by Anne Ha
After dinner that evening, he’d taken refuge in his study while Jenny and Samantha watched one of the old black-and-white movies they liked so much, but he’d managed to compose only one business letter in almost two hours. He’d finally given up and found them just as the video ended.
The three of them had spent a companionable hour together, easing into a familiar pattern: he and Samantha worked on a jigsaw puzzle while Jenny read aloud to them from an old gothic novel.
It had been both bliss and torment. It was bliss just to be with her, to sit across the table from her and work on the puzzle together, listening to Jenny’s dramatic intonations. It was torment to accidentally brush her hand when reaching to fit a piece into place.
Countless times he’d ended up staring at her, at the way she bit her bottom lip and tapped her chin with a puzzle piece as she searched for the spot where it should go.
Jenny had caught him looking and, each time, had given him a knowing little smile without once interrupting her reading. He’d finally had to excuse himself and come upstairs to bed, tired of putting himself through the strain of being so close to his wife.
Now she was near him again. She’d entered her room a minute ago and headed straight for her private bath. He could hear water running in the sink as she got ready for bed.
He should have closed the connecting door when he’d had the chance. He’d noticed it was open right away, of course, but he’d convinced himself that closing it would make her feel rejected.
It was much too late now. To close the door, he’d have to step into her room. With his luck, she’d come out of the bathroom right then, and he’d have to see her soft brown eyes fill with confusion and hurt. Even if she didn’t catch him doing it, she’d still feel the weight of his rejection.
And the last thing he wanted to do was reject his sweet, desirable wife.
So he left the door standing open.
Having her this close was more difficult than he’d imagined. It had been difficult before her accident, too, knowing she was sleeping on the other side of the wall. But at least they’d both known the ground rules then: the door stayed closed until some unknown time in the future when they might decide to change their relationship. When they might decide to be more than friends, and make their marriage a real one.
Now everything was in flux, and it was as uncomfortable for him as it must be for Samantha.
His eyes strayed to the framed photograph on his bedside table. Jenny had put it there, he knew, just as she must have opened the connecting door, which usually stayed firmly shut. Jenny, the unswerving matchmaker, who’d guessed how he felt a long time ago.
The picture was exactly the one he would have chosen for his bedside table. Taken a few months before his father had died, it showed himself and Samantha in the kitchen, looking for all the world like a man and woman in love. Garrick was gazing at her as if she looked good enough to eat, and Samantha herself was laughing, her head thrown back and her eyes sparkling.
He remembered that afternoon well. What he’d said to her hadn’t even been that funny, something about a course she’d taken at the university, but the camera had captured the scene as if they were the only two people in the world who could ever make each other happy.
And for him at least, it was true. No one else could make him feel so excited and alive, no matter how tired he was, or how frustrated he was with the rest of his life.
He’d been twenty-four at the time of the photo. Just a few years out of college. Warren had been off jet-setting again, doing his best to make sure their father wouldn’t retire and saddle him with the company and real responsibilities. And Garrick had been working hard to cover up for Warren’s absence.
As usual.
Garrick felt the old bitterness rise up inside him, but quickly tamped it down. That was all over now. Warren could no longer hurt any of them. It was pointless and petty to cling to all the old grievances.
With an effort Garrick pulled his thoughts from the past and applied his attention to the marketing report.
He didn’t get far before Samantha appeared in the doorway between their rooms, still dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. Her hair was down, as it had been for most of the day, and the light from her room gave it a golden glow around her face.
He hadn’t realized until this moment how much he’d missed seeing her hair down around her shoulders. In recent years she’d worn it piled on her head in chignons and twists, thinking those styles made her look more sophisticated.
“Hi,” he said, wondering if she’d come to close the door between their rooms.
“Hi,” she said. “What are you reading?”
“A marketing report.” He smiled.
“What’s so amusing?”
“Sorry. I was just thinking how bizarre this is.” He held out the report so she could see the cover. “You wrote most of it.”
She squinted across the room. “I did? Really? Let me see.” She crossed to the side of his bed, her hand out.
He gave her the report, then watched as she thumbed through it.
She looked beautiful. Her skin was fresh and clean and smooth, clear of makeup. Her hair was wet along her hairline from washing her face, and one drop of water had run down her neck to make a spot of dampness on the collar of her shirt.
She sat on the edge of the bed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I really wrote this?” she asked.
“Yes, and it’s good.”
He could smell her scent, as he had when she’d cried in his arms, and later when they’d worked on the puzzle. But in the dimly lit space of his bedroom it was all the more overpowering. She smelled of delicate rose petals and of herself, and it reminded him of the time in the photograph, when Samantha had been just Sam. How long had it been since she’d smelled this way? Not more than a few years, but it seemed like forever that she’d been wearing that other perfume that Warren had given her.
The urge to reach out a hand and draw his wife up against him was almost too powerful to resist. Did she have even the slightest clue what she was doing to him by walking into his bedroom and planting herself on his bed?
