Mike wasn’t sure he understood what she was saying. All of his life he’d had to fight for privacy and time alone so he really couldn’t imagine just two people living in one house. When he was a kid and one of the younger kids had invaded his room and messed with his stuff, he’d thought that being an only child must be divine.
Now, looking at her, snuggled in the chair, overwhelmed by the size of his robe—he’d always hated the thing, but right now it was his second favorite possession—he didn’t think being an only child was so good.
He smiled at her. “Tell me more about today. Tell me about Santa Fe.”
She laughed at that. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Santa Fe is the strangest place on earth. Shall I tell you about the Soul Quest seminars or our brand-new escalator?”
“All of it,” he said.
As she began talking, Mike listened and laughed as the rain coming down outside isolated them. It was an ordinary evening, just two people sitting at a table, sipping drinks, and talking, but to Mike it was one of the most pleasant evenings of his life. For once he was with a female, and there was no pressure on him to entertain her or make her think he was great. There was no need to try to impress her. Holding up the little samurai, he looked at it, then closed his fingers tightly around it.
“What?” he asked. Samantha was looking at him expectantly.
“I want to know about Colorado and your eleven brothers and sisters, if you don’t mind telling, that is.” She spoke shyly, as though she were asking something she shouldn’t.
“Where should I begin? Think of always being in a crowd. Think of noise and confusion and no privacy. Actually, think of living in a circus, complete with clowns and monkeys.”
Sam leaned forward on her elbows, her face eager. “Did you have arguments? Did you have lots of friends? Did you have pets? Did you go to movies? Did your sisters have slumber parties?”
He grinned. “Want to hear about the time my brother Kane and I hid under my sister’s bed waiting for her slumber party to begin?”
“Yes,” she answered eagerly.
It was late when, after seeing Samantha yawn, Mike suggested that they go to bed. She headed for the stairs, but he told her no, that he wanted her to sleep downstairs near him, at least until Monday when the grills were to be installed on the windows.
After escorting her up the stairs to her apartment, he stood in her living room waiting while she got some of her night things to move downstairs into his bedroom. His, he thought with a smile. This morning when he’d tried to shave he’d had to move a bottle of perfume, two pots of pink stuff, one of purple, and at least six little brushes. Her stockings were draped over the shower rod, and there was a bra hanging off his bathroom doorknob.
After he’d moved out of his father’s house, away from his many siblings, Mike had never wanted another person to live with him. Even in college he’d refused to have a roommate, and he’d never wanted any of his girlfriends to live with him. It wasn’t until the last two years that he’d begun to feel as though he missed the company of other people. After he’d met Dave, it had seemed natural to invite him to live in his house; they’d be together, but they’d have their own apartments, so it seemed to be the ideal situation.
After Dave had called and asked Mike to take care of his daughter for a year, Mike had dreaded having a female in the house, because he knew that a female would need lots of looking after and cause him lots of problems. “You never guessed half of it, Taggert,” he said aloud to himself.
“Did you say something?” Samantha asked, coming out of the bedroom and holding yet more bottles to be put in his bathroom. What did women do with all that stuff? he wondered.
“No, I was just looking. It’s dark in here, isn’t it?”
Samantha looked about the room, at the dark greens, the hunting prints, and the plaid on the furniture. When she’d first entered this room she had loved it, but now she thought she might buy a slipcover for the largest chair. “I saw some lovely rose damask in a shop on Madison,” she said. “Maybe…” She stopped, for what she was thinking seemed to be disrespectful to her father. After all, he had chosen everything in this room, and, too, it didn’t make sense to spend money on the apartment when she was going to be leaving in such a short time.
She looked at Mike, then had to look away. It was better not to think of leaving and going somewhere where she knew no one.
“Rose damask, huh?” he asked, taking her arm in his, offering to take the bottles from her, but Sam said no, then asked him to get a beat-up old hatbox from inside the closet. He didn’t even want to know what was in it, probably some more female-only products, he thought.
Downstairs, as he helped her put her things on the bathroom counter, which was already packed, she looked at the counter in dismay. “You’ll have your space back when they put the grills on.”
A minute before, Mike had been thinking with regret of his lost space, but now he didn’t want to think of her moving back upstairs.
“And, Mike,” she said softly, “about the ring.” Holding out her left hand, she looked at the big diamond sparkling, thinking that it was so beautiful that she didn’t want to part with it. Reluctantly, she began tugging at it. “I meant to give it back, but—”
He put his hand over hers. “Keep it. As long as you want to wear it, it’s yours.”
“I couldn’t do that. I mean…”
“I’ll just have to take it back to the bank and put it in the safe, and it’ll just rot there. Mother says that jewels react better to being used than to sitting in a safe deposit box. Besides, it looks better on your skin than in the ugly gray box.”
“Mike…” she began. “No one has ever—I mean…”
Leaning forward, he kissed her softly and gently. “If you again tell me thanks, I’ll get angry.”
When she looked up at him, there was gratitude in her eyes—and he didn’t like it. He’d never done anything but shown her simple human kindness, kindness that she should have expected. “You want to spend the night in bed with me?” he asked.
