by Mary McBride
“Must be some emergency in there,” she said.
“That?” Norma gestured to the little knot of nurses and orderlies. “That’s no emergency. It’s just Sam.”
“Sam? I don’t understand. Is something wrong?”
“No,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong. They’re just betting which way he’ll fall when he goes down like a tree.”
Laura blinked. “Excuse me?”
“The shot. Oh, I guess you wouldn’t know. Sam has a tendency to faint.” She grinned as she whisked back the curtain on an adjacent cubicle. “Here you go. I’ll be right back. I need to get my bet in.”
“Very funny, guys.” Sam was unbuckling his belt. “You night shift ghouls are pretty easily entertained, if you ask me.”
“My money’s on right, Sheriff,” a male voice called from the corridor. “Don’t you do one of those slow knee sinkers, now.”
“If I were still sheriff, Luther, I’d bust you for gambling,” Sam called back gruffly even as he smiled to himself.
Damned if he knew why needles literally brought him to his knees. They’d never bothered him when he was a kid, but after he was inducted into the Marine Corps and spent nearly an entire day getting inoculated, passing out, getting up again only to be shot once more, hypodermic needles had become the bane of his existence.
During his service in the Corps, and particularly during his stint as county sheriff, he’d seen enough blood and gore to last a lifetime. Gunshot wounds. Stabbings. Accident victims with every sort of fracture imaginable. A plane crash where the pilot and two passengers were burned beyond recognition. None of those brought him down the way a tiny little needle did. Even the idea of one.
His skin was already prickling with a cold sweat. There was enough of a tremor in his hands that he wasn’t entirely sure he could unsnap or unzip his jeans.
“Just about ready, Sam,” Cindy said from the counter where she was preparing her instrument of torture.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Which cheek you gonna stick, Cindy?” Luther called.
“I don’t know,” she answered, her back still turned, her shoulders shaking with merciless, even sadistic laughter. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“Right,” Luther shouted.
“Left,” somebody else said.
“Sam?” Cindy turned, the hypodermic needle held high while she squirted a pale stream of fluid upward. The little blonde was grinning like a jack-o-lantern. “Left or right?”
“Right,” he said, proving that even though he was a coward, he was not a man of indecision. While his shaking fingers dealt with the snap and the zipper, he tried to remember the color of the briefs he’d pulled on earlier in the darkness, praying those wouldn’t add to his humiliation. God. Let them be black. Or white. Not the purple ones. Please.
“He’s going a little green on me, guys,” Cindy called out. “I think somebody ought to come in here and take an elbow, at least.”
Then Luther’s smiling face swam up in Sam’s vision. “Sam. My man. Be cool.”
Sam wasn’t.
The last thing he remembered was Luther muttering, “Damn. A sinker. Straight down at the knees.”
Laura sat on a cinder block wall just outside the emergency room. It had stopped raining, thank God, but all the inclemency seemed to have transferred itself to her current mood. She almost wished she were a smoker. This would have been the perfect time to light up, to shake out a hot match and then exhale an angry blast of smoke.
She really didn’t want to go home with Sam, but she really, really didn’t want to go back to her apartment, either, until she figured out how to deal with Artie. She was considering calling a cab and going to a motel when Clark Kent came through the sliding glass doors, seemingly none the worse for his recent encounter with Kryptonite.
“Are you okay?” she asked, even though she didn’t care all that much.
“Oh,” he said. “I guess you heard.”
She shrugged. “Well, I was in the room right next to yours.”
When he dragged his fingers through his hair, grinned sheepishly, and murmured, “What a wuss, huh?” she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“Everybody’s scared of something,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?” His warm brown eyes—glittery in the vapor lights from the nearby parking lot—fixed intently on her face. “What are you scared of, Laura McNeal?” Without shifting his gaze, he nudged his chin toward the sky. “Other than lightning and thunder, I mean.”
