As far as Samantha could tell, Brenda had come to accept Samantha as Kippy's caregiver. Because of Cal and the marriage, or because Samantha had proven her worth?
Thursday night, Cal phoned from New York. "I'll be back tomorrow night. I'm meeting Adrienne and my parents at SeaTac; they're arriving from San Francisco just after my flight gets in. I'll fly them up in the chopper. Can you get the four of us rooms on the island Friday night?"
"I'll book you into a bed-and-breakfast."
So Cal wouldn't be sleeping at the house Friday, and she wouldn't have to worry about how to allocate bedrooms. He'd stay with his own family. He'd wanted tradition, which seemed so odd in a man as modern as Cal. Tradition said the bride shouldn't see the groom before the wedding on the wedding day.
"I'm picking Dorothy up Saturday morning," said Samantha. "She's got a day pass out of the hospital to come to the wedding, on condition that she spends the day resting, sitting."
"Actually, Sam...." She heard the sound of voices in the background over the phone; then Cal said, "Just a minute."
She held the receiver and watched Kippy, who had managed to twist her way from the middle of the living room carpet to the kitchen entrance. From the tone in Cal's voice, she knew he'd done something without consulting her, and she told herself to be very calm. By nature, Cal tended to take over anything in his line of sight, but she knew how to hold her own with him. She'd had enough practice this last year and a half.
She could hear his voice through the telephone, talking to someone else, words not quite decipherable. It would be like this in Cal's house, she thought. Kippy playing on the floor, Cal on the phone telling her when he'd be home, calling from business meetings in New York and Miami. She'd taken these calls in the office, but here, with the baby gurgling and chattering gibberish a few feet away, herself in jeans and bare feet, the telephone suddenly seemed intimate, a family connection.
"Sam?"
"I'm here. I've arranged caterers after the ceremony, just sandwiches and so forth, and a cake because Dorothy insisted. The weather forecast looks OK, so we'll probably be able to have it outside. Otherwise, it'll be crowded inside." She didn't have a dress. It was a small, informal wedding, but she could hardly wear her jeans or her business suit. Tomorrow, Friday, she'd have to go shopping after her visit to Dorothy.
"This is turning into a lot of work for you, Sam. Get someone in to help."
"I've got it under control. I don't need help."
"If you do, get it."
The silence hung between them for long seconds.
"Did you get the prenuptial?" he asked.
"The courier brought it this morning."
"Is there anything we need to change?"
We need to slow down, she thought. This was happening much too fast.
She said, "Everything's as we agreed."
"Good. Look, Adrienne—my sister—is going to call Dorothy's doctor tomorrow morning. Mom and Dad need to fly back Saturday night, but Adrienne's staying for the weekend. She figures she can get Dorothy sprung into her care for the weekend. I told you she's a doctor, didn't I? Adrienne can pick Dorothy up Friday night from the hospital. She can share a room with Dorothy at the B&B Friday night, then stay at Dorothy's with her after the wedding. Dorothy can spend the weekend with Kippy."
He hadn't asked her, and if he had, she would have objected because it was too much to ask of a stranger, a woman named Adrienne who Samantha had never met. But Dorothy would be so grateful to have two days with Kippy and maybe Samantha would be able to use the time to persuade her grandmother to let them arrange her move to Seattle.
"Cal, I—thank your sister for me. Dorothy misses Kippy so much."
"I will. Take care of yourself."
"I will," she agreed and listened to the click as he hung up.
She reached for the baby, blinked away tears. Cal's week was even more hectic than hers, yet he'd taken the time to think about Dorothy. And his sister, who didn't even know Samantha's grandmother, was giving up a weekend for her.
"It's going to be a weird wedding, Kippers," she murmured to the baby. "Can you imagine? The bride and groom spent the weekend with her grandmother, his sister, and a beautiful baby named Kippy."
A marriage, a baby, caterers, relatives, chaos. There'd be no chance for the awkwardness of being alone with Cal, wearing the ring she hadn't seen yet, but knew would fit because Cal had e-mailed her two days ago demanding to know her ring size.
