A Vow to Love (14 page)

He hadn't meant to kiss her. He hadn't even meant to see her again. He sure as hell hadn't meant to have sex with her. And he certainly hadn't expected it to be the most thrilling, passionate sex of his entire life.

Okay, this was no time to be dishonest. He
had
meant to seduce her. He'd decided on it coldly and pragmatically as a solution to his own frustration. He just hadn't meant to get caught up in its trap. He hadn't meant for it to mean anything to him at all.

But she'd looked so inviting, so soft and feminine and downright sexy with that triumphant smirk of satisfaction on her face. She had been so willing, so responsive in his arms. He had taken pride in the mechanics of satisfying her, but more importantly he had felt a sense of wonder for the first time since he'd lost his own virginity a dozen years ago.

And somewhere between the first kiss and the final tumultuous explosion of their shared climax, Sam had realized that Penny was not going to be so easy to get out of his system. She'd sneaked into his heart and that, the experts were likely to say, was what had made the difference between this time and all the others. How it had happened was beyond him. They were nothing alike.

Maybe he just had a thing for winners, women who took what they wanted in life and exulted in it. Penny was such a woman. He had seen it in her face. He had felt joyous, but she had looked absolutely triumphant at the moment he had come apart in her arms. He supposed it was the natural order of things. People wanted what they didn't have. Losers wanted to win. Loners wanted love, whether they cared to admit it or not.

He, however, had no intention of admitting to such a need. Not even now. It had been a momentary aberration, nothing more. He was a loner. In time, these feelings he had for Penny would fade.

Of course, if Brandon Halloran ever found out about what had gone on in this bedroom, he probably wouldn't even care how Sam viewed his future. Brandon would sail into Boston with a ring tucked in his pocket and a reservation at the chapel where Halloran weddings were always triumphantly celebrated.

The only way to avoid not only that, but any further temptation, though, was to sneak out of this house, which had known its share of love. It was essential that he get back to his own bachelor quarters, where no woman would dare to intrude. He had to reclaim the solitary existence that had always suited him just fine.

The plan of action decided, Sam found it was a struggle just to get into his clothes. It was more of a strain to get down the stairs. The worst struggle was pretending that his going wouldn't matter to either one of them.

He overcame each and every struggle, each and every guilty second thought. He called a taxi and was gone by dawn, satisfied that what he'd done was for the best.

And, not one hour later, just when he was soundly asleep, confident that his leaving would demonstrate to Penny once and for all what a rotten bet he was, the pounding on his door proved the error of his assumptions. He had no doubt that the person on the other side of his threshhold was the very woman he'd intended to avoid for the rest of his days.

"I know you're in there, Sam Roberts," she shouted. "Open the damn door."

She sounded royally ticked off. He had to admire the gumption it had taken for her to storm across town and confront him. Reluctantly he opened the door.

She stood there, eyes blazing with fury, her hair a tangled mess, her clothes obviously assembled hastily. Almost nothing matched. She seemed oblivious to the picture she presented. Something deep inside Sam twisted at the sight of her. She was going to be difficult to get out of his system, all right. Even looking as if she'd dressed from a ragbag, she turned his heart to mush.

"You fool!" she said, waving a finger in his face as she marched toward him.

"How'd you know where I was?" he asked, stalling for time.

"Where else would you go? No one else in the family would put up with you and you're too weak to crawl onto a plane and head for parts unknown. Mrs. Farnsworth gave me the address."

Sam acknowledged the truth of that with a sigh. Then the confrontation took an amazing twist when she backed him into a corner and berated him not for endangering his life--though she did that, too--but for running scared.

"You're a low-down coward," she accused, jabbing her finger toward his belly, but stopping just short of contact.

"A coward?" he repeateded incredulously. "Just exactly what am I supposed to be scared of?"

"Me," she announced with no hesitation whatsoever.

Sam's spirits sank. So, he thought with a weary sigh of resignation, she had him pegged, after all. Even before he'd realized it himself, she had guessed that he was falling in love with the little brat. Correct that. With the grown-up, incredibly sexy, little brat.

