“What’s he like, your son?”
Sam’s face softened. “He’s about my height, but he’s thinner. Hell, he’s just a kid, he’ll put on meat as he gets older. And he’s better-looking than I ever was. Same coloring, basically, dark hair, blue eyes, although his hair’s straight. And he’s smart. Honor roll all through high school, and next year he’s going to college. He hasn’t decided where, yet, but he can take his pick. He’s got the brains, and I can afford it.”
“Do you make that much money, doing what you do?” The question was impolite, Lisa knew, but she couldn’t help it. It just popped out. As a profession, soldiering had never struck her as being particularly well paid.
“I make enough. Sometimes more than others. But I’ve made some investments over the years that have paid off, and with the money from this job as a nest egg, I can afford to send Jay through college, wherever he wants to go, with enough left over to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”
“And that is?”
Sam shrugged. His grin was lopsided, as if he was embarrassed to admit to something as human as having a lifelong dream.
“Buy a ranch. Oh, not outright, but I have enough to make a good-sized down payment and stock it with cattle. Jay and I have it all picked out. It’s called the Circle C, in Montana.”
“It sounds wonderful.” Lisa was thinking that it did indeed sound wonderful. And it occurred to her, with heart-shaking knowledge, that she would give a lot for the privilege of sharing that ranch with Sam and his son. Which was ridiculous, she knew, but . . .
Sam leaned back against the wall, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He grimaced, twitching his injured shoulder. Lisa was beside him at once, their discussion forgotten for the moment.
“Are you in pain?” she asked anxiously, scanning his face for signs of suffering.
He grinned. “To tell the truth, the damned thing itches. I don’t suppose you can do anything about that, can you? Because . . .” His voice trailed off as Lisa inserted a hand beneath his shirt, which was stiff from the rainwater she had washed it in but at least was reasonably clean. Careful not to jar the healing wound, she began very delicately to scratch the skin around the edges of the bandage. He arched his back under her ministrations, his eyes closed. Lisa thought that he looked for all the world like a big, battle-scarred, hardened tom cat getting his first taste of loving care.
“Don’t stop,” he begged when she withdrew her hand at last.
“I don’t want to spoil you,” she answered pertly, giving his bristly cheek a consoling pat. He caught her hand, pressing it down against the sandpaper flesh of his jaw.
“I wouldn’t mind,” he assured her. “You can spoil me anytime.”
“Shouldn’t you be resting? You’re supposed to be recouping your strength. After all, when the rain stops, we’ll have to start walking again.” She looked at him severely as she spoke.
“Uh-uh. You’re not getting out of it that easy. You made me tell you all my deep, dark secrets. Now I want to hear yours. You can start by telling me about what’s-his-name—Jeff.” Sam was surprised at the acerbity of his own voice as he said her husband’s name.
Lisa shrugged, then moved so that she leaned on the wall next to him. He caught her hand again; her fingers curled warmly around his. Their linked hands rested lightly on the reed-covered dirt between them.
“There’s not much to tell. We’ve been married six years, but we were only really happy the first one. At least, I was. I don’t think Jeff was, even then. Like your Beth, he had other interests.” Lisa forbore to describe the exact nature of the “other interests.” It could make no possible difference to Sam what sex Jeff’s lovers were, and she still owed a measure of loyalty to Jeff.
“Why did you marry him?”
“Because he was perfect—the perfect Prince Charming that every girl dreams about. He was handsome and well educated and rich—and he was willing to live close to my grandfather. That was very important, at the time. I didn’t ever want to live too far away from Amos.”
“You call your grandfather Amos? I thought his name was Herman.”
Lisa smiled whimsically. “Herman’s a family name. I almost got stuck with it myself, as my middle name, instead of Ruth. Amos is my grandfather’s first name. And he hates it. That’s why I call him that. I’m one of the few people he lets get away with it.”
“Brat,” Sam remarked without rancor.
Lisa nodded. “Yes, that’s true. Or at least it was. I’m not so sure anymore.”
“Well, go on. What happened with you and—Jeff?” For the life of him, he couldn’t control the sneer that came through on that name. It was such an upright, respectable name, to go with an upright, respectable, perfect guy, if Lisa’s description was accurate.
“What went wrong, do you mean? I told you. He had other interests, and I found out.”
“Five years ago. And yet you’re still married to him. Why? Does he have money?”
Lisa sent him a reproachful look. “All women aren’t like Beth, Sam. I didn’t marry Jeff for his money, and I wouldn’t stay married to him for his money. Although, yes, his family is quite wealthy. But so is mine. There’s nothing he can give me that I can’t get for myself.”
For some reason, that remark made Sam feel a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, as if he’d just hit a huge dip while riding a roller coaster. If she was blithely unconcerned about the millions that must make the guy “quite wealthy” to her, what would she think about his bank account, which was pitiful in comparison? There was no way he could compete. . . . What was he thinking of? Sam caught himself up sharply. He didn’t want to compete. Once back in the United States, the girl sitting next to him in his cast-off combat fatigues would be so far above his touch that they wouldn’t even be in the same stratosphere. Not that he would want to have anything to do with her anyway. When they got back to the United States, he would go his way and she would go hers. Separate. Which was the way he wanted it, he told himself, and the way she undoubtedly did too.
