by Jeanne Allan
Addy’s throat constricted. Love had nothing to do with anything. It certainly had nothing to do with her and Sam. At least, it had nothing to do with Sam. And where had that particular clarification come from? “Things aren’t quite what you think. The man hasn’t actually made any overt threats. I don’t know yet what I’m going to do, and—”
“You do what Sam says, dear.”
“I have no intention of doing something just because Samuel Dawson tells me to.”
“Good for you,” Hannah said briskly. “Sam has a tendency to be kind of bossy. Comes from being the oldest child. Don’t you let him pull that nonsense on you. Now,” his bossy grandmother said, “Sam has to be back in Boston Monday, so the wedding will be late Saturday afternoon. I wanted a morning wedding but the chapel was booked. You won’t be able to have a honeymoon, but you can at least spend Saturday night in a bridal suite.”
“I don’t believe this,” Addy muttered. They were all getting senile. If she humored them, she’d end up walking down the aisle in her grandmother’s wedding dress. A dress, hanging at this very minute on the kitchen porch drying after Hannah had hand-washed it in the large pantry sink.
“I know,” Cora beamed, “love can turn your life topsy-turvy. Only this morning when I was walking in my garden I told Sweetie Pie—my kitty cat, dear—it’s Kismet.”
“Sam and I?” Addy had lost complete control of the conversation. No. Lost implied she’d once had control.
“No, dear. My roses. I’ve never seen them so beautiful. As if they knew they had to look their best for your wedding.”
She’d wandered into an insane asylum. Desperately Addy sought words to stern the relentless tide sweeping her toward the altar.
Phoebe looked at her list. “I called May from the children’s shop—she comes into the law firm now and then, business leases and so on. She has at least three dresses which she says will be perfect. I’m meeting her at the shop tomorrow, and I’ll bring the dresses by so Emilie can pick her favorite. Sam can take care of the wedding rings.”
“How do you feel about caviar, Addy?” Belle asked. “I’ve never liked it myself, but if you do...?”
“I’ve never had it.” They’d replaced her brain with cobwebs.
“Maybe we should serve it,” Belle said thoughtfully. “Isn’t it one of those foods that drive men wild? Anything ovoid?”
“Isn’t caviar round, dear? Oysters are what you want.”
“Raw?” Phoebe asked with interest. “Or cooked and served with butter and garlic?”
“I think butter and garlic are for snails,” Hannah said. “We don’t want anything with garlic.”
“I’ll ask John Christain. He’ll know,” Belle said.
Addy ran from the room. To her credit, she didn’t run screaming.
Sam sat in the back parlor intent on the computer screen in front of him.
“You’ve got to stop them,” Addy gasped. “Roses with Kismet and Emilie buying dresses and whether you eat snails or oysters with garlic. They’ve gone berserk. You have to stop them.”
“Just a sec. Let me finish reading my E-mail.”
“E-mail! Forget your E-mail. This is an emergency.” Addy leaned down to punch some buttons, any buttons to turn off his blasted computer.
Sam grabbed her hands. “Emilie OK?” At. her nod, his muscles relaxed. “Be with you in a minute.” His gaze returned to the screen, and his grasp of Addy’s hands loosened.
She spied a cord and reached over to yank it loose from whatever it was attached to. Her fingers almost had it when Sam sensed her motion, and suddenly she had his complete attention. Steel arms slung her away from her goal and deposited her on Sam’s hard thighs. His muscles flexed beneath her as, with a hard thrust of his legs, he shoved the heavy old wheeled office chair of his grandfather’s away from the library table he used as a desk. Penetrating blue eyes glared at her from inches away. “What the hell is wrong with you? Oysters and roses? Who’s going berserk?”
“Them! They’re planning our wedding!”
“If you don’t want oysters and roses, say so,” Sam said in a reasonable voice. “It’s your wedding.”
“It’s not my wedding!”
“Whose wedding are they planning?”
“Mine! Aren’t you listening?”
Sam’s eyes narrowed, and he cupped a hand around her cheek. “Your skin feels warm. I wonder if you got too much sun today.”
