A Dream to Cling To (10 page)

He laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. They’re only kids when I remember that I started college when they were still running around and skinning their knees.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-five, I think. Age has never had much bearing on what I do or don’t do, though, so I don’t ever pay much attention to it. Anyway, I’d like to see that Jill, Gary, and Tim are earning enough to make it worth
their while. Then I’ll turn it over to them and let them run with it.”

Brittany brushed aside the feeling of uneasiness that swept over her. “You’d leave the company?”

“Oh, I can never let go of things completely. I’d hang around and on occasion push my nose into whatever they were doing. Let them tell me to get lost. ‘Consult,’ as the pros say. But I’d look for another project, mostly.”

“Here in Windemere?”

Sam paused for just a moment before answering. He’d been in Windemere nearly eighteen months this time. That was a long time. Yet somehow the words didn’t spill out as quickly as they usually did when he talked about moving on. Something about Brittany was tugging at him. Besides the physical pull—and that was as powerful as dynamite—there was something different, a feeling of being connected to her—or understanding, or something crazy. Lord knew he’d never ended up in Shadyside before when he’d had a beautiful woman sitting beside him in the car! No, Brittany was different. He gazed into her clear green eyes and tried to make things fall into place. But the feeling remained. He shook his head and answered slowly, “No, probably not in Windemere, Brittany.”

“Where, then?” Her voice was low. She’d known him such a short time, yet the thought of him leaving was planting an inexplicable sadness in her. And it didn’t make an ounce of rational sense.

He shrugged. “I don’t ever make decisions far in advance. Things just kind of happen. When the time’s right, I’ll move on. There are a lot of things I’d like to do. Life’s so short, Brittany. And I like to keep what there is of it full.”

“But moving so often, pulling up roots …”

“There’s not much problem there because I never put
down
roots. Like this office.” His hand swept through the air. “It’s very hard for me to think in terms of permanent, Brittany. Jill and Tim are always on my
back to take time to settle in. I know I should—for their sake—but it doesn’t come naturally and seems to always take a backseat to something more pressing.”

Brittany pulled her thoughts together and concentrated on the cluttered room, a far easier target than the gnawing uncomfortableness of Sam’s wanderlust. “It could use a little organizing, Sam, it really could. Just a few homey touches …” In her mind she was already arranging and painting and filling the shadowy corners with lush green plants. She was filled with an irrational, urgent need to make the small office a permanent-looking place. A place Sam would like. “It wouldn’t take much, Sam. I could help.” She threw him what she hoped was a carefree grin. She was up out of the chair now, walking through the door into the other room, then back again, seeing things that weren’t there, but could be with little effort.

“Brittany, stop.” He followed her around, laughing. “You’ve far more important things to do than make sense of this mess. Like eating dinner with me, for example. I’m starving.”

But Brittany wasn’t listening. All her energy was directed on these three rooms. She’d discovered a wonderful cache of shelves hidden behind folding louvered doors in one room and was busy shoving boxes toward their future home.

“Here, Sam.” She handed him a letter opener. “Open these boxes and empty everything onto the shelves.” She glanced down at her watch. “Do you have a phone?”

He pointed toward the other room. “On the box near the window.”

She grinned and disappeared.

Sam bent down beside a box and puffed quietly on his pipe lost in thought of Brittany Winters. She wasn’t easy to anticipate or second-guess. But he liked that, among a
whole
lot of other things.

She was back in minutes, cheeks glowing and energy radiating about her. “Sam, at the rate you’re moving,
we’ll be here till Christmas. Here.” She knelt down beside him, her shoulder rubbing his side as she scooped out bags of playing pieces. “These go on the bottom shelf.”

He felt her body heat against his arm and inhaled the clean sweet smell of her fully and deliberately. In her soft wool slacks and that patterned sweater that emphasized the full curve of her breasts, she was all the decoration any office could possibly need. But she wouldn’t believe that, he decided, nor could he convince her to stay in that spot forever, so he took the plastic bags from her and smiled. “Yes, boss.”

Her slim body moved in rhythmic motions back and forth across the room, up and down, dipping into boxes and thrusting the contents into his hands. “Sam,” she said quietly, her eyes intent on the boxes she was shoving into the hallway with the toe of her shoe, “how do you see the rest of your life?”

