by Pamela Fudge
The song was for her. There could have been no doubt about it to anyone sitting in that hotel restaurant, nor that it was a love song written with someone special in mind.
The icy determination to ignore him began to melt as the words made sense and undermined the resolution to remain unmoved by his single-minded assault on her senses. A warmth sizzled along her veins and, watching his lips move, she was suddenly reminded of the kiss they had shared and of the special way it had made her feel.
Like someone in love...
Her eyes widened, and her breath caught deep in her throat. She stared at Sam as if she'd never seen him before in her life, taking in the lean strength of him, the dark good looks that were so familiar, and yet suddenly so new and frightening.
The song ended and she watched as Sam touched one finger to his lips in a gesture so loving and so romantic that it lifted her heart on gentle wings to beat frantically in her breast. The applause was loud and enthusiastic, but Roz was conscious only of the man who made his way determinedly towards her, to lift her fingers gallantly to his lips, and smile into her eyes with a look that made her dream, sweet, impossible dreams.
'Oh, that was wonderful, Sam. Wasn't that wonderful, Win?'
Roz had all but forgotten that the other women were there, and it took a real effort on her part to join in with their excited conversation. People were congratulating Sam on giving such a professional, yet totally unexpected, performance, and though he smiled and nodded, he had eyes only for her, and she positively glowed.
'Let's get out of here – just for a moment,' he murmured, so close to her ear that Roz could feel the warmth of his breath lifting a strand of her hair, and she shivered deliciously.
She rose from her seat immediately, giving no thought to what was to come, but aware that whatever she was feeling, he was feeling it, too. It was there, written clearly in the tawny eyes, the golden flecks lit brighter than ever before as they encouraged her to go with him - and she knew that she would - wherever he wanted her to go.
Aunt Ellen and Win weren't so eager to leave, but were anxious to prolong their moment of glory, surrounded as they were by an admiring crowd.
Laughing Sam took her hand, and asked the manager, in passing, to give the two women anything they wanted, he explained, 'A breath of air - back in a moment. I doubt they'll even miss us.'
They were barely through the door and onto the terrace before she was drawn into his arms with a determination, and yet a gentleness that couldn't be denied - even had she wanted to do so.
She lifted her face for his kiss, her eyelids had fluttered down and her lips had parted at the first light pressure of his own, a tantalizing foretaste of what was to come.
Roz sighed, past thinking, only aware of feelings that clamoured to be recognized and a knowledge of what was surely to be...
Suddenly a flashbulb popped and bathed them in brilliant light, taking them completely by surprise, before their own natural reflexes made them leap apart. It was too late, the damage had been done and a precious moment had been ruined for them forever.
CHAPTER NINE
'Who's the lovely lady, Sam?'
The coarsely insinuating voice made Roz wince, and she swayed on her feet, staring at the lone photographer with bemused eyes, wondering where he had come from, and what he wanted. She didn’t have long to wait.
'What does your long-time fiancée think of your new lady - or doesn't she know?'
He obviously thought that she was someone else, that Sam was two timing her. Her first instinct was to laugh in the man’s face, and hot on the heels of that was the need to defend him from a spiteful insinuation that she knew to be untrue.
'I...' she began furiously, only to be silenced by Sam's emphatic, 'No.'
With a speed that made her head spin, he whirled her round, and she found herself back inside the hotel without her feet ever having touched the ground.
Sam went back outside, but he was soon back, saying, 'I thought I might reason with him, but he’s made himself scarce. Who called the press?' he demanded angrily of the manager who had suddenly appeared.
The man looked worried, and apologetic, 'One of the guests, one would assume,' he frowned, 'because I can't believe for one minute that any of my staff would behave in such a disgraceful fashion. I wouldn't have had this happen for the world, especially in view of your earlier kindness. Is there anything I can do to help? Perhaps get some of my staff to check the grounds?'
Sam laughed, but it wasn't a pleasant sound, 'It sounds like a good idea,' he conceded, 'but it was just one photographer and he’ll be long gone.'
'What will hapen?' Roz huddled back against the wall, terrified that someone else was about to burst in and thrust another camera into her unsuspecting face.
She hadn't been photographed with Sam for quite some time, and had forgotten just how sneaky any member of the media could be once they got a hint of a story.
'I can offer you and your party rooms,' the manager suggested, 'at this time of year the place is never full, and you'd be more than welcome.'
'And provide them a whole new story?' Sam asked wryly.
The man looked embarrassed, and Roz felt herself flush as she was forced to acknowledge the obvious conclusions they would draw from an overnight stay. Pointless to remind Sam that they had two elderly ladies as chaperones, because she was sure that would cut no ice with a reporter determined to present his editor with a juicy story – especially when he had already taken the compromising photograph he’d come for.
'We’ll have to be seen to leave, I'm afraid,' Sam put a comforting arm around her shoulders. 'I wouldn't put you through it, but you must see that we have no choice.'
'I do see,' Roz said calmly, determined not to add to his problems by causing an unnecessary fuss, 'but we'll have to get Aunt Ellen and Win out separately so they’re not involved. Having a camera thrust in their faces would frighten them both to death.'
