Think About Love by Vanessa Grant

Honda, telling him she wasn't alone.
    He got out of the car, slammed the door behind him. No one appeared to investigate the noise. Those thick log walls probably masked the sound. He crossed the open grassy area in front of the house and stepped onto the veranda, touched a comfortable-looking wicker chair that could have been older than he was. The varnished wooden door was set in a frame with a tall, narrow window to its right. He could see an oak dining table through the window, Sam's portable computer open on its surface.
    No sign of life, neither Sam nor the Honda's owner.
    Sam was a city creature, a businesswoman from her immaculate low shoes to her smoothly disciplined hair. She didn't belong here.
    Who really lived in this cabin and what the hell was Sam doing here? What was so important that she'd leave Seattle on the eve of a major event she'd planned, to come to this tame wilderness, to commune with deer and stare out at magnificent sunsets over tall, green trees?
    He hammered on the door.
    No answer.  
    He waited a minute, knocked again, then prowled the veranda. If she were inside with her grandmother, surely she'd get up and answer.
    It wasn't a grandmother. A lover, and with both the dining room and what he could see of the living room empty, they must be in the back of the house. In a bedroom.
    He shoved his jacket aside and jammed his hands into his pockets. Maybe he didn't know Sam beyond the business world, but he was damned sure she wouldn't walk out on Tremaine's open house preparations to go off and tangle the sheets with a lover.
    He heard the sound and spun in time to see the door open. He closed the distance with two long strides, froze when he realized it wasn't Sam at the door.
    The woman had a baby held against her chest, her long, shining, rich brown hair streaming over the shoulder opposite the baby. It must be almost to her waist, the hair... and her eyes....
    He stepped back instead of forward. Sam's eyes, her mouth.  
    She was barefoot, for crying out loud, and—how had she managed to hide all that hair?
    "Cal." Her voice was flat, not Sam's voice at all, but this was Sam. "You'd better come in."
    She didn't step back to let him through the door, and he couldn't seem to stop staring. "You've got a baby."
    "I suppose I have." She shifted the infant in her arms.
    He didn't know what the hell to say. The baby wasn't more than a few months old. How the hell could she have a baby? Maybe he hadn't known about the hair, hadn't realized her bare feet would look so—well, sexy. Hadn't known she even owned a pair of jeans. But he sure as hell would have noticed if she'd been pregnant.
    "How old is he?"
    Sam hugged the baby tighter. " She's six months old." She finally stepped back. "Come in, and close the door behind you."
    She swayed with the weight of the baby as she walked away, all long, lean legs and a waterfall of tempting hair.  
    Cal closed the door with too much force, then cleared his throat. Six months. Maybe he was unobservant, but not that damned unobservant!
    He couldn't reconcile the two women… His cool second-in-command holding a baby, hair down to her waist and feet naked… and the Sam he knew.
    She turned to face him, still holding the sleeping baby.
    "It's not your baby."  
    "I tried to call you earlier."
    "I'm here now." Watching her hold the baby unnerved him, or maybe it was her hair, the odd look in her eyes. "Shouldn't she be in bed?"
    "I'll try putting her down," Sam said. "Make yourself comfortable in the living room."
    She disappeared and he almost called out for her to watch her step, because she'd strung the charger cord from her computer across the archway into the kitchen. But she stepped gracefully over the wire and disappeared into a hallway to the right of the kitchen.
    He prowled into the living room, studied an aging, overstuffed sofa and chair, a big window looking out on a shadowy stand of cedar trees, a set of split log stairs leading up into a loft.