawrence river beckoning from the edge of the woods, sparkling into the horizon, a glittering blue line dividing New York from Canada.
Unlike Sam’s world – at least the way it had spun out of his control over the past few months – very little had changed at the camp in the dozen years since he last walked away. It was constant. Comforting. The perfect place to bring his son and start their new life.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and hit the speed dial for home, needing to hear Casey’s laughter again before he headed into a meeting he did not want to have. But before the call could go through he heard another sound – that of laughter bubbling out of the camp office. Slightly low, vaguely husky, and achingly familiar, it brought every hair on his body to full attention.
Libby.
He’d thought he was ready to see her again. He’d done more mental prep for this meeting then he had when he played the final game in the Stanley Cup. Two minutes ago, he would have said, yeah, it would be awkward, but he wasn’t about to let a little lovers’ history come between him and his dream.
That was before he heard her laugh. All of a sudden he was eighteen again, back here at camp, smack dab in the middle of his first real relationship and so crazy with want that he’d actually talked himself into believing in things like forever and happily ever after.
He’d made Libby believe in them, too. And then he’d walked away from her.
“Hello?”
The sound of his sister’s voice pulled him back to the moment, the phone, the call. Damn. Libby was messing with his mind already and he hadn’t even seen her yet.
Snap out of it, Catalano. Live the goal.
“Hey Brynn, it’s me. Just wanted to check on you and Casey before I head into the meeting. Everything okay?”
“Fine and dandy. Casey stacked four blocks by himself this morning, the damned dog made it outside every time he needed to go, and I was propositioned by both Hugh Jackman and George Clooney. Decisions, decisions.”
“Someday my life will be as exciting as yours. Is Casey busy?”
“Right here. Um, you got a call from a social worker this morning. The one who has to do the home study.”
The home study.
At the reminder of what his life had become – social workers and lawyers and court dates, all to ensure he maintained custody of his own son – his feet curled inside his shoes, digging into the soles in an instinctive fight-or-flight response. His gut contracted as tight as a fist and he had to forcibly remind himself to breathe out before the black spots started dancing in front of his eyes.
“Thanks. Text me her number and I’ll give her a call.” He kept the words light so as not to worry Brynn. She did a good enough job of that on her own. “Let me talk to Casey.”
“Hang on.”
He heard Brynn telling Casey that Daddy wanted to talk to him – then the snuffling sound of the phone being passed over – then a rasping kind of noise that probably meant the phone was being dragged over clothing – then the wet breathing that made him grin every time.
“Da da da da da!”
And just like that, everything in him lit up and relaxed. His boy was safe and happy and his, still his. For the moment, at least, all was right in his world.
“Hey squirt. Are you being a good boy for auntie Brynn?”
“Box!”
“Yeah, I heard you were playing with your blocks. Did you knock them down and go boom?”
“Boom!”
“Way to go, bud. I have a rock for you.” Sam scooped a smooth gray stone from the side of the path. “From your new home.”
“Home?”
The plaintive tone to the word made Sam’s gut clench. “Yeah, Casey. Daddy will be home tonight in time to put you to bed. I have to go now but I’ll see you then, okay? Love you.”
He ended the call, grinning at the picture he’d set as his background, of Casey with his face painted like a pirate. His son. The child he never thought would be his, the reason he had turned his life inside out and upside down. The only goal that mattered anymore.
The reason he was about to face down the woman whose heart he had broken twelve years ago.
With that heartbreak in mind, he raised the phone to his eye and snapped a quick picture of the camp. The photo could never do justice to the lush landscape before him, but it would serve his purpose nicely. A couple of clicks and the shot became his new backdrop.
There. One less chance that he would slip up and accidentally let Libby know about Casey.
He pocketed the phone and the stone before mounting the steps to the office two at a time. He didn’t know what kind of reception he was going to get when he walked across the kid-worn planks of the porch and stepped through the door, but whatever happened, he would undoubtedly deserve it.
With a quick check that his collar hadn’t crept up on him, and a deep breath of the mild June air, he gave a sharp rap and opened the door.
The laughter came to a sudden, choking halt.
Sam found himself in the middle of a knotty pine office that seemed to have been plucked straight from his memory, right down to the unforgettable mustiness of ancient wood tickling his nose. If not for the bulky computers perched on the pair of battered metal desks, he would have sworn the last twelve years had bypassed the room.
