"Do you love him, Samantha?"
"I... yes."
"Do you need him?"
She didn't want to think about a long lonely winter without Jason, but she did now. The thought was like a knife in her heart.
A lump in her throat, she nodded. When her mother opened her mouth, she anticipated the next question and made a sound that was a cross between a laugh and a sob. "Please don't ask if I want him!"
Her mother smiled. "I wasn't going to," she said calmly. "I'm simply going to ask you for the last time what you're doing here. It seems to me you should be telling Jason this!"
Samantha shook her head. "Maybe he thinks he wants me now, but what about tomorrow? What about next year? If you could only see him . . . he could have any woman in the world!"
"And you think it won't last." Her mother held up a hand. "No, you're afraid it won't last."
She nodded, too miserable to speak, but her thoughts delved backward. Jason had told her that her kind of love was white knights and fairy tales, but wasn't it about time she realized that nothing, love included, was perfect? But that didn't mean it didn't exist, she argued with herself. Love between a man and a woman was a need, a partnership, and involved caring and commitment, and something she and Alan had never been able to achieve, give-and-take.
She let the realization wash over her, and felt a dawning sense of awareness. She didn't want a perfect man after all, the fantasy man she had always dreamed of. She wanted a man who was secure enough in his masculinity to love with all his heart without being afraid to share the same joy and pain as she, someone who was sensitive and vulnerable, a man who loved as intensely as she did. And hadn't Jason pointed out the first day they'd met that men were really no different than women? And wasn't he all of those things?
But doubt was a dark cloud overhead that wasn't as easily vanquished as she hoped.
Lillian got up and brushed a kiss against her forehead. "You know what I think?" she asked softly. "I think the only one you're hurting is yourself if you let yourself believe he's not the man for you."
"But," she sputtered, "but you don't even know him!"
"You'd be surprised, dear." Lillian walked into the living room and returned with a copy of Love's Sweet Bondage in her hand. "I found this on your bureau a few days ago and I finally decided to see what the big attraction was." She laid it in Samantha's lap. "And in reading it I discovered quite a lot about Cathryn James--or rather, Jason Armstrong." She shook her head. "If I were twenty years younger..." She stopped, her eyes gleaming, her meaning clear. "Why don't you read it, Samantha? Read it and think of the man who wrote it."
Those were strange words indeed coming from her mother, who usually read no more than the newspaper or an occasional magazine, Samantha reflected later in her bedroom. She smiled a little ruefully as she picked up the copy of Love's Sweet Bondage and eyed Sabrina's voluptuous form draped around Marshall's chest. She didn't even know why she'd brought it along, but maybe getting involved in Sabrina's troubles with the roguish Marshall would get her mind off Jason, if only for a while.
She ended up crying herself to sleep again that night, only this time it was different. They were tears of happiness.
Samantha's little car crunched to a grinding halt in her own driveway early the next evening. Her sandaled feet hit the pavement, the pale yellow skirt she wore whipping around her bare legs as she raced across the pathway to Jason's house, her feet scarcely touching the ground.
Jason. The thought of his gently teasing grin, his warm brown eyes, whether dancing with humor or aflame with passion, filled her heart with warmth and hope and love unlike anything she had ever known.
Last night had been such a revelation. For the first time, she saw him clearly for the man he was, the man she wanted, the man who was hers. There were no more doubts, no lingering insecurities that made her fear the future.
She smiled to herself as she lifted a finger to press the doorbell. Her heart threatened to burst with the warm buoyant feeling inside her. She pictured the welcome she knew was only seconds away. Jason would be surprised, since she hadn't bothered to phone. But then he would smile, that warm, heartrending smile that never failed to send her heart melting with emotion and her blood sizzling through her veins.
It was then that she noticed the silence. She shoved aside the anxious feeling that swelled inside her and rang the doorbell again. She heard its lonely peal, heard it echo through the house.
No one answered.
