To Love a Man

by Karen Robards

  The glare died out of Lisa’s eyes, to be replaced by tenderness as she met Sam’s wry gaze. This situation was as strange to him as it was to her, she realized. He was as uncertain as she was herself.

  She sat down carefully on the edge of the bed, uncaring that the nurse might walk in at any minute, and bent to kiss him. When he let her go, she rested her cheek alongside his.

  “I haven’t changed,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s just the clothes, Sam. I still want to marry you more than anything in the world.”

  He pressed his lips into the curve of her neck, nuzzling aside the high collar to move his mouth hotly against her skin.

  “Lisa . . .” he said huskily, only to be interrupted by the militant entrance of the nurse. At the sound of the door being opened, Lisa jumped away from him as if she had been shot. Sam’s mouth compressed at her instinctive movement.

  “I’ll have to ask you to leave, Mrs. Collins,” the nurse said firmly, her professional training masking any surprise she might have felt at seeing a supposedly married woman in her patient’s arms. “Mr. Eastman needs his rest.”

  “Yes—all right.” She smoothed her dress self-consciously before looking at Sam. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sam. Can I bring you anything? Magazines, or . . .”

  “No, thanks,” Sam said politely. “Jay knows my taste in reading material better than you do. I’ll have him bring me something.”

  Lisa nodded jerkily and turned to go. As she opened the door, Sam called after her.

  “Yes?” She turned back to look at him. The hospital bed was still elevated to a semisitting position, as it had been ever since she had entered the room, and Sam was bare to the waist. He looked very dark and virile against the white sheets; if it hadn’t been for the bandages on his chest and forehead, and the I.V. unit still strapped to his arm, she would have thought he looked disgustingly healthy.

  “I think you were right about that matter we were just discussing,” he said, face and voice expressionless. “Let’s keep it to ourselves for the time being, okay?”

  Lisa stared at him. Those blue eyes were as fathomless as the ocean.

  “If that’s what you want,” she said slowly after a moment.

  “It is.”

  “All right.” Then, with the nurse frowning at her, Lisa left the room. As she walked down the corridor to join Amos and Jay, Lisa was conscious of the most ridiculous urge to cry.

  Sam made great progress over the next few days, and Dr. Peters, pronouncing himself delighted with him, said that if all went well, Sam might even be permitted to go home before Christmas. Lisa fully intended Sam to convalesce in her grandfather’s house, under her own eye, but persuading Sam took some doing. Finally he gave in, simply because Dr. Peters told him that unless he agreed to stay within commuting distance of the hospital and have someone available to look after him, he would not release him for another month. Privately, the doctor told Lisa that Sam would have trouble getting around for a long time, that he would have to use crutches for weeks or months and would probably have a limp for the rest of his life. This information made no difference to Lisa, although she was sorry for Sam; he wasn’t going to like the idea at all, she knew. But Dr. Peters had decided to say nothing of this to Sam for a while yet. He didn’t want worry to retard his truly remarkable recovery.

  Sam’s attitude to Lisa was hard to define. He was glad to see her, she knew. His eyes lit up unmistakably when she came through the door on her daily visits to his room. He teased her, and laughed at her, and even kissed her, but he never once told her he loved her or referred to the fact that they were engaged to be married. When Lisa tried to broach the subject, he would smilingly refuse to discuss it. They would talk about it again when he was out of the hospital, he said, and would say nothing else.

  Dr. Peters finally agreed that Sam could be released from the hospital on Christmas Eve. When the big day arrived, Lisa and Jay went to the hospital to bring him home. Amos stayed behind; it was freezing outside, and the cold hurt his old bones, he said.

  When they reached Sam’s room, he was fully dressed and sitting on the side of the bed. His leg had been taken out of traction the day before; it was now enveloped in a white plaster cast that extended from the top of his thigh to his foot. Only his toes had not been wrapped in plaster, and they were covered by a thick white athletic sock. He was dressed in tan corduroy pants slit up the side to accommodate the cast, a tan-and-blue plaid flannel shirt, and a sheepskin jacket. The clothes were Sam’s own and had been procured from where they had been left in storage.

