Moonlight on Monterey Bay (16 page)

“You were pretty good in there, you know.”

“They said they’d hold a place for me if the computer industry slacks off.”

He held the car door for her, then slipped behind the wheel and drove off into the night.

“Okay, Maddie,” Sam began without preamble, his voice deep and full of sudden emotion, “Here’s the deal. We need to talk. For five nights now you’ve driven me crazy.” He was driving fast through town, over the bridge, past the harbor, and toward his house.

The evening sky was darkening, and Maddie felt like a romantic prisoner, scooped up on the back of a horse and carried off to Lord only knew what kind of adventure. She smiled into the breeze and looked over at Sam. His hair was pushed back by the wind, his eyes bright, and his voice thrumming with pent-up feeling. He spoke over the breeze, a deep and rumbling monologue. “You’ve become important to me, Maddie. You make me laugh, you say things that are interesting and bright and honest.” She rested her head back on the leather seat. She had the odd sensation of being affected by a force far stronger than gravity, an uncontrollable force that would have her be precisely here, right now, with Sam beside her. She tuned back in to Sam.

“—physical, I said to myself. That’s what’s going on here. And that’s true enough.” He shook his head, then looked over at her briefly, his mouth pulling up into a half smile. “Looking at you, hell,
thinking
about you, sets off all sorts of fires inside of me. But it’s more than that, Maddie, my love. It’s more than that.” The East of the Ocean sign appeared in the glare of his headlights and he slowed, then pulled into the driveway and brought the car to an abrupt stop at the end of the circle drive.

He looked over at her. “So here I am, Maddie. This week’s been a lifetime. Sunday, on the spur of the moment—and I never do anything on the spur of the moment—I flew to London and got to spend three hours with my daughter. Three hours. Then they were off to a holiday villa somewhere, and I got back on the plane and flew home, where I buried myself in work for four days, trying to bring some sense to my feelings. Obviously I failed.”

The smile flashed again, lopsided and sexy. Maddie’s insides began the meltdown. She took a deep breath and smiled back. “I went a little crazy this week myself, Sam. I didn’t know what you were thinking, whether I had imagined some things—”

He sat there for a full minute, his hands still on the wheel, and then he sighed and reached over to touch her cheek. “Let’s go inside. You hungry? I picked up some food earlier when I got into town.”

Maddie slid out of the car and walked around the front, then took his hand. “That Stanley fellow ate my whole meal without even knowing it. I’m starving.

“Good. We’ll have some food, maybe a swim. Just be together for a while. Okay?”

Maddie rubbed her cheek against his arm and looked up in time to see a shooting star arch over the house and down into the ocean on the other side. She couldn’t remember if she was supposed to wish or if it was simply a good omen. She opted for the omen. She had absolutely no idea right now what she would wish for.

“How’s Greta doing?” she asked as they walked into the house. Sam turned a switch that bathed the hallway and living room in soft indirect light.

“Greta has never been better. You were right about the light jazz. And she likes Vivaldi—‘The Four Seasons.’ ”

“Perfect. I should have thought of that myself.”

“Come on, look at this,” he said, leading her by the hand into the kitchen and pulling a stack of small white boxes from the refrigerator.

“A feast for sure.”

“And this.” He pulled a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator.

“Champagne? Sam, champagne is for celebrations or seductions.”

“How about a happy, shared evening?”

“And that too.” Maddie took two plates from the cupboard, some silverware, and followed Sam out onto the deck, where silvery moonlight turned the wooden floor into a beautiful, shimmering carpet. Huge clay
pots, full of coral and yellow begonias, impatiens, sweet woodruff, and colorful leaves of croton, were scattered around the deck. Sam looked around at the simple white furniture and the overflowing pots of flowers. “Each time I come here, it’s more of a home.”

She smiled and sat down on the outdoor couch.

“I was sure I wouldn’t give a hoot about what it looked like—hell, I never did before. But this—this makes me feel good, Maddie.”

“It’s supposed to. And Sam, if you ever do bring your daughter here, it will make her feel that way, too, no matter what you say.”