What she apparently hadn't grasped quite yet was the fact that he had absolutely no intention whatsoever of doing anything about it.

P
enny stood in the middle of Sam's cluttered living room, oblivious to her surroundings, as he explained to her precisely why there could never be anything between them. He eliminated her theory--his own ridiculous fear of commitment--and blamed it on personality differences, background differences and a host of other reasons that made about as much sense as a baby's first babbling words. To hear him tell it, they barely spoke the same language. About midway through the recitation, Penny lost patience.

"And where were these differences a few hours ago when we were together in bed?" she inquired bluntly.

"The only difference that mattered there was the gender difference," he retorted.

He deliberately avoided her gaze when he said it, probably because he knew she'd laugh in his face. He wasn't finished, though. He still had more to say on the subject, as if he thought the sheer volume of words would convince her of something that was utter hogwash.

"But we can't spend our whole lives in bed. There has to be more than that between us."

"And you don't think there is?"

"I'm a cop, Penny. You live in some safe, academic ivory tower. You've been terrified ever since those punks attacked me. My world just isn't your world."

She regarded him incredulously. "What kind of garbage is that? Have you heard me utter one single word about being afraid? Have you heard me beg you to quit the force?"

His jaw set, he met her gaze evenly. "Maybe not, but it's the truth."

"You're a mind reader now?"

"I know what I saw in your eyes in the hospital. I know what all the nightmares were about at Brandon's. Why can't you admit it?"

She drew in a breath and tried to respond calmly and rationally to what seemed to her a very irrational theory. "Okay, yes, I was scared every time I thought about what might have happened that night. You could have died. Being frightened by that seems like a pretty sensible reaction to me."

"I won't have you living in fear on my account," he insisted stubbornly. "Someday you'll thank me."

A weary sigh of resignation shuddered through her. "And someday you'll regret what you've thrown away," she said quietly.

Penny could see it was useless trying to make Sam see sense. She'd taken a risk by making love with him and she'd lost. She would not stand here and beg the man to commit to a future he obviously couldn't envision. If he intended to be arrogant and willful and downright stupid, that was his problem. She would not let it be hers.

She thought back over all the years she had wasted worrying that Sam's rejection meant there was something wrong with her. Now she knew that it had been him all along. He was the one who couldn't cope with real intimacy, who didn't even want to try because the fear of being abandoned ate at him every day of his life. Talk about someone living in terror.

She took one last look at him, drinking in the sight of his sexy, shadowed complexion, the body that had given her her first taste of physical pleasure, the eyes that hinted of a vulnerability that he would deny with his last breath.

She also saw the pallor, the unsteadiness of his hand as he raked his fingers through his hair, and was afraid for him. He was rushing his recuperation, and without her around to intercede, who knew what risks he'd take.

"I'll send the nurse over to check on you tomorrow," she said finally. "You look like hell."

"Don't bother. I'm going back to work."

"You can't work in this condition," she protested, then bit off the rest of the lecture as his jaw clenched. She shrugged. "Do what you want. It's your life."

She stared at him until he was finally forced to meet her gaze. "I hope it's a good one," she said quietly. "I wish only the best for you. Like it or not, Sam Roberts, I love you. Nothing you do or say is going to change that."

Then, because she knew it wasn't this moment but the future that scared him, she added emphatically, "I will always love you."

There was a flicker of reaction in his eyes, but he remained stoically silent, killing any last chance they might have had. Penny turned her back on him then and walked out the door. It was the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life.

She made it out the door before her throat clogged with emotion and her eyes swam with tears. At the end of the hall, she leaned against the wall and tried to gather her composure. Hot tears of frustration spilled down her cheeks. She wiped at them angrily and swore they would be the last she shed for a man who didn't want her, a man who had never cared...not enough, anyway.

Finally she drew in a shaky breath, squared her shoulders and marched down the stairs. She had a life to get back to and she was determined it was going to be a fantastic one. What was it Dorothy Parker had written? Something about living well being the best revenge. She intended to have her revenge on Sam Roberts, even if it killed her.

