Web of Smoke (5 page)

Rough and warm, his thumbs caressed the tender skin behind her ears. For Christie, breathing became an exercise of sheer will.

His legs pushed against hers as his tongue drew slow, soft circles on her lips. A parched flower in a sudden spring shower, she drank in his passion, blooming with color and perfume.

He dragged his mouth from hers, tasting the hollow under her brow, the smooth white skin of her throat. His face, silky sandpaper against her nerves.

She’d missed him so much.

He whispered to her, words she didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand, as he blazed back to her mouth. His hands roamed wildly over her body, stopping at the soft mounds of her breasts, moving on to the tantalizing valley of her stomach. Restlessly, they traveled to her back, her shoulders, her face.

“I should’ve never let you go,” he murmured. His breath plumed, mingling with the fog.

She clenched her eyes against his words, fighting the wave of memories that his kisses started, and his words ended. The same touch that had felt safe only moments ago now frayed, leaving her dangling over a precipice of confusion and fear.

What was she doing here in his arms? Anger and bitterness rushed at her with the roar of the tide.

Jerking away from him, she wiped his taste from her lips with an angry swipe. She shivered as the night air replaced the heat of his body.

“You didn’t let me go, Sam,” she said in a voice that cracked with pain. “I left you.”

Chapter Five

Sam closed the door behind them, dropped Christie’s bag with a resounding thump, and banged his way to the kitchen. He returned a moment later with a bottle of Corona clenched in his hand. His suppressed anger hummed like an electrical current. It made her want to hover at the door, far away from its flow.

Squaring her shoulders, she stepped inside and eyed the living room, letting Sam stew in his own temperament. The place hadn’t changed much since the first time she’d seen it. His furnishings were simple and comfortable. Earth tones. Plump cushions. Few knick-knacks to clutter the lines. Very Sam.

She stared at the healthy green plants hanging from hooks in the ceiling, their limbs swaying in the drafts. On the windowsill, cactus flowers dozed, semiclosed in the bright moonlight. A baby palm stood at attention against the wall between the dining and living rooms. Plants didn’t like Christie much. In fact, the ones she’d attempted to grow had withered and died, just like her marriage.

Her gaze flitted to Sam, noting the brooding expression in his eyes. He’d always been this way. Sam was both the most gentle and the most ruthless man she’d ever met. He would never hurt her physically, but, when sparked, his temper ignited like a fire. Sometimes it flickered and died. Sometimes it roared, charring everything in its path to ashes.

Invariably, though, it sparked her own.

“Are you just going to stand there?” he demanded.

“No, Sam,” she said, yanking her bag off the floor. “I’m not going to stand here. I’m getting out.”

“The hell you are.”

He slammed his beer bottle onto the table and crossed the room. She flinched back from the suddenness of his move. A frosty gleam entered his eyes.

“Don’t start those mind games with me, Christie. I’ve never hurt you.”

“Not physically anyway.”

“You left your share of scars, too.”

She shook her head, giving him a disgusted look. “Why is it you’re mad, Sam? Because I didn’t get swept away with the moment and the moonlight and forget everything else? Because I came to my senses?”

An angry flush darkened his cheeks and tightened his jaw. He stared at her without answering.

“It’s going to take a lot more than a few kisses to change my mind about you, Sam McCoy. Let’s get that straight right now.”

He glared at her a moment longer, then turned his back and grabbed his beer, draining it in one long swallow. He got a fresh one and opened it.

“You fight mean,” he said, offering a second bottle to Christie.

“I learned from the best.”

Her fingers touched his as she reached for the beer. She jerked her hand away as if shocked by a spark. In a sudden silence that pressed against her eardrums, Christie looked everywhere but at Sam. Stiff-legged, she moved to the opposite side of the room.

“Don’t worry,” he snarled. “I won’t touch you again. You can sit down.”

She wasn’t worried about that. What worried her was the knotted tension inside her that made her long to turn back the clock and do things over. She wished her temper would burn out the ashes of her dead feelings for Sam, but each time she looked into his dark eyes, the embers smoldered as if fanned by a hot breath.

