The food arrived—it smelt absolutely amazing. I speared a succulent-looking lamb chop, but stopped the fork halfway to my mouth. Despite Jane’s cool reassurance, my head continually played a horrible silent movie of Ellen spattered in blood, and my mother lying face down in her lap pool. I dropped the fork and gripped my Scotch. A huge swallow seared its way from stem to stern.
I clanked my half-empty glass onto the red lacquered table and started as Sam took my hand in his own. “You have to eat. It’s going to be okay. I know I keep saying that and the situation continues to deteriorate, but now Janie says it will be fine—she’s far more reliable than I am.”
We both turned to Jane, puppies who needed a pat on the head and a kind word of reassurance. She cocked one eyebrow, fluttered her sumptuous lashes and sighed. “All will be well. Eat your food, Samantha, or you’ll just complain about being hungry later.” She smiled a tiny smile that intimated maybe she did like me.
“I’ll likely do that anyway,” I admitted.
Sam grinned, and Jane rolled her imperious eyes. I figured she was right, though, and stuffed a ten-dollar bite of lamb into my mouth. I ate one-handed, since Sam still gripped my other one. He didn’t seem to mind, so I magnanimously agreed to let him hold it if it consoled him. The fact that I squeezed his big, comforting hand back was in no way an admission of weakness.
Over dinner, we formulated a genius plan to get the painting out of the Steak on a Stick building, meet with Scumbag Scott and end this adventure with everyone near and dear to me intact.
I almost believed it could work.
* * * *
Boy, was I glad Jane was on my side. I buckled myself into the seat of Jane’s private jet for the trip from Colorado back to Los Angeles. Upon boarding said airplane, Jane retired to the only bedroom, and left me and Nate alone in the gorgeous, wood-accented cabin. I’d grabbed some Scotch and currently cradled it to my bosom when not taking swills straight from the bottle.
Jolly Roger peeped out from the cockpit door, still in his shorts, but with a Sailor Jerry shirt on this time. “Okay, kids, we should be in LA in about two hours. Help yourself to anything in the galley. Sit back, relax and enjoy Air Roger.” Roger’s surly friend Wendy threw a can of nuts on the table in front of me and exited into the cockpit.
I decided that shorts and ponytails ought to be de rigueur for all pilots. The combination infused one with an ‘Oh, well, if we plummet to our deaths, at least we aren’t wearing business suits’ feeling. Of course, that didn’t help much with my crippling, terrible, sweating, nausea-riddled fear of flying, but I guess it was something. I’d experienced way too many discomforts for one day. A veritable horn of plenty of shit.
I turned to Nate, who’d buckled in beside me. “Jolly Roger doesn’t smoke the good stuff whilst flying the plane, right?”
“Nah—at least I don’t think so.”
I gripped the padded armrests. “Not funny.”
“You don’t like flying?”
“I like flying about as much as I like being chased by men with guns.” I washed the sentiment down with Scotch.
Sam placed his hand high up on my thigh and squeezed it. Despite my overwrought state, I responded to his touch immediately, my pulse racing, my leg hankering for more. But I couldn’t consider any kind of future with Sam until Scumbag Scott and his threats were out of my life.
I had two choices—avoid my attraction to Sam until the ‘all clear’ rang, or give in to it in an ‘I might be dead tomorrow, so let’s hump today’ kind of way. I decided on the latter, like I’d done since I met him. Consistency was a virtue, right?
“Sam?” I said.
“Yes?” He turned to me again, and the full force of my emotions hit me like a hammer. Tonight his eyes shone a deep, olivey green that I’d never get tired of gazing at.
“Too bad there’s only one bedroom,” I breathed in my most come-hither voice, mostly because I was breathing rapidly due to my high state of terror.
“Now you want to sleep with me.”
I sniffed and tossed my hair. “Not at all. I am merely weary and wish to slumber.”
“Being knocked out wasn’t rest enough for you?”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“Both of you shut up,” Jane snapped, loudly, through the bedroom door.
