Men Made in America Mega-Bundle

by Gayle Wilson, Marie Ferrarella, Jennifer Greene, Annette Broadrick, Judith Arnold, Rita Herron, Anne Stuart, Diana Palmer, Elizabeth Bevarly, Patricia Rosemoor, Emilie Richards

  “Were you an only child?” he asked, testing his theory.

  “I have a sister two years younger than me.”

  “Still in New Orleans?”

  “No. Mignon left home when she was seventeen and never came back. I hear from her about twice a year, always from someplace new. She’s happy, I think.”

  He wanted to know more, but a movement on the front porch of the house caught his eye. “Your mother?” he asked softly.

  “We’ve been caught. Do you mind?” Antoinette lifted her arm to wave at the woman waiting for them with her hands on her hips. She moved away from Sam and took his hand. “We won’t go inside. Just let me introduce you, and we can be on our way.”

  Sam let her pull him up the brick walkway bordered by perfectly spaced clumps of purple alyssum. The woman on the porch had yet to smile, and he got an image of what Antoinette would look like in twenty years if she ever soured on life and learned to expect more than she could possibly get.

  “Hello, Mother. This is my friend Sam Long. Sam, my mother, Martha Deveraux.”

  Mrs. Deveraux looked as if she was considering whether or not to offer her hand, but she finally extended it for a brief, limp handshake. “Hello, Mr. Long.”

  “Sam and I were touring the neighborhood. We’ve been over at the St. Patrick’s parade.”

  “You always did love that parade.”

  Sam registered the disapproval in the words that could have been warm and conspiratorial.

  “I always did. How have you been, Mother?”

  “Well. Your father and I just got back from a trip to Bermuda.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  Mrs. Deveraux lifted her shoulders a weary inch. She and Antoinette continued their polite, stilted exchange, although Sam noticed that Antoinette was the only one asking questions.

  It wasn’t until they had said their goodbyes and were back in the Irish Channel that he felt Antoinette’s body soften against his. He felt as if he’d been given a long, intense lecture on her childhood, complete with slide show and Dolby sound. “How did you survive?” he asked finally.

  Antoinette understood exactly what he meant. She had asked herself the same question often enough. “I did exactly what was expected of me. I incurred my parents’ wrath as little as possible and waited for the first chance to get out of the house. Ross was that chance, and, of course, I leaped right out of the frying pan and into the fire. After that it took a while to put my life in perspective, but when I did, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life helping other people do the same.”

  Sam had guided her down a street paralleling the Martane’s, and now he stopped, pointing at the house in front of them. It was in sad need of paint, but it stood proudly, waiting for someone to care about it. In style, it was much like Maggie and Joshua’s house. In spirit, it was a million miles away.

  “I get a three-week vacation this summer. I’m going to spend most of it painting this monstrosity.”

  Antoinette tried to imagine Sam growing up in the dilapidated old house. “It needs love as much as paint,” she said finally. “It needs commitment.”

  “I don’t have either to spare.”

  She faced him, no measurable space between them. Her hand lifted to touch his cheek, smoothing a path along the line of his jaw. His eyes were green now, as green as the crepe-paper streamers on the house next to his. “I don’t think you know yourself very well,” she said, standing on tiptoe to brush her lips against his.

  His arms came around her waist, and he stopped her from retreating. “I know what I want and what I don’t,” he said, his mouth against her ear. “I just don’t know if I can have one without the other.”

  “Then you’ll have to choose. And you’ll have to learn to live with your choice.”

  “Or you’ll have to choose and learn to do the same,” he answered just before his lips found hers for a kiss that taught them both that choices were never easy to make.

  Chapter 7

  Dr. Daphne Brookes, better known as Daffy to her friends, stood on her head in the corner of the darkened office, her scarlet-tipped toes pointed toward the ceiling. Antoinette stood in the doorway, right side up, and waited patiently as her friend attempted to increase blood flow to her brain.