  When Sam saw them, he grinned, and, waving away both Lisa’s and Jay’s outstretched hands, he swung himself to his feet, positioning a crutch firmly under each arm.

  “I’m getting pretty good at this,” he said, taking an experimental few steps. He maneuvered the crutches expertly, and Lisa could only shake her head at him. Was there anything he did not do well?

  “Come on, let’s go,” Sam said, heading out into the corridor through the door Lisa had left open. Lisa hurried after him, wanting to stay close by in case—just in case—Mr. Expert should require some assistance after all. Jay grabbed the case containing Sam’s things and followed.

  As they waited for the elevator, Dr. Peters came walking down the corridor. He greeted Lisa and Jay pleasantly and congratulated Sam on how well he was managing his crutches. Sam laughed and shook the doctor’s hand, thanking him for putting him back together again.

  “You should set yourself up as a rival for the six-million-dollar man,” Dr. Peters told him, grinning. “With what it cost to get you back in one piece, I’m set for life.”

  Sam groaned. “I’ll probably suffer a relapse when I get the bill.”

  Dr. Peters looked surprised. “Oh, it’s all been taken care of. Mrs. Collins . . .”

  The elevator arrived, interrupting him. Lisa practically dragged Sam onto it, waving a pseudocheerful goodbye to the doctor. Sam was silent all the way down, but when they were walking through the lobby toward where Lisa had parked the car just outside the door, and Jay had gone on ahead to unlock the car, Sam growled through one side of his mouth, “I want that bill as soon as we get to your grandfather’s house. I pay my own bills, understand?”

  Looking sideways at him, Lisa saw that he was blazingly angry.

  XV

  JAY’S presence kept Sam from saying more. But during the drive to the house, which took about twenty minutes, Lisa was conscious of his anger smoldering beneath the cheerful front he assumed for Jay’s benefit. Lisa was driving. In deference to Sam’s cast, she had chosen a big Lincoln, which was one of five cars owned by her grandfather. Sam sat beside her, his leg stretched out stiffly before him. Jay rode in the back, his arms draped over the leather upholstery of the front seat as he leaned forward, talking excitedly all the while.

  When Lisa pulled in between the stone posts that guarded the drive leading to the house, she could sense Sam’s stiffening. He said nothing as she drove up the driveway, which was flanked on each side by a row of denuded oak trees. The house itself was a three-story dwelling built of rough-faceted stone with a gabled roof and wings extending back on either side of the main part of the dwelling. It was a beautiful house, set like an unpolished jewel amid the forty landscaped acres that made up the estate, and it had been the Bennet family home for nearly half a century. Maybe at one time the family had been large and had needed every one of its twenty-two rooms. For herself and her grandfather, so much space seemed almost obscene. Lisa, casting a sideways look at Sam as he absorbed the magnificence she had always taken for granted, could see that he felt much the same.

  “Isn’t it great? What do you think?” Jay demanded excitedly of Sam as Lisa drove on around the house to the six-car garage that had been converted from a stable at the rear.

  “Great,” Sam agreed. Lisa hoped that Jay hadn’t caught the biting edge to his voice.

  As Lisa stopped the car in front of the garage, not bothering to pull in, the middl
e-aged man who was husband to the housekeeper and cared for the cars as well as doing odd jobs around the place appeared.

  “The old family retainer, I take it?” Sam observed snidely to Lisa. She sent him a burning look, then opened the door and got out of the car. On the other side, Jay had already slid out the rear door and was helping Sam with his crutches. Plainly, her presence was unnecessary, but she walked around to that side of the car anyway.

  “Want me to put the car up now, Mrs. Collins?” Henry Dobson asked, coming to join the little group that centered on Sam, who was standing on his own now, the crutches positioned securely under his arms. Sam’s eyes went swiftly to the speaker, their expression unreadable.

