Chapter Three
Sami stood silently at the bedroom window, watching the first tinge of light break free of the dark horizon. Sometimes she thought she had seen every sunrise of her life, but she knew she hadn’t. It only seemed as if she had. The labyrinth in her mind that held her pain and fear made sleep at night nearly impossible.
A sigh of relief escaped her lips. The sun was coming up, and the night’s terrors had receded. It was time to go home, but first she had to thank Daniel. Already dressed in her clean but rumpled clothes of yesterday, Sami made her way to the kitchen.
Mrs. Abbott hadn’t yet made her appearance, so Sami helped herself to whatever struck her fancy. She found a tray and covered it with a pristine white linen napkin, then put a bowl of fresh strawberries, two glasses, and an opened bottle of champagne on it.
Sami stood back and looked at the tray. Something was missing. She picked up the bottle of champagne and took a swig out of it, giving serious consideration to the tray. "Oh, I know!" she told the empty kitchen. Rummaging through the kitchen drawers, she found a pair of scissors, then raced outside to the gardens to find exactly what she was looking for: a rosebud, barely beginning to open and covered with dew.
Entering Daniel’s still-dark room, Sami hesitated only an instant before setting the tray down at the foot of the bed and walking briskly to each window to thrust back the heavy drapes.
"What the . . .?"
Turning, Sami saw Daniel struggling up from the depths of his bed. His only cover, a sheet, fell to below his waist, exposing most of his bare torso with the fine network of hair making its way down his lean body to just above the groin, where the sheet began its concealment.
Swallowing hard, she murmured, "Good morning."
Daniel was instantly awake. "What’s wrong?"
"Nothing." It was hard to be conscious of anything except his splendid masculinity. And his hair. She at last knew what he looked like with it touseled—overwhelmingly sexy. "I was about to leave, and I wanted to say good-bye."
Sitting up, Daniel pulled the sheet up to his waist, watching her as she walked with an unconscious grace across the room to the tray. "You didn’t get any sleep last night, did you?"
"Why would you say a thing like that?" Sami hedged, placing the tray across his lap.
He didn’t look at the tray. "Because I only fell asleep a little while ago myself. I spent the night listening to you walk the halls."
Sami sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping her eyes away from his disconcerting gaze. "I’m sorry, Daniel. I really am. I didn’t realize I was disturbing you."
He stretched his hand out to beneath her chin, nudging her head up until she raised her eyes to his. "What was bothering you so much that you couldn’t sleep, Sami? I kept hoping you’d come to me and tell me."
His voice was so gentle and his blue eyes so dark with concern, it was almost enough to make Sami wish she could tell him. Then she remembered what Sergeant Johnson had said about Daniel’s expertise in the courtroom. Eliciting information from witnesses was what this man did best, and she had to be on her guard. "N—nothing. Perhaps it was the unfamiliar surroundings."
He dropped his hand. "You’ll probably sleep better in your own bed."
Sami remained silent, plucking at the sheet.
"Sami?"
"Yes?"
"You do have a bed, don’t you? Someplace where you sleep?"
"Of course," she said, thinking of her big brass bed, which she had found in a secondhand shop and lovingly restored herself. It was so high that she had to have a step stool to climb up on it, and it sat on a platform underneath a huge skylight. All of that being so, why, then, she wondered, wasn’t she looking forward to sleeping in it again?
Daniel ran his hands through his hair. "Damn it, Sami! I wish you’d tell me where I can get in touch with you. I want to know you’re going to be okay when you leave here."
On impulse, Sami took his hand in hers, wanting above everything else to reassure him. "You’ve done so much for me already. Please don’t worry. I’m going to be fine."
His hand tightened around hers, giving her nervous system a sudden jarring. "I wish I could believe that."
Sami smiled. "You haven’t even looked at your tray."
He didn’t smile. "How could I, when I had you to look at?"
"But I thought you’d enjoy the strawberries and champagne," she murmured weakly.