“No!”
“I hope you’re not coming down with some kind of bug. I’d hate to have you miss your own wedding. Women are supposed to like the fuss, the dress, the flowers and all that. A justice of the peace would have suited me, but Grandmother said it wouldn’t be fair to your.”
Addy froze. “You know they’re in there planning the wedding?” At his nod, she said carefully, “I thought I told you I wanted to think about your offer.”
“In a calm and reasonable manner, you said.” The arm around her waist slackened and slid down until his hand rested against her hip. “I knew after you studied all the data, you’d reach the same inevitable conclusion I reached. You’d agree to marry me.”
His hand burned her skin through her caftan. “Why would I do that?” She should throw the old teal blue garment away. The fabric had worn too thin. She tried to edge away from his hand.
Sam’s hand tightened, and he shifted his legs, sliding her closer to the trunk of his body. “It’s a question of resources. Faced with a limited amount of time and limited amount of eligible men, there is no one but me.” He ran his finger along the edge of her neckline. “I don’t care whether or not you wear beige, but I’ve been thinking about that lab coat.”
“Lab coat?” She wanted to argue his conclusion about marrying him, but her mind refused to consider anything but the finger heating her skin.
He slid brightly-colored fabric over her shoulder and down her arm. “I don’t spend all my time thinking about test tubes or computers or venture capital.” Amusement warmed his voice.
“I never said you did.” Every hair on her arm quivered with electricity. “What’s that have to do with lab coats?”
“I’ve been sitting here since dinner trying to work. I look at the computer and instead of seeing grafts and charts, I see me coming home and you sitting at the table working on your jewelry and you turn around and stand up and you’re wearing a white lab coat. A short lab coat. And nothing else.” Sam loosened her neckline until the caftan slid down both shoulders.
“I hardly ever wear white.” Addy feared breathing, afraid the slightest movement might dislodge the material from its tenuous perch on the taut tips of her breasts.
Sam gave her a slow wicked smile, taking pleasure in her dilemma. Leaning closer, he slowly brushed her mouth with his tongue. Addy parted her lips and half sighed and half shivered. The soft teal cotton slithered to her waist. A breeze from the overhead fan caressed her bare breasts.
“Belle wondered if you wanted champagne and Cora wanted to ask if you cared what color of roses she selected, but perhaps this isn’t a good time.” The bright, unexpected voice belonged to Hannah.
Sam pressed Addy against his chest and pulled up her caftan, covering her bare back. “No, Grandmother,” he said levelly, “I don’t think this is a good time.”
Addy had never considered herself as having masochistic tendencies, but nothing could have kept her from raising her head from Sam’s shoulder and looking toward the doorway. Hannah beamed back at her. Addy wanted to weep.
Sam waited until his grandmother disappeared down the hallway before he spoke. “I’m sorry. The next time I’ll remember to shut and lock the door.”
Addy considered telling him there would be no next time, but nothing she said in this house seemed to be heard. Gathering herself together, she stood up. Sam made no move to stop her. Why would he? He needed white lab coats for inspiration. The open doorway promised at least temporary escape.
“Addy, there is no other option.” Compassion and so
mething eke—regret?—tinged Sam’s voice.
Not bothering to respond, Addy walked from the room, closing the door behind her. She hated to think what might have happened if she’d closed the door behind her when she’d gone into the room. She hadn’t exactly been fighting Sam off.
The satisfied look on Hannah’s face swam across her vision. Being caught half naked in Sam’s embrace for a second time dynamited any possibility of convincing the ladies she and Sam were not getting married. Which they weren’t. She knew that now. Not on Saturday afternoon or any other time.
Pain mounted in Addy’s head. She couldn’t marry Sam and she couldn’t stay here. More than ever, she had to run. Even if her and Emilie’s future together wasn’t threatened by that slime from California, she couldn’t stay here. Not after the peep show she and Sam had put on for Hannah. Addy squeezed her eyes shut in painful remembrance of Hannah’s threats voiced to Sam. Sam said Hannah hadn’t meant them, but people didn’t want their children taught by immoral women. As John Christain said, this was a small town and gossip thrived.