It wasn't until then that a cold feeling of dread began to penetrate the bubble around her heart. His car—Jason's car was gone! Scarcely daring to breathe, she ran around to the back and onto the deck. She peered through the woven draperies... the house was empty as a tomb. For an instant she refused to accept it, then she felt the world come crashing down around her ears. It was happening, she thought wildly, a strange buzzing in her head. What she had feared all along was actually happening. Jason was gone. Gone.
For a minute she thought she'd stopped breathing. Then she heard a harsh gasping sound and realized it came from her own throat.
"You promised," she whispered brokenly. "You promised."
Chapter 11
"Samantha."
She reeled at the sound behind her. Then, as if she sought shelter from a storm, she ran straight into Jason's arms. He caught her up against him and held her there, his arms closing around her trembling figure.
"Jason!" Her voice broke on a sob. "I thought you were gone! I thought you left me!" Her eyes closed and she buried her face against his bare chest, tickling her cheek on the rough dark hairs sprinkled beneath the base of his throat.
"Samantha." His hand smoothed the ruffled wings of her hair. "I was on the beach. If you'd tried the door you'd have found it open."
She smiled tremulously at him, her eyes clinging to his. She stepped back but wouldn't let loose his hands, keeping them linked between their bodies. She shook her head. "Your car..."
"Is in the garage, where it's been since you left." His eyes seemed to devour her, the warmly possessive light she saw there making her heart pound madly.
She laughed a little breathlessly. "You're reverting to your old habits, I see." She nodded at his khaki-colored shorts, his only attire.
"Only because I had a feeling you'd be back today." His grin was faintly teasing as he tugged gently on her hands. "Come on, I'll show you where I was."
Her hand tucked firmly inside his, they walked down to the beach, their bodies occasionally touching. Samantha could feel something different, a new closeness, a new feeling of kinship between them. She thrilled at the feeling.
She smiled when he finally stopped. The sand at their feet was molded into a castle, almost an exact replica of the one they had labored over nearly a week earlier. "Is this what you've been doing while I've been gone?" she teased. "I thought you'd have your manuscript finished by now."
Jason smiled. "We don't have much history, you and I. But the day we spent here was a day I'll never forget as long as I live." He thumped his chest with a fist. "Haven't you learned yet that I'm a romantic at heart—" he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye "—dreaming of lordly castles and damsels in distress?" He added so softly she could scarcely hear, "How could I write when my inspiration was gone" --there was a long pause— "and she hadn't yet returned?"
A wealth of feeling welled up inside her. She tipped her head to the side and sank down to her knees, heedless of the damage the damp sand might do to her skirt. "This looks exactly like the other one."
"It should, it had the same crew." One side of his mouth turned up and he added dryly, "I think by now every kid that's ever played on this beach knows me as 'Mr. Monroe."' He looked at her then, the expression in his eyes growing more intense, and she could see the silent question in his eyes.
She stilled it with a pleading look, clasping her hands together tightly in her lap. That could wait, this couldn't. "Jason, I finally finished Love's Sweet Bondage."
&
nbsp; "And?" His voice was cautious.
"And I love it, even more than I loved all the others. But for a very different reason."
Jason looked puzzled.
Samantha smiled a little. She didn't possess his eloquence when it came to words. "When we first met, you said the kind of love that was depicted in romance novels didn't exist—"
"I didn't say that," he interrupted with a frown. "I said it was exaggerated. And I believed it--" His hand found hers where it lay on her lap. "at the time."
A twinge of regret flashed in the blue eyes that met his. "And I thought it wasn't possible for you to ever change, until last night.
"And reading Love's Sweet Bondage changed your mind?"
She nodded. "Suddenly I realized something all your books have in common: fidelity, and the concept of everlasting love. The hero and heroine never make love with anyone else, and I like that." She paused. "I believe in that, Jason, and I've finally learned that we make our own magic. But I also believe in fidelity. And I believe that forever can happen, for the right people. And for the first time, I read between the lines." She leaned forward, her eyes searching his face. "Do you know what else I found, Jason?"
