Slow Hands

by Debra Dixon

  At his words, Clare’s eyes flew open and she saw the hunger glittering dangerously in Sam’s gaze as he raised his eyes from their joining to her face. All the better to see you with. In that moment, Clare gave in and fell off the edge, reaching for Sam and spinning into a vortex of pleasure and completion.

  Sam joined her in passion, holding on to her as if he’d never let her go. When the world settled quietly around them, Sam knew he never would let her go. She belonged with him whether or not she could admit it. She belonged in this house, in his bed, in his life. This obsessed company controller, a woman he would have bet his last dollar would be all wrong for him, was the answer to the gaping, lonely hole in his life. She made him forget about the past and think about the future he wanted.

  He kissed her lightly, not forcing her to talk, and eased himself off the bed for a quick trip to the bathroom. The clothes strewn along the way affirmed his conviction that Clare belonged in his life. His bedroom floor looked like a chess board of white and black chess pieces. The battle was waged between black lace panties and white flamingo-flecked boxer shorts. His white polo shirt guarded his tennis shoes, and Clare’s black jeans protected the black bra Slick once proudly paraded through her living room.

  Watching him go, Clare struggled for breath, and not just because he was gorgeous. Because he’d be back. And then he’d want to talk, and she didn’t want to talk. Not about tonight, not about tomorrow. She wanted to find a safe place to hide, a place to think.

  Her emotions and common sense had scattered when he awakened her body to passion. She’d had to remind herself that Sam wasn’t permanent. His family wasn’t hers. It never would be. Sam didn’t want her; he wanted to play the professor to her Eliza Doolittle. He wanted a Clare he’d changed and carefully molded to fit his life. Once the thrill of meeting the challenge had worn off, he’d be looking for a polite way to fade out of her life.

  To Sam, the last weeks had been a game, a Good Samaritan project. He’d taught her how to want people in her life again, and that scared the hell out of her. The funniest part was that she liked the domestic bliss she found in Sam’s house. She liked the way William fussed over her, scolding her as though he really cared. And she discovered, much to her dismay, she wasn’t ready to give up playing house with Sam even though she knew it would have to end.

  When Sam returned to bed, he found Clare huddled beneath the covers. Without a word he slid in beside her, not offering to return to the carriage house. If he did, she’d agree in a New York minute. So, he wasn’t offering. He’d spent his last night alone. If she wanted him out, she’d have to bring up the subject herself.

  “Good night, sweet Clare,” he said as he turned to her, curling around her spoon fashion.

  Predictably, Clare stiffened. “You can’t sleep here. What will William say?”

  “ ‘It’s about damn time.’ Go to sleep, Clare.”

  Slowly, she relaxed in his arms, but Sam wasn’t sure if she had decided William would approve, or if she was too tired to argue. He didn’t care which. Either way, he was spending the night in his bed with the woman he loved. Tomorrow would take care of itself. It always did.

  Morning light filtered through the sheer curtains as Clare’s eyes fluttered open. She felt someone staring at her, and as her eyes focused, she saw that it was Sam. He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose just as if he did that every morning. Memories of the night before flooded her consciousness, setting off butterflies of doubt in her stomach. Clare ran her fingers through her hair and mumbled an uncertain “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.” For a few seconds Sam simply absorbed the moment, savoring the fact she’d lost herself in his arms and given him the gift of intimacy. “God help me, but I love you, Clare McGuire,” he said, surprising even himself with the strength of feeling revealed in his voice.

  The vague uneasiness Clare had felt as she struggled out of the cloud of slumber suddenly exploded into sharp pain, and she pulled away from his embrace. The thought of Sam loving her was a cruel carrot dangling in front of her nose, when she knew he was only in love with the idea of changing her, of playing the professor in a 1990’s version of Pygmalion. Without thinking, she said, “You’re not supposed to love me.”

  Stunned, Sam didn’t try to drag her back into his arms. You’re not supposed to love me. “What the hell did your aunt and uncle do to you?”

