Shameless (27 page)

Sam pulled the door of her condo closed behind her. That had been twenty years ago. A long time. The whole thing seemed somewhat surrealistic whenever she thought of it, like it had happened to someone else. She dropped her purse onto the couch and headed into the bedroom, changing into comfortable sweats. After brewing a cup of hot tea, she curled up in the corner of the couch, steaming cup in hand.

John had hired a detective to find her. Why? It seemed awfully extreme. And how was it she hadn’t recognized him from what was probably the most terrifying night of her life? On recollection, she supposed it wasn’t so strange. She’d never seen his face in the full light, had heard only his whispered voice, and had known him only as “Johnny.” Even if she had seen him clearly, she still may not have connected the two. By his own admission, he’d been a scrawny kid. His looks had changed tremendously. And she hadn’t known he was from the Seattle area. She’d just assumed he’d grown up in Southern California where he’d lived before moving here to open his first gym.

Her mind took her back to the bumpy floor of the Mercury. She’d been huddled there in fright, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, lest they do more to her than just look up her shirt. When one of the boys leaned over her, she’d prepared herself for the worst, but he’d seemed concerned about her. She thought it was an act at first. In the dark car, she couldn’t see his face, just a silhouette looming over her. She’d been able to tell he had longish hair falling into his face and he was rather slight in build. They called him “Johnny.” When he’d whispered his intent to help her, for some reason, she believed him. Maybe because she was so desperate for a lifeline or maybe because his words sounded sincere.

That was the last she remembered. She next woke in a hospital bed, weighed down with a body cast from having broken her back. Her parents wouldn’t tell her anything about the accident, except she was lucky to be alive. When Bonnie slipped her a newspaper account of the accident, Sam learned two children had been killed from a car they’d run into, and that everyone but her and one of the boys in the Mercury had also died.

She sipped her tea. It was cold.

John hardly slept that night. He awoke in a cold sweat around two A.M. from the old nightmare, the one that had haunted him every night after the accident for countless weeks, months. After waking, he couldn’t fall back to sleep. He just stared at the dark ceiling and recalled the look of horror on Sam’s face when he’d told her who he was. He couldn’t get that expression out of his mind, stuck there just as stupid songs often are, to replay over and over and over until it drives you half insane. But Sam’s image wasn’t a stupid song that drove him nuts.

It just made him incredibly sad.

“So, you finally told her, eh?” Alex asked John after their Monday morning business briefing from Margo. He sat on the edge of the couch in John’s office. “How’d she take it?”

John scratched the area behind his ear and leaned back in his desk chair. “Well, I haven’t heard from her since Saturday night, so I think it’s fair to assume it didn’t go well.”

“You think it’s over between you and her? This baby-making, weird-ass relationship you guys’ve got going?”

John came forward in the chair. “Don’t know. I really don’t know.”

He didn’t even want to speculate. He kept remembering Sam’s face. She’d looked so disappointed in him, so surprised. In some ways he wished he hadn’t told her, but he respected her too much, liked her too much, to keep the truth from her any longer. If she hated him for it, well, he’d just have to deal with that. He deserved no less than her hate, if he really thought about it. If he hadn’t yet forgiven himself for that night, how on earth could he expect her to?

“What?” he said, when he realized Alex had asked him a question.

“I said you haven’t asked me about my date Saturday night.”

John let out a loud breath. “Is this the same woman who Sam and I double dated with you last week?”

Alex shook his head. “Nah. She’s old news. But this lady… I don’t know, John-boy. She may be the one, you know what I’m saying?”

John nodded his feigned interest. If he had a dollar for every time those same words came out of Alex’s mouth… “Who is she?” Maybe talking to his best friend about
his
love-life would take his mind off his own pathetic state of affairs. He figured that’s why Alex brought it up.

“She’s a philosophy student at UW.”

John’s eyebrows rose. “Young.”

Alex shook his head. “Thirty-two. Going back to school to get her degree. Real smart lady.”

“Philosophy, huh? What the hell do you two have to talk about?”

Alex tried to look offended. “Hey, I can be profound when I wanna be.”

“Yeah, profoundly full of shit.”

The sun had long since set by the time John entered his neighborhood that evening. He’d worked late, hoping to keep his mind from straying to Sam, trying to keep from picking up the phone and calling her, or worse, dropping by her office unannounced. When she was ready to talk to him —
if
she ever wanted to talk to him again — she’d let him know.

