Sweet Liar (29 page)

“Yes,” Mike said after a moment, but not wanting to elaborate on the answer. He liked thinking that she knew nothing about his finances, because women had dated him for his money. A couple of them had gone so far as to say that they loved him when they meant they loved his money.

“I want to ask a personal favor of you. Will you lend me some money? A few thousand? Ten at most, I think. I'll pay you back whenever I can.”

He tried to keep from frowning. “Whatever I have is yours. May I ask what you want the money for?”

“I want to buy some furniture.”

“For your apartment?” The words came out sharper than he'd meant them to as he thought of having asked Jeanne to redecorate Sam's apartment.

“No, of course not!” Samantha snapped, annoyed that he thought she was such a frivolous, ungrateful person as to ask him, who had given her so much, for something she didn't need. “It's not for me, it's for my grandmother. I want to make that dreadful room of hers beautiful. I want to buy some pictures for the walls—nice pictures—a chair and a few accessories, but I want them to be of good quality, very good quality. My grandmother used to wear Lanvin and real diamonds and real pearls.” Samantha paused for a moment then said very softly, “Maybe we could rent the furniture. She won't need it for very long.”

Putting his hands on her shoulders, Mike kissed her hard, a kiss that told her he was proud of her. “We'll buy whatever you want. Tomorrow we'll go shopping at a few antiques stores where they know my sister.”

“Michael,” she whispered, not meeting his eyes. “I'm so afraid. I don't want to see another person I love die.”

Putting his fingers under her chin, he tipped her face up and looked at her in silent question, as though asking her what she needed. Then, as though he knew the answer, he opened his arms to her, not in desire but in warmth and comfort—and perhaps in love.

Without a thought, she moved onto his lap, her body as close to his as possible as she drew her knees into her chest, his big arms wrapping about her, making her feel safe, letting her feel the very aliveness of him. She could feel his heart beating under her cheek, and when she pressed even closer to him, she thought she could feel the blood coursing through his veins.

“Hold me, Michael,” she whispered. “Hold me tightly. Let me feel your strength, your…health.” Her voice was ragged with emotion.

He held her as tightly as he could without breaking her bones, spreading his hands to cover her head and as much of her back as possible. In his mind's eye, he saw what she must have seen: her grandfather slowly wasting away, gradually moving toward death, then her father eaten by the same illness, dying in her arms exactly as her grandfather had. Now she'd found her last blood link on earth, and Mike well remembered the dry, nearly lifeless skin of the woman, the grayish pallor of her. Death was hovering over Maxie, already pulling at her, trying to take her from earth—and from Samantha.

In spite of how tightly Michael was holding her, Samantha began to tremble.

“Sam!” he said sharply in alarm, but his tone had no effect on her as her trembling increased, so he pulled his hand away from her head and held it in front of her face. “Look at my hand! Do you hear me?
Look
at it!”

Slowly, she lifted her head. She was trembling so violently now that her teeth were almost chattering. She had no idea what Mike was doing as she obediently looked at his hand.

“Strong. Healthy,” he said, holding his hand inches from her face. “Alive and well. See it?”

His hand
was
strong, glowing with the health of youth and exercise and just plain love of living. To Mike's utter consternation, she pulled his hand to her face, held his palm to her lips, and breathed deeply, as though reassuring herself that he was indeed alive and was going to stay that way. Moving her head slightly, she put his warm, callused palm to her cheek, closed her eyes, and rested her head against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart while Mike held her as tightly as he dared.

Holding her as he stroked her back, he wished he could help her, wished that he could take some of her pain away, wished he could stop what they both knew was going to happen. But he could do nothing. No amount of money, no amount of love can stop a person from dying.

Even after Samantha fell asleep in his arms, Mike continued holding her, allowing her to relax against him, wanting to feel her warm little body next to his.

Sometimes, when he thought about how much he loved her, it was almost a physical ache inside him. He was to the point where he could hardly stand to be away from her, as though he were afraid he'd miss one of her smiles or even one of her frowns. It would have been impossible to describe the pleasure he received from watching her blossom, seeing her change from the little rabbit he'd first met to the woman who could yell out the window at someone like Ornette. He liked to see the joy she gave to other people, such as when she kissed Jubilee or when she befriended Daphne or when she climbed onto the bed with Maxie and hugged her.