She pointed to a paragraph of the report. “Is this what I do all day? Conduct focus groups and then write reports?”
“You do all sorts of things. You’re our best facilitator, though, so you do a lot of that.” He couldn’t believe she was in his bedroom—his bedroom, for goodness sake—and they were discussing business.
She flipped through a few more pages, then sighed. “Well, I’ll definitely have to wait for my memory to return before going back to work. This stuff all makes sense, but there’s no way I’d be able to do it on my own.”
“Give it time. I’m sure everything will come back eventually.” And, he realized, he dreaded that moment.
She nodded. “I think that’s what it’s going to take.” She gave him the report, then caught sight of the picture on his bedside table. “May I see that?”
He handed her the photograph.
She looked at it closely for several seconds. “How old was I when this was taken?”
“Nineteen.”
“In college, right? I look so young.” She glanced up, meeting his gaze. In her eyes he could see that mixture of uncertainty and trust. But now there was also hopefulness in her brown eyes. “You keep this on your bedside table,” she said, her voice filled with a sort of satisfied wonderment.
What could he say? No, my interfering sister put it there? “It’s a nice picture,” he managed to say. “I like it.”
“I do, too,” she said. “We’ve been friends a long time, haven’t we?”
“Ten years.”
“There’s a similar picture in my room. We’re both younger, but we look the same, if you know what I mean.”
He nodded, thinking that his sister had been nothing if not thorough. He wondered what other little surprises he and Samantha might find hidden around their rooms. Condoms in the nightstand, perhaps? Not that
they would need them, of course.
Samantha handed back the photo. “Kinda gives you hope for our marriage, doesn’t it?”
His jaw almost dropped. This was Samantha, his beautiful, sexy wife, saying their future looked bright? “Yes,” he said, his mouth having difficulty with the word. “Yes, it does.”
She stood and crossed back to the open door. “Well, I have to finish getting ready for bed.”
Then she was gone, as if she’d never been there. Except he could still smell rose petals and see the impression left in the bed by her delectable body.
Thank God for amnesia, he thought madly, feeling his heartbeat quicken. Everything was going to work out. It might still take time, but eventually Samantha would realize everything their relationship could be. And when that time came, he’d be right here waiting for her.
A few minutes passed. He put away her marketing report, tossed his robe onto a chair and turned out the bedside light. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, not for a long time.
“When do you wake up?” Samantha called from the other room.
He loved the huskiness of her voice, Garrick thought. “Five-thirty. Usually.”
“Five-thirty? Good heavens.”
“You do, too,” he told her.
“I do?”
He started to nod, forgetting she couldn’t see. “Well, you have since we got married.”
She poked her head around the doorway, smiling sheepishly. Her shoulder was bare. “I guess that makes sense.”
Garrick stared for a moment, his hormones kicking in. There was no particular reason why the sight of his wife’s bare neck and shoulder should drive him wild, but it did. Knowing she was shirtless and braless behind the connecting wall was almost too much for him. “We…we drive in together,” he managed in a strangled voice.
“Oh, of course,” she said, disappearing again. “Are you going to work tomorrow?”
He knew he should, if only because he wasn’t going to get anything done at home. “No,” he said. “I’m going to stay here with you, just as I did today.”
And I’m going to go slowly crazy, he thought, until you finally fall in love with me.
“So we can sleep in, right? They say pregnant women need a lot of rest.”
“I read that, too. If I have to get up early, I’ll try to be quiet.”
“Good,” she said.
The lights went out in her room.
He stared into the darkness for a minute, wondering why he didn’t hear the sound of the bedsprings creaking in her room.
“Good night,” he called.
“You don’t have to yell,” Samantha answered from the doorway. “I’m right here.”
Then he heard footsteps. Soft, padding footsteps, the sound of bare feet on a thick rug. He sensed her presence, picked up the scent of rose petals as she moved through the room.
Garrick stared, catching just a glimpse of a flowing white nightgown as she circled the foot of his bed and slipped between the sheets.
Oh, good Lord, he thought. Now he was really in trouble.
Chapter Four
Samantha pulled the covers to her chin. She squirmed to get comfortable, twisting the filmy nightgown around her legs. After reaching down to straighten the fabric, she glanced over at her husband.
A foot or two away, his shape was a large silhouette in the darkness. He’d levered up on an elbow, as if to get a better vantage point. Samantha couldn’t make out his expression, but she knew he watched her.
She closed her eyes and snuggled back against the pillow, and said as normally as she could, “Good night, Garrick. Sleep well….”
He was silent for a long moment. Finally he lowered his torso back to the mattress. The bed shifted gently underneath him. “Good night, Samantha.”
The room was so quiet she could hear his lashes brush the pillowcase every time he blinked. Why didn’t he close his eyes and go to sleep?
Samantha felt her courage falter. Was she crazy to do this, to climb uninvited into her husband’s bed? Had any wife ever done anything more foolish?