Maddie caught the look again, but he didn’t cut her off this time. Instead he set the food on the long low coffee table and sat beside her on the couch, his expression thoughtful. “I wouldn’t know what to do with her here, Maddie.”

“Do? She’s your daughter. All you need to do is be with her. I can hear in your voice how much you love her.”

“Of course I do. And I miss seeing her grow up. But she has everything she needs now. Cousins, grandparents, a gorgeous home. Elizabeth’s new husband, Roger, is decent. And he spends a lot of time with Sara and Elizabeth.”

“That’s all wonderful. But you’re still her father.”

“I think I confuse her. Roger is the one who’s there, who does the kinds of things with her that a father should do.” He shrugged. “Then I show up, a
stranger, and she’s supposed to have this close relationship with me—” His voice fell beneath the weight of regret. “Hell, Maddie, she’s only five years old.”

“But you do go often, you see her.” There was a kind of pleading in Maddie’s voice.

“I go whenever I can.”

“And you hold her, hug her, tell her you love her.”

The intensity in Maddie’s voice startled Sam. “Sure, Maddie. I do my best.” He looked over at her and only then noticed the moisture in her eyes. “Hey, it’s okay. Sara is a happy little girl. She’s surrounded by people who love her.” He didn’t understand what was going on, but something he was saying—or not saying—was affecting Maddie profoundly. He felt an urgent need to make her smile.

Lifting her chin with his fingers, he looked down into her eyes and smiled gently. “I’m the one who is sad about this, love. Not you. I’m the one whose daughter uses company manners on him.”

She nodded into his fingers. “I know. And I’m sure you try. But maybe spending more time with her, bringing her here for a while, maybe then she would know you as a father. Maybe …” Her voice drifted off.

“But it might mess her up even more, confuse her. She’s happy and content with her life. Perhaps when she’s older—”

“Childhood is such a special time, Sam.”

He could barely hear Maddie now. Her voice was low, almost as if she were talking to herself. In the bright light of the moon, her face was sad and white and beautiful.

“Maddie, love, I do the best I can with what I am.”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said quietly. “We all do.” She took a long, deep breath, then released it slowly, willing peace back into her veins and her blood and her spirit. She knew part of her emotion was due to the time of year. Summers were the hardest. It was all replayed as if it were yesterday, the pregnancy, the birth. And it was almost time to begin her yearly letter, to think about planting her tree.

But for now she forced it all aside and smiled brightly at Sam. Then she looked down at the small white containers, lined up starkly against the black night. “You know what I think? I think we both need some food. Hunger is making me unpleasant.”

“Nothing could do that to you, not in any lasting way. You’re beyond those kinds of influences. That’s one of the things I love about you.”

He said the words lightly, an effort to brush away the gray clouds, but Maddie accepted the sentiment and allowed herself to feel the pleasure it brought. That’s what she had learned, after all. It was those small daily pleasures that made up her life. Gather them, hug them close, take delight in them. She
grinned now at Sam and asked, “Okay, sir, what’s your pleasure? Over here we have—” She held up the first container and sniffed it dramatically. “Moo goo gai pan. Wonderful. Exquisite. Perfecto.” She closed her eyes and kissed her fingertips, then went on to the next, until the enticing odors made Sam’s stomach growl and he pleaded for food.

They ate straight from the containers without bothering to use plates. Maddie fed Sam fried rice from the tines of her fork, and he held a crisp eggroll up to her mouth for her to nibble on. And by the time they reached for the fortune cookies, the moon was high in the sky and the air around them as mellow as the calm night sea.

“All’s right with the world,” Maddie murmured as she settled back onto the couch and slipped her feet up beneath her.

Sam’s arm went around her and pulled her close. “All’s right in our world. This little one right here.”

She nodded. “That’s how I see it too. And that’s the only world we have, after all. This one, right now, right here.”

“So you don’t care about tomorrow?”

“I care a lot about it. But I don’t want thoughts of it to ruin right now.”

“Me either,” Sam murmured, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Hey, hear that?”

They both leaned slightly forward and listened.

“Sea lions,” Maddie said. “Let’s go look.”

They left the remains of their feast behind them, kicked off their shoes, and walked down the stone steps to the beach. From out of the blackness came the familiar friendly bleat of a family of sea lions, perched on some now invisible rock out in the middle of the blackness.

