A Dream to Cling To (16 page)

She was wide awake now, her eyes open and a tiny smile playing around her lips. “I didn’t …”

He just nodded, capturing her heart again with the loving smile that spilled from his eyes. “But then I did this.” He slipped back the sheet and cupped her breast in his hand, slowly teasing it to hardness. “And this.” His lips lowered and sought hers hungrily, tasting her, wanting her, loving her.

“Oh, Sam,” she said breathlessly as she finally inched away from him and looked with pure longing into his eyes. “You dropped into my life when I wasn’t looking. And now that you’re here, I don’t know quite what to do with you.”

“Love me,” he said quietly.

And she did.

The early snow had covered the whole valley in quiet isolation.

When Brittany pulled her eyes open again hours later, the only sound in her room was that of a clean wind blowing through the pine trees and soft footsteps coming up the stairs.

Sam peeked his head around the corner. “Well, and the top of the mornin’ to you, sleeping beauty.” He walked on into the room carrying a large wicker tray. The most delicious aromas she had smelled in a lifetime wafted from it.

“Sam …” She smiled as she pushed herself up against the soft pillows, the sheet tucked neatly beneath her arms. Sam, who’d moved from her dreams to the doorway, and now walked slowly toward her through the muted morning sunlight. She blinked once to assure herself he wasn’t a vision. No, he was still there, every wonderful inch of him. He wore nothing but his blue jeans, the faded denim hung low on hips she had caressed. She swallowed hard and tore her gaze away from his tantalizing body to look up into his smiling brown eyes.

He was watching her watch him with obvious enjoyment.

“Sam, it’s you,” she said at last, the words hanging limply in the air.

“You were, perhaps, expecting the butler?” He drew his brows together and stiffened his body into his best servant pose, puffing out his broad chest.

Her sleepy laughter echoed through the room. “No, but I thought it might be just another incredible dream and I’d wake up with nothing but lovely memories.”

He slid the tray onto the bedside table and sat down next to her. “Does this feel like a memory?” he growled, one hand sliding beneath the cool sheet as he dipped his head and kissed her shoulder.

She could only shake her head, her breasts trembling at his touch.

“Or this?” He lifted his head to kiss awake each eyelid, then met her lips fully and lovingly. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her, the sight and smell and wonderful feel of her naked body. He remembered the sound of her sensual laughter as it had laced through their lovemaking, the way she had touched him and loved him. “I don’t think any dream or fantasy could compete with us, my darling Brittany.”

She spread one hand out across his chest and looked deeply into his eyes. “No, I don’t either, Sam.”

He sat still for a minute, reining in the desire to pull back the sheets, to love her again and again and again.

“What did you bring in with you?” she finally managed to ask, her own desire barely restrained.

“Breakfast, my love.” He smiled and lifted the over-laden tray to the side of the bed.

She eyed it in disbelief. “Sam,” she said slowly, “there wasn’t enough food left in my refrigerator to fill a coffee cup, much less that tray.”

“You’re a very astute, perceptive lady. That’s just one of the many things I love about you.” He kissed the top of her head, then sat down beside the tray.

“Where then?” She lifted the linen napkin and uncovered a basket of flaky croissants that smelled like they’d just emerged from the oven. Beneath a lid was a huge Belgium waffle, filled with sour cream and strawberries, and perfectly browned sausages. “Oh, Sam …”

“I deserve most of the credit, but not all of it,” he said modestly. “Kendrick’s bakery supplied the croissants and I persuaded Mr. Jackson from the market next door to open early so I could get the groceries. The rest is simply magic.” He winked and lifted a mug of steaming coffee into her hands.

“You went into town?”

He nodded. “But it was too early to call Gary with those changes, so you and I’ll have to go back later to ring him up, as they say over in Evergreen.”

“Sam …” She looked down at the delicious breakfast and her heart swelled. “You’re quite wonderful, you know.”

He simply watched her, his own heart filled with feelings that were strange and new and completely unexpected. They were far more complex than any game he had ever put together or puzzle he had solved, but the overriding joy with which this woman filled him was argument enough that the feelings were well worth figuring out.

After eating and showering and dressing in heavy wool sweaters that Brittany had unearthed from a large cedar closet, they were ready to find a telephone.

“There’s an old inn through the woods that’s closer than town,” Brittany said, “and it’s a wonderful walk.”

She grabbed his hand and they walked out the back door, heading for the woods.

The world was silent, coated with a gentle powdering of snow, the air crisp and lovely, and above it all the sun shone brightly.

Brittany couldn’t control the smile that crept across
her face without notice or provocation. So this was what the songs were about, and movies made, and books written, she thought. It was glorious! “A near perfect day, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Lawrence?”

He looked down into her shining eyes and drew her close. “You better watch the way you look at me, young lady, or we’ll never make it through these woods!”

“Hmmm.” She looked around at the matted leaves, then shook her head. “No, I guess it’s too wet here.”

His deep laughter spun sunshine through her heart. “Brittany Ellsbeth Winters, I’m surprised at you!”

“You’ve released a demon in me, Sam.” She growled playfully and hugged him.

The flirting was something new, a dangling of her womanhood out there in front of him, and he delighted in it.

“An angel,” he corrected her softly. “A lovely, sensuous spirit that surely came straight from heaven.” He breathed in the lovely smell of her hair and walked on, marveling at how perfectly she fit there at his side, more perfect than the parts of his games or the pieces of a puzzle. The canopy of branches laced over them, and they walked on quietly in the muted light, basking in the special feelings that their lovemaking had woven about them.

“Are these woods a part of your property?” Sam asked presently.

“Yes. The land was my grandfather’s, and it included the inn we’re going to. But Dad sold off that part of it years ago. My grandfather’s caretaker and his wife bought it and run it all year round.”

