by Various
It wasn’t long before the water turned off. The door opened and Sam stopped short in the doorway when she saw him. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears as she stared at him, unmoving. “How long have you known?” she asked him.
“Since the Extravaganza.”
“You recognized me?”
For the first time in years, John blushed. “Well, I — er — knew you’d be there. I’d hired a private investigator to find you.” His fingers curled around the edge of the mattress, bunching the down comforter in his hands.
“What?” Her eyes widened even further. “So that’s the reason you were staring at me so much. And that whole song and dance about ‘seeing someone in the audience you wanted to meet’ was a bunch of bunk.”
“I did want to meet you, Sam. I—”
She waved her hands in the air between them. “Stop. This is too much for me right now.” Her gaze skirted to a space behind him, staring vacantly. Her hands went to the lapels of her jacket and pulled them tighter across her chest, appearing to hold on for dear life. Dropping her hands to her sides, she said quietly, “I need to go.”
It was like someone had slammed a fist into his chest, a feeling so intense, he was short on air. He puffed out his cheeks and blew a long breath. “Okay.” What more could he say? “I’ll walk you out.”
“No,” she said, holding up a hand. “I just… no.” She left the room. A few minutes later, he heard the front door open and close.
He sat on the bed and a wave of emptiness swept over him.
Chapter 14
Sam remembered nothing from her drive home, not the trip across the 520 bridge, not the reflections of city lights in the black waters of Lake Washington, not merging onto I-5 rush-hour traffic. Nothing. Her brain had pretty much shut itself off to outside stimulation. All that spun through her mind were images long buried but not forgotten. The dark car, the taunts, the threatening promises. The pain, the smell of gasoline, the screams... the dead silence.
Much of that night was a blur. She’d snuck out of the house to meet her girlfriends, Bonnie and Michelle, then drove out to the kegger they’d heard about through the party grapevine. Her parents would have skinned her alive if they’d known — they’d been so protective.
A good-looking older guy had brought her a beer. She’d taken the plastic cup and intended just to sip from it because beer always made her loopy. The next thing she knew, she was lying in a dark, cramped space that seemed to move beneath her, and her head spun faster than the spin cycle of a wash machine. As consciousness slowly overtook her, she realized she was in a car with a bunch of drunks. After listening for a while, she knew she was alone with them. Bonnie and Michelle weren’t here. These guys must have taken her.
A paralyzing fear shot through her, so paralyzing that when a couple of the boys looked up her shirt and someone dripped beer onto her face, she hadn’t even flinched. Where were they taking her? What did they plan to do with her? She’d hardly dared think in those frightening directions.
Sam pulled the door of her condo closed behind her. That had been twenty years ago. A long time. The whole thing seemed somewhat surrealistic whenever she thought of it, like it had happened to someone else. She dropped her purse onto the couch and headed into the bedroom, changing into comfortable sweats. After brewing a cup of hot tea, she curled up in the corner of the couch, steaming cup in hand.
John had hired a detective to find her. Why? It seemed awfully extreme. And how was it she hadn’t recognized him from what was probably the most terrifying night of her life? On recollection, she supposed it wasn’t so strange. She’d never seen his face in the full light, had heard only his whispered voice, and had known him only as “Johnny.” Even if she had seen him clearly, she still may not have connected the two. By his own admission, he’d been a scrawny kid. His looks had changed tremendously. And she hadn’t known he was from the Seattle area. She’d just assumed he’d grown up in Southern California where he’d lived before moving here to open his first gym.
Her mind took her back to the bumpy floor of the Mercury. She’d been huddled there in fright, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, lest they do more to her than just look up her shirt. When one of the boys leaned over her, she’d prepared herself for the worst, but he’d seemed concerned about her. She thought it was an act at first. In the dark car, she couldn’t see his face, just a silhouette looming over her. He had longish hair falling into his face and was rather slight in build. They called him “Johnny.” When he’d whispered his intent to help her, for some reason, she believed him. Maybe because she was so desperate for a lifeline or maybe because his words sounded sincere.
That was the last she remembered. She next woke in a hospital bed, having broken her back. Her parents wouldn’t tell her anything about the accident, except she was lucky to be alive. When Bonnie slipped her a newspaper account of the accident, Sam learned two children had been killed from a car they’d run into, and that everyone but her and one of the boys in the Mercury had also died.
She sipped her tea. It was cold.
John hardly slept that night. He awoke in a cold sweat around two A.M. from the old nightmare, the one that had haunted him every night after the accident for countless weeks, months. After waking, he couldn’t fall back to sleep. He just stared at the dark ceiling and recalled the look of horror on Sam’s face when he’d told her who he was. He couldn’t get that expression out of his mind, stuck there just as stupid songs often are, to replay over and over and over until it drives you half insane. But Sam’s image wasn’t a stupid song that drove him nuts.
It just made him incredibly sad.
“So, you finally told her, eh?” Alex asked John after their Monday morning business briefing from Margo. He sat on the edge of the couch in John’s office. “How’d she take it?”
