For the Love of Sami (11 page)

"I know. A little ridiculous in this day and age, wouldn’t you say? Oh, look. Daniel’s heading this way. Daniel!"

Sami turned to see him threading his way through the crowd, carefully balancing two glasses of mineral water.

"Daniel, over here!"

"Daniel, darling!"

He nodded in the direction of the two women who were calling to him, but he didn’t change direction. Reaching Sami, he handed her a glass, then put his free arm around her. "Sorry I took so long," he whispered intimately into her ear, and placed a reassuring kiss on her temple. "You okay?"

Sami smiled, a new surge of confidence infusing her because Daniel was again by her side. "I’m fine."

"Daniel! How are you? I haven’t seen you in the longest time."

"Clarice, Rebecca," Daniel acknowledged as the two women came up and gave him quick kisses despite the fact that he never took his arm from around Sami. "Are you enjoying yourselves this evening?"

"It’s getting better all the time," Clarice answered. Rebecca just grinned coyly.

"I’d like you both to meet Sami Adkins. Sami, this is Clarice Lampton and Rebecca Howard."

"How do you do?" Sami said politely.

Clarice nodded in a condescending manner.

"Hello," Rebecca responded absently, her entire attention on Daniel.

Blue-blooded snobs, Sami reflected bitterly. She had sought to avoid their type all her life. They made her extremely uncomfortable, these women who could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on their appearance and smugly look down their noses at those people they considered beneath their station in life—a station they themselves had done nothing whatsoever to attain or deserve.

Clarice addressed Daniel but briefly moved her eyes toward Sami. "There seem to be quite a few people here tonight whom I’ve never seen before." Her tone was one she might have used upon discovering that a mass of ants had arrived uninvited at her picnic. "Quite eclectic, wouldn’t you say? I suppose John must have invited some of that new artist’s friends."

Rebecca seized her chance as Clarice paused to look around. "We haven’t seen you around much lately, Daniel. Someone was saying just the other day at the club that you must have a big case going. Anything exciting?"

Before Daniel could answer, Clarice shuddered dramatically. "You have no idea how much I worry about your safety, Daniel. Honestly, you do insist on representing the most bizarre people!" Again she shifted her eyes ever so slightly toward Sami.

Snobbery of the worst kind, Sami thought, the kind that was not overt.

Clarice’s eyes seemed to look through Sami to the painting beyond her. "I must say some of this new stuff is rather hard to take. Have you gotten a good look at these paintings by this new person John is sponsoring? The work is simply ghastly."

"I think it’s very good," Daniel said. "That young artist John has discovered should go a long way."

"Well, of course," Rebecca quickly agreed. "As you say, the style is excellent, but the content is just too grim!"

Sami spoke up. "I think his art is exactly as it should be—free."

"Right." Amazingly, Daniel took up her thought. "The artist is free to paint whatever he likes, and we are free to interpret it however we like." He gave the two women a level, direct look. "I’ve always found that how a person interprets art depends basically on what’s inside of him or her."

After leaving the two women gaping, no doubt trying to figure out what Daniel had meant by his last remark, Sami and he wandered around the gallery. He introduced her to quite a few people and always made sure she was included in the conversation. No one was unkind to Sami. People wouldn’t have dared, with Daniel beside her, keeping a firm hold on her. Some of the men even admired her quite openly, and some of the women showed friendly interest.

At one point, Daniel introduced her to an older couple.

"Sami, I’d like you to meet some old friends of my family, Marian and Hardin Cushman. Marian and Hardin, Sami Adkins."

Hardin, dapper and wiry, with twinkling blue eyes and a silver mustache that matched the color of his hair, bent over her hand. "I’m enchanted, Sami. Absolutely enchanted. Daniel, I must compliment you on your excellent taste."

"My dear," Marian said, her acutely intelligent eyes roaming over Sami, "your dress is just beautiful, and it looks simply wonderful on you. Seeing you in it . . . you know, Hardin, doesn’t Sami remind you of someone?"