Sam listened to Penny's fading footsteps with a dull ache in his chest. She was going. She was walking out of his life without a backward glance. He should have felt victorious, or at the very least, relieved. Instead the encounter had left him drained, his head throbbing. He felt this terrible sense of loss that he wanted very much to blame on her.

What had he expected? he asked himself irritably. He was the one who'd sent her away. Had he expected her to fight like a hellion? Had he expected her to counter all of his absurd excuses for ending things between them?

Okay, so maybe some tiny little part of him had wanted just that. Oh, sure, he had turned aside every argument she had tried to make, but they were pitiful. Besides, he knew in his gut that whatever it was they were feeling wasn't powerful enough to last. He'd just tested it and proved that, hadn't he? They were both better off knowing the truth.

But he didn't feel better off somehow. He felt like hell, as if he'd cheated both of them of something important.

As he'd threatened, he went back to work the next day. His boss took one look at him and sent him back home.

"Next time you come back, I want a signed release from your doctor," he told Sam. "I'm not going to have you or one of your fellow officers wind up shot because your reflexes are worth spit."

"I need to get back on the job," Sam argued with a sense of desperation.

"Then go home and recuperate so you can do it."

"I'll work a desk."

"And drive us all nuts complaining about it. I don't think so. Go home and get well so you can get back to doing what you do best. With Tank in jail, his gang is floundering. We can get in there and clean up the last dregs as soon as you're back on the streets."

Sam knew his boss was right. He was so exhausted from the trip to the station that he could barely make it up the stairs when he got home. He unplugged the phone and collapsed onto his bed. Drained both physically and mentally, he slept practically around the clock.

It was midmorning the next day when he heard someone fiddling with his lock. Sam was reaching for his gun when he recognized Mrs. Farnsworth's voice, then Randy's. The pairing should have astonished him, but nothing much surprised him anymore.

"Thank you, young man," the housekeeper said. "You're quite adept with that instrument. What was it you called it? A picklock?"

"Yeah, well, it might be better if we don't tell Sam how we got in," Randy replied nervously.

Sam chuckled despite himself. He leaned back against the pillows and waited for whatever the two had in store for him.

"You can run along now," Mrs. Farnsworth said. "I'm certain you have things to do."

"Are you sure you don't want me to check the place out? He could be real sick or something."

"I'm certain I can handle whatever the situation is," she said firmly.

Sam doubted there was anything on earth that Mrs. Farnsworth couldn't handle after decades of battling wits with Brandon Halloran, but to his amazement she suddenly relented. He suspected Randy had put on his most woebegone expression. The door to his room inched open.

"Sam?" Randy whispered. "Hey, Sam!"

Sam remained steadfastly silent.

"I think he's passed out or something," Randy announced.

There was that
or something
again, Sam thought with a grin. He hoped the kid wasn't going to be disappointed to find him very much alive.

Suddenly the door was thrown wide and Mrs. Farnsworth strode across the room. She loomed over him, her expression set in a disapproving frown. "Sam Roberts, stop playing possum. You're scaring that poor boy to death."

He winked at her. "How'd you know I wasn't dead?"

"Because you're entirely too ornery to die this young."

Randy crept into the room and regarded him with an injured expression. "Why'd you go and do that?"

"Do what?" Sam asked innocently. "I was sleeping peacefully in my own apartment when two people broke in. You're lucky I didn't shoot you."

"You didn't answer the phone or the door," Randy countered. "How come?"

"Maybe I didn't want to talk to anybody."

"That's typical of your selfishness, young man," Mrs. Farnsworth chided. "Folks have been worried sick about you and you've been holed up in here sulking."

"Who says I'm sulking? I just told you I was sleeping. Anyway, why were you checking on me in the first place?"

"Beats me," she said. "Some people were foolish enough to care what happened to you."

"Which people?" he asked because he couldn't help himself.

She gave him an inscrutable look. "Me for one. Isn't that enough?"