  “Nothing. They took care of me. Just drop it, Sam. Don’t read more into last night than was really there. I don’t believe in love. Not in the kind that lasts. Not for me. It never does, and I’d rather not have my heart broken again.”

  “I’d rather not—” echoed Sam. “I’d rather not? Like you have a choice about loving me?” Now Sam did drag her back into his arms, slanting his body across hers and pinning her between his chest and the mattress. He shook his head and said calmly, “Two steps forward and one step back. I hate to be the one to break the news, but you can’t control love. We’re talking knee-jerk reaction here. Yes or no. Black or white. You either do or you don’t. If you have to think about it, you probably do. Do you love me, Clare?”

  Before she could answer, the bedroom door crashed open and a breathy female voice called, “Surprise, Cousin dear! Rise and shine—Oh, my, I can see you’re already up. And I can only assume that he is too.”

  The silence following the words was so complete, the sound of a pin dropping on a carpet would have made a deafening noise. Without looking around, Sam mouthed the word Ellie?

  Clare nodded grimly while Sam pursed his lips in a vain attempt to prevent a grin. Narrowing her eyes in warning at Sam, Clare desperately racked her brain for something witty to say and cursed fate for having to greet her cousin while wearing nothing more than yesterday’s makeup. Anyone with a shred of compassion or decency would have said, “Excuse me!” and shut the door. Not Ellie. This nightmare was her punishment for trying to impress her cousin with Sam’s house.

  “Clare? That is you beneath the gorgeous blond hunk, isn’t it? The man downstairs, the one who picked me up at the airport, said I should come right up. I guess he didn’t know you were … entertaining.”

  A groan escaped Clare as she remembered that nothing, absolutely nothing, fazed Ellie. With great care Clare shoved Sam off, pulling the sheet up under her arms in the process. Stoically, she sat up and faced the music. “Hello, Ellie. You’re early. I didn’t think you were going to be here until next week.”

  “Do tell,” commented Ellie with a perfectly arched brow. “Schedule change, dearie. Forget about me. Look who’s been sleeping in your bed! Let’s talk about him.”

  Sam scooted back against the headboard and settled the sheet across his lap. The indignity of being caught with his pants down didn’t bother him at all, Clare noted. She wondered what he saw when he looked at Ellie. To fill the silence, she began an introduction, “He’s—”

  Interrupting, Sam met Ellie’s inquisitive eyes with a grin and said, “I’m the boarder, Sam Tucker. I usually have to sleep in the carriage house, but Clare throws in three meals a day as part of the deal.” At that moment a furry gray missile sped through the room and landed in the middle of his chest with a commanding yowl. Sam shifted the cat and said, “This is Slick. You’ve already met William, our butler.”

  “He’s not our butler. He’s yo—” Clare stopped short of blowing the entire charade, and then was sorry she’d caught her mistake in time. A part of her wanted to confess everything and get it over with.

  Ellie leaned against the door facing and gave Clare a mock frown. “Cousin dear, is there something you want to tell me? You’ve obviously been holding out on me. Of course, you’ve always been a lousy pen pal. If your letters had been any more vague, they’d have been transparent.”

  “At least I wrote,” Clare said sweetly.

  “Two points,” Ellie acknowledged with a grin, and put two strokes on an imaginary scoreboard. “But I did send a Christmas card and a birthday present last year.”

/>   “Ladies,” Sam said, his tone amused. “I’d love to stay and referee. But this is Saturday morning, and I’m going to be late for a class. Ellie, I wouldn’t want to shock you by getting out of bed naked, so if you could give us a few minutes alone?”

  “For you—Sam, was it?—I’d give just about anything.” Then Ellie pointed a finger at Clare. “I’ll give you five minutes to get downstairs and start spilling your guts. Any longer, and I’ll have to assume you need rescuing from this Nordic stranger.”

  Ellie’s bright, cheerful laughter echoed down the hall as she left them alone. For a moment Clare almost saw the humor of the situation. At least until she saw the look on Sam’s face, a look that warned her to tread carefully.

  “This isn’t finished, Clare. Settle the past with your cousin and figure out what you want. When Ellie leaves, I want an answer.”

