Magic In A Jelly Jar

“Am I that transparent?” Samantha complained, when she was closeted in her office at twelve-thirty with her forty-something, normally no-nonsense office manager, Dixie, who’d just given her the latest update on the pool.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen you really smile at anyone over twelve in six weeks. We’ve been worried about you, sweetie. Besides, he really is cute.”

“Lots of men are cute,” she argued.

“Not that cute. Besides, I think he’s nice, too. I liked the way he talked to his little boy. You can tell everything important about a man by the way he talks to his kids,” Dixie claimed.

“If you catch him when no one’s listening,” Sam said. She’d found many parents who were totally different with their kids when they thought no one was listening. And she certainly hadn’t been listening when Richard talked to the girls. She’d missed a great deal there.

“I liked him, and I’m no pushover.” Dixie pointed to the turkey on whole wheat and the soda. “And you owe me five and a quarter.”

“I’ll buy tomorrow?” Sam suggested.

“Fine by me. Unless I win the pot. Then we’ll hit that little French place around the corner for some serious take-out.”

“Dixie! You got in on this?”

“Of course. I don’t suppose you’d like to call him? The bet’s good either way. It doesn’t matter who makes the call, just as long as the two of you talk.”

“No, I’m not going to call him.”

“We have his number,” she offered. “We even have his address.”

“No.”

Dixie laughed and headed for the door. “I have to get back to work. My boss is a slave driver.”

Samantha sighed and told herself to eat. She didn’t have much time. But now she couldn’t help herself. She was thinking about the Morgan men, despite all her intentions not to.

Taken individually, either Joe or his son would have caught her interest. Together they were simply devastating. Luke was just too cute, too full of energy and exuberance and shyly given smiles. She’d felt like a great treasure had been bestowed upon her when Luke smiled. Samantha had done her best to put the fear of God into him when it came to working on other children’s teeth, but it had been hard to do with Luke practically dancing with excitement and begging her to admit to being the tooth fairy in disguise.

Laughter bubbled up inside her. The tooth fairy?

She wished she was, so she could conjure up whatever Luke wanted so badly. As hard as she’d tried, she hadn’t convinced Luke to tell her what that was. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him that sometimes wishing simply wasn’t enough.

Though she knew little about Luke’s situation, she understood quite clearly that Luke needed to believe the magic was real, and she suspected that need came from his wish to have his absent mother back.

Samantha didn’t see a lot of dads bring children to her office. She suspected Joe was all Luke had, and that had her wondering if she’d see him again.

It had her thinking of making a fool of herself by pulling a scarf out of his shirt pocket in an effort to make him smile. Joe Morgan looked as if he needed a reason to smile as badly as his son did, and Samantha’s first impulse had been to give him one, because she’d wanted to see him smile, too.

Her face burned at the memory of being so foolish as to treat a grown man like a little boy.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Joe hadn’t been…well…

Stop it, Samantha, she chastised herself.

So he was good-looking. That didn’t mean anything, unless she wanted a man she could simply enjoy looking at from time to time. She couldn’t very well sit him in a corner, like a beautiful piece of furniture, or hang him on a wall like a painting and admire him.

So he was charming, in that down-home, straight-off-the-ranch sort of way. Since when did she melt over a man with a Texas accent?

She’d never had a cowboy fantasy in her life, but when she’d closed her eyes the night before, the first thing she saw was a grinning Joe Morgan in a cowboy hat, a dusty pair of jeans and well-worn boots.

Yum, she thought, unable to help herself for a second.

She wasn’t even looking for a man. The last thing she wanted or needed was a man. And the absolute last thing she’d allow herself to want or need was a man with kids.

“Samantha?” The voice came from the intercom system on the phone, startling Samantha as it always did when she suddenly found someone speaking to her when she was absolutely alone in the room.

“Yes, Jess,” she said.

“Sorry to bother you, but there’s a man on the line who said he needs to see you tonight after your last appointment. No emergency. Nothing to do with teeth. And I thought I’d better check with you first before giving him a time. Your last appointment should be over by six.”

“Okay.” Puzzled, Samantha asked, “Who’s the man?”