With a hand still holding hers, he moved the tray to one side. "I hardly ever eat strawberries and drink champagne for breakfast. Do you?"
"I don’t usually eat breakfast."
With his hold on her hand, Daniel drew her forward until she lay on his chest, and could feel the steady, rapid beat of his heart against the erratic pounding of her own. Then he folded his arm up, bringing her hand to the warmth of his neck.
"W-what happened to your practice of keeping a professional distance between yourself and your clients?"
"I’m not sure," he muttered. "All I am sure of is that I have wanted very badly to kiss you since yesterday, and now I’m going to." Very slowly he lowered his head until their lips were just touching. Going at a very easy pace, exerting no pressure, he moved his head back and forth, grazing her lips lightly with his own. Nerve endings sprang to life where previously she had thought there were none, and a strange heat rushed to places where there had never been heat before—and all because Daniel Parker-St. James was kissing her.
His lips moved to the corner of her mouth, kissing the tiny crease he found there, and then played across her jaw to behind her ear. Sami moaned at the new, pleasurable feelings running riot through her body, when never in her life had she moaned in such a way before.
At the sound, Daniel’s hands tightened on her arms, and he brought his mouth back to hers with a new force. Pushing against her lips, his tongue sought entry, running back and forth until she sighed at the sensuality of it, and at last, opened her mouth completely to his. The sensations were electric, and Sami involuntarily pressed into him.
His mouth was warm and moist, and there was nothing whatsoever rough about the caress, nothing about it that should have frightened her the least little bit, yet she was frightened.
Sami put her hands against him, meaning to push away, but her hands encountered the tantalizing texture of his chest hair, and instead they curled susceptibly into it.
"Sami. . ." Her name was no more than a husky breath on his lips. He stirred, pulling her tighter into him, and she felt the sheet shift so that only her clothes separated them from complete contact. The hardened proof of his arousal pressed against her stomach, and Sami shuddered with an answering response of longing. "You taste like champagne." He paused for a long, melting kiss. "I thought you said you didn’t drink."
"I don’t as a rule . . ." She gasped as his mouth traced over to her ear and he ran his tongue into it. ". . . but occasionally I drink champagne for celebrations."
"What are we celebrating?" he breathed huskily into her ear.
"It’s morning.’’
"Of course. I should have thought of that myself," he murmured, running his lips back over her cheek to her mouth.
"And besides," Sami added breathlessly, "champagne doesn’t burn when it goes down; it sparkles."
His words mingled with hers. "What a logical explanation."
The kiss deepened, the day brightened, and Sami tried to forget her fears. Daniel’s hands were roaming over her body, igniting surges of hot excitement everywhere he touched. Up and down her spine his hands traveled, moving her clothes against her skin, the friction of it rapidly bringing Sami to a level of desire where she had never been before.
His hands slid under the waist of her camisole, and his gentle touch on her skin sent frissons of fire skidding along her veins. His long fingers reached to below her breasts, their feathery strokes making Sami arch against him with a gasp, which he caught in his mouth.
But some remnant of reason in the far reaches of her brain told
her it had to stop before it was too late. Too much had happened to her in too brief a time, and she wasn’t ready for it.
Forcing herself, she pulled her head back slightly and broke the contact with his lips. She wasn’t yet strong enough to leave his arms, though, so she simply lay her head on his shoulder.
"Sami?" His fingers gently combed the hair back from her face, and she raised her eyes to his. "You’re leaving, aren’t you?"
Sami nodded, her eyes a liquid gold.
"Tell me where you’re going," he demanded quietly. The thickness of her lashes swept down, blocking his view. "Talk to me, Sami. Tell me what’s going on inside that beautiful head of yours. I need to know."
His voice was soft and mesmerizing, and Sami could well imagine to what effect he could use it in a courtroom. In a movement so swift he couldn’t stop her, she was out of his arms and off the bed.
"I’ll get in touch with you. I promise." She looked at him once more. There was such a strength about him. She wanted to rush back into his arms and never leave. But that was impossible. "Good-bye," she whispered.
