Or a car.
Or a house, maybe.
Without that lazy bastard, Jeff might never have discovered that he was still in love with Samantha Marconi. He would have gone through the rest of his life without her. Feeling only half-alive.
No doubt about it, he owed that clerk a huge debt. He snatched a beer out of his refrigerator, then turned to look at the gleaming, spotless kitchen behind him. Not hard to be kept gleaming, since there was so rarely any life in it.
“Not like Sam’s place,” he thought aloud and his gaze slid to the wide swath of counter space. Just remembering taking Sam on her kitchen counter had him hungry and needy all over again. How had he ever convinced himself that marrying Cynthia was the right thing to do? When had he begun to believe that companionship, affection, were enough to build a life on?
Emma’s face rose up in his mind and he smiled. His daughter. Sam’s daughter. They’d be together. As they should have been from the very beginning. He wondered briefly what kind of family they’d have had by now if he hadn’t been a moron and his mother hadn’t interfered. If she hadn’t stolen nine years of his and Sam’s lives.
He took a long pull on the dark brown bottle, then lifted it in a toast. “Here’s to me, Mother. I finally beat you. I’m finally going to have the woman I should have had all those years ago. And I hope you’re spinning in whatever hell you landed in.”
When the doorbell rang, he carried his beer with him as he walked through the too-quiet condo. Soon enough, this place would be sold. He already had a drooling real estate agent working on the details.
He’d have to commute at least a couple of days a week into the city to handle work. But his life, his love, would be in Chandler. He was happy, for the first time in nine years. And for the first time in way too long, he knew he was doing the right thing.
Sunlight streamed through the wall of windows overlooking San Francisco. In the distance, the Golden Gate Bridge gleamed a dull orange against the backdrop of a cloud-studded sky. Far below, on the city streets, traffic hummed and surged like a growling beast.
Still smiling to himself, Jeff opened the door—and took a solid punch to his abdomen.
“Dammit, Sam!” Bent in half, he clutched one hand to his stomach and kicked the door shut as she stomped past him.
“You son of a bitch!”
“What the hell are you doing?” He stared at her in cautious amazement. Even from across the room, her pale blue eyes sparked with a dangerous temper he remembered way too well.
Was this really the woman he’d left a few hours ago, warm and naked in a bed?
She was pacing feverishly, her boots smacking rhythmically against the hardwood floors, then muffled as she hit the area rugs. Her jeans were worn and faded, her T-shirt splattered with flecks of yellow paint, and her mouth was set in a grim slash that worried him considerably. Jeff had been on the receiving end of Sam’s temper too often to take it lightly.
Hell, she’d already hit him and was even now, he was sure, glancing around the room looking for something to throw at his head. “What’s going on?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“Not a clue, babe.”
“Don’t call me babe.”
“No problem.” He lifted both hands, remembered his beer, and took a long swig.
“You son of a bitch.”
“Huh?” he asked. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know damn well what I mean.” Her eyes snapped and sizzled as she stalked toward him and stopped just a couple feet short of being within striking distance.
Small favors.
“Sam, I don’t have a clue what’s going on.”
She glared at him, but he didn’t back down. Hell, he didn’t mind letting her take a shot or two at him when they were in the middle of an argument. But he’d be damned before he’d let himself be a punching bag without even knowing the reason why.
Damn, she looked good. Even in a fury, she was a woman who could stop a man’s heart. Color flooded her face and the danger in her eyes only made her more exciting. More amazing.
How had he managed to live so long without her?
“Cynthia came to see me this morning.”
“What? Why?” A prickle of warning slithered along his spine.
“Worried?” She snarled the question in a deceptively soft voice.
“Should I be?” Judging from the flash of pure, undiluted rage glittering in her eyes, he figured the answer was yes. Then he looked deeper and saw more than temper. Something deeper, more painful, and a kernel of panic rooted in his guts.
“You tell me.” She folded her arms across her chest, tipped her head to one side, and studied him as if he were a less-than-interesting bug on a microscope slide.
Okay, clearly she was pissed and hurt and had decided he was her target, but before the flame war kicked in, he wanted to know exactly what he’d done.
“Why did she go to see you?” he asked tightly. And even as he asked it, his brain galloped, trying to find a reason for Cynthia to confront Sam. But he couldn’t.
“Just what I wondered,” Sam snapped and moved suddenly, stepping close enough to drill her index finger into his chest.
He snatched her hand and held it. Staring down at her, he watched emotions flicker across the surface of her eyes, each chasing the other, with pain the only constant. “What’d she say to you?”
“What didn’t she say?” Sam pulled her hand free and bunched her fist. “Why don’t I start out small and end with the real kicker?”
“Start anywhere you want,” Jeff muttered, never taking his eyes off her. “Just start.”
“Fine. She told me all about how you two have discussed the problem of me. She told me how ‘awkward’ it was for you to have me hanging around. To have to deal with me over Emma.”
“She what?” Warning bells clanged in his brain again, but it was like hearing the hurricane-warning siren just as the wind snatched your house off the foundations. Way too late. Sam was on a tear and she was unstoppable.
