False Impressions

by Marianne Rice

  Without looking back or waiting, he took off, encouraging Riley to gallop faster down their favorite trail through the woods.

  March had brought warmer temperatures during the day and with it came a mess of slush and mud, but neither the horse nor Cole seemed to mind. Before long he heard Lady and Emma behind. He wanted to continue on but knew his horse needed a break, so he reluctantly slowed Riley down and allowed Emma to ride up next to him.

  “Don’t take it out on that poor horse, lover boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said before he could interrupt her again. “You’re no lover boy anymore, I know.”

  He couldn’t tell if her laughter was sarcastic or genuine, but he chose to ignore it. Whatever was going on with Sam and him—which was absolutely nothing judging by her silence for the past eight days—was between them and not his nosey soon-to-be sister-in-law.

  “I never thought I’d see the day. Mason knew it, but I didn’t believe him. He’s right though, isn’t he? You are head-over-heels in love with that woman, and she gave you the boot. I’d love to hear how you screwed this one up.”

  If she didn’t heed to his advice and shut up soon he may break his own code and actually smack a girl. Honestly, he had no idea if he loved Sam or not. He’d never been in love before. Had he told girls he loved them? Yes. But he’d never been in love.

  And he never competed with another man for a woman. It wasn’t worth the effort. Or rather, he never met a girl he wanted to fight for. Sam was the kind of girl a man would throw a few punches for, but he couldn’t fight a ghost. He’d surely lose that battle. Eight nights ago he gave her an ultimatum, and she chose to keep Casper around instead of him.

  However, everything wasn’t Sam’s fault. The guilt that haunted him may have made him over-react. He’d planned on talking to Sam about his DUI, but now it was a moot point.

  Emma was right. He couldn’t keep wallowing anymore. He needed to make a conscious decision to move on and make something out of his life. Less than four months ago she convinced him that was the right decision, and he’d been heading in that direction before Sam came along. It was time he took life back by the horns with or without Sam by his side.

  And more likely than not, he’d be standing by himself. With a pitchfork full of shit.

  Chapter 11

  Eight days. It didn’t take her that long to figure out she was happier with Cole than without him, but it took that long to find the right words and a certain amount of courage to say them.

  Emma had stopped by a few times and made an obvious attempt to be matchmaker, but Sam had kindly told her she needed time to think. Sam did defend Cole though when Emma asked how he screwed up.

  She took full responsibility on that one, but Emma didn’t want to believe it. If only to clear his name, Sam knew she needed to speak with Cole. Hopefully she wasn’t too late.

  Picking up her cell phone, she dialed in the familiar number and breathed a sigh of relief when it clicked over to his voicemail.

  “Hi, um. It’s me. Um, Sam…I’d really like to talk with you…if you could maybe come over tonight after Levi goes to bed that would be…um…good. Please.”

  She chucked the phone on the kitchen counter and growled with frustration. She sounded like a complete fool. It wasn’t what she had planned on saying but she had expected him, not his voicemail, to answer the phone. Pleading for forgiveness to dead air made her feel like a fool.

  Trying to make the afternoon go by faster, she asked Levi to help her make banana bread, and after that she made apple fritters. Baking helped keep her mind off Cole—sort of. After a dinner of homemade pizza and their choice of homemade dessert, she gave Levi a long bath and read him three books instead of the usual two.

  Closing the door to his room, she looked at the clock in the hallway and sighed. She kept Levi up later than his usual seven-thirty bedtime to help pass the time, but Cole still wasn’t there. At half past eight, she slipped on her flannel pajama bottoms, pulled on a long-sleeve shirt and curled in front of the dying fire with a book.

  An hour later, a noise woke her. She sat up on the couch and listened again. Someone tapped lightly on the door. Wiping her drool with the back of her hand, and rubbing the sleepy-seeds out of her eyes, she slowly stood and opened the front door.