“I’d rather stand,” she mumbled.

A breeze clattered against the blinds and billowed them inward. Christie stood in its path, grateful for its cooling touch. She breathed deeply, hoping for a lungful of sanity with the fresh night air. She’d made a grave mistake in coming here. She should have listened to her instincts when they’d warned her not to.

“Look—” Sam began, interrupting her thoughts. “I’m sorry. You just make me so damned mad.”

She spun to face him. “That’s not so hard to do, Sam.”

He smiled ruefully, the flame of anger flickering out as quickly as it had kindled. He caught her off guard, his lopsided grin unraveling a few more seams in her threadbare coat of composure.

“You’re right. I don’t have any reason to be mad at you. It’s just that seeing you again made me start missing you more than usual and—”

“Please don’t talk like that, Sam. We’re through. How much clearer do I have to make it?”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “I don’t know how you could make it any clearer.”

“Then why won’t you listen to me?”

“Because I know you still love me,” he said, approaching her.

“Loved, Sam. As in past tense. As in not anymore.”

“I don’t buy it.”

He stepped close to her and his clean, musky scent distracted her from what he said. She fought the urge to step back and forced herself to concentrate on his words instead of the way his full lips formed them.

“I know I still get to you,” he said in a low, husky voice.

“Oh, you get to me all right, Sam,” she answered with false bravado. “You make me sick.”

He moved closer still, his body nearly touching hers.

One deep breath and her breasts would brush against the hard muscles of his chest.

“I make you sick? That’s not how it feels to me.”

The heat of his body burned through the ineffectual barrier of her clothes. She stared him down, refusing to remember how his hands had felt on her body. She concentrated on her anger.
Focused
on it.

“I can’t believe how conceited you are. The only thing I feel for you is disgust.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Who cares?”

Angrily, she pushed away from him, not caring if he considered it a retreat. She needed space. She needed to think.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Bully me because you didn’t get your way. Because I didn’t fall into your arms and beg you to stay with me. Grow up.”

He watched her through narrowed eyes, the assured smirk vanishing from his lips. “Grow up? Coming from you, that’s a good one.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I think I’ve finally figured you out, Chris. It’s taken a damn long time, but I’ve got your number now. You pretend better than anyone I know. If you don’t like the way something goes, no problem. You just sweep it under the rug. Pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“You’re crazy.”

“So you keep telling me. But if I’m so crazy, then maybe you could explain why your
burglar
would come back to a house he knew was empty?”

He caught her off guard again with this backward twist in conversation. She searched for a retort, then settled for evasion.

“How should I know? Besides, I don’t owe you any explanations. I don’t owe you a thing. In case I haven’t made myself clear, I don’t want you involved. No, let me rephrase. I don’t want to be involved with
you.
I wouldn’t have even called you tonight except the police insisted when I told them I’d go to a hotel—”

“A hotel?
You weren’t even going to call me?” he exploded.

“It’s not a federal offense,” she said.

“Yes, it is. For
my
wife it is, dammit!”

“I’m not your wife anymore, Sam.”

“I don’t remember signing any divorce papers.”

“Technicality.”

“Gotta snappy answer for everything, don’t you?”

“No, Sam. Quick comebacks are your line. I’m just trying to keep up.”

Another weighted silence captured them, making them both realize they’d been shouting. Sam paced away from her, his aggravation reflected in his tense steps. He turned and they glared at each other from opposite sides of the room. Opposite sides of a chasm of hurt and lies.

“You hate me, don’t you, Christie? Haven’t you ever heard of forgive and goddamn forget?”

She could feel the blood rush to her face as her anger overcame her awareness of his lean body and rugged features. “Did you expect me to forgive you, Sam?” she demanded. “Did you?”

Jabbing a finger in his direction, she insisted, “Is that what you expected? Is it?”

His silence answered for him.