We moved a few rows farther away from her—I had no desire to piss that woman off.
The plane began to taxi. Panic’s cold sweat barrelled over me. I clutched Nate’s nearest hand, and his nearest leg, and his nearest shoulder, and his nearest arm.
“Calm down. Jolly has been Janie’s pilot for years.”
“Sure, okay. You bet.” I breathed in a long, shaking breath. “I’m-m-m calm-m-m,” I said smoothly. I tried not to think about my weird dream of herrings and blimps that would definitely not come true.
He tickled under my chin. I giggled, then sucked in another gulp of air as we took off, bouncing gently on the terrifying, deadly currents of scary air.
“Wanna hear a joke?”
The lights of the city fell away underneath us and swept my stomach with them. I stared straight ahead with big eyes. “Sure, okay.”
He nuzzled my neck and whispered in my ear, “Why doesn’t a chicken wear pants?”
I held my breath until the lightheadedness made sparkles pop in my brain. Everyone knew that not breathing made the plane stay up. I licked my cracked lips. “Because the garment industry is chicken-ist and doesn’t offer poultry pants?”
“No—because his pecker is on his head.”
I giggled and turned to face him. He was an inch from me, grinning like a lunatic. “That might be the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”
“Shut up and kiss me.” So he did, stealing my breath away. Making out during the climb to cruising altitude was way better than freaking out and breathing into a paper bag. I’d either have to take every subsequent flight with Sam or harass the flight attendants.
Once I stopped hyperventilating from the take-off—now only hyperventilating from Sam’s delicious kissing—he got up. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
I took a few more swallows of Scotch—medicinal—and relaxed just a titch. Its soothing mellowness flowed through me. The airplane banked steeply to the left so that I saw the Earth almost straight below me out of the window. I didn’t scream or anything.
The plan for defeating Evil Scumbag Scott jumbled in my mind. I couldn’t wait to see and hug Ellen again, and even see and hug Suzie again. Would I ever settle back into my life of a week ago? Maybe it was moot—maybe I wouldn’t make it that far. Maybe turbulence would cause the plane to spiral into a mountain. I took another drink.
I remembered the romance novels I’d bought at the Bellagio. Diving into my purse, I found one and squealed in delight. Tamping down every confusing, alarming, terrifying, defeatist impulse, I distracted myself with the prospect of happily ever after until Sam came back, looking pleased with himself.
“Do you feel better now?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
He sat down and placed a bag at his feet. “Do you know what day it is?”
“My unlucky one? Wait, that was yesterday. And the day before.”
Glancing at his watch, he paused for a few, long moments. A smile playing about his lovely face, he reached into the bag he’d brought. When he sat up again he held a lettuce leaf. “It’s now twelve a.m. Merry Christmas.”
I slumped back in my seat. Christmas! “Wow, really?”
“Yes.” He dangled the leaf over my head, and I gaped at it, puzzled, until his smiling lips came down on mine for a sweet kiss. “I couldn’t find any mistletoe.”
I closed my eyes and thanked God that, even if I died in the next forty-eight hours, at least I had got to experience Sam’s smooch under the radicchio.
Diving into his bag once more, he withdrew a bundle lumpily wrapped in napkins
and rubber bands. I suppressed a squeal and opened the treasure—a used copy of the DVD Snakes on a Plane. “Ha!”
“Have you seen it?”
“No! I hate flying, so I generally avoid air disaster movies.”
“Well, I won’t watch it, I despise snakes. But it was the only decent present I could find aboard, besides liquor. And I think you have enough of that.” He unbuckled my safety belt and hauled me into his lap, giving my backside more pats in the process than were strictly necessary, thank goodness.
I wiggled myself into place, fitting just so on his lovely thighs. “I don’t think this seating position is approved by the FAA.”
He slid his arms around my waist. “Air Roger has its own set of rules. This arrangement is not only approved, but encouraged.”
Laying my head on his shoulder, I allowed my muscles to relax, and my lungs to take in a deep breath. Sam rested his head on mine. It all seemed like a dream. We could have been a couple headed to vacation, maybe on our way to a new city, a new life. It was fun to pretend for a while.