  “Thank you, Henry. The keys are in the ignition,” Lisa said politely. To Sam she added, “This is Henry Dobson. He’s been helping to take care of us for years, and I don’t know what we’d do without him—or his wife, who’s our housekeeper. Henry, as you’ve probably guessed, this is Major Eastman.”

  “Nice to meet you, Major,” Henry said, nodding. “I’ve heard a lot about you from your boy here. Good kid, he is.”

  “Thank you.” Sam’s reply was brief. His eyes were hooded as he watched Henry get into the car and start to maneuver it into the garage. Then, with Lisa leading the way, the three of them started for the house, moving slowly in deference to Sam’s crutches.

  Once inside the house, they were met in the entrance hall by Mary Dobson, Henry’s plump, gray-haired wife. Lisa introduced her to Sam, then assured her that they could manage fine on their own, and the woman went on about her work. When Lisa turned back to Sam, his eyes were moving inscrutably over the green-flecked terrazzo floor, overlaid in the center with an obviously genuine green-and-blue oriental carpet, to the pale solid ash of the carved paneling and the elegant little tables and mirrors with which the hall was furnished.

  “Come on, Dad,” Jay said impatiently, leading the way toward one of three doors set under the huge walnut staircase that curved up from either side of the hall to a second-floor landing. “Lisa put you on the ground floor so you wouldn’t have to worry about getting up and down the stairs with your crutches. My room’s just across the hall. Wait until you see it. It’s . . .”

  “Great. I know.” Sam’s voice was dry.

  Lisa sent him a quick, anxious look as he followed Jay through the door into the hall that led into the right wing of the house. The hall bisected the four bedrooms that made up the lower part of the wing, leaving two bedrooms on each side. The bedrooms to the right had been converted into a suite consisting of a bedroom, a sitting room, and a private bathroom. It was to this that Jay led Sam.

  “Think you can stand it?” the boy asked proudly, dumping Sam’s case down in the middle of the sitting room and hurrying to throw open the doors to the connecting bath and bedroom so that Sam could revel in the full glory of the space that had been allotted to him. Sam’s eyes moved swiftly over the elegant rooms, furnished in Early American style in shades of rust and brown and gold.

  “I think so,” he answered, his eyes coming to rest on Lisa. Their expression was unreadable, but she knew that the sight of her home had done nothing to appease his earlier anger.

  “You must be hungry,” she said nervously, operating on the principle that a well-fed man was easier to handle. “Lunch should be ready. . . .”

  “Great! I’m starved!” came enthusiastically from Jay, who had flung himself on the gold-plaid couch. “Dad, wait until you taste Mary’s cooking! She makes the best hamburgers.”

  “You go along. I think I’ll wait until dinner,” Sam said evenly, smiling briefly at his son before his eyes returned to fix on Lisa. She squirmed beneath that diamond-hard gaze, feeling a lot like a butterfly on a pin.

  “You sure?” Jay asked, getting to his feet and looking from his father to Lisa as though realizing for the first time that everything might not be perfect between them.

  “I’m sure. You go on and eat.” Dismissal was plain in his tone. Jay looked quickly at Lisa, who smiled at him as naturally as she could. Reassured, he left the room to find Mary and lunch.

  “Close the door,” Sam ordered softly.

  Lisa didn’t even think about the irony of being told what to do in her own home. Swallowing, she went to close the door, then returned to the center of the room, her hands clasped nervously in front of her. Sam said nothing, just watched her with a brooding look in his eyes.

  “Look, I’m sorry about the hospital bill,” Lisa burst out at last, unable to stand that silent inspection another instant. “I didn’t think. I just didn’t want you to have to worry about it, while you weren’t well. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Sam’s mouth twisted up at one corner. “Tell the truth, Lisa,” he said evenly. “You just didn’t think I had the money to pay it. Right?”

  Lisa looked miserably at the brown-carpeted floor. The thought had crossed her mind, she had to admit—but not to him.

  “Well?” he barked, and she jumped at something in his tone.

  “That wasn’t it at all,” she defended herself stoutly, her eyes coming up to meet him with a bravado she was far from feeling.

  “Liar.”