“It is,” she mocked. “Let me tell you a little story, Sam. Maybe you can figure out why I’m not interested in
‘forgive and goddamn forget.’
Do you want to know why I didn’t tell you when my mother died? Do you?”

“If that’s where you want to start.”

“I think it’s appropriate, since that’s where it all ended.”

He frowned his confusion at her.

“She died four months ago, Sam. More specifically, she died on the same day you chose to destroy our future together.”

She watched with satisfaction as he paled under his glowing tan.

“That’s right,” she said coldly. “I was at work when I got the call. At first, I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. She’d been in a car accident.”

Sam drained his beer and got another one.

“Trying to get drunk, Sam?”

He popped the cap and took a long drink. “Maybe.”

“They wanted me to identify her,” Christie said, keeping her voice low and controlled, so it wouldn’t crack with the emotions tearing her apart inside. “I tried calling you first. At your office. When no one answered, I thought you must be giving a lesson. So I called the pro shop and asked them to check the range, but they couldn’t find you.”

Her voice sounded flat, unconnected to the pain her words caused both of them. “I wanted you to go with me. We’d just had that fight, but I still wanted you with me. Eventually, I gave up and went alone.”

Sam sank to the couch. His hands dangled between his knees, absently passing the Corona back and forth. She couldn’t see his face anymore. Whether it was a blessing or a curse, she didn’t know.

Taking a deep breath, she continued. “She’d been badly burned.” Hot tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back. “They told me she’d driven into a telephone pole. Wrapped the car
around
it. The gas tank exploded on impact. When I got back home, I tried calling you again. This time the line was busy.”

She stared at his bowed head. Slowly, he shook it, as if denial could make the past disappear.

“I called the operator to break in. She told me your phone was off the hook. I wasn’t surprised. After all, I’d seen your office. Half the time you’re lucky to
find
your phone. It didn’t seem strange to me that you’d knocked it off the hook and not known it—”

“Christie, don’t.”

“Don’t what? I thought you wanted to hear this story.”

“I figured out how it ends. You don’t need to tell me.”

“You know the ending? You know how it felt for me to walk in on you? To come looking for a shoulder to cry on? Strong arms to hold me? Only to find they were already taken?”

“Stop it, Christie. If I could do it over, believe me, I would. I’d be there for you. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m sorry. I screwed up and I paid for it. I’m sorry.”

The agony of telling her story doused the vengeance that had sparked the flame. Now she felt empty and very alone.

“No, Sam. I’m the one who’s sorry. Sorry that your apology means nothing to me.”

She looked away, setting down her untouched beer.

“I didn’t tell you to make you feel like scum, Sam. You wanted to know, there it is. I’ve dealt with it. But if you think I can forgive it, think again. As for forgetting—believe me I’ve tried.”

“Have you, Christie?” he asked, looking up with a twisted smile and cynical gleam in his eyes. “I think you’re fooling yourself. I don’t think you ever even considered trying to forget. I think a part of you was glad I fucked up.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I don’t think so. Marriage scared you shitless. Having to share with someone else was something you couldn’t deal with.”

“You think I should have been willing to share my husband?”

“You’re hell with the one-liners, babe. But it’s the one-on-one you’ve got problems with.”

Her lips moved silently over her retort, but her voice abandoned her. Confusion kept her rooted to the floor when she wanted to leave. To run away from him and his accusations.

“You know I’m right,” he said softly. “I never meant to hurt you, Christie. I only wanted to love you. But you wouldn’t let me.”

He drained his beer and set the empty bottle on the coffee table with concentrated care. When he looked up, his eyes gleamed with darkness and his smile held no humor.

“Who knows? Maybe you couldn’t love me back. Maybe it’s not in you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She’d meant to sound cold and flippant, but her voice quivered across the room, full of ache and bewilderment.

“I know you don’t, Christie. You’ve never understood me any more than I have you. I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

With that, he began unfolding the couch and making the sleeper into a bed. Without warning, she found herself on the other side of a table she hadn’t even realized he’d turned. She stared at him, trying to put a conclusion to this ending.