Sam’s beach was separated from the nearest property by thick vegetation and the house was dark. The only lights were far north, where the boardwalk amusement park faintly lit the sky.

“It’s so deceptive out here,” Maddie said in a near whisper. “It makes you feel you’re all alone instead of on the edge of the city.”

“Makes you want to do alone sorts of things,” he said, tickling the back of her neck.

“You mean like swimming?” Maddie teased. She stopped walking and her feet began to settle into the oozing sand. Foam rolled up and braceleted her ankles.

“I dare you,” Sam said.

“Those are fighting words. I can’t refuse a dare.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Maddie looked up at him, her eyes challenging. “You’re on, Eastland.” Before he could say anything, she ducked out from under his arm, stepped out of her skirt, and plunged into the water. Moonlight illuminated her white T-shirt as she sliced silently through the black calm water. It was unusually warm and eerily
still. And riding along its surface, Maddie could feel her heart pumping beneath the wall of her chest.

Sam stepped out of his pants in an instant, stripped off his shirt, and plunged into the water after her, his eyes never leaving the spot of white that moved along the surface, parallel to the shore. A few strong strokes brought him up beside her.

She was on a sandbar, crouching slightly to keep everything but her head beneath the warm water. “You didn’t tell me you were an Olympic swimmer,” she said breathlessly.

“You should check those things out first.”

“I’ll remember that next time.” She ran her hands over the surface of the water. “Is there anything else I should know?”

His eyes traveled over the thin T-shirt that clung to her body like a second skin, outlining her breasts and the dark circle of her nipples. His breath caught in his throat. “Yeah—one more thing—” he said raggedly.

“What’s that, Sam?”

“Water … it does strange things to me.” Sam pinched the material of her shirt between two fingers and pulled it slowly from her skin. It made a sucking sound, then formed back against her breasts. Her nipples were brown and firm, teased by the cold wet fabric.

“Jeez, Maddie,” he said. It was a gasping sound, a sound of awe, of desire.

Her chest began a visible rise and fall beneath the heat of his stare. The night was flowing over her in a barrage of contrasts: hot and cold, soft and hard, wet and dry.

Sam’s broad hands cupped her narrow shoulders and he pulled her to him, into his arms.

“Oh, Sam,” was all she said.

She was weightless in the water as he fitted her to his hips, his hands slipping beneath her buttocks, pressing her to him until her legs clamped tightly around him. He covered her face with hungry, skimming kisses, drinking the water from her flesh, seeking her lips.

Maddie kissed him back, nipping his cheek, his chin, his lips. He tasted incredibly sweet to her. “Who won?”

“A dead heat.”

“Dead heat? Dead, I don’t know. Now, heat, that I know.”

Sam laughed huskily. “I’d say you do—”

“Do you suppose the sea lions can see us?”

“Yep. And I bet they’re flapping those flippers like crazy.”

Maddie felt her insides melt into warm honey. Her body moved deliriously against his slippery body, wet skin against wet skin. The waves, picking up momentum now, lapped playfully at their bodies. She nuzzled her head in the crook of his neck. “The transportation is to be highly recommended.”

Sam smiled. He could feel every tiny movement she made, his body alert, tense, and filled with pent-up longing for her. They moved through the shallow water and up onto the shore as one.

He didn’t let her down, not all the way up the stone pathway to the house. She thanked him with tiny kisses, on his shoulder, his ear. “It’s a magic night, Sam,” she whispered.

He carried her through the French doors and into the living room, leaving small pools of water everywhere he stepped. Finally, at the foot of the curved staircase, he let her down. He looked down into her clear green eyes. Her face was calm, beautiful. “Maddie,” he said. “Maddie, are you sure about this?”

“Parts of it. I’m sure about my feelings, I’m sure about wanting you.”

“But the other part?”

“That’s my own problem,” she said simply. “I understand what you’re about. And I still—” Her voice fell off. She was torn between desire and logic and her head was spinning from it. But she knew she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She knew what her heart was telling her. She looked him directly in the eyes and smiled. “I want to make love to you. Tonight. I want that very much.”