Moonlight on Monterey Bay (14 page)

“I don’t mean to pry, Sam,” Maddie said to his silence. “But sometimes you’re a puzzle to me, and I thought if I understood an important piece, I might understand the whole better.”

Sam rested his head back against the tree. “That’s fair enough. My ex-wife’s name was Elizabeth,” he said. “She was very beautiful, and she was nice in her way. Still is.” He took a long swig of beer. Hell, that was all so glib. There was a lot more to who Elizabeth was. Why couldn’t he be honest here? Especially with someone like Maddie, who he was sure never shaded the truth. He owed it to her—as a warning perhaps? Hey, Maddie, this is me, this is what I am. Proceed at your own risk.…

He leaned back against the tree again, stretched his legs, and looked sideways at her. “Okay, here’s the scoop, Maddie. I met Elizabeth Harris in London when I was just getting my business off the ground. I was attracting a lot of attention—whiz kid from Silicon Valley, that sort of garbage—and some business associates in London threw a party for me which she attended. I was young and absolutely captivated by her.” He took another swallow of beer. “We were married a month later.”

“Sounds like a fairy tale.”

“That’s exactly how the newspapers described it. Here I was, the kid from nowhere who made it big, and then I came back with this beautiful woman from England.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “People love that sort of stuff.”

“What happened?” she asked softly.

Sam was silent for so long that Maddie thought she had offended him, had pushed him back into that remote, unreadable person she could hardly remember. But finally he spoke, his voice deep and clear and matter-of-fact. He smiled and a dimple formed in his cheek. “What happened, Maddie, was that I completely failed at something for the first time in my life.”

“Surely it wasn’t all your—”

“Yes, it probably was,” he said simply, without self-pity. “Quite simply I let the marriage go to hell. Elizabeth was young, well intentioned. But I gave
her little to work with. I worked hard building my company, investing money, making deals—providing her with everything in the world for a perfect life.”

“That’s admirable.”

Sam went on almost as if she hadn’t spoken. “I gave her plenty of things, but little of me. And she was very needy, emotionally. I felt … well, sucked dry sometimes, suffocated by her needs. I thought I could be everything my own father never was—a provider, a friend, a good husband, an emotional stalwart. But I greatly overestimated myself. I fell short in a couple of those categories. Turns out I was great at building a business and making money. But emotional commitment? Not great. Lousy, in fact.” He paused, touched her lightly on the end of her nose, and said in a voice meant to be playful, “So now you know the truth about Sam Eastland.”

“Do I?”

“Yep,” Sam said. He took another drink of beer, settled back once more against the tree. “Your turn now. I know little about Maddie Ames, other than she’s smart, beautiful, sexy as hell—”

Maddie sighed, knowing that Sam wasn’t going to reveal more at the moment. “Well, as for me, that’s it in a nutshell,” she said lightly. “Sexy, smart, and beautiful.” She wrinkled her nose, skewered her mouth, and made Sam laugh.

He lifted a fistful of hair from her neck and let it slide through his fingers, then rested his fingers on
the soft skin at of her nape. “Why isn’t this sexy, smart woman—”

“You forgot beautiful.”

“—sexy, smart, beautiful woman married with a bunch of kids?”

Sam felt Maddie’s back stiffen. Fleetingly her face had a look of pain so sharp that Sam felt it in his own heart. Her smile returned, and for a minute he wondered if he had imagined that look.

“The reason I’m not married,” Maddie said simply, “is that I haven’t met the right man. I’m very, very picky. And I don’t have children … for the very same reason.”

“But someday?”

“Someday I will meet the right man, and I will have as many children as my heart and my home will hold.”

Sam listened carefully. The lightness was gone from her voice. “It’s clear you’ve given your future a lot of serious thought.”

“Oh, yes.” Maddie brushed the hair back from her flushed cheek. She looked up at him. “The fiercest kind of thought, Sam.”

They sat in silence then, each absorbing the fringes of the other’s life, the few details thrown out, and the subtle nuances surrounding them. And as the sky overhead darkened, invisible ties thickened, grew, strengthened in the silence. They glowed there between them like electrical wires, brighter than fire.

“Dessert?” Maddie asked finally.

“Dessert? Sure, what the hell.” Something cold, he hoped. He glanced up at the sky to see if the moon was full, but it was hidden, obscured by dark thick clouds. So much for the moon being responsible for the way Maddie made him feel.

