Sweet Liar Read online

  In spite of how tightly Michael was holding her, Samantha began to tremble.

  “Sam!” he said sharply in alarm, but his tone had no effect on her as her trembling increased, so he pulled his hand away from her head and held it in front of her face. “Look at my hand! Do you hear me? Look at it!”

  Slowly, she lifted her head. She was trembling so violently now that her teeth were almost chattering. She had no idea what Mike was doing as she obediently looked at his hand.

  “Strong. Healthy,” he said, holding his hand inches from her face. “Alive and well. See it?”

  His hand was strong, glowing with the health of youth and exercise and just plain love of living. To Mike’s utter consternation, she pulled his hand to her face, held his palm to her lips, and breathed deeply, as though reassuring herself that he was indeed alive and was going to stay that way. Moving her head slightly, she put his warm, callused palm to her cheek, closed her eyes, and rested her head against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart while Mike held her as tightly as he dared.

  Holding her as he stroked her back, he wished he could help her, wished that he could take some of her pain away, wished he could stop what they both knew was going to happen. But he could do nothing. No amount of money, no amount of love can stop a person from dying.

  Even after Samantha fell asleep in his arms, Mike continued holding her, allowing her to relax against him, wanting to feel her warm little body next to his.

  Sometimes, when he thought about how much he loved her, it was almost a physical ache inside him. He was to the point where he could hardly stand to be away from her, as though he were afraid he’d miss one of her smiles or even one of her frowns. It would have been impossible to describe the pleasure he received from watching her blossom, seeing her change from the little rabbit he’d first met to the woman who could yell out the window at someone like Ornette. He liked to see the joy she gave to other people, such as when she kissed Jubilee or when she befriended Daphne or when she climbed onto the bed with Maxie and hugged her.

  Yet she terrified him with this continued pursuit of the people who had been involved with Maxie and with her need to know what happened so long ago. Right now Mike wished he’d never heard of Doc, had never heard of Dave Elliot. But if he hadn’t, he reminded himself, he wouldn’t have met Sam.

  In her sleep she relaxed against him, her trust of him complete and absolute. It was this trust that was beginning to drive him insane. For the life of him, Mike couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t go to bed with him. He’d asked every question he could think of, investigating her past under a microscope, doing what he could to find answers, to make her talk to him. From the way she reacted when he touched her, he’d have thought she was raped when she was a child or some other traumatic thing had happened to her so that now she couldn’t bear a man to touch her.

  But Samantha allowed Mike to touch her. Brother! did she allow him to touch her! Hand holding, snuggling, kissing, cuddling together on the couch, she seemed to want to touch him every minute of every day. He was sure that if it were up to her she could perfectly well sleep in the same bed with him every night and not even be tempted to go any further than sleeping in each other’s arms.

  He had fantasies—awake or asleep he had fantasies about making love to her—but his major fantasy was about persuading her that sex wasn’t so bad. He thought about kissing her until she was limp, then gradually going further, but Sam always seemed to read his mind; when sex was his intent, she pushed him away.

  Now he was finding that his patience was nearly at an end, for he was beginning to feel that his love for her wasn’t going to be returned. From talking to her father and from what Samantha had told him Mike knew that her ex-husband was very different from him, and maybe that’s what she needed: a different kind of man. Maybe she could only respond to men like her ex and not men like Mike. Maybe she needed some CPA-type guy: structured, formal, tidy…boring.

  Maybe, he thought, and his gut twisted at the idea, maybe she thought of him as a “friend.” Sometimes women had stupid notions that a sexually healthy man and woman could be platonic friends without the “complications” of sex. Maybe that’s what Sam thought about him, thought that they could remain living together in this house as roommates.

  Both of these theories had many holes in them, such as why she was so damned jealous of any other woman he so much as glanced at and why she looked at him as though he were a combination of Apollo, Conan the Barbarian, and Merlin. It was an easy guess that a tenant didn’t usually look at her landlord with eyes that made him seem as though he could do anything, accomplish anything, become anything.

  So why the hell wouldn’t she go to bed with him?

  At midnight, he picked her up and took her into the bedroom, carrying her as she clung to him as though she were a nine-year-old and he her father. When he put her on the bed, she smiled at him in her sleep. Now what was he supposed to do? Put her jammies on her?

  “Samantha,” he said, “I’d like to be one of those altruistic, storybook heroes who can undress the heroine without jumping on her bones, but I can’t. You’ll have to undress yourself and put on your own nightgown. I want to make love to you too much to be able to even look at your bare body and still be able to control myself. I just might turn into that rapist you’ve always thought I was.”

  By the end of this speech, her eyes were wide open as she looked up at him standing over her. “Mike, thank—”

  But he’d shut the door sharply before she could say the words he’d come to hate.

  23

  In the morning, Samantha sensed that Mike was different the moment she walked into the breakfast room where he was seated and looking at the newspaper. He didn’t put down his paper and smile at her as he usually did, didn’t wink at her as he often did. Instead, he kept the paper in front of him, reaching out for his coffee cup without looking up. When she said good morning, he still didn’t look at her.

  For a moment she thought he might be angry at her because she’d once again imposed on him, but he’d been so very nice to her last night. Of course Mike was always nice, always kind…always the most wonderful human being on the face of the earth, she thought.

  Moving to stand behind him, she put her hand on his shoulder. “Mike, about last night—” she began, then to her astonishment, he moved away from her touch. He did not want her to touch him!

  Samantha was so stunned by his movement that she had to leave the room. When she returned later, dressed for the day, she hoped she had her facial expression under control. With all the years she’d spent living with her ex-husband, acting, pretending every moment, shouldn’t she be good at acting by now?

  He was still sitting at the table, still hidden behind the newspaper. “Mike, about last night,” she said, this time without touching him. “I didn’t mean to impose on you. I didn’t mean to ask more of you than you’ve already given, and, about the money for the furniture, you don’t have to lend it to me and—”

  “Samantha,” he said firmly, “I don’t want to hear it. Money is the least of my problems and as soon as I get dressed, we’ll go buy Maxie some furniture. We need to get out of the house anyway because my sister is going to be here today and I don’t want to be in her way.”

  With that he left the room, without so much as turning to look at her.

  It was a strained day. Usually they talked so much that they tended to talk over the top of each other, but today, there seemed to be nothing to say. Mike did just as he’d promised and took her to Newell’s where she saw floor after floor of heavenly antiques, and he took her to the Antiques Mart where they went to shop after shop, but she wasn’t having very much fun. Doing her best to think of Maxie and not herself, she bought a couple of pretty bed jackets, a bottle of perfume, and even some earrings, but she could think of little else except that Mike was angry with her.

  The worst part of the day was when Mike jumped away from her if she got too close to him, a