Double Dare (11 page)

“
I take it lunch is your
meal,” Sam told her, casting her an amused glance.

“
Come again?”

“
Lunch is your meal. You
don’t eat breakfast and you’re diving into that sandwich, so it
stands to reason that you’re a lunch person.” He glanced in the
rearview mirror. “You couldn’t possibly eat a heavy dinner after
filling up in the middle of the day.”

Well, considering he hadn’t ever witnessed
her eating dinner, she really didn’t think he could be a true
authority on her eating habits. Lou smiled anyway. “I don’t know,”
she mused. “I’m little…but I have a healthy appetite.”

Sam shot her a look, but his gaze instantly
returned to the rearview mirror. She watched him check his speed,
then the various other instruments on the dashboard.

Lou frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“
I don’t know,” Sam replied,
his expression tight. “that cop has been riding my bumper for the
past three or four miles.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Are you
speeding?”

“
No.”

“
Have you made any illegal
lane changes?” she asked.

Sam shook his head. “No, I’m fairly sure that
I haven’t. I don’t know why he’s tailing me.”

Lou’s temper began to flare. Now this was a
prime example of an abuse of power, she thought with righteous
indignation. Cops shouldn’t be allowed to tailgate law-abiding
citizens simply to intimidate them. It wasn’t right. Why, if he
pulled them over, she’d give him a piece of her mind. In fact,
she’d do more than that, she’d—

A thought suddenly struck
her and Lou’s lips formed a perfect
O
. Oh! Oh! Now was her chance! She’d
just gone over her list and wondered when she’d have the
opportunity to give a peace officer the single finger
salute.

Lou literally vibrated with excitement. It
took a monumental amount of effort of keep her bird finger
clenched. She had to wait until Sam wasn’t looking. Somehow Lou
didn’t think he would appreciate her sign language gesture to the
offending officer. No, she’d wait. But as soon as he took his eyes
off the rearview mirror, Lou was ready.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. He’s
coming around.”

“
What?” Oh, no! She wasn’t
ready! Well, she couldn’t let this opportunity pass her by. As soon
as the car pulled alongside them, Lou launched herself practically
into Sam’s lap and flipped the officer a double bird. She
emphasized each one with an enthusiastic little jab of her
hand.

Sam’s eyes bugged out. He batted her away.
“What the hell are you doing?” he thundered. “For God’s sake, Lou.
Are you crazy?”

The cop saw her and she had the supreme
pleasure of watching as his jowly jaw dropped.

Then he motioned for them to pull over.

Sam’s knuckles were white on the steering
wheel. A muscle worked in his tense cheek and he was back to that
mumbling again. Something Lou had noticed he did when he got
particularly upset.

“
I can’t believe you did
that,” he said tightly. “You realize that we’re most likely going
to jail, right? Do you understand that?” he asked her, his voice
abnormally calm. Sam shook his head, seemingly in disbelief. “Was
that on your list, too? Number ten, a trip to the
pokey.”

Lou gulped. Go to jail? Did he mean flipping
someone the bird was against the law? She didn’t know that; she
just thought it was rude.

Lou opened her mouth to speak, but stopped
when Sam shot her a quelling glance. “You don’t talk. I mean it,
Lou. Not. One. Word. If you do, I’m leaving you here for your
father to find, and that’s final. To hell with your ‘additional
compensation.’ It’s not worth it.”

Chagrined, Lou nodded meekly.

The officer appeared at the window. “License
and registration, please,” he asked tersely.

Sam obligingly handed them over. He smiled
sheepishly. “I-I'm sorry about my wife, officer. Ever since those
shock treatments, she hasn’t been the same.”

Lou’s eyes widened.
Shock treatments?

“
I’ve done everything that
the doctor’s suggested, but she still has a horrible habit of,
of…Well, you saw.”

The officer shot him a skeptical glance and
leaned down to peer into the car at Lou. Lou attempted to pin a
slightly deranged look on her face, then with a burst of
inspiration, picked up the road atlas Sam had been using to
navigate and bit a hunk off the cover.

The officer gazed at her as though she’d lost
her mind.