Maddie leaned slightly into his side as they walked back toward the center of activity, her hip rubbing his. “Where’d you come from anyway?” she asked. They both knew what she was asking about. And neither knew the answer.

Shadows hid the expression on her face, but beneath the soft tone to her voice, Sam sensed something else. Fear? He and Maddie seemed to be dancing around each other, tamping down the rising embers of passion, coming together, moving apart. It was something new to Sam, and the newness of it made him both uncomfortable and excited.

“There you two are!” Lily came toward them, her arms outstretched as if Maddie and Sam had disappeared for weeks. Jack, his chef’s hat angled to one side, was right behind her. He was several years older than Lily, about Sam’s own age, Sam thought, and had a friendly, open look about him.

“You almost missed dessert,” Jack said, resting his arm on Maddie’s shoulder. “Most folks have left, and if you don’t help us get rid of this shortcake, I’ll be forced to eat it all myself.”

“Perish the thought, Jack,” Lily said, tapping his midsection.

Jack captured her fingers and brought them to his lips, nibbling lightly on the tips. “It’s shortcake or you, love.”

The affectionate interplay left Sam feeling restless and oddly uncomfortable. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. He forced himself to pay attention to what Jack was saying, the friendly chatter, the insistence that he and Maddie stay a little while so he could have his turn getting to know Maddie’s friend.

“I need to assure myself Lily’s infatuation with Sam is innocent,” Jack said to Maddie with a grin.

“Nothing about me is innocent, Jack, you know that,” Lily said. “Now sit, all of you, while I see the rest of our guests off.” When she returned a short while later, Sam and Jack were gone. Maddie sat alone in one of the Adirondack chairs on the patio.

Lily looked around. “You drove them away?”

“Their passion did. A mutual one. It took them two minutes and twenty seconds to discover they both did stunt flying in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, five years ago, in identical planes.”

Lily sighed. “And Jack is showing his flying video to Sam.”

“Bingo.”

Lily sank into a chair next to Maddie and kicked off her shoes. “Well?” she said.

Maddie laughed. “Lily, give it up.”

“Maddie, you know me better than that. Have I ever stopped interfering?”

“You have a point.” Maddie took a huge spoonful of whipped cream off the top of the strawberry shortcake. “Mmm, this is great, Lily.”

“Yes. Now about Sam, Mad, tell me about him.”

Maddie licked some cream from her upper lip. “You know almost as much as I do. I thought at first he was arrogant—he’s not, not really. Well, maybe a little. When Eeyore took to him, though, I decided to give him a second chance. And I like him. I don’t know why exactly, but—”

“You mean besides the fact that he’s sexy as all get out and every woman in the yard tonight was playing with him with her eyes?”

“That’s only because he’s a little aloof. They were curious, that’s all.”

“No matter. I see more than like here, Mad. There’s something about him, I mean, there’s the sex appeal, sure—”

Maddie laughed, but her laughter was strained. She certainly didn’t need Lily to tell her about Sam’s sex appeal.

“But I won’t force you to give me your opinion on that.”

“Thanks, Lil.”

“As long as you promise me you won’t chase him away without giving him a chance.”

“I don’t want to chase him away, that’s the problem.
And yet getting involved with someone like him makes about as much sense to me as our country’s budget deficit.” Her voice was softer now, almost wistful.

“Maybe you’re not the best judge. Maybe you should just go with your feelings for once, forget about that damn rating scale you have for men. Maybe what you need, Maddie, is to enjoy yourself without a thought to the future or past or anything. You deserve joy as well as the rest of us. Unmuddled joy. Yes, that’s what you need—a great, old-fashioned, wonderful summer romp.”

Maddie rested her head against the chair and half closed her eyes. “Mmm,” she said. “Sounds like a grade-B movie. I’m a barrel of fun, Lil, but romping? I don’t know. I’ve never been much of a romper.”

Lily threw a small pillow at her. “Mark my words, Maddie Ames, if push should come to shove, you can romp as well as the best of them.”

“Romping?” Jack said. “Who’s romping?”

Sam was right behind Jack and Maddie caught the smile on his face, the smoothed-out furrow in his brow. He was comfortable, almost at home here. Lily and Jack’s reputation was intact; even Sam had fallen under their charming spell.

