To Love a Man

by Karen Robards

  Lisa’s face softened as she came to stand beside the bed, her hand going automatically to smooth away the curls that fell over his forehead. He murmured something, moving restlessly, and Lisa wondered if he was in pain. They had been giving him drugs to control it, but they wore off from time to time and the doctors were afraid to give him too much: they didn’t want him to leave the hospital an addict.

  From the time the last bullet had crashed into his chest, leaving him unconscious and, Lisa had feared, possibly dying on the floor of the boat, she had never been sure that he was aware of her presence. Oh, he had opened his eyes and looked at her, but Lisa couldn’t tell if he recognized her. But she liked to think so—at least, this time, he had not called for Beth.

  “How is he?” Jay spoke from the door, his voice hushed.

  Lisa looked up to smile at him, and saw her grandfather following him into the room. Her smile widened to include them both. Amos must have brought Jay over. . . .

  “Still the same,” she answered cheerfully. She had stopped whispering in Sam’s presence weeks ago. He would wake up when his body was ready, the doctors had told her, and until then there was no need to worry about disturbing him.

  “I told the boy he wouldn’t be awake,” Amos said testily, “but he insisted on coming by just to make sure. I told him you’d let us know if there’s any change.”

  Lisa nodded. “Yes, I will, but I’m sure Jay wanted to see for himself. After all, Sam is his father.”

  “Yeah,” Jay agreed, coming around the end of the bed to stand beside Lisa and look down at Sam’s recumbent form with a slight frown on his face. “If I was in here, he’d be here every day, I know. He’s that kind of guy.”

  This was the closest Jay had ever gotten to putting into words the deep love he and Sam shared, and it clearly embarrassed him. Lisa hid a smile as she watched dark color creep up over his cheeks. He was very sensitive about his status as an adult male, and he wasn’t yet old enough to confess to feeling any softer emotions without being afraid of seeming unmanly. He was a scant eight years younger than herself, but Lisa, looking at him as he stood towering beside her, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his corduroy car coat and his long legs clad in the inevitable jeans, felt aeons older.

  “What are you two going to do this afternoon?” she asked, knowing that Amos enjoyed being with the boy and that the two of them spent much time together while she was sitting with Sam.

  Amos grinned. Lisa thought with pride how very well he looked for seventy-two. His body was still strong and erect, although he wasn’t much taller than she was herself—tallness wasn’t a characteristic of the Bennets, although, Lisa amended with a quick look at Sam’s considerable length, it might be in the future. Amos’s iron-gray hair might be a little thin on top, but he had all his own teeth and was almost never sick. Today, dressed as he always was in a conservative business suit topped by a camel-colored cashmere overcoat, he could easily have passed for sixty.

  “Oh, we thought we might drive down to D.C., maybe take in a show.” From Amos’s shifty-eyed reply, Lisa inferred that he and Jay really had quite different intentions. Probably they were going Christmas shopping, she guessed, remembering that there were less than two weeks remaining until the holiday. She had some shopping to do herself; she’d been so wrapped up with Sam that she had not yet bought a single present. Maybe this weekend . . .

  “That sounds nice.” She went along with Amos’s explanation without so much as the bat of an eyelash to reveal that she saw clear through him. He had always liked to do his shopping in secret, pretending that Christmas was the last thing on his mind until the big day itself, when she would come downstairs to find enormous piles of presents. Lisa smiled, remembering. Amos had always spoiled her rotten.

  “Well, maybe now that the boy here has seen for himself that his dad is still in one piece, we can get on with it. Eh, boy?”

  “Okay.” Jay had quickly gotten used to Amos’s irascible manner, and his only response to this testy speech was a tolerant grin. “I’ll come by again later, Lisa, and stay with him for a couple of hours while you go home and rest.”

  “Thanks, Jay.” Lisa smiled at him gratefully as he moved back around the bed to join Amos by the door. He looked so much like Sam that he pulled her heartstrings, but even if he hadn’t, she thought, he was a fine boy. Sam could be proud, she told herself. He had done a hell of a job raising his son.