John scratched the area behind his ear and leaned back in his desk chair. “Well, I haven’t heard from her since Saturday night, so I think it’s fair to assume it didn’t go well.”
“You think it’s over between you and her? This baby-making, weird-ass relationship you guys’ve got going?”
John came forward in the chair. “Don’t know. I really don’t know.”
He didn’t even want to speculate. He kept remembering Sam’s face. She’d looked so disappointed in him, so surprised. In some ways he wished he hadn’t told her, but he respected her too much, liked her too much, to keep the truth from her any longer. If she hated him for it, well, he’d just have to deal with that. He deserved no less than her hate, if he really thought about it. If he hadn’t yet forgiven himself for that night, how on earth could he expect her to?
“What?” he said, when he realized Alex had asked him a question.
“I said you haven’t asked me about my date Saturday night.”
John let out a loud breath. “Is this the same woman who Sam and I double dated with you last week?”
Alex shook his head. “Nah. She’s old news. But this lady… I don’t know, John-boy. She may be the one, you know what I’m saying?”
John nodded his feigned interest. If he had a dollar for every time those same words came out of Alex’s mouth… “Who is she?” Maybe talking to his best friend about his love-life would take his mind off his own pathetic state of affairs. He figured that’s why Alex brought it up.
“She’s a philosophy student at UW.”
John’s eyebrows rose. “Young.”
Alex shook his head. “Thirty-two. Going back to school to get her degree. Real smart lady.”
“Philosophy, huh? What the hell do you two have to talk about?”
Alex tried to look offended. “Hey, I can be profound when I wanna be.”
“Yeah, profoundly full of shit.”
The sun had long since set by the time John entered his neighborhood that evening. He’d worked late, hoping to keep his mind from straying to Sam, trying to keep from picking up the phone and calling her, or worse, dropping by her office unannounced. When sh
e was ready to talk to him — if she ever wanted to talk to him again — she’d let him know.
As he rounded the last corner, his foot on the accelerator let up sharply. Sam’s black VW Beetle was parked in his driveway and she sat inside it. John’s stomach flip-flopped. He pressed the button on the garage door opener and pulled inside. He climbed out of his car and watched her get out of hers. Long legs sheathed in black stockings came into view first, followed by the rest of her luscious body. God, she looked good. It had only been a few days, but he’d missed her.
He walked toward her, hesitancy in his step, and stopped about ten feet away. They watched each other warily, neither saying a word. The streetlight above cast her lower face in shadows and it was difficult to make out her expression.
After what seemed like an eternity, he said, “Sam?”
He was pretty sure her lower lip trembled, and then, suddenly, she rushed him. He flinched and braced himself for a stinging slap on the face, or worse.
Instead, she wrapped both arms tightly around his neck, pressing their bodies close. “Hold me, John,” she whispered in his ear. “Just hold me.”
He enveloped her in a tight embrace, his face pressed into her hair, breathing in her fresh scent, saying a silent prayer of thanks that she was here.
He didn’t know how long they stood there like that, swaying together under the single street light. When a sprinkling of rain misted them, they pulled apart. Silently, he grasped her hand, entwining their fingers, and led her into the house. Still not saying anything, he took her coat and hung it up, then joined her in the family room on the couch. He, for one, didn’t know what to say. He waited for her to speak first.
Finally, she shifted on the cushion, but instead of speaking, she cupped his jaw and turned his face in line with hers. She gazed into his eyes, her expression intense, serious, as if she were trying to memorize every detail about him. “Johnny,” she whispered.
“Oh, God, Sam,” he muttered, not able to tear his gaze away from her beautiful face. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” She shook her head and her rain-dampened hair fell over one eye. The other was hazy with tears. “You would have helped me that night. I know that. When I was in the hospital and things were coming back to me about the accident, I wanted to speak to you, but my parents shielded me from everything — they were overprotective. I never heard what happened to you or even knew your last name.” She pulled his face closer. “So, twenty years later, thank you, Johnny.” Her lips touched his in a soft, sweet kiss.
He pulled back. “But I didn’t help you,” he protested, not believing she would let him off this easy. Not in his wildest dreams. “I didn’t—”
“But you would have,” she murmured. “I don’t care what kind of troublemaker you were, Johnny. Knowing you as I do now, you would’ve helped me. I know it.”
John whipped together an easy dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Neither he nor Sam spoke much as they ate. Both felt if they did, they’d have to talk more about that night, something neither wanted to do just yet.
When they were through eating, they cleared the table. She rinsed the dishes in the sink and stacked them on the counter for him to load in the dishwasher. She knew John watched her, stared at her, and at first she ignored him. But when it continued, she turned to him, eyebrows raised in silent question.
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
“I told you, you have nothing to apologize for except for having had bad taste in friends.” She scraped food off a bowl with a red, plastic scrubby. “I think everyone is guilty of that at some time in their lives. Look at my rotten choice of an ex-husband.”