In the end it was all arranged very satisfactorily when one of the other restaurant guests, hearing of their dilemma, offered to drive the two elderly ladies home in his car. The ladies in question, in fact, expressed themselves quite willing to have their photographs taken, and it took Sam all his time to persuade them that it really wasn't a good idea at all. He, of all people, had quickly come to understand that to be the focus of media attention was not nearly as glamorous as it appeared to be. It could be nothing short of a nuisance at best and an absolute plague at worst.
'It would mean the end of all my anonymous visits to you,' he told them, and that clinched their support in getting home without inviting any interest. They left without another word of protest.
When it was time for the pair of them to leave, Roz knew that she would have given anything for a wig, dark glasses, and an over-sized, enveloping mackintosh. She said as much to Sam, who simply advised, 'Just keep your head down, so anyone still out there won't get a clear look at you, hold onto me, and run like hell. Don't worry,' he managed a grin, 'I'll do my best to get us out of this, in one piece, and without too much damage done.'
It seemed he had kept his promise when the driver managed to get them safely away from the hotel and home by such a roundabout route that anyone trying to follow would quickly have been lost. But Roz was to remember those words all too clearly when she woke after a particularly restless night, to find that her face and Sam's were spread all over the tabloid newspapers for all to see. The lone photographer, is seemed, had wasted no time selling his picture.
'Oh, you did a fine job,' she accused him bitterly, thrusting one of the papers beneath his nose. 'The editors obviously recognized me, even if the photographer didn’t, and now so will everyone else in the country. How could you let this happen?'
The sight of her and Sam unashamedly kissing the faces off each other on all those front pages enflamed her anger until she felt fit to burst with the unfairness of it all. The way she had felt, the fact that she had wanted him to kiss her, was all forgotten in th
e humiliating aftermath, and in the need to hit out, to punish, and Sam was altogether too handy a target.
'I did it on purpose - right?' he ground out, fury sending warning sparks from his eyes, except that she was too enraged herself to see them.
'What else am I supposed to think?' she spat, glaring at him. 'It was your idea to keep this damn engagement going, and now it won't only be Aunt Ellen and Win next door avidly waiting for a wedding announcement, will it?'
They were going at each other, hammer and tongs, and the only surprising thing was that they had somehow been able to keep their anger in check until they were safely ensconced in the garden shed, well out of Aunt Ellen's hearing.
She was installed at the kitchen table with a big pair of scissors in one hand, and the damning evidence of the newspaper photos in the other, happily snipping away in an effort to fill the scrap book she kept of Sam's cuttings. Roz found herself wishing she could only be glad that they had made someone happy, but it was an uphill struggle to find any good in what had happened.
She'd be a laughing stock. She shuddered, wondering how she would ever show her face in London again. What would her boss think? What would Andrew think? Her green eyes widened in horror, and then narrowed as she pushed her face into Sam's and said, unthinkingly and through gritted teeth, 'If this has all been an elaborate plan either for publicity or to get me to marry you...'
His nose was almost touching hers, as he snarled, 'I don’t need this sort of publicity - and marry you? I'd as soon jump off of the lifting bridge at Poole Quay on a stormy night.'
Ooh. Her hand positively itched to slap the sneer right off his handsome face. Too handsome, she told herself savagely, for his own damn good.
'So,' Roz glowered up at him, wishing with all her heart that she were a good six inches taller and could look him right the eye. She was sure it would have made all the difference. 'Why keep me shackled to you - against my will, I might add - when I made it patently clear that I wanted out? None of this would have happened if you hadn't insisted that I come down here.'
Did he look sheepish? Roz could have sworn that for a moment there he had, but the look was so fleeting that she couldn't have been totally sure and so, regretfully, she had to let it go instead of tackling him about it as she would have liked.
'If you wanted out so badly,' Sam matched her, glare for furious glare, 'why didn't you just do it? Tell me that, eh? Why come down here at all, if it wasn't what you wanted to do? You could have written to Ellen. Ok.' he put up his hand to silence the protest she began to utter, 'so it might have been a shock to begin with, but no doubt she'd have gotten over it eventually. Be fair - if you know how to be - you agreed with everything I said, but now it's just convenient for you to heap all the blame on my head.'
The unfairness of it quite took her breath away, but Roz refused to allow herself to be brow-beaten by words, and words that she could more than match any day of the week.
'Yes,' she hissed, placing her hands firmly onto her hips and leaning forward accusingly, 'because you're the one who's spent the past week trying to get me into a clinch at every available opportunity.'
She knew as she spoke that she was being totally unfair, but somehow she had to convince herself that she’d had no hand in bringing this disaster down onto her own head.
'Well,' the expression on his face became almost smug, 'I didn't have to try very hard, did I?'
This time Roz made no attempt to control her actions and the flat of her hand connected, fairly and squarely, with the tanned jaw. He never moved so much as a muscle. He didn't even flinch, though the skin on her palm tingled painfully, and she noted with satisfaction that she had left the clear print of her hand sketched in crimson on his cheek.