  “Why you two think the man needs somebody with him constantly when he doesn’t even know where he is is beyond me,” Amos grumbled, as he had done frequently since Lisa had returned and had taken to spending nearly every hour of the day in Sam’s room. He gestured at the traction unit. “You got him by the leg; he’s not going anywhere.”

  “I want somebody to be here in case he wakes up,” Lisa said stubbornly. Amos shook his head at her, then shepherded Jay out the door.

  “That’s awful nice of you,” observed a faint but familiar voice.

  Lisa whirled, her eyes widening as she met Sam’s blue ones—wide awake and plainly aware.

  “Sam!” she exclaimed joyfully, moving to bend over him.

  “Lisa,” he mocked, but he smiled at her. She returned his smile with a delighted one of her own.

  “How long have you been awake?” she asked, wondering why he hadn’t spoken to his son.

  “Long enough. I would have said something sooner, but I didn’t feel up to tackling that formidable old gentleman who was growling at you and Jay.”

  “That was Amos,” Lisa explained, still smiling foolishly down at him.

  Sam grimaced. “I figured it was.” Then his voice changed. “Don’t I get a kiss?” he asked plaintively.

  Lisa’s eyes softened, and she bent down to press her lips against his mouth. When his lips hardened and he would have deepened the kiss, she straightened away from him.

  “What’s the matter?” He was frowning. Lisa ran a teasing finger across his lower lip; he caught it between his teeth, nipping it sharply before releasing it.

  “Ouch!” Lisa shook her finger at him admonishingly. “That hurt!”

  “Changed your mind?” he asked, so casually that she didn’t immediately understand what he was getting at.

  “About what?” She stared down at him, puzzled.

  “Marrying me.”

  “No way. Were you hoping?” Her words were teasing, but her eyes were tender as they met his. He had been afraid she had changed her mind, she realized, seeing his quick look of relief before he grinned at her.

  “Just a little,” he said, and then his hand moved to catch hers and squeeze it warmly. The I.V. bottle swung precariously with his movement, and Sam shot it a look of distaste.

  “I feel like a trussed chicken,” he complained, glaring at his leg, which was suspended from the ceiling, to the I.V. unit that dripped liquid steadily down into his arm. “I hope this place doesn’t catch on fire. I don’t think I can move.”

  Lisa grinned in appreciation of the picture this conjured up. “Oh, I don’t think you have much to worry about,” she said lightly. “The nurses wouldn’t forget about you.”

  “Got the hots for me, have they?” he asked complacently. Lisa had to laugh at him, and he grinned back. “In that case, you better kiss me again to remind me who I belong to. Just in case one of them tries to run off with me.”

  Lisa giggled, and complied. This time Sam’s hand came up to cradle the back of her head, holding her in place until she had been very thoroughly kissed.

  “That’s better,” he said when he let her go at last. Lisa’s cheeks were flushed rosy from his kiss, and her lips were red and faintly swollen. He looked at her for a long moment, smiling slightly, and then he lifted her hand to his tips and pressed his mouth to the back of it.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said huskily, his mouth still warm against her hand. His eyes moved over her from her shining blond head to as far down the jade suit as he could see, and his lips pursed in a soundless whistle.
“Quite the fox.”

  Lisa stared down at him. “Fox?” she repeated, nonplussed.

  Sam grinned, turning her hand over and pressing the palm against his hard cheek. “That’s what Jay calls girls who knock him off his feet,” he explained.

  “Oh.” Lisa laughed. “Thank you, kind sir. I think.”

  Sam pressed another kiss into the palm of her hand, and then his eyes wandered around the room.

  “I think you’d better fill me in on what’s been going on. I’ve already concluded that we’re safely back home, but I’d like to hear exactly how it came about. The last clear thing I remember is being in that damned boat while those soldiers took potshots at us. After that, everything is pretty much a blur.”

  “You . . .” Lisa began obediently, only to break off as a white-garbed nurse, one of the older ones who wouldn’t swoon over Robert Redford if she found him naked at her feet, bustled into the room, then stopped short as she realized that her patient was conscious at last.