There was a dawning look in Jason's eyes, as if he was just beginning to understand what she was trying to say. His hand tightened around hers.
"I found that I was right after all," she said with a note of wonderment in her voice. "That a good writer puts a part of herself—" she smiled and glanced down at where their fingers were entwined in her lap "—I guess I should say himself, into everything he does." Her smile was both sweet and a trifle impish as her eyes lifted. "My guess is that every romance you've ever written has been a little fantasy of your own."
Jason shook his head, his smile playfully rueful. "How could I have ever accused such a down-to-earth woman of being a dreamer?" Something flickered in the back of his eyes, and the teasing light faded. "I tried to tell you how I felt about you," he said huskily. "Especially the day I asked you to marry me."
"I know that now," she admitted. "I heard, but I didn't listen. I didn't listen here—" she laid her free hand on her heart, and her voice dropped tremulously "—where I should have. And you said everything I wanted to hear, everything but the one thing I needed to hear."
"Everything but I love you."
The placid statement was maddening. There was a heartbeat of silence while Samantha's heart throbbed fearfully. She knew, and there was a part of her that still needed to hear the words, wanted it with every fiber of her body. Her body tensed as she waited...
"I do, you know."
His tone was chiding, almost amused. She drew a shallow breath, her eyes two huge pools of longing as they rested on Jason's face. For once his smile was almost imperceptible. "You do . . . what?"
"I do love you." This time the words were as husky and shaky as she felt inside. Samantha knew a brief wild joy and then she was being dragged across Jason's lap, cradled in his arms as if he would never let her go. "God, how I love you," he ground out against her mouth, her hair, her cheeks, over and over again. He allowed himself one long searing kiss and then eased back from her gently. "I would have told you then if I thought you'd have believed me," he said. "Instead I tried to let you know every other way I knew how—-the night we made love, when I asked you to marry me."
Samantha shook her head, still rather dazed. She had finally realized it last night, but hearing the hunger in his words, seeing the tenderness in his eyes... "I wish you'd told me then," she choked out.
He drew back from her slightly so he could see her face. "You had to find out for yourself," he said gently.
"Jason," she said, hesitating, "I was so mixed up."
"Shhh." He kissed her lips tenderly. "You don't have to explain. I understand, I really do." He gave a shaky laugh. "It sure took you long enough to sort it all through. This last week has been hell!"
"For me, too," she admitted. Her eyes grew misty. "I was afraid to read too much into everything you said. I thought you were teasing me, that it was just a game."
"Sweetheart, it stopped being a game almost from the minute I pulled you up from the sand and gazed into those beautiful blue eyes of yours." He laughed as shakily as she. "You looked at me as if you were star struck and I felt like I'd been hit on the head with a ten-pound mallet." His hand trespassed beneath the hem of her skirt. "Are you a one-man woman?" he asked huskily.
She shivered beneath the magic his fingers were making as they traced a languorous path up her thigh. "Are you a one-woman man?"
"You have to ask that after reading all of my books?" He gave her an admonishing grin. "And you still haven't given me an answer. Are you or are you not going to marry me?"
She tightened her arms around his neck, her eyes shining. "Somehow I just can't seem to say no to you."
"Is that a yes?"
She laughed softly, seductively, and eased back so that he followed her down. The sand was soft and cushiony beneath her back, the weight of his body on hers warm and secure. She closed her eyes and arched her body sinuously against his, feeling the heat rising in his body and responding to it instinctively.
"Hey! Hey, Miss Monroe!"
The piping little voice came from directly behind them. Jason buried his face in her throat and muttered, "This is beginning to become a habit. That young man had better learn a few things about timing or he may never reach an age where he's able to make use of it!"
Samantha suppressed a smile and slipped from beneath Jason's body. Kevin was still apparently impervious to the scene he had interrupted—again. Wearing an ear-splitting grin, he hopped up and down in excitement.