John Christain. A plan began taking shape in Addy’s mind. A desperate plan. Sam claimed a demonstration was worth a thousand words or something like that. Addy’d always thought that applied to pictures, but she understood the underlying principle. First she had to stop this wedding business; then she and Emilie would run.
A variation on her plan suggested itself. If the slime could be tricked, a red herring of some sort, causing him to look in the wrong place. Such as Boston. She’d need to plan skillfully.
Sitting at her worktable, Addy looked at the clay cane she’d started before dinner. Sam Dawson would have his necklace before she left. The sketch she used to build the cane almost brought a smile to her face. Let him explain this to his Boston beauty who wasn’t from Boston. His mother. Addy snorted loudly. The crude sound did little to ease her heart ache. Her hand hovered over her small kneaded mounds of polymer clay as she selected her choices of colors for the cane.
Choices. Paths chosen or not chosen. Choices made by her. Choices taken from her. Choices. The very word made her ill. She remembered screaming at the minister by the grave site after her parents’ funeral. Why were her parents chosen to die? The minister had looked down his nose at her and told her it wasn’t her place to ask why such things happened. One of her aunts had dragged Addy away, Addy screaming angrily at him all the way to the car that she was their daughter so it was her place.
From that day, her choices were made by others. Where she lived, where she went to school, what she ate, what she wore. Kind, well-meaning others, but others all the same.
The first real choice she’d made on her own had been to leave Lorie and go off to college. A disastrous landmark in choices.
This time she’d choose better. She kneaded pale pinkish-ivory for the figure’s body. The color used to be called flesh before people in charge of such things woke up to the belated recognition that flesh came in a multitude of colors. The color of Sam’s finger against her skin.
Addy squeezed clay in each hand. Sam. Emilie. Choices. At first glance, marrying Sam for Emilie’s sake appeared a no-brainer choice. Addy slumped in her chair. First glances could be deceptive. Yes, Sam would be a great father, and yes, the thought of them marrying Sam thrilled Emilie. How long before the thrill wore off? How long before Emilie questioned why Sam had married Addy when his heart belonged to another woman? At what age would Emilie suspect Sam had sacrificed for her? Such a sacrifice would be an incredible burden for a young woman to carry.
And Sam. How long before he regretted his generosity? How long before he tried to mold Addy into someone she wasn’t and didn’t want to be? A man like Sam wanted classic, uncluttered rooms. Barren rooms. He didn’t want the comfortable chaos and remnants of the past which Addy thought enriched Emilie’s life. Junk, he called it, and he didn’t want it.
A single tear burned a trail down Addy’s cheek. He didn’t want her. She didn’t blame him. Who would want a wildly dressed woman who lived in purple and pink rooms and who’d stupidly fallen in love with the wrong man? Just because Hannah and her friends thought Sam walked on water; just because Emilie adored him; just because he was smart and funny and generous; just because when he kissed Addy her entire body tingled and the world went bright and all things seemed possible.
At age twenty-eight, Adeline Johnson knew all things weren’t possible. It wasn’t possible to marry Sam Dawson. Not when the groom was motived by a sense of chivalry, and he thought the bride was motived by need. Not when the bride had fallen head-over-heels in love with the groom. Loving Sam, she couldn’t tie him to her for all the wrong reasons. She had to set him free. She could only hope her choice would ultimately prove to be the right choice for Emilie. Putting down the clay, Addy went in search of the phone directory and John Christain’s phone number.
“I never thought I was a coward at heart, but I have to admit I’m having second, third and tenth thoughts,” John Christain said.
Addy gave him the same glazed smile she’d given him the last million or so times he’d repeated his misgivings since he arrived twenty minutes ago. Curbing her irritation, she patiently repeated, “Everything will be fine. Sam Dawson’s not the type to throw punches. If he’s annoyed with anyone, it will be me.”
“Tell me again why we’re doing this, and why I let you talk me into it.” John’s testy voice gave evidence of a definitely thinning veneer of suave amiability.