  “You should have called us, Mrs. Collins,” the woman said reproachfully, approaching around the foot of the bed. Lisa withdrew her hand from Sam’s rather self-consciously.

  “I didn’t think,” Lisa said, feeling guilty. Sam cast her a mocking look.

  “I think I took Mrs. Collins by surprise.” Sam’s mouth had a wry twist to it, and he put a faint, but to Lisa unmistakable, emphasis on her married name. Lisa knew he didn’t like being reminded that she was married to another man, but she couldn’t do a thing about it. Whether he liked it or not, that was her name. For the time being, at least.

  “You shouldn’t be tiring yourself out by talking,” the nurse said severely to Sam. “You’ve been very seriously injured, and you need to rest. How long has he been awake?” This question was directed almost accusingly at Lisa. Stammering, she answered. The woman sniffed.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Collins, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Dr. Peters asked to be notified immediately when Mr. Eastman woke up, and I really don’t think he should be tiring himself out with visitors until Dr. Peters has seen him and given the okay.”

  Lisa and Sam stared wryly at each other. His hand moved out to capture hers again, telling her wordlessly that he did not want her to go, but to Lisa what the nurse had said made sense. Sam had been very ill; for the first several days it had been touch and go whether he would even recover. It would be silly to jeopardize his health at this point. . . .

  “She’s right; I must go, Sam,” Lisa said softly. “I’ll be back later tonight—if Dr. Peters says it’s all right.”

  Sam frowned at her, then nodded reluctantly. But when Lisa would have moved away, his hand tightened on hers and he refused to release her.

  “Excuse us for a moment, would you?” he said to the nurse. She looked first surprised, then disapproving, but went out and left them alone.

  “She doesn’t have the hots for me,” Sam muttered darkly when the woman had gone. Lisa had to giggle at the idea. He grinned back at her, his blue eyes caressing her face.

  “Kiss me,” he directed huskily.

  Lisa shook her head at him. “What would the nurse say?”

  “To hell with her. Kiss me.”

  “Then I really have to go,” Lisa warned, then bent to kiss him.

  It must have been another ten minutes before she got out of that room.

  It was late the next afternoon before Sam was allowed to have visitors again. Jay and Amos went on in while Lisa stayed in the hospital corridor for a few minutes talking to Dr. Peters. Sam was much better, the doctor told her, but still very weak. He needed plenty of rest, and since he was unlikely to lose consciousness now that he had finally regained it, he had to be kept as quiet as possible. Which meant that visitors would be strictly limited, for the next few days, at least. If all went well, Sam should be ready to be released within a month. After that, he could expect to spend another couple of months quietly convalescing.

  When Lisa walked into the room, it was to find Amos standing silently and a touch awkwardly at the foot of the bed while Jay stood closer to his father and pumped his hand in a vigorous handshake. Jay was grinning from ear to ear, while Sam was grinning back with the kind of wry twist to his mouth that fathers have when they realize that their sons think they are now too old for any less-manly display of affection.

  Lisa was just in time to hear Sam growl at Jay, “What the hell are you doing out of school?” Jay’s grin widened, if possible; he finally let go of Sam’s hand, to Lisa’s secret relief.

  “If you go around doing dumb things like getting shot up, you can’t expect me to stay in school,” the boy retorted. “Somebody’s got to keep an eye on you.”

  “Oh, is that right?” This squabble between father and son was not meant to be taken seriously, Lisa knew. They were both grinning affectionately at each other. “The day I need a smart-ass kid to keep an eye on me is far distant, let me tell you.”

  “You could have fooled me,” Jay muttered unrepentantly, eyeing Sam from his bandaged head to his suspended foot. Sam fixed him with a steely eye.

  “Now that you’ve seen that I’m alive, you can get yourself straight back to school. Like tomorrow.”

  “It’s just three days till break!”