Downstairs she called a cab and then quietly left.
Sami entered the warehouse by a side entrance and walked to the freight elevator with a sense of coming home. She hadn’t even been gone twenty-four hours, yet so much had happened to her, it seemed like a lifetime.
The elevator lumbered to a stop on the second floor, and the heavy metal doors opened into a hallway. To her right was the apartment Morgan had lived in before her marriage to Jason. It was now empty. To her left was her workshop, where she indulged her latest hobbies. Directly in front of her was her own front door, painted with a glorious bouquet of daffodils. It was her practice to repaint the door with every change of season or whim, whichever came first.
Her loft was one enormous room, over several thousand square feet in area, and divided only by platforms and an occasional screen. Slowly turning ceiling fans were suspended from twenty-foot-high ceiling beams, and beneath them, the original oak floor gleamed with polish.
Old gas-light poles wired for electricity stood around the room, serving as additional points of demarcation and providing light, along with the huge skylight over her brass bed and the high windows across the length of one wall, some of them leaded glass panels, which had been rescued from a soon-to-be demolished church.
Just inside the door, a six-foot-tall, cigar-store wooden Indian stood poised, and Sami dropped her carpetbag over one of his outstretched arms. Already a hat and several strings of beads hung on him. Anxiously, her eyes scanned the loft, lighting on the pots of once-scraggly plants she had fished out of trash cans and brought back to life, and the scarf-laden tables sitting amongst her beloved antique salon sets that were still upholstered in their original, but now faded, jewel colors. Latch-hook tapestries decorated the walls, and an old porch swing that had been painted white hung from the ceiling on white chains.
Sami gave a little smile, reassured that everything was just as she had left it. She had made the loft uniquely her own, loving and cherishing things that other people had discarded, forming them into a world of her own where she could feel safe.
Turning her attention back to the stoic wooden figure of the Indian, she folded her arms and tilted her head to one side. "Well, what do you think? Is there any way that I can get out of it?" Sami carefully studied the impassive face for a moment and finally sighed. "That’s what I was afraid of. And you’re right, of course. As much as I dread it, I might as well get it over with."
Padding over to a section of the floor where a brass handle protruded, she stomped three times as hard as she could and waited until she heard three answering raps. Sinking to her hands and knees, she lifted the brass handle, and up came a trap door.
"For the love of God, Sami! Where have you been?"
Sami stuck her head through the hole, holding her hair to one side. A young man, tall and lanky, with sandy-colored hair and pale blue eyes, stood in the middle of his living room, looking up at her through his tortoise-rimmed glasses. With his hands planted firmly on his hips, he depicted for all the world an outraged mother facing her intractable child.
"Hi, Jerome. Were you worried?"
"Worried!" he exploded. "Where the hell have you been? Morgan and I have been half out of our minds."
"Oh, no! Morgan shouldn’t be worried in her condition. It might hurt the baby in some way."
"You should have thought of that earlier. Morgan called me last night, looking for you, and I had to tell her that I didn’t know where you were. Besides"—he scowled—"what about the one hundred and five new gray hairs you put on my head last night? Doesn’t it count that I was worried, too?"
Jerome must really be upset, Sami reflected ruefully. He was getting belligerent. "Of course it counts, Jerome." She tried to pacify him. "You know I didn’t mean to worry you."
"Then, I suppose you wouldn’t mind sharing with me just exactly what you did mean to do."
Now he was getting sarcastic. She decided to change the subject. "Shouldn’t you be in school?"
"It’s Saturday, Sami. Do you wonder why I worry about someone who can’t even keep up with what day it is? Besides, changing the subject isn’t going to do you one bit of good. I’m going to call Morgan, and then I’m coming right up."
"Do you want me to let the rope ladder down?"
"No!" he bellowed. "If I expend some of this anger running up the stairs, just maybe I won’t want to kill you when I get to you." He pointed a warning finger up at her. "You stay right there."