He propped the spoons in the utensil carrier. “I just can’t help thinking that my stupid friends and I were responsible for—” He stopped.
Her eyes narrowed. “For what?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“John.”
He straightened. “It’s obvious how you feel about men and—”
“What do you mean, how I feel about men?”
“Oh, come on. You know as well as I do that you’re distrustful and bitter—”
She stuck her bottom lip into a pout and shoved a dirty spatula at him. “Rhubarb is bitter. I’m just a little wary.”
John loaded the spatula. “Bullshit. You think the majority of men are pigs.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “True.”
“I guess I can’t help thinking I might have had a big hand in that attitude.”
She made a face and waved her hand in the air, dismissing his opinion. “That night was awful, true, but it has nothing to do with why—” She stopped, remembering how she’d been scared to go out on dates for months after that incident, how she’d been certain that all boys had nothing but bad intentions up their sleeves. How she’d been attracted to Wayne at first because he was older, and she thought that meant she could trust him. She ran a sponge under the warm water and rung it out, then wiped the counters with vigorous strokes.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he said from behind her.
“Don’t psychoanalyze me, John.” She moved to the stove and wiped around the burners.
He rested a hip against the counter. “You know I’m right.”
“Okay, look. I suppose it did affect me a little bit. Happy?” She crossed to the sink and rinsed out the sponge.
“No.”
She turned to look at him. Guilt radiated from his eyes. “John,” she said softly, drying her hands on a dishtowel. “Don’t do this to yourself,” she said, touching his forearm. “Don’t accept all the blame, okay? I made bad choices, too.” A thought dawned on her and her eyes widened. “Be honest with me about something.” His guilt-ridden expression just about broke her heart. “Did you decide to help me get pregnant because you wanted to make it up to me, because you still felt bad about that night?”
When he didn’t immediately respond, she said under her breath, “Wow.” She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and gazed off into space, wondering at the magnitude of this man’s grief and guilt over that long ago night. The effects on her had certainly been awful, but she’d gotten over them. Sure, maybe she’d held onto a trace of wariness about men because of that night, but her attitude was due more to her cheating father and ex-husband. But poor John. He’d carried the guilt all these years, and had hired someone to find her, to see how she was faring. He’d decided to become her donor father because of that guilt. Wow, wow, wow.
Another thought hit her. “John?” She was almost afraid to ask this, realizing she would be treading on thin ice. But she had to. She had to know. “You don’t want children because of that night. You feel you don’t deserve them, as if this is your punishment, right?”
His eyes closed and his jaw clenched. “Sam. Don’t.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You don’t have to answer. I can see it in your eyes.” She moved in front of this enigmatic man and slid her arms around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. Her heart ached for the pain he’d gone through all these years, how he’d punished himself. How he continued to punish himself. “Stop blaming yourself,” she murmured against his shirt.
His body was tense, but slowly he relaxed. His arms wrapped around her and he held her almost as tightly as she held him. Maybe tighter.
John reveled in the glorious comfort of her forgiveness as he held her close. If she could forgive him for that night, then maybe… maybe he could start forgiving himself.
It was at that precise moment he realized he was falling in love with her.
Chapter 15
Being forgiven by Sam was heavenly, but being in love with her really sucked, John thought as he lay in bed after she’d left.
He should be on Cloud Nine, on top of the world, smiling from ear to ear and all the other happy clichés that went along with being in love, but he was miserable. Sam was the perfect woman for him except for two little problems. One, she didn’t want to marry, especially to
a man with two divorces under his belt, and he didn’t blame her for that. And two, she might be pregnant.
That alone was enough to make him want to sprint the other way. Although he’d sworn off marriage because of his disastrous marital history, he could actually picture Sam as his wife. The thought was more than mildly pleasant. She was vinyl and stilettos or jeans and ponytails. Sharp-tongued and bossy, or sweet and sexy. But always, always fascinating. This multi-faceted woman had unexpectedly and unintentionally wrapped herself around his heart and it scared him to death. Because the moment he added a child to the equation, he broke into a cold sweat and ran to the bathroom with dry heaves.
He laid awake the rest of the night with a dark shadow of foreboding over him, just as it had after he’d learned his ex-wife Kate was pregnant. His dad’s words, “an eye for an eye,” drummed through his head like a primitive chant. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be a father.
Thus, he wouldn’t have a future with Sam, unless she gave up the idea of being a mother. And that wouldn’t happen. She wanted a baby with the desperation of a thirsty man searching for water in the middle of the Sahara. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to give up that dream. He’d never even suggest it. Because of those reasons, she’d never know he loved her. It would be his little secret.
Metal plates rattled against barbells. Dumbbells clanged. Grunts of effort and occasional laughter sounded throughout the weight room at SCHS. Aerosmith blared from the CD player in the corner, muffling any and all conversation.
At one end of the room, away from the other exercisers, Sam sat on a weight bench with Tanya. The pretty 16-year-old twirled a narrow black braid around and around her index finger, an I’m-oh-so-bored expression on her face.