  That one soft word brought hot color stinging into Lisa’s cheeks. She bit her lip, then quickly released it as she realized how telling the gesture was. Sam hadn’t missed it, she could tell from the tightening of his jaw.

  “All right, so I thought you might not have the money,” she admitted boldly, deciding that it was useless to lie. Anyway, might it not be better to get the whole silly thing out in the open once and for all? She had more money than he did, and it was too bad if he didn’t like it, but that was the way it was. He would have to learn to accept it, and then they could work from there. “What’s so terrible about that? Money doesn’t mean much. Look at it this way: if you were rich and I was . . .” she nearly said “poor,” but caught herself in time, “not, wouldn’t you want to share what you had with me? Everything I have is yours, Sam. You can have anything you want. You never have to ask.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew she had said the wrong thing. His eyebrows snapped together to form a single, devilish black line over eyes that had frosted over. His mouth was clamped so tightly together that it looked bloodless, and a muscle twitched warningly at the side of his jaw.

  “Let’s get one thing perfectly clear,” he said through his teeth. He was still standing, leaning heavily on his crutches, separated from her by the width of the carpet. Lisa wished he would sit down, knowing that it must be costing him a lot to remain on his feet for so long, but not quite having the nerve to tell him to do so while he was in his present mood. “I pay my own way, understand? I’ve never taken charity in my life and I’m not starting now!”

  “Sam, it’s not charity,” Lisa practically wailed. “I love you: how can it be charity if I love you?”

  If she had thought to soften him up with her words, it didn’t work. If anything, he looked even angrier.

  “I want that hospital bill, and I want it tonight,” he bit off. “And if you ever—ever—do anything like that again, I’ll walk out. Is that clear? When—if—you marry me, you’re going to have to live on what I can give you. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no other way, and that’s something you’d better think hard about. To begin with, I don’t have a house like this, and I never will have. And I’m damned if I’m living here,” he added in a furious aside, as if she would ever dream of asking him to! Then, his eyes flicking contemptuously over the fluffy blue-fox jacket that just reached her hips, the toning silver-gray silk blouse and charcoal wool slacks beneath it, right down to the gray suede boots and matching handbag she was clutching nervously in front of her, he said coldly, “You’re a very expensive dolly, honey. I’m not sure I can afford you.”

  Lisa stared at him for a long moment, anger at his infuriating attitude and fear that he might actually be thinking about forgetting the whole thing battling for supremacy inside
her. Fear won out. If she lost Sam, she didn’t know what she would do. She would be more alone than she had ever been in her life.

  “Please sit down,” she said at last, her voice calm but her eyes pleading. “You know you’re not supposed to stand for long periods on those crutches.”

  “To hell with the crutches!” He glared at her explosively. “Didn’t you hear one single, solitary word I said?”

  Lisa grimaced. “How could I help it? You’re not exactly whispering, you know. I’ve said I’m sorry about the hospital bill. What else can I say? It won’t happen again, all right? Now, would you please sit down?”

  Sam looked more enraged than ever. “And you think that’s all there is to it? You say you’re sorry and I forget all about it? Until the next time? Like hell! We’re going to get this straight once and for all: if you’re going to marry me, you’re going to have to live in the kind of house I can give you, wear the kind of clothes I can buy, do your own damned housework—”

  “I understand,” Lisa interrupted calmly. “And I agree. All right? Do you want me to sign a contract or something? And would you please sit down!”

  “No, I damned well won’t sit down,” Sam retorted, glaring at her.

  “Now you’re being childish,” Lisa said, her eyes beginning to spark in their turn. “Do you want to know what I think? I think you’re just trying to find a way of wriggling out of marrying me. You knew I had a lot of money all along, and it never bothered you before. Why make such a big thing of it now? I tell you, it doesn’t matter. We’ll work it out. And if you don’t sit down, you’re going to fall down!”

  “Don’t call me childish and don’t tell me to sit down!” he roared, moving toward her with as much angry determination as his crutches would allow him. “I’m not some damned tame dog for you to order around. I . . .”