You, she wanted to say while her lips twitched silently. I’m scared of the way my heart drops to my stomach when you look at me. The way my body feels when you touch me with those big, competent hands of yours. The feeling of safety that somehow seeps into me when I’m near you. You, Sam. I’m scared to death of you.
“Artie,” she said finally, hugging her arms about her as if taken by a sudden chill. “I’m scared of Artie, but you already know that.”
“You should be,” he said, “but you don’t have to worry about him. I can’t do anything about the weather, Laura, but I will take care of that punk for you.” He held out one big, competent hand. “Come on. I’m beat. Let’s go home.”
Home. The word came out all cozy and warm, all snug as a bug in a rug under windows with lace curtains, all porch swing and rose trellis and vegetable garden. The home where his daughter ought to be.
“What about Samantha?” she asked, disregarding the outstretched hand with what she hoped was obvious disdain.
“They’re keeping her overnight for observation. She’ll be fine. Her mother’s staying with her.”
“I see.”
No, she didn’t see at all. She’d never understand how fathers could walk away from their little girls. How they could not write, not call, not come back. Ever.
“Okay. Let’s go,” she said, shoving off the wall and striding toward the spot where she’d parked his Blazer. At the passenger door, she dug in her handbag for the keys. “Here.” She plopped them into his hand.
After Sam opened the door for her, Laura quickly hoisted herself into the seat before he could even think of assisting her. When he climbed in, he stuck the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. Instead, he sat back and blew out a soft curse.
“Laura, about what happened tonight…with us…”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s just that…”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it, Sam.” She practically growled. How was she going to pretend it never happened if he kept bringing it up? How could she forget she’d just made one of the biggest mistakes in her life if he was going to keep reminding her?
“Let’s just go. Okay?”
“Okay.” He started the truck, but before he put it in gear, he said quietly, “I’m so damned sorry.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “Apology accepted. You’re sorry. I’m even sorrier. It’ll never happen again. Now let’s just for heaven’s sake go.”
Let it go, Sam told himself while he focused on the far reach of the headlights down the dark road. Laura had accepted his apology. It wouldn’t happen again. Just let it the hell go.
Laura rode beside him, arms crossed, legs crossed, and for all he knew her eyes crossed, too. She didn’t need to speak. Her body language fairly screamed I despise you as she sat hunkered down in the seat, chewing on her lip, staring straight ahead like someone who wished she were someplace else, or at the very least, with somebody else. Anybody but him.
Who could blame her? The guy who was supposed to take care of her had taken advantage of her instead. What a prince! What a knight in tarnished armor he’d turned out to be. The fact that he’d also been unfaithful to Jenny for the first time in his life wasn’t something he could even deal with at the moment.
The Blazer’s big tires crunched on the wet gravel of the driveway when he turned in and the high beams illuminated a blue pickup truck parked askew, as if its driver had stepped hard on the brakes, jumped out and
left the door open.
“Oh, great. This is just great,” Sam said. Even as he spoke, he could see Wes Gunther coming up off the porch swing and down the steps like he’d been shot out of a damned cannon.
“Who’s that?” Laura asked, at last breaking her silence.
“That,” Sam said wearily, “is Samantha’s father, looking to bust my chops for the five hundredth time.”
Chapter 7
Sam had ordered Laura to stay in the truck with the doors locked, but he hadn’t said anything about not cracking a window so she could hear the shouting match currently taking place just a few yards from her ringside seat. She could see it clearly, too, because the storm had passed, the electricity had come back on, and the porch light on Sam’s house cast a wide yellow swath across the wet front lawn where the two combatants stood.
Wes Gunther wore a grease-stained mechanic’s jumpsuit with his name stitched prominently above one pocket. He was in his mid-thirties, Laura guessed, with long, dishwater hair pulled back and banded in a ratty ponytail. The man was a good three or four inches shorter than Sam and at least forty pounds lighter, but what he lacked in stature, he more than made up for in volume.
He was drunk, too. Very drunk. Laura didn’t even have to see the brown beer bottle clenched in his fist to know that.