  If ever did God make the perfect man, he was surely standing on her doorstep. His hair seemed to have grown an inch since she last saw him and it looked like he’d run his hand through it a dozen times. Instead of looking sloppy, it made Cole seem innocent. Enduring. His dimple was nonexistent—it only showed when he smiled, and he sure wasn’t smiling now—and his dark eyes showed curiosity, not the light-hearted humor and affection that she had become used to seeing.

  “Hi,” she whispered.

  He nodded and stared at her, his hands tucked deep in the pockets of his black coat.

  “Will you come in?”

  Once again he nodded and stepped into her house, sans his usual pick-up line. She closed the door softly behind him. Clearly uncomfortable, he stayed in the living room standing in the same pose he held on the doorstep. Not once did she try to defend herself or plead for him to come back. Instead, she let him walk away with misinterpreted information because it hurt too much to admit the truth. That she had fallen in love with him.

  “Can I take your coat?”

  “Why? Will this take long?”

  She stepped back as if he slapped her. Never in the four months that she’d known him had he ever snapped at her or anyone else in her presence. Choking back tears she blinked hard and moved to the couch willing him to follow. When he didn’t, she remained standing, feeling more comfortable with the coffee table in between them.

  “First, I’d like to apologize. You’ve been nothing but kind and generous to me.” Sam breathed deeply and clasped her hands together. “The other night when you…when we were…” Her cheeks reddened. “On the couch. I didn’t call you Adam. I…I meant to say I felt like I was betraying Adam. That’s what I meant when I said ‘I can’t. Adam.’ I thought…”

  “Great. That’s cleared up. You didn’t call out your dead husband’s name while I had my hands on your breasts. Got it. Picture is crystal clear now. I’m outta here.”

  “No! Wait.” Rushing to him she gripped his coat in her hands and pleaded into his eyes. “I’m not done. Please. Nothing is coming out right.” This time she didn’t try to hold back the tears, not that he would notice. His eyes stayed focused straight ahead at the front door.

  “I…it took a while for me open up to you, but once I did it was liberating.” She smiled sadly up at him. “I’ve never felt so…you make me smile more than I ever have before. I want to be with you, Cole.” She wanted that to be clear to him. “What I feel for you is nothing like what I had with…Adam. I’ll always love him and cherish our time together, but he’s gone and I want to make a new life. My feelings for you are…intense. It wasn’t…it wasn’t like that before.”

  Swiping her tears with her hands she sniffed and leaned into him. “I want to be with you, Cole. Completely.” When he didn’t move, not even to take his hands out of his pockets to hug her back, she pulled away, her heart heavy with grief.

  “Cole. Please say something. I am so sorry, and I can only imagine how much I’ve hurt you with the things I’ve said. Looking back over the past month I feel like a fool. I’ve gone on and on about Adam and my life with him and never once did I take into account how much I’ve been hurting you. I’m new to this,” she said, pointing back and forth between them. “And will probably make a lot of mistakes, but I want to be with you. I want us to move ahead with our relationship.”

  Taking a risk she reached up and touched his cheek where she hoped to see his dimple again. “I want you to touch me and make love to me,” she whispered.

  His jaw clenched and for the first time he made eye contact with her, reaching out to grab her wrist.

  “Damn, woman,” he muttered right before he ravished her mouth. Shocked at his reaction
, it took a moment to realize what was happening. Cole didn’t walk away; he was making sweet love to her mouth and not doing anything to hide his emotions. He backed her into the front door and slowed down the kissing, but pinned one hand above her head while his other cupped her head.

  Hot, salty tears trickled down and mixed in their mouths. Slowly, Cole let go of her wrist and broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers.

  Sam reached up and touched his lips and whispered, “Is there an airport nearby or is that my heart taking off?”

  Cole chuckled and kissed her tenderly. “You’re stealing my lines.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  “God, I missed you.”

  “Cole, I’m sorry. I really, really am. I want to make it up to you.” She reached for the zipper to his jacket and pulled it down. “Make love to me. Please.” Sam never wanted a man more than she wanted Cole. Slipping her hand under his flannel shirt, she stroked his hard chest and moved her hands around to his back.

