Sweet Liar Read online

  Why didn’t the girls borrow clothes from your sister or your mother and cover themselves?

  Mike looked surprised, then smiled, then he laughed. “What a very, very good question. Maybe they liked my father and my brothers starting at them in open-mouthed admiration.”

  Still grinning, he rolled off of her and stood up. He stretched and yawned, with Samantha’s eyes never leaving his body, especially when his shirt pulled up and exposed his bare stomach. Did he have any idea what he looked like when he did that? she wondered.

  Abruptly, he stopped yawning and looked down at her, as though he knew very well that she was watching him. “That’s your story for tonight. You wouldn’t like to change your mind about…you know?” He nodded toward the empty side of the bed.

  Sam shook her head no.

  Then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he bent to kiss her lips. But Samantha turned her head away. When she looked back at him, he was bending over her, staring at her.

  “Sometimes you remind me of those high school girls that you take out to drive-in movies. You go out one night and spend the whole night kissing and, after hours of work, finally getting your hand under her blouse. The next time you go out you think you’re going to work on her skirt, but instead, she makes you start back at square one: She won’t even let you kiss her.”

  In spite of herself, Samantha giggled. She could easily imagine Mike as a randy high school boy.

  “Tell me, Sam, did the boys have to start over again with you with each date?”

  When she didn’t answer him, he handed her the pad and pencil. I never had a date in high school, she wrote.

  Mike had to read her sentence three times before he looked up at her in disbelief, then taking the pencil from her he wrote, Have you ever been to bed with any man other than the jerk you were married to?

  She didn’t want to answer his question. Why a jerk? she wrote.

  “He lost you, didn’t he? Any man who’d do that has to be stupid.”

  Samantha laughed, then punched his shoulder. He was lying; he was flattering her, but still, having someone call her ex-husband a jerk pleased her.

  “How about a goodnight kiss? Nothing more than that. I’ll keep my hands on your shoulders. Trust me. I promise.”

  She wasn’t strong enough to say no to kissing Michael, especially when he was looking at her like that. As he leaned on the bed, a hand on each side of her hips, she gave him a tentative nod, and he sat down on the bed again and put his hands on her upper arms. Slowly he brought his lips to hers.

  With each kiss, she experienced wonder that something could be so lovely. As he’d done today, he didn’t force her or try to leap on top of her. She began to sink into his kiss, began to trust him as she slumped back against the pillows, her eyes closed, her body relaxed.

  “Good night,” he said softly, and Samantha almost wished he wouldn’t leave.

  Getting off the bed, he turned off the light switch and went down the hall.

  He asked her to trust him and she was beginning to, but, she thought as she snuggled down into the covers, would he trust her?

  It had taken two days, but she had made her decision: She was going to look for her grandmother.

  16

  “I am going to look for my grandmother.”

  Samantha and Mike were in the bedroom of her apartment. She had slept downstairs in his bed, but early this morning, before she’d heard him stirring in the bedroom next door, she’d come upstairs to get dressed. When she’d come out of her bedroom, Mike had been standing in the living room, waiting for her. He thought she was getting ready to go with his cousin Raine to Maine, and it had taken all her courage to tell him that she wasn’t going, she was staying here in New York with him.

  Pretending he didn’t hear her, Mike didn’t even bother to answer. “Montgomery will be here any minute. All of them are punctual, so he won’t be even a minute late. I bought you some chocolate chip muffins for the trip, because if I know the Montgomerys, they’ll feed you something like broccoli and carrot soufflé. Maybe I ought to call Kaplan’s Deli and get you a couple of pastrami sandwiches and a six-pack of beer. Beer’s nice on a trip, and—”

  “Mike,” she said softly, “stop pretending you didn’t hear me. I’m not leaving. I’m going to look for my grandmother.”

  “Like hell you are,” he said, grabbing her tote bag in one hand and her elbow with the other.

  “I am not leaving. And that’s empty.” She nodded toward the tote bag.

  “No problem. When you get to Connecticut have Montgomery stop and buy you whatever you need. Better yet, wait until you get to Maine.”

  When Mike wouldn’t release her arm, she did the only thing she could think of: She sat down on the floor. “I’m not leaving here and I’m not going to Maine. I am going to remain in New York to look for my grandmother.”

  Putting his strong hands on her upper arms, Mike lifted her. When Samantha remained rigid, he set her on the edge of the couch.

  “Samantha,” he began.

  “It’s no use trying to think of what to say to make me see your side of it. I have made up my mind.”

  Several emotions crossed Mike’s face, then he sat down heavily beside her. “I’ll close the house if I have to, then you won’t have any place to stay.”

  “Fine. I’ll rent another apartment.”

  Mike gave a grunt then a lopsided grin. “And who’ll take care of you? The doorman? Sam, you’re so terrified of New York you haven’t even gone around the block by yourself. How do you expect to find your grandmother without me to help you? And I’m going to refuse to help you.”

  Turning her to face him, he took her hands in his “Look, sweetheart, in any other instance, I’d love to have you with me, but this is dangerous.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “Men’s work?”

  He squeezed her hands. “Don’t give me that women’s lib crap! I’m not talking about who does the dishes, I’m talking about life and death.”

  “And what makes you think you’d make a better detective than me? You’ve been researching for two years, and I’ve found out more in a few weeks than you have.”

  Mike nearly choked on what he wanted to say. “Found out? You call the bruises on your neck ‘finding out’?”

  She tried to pull her hands away, but he held them tightly. “She is my grandmother, she was involved with a hideous man, and my father wanted me to look for her.”

  “Your father had no idea his mother was involved with gangsters—at least not real gangsters. Today gangsters sound kind of cute, and besides, your dad thought his mother ran away because of love.”

  “And why do you think she ran away?”

  Mike put his nose nearly to hers. “Money. Murder. She knew something. It could be a million reasons—maybe three million reasons—but none of them are good, which is why you are going to Maine where it’s safe.”

  She took a deep breath. There was no way in the world he was going to change her mind, but on the other hand, she wanted to stay in his house. It was comfortable here; the garden was pretty; it was a nice location. And, well, okay, she was rather familiar with Mike and if she did ever again need help—which of course she wasn’t going to—he did have rather fast reactions.

  “Mike,” she asked, “why are you researching this man?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “The truth. I want the truth, not one of your lies, no matter how sweetly you tell it.”

  Releasing her hands, he stood up and walked to the window. “For my uncle Mike,” he said, then turned back to her. “Remember when Doc said that Scalpini’s men shot a lot of innocent people in the nightclub?”

  She nodded.

  “My uncle Mike worked there. He danced with the women whose husbands and boyfriends were too fat to dance, and he was on the dance floor when Scalpini’s men arrived. He took thirty-two bullets below the waist.

  “Thirty-two,” she whispered. “And he lived?”

  “Barely. It