Engaging Sam

by Ingrid Weaver

  “I’m not about to start telling anyone about our love life,”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Ingrid Weaver

  INGRID WEAVER

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  “I’m not about to start telling anyone about our love life,”

  Audra informed Sam. “I mean, our supposed love life.”

  “Hey, you wouldn’t be lying if you said you’d been in bed with me.”

  Her cheeks turned scarlet.

  “If pressed, I’d even be able to testify to that tiny mole you have on the inside of your left thigh.”

  “Sam!”

  “Engaged couples are expected to be hot for each other. It would seem suspicious if we weren’t, especially considering how fast we fell in love.”

  “But we’re not—” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Of course. We have to put on a good act....”

  Dear Reader,

  Summer’s in full sizzle, and so are the romances in this month’s Intimate Moments selections. starting with Badge of Honor, the latest in Justine Davis’s TRINITY STREET WEST miniseries. For everyone who’s been waiting for Chief Miguel de los Reyes to finally fall in love, I have good news. The wait is over! Hurry out to buy this one—but don’t drive so fast you get stopped for speeding. Unless, of course, you’re pulled over by an officer like Miguel!

  Suzanne Brockmann is continuing her TALL, DARK AND DANGEROUS miniseries—featuring irresistible navy SEALs as heroes—with Everyday, Average Jones. Of course, there’s nothing everyday about this guy I only wish there were, because then I might meet a man like him myself. Margaret Watson takes us to CAMERON, UTAH, for a new miniseries, beginning with Rodeo Man. The title alone should draw you to this one. And we round out the month with new books by Marcia Evanick. who offers the very moving A Father’s Promise, and two books bearing some of our new thematic flashes. Ingrid Weaver’s Engaging Sam is a MEN IN BLUE title, and brand-new author Shelley Cooper’s Major Dad is a CONVENIENTLY WED book.

  Enjoy all six—then come back next month, because we’ve got some of the best romance around every month, right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Yours,

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Executive Senior Editor

  * * *

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  * * *

  ENGAGING SAM

  INGRID WEAVER

  Published by Silhouette Books

  America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance

  Books by Ingrid Weaver

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  True Blue #570

  True Lies #660

  On the Way to a Wedding... #761

  Engaging Sam #875

  Silhouette Special Edition

  The Wolf and the Woman’s Touch #1056

  INGRID WEAVER

  admits to being a compulsive reader who loves a book that can make her cry. A former teacher, now a homemaker and mother, she delights in creating stories that reflect the wonder and adventure of falling in love. When she isn’t writing or reading, she enjoys old Star Trek reruns, going on sweater-knitting binges, taking long walks with her husband and waking up early to canoe after camera-shy loons.

  To Mark, with love.

  After three children and twenty-five years,

  you’re still my hero.

  Chapter 1

  Audra McPherson really should have screamed the instant the naked man crawled through her window.

  Sure, there were plenty of excuses for her failure to react sensibly. A broken air conditioner, an unrelenting heat wave and simple exhaustion had left her about as sharp as a collapsed soufflé. And on top of the understandable grogginess, there was a paralyzing moment of disbelief because somehow, the man looked...familiar.

  Which was ridiculous. After all, a naked man, especially a tall, taut, moonlight-silvered one that could have stepped out of a stud-of-the-month calendar, was not exactly a familiar sight for Audra McPherson. Still, he was enough to make any woman pause, or at least hesitate long enough to wonder if she were dreaming.

  But whether she blamed her stunned silence on grogginess, disbelief or an ingrained urge not to disturb the neighbors, it was nevertheless a serious mistake. Because during those precious seconds she lost as her brain tried to grasp what her eyes were seeing, the man lunged across the shadowed bedroom and clamped his hand over her mouth.

  Too late, full awareness of her situation crashed over her. This was no fantasy; this was a very real, flesh-and-blood stranger. Despite the fact that there was no balcony or fire escape outside her third-floor window, and the ledge was barely wide enough for a skinny pigeon, somehow this man was really here. And he wasn’t here because she’d conjured him out of her imagination. No, he was here because...because...

  Oh, God! She wasn’t rich. There was nothing in her apartment worth stealing, so what other reason could there be for a man—a naked man—to sneak into a single woman’s bedroom? Fear tripped her pulse and tensed her body as the answer sprang full-blown into her mind. Desperation giving her a burst of strength, she fought to free her arms from the bedclothes. Her hands collided with a solid, damp, hair-roughened chest and she pushed, but she couldn’t budge him. Curling her fingers, she dug her nails into his arm.

  Not loosening his hold on her mouth, he caught her wrists in his free hand and pressed them to the pillow above her head. Bedsprings creaked as he knelt beside her. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a raspy whisper. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Didn’t mean to frighten her? His words didn’t make sense. Neither did his apologetic tone. What kind of maniac was this? Audra jerked her arms. The fingers circling her wrists were oddly gentle but as inflexible as living steel. Frantically, she kicked off the sheet, braced one heel against the mattress and struck out at him with the other leg. Her foot thudded against the bare skin beside his spine with a solid smack.