“Joe Morgan,” Jess said innocently. “The would-be dentist’s dad.”

Samantha couldn’t stop a long slow sigh from escaping her mouth.

Obviously Jess heard it, too, because she laughed. “I thought that was him. Which means I win! If he called anytime before two-thirty today, I win!”

“Jess—” she protested.

“I’ll put him right through.”

The phone buzzed at her, which meant the intercom had been turned off. A light under the button labeled Line 3 started blinking, which meant Joe was there, right at her fingertips.

Samantha closed her eyes and told herself to make up some socially acceptable little lie. She had plans, errands, some reason to get home tonight. But there was nothing. She couldn’t lie to herself. She was intrigued. The cute cowboy wanted to see her again. He’d seemed so reluctant to be here yesterday, although it may have been nothing but embarrassment over what his son had done.

If only he knew, Samantha thought. Kids did the silliest things. Luke certainly wasn’t the first or the last to give his father fits.

Samantha took a breath and reached for the receiver. Play it cool, she told herself. He’s just a man. Okay, a boyishly handsome man, but one with an adorable kid—definitely off-limits.

She punched the button and said, “Hello? This is Dr. Carter.”

“Hi. This is Joe Morgan,” he said. “From yesterday? My son—”

“I remember you,” she jumped in. As if any woman forgot him. He hesitated then, and she wondered just how eager she’d sounded when she told him she remembered him. Trying to be the professional woman she was supposed to be, Samantha said, “Luke didn’t pull another tooth, did he?”

“No. At least, not that anyone’s told me about. But the day’s still young.” Joe might have been smiling then. She couldn’t be sure. “I was wondering if Luke and I could come by your office this evening. He has something of yours that he needs to return.”

“Oh?”

“I’m afraid he swiped one of your ceramic tooth fairies, Doc.”

“He did?” Samantha was surprised and more than a little disappointed now that she knew why he’d called. Despite what she’d told herself about becoming involved with a man like Joe Morgan, a part of her still wanted him to want her enough to call her today. Which was silly, she knew, but that was how she felt.

“I can’t believe Luke did that,” Joe rushed on. “As far as I know, he’s never done anything like that before. I told him he has to return it to you himself so he can explain what he did and tell you how sorry he is. If you could make time for us, of course.”

“Of course,” she said. “Six o’clock?”

“That’s fine. Thanks.”

“It’s no problem at all. Luke is a delightful child.” She couldn’t help but add, “I hope you won’t be too…”

“Harsh?”

“Yes.” Samantha closed her eyes and winced. It was absolutely none of her business. But Luke was special. She remembered the sad puppy-dog eyes when he’d asked her quite seriously how many teeth she thought it took to get a grand wish granted by the tooth fairy. Not an ordinary wish and certainly not money, he’d explained. A real wish. Real magic.

Oh, Luke. She’d lost a bit of her heart to him already.

“I’m sorry,” Samantha rushed on. “I know it’s none of my business.”

“It’s all right. If it will make you feel better, I’ll tell you that I tried to yell at Luke this morning, but I really didn’t have the heart to do it,” Joe admitted. “Still, he has to know he can’t get away with this. And that it’s a serious thing to take something that doesn’t belong to him.”

“Absolutely,” Samantha agreed, thinking she should help him out here. “I’ll try to be stern when he apologizes.”

And then she heard this wonderful rich laughter coming through the phone. Joe Morgan was laughing at her, and she couldn’t have been more surprised, nor could she imagine such a joyous sound coming out of Joe’s mouth. He was altogether too serious.

“You? Stern?” He laughed again, the sound rolling over her and sending little shivers of delight along her skin. “You’d be even more hopeless at it than I was.”

“W-well,” she stammered, all flustered, the room suddenly much too warm, “I could try.”

“Okay, Doc,” he said. “Give it your best shot.”

“I will,” she declared, wondering how long it had been since he’d laughed like that.

It had been wonderful to make him laugh. And she wished he’d been here so she could have seen what it did to his face. Half the office staff would have been swooning.

“I’ll see you at six,” he said, his voice just as deep and sexy as before, a hint of the laughter still there.

“I’ll be waiting,” she said, then didn’t even realize until she’d hung up the phone just how that sounded.