Her fears had been correct, she thought. She didn’t belong here.
But there was no going back. She’d crossed the line when she’d entered his room wearing only a wispy silk nightgown—even if it was the most modest one she seemed to own—and to retreat now would be humiliating. She’d already taken the risk and had to see it through. And, she told herself, the risk would be worthwhile if it brought them closer together. If it strengthened their marriage.
Samantha breathed in deeply. Garrick’s compelling male scent clung to the ultrasoft sheets, wrapping her in an intimate cocoon of awareness. She could feel his heat alongside her, drawing her toward him like a magnet.
This wasn’t so bad, she told herself. There were worse fates than finding oneself in bed with a gorgeous husband in the prime of his manhood.
Sure, the air was a little tense. It seemed to hum between them. But that was understandable. Her senses were heightened by her tumultuous emotions and the unusual situation.
Thinking a brief conversation might ease the strain, Samantha searched her mind for something to say.
She turned onto her side, facing him. “Garrick?”
“Hmmm?”
“You’re staying home tomorrow, right?”
“Yes.”
“How soon will you have to go back to work?”
“I’ll stay here as long as you need me,” he said. “Until you’re better, if necessary.”
She thought she heard a touch of frustration and wondered if staying home with her was keeping him from something important. “It’s okay if you need to go to the office. I mean, if you have stuff to do…”
“It’s no problem, Samantha.”
“Oh.” It didn’t sound as if it were no problem. She opened her eyes, trying to read his expression in the dark. “You don’t mind watching over me?” she asked.
“Not at all.”
“It doesn’t interfere with your work?”
Garrick didn’t answer at first He shifted his position on the bed, which tugged the covers toward him, which made her silk nightgown slide against her skin. It left a shimmery sensation in her nerve endings.
“No,” he said finally. “I’m just as productive here as I am in the office.”
Samantha lay still, absorbing her body’s response. She liked being this close to him, she thought, liked being aware of his every movement. It made her feel very…wifely.
“That’s good,” she said.
“Yes, it is.” Garrick adjusted his pillow.
She bit her lip, then said, “You’re trying to sleep, aren’t you?”
“Trying,” he agreed.
She thought she heard a smile in his voice. “I guess we don’t usually chat before going to sleep, do we?”
“Not usually,” he answered.
His wry tone of voice made her pulse speed up—it made her think of what else they might do before falling asleep.
Make love. If that was their usual bedtime activity, then of course Garrick wouldn’t want to talk. Not when there was a much more interesting means of communication available.
“Sorry,” she said, wondering what it would feel like to climb into bed and have Garrick pull her into his arms, have him caress her through the sheer fabric of her nightgown.
“Sorry for what?” Garrick said.
Samantha closed her eyes, glad he couldn’t see her in the darkness. She had to get a grip on herself! “For not remembering.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “You have amnesia.”
“I’m sorry about that, too.”
“Don’t be. It was an accident.”
“I know, but I feel bad for it, anyway, and for making you take care of me. It must be difficult to have a wife who doesn’t remember—” She swallowed. “Who doesn’t remember being with you before. I feel as if I’ve turned your whole life upside down.”
“It’s all right, Samantha. I’m getting used
to it.”
“I—I guess I should let you sleep,” she said uncertainly.
Garrick rolled onto his back and readjusted the sheets. He muttered something she didn’t quite catch.
“What was that?”
Garrick sighed. “Nothing.” He sighed again. “I just said I doubt I’ll be able to sleep much tonight.”
Samantha bent her knees, still facing him. She hugged them to her chest. “Would you rather I went back to my room?”
Garrick made a husky sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, more an ironic rumble. It caressed her ears, and she shivered a little.
“To be totally honest,” he said, “I like having you in my bed.”
At the possessive way he said the words, heat flashed through her. “You do?” she asked, sounding breathless.
“Yes. But you should be wherever you’re most comfortable.”
Samantha pictured the queen-size bed next door. The crisp, fresh sheets and sumptuous bedspread would still be cold, she thought. They wouldn’t carry Garrick’s subtle scent or wrap her in an intimate cocoon.
She probably wouldn’t have any more chance of sleeping in that foreign-feeling room, she told herself. Here, at least, she was with her husband, and even though she didn’t remember him, he’d begun to be familiar.
“I guess I’ll stay here, then,” she said.
But twenty minutes later, having cycled through several restless positions, Samantha was still wide awake. No matter what she did, no matter how she tried to distract herself, she couldn’t curb her awareness of Garrick.
She wondered if he wore anything beneath the sheets. When she’d come to look at the marketing report, he’d worn some kind of robe—rich slate gray, a few shades deeper than his eyes, elegant and masculine. But wouldn’t he have taken it off in order to sleep? And had there been anything underneath?
If she merely reached across the bed, Samantha thought, she could find out.
A dangerous little thrill ran down her spine. She wondered what he’d look like in the morning, with his dark hair all tousled from sleep.
And she wondered what he’d do if she kissed him.