She changed Kippy's diaper, called a nearby bed-and-breakfast to make arrangements for three rooms Friday night—one for Cal's parents, one for Dorothy and Cal's sister, and one for Cal.
Cal wouldn't sleep at the B&B Saturday night, once they were man and wife. He'd be at Dorothy's house with Samantha—and with Dorothy, Adrienne, and Kippy. Wayne and Nora would be gone by then, but there weren't enough bedrooms. Dorothy would sleep in her own room, and Adrienne could sleep in the cot in Kippy's room, or if necessary, she could move the cot to Dorothy's room. But that left only one room—Samantha's.
Saturday night, she and Cal would have to share a room.
She hugged Kippy closer, but the baby struggled, reaching out as if to grasp the floor. She and Cal had talked about lovemaking being a part of their marriage… He's said when and she'd countered with if, although she'd responded more than she wanted to when he'd kissed her.
She needed time to become comfortable with the intimacy of living together, to get her balance and be sure she had both feet on the ground. She mustn't let herself be swept away, lose control... lose herself. If he were a little less... less sexy, less tempting, less strong-willed, she thought wildly, it would be easier.
She wasn't ready. She had to tell him, because maybe he thought... expected....
When it happens, it will be because we both want it.
She clung to the memory of those words. Cal had never lied to her, and she mustn't lie to him. If it weren't for those words, for the understanding that lovemaking wasn't going to be a part of the deal until they were both ready, she simply couldn't marry him. It would be like climbing a mountain without safety gear, trusting someone else to save her if she fell off a cliff.
Samantha had a simple formula for her life, based on the promise she'd made to herself long ago. At thirteen, she'd promised herself that from now on, nobody but Samantha would ever have control of her life.
Partnership she could do, but she wasn't about to let Cal Tremaine take over.
Chapter Eight
By this time tomorrow, Samantha would be Cal's wife.
"She'd better be good enough for you," Adrienne declared militantly when Cal met her at SeaTac airport.
"She is. You'll see." He felt that sensation of sharp pleasure he hadn't yet become accustomed to. Whenever he thought of Sam, of marriage, spending a life together, being a family with her, he couldn't believe it had taken Dorothy's illness and Kippy's need to make him realize this was his woman, the one he hadn't even known he'd been waiting for.
Love must have been there all along, lying in wait for him. He'd been too blind, too taken up with computers and e-commerce and networks to realize how necessary Samantha Jones had become to him.
He'd never been in love before. It wasn't that he didn't believe in it. He'd spent his childhood watching his parents, and there'd never been any doubt of their love for each other, but he'd never felt that kind of connection with a woman himself—until now.
Samantha Moonbeam Jones. He wondered at the whimsy that had led her parents to gift her with such a name. She didn't talk about her parents, though he knew they must have divorced because it was her stepfather who would be coming to the wedding. But they must have loved each other once, must have stared down at her as a newborn baby and given her the name Moonbeam with love.
Sam lit his life in the same way the moon lit the night. Not glaringly like sunlight, but quietly, with the calm strength of... of love. Except she didn't love him.
Not yet, but he had to believe
it was there, under the quiet surface. He smiled at that, because Sam hadn't been all that quiet this last week. There had been a few flashes of volatility, and now he found himself looking for the fire, the heat, hidden behind her quiet brown eyes.
Fire and quiet strength, a forever kind of woman.
You 're supposed to court your woman before you marry her.
Dorothy was right, but Sam would have left Tremaine's if he hadn't stopped her. Once gone, with the walls of calm remoteness she wore around herself, Cal wasn't sure she would have let him near enough to court, to find the fire.
He figured the walls were cracking. Awareness in her eyes, passion in her kiss.
He got worried on the helicopter, though, with his parents and Adrienne questioning him through the headphones. His mother, Katherine, wanted to know how long they'd been dating; his father wanted to be sure Samantha wasn't a bimbo, which made Cal laugh. Adrienne demanded to know where Samantha came from, why the wedding was so sudden.
"Is she pregnant?"
He shot her a warning look. "Addie, if you put her through the third degree, I'll throw you off the island. You're here to help us celebrate a very special day, not give Sam a hard time."