"You're a treasure, Mrs. F."

A smile teased her stern lips, but she fought it admirably. "You haven't called me that in a long time." She scowled at him. "Won't make a bit of difference, though. I'm still tired of your foolishness. I should have sent Ruth Dawkins over here with that needle of hers."

Sam took the threat seriously. He mustered an apology. "I'm sorry if I worried you," he said. "And anyone else who might have been concerned."

"Yes, well, it seems to me like you might have more than one thing to apologize to her for."

Sam stared at her, thoroughly startled. "What do you know?" he asked worriedly.

"Enough," she said succinctly. She opened a Thermos of soup and poured some into a bowl. "Eat this."

Randy was watching the housekeeper with a speculative look in his eyes. She glanced at him.

"If you want some, go into the kitchen and get a bowl," she said. After he'd gone, she said, "That boy needs a family. He has some skills that bear watching."

"An understatement if ever I heard one," Sam agreed.

"Perhaps I'll have a talk with Mr. Halloran. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if the boy stayed at the house for a while. It's empty most of the time, anyway."

Sam reached for her hand and squeezed. "You're a wonder, Mrs. F."

"Just doing my Christian duty."

He shook his head. "It's more than that. I just want you to know I appreciate it. Randy's worth saving. I can remember when I was a lot like him. Granddad Brandon came to my rescue."

She leveled a stern look at him. "The boy thinks the world of you. Did you know he was just hanging around outside in case you needed him? Found him sitting out there on the front steps."

"How'd he know I was back here?"

"Same way I knew to bring the soup. Penny." She regarded him intently. "She's good for you. Don't throw away a chance at happiness. You've always taken every risk there was to be taken. Don't stop now."

Sam sighed. "I love you for caring, Mrs. F., but you don't know what you're talking about."

"I didn't get to be this age without learning a thing or two," she retorted. "You'd be wise to listen to your elders once in a while. We didn't do too badly by you in the past, did we?"

"No," he conceded.

"Well, then?"

"I'll think about what you've said. I promise."

But the minute she was gone, he stubbornly put the promise out of his head.

A week later Dana turned up on his doorstep, her two littlest ones in tow. Within fifteen minutes, the kids were out of control and whatever Dana had stopped by to say had been overshadowed by the chaos. His head throbbing again, Sam cheerfully considered murdering them and his meddlesome sister.

Dana scooped up the screaming baby and held her out to him. "Hold your niece while I chase after her brother."

Sam had the baby cradled in his arms before he could protest. "You sound like I feel," he told Jennifer Margaret Halloran. "I wouldn't mind letting off a little steam myself. What has you so upset?"

Serious blue eyes swimming with tears stared back at him. The baby hiccuped, then quieted. The kid really was beautiful, he decided with total objectivity, even if she was still bald. And she already had the good sense to know when she was in the care of someone big and strong, who'd protect her with his life. That instinctively trusting response was worrisome. He'd done his damnedest to prove to everyone that he wasn't reliable. He supposed Jennifer Margaret would learn that lesson soon enough.

"I see you've worked your magic on her, just the way you do on all the girls," Dana commented when she reappeared.

She looked slightly more frazzled than she had when she'd left. She had Jason Junior in tow. The two-year-old seemed pleased with the amount of toothpaste he'd been able to smear all over himself in his few minutes of freedom from parental interference.

"Shave," he announced happily, patting his round little cheeks.

"Why didn't somebody tell me that boys are a lot more difficult to control than girls?" Dana muttered while trying to clean up her son.

"Hey, you were the one who raised me. That should have been warning enough."

"Very funny." She regarded him pensively. "So, little brother, let's get serious. Exactly what's standing between you and Penny? It's obvious to everyone that you're in love with her. It's also clear that for some absurd reason you've decided to shut her out of your life."

"Did she tell you that?"

"No. She's just as tight-lipped about all this as you are, but she's got circles under her eyes and she's losing weight she can't spare. Stop torturing her and yourself and admit how you really feel."