“You’re doing it because at first you thought it sounded amusing. Then, when you chickened out, I threatened you. If you don’t do it, I’ll smear peanut butter and shaving cream and shoe polish all over your car.”
“I knew it wasn’t out of the goodness of my heart.” He shuddered. “Do you have any idea what those could do to the finish?”
Addy hadn’t the faintest idea, but apparently the threat had been inspired.
John’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “This isn’t a trick to get me to marry you, is it?”
“No, John.” Addy sighed. “If I wanted to get married, I could marry Sam and we wouldn’t have to go through with this charade.”
“Why don’t you marry him? The whole town knows there’s a big wedding planned for tomorrow.”
“Call me picky, but I think a bride should be consulted on a few things about her wedding.”
“You mean to tell me your nose is out of joint because they didn’t check with you before ordering oysters and champagne?”
His question immediately diverted Addy. “You’re kidding. They’re having oysters? Did Belle really ask you which foods are supposed to be... Never mind.” Hastily Addy. yanked herself back to her grievance. “I mean brides like to be consulted about the identity of their grooms.”
“Let me get this straight. Sam Dawson never asked you to many him, but his grandmother and Belle Rater and the other ladies are planning to marry you off to him?”
“Of course he asked me to marry him,” Addy said impatiently. Did Belle know what a total moron John Christain was?
“Lady, one of us is badly confused.”
“It’s not me,” Addy retorted. “Just do what I told you and everything will be fine.” Not exactly fine, but definitely over. “Emilie is at a friend’s house, and Sam went to run errands and he’s picking up Hannah at Cora’s house on his way back.” Addy glanced at the wall clock. “They should be back any minute now. Did you park your car right in front like I told you, so they see it first thing?”
“I hope it doesn’t slide down the hill. Maybe I better go move—”
“Too late. I heard car doors and that’s Sam’s voice. Harry. Over here on the sofa.”
Knuckles tattooing on the door preceded Sam’s stroll into Addy’s sitting room. “Adeline...” Whatever he was going to say died unsaid.
Trailing her fingers down John’s bare back beneath his unbuttoned shirt; Addy looked over John’s shoulder and gazed at Sam’s ear. “First you knock, then you wait until someone tells you
to come in, then you open the door and walk in.”
“Addy Johnson!”
Addy’s stomach plummeted as she saw Hannah’s shocked face peering around Sam’s broad shoulders.
“I’ll handle this.” Gently maneuvering his grandmother back into the hallway, Sam firmly closed the door. “Well, Adeline?”
“Well, Adeline?” she echoed mockingly. “You said the other day your sex life was no business of mine since we weren’t married.” She shoved her elbow into John’s ribcage. He finally came out of his state of torpor and raised himself from where he lay sprawled across Addy’s reclining body. Ignoring John as he hastily buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his unbuttoned trousers waistband, Addy sat up slowly. Deliberately she left her purple blouse hanging open over her lacy red camisole. “I should have remembered your caution about locking doors.”
“I said we weren’t married yet” He emphasized the last word. “I suggested locking the doors to protect you and I. Not you and him.” Sam didn’t even glance at John.
“Maybe now’s not the best time for us to, uh, visit, Addy,” John said quickly, edging toward the door.
“Sorry.” Addy yawned and stretched, sensuously she hoped. “I thought we’d have the house to ourselves longer. Maybe next time.”
“There won’t be a next time, Christain. Get out.”
“Right. Whatever you say. Addy, about... ?”
“Everything will be fine,” Addy said. The relief on John’s face told her he understood the reference to his car. He’d played his part; she’d leave his car alone.
As the door closed behind him, Addy rose lithely from the sofa and moved over to sit at the table. She felt more secure with a solid piece of furniture between her and Sam.
“Perhaps I’d be more entertained by your performance if I understood the point of it. Would you button that damned shirt! If you were trying to make me jealous, forget it.”
“I wasn’t.” Addy rolled clay between her palms. If she bedded the entire staff at John’s hotel she couldn’t make Sam jealous. He didn’t care enough for jealousy.