"I think you’re right. I just can’t quite place . . . ah, well, I suppose it’s not important. Sami, I can tell you’re a charming young woman in your own right, like a breath of fresh air. Daniel, what do you think of this new art? It’s exciting, isn’t it? It reminds me of Paris in the twenties, when Matisse, Miro, and Picasso were there. This fellow has the same quality in his work."

"I couldn’t agree with you more."

Sami listened to the conversation with only part of her mind. Marian and Hardin appeared to be very nice, but still, Sami didn’t feel comfortable. Something she had known from the first had just been reconfirmed for her. This was Daniel’s world —a world of high society and money. The very same world she had chosen to run from after her parents’ deaths.

During the ride home, Sami sat quietly in the corner of the big, luxurious car. She didn’t speak, she didn’t move, she didn’t even think. She was afraid to, because if she allowed herself to think, she might come to the conclusion that she should leave Daniel. And she wasn’t sure she could survive that.

Daniel pulled the car around the back of the house and parked it in front of the lighted, four-car garage. However, instead of opening his door, getting out, and coming around to help her out, as he usually did, he rolled down the window on his side and turned to study her for a moment.

Moonlight streamed in through the windows, throwing a pale illumination over her face and hair. Reassured that she wasn’t in total darkness, she turned her head slightly to catch the cooling breeze, which brought with it the seductive fragrance of newly turned autumn leaves.

Daniel lifted his arm along the back of the seat until his fingertips could touch the softness of her uncovered nape. "What’s wrong, Sami?" he asked quietly. "What’s upset you?"

Now, how do I begin answering that? Sami wondered sadly. There was just no way to do it but to start from the beginning, and she wasn’t sure she could.

Daniel’s voice was gentle as he began rubbing the knotted muscles at the back of her neck. "Your silences frighten me, Sami, because I don’t know where you go when you become so silent."

She turned to look at him. "I never go far, Daniel. There’s really no other place I want to be than with you."

"Then talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me what’s wrong."

If only it weren’t so hard to talk about, she thought despairingly. Looking away, she did her best to frame an answer that might make sense to him. "Have you ever in your whole life felt as if you didn’t belong? As if you were out of step with the rest of the world?"

"No."

"Then that’s the difference between us. I feel that way most of the time."

Stripping off his glasses, he placed them with an angrily restrained motion onto the dash, then slid across the seat to her, his voice suddenly harder than she had ever heard it before. "Did someone at the gallery say something to you?"

"They didn’t have to, Daniel. I just didn’t fit in . . . didn’t belong. I could see it in their faces."

"What you saw, my love, was pure, unadulterated jealousy. The men couldn’t take their eyes off you, and ninety-nine percent of the women would gladly have murdered to be able to look and dress like you. You were the most beautiful woman there tonight."

Just then a gust of wind wafted in the window, bringing with it the scent of Daniel’s after-shave. Sami ran her hand up his smoothly shaven cheek. "I’m glad you thought so."

Turning his lips into the palm of her hand, he glided the tip of his tongue along the sensitive surface. "As far as I’m concerned, I’ve never seen anyone or anything more beautiful than you." His voice had turned husky, causing a subtle warmth of feeling to trickle into the lower part of her body.

Her hand found its way into his hair, her fingers combing through the thickness of it, her fingertips feeling the shape of his head, then the strength of the back of his neck. Molding her shape against him, she took pleasure in the way they seemed to fit together.

He pressed his lips against her temple and whispered, "The fact that you don’t know how truly beautiful you are only makes you that much more so." He kissed across her face, stopping to rest his lips against each eyelid. "How you came to me is one of the few mysteries in life I haven’t figured out, but now that you’re here, I’ll never let you go."

Sami moved her head until she found his mouth, and slipped her tongue between his parted lips, exploring the inside of his mouth, hungry for detail. She felt his immediate leaping response, and then his arms came around her with a fierce passion, pulling her tightly against him.

"Damn these clothes," he muttered, his hands moving under her opera cape with a hot need.

"Let’s take them off," Sami suggested breathlessly.