  “Hard day?” Antoinette asked when Daffy was sitting cross-legged on the floor in a position that made Antoinette’s joints creak in protest. Daffy did yoga when she was under stress. Judging from the level of activity at that moment, Antoinette knew the day must have been a monster.

  “Extremely hard. The worst. Unsurvivable.”

  “Break a fingernail?”

  Daffy’s grin was like sunshine in the midst of gloom. “Think you know me, huh?”

  “As well as anyone ever will. What happened?” Antoinette took a seat on the Japanese futon catercorner to Daffy’s contorted body.

  “My car died. Died, as in no resurrection possible. They’re hauling it to the junkyard for me, and it’s so far gone I have to pay them to do it. They don’t even want the parts!”

  Antoinette tried to look properly saddened. The car in question was a 1960 Volkswagen Beetle, although there was little left of it that was still circa 1960. Everything had been replaced at one time or another, even the sporty little sunroof, which Daffy had reupholstered in chartreuse Naugahyde. “Have you thought about a replacement?”

  “Shame on you.” Daffy shook back her unruly mop of red curls. She had confided to Antoinette recently that she was letting her hair grow so that when she stood on her head, she’d have more padding. Antoinette hadn’t questioned her logic.

  “Well, when you’re done grieving, I’ll be glad to lend you my car so you can buy a new one.”

  “It’ll be years before I recover.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  Daffy shifted slightly so that she was facing her friend. Daffy had no qualms about following her impulses and living out her fantasies, but she was also one of the most perceptive therapists Antoinette had ever known. As a friend, those qualities were just as evident. “What is it you’re recovering from?” Daffy asked now. “Does the sinfully handsome police sergeant have anything to do with those circles under your eyes?”

  Since she and Daffy never played games, Antoinette nodded. “He does. I haven’t seen him for two weeks, and today, out of nowhere, he called and invited me to take a little girl to the park with him tomorrow. I can’t figure out what our relationship is or isn’t. I could adjust if I knew, but as it is, I feel off balance.”

  “Then he’s just what you needed.”

  Antoinette tilted her head to regard her friend, who was now arched like a bow with only her palms and the soles of her feet touching the bare wood floor. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean you need someone or something to shake you up,” Daffy said, gasping. “I’ve been hoping it would happen before you turned thirty. The thirties are too good to waste being careful and doing what you think you’re supposed to.”

  Antoinette ignored the fact that Daffy was only twenty-eight, too. “I don’t do things I don’t want to.”

  “And you don’t do things you do want to.” Daffy collapsed on the floor, rolling onto her stomach. “Walk on my back, will you?”

  “I’m not a chiropractor.”

  “Just put your feet on each side of my spine and walk. Dare to be different.”

  Antoinette made a noise between a sigh and a grumble. She took off her shoes and straddled her friend. “I’m going to break something. Don’t you sue me!”

  “I’m waiting.”

  Antoinette put one foot on Daffy’s back and tried adding her weight little by little. Daffy’s response was a pleased moan. Shaking her head, Antoinette added her other foot, distributing her weight evenly. She began to inch along. “What do you mean I don’t do things I want to?” Since Daffy’s back was in perfect proportion to her five-foot-two body, the walk was over before it had begun. Antoinette stepped down, turned around an
d walked back the way she’d come. Then she resumed her seat.

  “Thanks.” Daffy sat up and began to rotate her head. “You’re a beautiful woman with a woman’s normal drives, but you keep every man who comes near you at arm’s length. You’re too busy, or too considerate, or too blind to what a man wants.”

  “You’re saying I don’t sleep around and I’m really dying to?”

  “I’m saying something always stops you from taking a lover. And I think it’s because you’re still not over the fact that you made one real doozy of a mistake.”

  Antoinette didn’t like having her fears so easily dismissed. “I couldn’t survive another man like my ex-husband.”