As he rounded the last corner, his foot on the accelerator let up sharply. Sam’s black VW Beetle was parked in his driveway and she sat inside it. John’s stomach flip-flopped. He pressed the button on the garage door opener and pulled inside. He climbed out of his car and watched her get out of hers. Long legs sheathed in black stockings came into view first, followed by the rest of her luscious body. God, she looked good. It had only been a few days, but he’d missed her.

He walked toward her, hesitancy in his step, and stopped about ten feet away. They watched each other warily, neither saying a word. The streetlight above cast her lower face in shadows and it was difficult to make out her expression.

After what seemed like an eternity, he said, “Sam?”

He was pretty sure her lower lip trembled, and then, suddenly, she rushed him. He flinched and braced himself for a stinging slap on the face, or worse.

Instead, she wrapped both arms tightly around his neck, pressing their bodies close. “Hold me, John,” she whispered in his ear. “Just hold me.”

He enveloped her in a tight embrace, his face pressed into her hair, breathing in her fresh scent, saying a silent prayer of thanks that she was here.

He didn’t know how long they stood there like that, swaying together under the single street light. When a sprinkling of rain misted them, they pulled apart. Silently, he grasped her hand, entwining their fingers, and led her into the house. Still not saying anything, he took her coat and hung it up, then joined her in the family room on the couch. He, for one, didn’t know what to say. He waited for her to speak first.

Finally, she shifted on the cushion, but instead of speaking, she cupped his jaw and turned his face in line with hers. She gazed into his eyes, her expression intense, serious, as if she were trying to memorize every detail about him. “Johnny,” she whispered.

“Oh, God, Sam,” he muttered, not able to tear his gaze away from her beautiful face. “I’m sorry.”

“No.” She shook her head and her rain-dampened hair fell over one eye. The other was hazy with tears. “You would have helped me that night. I know that. When I was in the hospital and things were coming back to me about the accident, I wanted to speak to you, but my parents shielded me from everything — they were overprotective. I never heard what happened to you or even knew your last name.” She pulled his face closer. “So, twenty years later, thank you, Johnny.” Her lips touched his in a soft, sweet kiss.

He pulled back. “But I didn’t help you,” he protested, not believing she would let him off this easy. Not in his wildest dreams. “I didn’t—”

“But you would have,” she murmured. “I don’t care what kind of troublemaker you were, Johnny. Knowing you as I do now, you would’ve helped me. I know it.”

John whipped together an easy dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Neither he nor Sam spoke much as they ate. Both felt if they did, they’d have to talk more about that night, something neither wanted to do just yet.

When they were through eating, they cleared the table. She rinsed the dishes in the sink and stacked them on the counter for him to load in the dishwasher. She knew John watched her, stared at her, and at first she ignored him. But when it continued, she turned to him, eyebrows raised in silent question.

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

“I told you, you have nothing to apologize for except for having had bad taste in friends.” She scraped food off a bowl with a red, plastic scrubby. “I think everyone is guilty of that at some time in their lives. Look at my rotten choice of an ex-husband.”

He propped the spoons in the utensil carrier. “I just can’t help thinking that my stupid friends and I were responsible for—” He stopped.

Her eyes narrowed. “For what?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“John.”

He straightened. “It’s obvious how you feel about men and—”

“What do you mean, how I feel about men?”

“Oh, come on. You know as well as I do that you’re distrustful and bitter—”

She stuck her bottom lip into a pout and shoved a dirty spatula at him. “Rhubarb is bitter. I’m just a little wary.”

John loaded the spatula. “Bullshit. You think the majority of men are pigs.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “True.”

“I guess I can’t help thinking I might have had a big hand in that attitude.”

She made a face and waved her hand in the air, dismissing his opinion. “That night was awful, true, but it has nothing to do with why—” She stopped, remembering how she’d been scared to go out on dates for months after that incident, how she’d been certain that all boys had nothing but bad intentions up their sleeves. How she’d been attracted to Wayne at first because he was older, and she thought that meant she could trust him. She ran a sponge under the warm water and rung it out, then wiped the counters with vigorous strokes.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” he said from behind her.

“Don’t psychoanalyze me, John.” She moved to the stove and wiped around the burners.