Two women sat before him. Myra McLean, the camp owner, swiveled back and forth in her desk chair, a nervous smile lifting the wrinkles from her face. She always made him think of the great blue herons that nested along the banks of the river with her long skinny legs and an even longer, skinnier neck. Three or four decades of eating the camp’s famously decadent chocolate whipped cream cake hadn’t put an extra inch on Myra.
But it was the other woman who made him brace himself, the one jumping up from the computer chair to gape at him.
Libby.
Her hair was a darker red than when he had first dared twist her curls around his fingers. Disbelief widened her hazel eyes and parted the lips he still tasted in occasional dreams. Sam had figured out long ago that Libby’s lips were what God had in mind when He decided that people should have a mouth. The kind of lips that made a promise.
“Hello, Sam.” Myra’s grin faded as she glanced toward the other woman. “I’m sure you remember Libby Kovak.”
Myra could drop the innocent act any time now. She was more than aware that he had damned good reasons for remembering Libby.
Libby snapped that gorgeous mouth shut, then looked from him to Myra and back again, slapping on a mask of politeness that was far too indifferent to fool anyone.
“Sam. Well.” She hesitated, then extended a work-worn hand. “Imagine seeing you again.”
To tell the truth, he had imagined it. Many times.
He took her hand more by reflex than thought. Her palm slid into his, melded to him, and even while the rational section of his brain reminded him to grip, shake, release, another, more primitive part of him urged him to grip, tug, pull closer. This grown-up version of Libby was even more magnetic than the girl he’d left behind. Sure, he’d caught glimpses of the woman she’d become in the pictures on the camp’s web site, but in those shots she was usually buried in a sweatshirt, hugging a kid, or hiding behind a clipboard. In person she seemed … softer. More feminine, though maybe that was because she was wearing some floaty kind of skirt that swayed with her every movement.
In their years together as first campers, then counselors, Sam had seen Libby in tight jeans, short shorts and a bathing suit that made his mouth go dry. On one memorable night he’d seen her clad in nothing but starlight. So how could he still be amazed at the way the simple swirl of a skirt turned her legs into an invitation?
“Libby.” His voice stuck somewhere between his throat and his mouth, so he coughed and tried once more. “Hello, Libby. It’s been a long time.”
“Hasn’t it though?” Amazing how her tone could drop from cordial to cutting in just three words. As if to underscore her message, she yanked her hand away from his.
Damn. He thought he’d let go about three or four heart-thuds ago.
“What brings you to our neck of the woods?”she asked as he lowered himself onto a battered orange plaid sofa. “Just passing through?”
Her I hope was unspoken but most definitely not unheard.
He glanced at Myra for the assist. This was her cue. But Myra simply smiled, leaving him gripping the arms of the sofa and readying himself to say the words.
When Sam had first looked into the camp a couple months back, he’d been astonished to find Libby listed as the assistant director. That hadn’t been her plan. Last time he saw her, she’d been days away from heading off to university, to teaching, to a life beyond the small town of Comeback Cove. Even though he knew that life had thrown a curve into those plans, he had never imagined that the curve was really a circle leading her back to camp.
But once he got past the hope she’s okay stage, it had been a no-brainer to imagine how she would react to his appearance. And once she learned the reason why he was back, well …
He shuddered.
Live the goal.
“Actually, I -”
“Oh, my goodness.”Myra placed a hand to her heart, her tone far too bright to be spontaneous. “Sam, I completely forgot. I did tell you that Libby works here, didn’t I? She’s utterly irreplaceable.” She sent him the sly look he well remembered from years of testing every limit she had ever laid down. Roughly translated, it meant “use your brain and read between the lines because I’m saying something you need to hear.”
He started to sit straighter, then realized Libby was watching him and forced himself to stay still. He might feel eighteen again, but he didn’t have to act it.
“Though she’s so much more than an assistant,” Myra continued earnestly, head cocked and eyes fixed on him as if to drill her words into his brain. “Libby is the reason the camp is still thriving. I must admit, the past few years have taken more and more out of me, but Libby here has stepped up to every challenge and then some. She’s added year-round programming to our schedule, she’s expanded our areas of service, she -”
“It’s okay, Myra,” Libby cut in. “Sam doesn’t need to hear that. After all, he’s just here for a trip down memory lane, right?” The look she leveled at him was half daring, half desperation. “Right?”
He could curse in six languages but as far as he could tell, none of the words were adequate for what he was feeling at that moment. He took a second to breathe, slowing his heart in preparation for the hell that was about to be unleashed, when Myra finally decided to do the right thing.
“Libby. Dear. Sam’s not passing through,” she said with a heavy sigh. “He’s come to buy the camp.”