“I don’t suppose a dedicated career woman like yourself had any time for having kids?” he asked, the sneer coming out stronger than he’d meant it to. To his surprise, she looked stricken. Her mouth shook, and her eyes shone with suspicious moisture. She didn’t answer.
“You do have kids?” he asked slowly, probing, knowing that her devastated look had to mean something. Maybe she did have kids—they couldn’t be much more than babies, with her as young as she was—and she’d left them to go traipsing off to Rhodesia. Maybe that stricken look was guilt.
Still she didn’t answer. Her eyes closed, the long curling black lashes resting like feathers against the paleness of her cheeks.
“Lisa?” he asked, puzzled, and tightened his grip on her hand. Whatever she had done or not done, she obviously felt like hell about it now. Her hand clung to his like a monkey holding on to a palm tree for dear life in a hurricane.
Her eyes opened. They were awash with unshed tears. She looked at him steadily.
“I had a daughter,” she said tonelessly. “Jennifer. She died last year.”
Sam felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. She looked so hurt, so sad, with tears swimming in her eyes and her lips trembling as she tried to be brave and not cry. Her very forlornness touched his heart like nothing had in years. Suddenly it occurred to him that, despite her money and social position and doting grandfather, she might actually be as lost and lonely as he was. His hand tightened on hers, tugging, and he pulled her into his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder, holding her tightly and rocking her back and forth as if she were a hurt child.
“Tell me about it, honey,” he whispered in her ear, tenderly smoothing away the hair from around her averted face.
Hands clutching his shirt, her voice barely audible at times as she spoke with her head buried in his shoulder, she obeyed. Words spilled out, faster and faster, as she relived the torment of Jennifer’s deat
h, sharing it with him, intent on easing her own pain as she shifted some of the burden of it to his broad shoulders. He held her as she talked and cried, murmuring soothing words to her, not understanding more than one word in three but knowing that it would do her good to get it all out. He felt a tenderness for her that he’d never felt for any woman, not even Beth. She was so little and helpless in his arms, clinging to him and sobbing her heart out, that he suddenly knew that he would ask nothing more of life than to be allowed to stand between her and the world, protecting her from all sadness and harm. As he held her, and rocked her while she cried, he felt a fierce possessiveness toward her. This is mine, his heart shouted, and while his head immediately disputed that, reminding him of all the reasons why she wasn’t his, and could never be his, his heart would not be convinced. Which meant that he was now in a peck of trouble.
Finally she quit talking and just cried, gasping and sobbing into his neck for a long time. He continued to hold her, stroking her hair and back, murmuring to her, pressing an occasional light kiss to the top of her bent head. It seemed like she cried for hours, but Sam didn’t mind. He thought that he could ask for no greater boon than the privilege of holding her while she cried.
At last the heartrending sobs stopped, and she sniffled and gulped for a while before exhaustion left her resting quietly against his shoulder. Sam’s good arm tightened around her, telling her silently that she was very welcome to stay where she was for as long as she liked.
“I’m sorry,” Lisa muttered eventually, pulling a little away from him but keeping her head bent so that he could not see the mess her tears had made of her face. “I—I’ve never broken down like that before. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone most of what I just told you.”
Sam wrapped his fingers around the silken length of her hair, tugging at it gently so that her head was tilted back and he could see her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen; tears had traced dirty paths down her cheeks. Her mouth was very red and a little blurry-looking. Sam thought that he had never seen a woman look more pathetic and, at the same time, more beautiful.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, trying to smile. The trembling of her lips wrung his heart.
“Don’t be,” he said huskily. “You can cry on my shoulder anytime. Believe me, I’m honored.”
Lisa felt her heart stop beating as he smiled that breathtaking slow smile.
“I love you,” she said, shaken to the core.
His eyes froze on her face, widened. His hand dropped from her hair to rest loosely at his side.
“What did you say?” His voice was hoarse. A bright blue flame seemed to leap to life at the back of his eyes.
“I said I love you,” Lisa repeated, more clearly this time, knowing as she said it that it was true. When it had happened, or how, she didn’t know. She knew only that it had, that she loved him more than she had ever loved anything in her life, that she wanted him and needed him. . . .
“You shouldn’t say things like that if you don’t mean them.” God, he was tempted, so sorely tempted, to take her words at face value, to sweep her up in his arms and never let her go. He wanted her with a fierce hunger that had little to do with physical passion. He wanted her heart and mind and soul as well as her body, forever and ever.
“I do mean it,” she said steadily, and then smiled at him again, her green eyes still misty from her recent tears. “I love you, Sam Eastman. So why don’t you do something about it, instead of sitting there staring at me like I’ve grown horns or something?”
“Christ,” he murmured, closing his eyes briefly.
Then he was reaching for her, hauling her to him, his arms closing convulsively around her. Lisa lifted her face wordlessly, her arms coming up to encircle his neck, her lips parting as she shamelessly invited his possession.