  It wasn’t until Sam left that Clare realized he hadn’t shown the slightest interest in tall, blond, healthy Ellie. He hadn’t stared, stammered, or drooled.

  “Ellie?” Rubbing her hands against her jeans, Clare looked into the empty living room. “Where are you?”

  “In the kitchen,” Ellie called out. “William’s making iced tea.” As Clare entered the room, Ellie said, “He makes ice cubes out of tea. That way the melting ice doesn’t water down the tea! Oh, of course, you know that,” she said with a sheepish grin. “He works for you.”

  “He doesn’t work for me,” Clare snapped, suddenly unwilling to lie in front of William. “He works for Sam. This is Sam’s house. These are Sam’s antiques. Even the damned ice cubes belong to Sam. I live in a condominium with comfortable furniture that’s old, but not by any stretch of the imagination antique! I borrowed all of this”—Clare waved a hand—“to impress you.”

  “What?” Ellie tilted her head in confusion. “Slow down! You’ve lost me.”

  “She said she was a guest in this house,” William clarified forcefully. “Do you want some tea or not?”

  “Yes, please,” Ellie whispered as she sat down at the kitchen table. Obligingly, William banged a glass of tea down in front of her. Ellie’s fingers slid around the glass in a reflexive action as she continued to stare at Clare. “None of this is yours? But your letters, and Mama said—”

  “What she wanted to believe,” Clare interrupted. “And what I let her believe.” Turning to William, who didn’t seem the least horrified by what he’d heard, Clare said, “My mouth’s suddenly dry. Could I have some of that tea?”

  “Only if you promise to drink it somewhere else,” William grumbled. “I don’t want the two of you cluttering up my kitchen all day while you figure out your life history. I got things to do besides listen to your problems.” William handed her the tea and hustled her out of the kitchen along with Ellie, who sputtered disapproval.

  “Lord, Clare. I can’t believe you put up with that behavior from a servant. The way he acts, you’d think he owned the place. He ought to be fired.”

  “You can’t fire family,” Clare said as she entered the living room. She curled up in the corner of the sofa before adding, “But Sam and I have considered killing him. Listen, I’m sorry about this morning and the misunderstanding. William wasn’t aware of—didn’t know that—”

  “You were sleeping with Sam?” Ellie finished helpfully as she sat down. “Good, I’d hate to think the old guy knew everything. While I waited for you, he looked at me with that judgmental expression. I was trying to figure out if I came up short in his opinion. I’m pretty sure I did.”

  Clare looked skeptical. “Ellie Jordan worried about making a good impression?”

  “Sure, doesn’t everybody?”

  “Not Ellie Jordan. I didn’t think you worried about anything.” Clare pulled a magazine closer to the edge of the cherry coffee table and set her tea glass on it. “Least of all people’s impressions of you.”

  Widening her eyes in disbelief, Ellie said, “What rock have you been living under? My whole life has been a struggle to make a good impression. I grew up in the house with quiet, well-mannered Clare, who never did anything wrong. The perfect child, invisible and undemanding.”

  “You were afraid of being compared to me?” Clare asked, doubt heavily coloring her words. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe me.” Ellie kicked off her soft leather flats and tucked her feet beneath her. Suddenly she asked, “Do you know why I wanted to come and see you?”

  “Not a clue,” Clare admitted warily.

  For the first time, the laughter that always sparkled in Ellie’s eyes dimmed, and she poked at the ice in her glass with a pink manicured nail. “I wanted to see if you were still as good at controlling your life. To see if you were happier than me.”

  “To see if I was happier?” Clare echoed.

  “I figured you had to be.” Ellie shrugged. “I always envied you. You didn’t have to be the bone Mama and Daddy fought over. No one expected you to choose between them. You could do whatever you wanted and no one bothered you. Sometimes I wish they’d gone ahead with the divorce.”

  “They were going to get divorced?” With a few short sentences Ellie had rewritten history, making Clare doubt her naive conclusions about her place in the family. Had she mistaken their preoccupation with a disintegrating marriage for disinterest in her?