  Daffy heard the hurt in Antoinette’s voice, but she went on anyway. “You’ve grown into a new person, but you don’t trust yourself yet. You still think you could be fooled again.”

  “Sam’s not trying to fool me. He’s honest about what he wants. Me. On my back.”

  “Are you waiting for marriage?”

  Antoinette shook her head. “I guess I’m waiting for a signed statement that says I won’t get hurt again.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

  “I could go to bed with Sam, and after a night or two together he could decide he didn’t want me anymore.”

  “And you’d feel hurt and angry. Then, after a while, you’d see that you really weren’t any worse off than you’d been before Sam and that at least you’d reached for something wonderful.”

  “Well, here’s something even worse.” Antoinette leaned forward. “What if it weren’t just a matter of one or two nights? What if we developed a real relationship, I fell totally in love with him and then he left me?”

  “Are you the kind of woman who lets herself fall in love if there’s no hope it’ll be reciprocated?”

  “I don’t think I’d do that. Even with Ross I thought he loved me when I married him.”

  “Then is Sam the kind of man who’d drop a woman he’d made an emotional commitment to? Does he fall in and out of love as often as he washes his shirts?” Daffy stopped revolving her head and met her friend’s gaze.

  Antoinette might not understand everything about Sam, but she had seen enough evidence of his commitment to those he cared about to know the answer to Daffy’s question. “No, he doesn’t. I think once Sam loves, he’s loyal to death.”

  “There’s your answer. The very worst couldn’t happen. The risk is small. You have to decide if it’s worth taking.”

  “Why does everything always sound so simple coming out of your mouth?” Antoinette stood and stretched. After watching Daffy’s yoga exercises, her own body felt tight and unfit.

  “Generally, I find if something’s not simple, it’s because people are making it difficult on purpose.”

  “You think I should have an affair with Sam?”

  “I think you should reach for what you want.”

  “Why does that put butterflies in my stomach?”

  Daffy stood and gave her friend a quick hug. “Because you haven’t had much practice.”

  “That’s definitely true where men are concerned.”

  “So now you want to hear the good news?”

  Antoinette smiled wryly and nodded her head.

  “Even at your advanced age, you’re not too old to learn.”

  Antoinette watched Sam demonstrate the intricacies of scooping minnows from the water with a small net. Laurie stood beside him, her brow wrinkled in concentration. “What do I do if I get one?” she asked doubtfully.

  “You put it in this jar. Then, before we go, we’ll put them back in the water.”

  “Do they bite?”

  “Not unless you’re good to eat.”

  Laurie giggled and took the net. In a moment she was absorbed in the pleasure of outsmarting minnows. Sam came to sit on the blanket beside Antoinette, his back against a huge live oak tree draped with lacy Spanish moss.

  “You realize this could take all day,” he said lazily.

  “All day for her to catch a minnow?”

  Sam made himself more comfortable and his expression was smug. “We can’t leave until she does. If we do, she’ll feel like she’s failed.”

  “And in the meantime you get to be lazy.”

  “I planned it this way.”

  “I got one! Come see, Sam! I got one!”

  Sam groaned and got to his feet again while Antoinette laughed. Shooting her a grin, he walked to the shore to peer over the little girl’s shoulder into the net. “That’s a minnow, all right.”

  “Get me the jar, quick.”

  Sam held out the gallon jar filled with water, and Laurie deftly plopped the tiny silver fish into it. “He’s a beauty,” he complimented her.

  “It’s a girl fish.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She looks like a girl. I’m gonna see if I can catch a boy next.”

  “Good thinking.” Sam set the jar in the shade where Laurie would have easy access to it and joined Antoinette once more.

  “This could be a very short picnic,” Antoinette observed, closing her eyes and letting the warmth of the April sun work its magic.

  “Well, it’s a big park. If she catches all the minnows in sight, we can take her over to the merry-go-round or rent a paddleboat.”

  “I’m going to catch a whole family! A mother, a father, kids. Everything!” Laurie called from the bank of the little lagoon. “Then I can tell my grandmas.”