Sam tsked under his breath and gave the cop a
see-what-I-have-to-deal-with look. “She meant no harm. It’s part of
the…mental illness. She’s unstable and suffers from Tourette’s
syndrome, and ah, a few other things.” Sam sighed and his gaze
turned inward. “She wasn’t always like this. When the boys were
babies, she’d been fine. Just as sane as any healthy young mother.”
He scowled, seemingly at an unsavory memory. “It wasn’t until after
the attack that she lost her mind. Again, I’m truly sorry.”

“
I could haul you both in,”
he told Sam.

“
I know, sir,” Sam replied
mournfully. “Again, I’m sorry. I’m used to dealing with her bizarre
tendencies and it’s easy to forget that the rest of the world
isn’t. I’d just ask that you show a little mercy. The kids are
waiting on us at home, and this is the first time she’s been out of
the hospital in quite a while.”

The officer gazed at Sam with pity and the
look her gave Lou told her that he’d feel considerably safer if she
were still locked away in the mental hospital. “Okay,” he said at
last. “I’ll let you go.” He scratched his head and started back
toward his car. “And I thought my old lady was trouble,” he mumbled
to himself.

When the officer pulled from behind them and
driven away, Lou turned to Sam. “Mentally unstable? That’s the best
you could come up with?”

“
Not the best,” Sam told her
with an unrepentant grin. “That’s the tactic I
preferred.”

Lou snorted. “Why? So that you could make me
out to be some mentally deranged mother on leave from the loony bin
to see her sons?”

“
The sons were a nice touch,
don’t you think?”

Lou smiled in spite of herself. “Personally,
I liked the Tourette’s syndrome bit. I would have spit out a few
curse words,” she point out magnanimously, “but you forbade me to
speak.”

Sam shrugged. “You improvised well. Eating
the atlas paper had the same effect.”

“
Speaking of which…” Lou
grabbed her soda from the hold and took a big drink.

Smiling, Sam shook his head. “I can’t believe
he bought it.”

"Well, I can. You were very convincing.” She
chuckled. “You almost had me convinced I was crazy.”

Sam snorted. “That’s because you are.”

Lou lolled back against the headrest.
“Yeah…but I’m fun.”

“
Fun, crazy.” Sam shrugged.
“Same difference.”

“
Not hardly. Come on, admit
it. That was fun.”

A corner of his mouth lifted in a grin. “It
was…more entertaining than I thought it would be.”

“
See!” Lou seized on his
words. “That’s exactly wha-t-“

“
But it doesn’t mean that I
want you to do it again. Understood? I can’t have you flipping off
every officer from here to Key West. We might not be so lucky the
next time.”

“
Humph. Luck didn’t save us.
You think fast on your feet.” Lou grinned and gave him a sly look.
“I’m anxious to see what tale you fabricate next time.”

“
Next time? Oh, no,” Sam
told her, shaking his head. “Don’t even think about it.
I—”

Lou chuckled. “I’m only kidding. Lighten
up.”

“
Yeah,” Sam snorted. “I’ve
heard that before. And the next morning I saw my photo on a tabloid
magazine with a story that I was the ringleader of a sex
cult.”

“
Don’t forget your multiple
wives and children. And your um, enormous member,” Lou teased.
“Just think, someday you’ll look back on this and
laugh.”

His metallic gaze cut to hers. “So you’ve
said.”

“
Trust me, I know what I’m
talking about. You don’t want to wake up one morning and realize
that everything you’ve done in your life has been to please someone
else. That you’ve let yourself be railroaded along the
way.”

Sam’s grin dimmed a little,
then returned. “Funny, but I don’t seem to be doing what I want to
do—I’m doing what
you
want to do and I’m just along for the ride.”

Lou paused at that. “What do you want to do?
What would be your ultimate adventure?”

For a minute, Sam’s mouth appeared to shape
the words to tell her and, though she hadn’t moved an inch, Lou
felt like she was on the edge of her seat. She wanted to know his
dreams. His thoughts. His goals. What things were important to Sam?
What made him tick? What had made him the man he was today?