After helping gather up the few remaining plates and glasses, Maddie and Sam left by the front door. “I ate too much,” Sam said. “How about a walk to the beach to work it off?” She didn’t have to answer.
They moved in sync, two bodies carried on the same rhythm.

Sam stopped at his car and pulled a sweater and a blanket from the trunk, then reclaimed her hand and headed down the street in the soothing silence of the night.

It was a dark heavy sky. “It’s going to rain,” Maddie said as they neared the beach.

“Good. I like rain. Years ago I used to go up to Oregon during the storm season. A friend had a cabin there and we’d hole up for days, with nothing but beer and frozen pizzas and these overwhelming storms crashing all to heck around us. It was great. When the sky finally cleared, we’d comb the shoreline to see what the storm left behind for us—bottles from Japan, exotic-looking driftwood, all sorts of treasures.”

Maddie could see he was amused by the memory, touched by his own youthful adventure.

“It’s odd,” he went on. “I’m not a saver usually, but I still have a Japanese bottle we found. I had almost forgotten about it. Hadn’t thought of it for years.”

“You’re going soft and sentimental on me, Sam.”

“Never.” He growled into her ear until the soft skin in the hollow of her neck puckered with goose bumps.

They crossed the street and walked down the dimly lit concrete steps to the beach. Small groups, mostly
college kids, were huddled here and there around fires that licked dramatically at the heavy black sky. A stereo threw out the strains of a song, the voice of Jerry Garcia, then some rock group Maddie didn’t recognize, and from an unseen pocket of the beach the smell of roasted hot dogs rose up and was carried on the breeze.

When the wind picked up, Sam slipped the sweater over Maddie’s shoulders and led her to a spot away from the others, separated and protected by an outcropping of angular rocks, a private little space on the edge of the cove. He spread the blanket out on the hard sand. Maddie slipped down onto it and wrapped her arms around her bent knees; Sam sat down beside her, his back against the rocks, his legs stretched out in front of him. Ahead of them was the black sea, its only definition the broken white lines that outlined the tops of waves. He put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer into his side. “This must be the real meaning of awesome, all that vastness out there in front of us.”

She nodded against his shoulder. She felt dreamy now, happy, secure. Neither spoke for a while, content to sit and soak in the sight and sounds and smells that filled their senses. “This makes me feel like a kid again, being down here late like this,” Maddie said a while later.

“Yeah. I haven’t made out on the beach since I was a horny teenager. That was a million years ago.”

“Is that what we’re down here for, to make out?” Maddie held her head back and looked up into his face. It was shadowed by the flickering gaslights along the upper edge of the cove.

“It’s an option,” he said, and rubbed his thumb along the side of her neck. “It’s kind of cold to swim, too dark to surf. I guess we could play cards, if you have any. Roast hot dogs maybe.”

“No cards … not hungry.”

“That doesn’t leave much.”

The music had picked up and Maddie tried to concentrate on the words to the song, but all she heard was a jumble of guitars and voices mixed with the rhythmic crash of waves against the shore. She dropped one hand down to Sam’s leg and her fingers rubbed lightly, creating designs along his thigh. “ ‘Making out’ is such an odd expression, Sam. What does it mean, anyway?” The muscles of his leg tensed beneath her touch.

Sam let the sweater drop from her shoulders, then looped one finger beneath the strap of her tank top. He shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe we could improve on it, come up with our own words.”

“Like what?” Maddie’s voice was strained, and she could hear her own desire coating the meaningless chatter. “I can’t say I like ‘hanky-panky’ much.”

“No, too old-fashioned.” Sam slid the strap down her shoulder. “Mmm, you smell so good, Maddie.” He lowered his head to her shoulder, and his breath
ran hot over her skin. He rubbed his cheek against her bare shoulder, then dropped small kisses where his cheek had been.

Her body was going limp as a beanbag, Maddie thought, weightless, airy, wonderful. Lily’s words hummed somewhere inside her head: unmuddled joy. She finally found her voice and asked breathlessly, “So … this is it then, making out?”

He shook his head, rubbing his lips across her skin, then pulled back an inch and said, “No. I think this is fooling around. I’ll let you know when we get to making out.” He found silk-covered buttons running down the back of her top and unbuttoned them, then slipped it off completely, casting it aside. Her breasts, carved and still in the hazy light, hung free. Sam sucked in his breath, then cupped one breast in the palm of his hand as if it were a gift. “Oh, Maddie—” His voice was strained. “You’re so beautiful.”