"I wouldn't," said Adrienne. "It's you I'm questioning, not her."
Katherine said, "Stop it, children," and Adrienne exchanged a wry look with Cal.
"Tell me more about the baby," demanded Katherine. "Kippy. Is it a nickname?"
"She was christened Katherine," he said, smiling back at his mother.
"Katherine," she echoed, pleased. "It's about time you gave me a grandchild."
He was almost certain his family would behave, but he'd have to keep an eye on Adrienne, just in case she got an urge to take Sam aside for a sisterly grilling—the way Dorothy had taken Cal aside. He'd better watch for his mother, too. She wasn't saying much, but she might want to ask Sam a few questions, to reassure herself that her son was in good hands.
Loving families could be a pain.
At Nanaimo, he picked up the roomy BMW he'd arranged to rent, then drove to the hospital where Adrienne walked up to a head nurse and announced that she was Dr. Tremaine, and she'd come to collect Dorothy Marshall: His parents, two more doctors waiting in the wings in case Adrienne needed medical reinforcements, stood to one side and talked quietly. About him, Cal figured.
Dorothy and Katherine took to each other on sight and spent the ride to the ferry terminal comparing notes about Cal and Samantha. He hoped Dorothy wasn't going to tell his mother that Sam wasn't marrying him for love, decided there was no point worrying about things he couldn't control.
Adrienne, sitting beside him in the front seat, shot him a sympathetic look.
"Didn't know what you were letting yourself in for, did you, brother?"
He glanced in the rearview mirror, caught his father's amused glance, saw his mother and Dorothy still talking intensely. "No, I guess I wasn't ready for this. I don't know if Sam is either."
"There's a resort a few miles north of Nanaimo. Haida Sunset. Very nice, according to one of Dad's partners who stayed there for his second honeymoon. Dad's booked you in Saturday and Sunday night. I'm the baby-sitting service—and Dorothy, of course, will be my advisor."
He pulled up to the ferry ticket booth and reached for his wallet. Two days with Samantha alone. No baby, no family, just the two of them. Time for courting, after the wedding.
"Thanks, Addie. That's the best present you could give us. Samantha wouldn't be willing to leave Kippy overnight with anyone but Dorothy at this stage, and Dorothy couldn't be here if it weren't for you."
"It was supposed to be a surprise. Dad's going to do kind of a formal presentation after the wedding, but I figured you'd want to know, in case you and Samantha had other plans."
"No." It wasn't that sort of marriage. Not yet.
They pulled into the ferry lineup behind a gray Honda with Washington plates.
"Wayne and Nora!" exclaimed Dorothy. "They're on the same ferry!"
Samantha's stepfather emerged from the Honda, a lean, wiry man somewhere in his fifties. He studied Cal with the same suspicion Dorothy had on that first day, while Wayne's wife, Nora, immediately gave him an enthusiastic hug and welcomed him to the family.
All these people descending on Sam, who had sounded uneasy the last time Cal spoke to her. Had he made a mistake, insisting on a family wedding? Maybe Sam's instincts had been right, a very private service with only the witnesses required by law.
In secret. That's what had made him balk. He wasn't going to marry Samantha Moonbeam Jones in secret, damn it! They would exchange vows in broad daylight, with the people who loved them as witness.
As he turned into Dorothy's drive behind Wayne's Honda, he heard Adrienne ask a question, in response to which Dorothy assured his sister she felt fine, no shortness of breath, and no pain.
Good.
He got out of the car in time to see Wayne envelop Samantha in a big hug she returned enthusiastically. She'd worn shoes today and had substituted tailored pants for the jeans, a sleeveless gold silk blouse for the sweatshirt. She'd dressed up, and he could see the unease in her eyes as she stepped away from Wayne to face the crew tumbling out of his rental car.
"My turn," he said, stepping past Wayne to pull her into his arms.
He'd dreamed of her, the soft gasp on her lips, the wide questions in her eyes. She'd put her hair up today, donning her smooth Samantha mask for his family—or for him.