He looked up, surprised. “The rest of my life?”

She nodded and walked back into the room. “Do you see it as a series of moves from one thing to another as you wander across the world? Or is there a pot of gold somewhere that will lure you to settle down? Or—”

“Whoa! Those are a lot of soul-searching questions you’ve spilled out, my love.”

“Seriously, Sam.” She turned and threw some scraps of packing material into a trash bag. “I’m just curious. Is there something at the end of all this? Or does an end simply mean you find another beginning?”

He let the box he was lifting slide back down to the floor and picked his pipe up out of the ashtray. Every damn one of her questions was legitimate. But no one had ever asked him those things before and he’d never tried to put together answers. “I honestly can’t say, Brittany.” His voice was thoughtful. “I guess I don’t really think about life that way, so linear, with a beginning and end.”

“It’s chapters, then? Like in a book?”

“Maybe more like that, yes. Or maybe a book of short stories.” He watched her move some pictures and thought about what he had just said. It didn’t sound right. A book of short stories meant different characters in each. Then Brittany would be in only one, and he was slowly coming to think he couldn’t bear that. He shook his head. “No, erase that book of short stories. I need to think more about this one, Brittany. You’re taxing the old mind.”

She laughed uneasily and handed him a box to look through. “Maybe I’m being presumptuous, Sam, or too nosy.…”

“No, not that.” It wasn’t that at all. Brittany could ask him his soul’s secrets if she wanted to. But he couldn’t pursue the conversation any further right now for other reasons. Mostly because he hadn’t the faintest idea what the answers were anymore.

“Okay, Sam. You need to go through these.” She handed him a stack of loose papers and remained standing, looking down on him while he went through the stack, throwing some out and saving others. “See, Sam? You, too, can sort and trash.”

His long legs were stretched out in front of him now, his back flat against a filing cabinet. “Only with a benevolent dictator beside me.” He caught her hand and drew her down beside him. “Hmmm, there’s a glow about you, Brittany.”

“That’s dust, Sam.”

“Then it’s fairy dust, because it’s doing things to me.”

“Do you have to sneeze?” she teased, aware of the slow heat building between them. She unfolded her legs and stretched them out, too, one of her legs lined up alongside his body, their hips touching lightly.

“No, I don’t think I have to sneeze,” he said. “Although what I’m feeling is similar.”

She laughed a little self-consciously. His voice had grown unusually husky.

“Interesting.” She busied her hands stacking the papers he’d scattered across her knees and wrinkled her forehead in thought. “It’s caused by fairy dust … and makes you feel something like sneezing.… Hiccups, maybe?”

“Hiccups aren’t caused by fairy dust, Brittany. Everyone knows that.”

“Silly of me,” she said weakly. She stared at his shadowed chin, then bravely lifted her eyes to gaze into the gleaming depth of his. They spoke even more eloquently than his voice, which was echoing inside her. Does memory capture voices? she wondered fleetingly. “I heard about a lady who made a sculpture out of dust once. Is that what it makes you want to do?”

He shook his head. “It was lint, I think, that she used.” His hand slipped beneath the papers and massaged her thigh.

“Similar,” she said just as the stereo filled the room with the sounds of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. A deep rumbling hum from Sam’s throat echoed the staccatoed sound of the violins.

She felt the sound deep in her bones and delighted in it. “A classical hummer …” She raised her face to his and smiled, unafraid.

“I’ve been called worse,” he murmured as he lifted one hand and caressed her cheek. “Brittany …”

“I know,” she managed to whisper above the hammering of her heart. “It wasn’t a sneeze you felt at all.”

He leaned forward so he could look directly into her face. Her green eyes were shining and the soft tangle of her hair framed her flushed cheeks. He curled one hand around her neck and held her head gently. “Oh, Brittany, you are without a doubt the most beautiful creature I’ve ever known.” His breath caught in his throat and for a split-second Sam Lawrence felt a totally new, totally alien sensation rush through his body: the stinging wonder of tears. His slow smiled pushed
the feeling away, but he’d remember it later, the power Brittany had to move him in unexpected ways.