“
Uh, my adventure would be
lame compared to yours,” Sam told her. He evidently meant the
statement as a joke, but Lou felt the sting of hurt nonetheless.
She hadn’t really expected her to tell him, so it shouldn’t bother
her if he kept it to himself.

“
I can’t imagine that you
would do anything lame,” Lou replied, striving for their earlier
camaraderie. “Besides, so long a as you do what you want to do,
what do you care if it’s lame? It wouldn’t be lame to
you.”

“
True,” Sam conceded,
nodding thoughtfully.

Lou heaved a dramatic sigh, ready to put a
humorous spin back on their conversation. She loved to listen to
Sam laugh and she sensed he needed to do it more often. “Well, not
everyone can be as adventurous as me,” she teased.

Sam chuckled, the sound a deep baritone that
hummed through her, making her smile. “Hey, for what your adventure
lacks in stamina, it certainly makes up for it in dramatics…and
stress.”

Lou put her shades on and got comfortable in
her seat. “Yeah, right,” she told him. “Let’s get a move on. I’m
ready to get drunk.”

Sam’s shoulders tensed and he closed his eyes
as though summoning patience from a higher power. A reluctant grin
tested his lips and he exhaled with a mighty whoosh. “Yeah. Me,
too.”

Lou pushed her grilled shrimp around her
plate and cupped her chin in her palm. A woebegone sigh slipped
passed her lips.

Eating alone sucked.

She and Sam had arrived at their hotel in Key
West by six. They’d kept up a lively conversation all the way down
the coast, each of them sharing stories about their childhoods,
likes and dislikes.

Lou had learned that Sam had
taken his first dare at six, when another child had bet him a
quarter to eat a dead grasshopper. That his favorite movie
was
The Shawshank
Redemption
, and that he hated English peas.
Trivial little things, things that shouldn’t have made any
difference about the way she felt about him…but did. Because all of
them gave her insight into Sam and endeared him to her all the
more.

Admittedly, Lou had been drawn to Sam from
the beginning. From the first second she’d stepped into his office
and gazed into those stormy gray eyes, she’d been inexplicably
pulled nearer by the sheer force of his magnetism. Sam held some
sort of power over her, more than any mere attraction. That initial
arc of awareness had done something to her. Lou didn’t know what,
but she did understand that knowing Sam meant her life would never
be the same.

And she wanted him more than anything. Her
passionate feelings of desire were new and wholly unexpected; and,
despite her lack of experience, Lou nevertheless knew that Sam
inspired much more than mere physical attraction. More than
lust.

Sam had told her that with another kiss, he
wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. The temptation, the simple
knowledge that she could have him with only a kiss, ate at Lou’s
soul and intensified her desire.

But no matter how much she wanted him, Lou
wouldn’t take him on a dare.

If she and Sam were to be together, it would
be because they both wanted it to happen. Because they both felt
this remarkable attraction. It wouldn’t be because she and Sam
lacked the courage to make the decision that would ultimately
result in their making love.

Lonely and morose, Lou signaled for the
waiter and ordered a decadent dessert.

“
Mind if I join
you?”

Startled, Lou glanced up…into his familiar
gray eyes. Her heart galloped in her chest. Sam wore a white knit
shirt open at the throat and khaki shorts that hugged his trim
hips. He was tall and lean and tanned and one hundred percent
handsome. His hair lay in soft, slightly damp waves slicked back
from his forehead. He looked…delicious.

Desire parched her mouth. “N-not at all.”

Sam seated himself across from her, then
looked around. A slightly crooked grin curled his lips, signally he
felt a bit awkward despite how close they’d become. What was he so
nervous about? Lou wondered. What make him so uncomfortable?

Then it hit her.

Dinner.

Sweet heavens! He’d joined her for dinner.
Just her luck she’d already moved on to dessert.

“
Would you like me to ask
for a menu? Lou asked, resisting the urge to squirm in
delight.

Sam shook his head and glanced at her plate.
He frowned. “Was something wrong with your shrimp?”
“No, nothing. I just wasn’t in the mood for it.” She smiled. “Would
you like to try it? I’ve ordered dessert.”

He quirked a brow. “You’re not going to eat
that?”