Samantha folded her arms on her desk, then let her head fall into them. She was just so stupid where men were concerned, and she couldn’t seem to think before she spoke. She’d have Joe believe that the highlight of her day was going to be his son returning her stolen fairy—which was sad, but true. It would be the best part of her day.

Still, she didn’t have to tell Joe that.

Her day flew by from there. With every passing minute, Samantha got more and more nervous. And she knew she was making a fool of herself when she dashed into the washroom at five-thirty and combed her hair and put on some lip gloss. Hers was an all-female office, and every one of her staff members knew exactly who was coming to see her this evening and what she was doing in front of the washroom mirror.

She finished with her last patient at five forty-five, then went into her office and hid. There was paperwork to deal with, but she knew she’d never be able to concentrate on it.

There was nothing to describe how she felt except excited. She was going to see Luke, the little rascal, and Joe. Would Joe smile at her today? Would he open up just a little about what he and Luke were going through? Maybe she could help.

Samantha had all sorts of foolish scenarios running through her head when she heard the intercom buzz.

“Samantha?” said Tess. “You there?”

“Yes.” Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was twelve minutes to six. They were early, and she wasn’t ready for them. She was too nervous and too hopeful and too foolish for words.

“There’s a call for you. Line two. Personal business, I think.”

“Thanks, Jess.”

Puzzled, Samantha picked up the phone. She didn’t have any personal business, had made very few friends in the short time she’d been in Virginia, so she couldn’t imagine who this could be.

Unless Joe wasn’t coming.

Samantha picked up the phone and said, “Hello.”

“Sam?” It was a little girl’s voice. “Is that you?”

“Abbie?” Cautious now, she sat back in her chair. In seconds she was all choked up, her eyes brimming with tears. It had been so long since she heard this precious little girl’s voice.

“Hi.” Abbie sounded relieved for a second.

“Hi, baby.” Samantha smiled, finding the moment bittersweet. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” Abbie said tearfully.

“Really?”

“Well—” Abbie hesitated “—maybe not so okay. I know I’m not supposed to call, but Daddy’s not here. And neither is Monica. There’s just the baby-sitter, and she thinks you’re just a friend of mine from school. So I thought it would be okay. Is it? Okay, I mean?”

“Oh, Abbie.” Samantha closed her eyes, and the tears slid down her cheeks. She knew what she had to do, but she wasn’t sure how she’d find the courage. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was hurt Abbie. “Did your father tell you not to call me?”

“Yes. But I found the number in his desk drawer, and I thought as long as he didn’t know, it would be okay. I miss you, Sam.”

“I miss you, too, sweetie. And Sarah. How is she?”

“She’s okay, I guess. She’s mad that we had to move to a new house just because Monica had to have a bigger one, and she doesn’t like her new teacher, but she has a friend in her class. I do, too. The house is big, and it has a great backyard. But there aren’t any kids close by. And Daddy’s…well, Daddy’s okay. Monica is, too, I guess. But…I still miss you so much.”

“Abbie, I’m sorry. I love you very much. You know that, don’t you? And I always will.”

“I don’t understand why you had to go so far away.”

And Samantha simply couldn’t explain it to her, except to say, “You know the worst thing about being a grown-up is that we don’t always get to do what we want or to live where we want or to see the people we love as much as we’d like. But I do love you. I won’t ever stop. And I love Sarah, too.”

“You just don’t love Daddy?”

Samantha sighed, then drew in a shaky breath. Richard didn’t love her anymore. That was the problem. But she couldn’t make him the villain here, not to his daughter. Samantha wanted Abbie and Sarah to be happy now with Richard and his new wife, even if it had broken Samantha’s heart to lose the girls. And if she wanted the girls to be happy, she couldn’t blame their father for what happened.

“Abbie, I’m so sorry. If I could, I’d wave a magic wand and everything would go back to the way it was before, and we’d all be together again.”

“But you can do all sorts of magic,” Abbie argued. “I saw you. Lots of times. Can’t you fix this? So we can be together again?”

“No, sweetie, I can’t.”

“Well…can I at least call you? When Daddy isn’t here? So we can just talk sometimes?”