  “You’re going to miss her when she goes, aren’t you?” Antoinette reached over and rested her hand on top of Sam’s. Today was a farewell celebration for Laurie. Tomorrow she and her mother were going back to the town where she’d been born.

  Sam turned his hand palm up and wove his fingers through Antoinette’s, magnifying the intimacy of her impulsive gesture. His thumb caressed the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist, and he could feel the resulting increase in her pulse rate. “I’ll miss Laurie, but I’m happy she’s going. Life’ll be easier for them from now on.”

  Antoinette pulled her hand from Sam’s and reached for the battered old picnic basket that Mrs. Patterson had insisted on filling with her homemade bread and other assorted goodies, including dozens of spicy boiled shrimp. She still wasn’t sure where the day was supposed to go. As she’d told Daffy, the off-again, on-again quality of their relationship had knocked her off balance. Every time Sam touched her, she wondered just exactly where it would lead. Every time she touched him, she wondered just exactly what she was trying to do.

  Antoinette set the shrimp between them and began to remove shells as she changed the subject of the conversation. “Last time I saw you, you still weren’t close to solving the Omega Oil case. Has anything broken on that yet?”

  There was no reproach in her words, but Sam heard only the beginning of the sentence. Last time I saw you. He had waited two weeks before giving in to the urge to contact her again, but not a day had gone by without thoughts of Antoinette. Not that all his thoughts had been good ones. Along with the vision of her body pressed against his came the vision of chains. She was a woman who wanted more than a casual affair, a woman who deserved more. If she gave herself, it wouldn’t be easily, and it wouldn’t be temporarily. He was a man satisfied with his life. He was a loner, and being alone suited him. So why had he called her? Why couldn’t he let go?

  “Sam?” Antoinette held a shrimp between her thumb and forefinger, tantalizingly close to his lips. “Are you hungry?”

  Sam opened his mouth, and Antoinette dangled the shrimp over it, dipping down to run it along his bottom lip. He tasted cayenne and allspice, the rich tang of shellfish and desire. His fingers closed around her wrist, capturing it to hold it in place as he took the shrimp between his teeth. When he’d finished it, he savored the flavor of her fingers.

  Antoinette closed her eyes at the unexpected pleasure of his lips gently sucking her fingertips. Sa
m watched the long sweep of eyelashes against her cheek, heard the involuntary sigh. Antoinette was a woman who enjoyed being touched as much as she enjoyed touching. And yet she was a woman who had denied herself more than the most casual affection. He wondered why a woman who obviously took such delight in human contact had denied herself the ultimate human contact for so many years.

  Sam released her hand, and Antoinette pulled her fingers from his lips to reach for another shrimp. She was trembling; she realized that her needs and her vulnerability to the man beside her were going to make it impossible to say no to him again. She had passed the crossroads, and she hadn’t taken the safest path. The wise decision would have been to tell Sam she wouldn’t see him anymore when he’d called. That decision hadn’t even occurred to her.

  “I could starve on one shrimp.”

  “Better start peeling, then.” Antoinette sat forward and began to strip the shell off another shrimp for herself. She let her hair fall across her shoulder to hide her face and, she hoped, her thoughts. As a psychologist she knew what happened to people who let their feelings build until they erupted with volcanic force. For all her training, for all her experience, she was no different. Her feelings for Sam were reaching volcanic proportions.

  Sam sat forward, too, and picked up a shrimp. “You asked about the Omega Oil case.”

  Antoinette tried to sound casual. “I was curious. If you can’t talk about it, that’s okay.”

  “I wish I had something to talk about.”

  “It’s still up in the air?”

  “The team working on it is evenly divided. One of the prevailing theories is that someone in management’s got an ax to grind, the other is that the arsonist’s a relative of one of the men killed during the hurricane last year. There’s evidence that either one of those theories could be correct and evidence that points away from them.”