“Kiss me,” she was driven to say, as he studied her up-tilted face like a buyer suspicious of being taken for a ride. “Please, Sam, kiss me. . . .”
His mouth swooping down on hers muffled the last word. He kissed her as if he were starving, as if he meant to make up for all the years that they had not shared. Lisa responded with joyful abandon, answering his caresses with her own, feeling as if she had truly come alive for the first time in her life. I love him, she told herself over and over, as if she was afraid that this was a dream from which she might awaken at any moment. Love him, love him!
With little regard for his wound, Sam lowered her to the floor, pressing her down into the dirt and reeds as he kissed her with hot possession. Lisa felt with happy triumph the tremor that racked his long limbs. His body was telling her that he loved her, even if he had not yet put the thought into words.
His hands were on the buttons of her shirt, but his left one was still not capable of dealing with the intricacies of such items. She helped him, then unbuttoned his shirt, running her hands over his darkfurred chest with sensual enjoyment as he rested on his side next to her. The muscles of his chest felt hard and sleek, the curling hairs soft yet surprisingly wiry. . . . She stroked down to his belly, her finger slipping beneath the waistband of his pants to tease his navel. At her playfulness, he groaned.
“Witch,” he called her as her fingers darted away again. As punishment, his good hand slid down the back of her pants, cupping first the soft buttocks and then sliding intimately between her legs. As his fingers stroked her soft inner thighs, she wriggled with pleasure, then moaned when he took his hand away.
“I want you like hell,” she whispered daringly into his ear, her tongue darting out to brand the tender lobe.
Despite his arousal, Sam had to grin. “Remind me, later, to have a talk with you about your language. It leaves something to be desired, for a lady.”
“And is that what you want? A lady?” She was deliberately provoking him with words and touch, and his response was all she could have desired. Hot red blood rushed into his high cheekbones, and his eyes darkened to blue smoke. His hands, as he pulled her back against him, were shaking.
“Not at the moment, no,” he admitted hoarsely, and then his mouth was on hers, silencing her in the most effective way known to man since the beginning of time.
They undressed each other with trembling hands, Lisa helping him with the parts he could not manage, until they were both lying naked in the dirt. Their bodies were on fire for each other, their hands both beseeching and promising at the same time as they explored each other’s bodies as if they had never seen them before, as if this were the first time for both of them. Lisa wanted him to hurry, to possess her body before she died of the exquisite agony he was inflicting on her, but Sam was determined to take his time. His hands and mouth left no part of her body untouched, as if he was intent upon staking his claim. Finally Lisa was writhing mindlessly beneath him, her hands clutching at his body in wordless demand. When Sam could control himself no longer, he almost roughly thrust his hard thigh between her legs, forcing them apart. Lisa surged upward to meet him, but still he held off.
“Say it,” he ordered hoarsely. “I want to hear you say it.”
“What?” Lisa blinked up at him in bewilderment. All she could think of was how much she wanted him. . . .
“Tell me you love me. I want to hear it.”
“I love you,” Lisa repeated obligingly. “Love you, love you, love . . . Oh?”
He took her then, as she was saying the words, possessing her with a savage tenderness that was like nothing she had ever known before. He took her to heaven and back, and she felt as if she were dying in his arms.
When at last it was over, Lisa lay quietly beside him, cradled close against his long hard body as he lay on his side. Sam brushed a gentle kiss across her cheek, and Lisa smiled dreamily in response. She was memorizing his face, her eyes and fingers exploring the hard angles and satiny smooth skin roughened by nearly a week’s growth of bristly black beard. He looked like a ruffian, she thought, with that beard and the scar and his black hair growing longer to curl beguilingly around his ears
and over his forehead. Those blue eyes were smiling at her, and she thought that she had never seen anything more heart-stoppingly beautiful in her life.
“I hope you’re planning on a hasty divorce,” he drawled as she touched his hard mouth with a wondering finger. “Because as soon as we get home, you’re going to marry me.”
XIII
FOR a moment Lisa just stared into that dark face, her eyes gradually widening. As he looked gravely back at her, smiling just a little, she at last allowed herself to believe what she had heard.
“Oh, Sam, do you mean it?” she squealed, sitting bolt upright and staring down at him in delight.
His eyes moved over her with lazy ownership, touching on the excited eyes glittering down at him like emeralds with the sun shining through them, the soft, just-kissed redness of her mouth, the lovely line of her neck and shoulders, the beguiling uplift of her breasts, her small waist and flat stomach. . . .
“Sam!” Lisa interrupted his slow inspection with impatience. He looked up again to find her regarding him with a mixture of irritation, amusement, and what he desperately hoped was love.
“Did my ears deceive me, or did you just ask me to marry you?” she demanded, half-laughing.
“I don’t think I asked,” he said meticulously. “I think I just made a simple statement of fact. You can’t go around telling men you love them, and not expect to marry them.”
The words and voice held a teasing note, but the eyes did not. They watched her with a hunger that made her pulse speed up so that it pounded in her ears like a trip hammer. God, just looking at him was joy enough to last her for the rest of her days. . . .
To Love a Man Page 20
