The thought had been there from the beginning, of course—right from the moment she opened the door and found him standing there. It wasn’t just a physical hunger for a man. If that had been all there was to it, she could have satisfied that urge long ago. Instead, it was a hunger for Sam, a need that had never gone away, no matter how many times she’d forced herself to recite his flaws.
So now he stood there, saying nothing, his nearly naked body seemingly relaxed, but his arousal obvious, even though she kept her eyes locked on his. Why didn’t he say something…anything?
“You aren’t exactly making this easy, Sam,” she said finally, the huskiness in her voice too great to hide now.
“What do you want me to say? Go back upstairs?” His tone was casual, but his eyes were lit by blue flames.
No, she thought. I want you to say that you still love me. But she knew that she didn’t have the right to demand that. She’d forfeited that right by divorcing him, hadn’t she?
“It’s your decision, Kate,” he said when she remained silent.
But I don’t want it to be my decision, she screamed silently. I want you to take that decision out of my hands. It was so dumb, so incredibly stupid! She’d fought him every time he tried to make any decision for her. She’d reminded herself of that every time she missed him. And now she wanted him to make the decision for them both. She had to say something, but she certainly couldn’t say that.
“I’ve never stopped wanting you, Sam.”
“I know that. You just can’t live with me.” A sad smile curved his mouth.
Go! she ordered herself. Leave right now! But instead, her feet carried her to him—and the decision was made. Or rather, it was acted upon. It had in fact been made when she hadn’t fought to keep him from moving in.
Sam’s arms slid around her very carefully, making her feel so very fragile. But it wasn’t her; it was instead the moment. Then, when she had wrapped her own arms around him, remembering the feel of him and inhaling his scent, he cupped a hand beneath her chin and lifted her face to his.
“I want you, Kate. That can’t change.”
In the small space before his lips touched hers, she fastened upon his choice of words—”can’t,” rather than “hasn’t”—as though he had no power to change his feelings. Words were her stock-in-trade, and she knew that she could sometimes overrate their importance, but this time, she didn’t think she had. He’d spoken the truth for them both.
His kiss was soft, undemanding—and yet all the more irresistible for that. She could feel herself opening to him like a bud in the desert, when torrents of rain end a long dry spell. In this case, a three-year-long dry spell.
They teased each other with lips and tongues, probing delicately, building the moment. A hot, sweet fierceness grew within her, feeding on memories that had never dimmed. Always, there had come a time when Sam the man and Sam the lover became separate, when she let go her annoyance or anger with him and surrendered herself to the magic they could make.
It came now, in a soft sigh she wasn’t even aware of, but one he’d long since learned meant a surrender to their love. He picked her up and carried her to the bed, each step bringing him closer to the moment he’d been wanting for three years.
She was his—for now, at least. Sam had no doubts that he’d be feeling the sharp side of her in the morning, but it was a small price to pay—and perhaps even part of the complex, sometimes infuriating but always exciting love they shared. And would always share. He knew that, too, though he’d doubted it for a brief time after his return.
Kate reached for him and drew him down on the bed with her. Neither of them had yet shed their minimal clothing, and it felt to her like all the times when their sudden, urgent hunger for each other had resulted in their removing only the bare necessities before joining their eager, greedy bodies.
Sam’s tongue and teeth teased her nipples through the nightgown, making them hard and achingly sensitive as she arched her body to his, rubbing against him and wanting him deep inside her.
Passion was on a taut leash, about to snap—and yet they played, making of their bodies an erotic playground they both knew well. The combined sense of familiarity and strangeness excited them both, bringing with it a hint of the forbidden that only added to the pleasure.
She loved it that he knew her so well, that he could accurately read her every move and her every sigh as though he were no more than an extension of her. But even as she reveled in that, she was giving, too—knowing just what he wanted.
He stripped off her gown and his own briefs, then braced himself above her, not touching her now, even though her entire body was imprinted with his kisses. His eyes searched hers, and then he smiled, a very Sam sort of smile of triumph, a smile that said he’d known from the beginning that this would happen.
Somewhere inside her, rebellion began to stir, but he knew her too well to allow it to awaken completely. He slid into her slowly, watching her, enjoying her reaction, seeing that hint of anger dissipate as the passion carried them both away.
Afterward, when they had held each other for a long time and stroked their slowly cooling bodies, Sam suddenly got out of bed and then extended a hand to her.
“Come on. I want to sleep upstairs—in our bed.”
AFTER THE ECSTASY comes the…what? It wasn’t guilt that Kate felt as she lay quietly beside Sam, with the morning light outlining the draperies. Definitely not guilt, she thought as she turned her face toward him, moving carefully so she wouldn’t awaken him.
Love swelled within her, threatening to burst through her very pores. She was remembering so many mornings when she’d awakened like this, nearly unable to believe that she could feel this way.
Then, abruptly, she remembered the tabloid cover—Sam with his supermodel girlfriend. She froze, the love still there, but now overlaid with a dark pain. It wasn’t fair! She didn’t want to think about that. Sam had every right to find himself someone else. She’d divorced him!