  He inhaled sharply and muttered a short oath. Before she could kick him again, he threw his leg over hers and stretched out on top of her, pinning her to the mattress with the weight of his body. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he gasped. “I just need to use your phone.”

  The scream she should have given ten seconds ago thickened her throat, but the broad palm that was pressed against her mouth muffled the sound. She twisted her head, trying to sink her teeth into his hand.

  “Dammit, keep still or they’ll hear us,” he muttered, curling his little finger around her chin to keep her jaw shut.

  His grip on her jaw was as gently unyielding as his grip on her wrists. Panic joined the fear now as she thrashed and squirmed beneath him. Stark images she had seen on the news, nightmare scenarios of random violence flitted in and out of her mind with every painfully hard beat of her heart. Oh, God! Was this how it happened? Would she be nothing but a statistic by the time the morning finally came? Would there be yellow police-line tape and somber coroners and crowds of reporters—

  “Miss McPherson,” he said. “Please, don’t struggle. You’re only going to hurt yourself.”

  The sound of her name surprised her into pausing
for an instant. If he knew who she was, then he couldn’t be some perverted maniac who had chosen her window at random.

  No, he was a perverted maniac who had chosen her window deliberately.

  Another scream gurgled at the back of her throat. She arched her back and twisted, renewing her efforts to dislodge him, but his body was as solid and immovable as a rock.

  “Audra, take it easy,” he whispered, bringing his mouth close to her ear despite her continued thrashing. “It’s me. Sam.”

  The name whirled in her head, weaving itself into the fabric of those nightmare images. Sam? Sam? She was being attacked by a maniac who not only apologized but wanted to introduce himself? Flexing her jaw, she tried to bite his hand again. To her satisfaction, this time she managed to catch a fold of skin between her teeth.

  His breath hissed out on another short oath and he shifted his hand, curling a second finger beneath her chin. “Audra, for God’s sake, quit fighting me. I only want to use your phone.”

  Her eyes widened. Her phone? He’d said that before, hadn’t he? What was he going to do, use the cord to strangle her? Or tie her up? Or maybe he was going to use it in some other sick, sadistic—

  “I need to use your phone,” he repeated, subduing her struggles by settling his weight more securely on top of her. “I need to call the police.”

  Her mind must be snapping, she thought, trying to tug her wrists free of his grip. For a second there it sounded as if he said... No, her mind was definitely snapping. Since when did naked maniacs crawl into innocent women’s apartments in order to phone the police?

  “Listen to me, Audra,” he said, his breath hot on the side of her neck. “I’m your neighbor, Sam. I live next door to you in 308. We met when I moved into the building two months ago.”

  She shook her head against his grip on her jaw and made a noise in her throat.

  His chest pressed hard against her breasts as he raised his head. His face was a pale blur in the moonlight that filtered through her curtains. “Look at me,” he ordered. “Don’t you recognize me?”

  Although she didn’t deliberately obey him, she couldn’t help looking. In the dim lighting, all she could make out were high cheekbones, a square jaw and dark hair that fell over his forehead. There was something vaguely familiar about him, all right. She squinted, trying in vain to pierce the shadows, hoping at least to be able to give the police artist enough for a composite sketch.

  Beneath a slash of dark eyebrows, his eyes gleamed with intensity. “I talked to you in the elevator two days ago, remember? You asked me about claiming your library fines as a tax deduction.”

  His words started to penetrate her panic, but they still didn’t make sense. She frowned. She remembered talking to her neighbor in the elevator. And yes, she’d asked him some advice about tax deductions. But could this really. be Samuel Tindale? The quiet bookkeeper from next door?

  A muggy breeze puffed the curtain aside for a moment, allowing a shaft of moonlight to fall across the bed. The man’s features were suddenly revealed, and Audra’s frown deepened. She recognized him now. Blue eyes surrounded by spiky lashes, long, straight nose with a hint of a bump in the center, firm lips, dimple in the chin...

  Yes, it was Sam, all right. No matter how impossible it seemed, this solid hulk of naked masculinity was actually poor, cute but shy Sam from next door.

  “I swear, I don’t want to hurt you,” he went on. “I know you must be thinking the worst, and I’m sorry for frightening you like this, but I can’t afford to waste any more time. I have to call for backup.”

  Backup? Backup? Was there a rabbit hole around here that she had fallen into without realizing it? Another scream scraped her throat. It wasn’t a scream of fear this time but of frustration. What on earth was happening here?

  “There are two men who have broken into my apartment who were probably sent to kill me, Audra,” he said, his low voice vibrating with urgency. “I saw them coming in time and ducked out the window before they could find me. I noticed your window was open, so I took the chance and came over here. I need to call the police before they figure out where I went. Please, the longer you struggle, the more danger you’re in.”