“You heard me. What was last night, Jeff?” she demanded, getting right in his face. Tipping her head back, she glared up at him and Jeff felt her fury, her hurt, reach out to strangle him. “What was that? A mercy screw?”
“Sam—”
“A goodbye boink from the ex-husband?”
“Dammit, no.” He set his beer bottle down on a glass-and-chrome table and turned back to her. “And we’re not ‘ex,’ remember? Still married.”
“Not for long,” Sam muttered thickly and reached into the back pocket of her jeans. Whipping out the signed divorce papers, she threw them at him and snarled, “There. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”
“I don’t want them. I want you.”
She choked out a laugh that scraped against her throat and brought unwelcome tears to her eyes. “Right. You want me. As much as you want Cynthia and the baby she’s carrying?”
“Baby?” Jeff staggered a step or two, then caught himself. Fury hummed around Sam like a force field. And damned if he wasn’t starting to feel it, too. “What baby?”
“See?” she snapped. “That was my question. When I got my voice back,” she added.
“Cynthia told you she’s pr—”
“Oh please, don’t make this worse by trying to deny it. Cynthia told me how you wanted to keep it a secret from Emma. But you should have told me. You should have stayed away from me, dammit.”
He heard the pain in her voice and it tore at him. Jeff didn’t even know what to say to this. Hell, he’d never expected—Instantly, he drew up short and his brain kicked into high gear. Pregnant? Impossible. They were always too careful. And still, the threat of panic clawed at his chest.
“Did you think I wouldn’t care?” Sam demanded, splintering his thoughts with the outrage coloring her voice. “Did you think I wouldn’t remember what it was like to be alone and pregnant? Do you think I’d want that for any woman? Even Cynthia?”
Jeff rea
ched for her, but Sam was too quick. She jumped back and away, shaking her head and letting her eyes spit fire at him.
“Don’t you touch me,” she muttered darkly.
Stung to the bone, Jeff dropped his hands to his sides, then reached up and stabbed his fingers through his hair. What the hell was he supposed to do? This would come down to his word against Cynthia’s, and why the hell would Sam ever take his word for anything? They’d just begun to feel their way back to each other and now this?
Reaching through the panicked desperation choking him, he thought back, going over the last few weeks in a blinding instant, trying to remember if Cynthia had ever suggested, or hinted, or hell, come right out and said she was pregnant.
But there was nothing.
And she would have told him.
So why did she claim to be now? And why go to Sam with this news? Why wouldn’t she come to him?
“I don’t ever want to see you again,” Sam said and started past him.
He snapped her a look. “Dammit, don’t walk away.”
She looked at him and the pain in her eyes slashed at him. He was going to lose her. She was going to walk out of his life again, and this time there’d be no recovering.
“She’s not pregnant,” he blurted. “I know she’s not.” His mind flashed back over the last several weeks, trying to remember when Cynthia’d last had her period. She always suffered with them. Cramps, migraines. She usually took to her bed for days.
When the memory popped into Jeff’s head, he wanted to shout. But Sam already was.
“You lying bastard—what were you going to do? Walk out on another pregnant wife? Waltz away to live with me and Emma like that baby never existed? Like you did to me?”
“I didn’t know you were pregnant then.”
“But you know about Cynthia now, don’t you?”
“She’s not pr—”
“Why would she lie?”
He laughed shortly, sharply. “Why wouldn’t she?”
She shook her head as if she hadn’t heard him.
“Think about it, Sam,” he said, talking faster and faster, knowing their future rested on his ability to get through to her now. And the more he talked, the more things began to settle into place. Make sense. “She knows what happened between us. What better way to piss you off than to tell you that she’s pregnant?”
She scraped both hands across her face and her breathing steadied a little. She shot him a suspicious glance.
The faster he talked, the more it made sense. If Cynthia was looking for a way to drive a wedge between him and Sam, she’d found the perfect way to do it. All he could hope was that Sam would be willing to listen to him. Believe him.
“There is no baby.” He said it firmly, believing the words, trying to make Sam believe.
“What?”
“Sam, trust me. She just had her period a few weeks ago, and we haven’t been together since then. Cynthia’s not pregnant—and if she claims to be, then she’s lying.”
“No!” Her mouth worked, but no words came for a second or two. “She lied about a baby? Why would she do that? Why would she say that if it weren’t true?” She shook her head fiercely and her fall of auburn hair whipped around her head. “What kind of woman does that?”
Jeff dragged a breath into heaving lungs. If she was willing to at least admit the possibilities, then he stood a chance. “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “A desperate one? A pissed-off one? All I know is, she is lying. I’ve hardly touched her since I saw you again.”
“And I should believe you,” Sam retorted, her voice just a tinny thread.
“Yes.”
“Because you’ve been so honest with me in the past, right?”
That kernel of panic was reasserting itself. There’d never been much “bend” in Sam. “Dammit, Sam, I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”
“Why would Cynthia lie about this?”