  He let out a low growl and pulled back. “No, sweetheart.”

  “But…” Tears pooled once again in her eyes and she lowered her head in embarrassment.

  “Not tonight. But soon. Real soon.” They kissed again, slowly and passionately. “When we make love for the first time there won’t be a little boy in the next room, and you won’t have tears in your eyes. Well, maybe tears of joy when we’re done, but I don’t want to take advantage of you. No sympathy sex.”

  “It’s not sympathy sex. It’s make up sex. I swear. Cole, I want you…I need you. I can’t believe we’ve waited this long. I think I’m going to burst if we don’t—”

  “Easy now. You’re going to ruin my chivalrous act here if you keep talking like that. Besides, now you know what I’ve been going through for the past few months.” He kissed her cheek and zipped up his coat. “We’re doing things right, Samantha. I’m going to make you feel so high and euphoric you’ll think you’re in that jet taking off.”

  The dimple made a delicious appearance right before he slipped out the door making her girly parts tingle with anticipation.

  * * * *

  It was like her first time.

  No, it wasn’t. Her first time happened in the back of Adam’s Ford at the drive-in. This first time had more expectation, more at stake.

  After taming her curls and moisturizing her body, Sam slipped on a navy jersey dress. It wasn’t anything fancy, but was the nicest thing she had in her closet. Working on construction sites and being a single mother did not require much from her wardrobe.

  Admiring her figure in the full-length mirror, she took a quick twirl and giggled. Tonight was the night. After a week of flirtatious phone calls, cuddling on the couch and passionate kisses, she and Cole were finally going to take their relationship to the next level. He didn’t come right out and say it, but they both knew tonight would be the night.

  “See if you can find a sitter. I want you to myself tomorrow night,” he said after kissing her the previous night. His mother was more than happy to stay with Levi. She offered to keep him overnight, but Sam didn’t want to come off as too obvious about her hope for the evening.

  Knowing her cotton underwear wouldn’t do, she even rushed into town to buy matching silk underwear and bra.

  “You look fancy,” Levi said from the doorway.

  “Why thank you, bud.” She kneeled on the carpet in front of him. “You’re going to be a super good boy for Ms. Mimi tonight, right?”

  “Um, okay. I’ll eat all my dinner if I can have a special treat. What’s for dinner?”

  Sam laughed. “Tuna fish casserole. And if Ms. Mimi thinks you’ve had enough, you can have an apple square for dessert.”

  “Yes!” Levi did his usual fist pump and ran down the hall when the doorbell rang.

  Taking a deep breath, she calmed the nerves she didn’t know she had and took a final glimpse in the mirror. Cole had never seen her with much makeup on and definitely never in a dress. The fluttering in her chest mellowed when she heard Betsy’s familiar voice and saw George step inside behind her.

  “Bumpa didn’t want to stay home tonight, so I said he could tag along and play with us. Is that okay Levi?”

  “Yay! He can be the bad guy and you and I can shoot him with our webs. Pew, pew.”

  “Levi,” Sam scolded. “Settle down.”

  “That’s okay,” George laughed. “You forget I raised three boys. One of them gave us a run for our money just like this one. I see why he’s so smitten with Levi.”

  She had a feeling the son he referred to would be walking through the door any minute. Sam led Betsy into the kitchen. “I have a casserole warming in the oven. You can take it out whenever you’re hungry. Crazy boy here can have dessert if he eats all his dinner. Feel free to bribe him with a movie if he’s still running you ragged later on. Bedtime is normally seven-thirty, but I’ll let him stay up until eight tonight.” She picked up a sheet of paper outlining everything and pointed out her cell phone number as well as Cole’s. “I guess you have his number already.” She blushed thinking about what she and Cole were going to do tonight—or what she hoped they were going to do—while his parents watched her son. What a tramp. She giggled inside.

  “Darling, we’ll be fine. Now tell me about this date my son is taking you on.”

  “Oh.” She blushed again. “I’m not exactly sure where we’re going. Dinner I presume.”