For a moment Samantha looked startled, feeling betrayed that he’d expect her to thank him in that way, but then she realized he was teasing. She laughed and the moment of tension was broken. “I’m not that grateful.”
“The gratitude comes after you spend a night with me,” he answered, grinning at her.
“Get out of here,” she said, laughing, then quickly he stole another kiss and left the bathroom.
Mike went into his bedroom and began to undress, smiling all the while. Damn it, but he was glad she hadn’t left, glad she hadn’t gone with his skinny cousin to Maine. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that there was danger if she stayed here, and sometimes all he could remember was Sam with his friends, all of his friends. He had been surprised but pleased when she hadn’t snubbed Daphne, and Sam had liked Corey and the others. He knew she would like his family in Colorado and that they’d like her. He could imagine her and Jeanne talking about rose damask together.
At the thought of his family, Mike frowned, remembering her story of tonight. What had she meant with her little story about clocks winding down? He had an idea that if he asked Sam for further explanation, she’d tell him another story and another and another, and he just might never find out the truth. She called him a liar, but she could give lessons.
Picking up the telephone extension, he called information in Louisville, Kentucky, giving the operator the name of Dave’s attorney to get his home number. Mike knew it was late in Louisville, but he didn’t know anyone else who might be able to answer his question of what had happened to Sam after her mother’s death.
When the attorney answered, Mike quickly apologized for its being so late, then asked his question. The attorney jolted him by saying that Allison’s death had sent Dave into a clinical depression that had lasted for years.
“He was so bad that a couple of us wanted to commit him,” the attorney said, “but we couldn’t brin
g ourselves to do it. Dave stayed in the house in the dark—he couldn’t bear any light in the house—ate only enough to keep alive and saw only Samantha. She was his little substitute wife, doing all the cooking and cleaning. The poor kid gave up everything that a kid does. Dave had some savings so he didn’t have to go to work, and he couldn’t stand for Samantha to be out of his sight except to go to school. Poor, poor kid. If she’d grown up in a mausoleum she would have had more fun that she had in that house with Dave.”
“When did it stop?” Mike asked.
“Dave never did get back to what he was before Allison died, but his savings ran out and he had to go back to work. By then Samantha was a teenager, and Dave was so dependent on her that she continued taking care of him and the house until she got married. All of us were glad to see her get married, see that she would at last have some life of her own.” He hesitated. “But her marriage didn’t work out, did it?”
“No, her marriage didn’t work out,” Mike said softly, then thanked the attorney and put down the telephone, feeling that he understood a great deal more now than he had. He now understood Sam’s fascination with his family. He understood her pleasure at the smallest bit of attention; he understood why she sometimes seemed as though she were seeing the world for the first time.
As he thought of Sam, he remembered seeing her in Dave’s apartment, remembered the look she had given that plaid chair. In the next moment he picked up the phone and called his sister in Colorado. Jeanne lost no time in getting to the point: Samantha. Eyes rolling skyward, Mike had no doubt that Samantha was a major topic of conversation with his family.
“What’s this Samantha look like?” Jeanne asked, not trying to hide her curiosity.
Mike didn’t hesitate. “A modified Bardot; skin like cream; eyes the color of Kit’s ’57 Chevy; hair the color of that palomino you had when you were fourteen; a body that belongs on the cover of Sports Illustrated.” He stopped because Jeanne was laughing, but he grinned into the telephone.
“Mike,” Jeanne said, still laughing, “does she have a brain?”
“Yeah and a real smart mouth.”
“I think I like her already. Tell me what you need.”
“You still have the floor plan for the top two floors of my house? The apartment you did for Dave Elliot?”
“Yes. Mike, I was sorry about his death. I know you liked him a lot.”
“Thanks. I want you to redecorate the apartment and I want it done fast—real fast.”
“Two weeks?”
“Overnight. I take Sam out for a day, say next Monday, and come back to a new apartment.”
Jeanne didn’t say anything for a moment as she thought of her sources in New York. She could buy most of the furniture off the showroom floor, a lot of it at Tepper Galleries, put it in storage, then move in a day. “I can’t get curtains made or paintings done, and you’ll have to pay retail for some things.”
“All right,” Mike said without hesitation.
Jeanne gave a low whistle. “You must be in love.” When Mike was silent, she asked, “What style is she?”
“She lives with me, but she’s only let me kiss her a few times, no hands.”
“Ahhh. Old fashioned. English chintz. Rose silk cushions. Aubusson rug. A four-poster bed draped in slate blue damask. Tassels. Eighteenth-century antiques.”
He interrupted her. “Sounds good to me. Hey, Jeanne,” he said as he was about to hang up, “make the bed big.”
Laughing, she hung up.
18
Samantha awoke in the morning and, half asleep, staggered into the bathroom, only to be brought up short by the sight of Mike standing before the mirror wearing only a towel about his waist and shaving lather on his face.
“Sorry,” she murmured and started back into the bedroom.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m decent. What do you want to do today?”