They continued walking together with the ease born of their intimacy. When the path narrowed and his hip rubbed against hers, she wound her arm around his waist and held him close. No words were needed to speak her happiness.

She noticed Sam’s easy happiness too. He held her to him, and dropped kisses in her hair when he ducked
beneath overhanging branches. It was all as natural as the untouched dew that surrounded them.

“Cold?” he asked at one point.

“No.” She’d never be cold again. The warmth Sam had filled her with had to be enough to last an entire lifetime.

“Smell, Sam. Smell these woods. Isn’t it wonderful? It’s the smell of my childhood and my youth. Every season has its own specialness, the fragrant newness of spring and the delicious, pungent leaves in the fall.”

“But not nearly as delicious as you.” He nuzzled the side of her neck until she giggled helplessly.

“But you’re right, Brittany, it’s a grand place.”

“And wait until you see the inn. I know you’ll be crazy about it too.”

She loved sharing this place with Sam, loved having him breathe in the same scents and hear the same woodland noises that had always brought her such joy. She looked around and wondered fleetingly if it could ever be the same here alone. Solitary walks through these woods had always been special to her. Now
alone
seemed full of emptiness.

But the thought didn’t fit into the beautiful day and she quickly banished it as she squeezed Sam’s waist and directed him onto the path that led to the inn.

A gust of wind riffled through her hair and as she brushed it back, her eyes shifted up to Sam’s face. At first his gaze seemed focused on the line of white cedar trees in the distance, but when she looked closer, she saw he was looking far beyond the trees and the woods. He was looking at something not within her sight, but much farther away. Another world, or a dream? The future?

She breathed in deeply to calm the disturbing effects of her thoughts and rubbed her cheek gently against the nubby gray wool of his sweater. He was here now and that was all that mattered today. She pressed one mittened hand against his cheek, and when he smiled
down at her she reached up and kissed him with an intensity that stilled the trembling of her lips and poured the warmth back into her limbs and her heart.

He responded immediately, his arms wrapping around her and his lips savoring the wonder of her.

“My woodland nymph,” he murmured. “I wish this could go on forever.”

She smiled and hoped he wouldn’t notice the moisture in her eyes. She’d give all she owned in the world if what he said could be true. A frozen moment in time. With forced lightness she shook her head and laughed. “Behave yourself. We’re here, you see. Civilization has intruded.”

The path broadened until finally the trees fell back and in the distance they saw the sprawling three-story inn standing grandly on a slight rise against the wintry sky. It was nearly picture-perfect, with the dusting of snow not yet melted, the freshly painted barns, and a horsedrawn carriage sitting on the circle drive in front of the inn.

Sam whistled softly through his teeth. “You know, Brittany, I’ve been to a lot of places, but you’re introducing me to a kind of beauty that I haven’t seen matched.”

“Isn’t it all in the eye of the beholder?” she half-teased, leading him through a small grove of trees and around to the front porch. “Perhaps you’re ready for this
kind
of beauty now, something without grandeur, just simple and natural.”

“Or perhaps you enhance what I see.”

“Perhaps …” She smiled again, then directed her attention back to the inn. “My grandfather said this was a tavern years ago.” She pointed up to the third floor with its shuttered windows and tiny porches. “And whatever went on on that third floor made it more popular than the general store.”

Sam laughed as he hugged her. “Want me to venture a guess? They probably needed a way to keep warm
through the New England winters. I know a better arrangement, how about you?”

She tilted her head back and her eyes met his, sharing lovers’ laughter. “Me, too, but I’ll never tell.” She clasped his hand in her soft mitten and walked on.

Sam’s gaze moved beyond the house to a scooped out area down near the edge of the east woods. “What’s that?”

Her eyes lit up. “That’s where I learned to ice skate. They’ll flood it soon and put up small warming sheds for the guests.”

“I never learned to ice skate,” he mused almost to himself. In his mind he could see laughing children and couples with their arms linked together gliding over the ice. “Maybe sometime we can try it.”

It was a vague statement, but Brittany heard it and tucked it away.
Maybe … sometime …

“You know, Sam,” she said as they mounted the wide snow-covered steps to the inn, “sometimes I think I love it here because it’s so unreal. So picture-perfect.”

“You mean like an escape?”

She nodded.

“I guess it could be that,” he said thoughtfully, gazing at the snow-tipped trees that rose in lines along the hill beyond the house. “Sometimes escapes aren’t all bad. I do my share of that. As long as we come back to real life in the end, it’s okay, the way I see it.”

And this weekend, Brittany wondered, was it an escape? And then in the end they’d come back to real life? To Sam chasing his rainbows and to her settling into her carefully planned days and nights. She sighed, knowing that whatever happened, she’d never be able to live in quite the same way. She was different because of Sam, no matter what.

The inn was bustling quietly with guests and Brittany showed Sam into the paneled library to make his call, then left him alone while she sought out her friends, Ida and Jack Plunkett, who ran the inn.

When he was finished repeating the copy corrections to Gary, Sam hung up the phone and looked approvingly around the library. Comfortable, well-used chairs, enough books to get one through a dozen snowy winters, and a fireplace piled high with kindling and fat logs. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and sighed contentedly. He’d stayed in elegant European homes, in hotels the size of small towns, in cottages along the Rhine, but nothing had prepared him for the improbable warmth he was finding here in these Maine woods. Or was it Brittany Ellsbeth Winters? Brittany
 … his
Brittany. He shook his head, but the sensation didn’t clear. The feeling that was rooting him to the plank floor overtook him with a vengeance now. Hell, this wasn’t a game at all. It wasn’t even funny. Being in love didn’t fit in any of life’s categories he had explored thus far. Uncharted woods, he thought. Guess it was time to do a little charting.