The anger, all of it, left her quite suddenly. She had made a huge mistake in coming home, she saw it quite clearly now that it was too late, and then she had compounded it by going along with Sam's crazy scheme. She had left everything to him, trusting that he would sort it all out satisfactorily, when what she should have done was to follow her own instincts and been honest with everyone, including Aunt Ellen and even Andrew, from the start. She dreaded to think what he would make of all this, and was trying desperately most of the time not to think about it.
Sam stood, tall, silent and unmoving. She couldn't deny the awareness that sizzled between them, even now, but she was at a complete loss to try and explain it, all she did know was that she didn't want to argue with him anymore.
Slowly, she turned to go, and though he made no move to stop her Roz was sure that she could feel his hard stare burning a hole in her back.
Her hand was on the latch. All she had to do was lift it to open the door, but something stopped her, made her turn to face him one last time and ask one last question.
'Why, Sam? Why that whole performance with the love song? What was that all about?'
It had seemed so special, so wonderful, and she had believed every word - and every long lingering look - and now she couldn't walk away until she knew the truth.
His expression hardened, and his tone was even harder, as he told her, 'You just answered your own question, didn't you? It was a performance - and the audience absolutely loved it.' Having said his piece his mouth clamped shut in a straight and uncompromising line.
'But why use me?' It was little more than a whisper.
Sam shifted uneasily, but his tone was quite steady and as reasonable as his explanation, 'I had to get rid of the girl, didn't I? She was looking set to make a nuisance of herself. Remember - that was the whole purpose of our arrangement, to discourage that sort of attention. It certainly did the trick last night. Worked like a dream.'
Roz stared at him, but his expression didn't change, he could have been carved from stone. A great sob welled up in her throat, but she swallowed it with difficulty and a great determination, swearing to herself in that long tormented minute after he stopped speaking that he would never, ever, know the vicious blow that his words had dealt her.
'You bastard.'
Her own voice was low, and it was quite steady, unlike the legs that somehow carried her through the door, and out into bright spring sunshine that mocked the grey misery in her heart.
She knew, with certainty, that she couldn't face Aunt Ellen, see her bright happiness, and keep her own wretchedness hidden. Her aunt knew her too well and would see through her in a minute. The truth, she knew, would have to be told - but not yet.
Roz crept to the front of the house like a thief in the night, and managed to make it inside and up the stairs without attracting the other woman's attention. Her own bedroom door had barely closed behind her when she gave way to the scalding torrent of tears that burst forth like a dam.
Curled like a wounded animal, she pulled the warmth of the quilt around limbs that were chilled and shaking as if with an ague, and cried until she could cry no more, and only then did she ask herself - why?
Was she crying for the future that had been so carefully planned and now probably lay in ruins? For the career that had been held tantalizingly before her, like a golden ladder just waiting to be climbed and might now have been moved out of her reach because of this adverse publicity? Was she crying for the man who was to have been a part of it all, and would now probably be only too glad that it wouldn't be his ring that she was wearing, after all?
Roz stared up at the ceiling, her eyes wide and disbelieving, as she was forced to acknowledge with a sense of shock and dismay that none of it mattered that much after all. Those dreams and careful plans, the life in London that she had thought so right for her that she could live no other were suddenly handfuls of dust, and just as easily disposed of with the minimum of hurt and regret.
What she really wanted - and had spent so many years denying - was everything that her aunt had always wanted for her, but the biggest shock of all, and the one that she had the most difficulty grasping, was that the man she wanted to share it all with - was Sam!
It was, she deci
ded, like following a pin point of light along a dark tunnel, and then suddenly, blinking, you walked out into brilliant sunshine. For the first time you could see everything so clearly that it made you wonder why you had never seen it all before.
She loved him - loved Sam Lawrence, country and western singer, Sam. He was the man she was in love with and she probably had been for longer than she would have believed possible. Roz repeated it over and over again, feeling the words, tasting them, and enjoying the way they felt on her tongue.
She sat up straight on the bed, throwing the quilt to one side, letting a smile begin to bloom on her face as she acknowledged her own stupidity. Why hadn't she known? Why hadn't she realised that the attraction that had always been between them – an attraction she always carelessly dismissed as being no more than friendship - had been growing steadily into love? It had only needed the recent period of time spent in each other's company to drive them into each other's arms.
Laughing she jumped up, impatient to go and find Sam - to tell him...
The laughter died, and without the smile her mouth drooped sadly. She had forgotten - how could she have - that though she might have discovered her love for Sam, it was a love that most definitely wasn't returned? He had been using her - had freely admitted as much. If she went to him now, if she offered him her newly discovered love, there was no doubt in her mind but that he would throw it, quite forcibly, back into her face.
Sinking back onto the bed, Roz found she could recall quite easily, the look in Sam's tawny eyes each time he had kissed her. Funny, she mused, when she hadn't seemed to notice at the time. She remembered, too, how he had sung the words of the love song just as if he meant every single word, and she finally realised she felt the same way. Perhaps she would have recognised it sooner, if only she hadn't been so stubbornly certain that Sam wasn't what she wanted, and closed her mind to what was happening between them.