Turning back toward the bathroom, she blinked to clear her sleepy vision. He was certainly something wonderful to see so early in the morning, with his broad back and that tiny towel barely hanging onto his hips. One tiny tug and…
“You’re going to get into trouble if you keep looking at me like that,” he said, watching her in the mirror.
Samantha smiled at him, but instead of going back into the bedroom, she went to stand by him to watch him shave. Both her father and her husband had used electric razors, so it was new to her to see a man shave with lather and a blade.
“You don’t like electric razors?” she asked, picking up a bottle of his aftershave, English Leather, opening it, and smelling it.
“I inherited my father’s thick beard, an electric won’t touch it.”
Standing there, leaning against the wall that ran beside the mirror, playing with the bottle, she watched him stroke the razor over his face, then rinse the blade in the sink. Once, he looked at her in the mirror and winked.
Smiling at him, she thought, What a lovely moment. Sometimes she felt more married to Mike than she ever had to her husband. Her husband had had ironclad rules, and one of his rules was that a man and woman were never to be in the bathroom together.
“Have you decided?”
“Mmmmm?” she asked dreamily, watching him.
He finished shaving, then held a washcloth under the hot water and wrapped his face in the cloth for a minute before wiping away the last of the lather. Turning to her, he bent so his face was close to hers. “What do you think?” He turned his face first one way, then the other.
Smiling, Samantha put her hands on his cheeks, feeling the freshly shaved skin, and was tempted to run her thumbs over his lips, maybe even to kiss him. “Baby soft.”
“Are you sure?” Bending closer, he rubbed his cheek against hers, first one side then the other.
Putting her hands on his shoulders, she felt his warm skin and closed her eyes for a moment.
“No stray whiskers to hurt a lady’s skin?”
“No, none,” she said softly, leaning her head back against the wall. “Perfectly smooth.”
Abruptly, he moved away from her, and in spite of herself, Samantha frowned. Usually he tried to kiss her, but he didn’t kiss her this morning. She had no way of knowing that her early-morning nearness was more than Mike could bear. If he wasn’t to touch her, he had to step away. But Samantha didn’t understand Mike’s abrupt movement, so on impulse, she looked in the mirror—then squealed. Her mascara was under her eyes, and her hair, damp when she went to bed last night, was standing on end. Grabbing one of Mike’s combs, she ran it under water then tried to make her hair lay down. Behind her, he laughed, then kissed her neck.
“You look beautiful,” he said honestly.
“As beautiful as Vanessa?” she asked, then put her hand over her mouth in disbelief. She had not meant to say that.
Mike raised one eyebrow. “Been snooping? Going through people’s drawers? Looking at people’s private possessions?”
“Most certainly not. I…I wanted a pair of socks, that’s all. I didn’t want to disturb you, so I thought I’d look in the cabinet. I had no idea you would object to lending me a pair of socks.” She stopped because he was smirking at her. With her nose in the air to let him know what she thought of him, she pushed past him to leave the bathroom. “I couldn’t care less who Vanessa is. I’m sure you have a thousand girlfriends. What do they matter to me?”
When he was silent, she turned around to see him standing in the bathroom doorway, leaning against the jamb, smiling at her in a know-it-all way. “Would you leave? I need to get dressed.”
“So do I and my clothes are in here, but I have an idea you know that.”
“I know nothing of the sort.” She started toward the door that led into the hallway, but he caught her arm.
“Where are you going?”
“To my own apartment, not that it’s any of your business.”
Catching her in his arms, he held her loosely while she struggled against him. “Now look what you’ve done,�
� he said.
Samantha was not going to look, because she knew very well that his towel had fallen to the floor. Resolutely, she kept her eyes on his. “I would like for you to release me,” she said stiffly, holding herself rigid.
“Not until you answer me.” He bent forward as though to kiss her neck, but Samantha turned her head away.
“I have answered you: I care nothing about Vanessa.”
Laughing, Mike pulled her a little closer to his big, warm, naked body. “I didn’t ask anything about ’Nessa, you did. I asked you what you wanted to do today.”
He was holding her loosely, but when she moved, she was almost close enough that her breasts were touching his chest. Because he was now completely and absolutely naked, Samantha kept her eyes fixed on a place to the right of his head. She wasn’t going to start wrestling with him, but she did think of telling him that he shouldn’t have spent time in the sun to get the golden color to his skin, then she wondered if perhaps that was his natural color of skin and he was golden all over. “I have a very interesting book I plan to read,” she said, her lips pursed together.
Mike was looking down at her body that was about a quarter of an inch away from being pressed against his, at the very thin fabric that separated them. “You know, I may change my mind about blue nightgowns. I like that one. Is it silk?”
“Cotton,” she said stiffly. “Old-fashioned, boring, or, as you say, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm cotton.”
“Oh? Vanessa wears—” He didn’t finish his sentence because Samantha hit him in the ribs with both her fists.
Wincing, he gave a grunt of pain, then laughed, but he didn’t release her from the circle of his arms. “Sammy, baby, you’re the only woman in my life. Vanessa was a long time ago.”
“It doesn’t matter to me at all. Would you stop playing Tarzan and release me? I’d like to go upstairs and get dressed.”