Instead, she focused on the night just past and remembered passion flowed through her like liquid fire. She inhaled deeply, catching the scent of him—something she thought must surely be unique to Sam. And she felt the solid warmth of his body pressed against hers, so very right that it seemed incredible that she could have slept alone in this bed for so long.
But stealing in amid all that was the rest of it. If they hadn’t once been married, they could be just like all new lovers, feeling their way cautiously toward an uncertain outcome.
Except that it had never been that way for them—or so it seemed to her now—from that fateful day she’d met him, bursting from the elevator in a mad rush to meet her very first deadline. She’d run headlong into him, nearly knocking them both over. She’d already known who he was, having seen the photos of him accepting his two Pulitzers. But what had shocked her, once she’d gotten beyond the impact of those blue eyes, was that he’d known who she was.
She’d known—and later, Sam had said that he had, too—that this man was her destiny. Of course she’d fought it—and him—but deep down inside, she’d known that Sam Winters was her future.
Kate carefully got out of bed. Sam was a sound sleeper, and he didn’t move as she put on a robe and left the bedroom, followed by Reject, who was probably happy that he no longer had to divide his nights between their separate beds.
After feeding Reject and putting on the coffee, Kate stared at the clock, wondering if she could catch Tony DiSalvo at home before he went to New Leaf. The magic of the night was already fading as she remembered what had brought her to Sam in the first place.
Tony answered, and she realized that she couldn’t very well ask her question without his asking some in return. So she explained to him, as casually as possible, that someone had been threatening her, probably as a result of another story she was working on. Then she went on to tell him what had happened on the road near his home, and gave him the description of the man and the truck.
There w
as a long silence on the line, and then Tony said that he didn’t recognize either the man or the truck, though he did know the two men who’d stopped to help her.
Kate thanked him and hung up, frowning. She couldn’t be sure, and maybe it was just because he’d been shocked to hear her story, but she thought that he’d sounded…wary.
Kate poured a cup of coffee and stood at the kitchen window, staring out into the small backyard, where Reject was stalking a robin. He did a lot of stalking, but he’d never caught anything as far as she knew. And he didn’t this time, either. The robin flew off and Reject ambled across the yard, pretending that he’d never had any ulterior motives in the first place.
The thought bounced around in the back of her mind while she watched the cat—then sprang at her. Could they have been wrong to believe that the threats had something to do with Newbury and Armistead? Was it possible that they were instead the result of her story about New Leaf?
Then she jumped, nearly spilling her coffee, as Sam’s arms slid around her and he buried his face in the curve of her neck. Sam had never been talkative in the morning, and that hadn’t changed. He turned her around to face him, then cupped her bottom as his mouth found hers. He wasn’t talkative, but he made his point very quickly. Within moments, they were back in the rumpled bed, and Kate had all but forgotten her revelation.
“I NEED A DAY OFF, Damon. Tomorrow, if possible.” Kate’s editor made a face. “Kate, I know you have some
time coming, but—” “You’re right, I do. And I want to take it tomorrow. I’ll
finish up those two assignments today. Just don’t give me
anything for tomorrow.” Damon sighed heavily. “Okay, okay. I’ll just have to
crack the whip over the others a little more.”
“If you’re trying to lay a guilt trip on me, forget it. Give something to one of the interns.”
“Yeah, and then I’ll have to spend even more time editing. What are they teaching these kids nowadays?”
“They could start by teaching them grammar,” Kate agreed. “They can’t spell, either, but at least the computer can do that for them.”
She was almost out of Damon’s office before he asked the question she’d anticipated—and feared. “You haven’t gotten any more threats, have you?”
Without turning to face him, Kate shook her head. It was easier to lie that way.
“Good. Maybe it was just one of our run-of-the-mill nuts.”
Kate breathed a sigh of relief, even though it was tinged with guilt. She didn’t like lying to Damon, but if she told the truth—especially about the incident with the Porsche—he would pull her off the story. Then Sam would have it all to himself.
Not that she was doing much about it at the moment in any event, she thought. All day long, she’d been thinking about the possibility that they’d been wrong, that New Leaf was the source of the threats. And that was why she wanted the day off.
After reviewing what she’d done and learned thus far, Kate had decided that finding that clinic or hospital was important. She wasn’t exactly sure why, but she trusted her instincts. First of all, Mary Scofield had been pestered by New Leaf to transfer her son there, and then Tony had confirmed that the place did indeed exist. But the Pennsylvania authorities had no record of it.
Driving around looking for it could be a waste of an entire day, but it was the only thing she could think of to do. If she found it, then she could confront Ted Snyder, the New Leaf director, and demand the truth.
WHEN KATE ARRIVED HOME that evening, she found Sam carrying his clothes up to the closet in the master bedroom. She was slightly irritated—and more than a bit uneasy-over his quick resumption of their life together.