  The stress of adding up those columns of numbers all day must have flipped him out. Two men trying to kill him? What kind of paranoid delusion was he caught in? She jerked upward, trying to ram her knee into some strategic part of his anatomy, but he merely shifted again, curling his legs around hers in some kind of wrestling lock.

  “Sorry, Audra,” he said tightly. “I don’t have time to explain it any further.” In a smooth move that was over before she realized what he was doing, Sam shifted his weight to one elbow, twisted his body and rolled so that she was on top of him. He released her wrists and grabbed the sheet in one fluid motion, then flipped her over in his arms as he wrapped her up in the cotton folds. With another swift roll, he had her trapped beneath him, the sheet pinning her arms to her sides as effectively as a straitjacket.

  She arched her back, but her effort to dislodge him was futile. She’d never considered herself a helpless kind of woman, despite what her family believed. She wasn’t especially small, either. When she wore heels, she was almost as tall as her oldest nephew. But this man—she still couldn’t get over the fact that it was Sam—had the strength and coordination to completely immobilize her.

  Still keeping one hand over her mouth, he slid up her body and rotated sideways until his stomach pinned her shoulders. From that position, he was able to stretch out his free arm and reach the phone on her bedside table. He dragged it onto the bed, propped the receiver against the pillow and rapidly punched in a number.

  Audra immediately stilled, holding her breath as she strained to listen. If Sam actually did believe that there were killers out to get him, then his paranoia might work in her favor. If he really had called the police...

  Without the creaking bedsprings and raspy breathing caused by her struggles, the bedroom was suddenly, deathly silent. Through the phone line came the tinny sound of ringing, then a man’s voice.

  “Bergstrom?” Sam asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He pulled the phone closer, pressing the receiver to his mouth. “It’s Tucker. I’m bailing out. Two of the goons from the warehouse are at my place right now.”

  Although the way he was lying on top of her made it impossible to see past the side of his ribs, she detected a subtle change in the tension of his body as the telephone conversation progressed. Whoever was on the other end of the phone line was either doing a wonderful job of humoring this crazy man, or...

  Or maybe he wasn’t crazy.

  “Yeah, let me talk to Lieutenant Jones while you put out the call,” he said. There was a short pause, then a spate of rapid conversation as a new voice came through the phone. Sam sighed before he answered. “I was getting close, Xavier,” he said. “We’ve probably already got enough to shut down the warehouse branch. If not, at least we can bring these sweethearts in for break and enter.... Yeah, good.... All right.” There was another pause. “I got out as soon as I saw them in the building. I didn’t want to risk a shoot-out with so many civilians around. I’m calling from the apartment next door. 306. Woman named McPherson is letting me use her phone.”

  The breath Audra had been holding whooshed out against Sam’s hand. He’d told her name to the person he was talking to. Why would he do that if he was intending to hurt her? And despite his obviously superior physical strength, he hadn’t hurt her. As a matter of fact, even now he was keeping some of his weight balanced on his knees and elbows so that he didn’t squish her into the mattress.

  Good God, could he have been telling her the truth?

  Another gasp hissed past his hand as she thought she heard a thump from next door. He’d said there were killers in his apartment! If that was true, then...

  “Right,” Sam said, still keeping his voice as low as possible. “How soon can you get a unit over? It sounds as if they’re still at my place.”

/>   Yes, that definitely was a thump from next door, as if someone had just knocked over a heavy piece of furniture.

  “No, I’ll wait for backup. They won’t find anything. I brought the disk with me. And one last thing, Xavier,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you verify my story for Miss McPherson.... Yeah, she was a bit skeptical at first, since she only knows me as Tindale, but she’s cooperated beautifully. Just a minute.” He slid back down her body until he was face-to-face with her once more. He lowered his head next to hers, angling the telephone receiver so that they could both hear what was being said.

  In the hushed shadows, the voice from the telephone was startlingly distinct. “Miss McPherson?” a man asked.

  “She’s listening,” Sam said, his hair brushing her cheek as he spoke into the receiver. “Go ahead.”

  “Miss McPherson, this is Lieutenant Xavier Jones. I’m Detective Tucker’s supervisor. One of our cruisers should be there within a few minutes, and we’ll do everything we can to assure your safety. Meanwhile, keep calm. You’re in good hands. And on behalf of the Chicago Police I’d like to thank you for your assistance.”

  Tucker? What happened to Tindale? And he’d called Sam Detective Tucker. Was he a cop as well as a bookkeeper? And why were people trying to kill him? This was getting crazier by the second.

  And the craziest part was that it also was starting to make a weird kind of sense.

  Through the open window came the sound of a distant siren. The grip on her mouth loosened slightly, allowing her to turn her head to meet Sam’s gaze.

  Now that her initial, stomach-knotting panic was receding, Audra felt her reason slowly return. Either this was one of the most elaborate paranoid hoaxes ever conceived, or... The whirling in her brain steadied as the facts fell into place.