Searching his coffee-colored eyes, Brittany watched the play of his emotions. His eyes almost seemed to change color, then deepen in intensity until she felt mesmerized. “Sam …”

His fingers delved into her silky hair and he bit back a groan. She felt so
real
to him, so incredibly soft and perfect. Desire flared in his loins and he stiffened, fighting for control. “What, Brittany?”

“Are you … habit-forming?”

She shifted slightly when she spoke and her breasts rubbed lightly against his chest. “Oh, I hope so, sweet Brittany, I certainly hope so.” He closed the minuscule space between them until the feel of her smooth, pliant lips pushed talk and reason beyond his reach. Lord, he wanted her so badly he could feel it in every crevice, every nerve ending and tiny patch of skin. His kiss deepened with the force of his emotion and his tongue gently circled inside her mouth, dipping and tasting.

Brittany closed her eyes and let her whole body relinquish itself to the pleasure of his kiss. She wanted it to go on at least forever, an endless joining. The depth of her breathing pushed her breasts tight against him and she felt her nipples grow firm and hard.

“Hmmm,” he murmured into the heated space between their lips. “You fit just right.” His fingers slipped from beneath her hair and lightly grazed her cheek, then moved down until he rubbed gently against her breast.

Pleasure pounded through her, blurring the late afternoon sunshine filtering through the windows and the lovely strains of Beethoven still filling the quiet room. Only Sam’s touch and smell and the wonderful feel of his body was real.

“Ahem!”

Brittany heard the noise somewhere off in the distance, somewhere behind her. It was a disconnected noise, intruding into the moment.

“Anyone home?”

Sam reluctantly pulled himself away and looked over her shoulder to the open doorway.

She sat still and forced the dreamy fog away with deep breaths of cool air.

“It’s a jolly green giant,” Sam said softly into her ear, a slow smile crossing his face.

She half-turned, her body still enticingly close to his, and followed his gaze.

Two blue-jeaned legs stuck out from beneath a huge ficus tree. Between the branches the freckled face of a young man peeked out.

“Knock knock.”

“Clyde!”

“Hi, Miss Winters. How’re things?” The plant was dropped to the floor unceremoniously, revealing a skinny, grinning teenager.

“You two have met?” Sam pulled himself up from the floor and looked from Brittany to the fellow sticking his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans.

“Yeah, I know Miss Winters real good. Since forever.”

“Clyde …” Brittany began. Her hands went to her cheeks in an attempt to nonchalantly cool away the heated blush. “Clyde Johnson from Johnson’s Greenhouse, Sam. Hello, Clyde.” She reached for Sam’s hand and pulled herself up beside him.

Clyde looked down at the floor. “Sorry I’m late, Miss Winters. Couldn’t get the truck started.” He looked back up and grinned at Sam. “It’s twenty-one years old. A Ford. Can you believe she still runs?”

Sam shook his head obligingly. “Amazing.”

“And it holds a forest, pretty near. Come here and see.”

Sam followed Clyde to the door and looked down the hallway. Two more ficus trees leaned against the wall, along with several hanging ivies, a schefflera, and a few potted flowering plants.

“Well, Clyde,” Sam said, “you seem to be right about
the forest.” His thoughts circled back to Brittany and how perfectly she had fit in his arms.

Brittany glanced beyond the two men, and when she did, her head seemed to clear. “These are just fine, Clyde. Really nice. Let’s bring them on in.”

“The forest is coming in?” Sam asked slowly, forcing his attention back to the mounds of living greenery just outside his doorway.

Brittany turned smiling eyes toward him. “Yes, Sam. Besides being good for the air, these plants will be just the right touch for your office. Trust me.” She lightly fingered a leaf on the ficus tree and rubbed off a spot of dust, then lifted the tree and carried it over to a window.

Good for the air? Sam repeated silently. What he needed now was something good for calming the fires Brittany Winters had lit within him. Plants somehow didn’t seem to be the answer. “But I didn’t—”

“No. I called before and arranged it with Mr. Johnson. And Clyde was happy to bring them over. Don’t say a word, Sam, until you see how they look.” The air was finally cooling and Brittany felt her voice leveling off.

“But—”

“I’ll show Jill or Gary how to take care of them. You won’t have to worry about a thing.”