She said nothing about it, however, and neither did he. But there was a distinct air of fragility to the situation—at least from her point of view. They were right back where they’d started—or ended. Sam the lover had no equal, but Sam the man was impossible to live with. Or so she kept reminding herself, even though the details were getting a bit blurry in her mind now.
He’d prepared dinner for them—marinated steaks this time. His repertoire was somewhat limited, but what he did, he did well. As they ate, Sam told her that his meeting with Spotts’s aide had produced no new information. Sports had no factual basis for believing that Newbury had changed his mind about legalization as a result of some payoff.
Kate quickly glossed over her own day. She was still determined to keep the New Leaf story to herself, though she admitted privately that it had as much to do with her nervousness about having Sam back with her as it did with professional jealousy. She needed to keep something separate, to keep Sam out of at least part of her life.
After dinner, they watched a video, then disagreed over its merits. Kate felt as though she’d entered a time warp as she thought about all the times when she’d watched films alone and then had missed these arguments with him. She cast him a sidelong glance, wondering how he could so very easily pick up where they’d left off. It irked her that he was always so sure of himself—and of them—but she knew that she envied him that certainty, too.
Afterward, Sam turned off the lights and checked the alarm system while she went to the back door and called Reject in from the yard. Sam wrapped an arm loosely around her waist as they started up the stairs, followed by Reject, who was purring loudly, no doubt expressing his opinion that all was finally right with the world.
And despite her misgivings, it felt right to Kate, as well, when Sam’s long, lean body was pressed against hers. They made love with their usual combination of tenderness and passion, and for now, at least, Kate felt Sam’s certainty that they were both where they belonged.
KATE DROVE ALONG the back roads of southwestern Pennsylvania, trying to think how she could narrow down her search for the so-called “clinic.” What had seemed to be a very small area on the map had turned into an endless expanse of rolling farmland and wilderness.
Even here, she continued to check her rearview mirror regularly. She was driving the rental car Sam had arranged for. Her own car was back in Washington, in the Post’s garage, where it was presumably sending out signals that she was busy in her office, but she still worried that she might have been followed.
She had used a compass to draw a circle around New Leaf in what she estimated to be a two-hour drive. The clinic had been described as being not far from the boot camp, and to her that meant two hours or less.
The area was very rural, with scattered farms, a few small villages and a lot of empty land in between. Most of the mailboxes had names on them, and none of them sounded remotely like a clinic. Neither did any of the big old farmhouses she passed seem to be anything other than that.
Shortly after midday, she found herself entering a town, one of those ubiquitous Pennsylvania towns that had seen better days. She wished for one of those old general stores with gossipy folks who would surely know if such a facility existed in their midst, but all she saw were convenience stores—more of them than she would have thought necessary for such a small place.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that it was past lunchtime, and she began to search for something other than the usual assortment of fast-food places. In the middle of the downtown, she found a small restaurant tucked between two boarded-up stores.
The restaurant had a counter lined with stools whose seats seemed to be held together with duct tape, a scattering of tables and two booths, also well taped. Except for one elderly man at the counter, she was the only customer in the place. A middle-aged woman was cleaning up behind the counter and a younger woman who looked a lot like her was perched on one of the stools, wearing a pink polyester uniform with a frilly white apron. Kate slid into a booth and the young woman hurried over with a menu.
After ordering the “homemade” vegetable soup and a grilled cheese sandwich and iced tea, Kate turned her attention back to the matter of finding the clinic. The man at the counter left and the two women began to tal
k about him, saying what a shame it was that he had no children to look after him and how he was going to end up in a home.
Kate wasn’t paying them much attention at first, but when they moved from that topic to a local woman who’d “run off” with someone she’d met on a computer network, followed by a discussion about an apparently idle young man who’d finally gotten a job at a horse farm, she realized that she might have found something just as good as the proverbial country store.
The waitress brought her lunch. Kate peered suspiciously at the soup. Those neat little cubes of vegetables had Campbell’s written all over them, although shredded cabbage and chunks of stringy beef had obviously been added. She asked for a refill on the iced tea, and while the waitress went to get it, she more or less organized her story.
“I was wondering if you could help me,” she said when the waitress returned, hoping she could produce a tear or two should that become necessary. “I’m looking for someone and I don’t know how to find him, but I think he’s staying somewhere in this area.”
“If he’s living around here, we probably know him. What’s his name?” The waitress was clearly interested, no doubt sensing some new gossip to be rehashed later.
“His name’s Jamey—Jamey Trent. Or at least I think his last name would be Trent.” Then she launched into her story.
Jamey was the son of an old friend, who was unfortunately a drug addict, now recovering in a rehab. Jamey had been taken from her and sent to a place down in Maryland called New Leaf. His mother was worried about him, but wasn’t allowed any contact with him. So Kate had gone to New Leaf herself, but they said he’d been sent to a clinic or something, somewhere in this area.
“His mother just wants to know that he’s okay,” Kate said. “It would mean a lot to her.”
The women looked at each other. “I don’t know of any clinic around here,” the younger one said, shaking her head.
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