  Saved by the bell. Before she could rush out of the kitchen, George and Levi already had the front door open and were welcoming Cole. He looked fresh from the shower, the tips of his hair still slightly damp and his marvelous dimple smiling at her.

  “Hey, big guy. You have my mom and dad tonight? That’s not fair.” He pouted.

  “You can stay and play with us, Mr. Tucker. Bumpa is going to be the bad guy who is going to get dead when Ms. Mimi and I shoot him with our webs. Pew pew!”

  Cole laughed and slapped his father on the back. “Want me to run out and pick you up an espresso so you can keep up with the kid?”

  “I had great practice with you. You were nothing but trouble. Levi is a calm little lamb compared to the stunts you used to pull.”

  “I bet,” he muttered, then looked toward the kitchen and spotted Sam.

  She bit the inside of her cheek and clicked her nails together while he scrutinized her from head to toe. The shoes were from her brother’s wedding five years ago, her only real pair of heels. They gave her a few inches and showed off her newly painted pink toes, which seemed inappropriate in March, but they were the only shoes that went with the dress.

  His gaze wandered up her bare calves and stopped. She sucked in her stomach and arched her shoulders as she fiddled with her nails even more. Once again his gaze resumed, traveling up to her breasts, lingering but still moving, and up her reddened neck to her squirming lips before resting on her eyes.

  Those midnight eyes spoke erotic words his mouth couldn’t say in front of present company.

  “If a thousand painters worked for a thousand years, they could not create a work of art as beautiful as you.” He still didn’t move from his spot in the living room, and she wasn’t sure if she should approach him or wait for him to come to her. Aware of their audience that had joined them in the living room, she cleared her throat and said the only thing she could think of.

  “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

  And he didn’t. Usually clad in jeans, tonight Cole wore black slacks and a thin baby blue sweater that pulled tight across his chest and shoulders. The pale shirt made his dark coloring sexier and dominant.

  Betsy cleared her throat and gently nudged Sam toward Cole. “You two hurry off now. You don’t want to be late.”

  “Definitely,” he mumbled before revealing the dimple once again.

  After saying their goodbyes and obligatory hugs, Cole helped her into his truck and jogged to the driver’s side.

  “Okay, now that we don’t have company, can I just say…
damn, woman. You’re freaking incredible.” He swooped in and kissed the stuffing out of her.

  The windows fogged instantly, and he pulled back with a curse. “We still have an audience. You hungry?”

  She wiped away the fog from her window and waved to Levi. Food was the last thing on her mind, but she imagined they’d need fuel for what was to come.

  Chapter 12

  That had to be the most humiliating experience of his life. One look at Sam, and he had an instant hard-on…in front of her son, his mother and father. He knew if he moved it would become more obvious, so he waited for Sam to approach him and then they’d get the hell out of dodge. He prayed to God no one noticed the shift in his pants.

  But hot damn! He knew Sam was an attractive woman and had caught a glimpse of her in a snug T-shirt before, but tonight she glowed and carried herself with a new confidence. Her sex appeal was too much, and he quickly regretted the dinner reservations he made at the Inn by Mount Washington. It was the most romantic, secluded place he could think of where they were sure not to run into anyone they knew. Not that he would have minded showing her off, but he wanted Sam all to himself tonight.

  The dimly lit restaurant spewed romance. The tables were covered with white linen tablecloths and each table had an assortment of tea lights and flowers. He declined the waiter’s suggestion of a bottle of wine, but asked Sam if she would like a drink. He settled for an iced tea while she sipped on a glass of chardonnay.

  “Have I told you yet how amazing you look?”

  “Yes, a few times. But I don’t mind.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes, and he reached out for her hand. Her skin wasn’t as soft as some of the other women’s he’d dated in the past. She had calluses from working, and he found them surprisingly sexy. Sam worked with her hands and could handle any challenge; she’d proven that ten-fold. He wondered what it would feel like to have those strong, yet small and feminine, hands on his body. Soon he was sweating and wishing for the check. But they hadn’t even eaten their entrees yet.