As it turned out, both Jerome and Morgan arrived simultaneously. Bursting through the unlocked door, they found Sami sitting by the trap door, cross-legged, with her head resting on her hands.
Radiantly lovely, with her pregnancy just beginning to show, Morgan’s blue-green eyes broadcast her concern for her friend. "I couldn’t wait by the phone one more minute. I had to come over. What in the world happened to you anyway?"
"For heaven’s sake," Sami grumbled, rising to her feet and shutting the trap door with a bang, "you’d think I had never stayed out all night before."
"You haven’t," they both chorused.
"That’s not true, " she denied vehemently. "There was that night last spring."
"You were on the roof watching the eclipse," Jerome stated wearily, "with a floodlight beside you. I knew where you were."
"Well, then there was that time I slept over with—"
"Me," Morgan finished for her. "Just next door. And we didn’t sleep. We sat up and talked all night. Honestly, Sami, you hardly ever go out after dark by yourself. Don’t you think we thought of everything? We checked with all the hospitals, and we were going to give you one more hour before we called the police."
Oh, great, Sami thought. "The police. Thank goodness they hadn’t called them."
"So tell us," Jerome ordered.
"Okay, okay." She plopped down on a Victorian love seat. Its ruby, cut-velvet upholstery was worn, but in Sami’s mind, its character more than made up for its dilapidated condition. "It’s really very simple, nothing to get excited about at all," she told them airily, conveniently forgetting her terror of the day before. "I was arrested, that’s all."
"Arrested!" Morgan and Jerome cried out with one voice.
Sami began twisting a long blond curl around her finger while she tried to explain. "See, I got this great idea about picketing Strucely Furs, because I had read how baby seals are slaughtered for their skins. Honestly, it would make you both really sick if you heard how those poor babies are hit over the head—"
"Sami!" they both exclaimed.
"Okay, okay. Well, Mr. Strucely got upset, and so did the lady with the fox heads, and my picket sign accidently slipped and hit his head, which was quite bald, and then the police came and took me down to the station."
Morgan sat down on a duchess bench covered with faded gold velvet. "What happened then?"
Starting on another curl, Sami continued her story. "
They were going to lock me up, but of course I told them that couldn’t happen."
"And I suppose they understood," Jerome interrupted.
Sami took a moment to glare at him for his patent disbelief. "Not exactly, but it turns out that there was a lawyer there. He was so nice, and he managed to get me out with no trouble."
"I realize this is probably a stupid question, considering the fact that you never use the phone, but why didn’t you call one of us?" Morgan asked.
"You couldn’t have done anything, and I didn’t want to get you upset. Jerome was in school, and I couldn’t think how to get in touch with him. Besides, he’s not a lawyer yet. Besides, as you said, I never use the phone."
"So who was the lawyer?" Jerome asked.
"Daniel Parker-St. James."
"Daniel Parker-St. James." Morgan and Jerome echoed in perfect unison.
Sami looked at them. "Have you two been practicing?"
Morgan turned to Jerome. "She’s done it again."
"How did you get the great man to represent you?" Jerome asked curiously.
"He must have been there on other business"— Sami shrugged—"but he said he would help me."
Jerome gave a whistle. "Wow! He’s been a guest lecturer at the university, and for my money, there’s nobody in the country better, despite the fact that he comes from a socially prominent family. His practice is enormously successful, and I’ve even heard it mentioned that he might run for the U.S. Senate one day. With his brilliance, charm, and money, the sky’s the limit."
"I know," Sami said bleakly, remembering his perfect home, his perfect clothes, and his perfect closet.
"You still haven’t told us where you were last night," Morgan reminded her.
"At Daniel’s." Sami completely missed the flabbergasted expression on her friends’ faces. "I knew Jerome had a date, and I just couldn’t face this place empty. Not after what I had gone through. I was so upset that I forgot I could have gone over to your house, Morgan."
For the Love of Sami Page 4