“Abbie, it’s long distance. Your father’s going to know you called when he gets the bill and sees my number there.”

“He will?”

“I’m afraid so. You’re going to have to tell him.”

“But he’ll get mad.”

“Maybe not so mad if you tell him first, Abbie. Tell him you’re sorry, and then ask him if it’s okay if you call again sometimes. Maybe on my birthday. Do you remember when it is?”

“May?”

“Yes, in May.”

“But that’s four whole months away! What if I don’t want to wait that long? What if I need to talk to you?”

Swallowing hard, barely managing to keep her voice steady, Samantha said, “You’re going to have to ask your father and do what he says. Because he’s your father.”

Whereas, she was nothing to Abbie anymore, at least not according to Abbie’s father. Never mind that Samantha spent three years mothering Abbie and Sarah, or that she couldn’t love them more if she’d given birth to them.

“Abbie?” she said softly, working hard not to let the bitterness come through. “Your father is the one who gets to decide about these things, okay?”

“It’s just not fair,” Abbie said tearfully.

“I know.” Samantha had to cover the receiver for a minute, because she was crying so hard and she didn’t want the little girl to hear. It would only make this harder. “I love you, sweetie. Tell Sarah I love her, too.”

And then Samantha hung up the phone and wept.

Chapter Three

Joe had no choice but to bring Dani along when he took Luke to Dr. Carter’s office. He picked them both up from the late-stay program where they stayed from the time school ended until he got there after work. Then they drove straight to Dr. Carter’s, because that was the only way he was going to make it on time.

In the truck Dani had a million questions about where they were going and why. Once she knew Luke was in trouble, she was beside herself with glee. While Joe tried to deal with whatever Luke had done, she danced around Joe, pointing out that she hadn’t done whatever Luke had.

Joe could be reading Luke the riot act for pulling his sister’s hair, and the next thing he knew, Dani would be smiling and chanting, “I didn’t pull anyone’s hair. I didn’t pull anyone’s hair,” which infuriated Luke even more and didn’t do much for Joe’s mood, either.

Joe finally decided a bribe was in order, because he didn’t want the good doctor to think both his kids were heathens. He told Dani that if she behaved, didn’t break anything or steal anything and managed to keep fairly quiet, they would find out where she could get a glow-in-the-dark toothbrush, too.

“Pink?” she said.

Anything, Joe thought. If only she’d behave for the next ten minutes.

“Pink,” he said, praying that glow-in-the-dark toothbrushes came in pink and that Dr. Carter could find her one.

They pulled into the parking lot and climbed out of the car, Dani singing a limerick at the top of her lungs that had Luke begging Joe to make her be quiet. Joe had the fairy. Luke was dragging his heels. Joe put his hand at his son’s back to propel him toward the door.

“Do y’think she’s gonna be really mad?” Luke said, as if that meant much more to him than making his father mad.

“I think she’s going to be disappointed that you would take something that didn’t belong to you, especially something of hers, because she thought you were her friend.”

“Oh.” Luke looked even more miserable than before, and his steps had slowed to a crawl.

“It’s not going to get any easier,” Joe said, holding open the door so Dani could dance through.

“You sure about that?” Luke hung back on the sidewalk.

“Positive.” Joe motioned for him to move along. “In. Now. She stayed late tonight to talk to us.”

Dani was gazing at the fairies in the display case with the same sort of awe Luke had shown the day before.

“Don’t touch anything,” Joe warned her as he approached the window to the receptionist desk.

A young woman with reddish hair and a bright smile whom he hadn’t noticed the day before was waiting for him. Three more women, all staring at him and smiling, stood behind her.

“Mr. Morgan?” the redhead said.

“Yes.” Lord, he was infamous at the dentist’s office. His kid pulled teeth and lifted fairies from the waiting room.

All four women smiled at him.

“And this is Luke? And…?”

“His sister, Dani.”

Dani turned around and grinned. “Daddy, it’s just like in the book! Luke’s magic book!”

Joe winced, the legend of the tooth fairy growing ever larger in the minds of his children. “Don’t touch anything, sweetheart, okay?”