“How’d you acquire the cat?” I asked. Wow, I was beginning to feel suuuuuuper good now. My knots unwound their knots. “You don’t seem like a cat guy.”
Sam’s arms around me tightened. His cock swelled against my right thigh, giving me ideas. Drunk sex was fun sex. Why the hell couldn’t Janie afford a two-bedroom plane? What kind of a cheap-ass mogul was she?
“This black cat, now known as Captain Taco, came around my house after I moved in,” Sam said. “A couple of years ago. He was really small, had no tags and stared at me mournfully through my sliding glass door, so—”
“And you’re an easy touch,” I added.
“No, I’m not.”
“Okay, you’re not.”
“I’m not. I’m a hardened criminal.”
“I’ll say.”
The hardened member in question jumped. “Too bad Janie doesn’t have two bedrooms,” he said.
“I’ll say that, too.”
He shifted me closer to him, which only seemed to frustrate him more. “Anyway”—he let out a long sigh—“I started leaving him food and treats outside. But he’s a fast, fast little pain in the butt, and he began running inside whenever I would open the door. I was forever searching for him.”
I nibbled his neck. “Was he easy to find?”
“Nope. He’s as slippery as I am.” Sam paused his story to give me an eye-crossingly delicious kiss. He pulled back and said, “One day he ran inside—I couldn’t find him, and I had to leave the house. I returned with a litter box so he wouldn’t crap all over the place. But I was still determined not to have a pet. I have to be able to pick up and go at any moment, you know.”
“Indeed.” I nodded sagely and sat up to look at him. “No plants, no pets, no girlfriends.”
Smiling, he said, “Nope. This went on for a while—him living there sometimes, me not kicking him out, but not adding him to the lease. Finally, one day, I returned to the house with some Tito’s Tacos.”
Settling back onto his shoulder, I said, “I love that place.”
“So does the cat. I went to the bathroom and returned to find that little shit whisker-deep in my dinner. I gave up, presented him with a taco of his very own, named him Captain Taco…and now he’s my liability.”
“Why didn’t you name him Tito?”
He scrunched up his mouth and considered it. “I thought he needed a moniker with a little more derring-do.”
“Do you call yourself Captain Sam when no one is looking?”
“Of course not. I’m an admiral.”
I burst out laughing and squeezed him tight. He wore a V-neck tee, and I played in the chest hair peeking out from underneath it. “Where did you live before LA?”
He went quiet. I continued playing. “New York,” he finally replied.
“City?”
“Yes.”
I sat up. “I’ve always wanted to live there. Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake choosing LA over New York. Maybe I would have made a better go of my career back East. But—” I sighed-laughed, “I wanted to run as far away from boring ol’ North Carolina as I could. I craved freedom and perpetual bikini weather.”
“I can understand that.” He rubbed my back in a lovely way. “I miss New York. That’s an art city. The only good thing about LA is the weather. And the cute girls.”
“By ‘cute girls’, you mean only me?”
“Of course.”
Of course. I was sure Sam had faced a lonely, celibate existence before I’d tripped into his life. It was nice of him to lie to me, though.
Shit—I was beginning to like the lying. Or perhaps over time I’d developed an immunity to it, like the Dread Pirate Roberts and Iocane powder.
“What was your favourite museum?” I asked.
“The Met. I would sometimes go to the Cloisters to sketch. You’d like it there.” A smile played on his face. “You’d like ‘The Unicorn in Captivity’ tapestry.”
“Poor unicorn.”
“Yup. Poor Samantha.”
I blinked wry eyes at him. He didn’t appear to be chagrined in any way, he just squeezed me harder.
I stayed on his lap for the rest of the flight, in very non-FAA-approved fashion. If we plunged to the cold ground I didn’t really see how a seatbelt would save my ass, anyhow.
Soon we descended into the smoggy air of Los Angeles. Fun fact—the smog of LA is comprised of nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and the desperation of one hundred thousand wannabe actors.