"Guess what, Miss Monroe, Mr. Monroe." He bobbed his head in a greeting as Jason sat up and ran a hand through his rumpled dark hair. "Me and my little sister get to go camping with my uncle next week! We get to help put up the tent, and take our own sleeping bags... ain't that neat?"
"That sounds exciting," she assured him, resisting the bubble of laughter that threatened to erupt at Jason's disgruntled expression. "You can tell the class about it next year during show-and-tell." She nodded over at Jason. "By the way, Kevin, I think you should know that this isn't Mr. Monroe, his name is Mr. Armstrong—"
"And in a very short time—" Jason's lean features had suddenly transformed into a grin "—Miss Monroe is going to become Mrs. Armstrong. Spread the word among your buddies so they know when September rolls around, will you, pal?"
Samantha's eyes sparkled as they met his. "You took the words right out of my mouth. And I do so love a masterful man," she teased. Brushing the sand off her skirt, she got up and held out a hand to him. "How would you feel about a little show-and-tell of our own?"
He was on his feet in the blink of an eye. "And I do so love an aggressive woman," he crooned tenderly.
They had a hard time keeping their eyes, as well as their hands, off each other during the short trek back to the house. Always before with Jason, she had felt as if she had been on the outside looking in with a faint gray film between them, afraid to let herself see him for the man he really was. But for the first time, she recognized the glow in his eyes for what it was. Love, a love so tender and sweet it made her ache inside.
The feeling was as thrilling as it was arousing. They had no sooner entered the bedroom than Samantha turned in his arms and lifted her face to his, pressing her body urgently into his as she tangled her fingers in the crisp hair at his nape.
Jason laughed delightedly at her eagerness. "Is this a preview of nights to come?"
His hands had already wandered to the buttons of her short linen shirt. She shivered as he undid the clasp of her bra and her breasts spilled free, the budding tips already hard and erect. Her skirt was the next to go, dropped in a careless pool at her feet. She pressed herself boldly against his naked chest in a sinuous motion that sent Jason's breath rattling in his throat. "You bring out the wild and wanton in me," she said with a seductive laugh.
His eyes glittered
fiercely as he threaded his hands in her hair and brought her face to his. He took her mouth in a hotly passionate kiss.
Her head was spinning when he released her. His breath fanned hotly against her cheek. His desire pressed urgently against the fluid lines of her belly and she thrilled that she was able to arouse him to such an extent. Emboldened by the knowledge, she let the sensitive tips of her fingers wander down the fabric of his shorts, tracing the stunning male shape of him in a blatantly sensual caress.
"What about you?" she taunted softly. "What do I bring out in you?"
Jason stepped out of his shorts and grasped her hips to bring her in line with his body in one fluid movement. "The savage beast unleashed?" he suggested with a soft rumble of laughter in his chest.
"An apt analogy," he agreed with a meaningful glance down his body. But the laughter lurking in her voice faded as her eyes made their way lingeringly up the taut lines of his body. Dappled sunlight glinted through the windows and shimmered on the copper-hued flesh, bringing to vivid life the sheer latent power beneath the smoothly flowing muscles.
Desire rose hotly in Samantha's veins, but she had a need far more intense, far more lasting, and much more powerful.
Ho- hands lifted to tangle in the crisp dark hair at his nape. "Make love to me, Jason," she said simply. "Make love to me."
He bent to lift her gently in his arms. "With pleasure," he groaned in her sweet-smelling hair. "With pleasure...."
And the wild union that followed was like nothing Samantha had ever dreamed of, or even imagined. He touched, be stroked, he tasted and caressed every part of her body as if to imprint the image of it on his brain forever. Then he allowed her the same intimate knowledge of his supple male strength, until at last he moved over her trembling body. Then at the last moment, he rolled so that she was poised over him.
"Your trusty steed awaits, m'lady," he said hoarsely, his eyes locked with hers endlessly. Awed by the golden glow in his eyes and the boundless sweetness of his tormenting fingers, she couldn't look away as he guided her yielding body downward. She moaned deliriously as her softness closed over his thrusting hardness.
The Unsung Hero Page 15