  Lisa judged that it was time to intervene, and moved around the side of the bed to stand beside Jay, drawing Amos with her. Sam’s eyes softened as they met hers; admiration showed plainly in them for just an instant as they ran over her slender body in the rust-colored silk dress. He acknowledged Amos with a nod.

  “Jay’s going to stay with us until his school starts again after Christmas,” Lisa told him. “He can go back after break.” Then, changing the subject hastily, as Sam seemed inclined to argue, she added, gesturing at Amos, “Sam, I don’t think you’ve met my grandfather.”

  “Mr. Bennet.” Sam held out his hand. The older man took it and shook it briefly.

  “Major Eastman.”

  Lisa looked at Amos in surprise, while Sam’s eyes narrowed. Only Jay looked unperturbed.

  “Amos . . .” Lisa turned to her grandfather questioningly.

  Sam silenced her with a gesture and said to Amos, “You’ve been checking up on me.”

  Amos shrugged unrepentantly. “You couldn’t expect me not to. She is my only granddaughter.”

  “I see your point,” Sam conceded, while Lisa stared from one to the other of them, her bewilderment coupled with growing indignation.

  “I can look after myself,” she said admonishingly to Amos, who looked unconvinced. Then, to Sam, she added accusingly, “You never told me you were a major.”

  “It never came up.”

  “He was promoted through the ranks in Vietnam when all his unit’s officers were killed,” Jay rushed in, fairly bursting with pride as he recounted Sam’s exploits. “They made him a major when he captured an enemy position almost single-handed. He’s got all kinds of medals: the silver star and—”

  “Shut up, Jay.” Sam scowled at his son. Jay looked affronted, but he obediently fell silent.

  “I want to thank you for saving my granddaughter’s life,” Amos said formally to Sam. “She tells me you did it more than once.”

  Sam shrugged. “No thanks are necessary. It was my pleasure.” He sent a faint smile glimmering in Lisa’s direction. “Besides, she more than repaid me. Did she tell you how she saved my life?” Seeing that both Amos and Jay looked blank, he added under his breath, “I didn’t think so.”

  “Lisa . . .” Amos and Jay spoke at once, turning to look at her with identical expressions of astonishment.

  “It didn’t come up,” she repeated Sam’s words defensively.

  Sam’s mouth tightened; he muttered, for her ears alone, “I can see a lot of things didn’t come up,” while she pacified Amos and Jay with a promise to tell them all about it later.

  When the nurse came in to shoo them away, Sam caught Lisa’s hand.

  “Excuse Lisa for a moment, won’t you,” he said pleas
antly to Amos and Jay. “I want to talk to her.”

  They looked surprised, then speculative as they observed Sam’s hand holding Lisa’s, but Jay left at once. Amos went out more slowly, and only after Lisa’s jerky nod told him that she had no objection to being left alone with Sam.

  “You neglected to tell them any number of things, didn’t you?” Sam asked when they were alone. His eyes were hard as they met hers. Lisa felt guilty, which was ridiculous. She hadn’t done anything wrong!

  “If you mean that I didn’t tell them that we’re—that I’m—that we’re going to get married,” she began, sounding defensive in spite of herself.

  Sam inclined his head ironically. “That is what I meant, yes,” he murmured sarcastically.

  Lisa glared at him. “I thought you might want to tell Jay first,” she snapped. “After all, it would be a little awkward for me to walk up to him and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I hope you like the idea of having me for a stepmother, because I’m going to marry your father’!”

  Sam thought about that for a moment. “Sure that’s the only reason you haven’t told them?”

  “Of course!” She was still glaring at him. Sam’s eyes lost some of their hard gleam as he looked at her, with her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed with temper. Her soft mouth was set mutinously.

  “Now you look like the Lisa I remember,” he said softly. “At first, you were always mad at me. I couldn’t get over how beautiful you were, with your eyes spitting fire at me and your hair looking like a squirrel might have built a nest in it and your face dirty more often than not. I was going crazy for you. . . . But yesterday and today, in your fancy clothes and with makeup on your face and your hair all fixed up, I’ve hardly recognized you.”