  “Now it’s too late for divorce,” Ellie continued. “They don’t like each other, but neither of them has the courage to walk away. Christmas is the worst. You’re lucky. You don’t have to go.”

  “Too late for a divorce?”

  Ellie’s head snapped up, and she stared at Clare. “What is wrong with you? Stop repeating everything I say in that stunned tone. None of this is exactly shocking news.”

  A shiver raced over Clare as she whispered, “Maybe not to you, but I didn’t know any of this.”

  “You didn’t know! Come on, Clare. Your parents loved each other. Couldn’t you see the difference between mine and yours?”

  “Obviously not,” Clare answered, her mind racing through years of memories, re-evaluating those memories.

  Ellie’s expression shifted from disbelief to stunned acceptance. “Maybe you couldn’t. You were only seven when you came to live with us. By the time you were old enough to know what was going on, they stopped talking about divorce, but nothing was ever really the same.”

  For the first time, Clare realized that growing up had been just as difficult for her cousin. Her parents hadn’t died, but her life hadn’t been any happier. “Poor Ellie.”

  “Right. Poor Ellie. Poor little rich girl. Every time I hear those words I want to scream, because it’s true. I run like hell from any man who might be serious. I’m scared to death of marriage. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be happy. How about you? Did you escape the curse? Are you happy, Clare?” she asked softly. “Is your life under control?”

  Clare turned off the Spitfire’s ignition and stared up at Sam’s house, sorry that Ellie’s visit was over. In thirty-six hours they’d taken a second look at their childhoods and managed to forge a relationship. As crazy as it seemed, Ellie was suddenly family, someone to be missed. And now that her cousin was safely on a plane, it was time to start living in the real world again.

  Sam’s house wasn’t hers. She had to go back to the condo, back to life before Sam and William. Resigned to that fact, Clare got out of the car and walked to the house. When she pushed open the back door, she found William rummaging in the pantry and up to his elbows in canned goods. Laughing, she announced her arrival, “Hey, I’m home.”

  He looked up briefly and said, “I hope you remembered to tip the porter. That woman has more luggage than a department store.”

  “Her name is Ellie.” Clare tossed her purse on the table. “What on earth are you doing in there? Alphabetizing?”

  William straightened and slowly turned to look at her. “Before you came in here to waste my time, I was figuring out what we need from the grocery.”

  Properly chastised but gri
nning, Clare reached for the pad and pencil on the table. “You tell me what you want, and I’ll make a list.”

  When William left for the store a half hour later, Clare realized she wasn’t acting like someone on the verge of leaving. In fact, she’d added Kitty Litter and cat food to the list without thinking. A part of her wanted to believe she wasn’t leaving, that Sam loved her and not the idea of changing her. The other part kept waiting for the shoe to drop, for the silver lining to develop a tear. She hadn’t taken a risk with her emotions in so long, she was afraid she’d forgotten how.

  And until one part or the other won the tug-of-war, she was stuck on the fence, trapped by doubts. Why couldn’t she believe in his love? What was holding her back? What was missing?

  For a long time she sat staring at the pad in front of her, drawing doodles with the pencil and trying to make up her mind about Sam. As she thought, she divided the paper down the middle and labeled the left side with the word for and the right side with the word against. Across the top she wrote Loving Sam.

  After an hour of soul-searching she was no closer to an answer. Clare gave up and went searching for Sam instead. She found him sprawled across her bed, taking a nap with Slick. Even sleeping he was sexy. He lay on his back, one foot tucked under the opposite knee, and one arm flung over his eyes. Slick nestled in the crook of his other arm.

  Quietly, Clare wrapped her arms around the bedpost and leaned her cheek against the cool, smooth wood. She couldn’t come to terms with her feelings for Sam, but neither could she deny the quickening of her pulse when she looked at the bed and remembered. Just the thought of his hand moving down her belly sent heat cascading through her.

  “Ellie gone?” Sam asked huskily, and adjusted his arm to cradle his head.

  “Yes. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Sam grinned wickedly. “You could wake the dead. Come here. I’ve missed you.” Sam shoved the cat off the bed and reached for her. Clare hesitated only a moment.