Now that I was home again, one hundred thousand and one.
Chapter Sixteen
You Have the Right to Remain Stupid
We spent the night in a mansion on a picturesque beach in Pacific Palisades. I didn’t bother to ask whose. All I really cared about at two a.m. was ripping off Sam’s clothes and sleeping off my booze until the unpleasant things went away. Temporarily, at least. I got my wish, but in the clear light of day, I realised twelve of my forty-eight hours had elapsed.
“Good morning,” murmured Sam, gloriously naked and looking hot enough to commit burglary with.
“Merry Christmas.” I gave him a big sloppy kiss.
“Merry Christmas. You have morning breath.”
“So do you.”
We snuggled for a while, not breathing on each other, until he shuffled into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, donned a robe, gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and left for parts of the house unknown.
With a sigh, I hefted my weary, slightly hungover self out of bed and brushed my teeth.
I scrambled into my own giant, red, fluffy robe—like the ones you find in hotel rooms—only this one I’d found in the antique armoire of our bedroom. Sam had brought my Las Vegas things with him, but on Christmas morning, a satin and lace confection would be just plain unwholesome. Big enough for two of me, the robe’s soft goodness almost made me feel as if I weren’t in a strange house, with strange people, plotting strange things.
Today could be like any other Christmas, where Dad popped a beer before noon, and Mom told me I didn’t look as good in the clothes she’d bought me as she’d thought I would.
Hmmm. Maybe I should reserve a Christmas slot at Casa Strange from now on. I’d prefer orgasms over angst-asms every time.
Sam returned to the bedroom as I was about to hunt him down. I bounced off his chest, and he shut the door behind him. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“Breakfast,” I mumbled.
“Presents first.”
He pushed me in front of him towards the bed. Now that was the kind of Christmas morning I could get behind. But instead of unwrapping me, he whipped a box from behind his back and thrust it into my hands. My eyes wide with surprise, I gasped, “I already got a stolen copy of Snakes on a Plane! I didn’t shop for you.”
He grinned. “Yeah, that’s because I’ve separated you from your home and debit card. I’ll let it slide this time. You can make it up to me next Christmas
.”
Next Christmas. I chose to ignore the implications of his remark, which were either that I’d still be on the run in a year or we’d be a couple. Maybe both.
“Or,” he continued, “you could put on the square dance dress for me again and let me teach you how to really do-si-do.”
“You still have the dress?”
“It’s sexy.”
“You stayed in North Carolina too long, friend.”
“I have a Dolly Parton fantasy—”
“I am not putting that on.”
“I won’t give you your present.”
“Good.”
“Fine.”
We sat in stubborn silence. Finally, he said, “Just the hat?”
So I put on the hat. Just the hat.
After quite a while—and Sam showing me exactly how to perform a ‘weave the ring’—I tore into the paper on my Christmas present. “A phone!”
“Please try not to dunk this one into the toilet. It has your same number. It surfs the Internet and stuff, too.”
I slid the lid off the box and cradled the fancy electronic gizmo in my greedy little hands. It came to full-colour life at the press of a button. “How did you manage that?”
He shrugged and sat beside me on the bed. “I said I was your husband and this was a secret gift.”
I peered at him—him who somehow knew my social security and account numbers. Nonplussed, he blinked back at me, dimple awash in winking innocence. “It’s the least I could do,” he said.
That wasn’t a lie.
At breakfast, a masterpiece of eggs Benedict prepared by dour Wendy, Jane sipped coffee without slurping and said, “Tomorrow night, Samantha will have to meet with Scott again and hand over a painting. I have Roger collecting everything we need, so for now I want the two of you to sit tight and stay here. Can you manage?”
“Yes,” replied Sam whilst shoving eggs into his mouth.
Jane nodded. “This afternoon, Sam will join Roger inside the building and switch the real painting with the copy. My guess is you’ll have no more than an hour until the fire department figures out the gas leak is a false alarm.”
The Dimple of Doom (Samantha Lytton) Page 18