“You just can’t leave them alone, can you, Sam?” Wes bellowed. “Not Janey and not my kid. The minute the hospital called me tonight, I knew it was you there with them instead of me. Hell, it’s always you instead of me.”
“Now wait a minute, Wes,” Sam answered calmly. “I didn’t do…”
“No.” The man lofted his arms dramatically and shook his head. “You didn’t do anything. Hell, Sam, you never have to. You’re just here. That’s good enough for Janey.”
His bleary gaze drifted toward the driveway and fixed on Laura in the front seat. His expression grew so belligerent that she felt like squirming down, safely out of sight.
“Who’s that woman in your truck?” Wes yelled.
“A client,” Sam answered.
“Oh, right. Sure she is. Does Janey know?”
“Yeah.”
The man rolled his eyes and snorted. “Yeah, and I’ll bet she’s madder’n hell about it, too. Am I right? Damn right, I’m right.”
Sam shrugged. “Janey’s like a sister to me. You know that.”
“She was Jenny’s freaking sister, not yours. But you’ve gotta have ’em both, Sam, don’t you? Huh? One’s not good enough for you. Isn’t that right?”
“Look, Wes. Maybe we should talk about this tomorrow.” Sam crossed his arms and widened his stance. “I’m beat and you’re skunked. That doesn’t make for very intelligent conversation.”
Wes lifted his bottle, tilted back his head and took a long, wet pull, then he wiped his mouth with the back of his grease-streaked hand. “I didn’t come over here tonight to have a goddamned conversation. Intelligent or otherwise. I came over here to bust your nose.”
“Well, somebody’s already done that,” Sam said, “and it didn’t solve any problems. It just hurt like hell, Wes, and I’m really not in the mood.”
“Tough.” The man took another sloppy swig, then drew back his arm and pitched the bottle at Sam’s head.
Laura gasped. Sam ducked, and the bottle landed with a thunk on the wet grass. But no sooner had he straightened up than Wes Gunther howled like a wild, wounded animal and came charging at him.
Oh, God, Laura thought. Be careful, Sam.
She really ought to get out and help him, even if he had told her in no uncertain terms to stay in the truck. She scanned the yard for a fallen tree branch or a board, anything she might be able to use as a weapon. When her panicky gaze returned to the two combatants, however, it was obvious that Sam wasn’t going to need help from Laura or anybody else.
He just stood where he was, solid as a tree, deflecting the rampaging Wes with his forearm, and at the same time sticking out his foot to trip the man and send him stumbling, then sprawling facedown on the rain-soaked lawn.
“Go home, Wes,” Sam told him. “Sleep it off. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
Swearing, Wes struggled to his knees, then lurched to his feet. He wiped his wet hands on the front of his jumpsuit, then fisted them again, growling, “I’m done talking to you, you son of a bitch.”
He charged Sam again. And again.
From Laura’s vantage point, the attack seemed to turn into a kind of boisterous, misbegotten ballet where one partner stood perfectly balanced, graceful and still in the yellow spotlight, while the other dancer slipped and slid and pinwheeled all around him. For every wild punch, there was a controlled countermove. For every ungainly lunge, there was a deft and perfect parry. For all of Wes’s clumsiness, there was Sam’s astonishing grace.
And then, while Laura watched mesmerized, it appeared that Sam grew tired of the confrontation, or bored with it perhaps, because the next time Wes lunged at him, Sam calmly doubled up his fist and landed a blow that dropped his attacker like a hundred-seventy-five-pound sack of potatoes. Wes went down, down and out like a light, at Sam’s feet.
Laura scrambled out of the car. By the time she reached him, Sam had already picked up the unconscious man beneath his arms and was dragging him across the lawn.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said. “Wes is a good guy, but he gets a few beers under his belt and he thinks he’s Muhammad Ali.”
“He’s Samantha’s father?” She looked down at the man’s expressionless face in search of any resemblance to the child. There was none that she could see except perhaps for the color and texture of their hair.