He settled his mouth over her parted lips. God, he'd missed the feel of her, the sound of her breath. Her lips moved under his and he captured her upper lip, tugged softly and slid into her mouth as she breathed a soft moan and opened to him.
He settled deeper into the kiss, felt the fire run through his veins and through hers. Slid his hand up the narrow curve of her back and settled her against him, welcoming the restless twisting of her body as she came alive and hungry.
He pulled the combs out of her hair and tangled his fingers in it. His body hardened against the soft crush of hers. He felt a shudder go through her and braced himself for the ride as her arms wrapped tightly around him.
The world was spinning when he finally pulled his lips from hers. He saw her swallow, needed to taste her throat, but knew that if he did, he was lost.
"You OK?"
"I don't know." She breathed the words.
He released her and captured her hands, tangling fingers with hers. "Don't worry," he said softly; then he turned her, holding her in his arms as he introduced her to his family.
Samantha spent most of Friday evening in shock, trying to recover from that kiss. They'd be married tomorrow. There were details to be looked after, but all she could think of was the hot pulse throbbing at the pit of her stomach.
There'd be no waiting, no getting her balance, no cool friendship leading slowly to physical intimacy. She'd felt him, hard and demanding, thrusting against her belly... had felt her own pulse, wild and thundering, demanding she fling herself off the edge, trust herself to wild heat and lust.
Surely it was better to feel desire, because she could hardly expect Cal to commit to eighteen years of celibacy, and she would hate him to go to another woman while he was married to her. Any woman would hate it.
She remembered the screaming battles from her childhood with a shudder. She wasn't her mother. They couldn't be more different. Jeanette might have thrown herself off cliffs regularly, taking her children with her, but Samantha Jones had control of her own life and nobody was taking it from her—not Jeanette, not Cal. Nobody.
With Howard, she'd never felt that pulsing hunger, that feeling of losing control, of herself slipping away. She had to remember that this was about sex, not about life. Just physical sensations. Afterward, once they'd made love....
Better to get it over with, she decided. Then sexual intimacy would be just another aspect of their partnership.
The house pulsed with life, with people. Wayne and Nora, looking pleased, as if
this marriage had been their idea. Dorothy, thoughtful but smiling. Cal's parents and his sister, Adrienne, three vibrant people filled with the energy she'd always loved feeling from Cal himself. It was the thing that made working for him so exciting, so rewarding. That and the fact that in his own interfering way, he let her have control, let her do her job exactly as she wanted.
Kippy, gurgling and laughing, enjoying being handed from one set of arms to another, then suddenly making shy and crying for familiar arms.
Dorothy put her to bed under Adrienne's watchful eye.
"We'd better go," said Katherine, Cal's mother. She gave Samantha a light kiss on her cheek. "You need some quiet time after this mob. We'll look after Cal tomorrow morning, keep him away until it's time for the wedding." She smiled, affection in her eyes and her voice, though she knew almost nothing about Sam, only that her son was marrying her.
"Thank you," Samantha said, an unexpected wave of sadness threatening tears.
"No," said her husband's deep voice. So much like's Cal's voice, with a little more gravel. "You're the one who should be thanked. Welcome to the family, Samantha."
Cal caught her hand and drew her outside with them while Adrienne helped Dorothy to the car.
Cal's hand clasped hers, and she felt her body droop with lethargy. She wasn't ready for another kiss. Not yet.
"We haven't signed the prenuptial," she said.
"You're right." He frowned. "We can't do it tomorrow morning. My mother is determined the groom won't see the bride before the ceremony. Could we slip inside now and get Wayne to witness our signatures?"
She couldn't tell Wayne, who was so obviously pleased for her, that this was a business deal. "Can we get the commissioner to witness it, after the ceremony? When we're doing the paperwork, and she's giving us the marriage certificate."
"It wouldn't be a prenuptial agreement, then, would it?" He touched her mouth to silence her as her lips parted.
"We'll sign it whenever you want, Sam. I trust you. The question is, do you trust me?"
Did she trust him? Certainly she trusted him to sign it if he said he would, but he seemed to be asking so much more.
Think About Love Page 11