"We will." He groaned, kneading her lace-covered breast with his hand. "We will." Her nipples made hard points against the exquisite material, making it easy for his thumb to find one of them. Slowly, the revolving strokes of his thumb rubbed the lace over the eager tip again and again. "We’ll go into the house in a minute . . . as soon as I can make myself let go of you." His lips and tongue sought and found hers again with an all-consuming concentration, as if he were trying to absorb her into him, and all the while his thumb kept grazing the lace over her. A wildfire engulfed her.

"I mean now," Sami whispered achingly, twisting against him with longing. "Let’s take our clothes off and make love right now. I don’t want to wait."

Daniel’s hands stilled on her body. His uneven breathing was a harsh sound in the night air. He pulled back slightly and looked at her with dazed amazement. "You mean here? In the car?"

"Why not?" she questioned huskily. She reached to unclasp the cape from around her neck and threw it in the back seat. Then, not letting go of his gaze, she began on the tiny buttons of her dress.

"Why not?" he agreed with a ragged hoarseness, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over the seat to join her cape. He moved the car seat back as far as it would go and started to undo the studs on his pleated shirt.

Sami finished unbuttoning her dress and sat up. Easing off her boots, she shimmied out of her panties and hose. At last, completely naked except for the champagne-colored fabric of the slip that fell sexily off her shoulders and clung excitingly to her breasts, she turned to Daniel.

He was ready for her. Taking her into his arms, he slowly lowered them both to the sumptuously fine leather beneath them. "What did I ever do before you came into my life?" he asked, right before his body possessed hers with a tender savageness that drove all of her fears and insecurities right out of her mind—at least for a little while. And it was a long time before either of them thought about going into the house.

#

Sami still couldn’t get used to actually waking up in the morning. After so many years of falling asleep at dawn and waking up some time after noon, morning was a revelation to her. Not that she awoke instantly, with great enthusiasm for the day, as Daniel tended to do. It still took her a considerable length of time to straighten out her thoughts to the point where she could discuss anything semicoherently.

Stretching, she smiled sleepily at Daniel and turned over, burrowing into the covers.

"No, you don’t, sleepyhead," Daniel said, turning her over toward him again. "You can’t go back to sleep. This is Sunday, and that means I don’t have to go in to work today."

"Good," Sami mumbled sincerely, if somewhat unintelligibly, not opening her eyes. "I’m really happy for you."

"Sami!" He shook her slightly. "Wake up, and let’s discuss what we’re going to do today."

She snuggled closer to him. "Go ahead and start the discussion without me. I’ll catch up later."

She heard the laughter in his voice as he threatened, "Okay, but if you fall asleep, you’ll be sorry." His palm cupped one shapely buttock and gently kneaded the softly pliant flesh. "I might have to spank you."

"Promise?" She wiggled her bottom against his hand.

"Sami!"

"Ummmm . . . that feels good."

He gave her bottom a light slap. "Pay attention."

She opened her golden eyes and placed a kiss at the base of his throat. "Yes, sir."

"That’s better," he said, rubbing the area he had just smacked, massaging the nonexistent hurt away. "Now, I thought we might go for a drive in the country and see the leaves."

"Boring. I love being in a car with you, but not when it’s moving."

"Sami!" She shut her eyes.

"Or we could spend the afternoon in the museum. I understand they have an interesting new exhibit."

"Dull," she pronounced with a wrinkling of her nose and a further maneuvering of herself into his hand. "Have I told you how good that feels?"

He gave her a little pinch.

"Ouch!"

"Okay, then, sleeping beauty, you make a suggestion."

"Let’s go to a flea market."

"I’m almost afraid to ask, but why would you want to go to a flea market?"

"Because they’re interesting and fun and you never know what you might find at one." Sami smiled to herself, thinking affectionately of Jerome and his stuffed birds.

"Okay," he acquiesced easily, "if that’s what you want to do, then that’s what we’ll do. Let’s get up and get dressed."

"Wait a minute!" Sami bolted upright, totally unconcerned about her lack of clothing. "I just remembered something."

"What?"

"I’ve got something I need to do this morning."

"No problem. We’ll do whatever it is first and then we’ll go to the flea market."

"No! That is, it’s something I’ve got to do alone. I’ll do it first and then come back here to get you."