“How the hell do I know?” he blurted, throwing his hands wide. “Maybe so that this would happen. So you’d be so pissed, you’d walk out of my life forever.” She was wavering, so he kept talking, words tumbling out, one after the other. “Dammit, Sam, she probably counted on us doing just what we did nine years ago. Stomping away from each other and never really confronting the issues. She counted on us not talking.” It all made sense. A weird sort of logic. He sighed. “Don’t you get it? She never thought you’d come here. Face me with this.”
What was wrong with Sam that she desperately wanted to believe him, even now?
He bent, snatched up the papers, and gave them a quick look before shifting his gaze back to hers. How could she have trusted him again? How could she have allowed herself to fall right back into old patterns? One touch from Jeff and she was a steaming puddle of goo. One kiss and she was stripped and sitting on a kitchen counter.
That thought just infuriated her all over again and she had to draw a sharp breath before she could fire off every insult she’d spent the drive to the city thinking up.
“Whether she is or not, I’m done with this, Jeff. Cynthia can have you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re no prize.” God, she couldn’t stand still. Needed to move. To hit. To throw.
“The red vase,” he suggested. “Always hated it.”
She shot a look at the table he pointed at and deliberately picked up a fragile blue bowl filled with mints instead.
“Sam . . .”
She threw it at the wall and winced in satisfaction as it exploded in a shower of sky-colored splinters.
“Listen to me,” he said, his gaze moving over her features like a frantic caress. “I don’t want Cynthia. I want you.”
He stepped up close and Sam practically vibrated with the temper streaking through her. “Well, get over it, because you can’t have me.”
“This isn’t over.”
“Yeah, it is,” she said.
“No way, Sam.” He moved in on her again, but Sam was determined to keep a safe distance. “Cynthia’s trying to split us up. She must have sensed that what I feel for you is too big and she fought back the only way she could think of.”
“Even if I believe that, it doesn’t mean anything,” Sam said.
“How can it not?” he demanded.
“Jeff, it shouldn’t be this hard. Don’t you see? If we were meant to be together, it wouldn’t be this hard.”
He shook his head. “No way am I letting you out of my life again.”
“You don’t get a choice this time, Jeff. Nine years ago, you left me. Now it’s my turn.” She pulled a shuddering breath deep into her lungs. For God’s sake, how had this all gone to shit so fast? How had it gotten even more complicated than it had been at the beginning? Was Cynthia lying? Was Jeff?
Did it matter?
No. Not anymore.
The ache inside her was all-encompassing now and she was willing to admit that it was done. Over.
She was a big believer in signs. Well, they couldn’t be any clearer. This thing with Jeff? It was never going to work out. “Mike was right. You worked me.”
“Mike’s almost never right. And I wasn’t working you, whatever the hell that means.”
She ignored him and felt the first sputter of anger churning up in her gut, drowning the pain in a red haze. “It’s my own damn fault.”
“If you’ll just listen to me—”
But she wasn’t. Instead, Sam kept talking, more to herself than to him. “See, despite everything, I still loved you.”
“You—”
“Loved,” she repeated, meeting his gaze with a grim stare. “Past tense. Trust me, I’m getting over it.”
“Christ, Sam, will you just let me—”
“Nine years,” she snapped and rode the crest of the building fury within. “I loved you anyway. You left and I loved you. You divorced me and I loved you. You raised my baby and I still loved you.” Whirling on him, she poked him in the chest with her finger again and wished it were a drill bit. “But I’m over you now, bud
. I’m going to do whatever I have to do—whoever I have to do—to get over you this time. It’s done. Past. Ended. Finito. Hasta la vista, baby.”
“This isn’t done. What’s between us will never be done.”
“You’re wrong,” Sam snapped. “Again.”
“No I’m not. I didn’t lie to you. Cynthia’s not pregnant.”
“Don’t you get it?” she asked, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. If she’s not pregnant, she’s still a part of you. Your fiancée.” He took a long step toward her. “Come any closer and I swear I’ll hit you again.”
He advanced anyway. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he held on tight and loomed over her until she was forced to tilt her head back to look up at him. Then she kicked him.
“That hurt, dammit.”
“Meant to.”
“I didn’t have any talks with Cynthia about you,” he growled out. “And Cynthia’s not pregnant.”
“Sure, I believe you. You jumped from her bed into mine and then back again. A wonder you don’t have whiplash.”
“I didn’t do that, either.” His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “I haven’t had sex with her in weeks.”
She snorted.
“It’s true. From the minute I first saw you again, I haven’t even thought about another woman.” He stared at her, as if willing her to believe him.
And maybe she did.
A little.
But it wasn’t enough.
“That’s your problem,” she said and yanked herself free of his grip.
“And you love me.”
“That’s my problem.”
“Sam, if you’d just calm down for a damn second—”
“I’m plenty calm. If I wasn’t calm you’d be on the way to a hospital!” She paused, told herself to get a grip, and took a deep breath to help the effort. “We’re divorced now, weasel-dog. And so help me God, if you try to cheat me out of joint custody of Emma, I’ll sue you for every cent your mother ever had. And I’ll fight it out in the courts for years. Even if I have to rob a bank to pay for the lawyers.”
And Then Came You Page 24