“Apparently. He claims he is, anyway.” Sam shrugged. “It’s a long story, Laura, and it’s three o’clock in the morning. I’m going to put ol’ Wes in his truck, and then I’m going up to bed. You should probably do the same.”
She should, Laura thought, but there was something she had to do first. “Sam,” she called, following him across the lawn and along the driveway. “Sam, I want to apologize.”
“Whatever it is, I accept.”
Still holding Wes’s inert body, he reached into the truck’s interior through the open door, extracted the keys from the ignition, and lobbed them a good thirty or forty feet down the driveway. “There. That ought to keep him here till he sobers up enough to drive.”
Then, juggling his burden of deadweight in order to open the pickup’s door wider, Sam continued to ignore Laura.
“You can’t just accept a person’s apology until you know what it’s for,” she said.
“Yes, I can.”
The words came out as a kind of grunt as he lifted Wes and maneuvered him onto the front seat, then slammed the door on him.
“No, you can’t,” she insisted.
“Yes,” he said with a sort of deadly calm. “I can.” Then he nudged her out of his way and began striding across the lawn.
Laura caught up with him when he bent to retrieve Wes’s beer bottle. “Dammit, Sam. Will you please listen to me?”
He stood, towering over her, with the empty bottle in his left hand and his right hand ripping through his hair. Then he closed his eyes and let out a beleaguered, far from patient groan. “What?”
“I was angry with you earlier because…”
A growl rumbled deep in his throat, then he dropped the bottle and he reached out, pulling her against him, her face nearly scrunched in his shirt, effectively cutting off her speech.
“It’s three o’clock in the damned morning, Laura. I can’t even think straight anymore, but I distinctly remember apologizing for…you know…taking unfair advantage of you. If you still want to beat me up about it, that’s fine, but can you please for God’s sake wait until tomorrow to do it? How about noon? Would that work for you?”
When Laura made a muffled sound in his shirtfront, he loosened his arms and lifted one hand to tip her face up to his. Much to her surprise, he looked far more sweet than sour, even if there was a certai
n gruffness in his voice when he said, “Look, if it’s any kind of consolation, that was probably the best sex I’ve ever had in my entire life. My body’s still ringing like a goddamned tuning fork.”
Laura blinked as she inhaled a startled little breath. “It is?”
“Yeah.” A little grin pulled at his lips, and his gruff voice softened to a whisper. “Yes, it is.”
“Mine, too.”
Sam’s gaze, hungry all of a sudden, hot and ravenous, dropped to her mouth, sending Laura’s heart into a breathless free-fall. His arms tightened around her, and a low, almost helpless curse was still reverberating on his lips when they took full and fierce possession of hers.
At nine o’clock the next morning, Sam sat on the porch swing sipping hot, sugar-laced coffee, burning his tongue, accepting that as just desserts for his unbelievably stupid and lecherous behavior the night before. All told, he figured he’d had about seven minutes of solid sleep in between all the tossing and turning and pillow punching, not to mention the guilt and recriminations. This morning, when Wes fired up the engine of his truck and peeled out of the driveway at half past eight, Sam gave up any attempt to go back to sleep.
He still wasn’t sure what had come over him last night. Less than an hour after he’d promised Laura it would never happen again, it happened again. God bless it. He hadn’t even meant to kiss her, but suddenly there she was looking up at him with her big blue velvet eyes and a wet shine on her lips that obliterated every civilized thought in his brain.
He practically tore her clothes off right there on the front lawn. Then—in a brief moment of blessed sanity—he carried her, long legs wrapped around his hips, arms wound tightly around his neck, into the house where they hadn’t even made it up the stairs. Hell, they hadn’t even made it as far as the sofa, but made wild, unbridled, white-hot love on the hardwood living-room floor. He thought he might have broken the stubborn zipper on Laura’s jeans. He knew for a fact that he’d popped at least two buttons on his shirt when he’d wrenched it off over his head.