He turned back to the women, who were still waiting, still smiling. Didn’t they have anything to do?

“Samantha’s in her office. She’s expecting you,” the redhead said. “If you’d like to have a word with her first, Luke and Dani can play here for a few minutes. I’d be happy to keep an eye on them.”

Joe hesitated. Did he trust himself alone with Dr. Carter again? Maybe she’d pull another scarf out of his shirt pocket. Or explain to him how she made the ceiling glitter like that and how stars came to shoot across the starry sky she’d created in her examination room.

He glanced back at the kids, Dani in awe of the fairy collection, Luke sitting miserably in the corner.

“Don’t worry,” the woman said. “I have three kids of my own, and dozens come in here every day. I know all the possibilities for trouble in this room.”

Joe worked up a smile and tipped his head to her. “Thank you, ma’am. I would like to talk to the dentist.”

He told the kids he’d be back shortly, warned them again about behaving, then headed down the hallway grinning like an idiot. He was here to return a piece of stolen property, after all, and to beg for a trick toothbrush for his baby girl.

This in no way resembled a date, even if he had tried to take a bath in the sink at the office after work to get rid of the worst of the grime and the sweat clinging to him, then thrown on the clean shirt he tried to remember to keep in the car for those days he was summoned to Luke’s school on the way home from work.

Hell, he wouldn’t know what a date was, but he for damned sure knew this wasn’t the way to make a good first impression on a woman.

Striding down the hall, Joe thought about how much he’d love to get away, thought about the satisfaction he could find planting himself on the back of a horse and riding from dawn to dusk, even eating dust and smelling bad-tempered cows all day.

He missed Texas. He missed working the ranch and being so tired at the end of the day he just fell into bed and didn’t so much as blink until the sun was nearly up again and it was time to go to work and do it all over.

It had been another life, he reminded himself, one he couldn’t go back to. Besides, the life he had, while frustrating, even infuriating, at times, wasn’t that bad. He had Luke and Dani, and that was forever. No one would ever take them away from him.

And this was all a part of being a parent, Joe told himself.

He’d come here to please his wife; there’d been a time when he’d have done almost anything to make her happy. She’d been pregnant with Luke and uneasy about the whole process and about being a mother, and she’d thought it would be easier having her own mother close by. They couldn’t very well keep following the rodeo circuit—not with a newborn baby. It was time to settle down, and they’d settled here in Virginia.

Joe had considered moving back to Texas after Elena left, but this was the only home the kids had ever known, everything that was familiar in their world at a time when so many things had changed. They’d panicked when he’d even mentioned the possibility of moving, and he’d decided to stay put for their sake. They needed all the stability he could offer them at the moment—same school, same friends, same house. And as much as Elena’s parents had disapproved of him at first, they’d been great to him since Elena had left. They seemed as baffled by their daughter’s behavior as he was, and embarrassed, as well. They were great to his kids and understanding and supportive as Joe fumbled his way through life as a single parent.

He was fumbling right now—over teeth.

Resigned to guiding his son through his apology to the lady dentist, Joe lifted a hand to knock on the door next to the plaque that read Dr. Samantha Carter.

But the door wasn’t quite shut, and as he paused in front of it, he heard something. A muffled strangled sort of sound. Pushing the door open another two inches, he glanced inside and saw the slight figure of a woman hunched over the big desk. Her shoulders were shaking, her head buried in her hands.

Glancing around the office, he saw that she was all alone, and Joe couldn’t quite stomach that. Something about a woman crying her heart out, all alone, just didn’t sit right with him. He had to help her.

Even as he told himself it was none of his business, that he couldn’t let himself touch her, couldn’t hold her, he did, anyway. He didn’t let himself think about the fact that he barely knew her or about how very much he wanted to hold her.

He pushed open the door, then closed it behind him, because she didn’t need an audience right now. She needed a shoulder, someone to hold on to, someone to whisper in her ear some empty meaningless words like “Everything will be all right,” and Joe was the only one here. He’d have to do it. No self-respecting gentleman would have left her alone with her tears.

Joe wasn’t afraid of those tears. He had three sisters, after all. One of them was always crying. He walked across the room and put his hand on her back. “Doc?”