Yet she terrified him with this continued pursuit of the people who had been involved with Maxie and with her need to know what happened so long ago. Right now Mike wished he'd never heard of Doc, had never heard of Dave Elliot. But if he hadn't, he reminded himself, he wouldn't have met Sam.

In her sleep she relaxed against him, her trust of him complete and absolute. It was this trust that was beginning to drive him insane. For the life of him, Mike couldn't figure out why she wouldn't go to bed with him. He'd asked every question he could think of, investigating her past under a microscope, doing what he could to find answers, to make her talk to him. From the way she reacted when he touched her, he'd have thought she was raped when she was a child or some other traumatic thing had happened to her so that now she couldn't bear a man to touch her.

But Samantha allowed Mike to touch her. Brother! did she allow him to touch her! Hand holding, snuggling, kissing, cuddling together on the couch, she seemed to want to touch him every minute of every day. He was sure that if it were up to her she could perfectly well sleep in the same bed with him every night and not even be tempted to go any further than sleeping in each other's arms.

He had fantasies—awake or asleep he had fantasies about making love to her—but his major fantasy was about persuading her that sex wasn't so bad. He thought about kissing her until she was limp, then gradually going further, but Sam always seemed to read his mind; when sex was his intent, she pushed him away.

Now he was finding that his patience was nearly at an end, for he was beginning to feel that his love for her wasn't going to be returned. From talking to her father and from what Samantha had told him Mike knew that her ex-husband was very different from him, and maybe that's what she needed: a different kind of man. Maybe she could only respond to men like her ex and not men like Mike. Maybe she needed some CPA-type guy: structured, formal, tidy…boring.

Maybe, he thought, and his gut twisted at the idea, maybe she thought of him as a “friend.” Sometimes women had stupid notions that a sexually healthy man and woman could be platonic friends without the “complications” of sex. Maybe that's what Sam thought about him, thought that they could remain living together in this house as roommates.

Both of these theories had many holes in them, such as why she was so damned jealous of any other woman he so much as glanced at and why she looked at him as though he were a combination of Apollo, Conan the Barbarian, and Merlin. It was an easy guess that a tenant didn't usually look at her landlord with eyes that made him seem as though he could do anything, accomplish anything, become anything.

So why the hell wouldn't she go to bed with him?

At midnight, he picked her up and took her into the bedroom, carrying her as she clung to him as though she were a nine-year-old and he her father. When he put her on the bed, she smiled at him in her sleep. Now what was he supposed to do? Put her jammies on her?

“Samantha,” he said, “I'd like to be one of those altruistic, storybook heroes who can undress the heroine without jumping on her bones, but I can't. You'll have to undress yourself and put on your own nightgown. I want to make love to you too much to be able to even look at your bare body and still be able to control myself. I just might turn into that rapist you've always thought I was.”

By the end of this speech, her eyes were wide open as she looked up at him standing over her. “Mike, thank—”

But he'd shut the door sharply before she could say the words he'd come to hate.

I
n the morning, Samantha sensed that Mike was different the moment she walked into the breakfast room where he was seated and looking at the newspaper. He didn't put down his paper and smile at her as he usually did, didn't wink at her as he often did. Instead, he kept the paper in front of him, reaching out for his coffee cup without looking up. When she said good morning, he still didn't look at her.

For a moment she thought he might be angry at her because she'd once again imposed on him, but he'd been so very nice to her last night. Of course Mike was always nice, always kind…always the most wonderful human being on the face of the earth, she thought.

Moving to stand behind him, she put her hand on his shoulder. “Mike, about last night—” she began, then to her astonishment, he moved away from her touch. He did not want her to touch him!

Samantha was so stunned by his movement that she had to leave the room. When she returned later, dressed for the day, she hoped she had her facial expression under control. With all the years she'd spent living with her ex-husband, acting, pretending every moment, shouldn't she be good at acting by now?

He was still sitting at the table, still hidden behind the newspaper. “Mike, about last night,” she said, this time without touching him. “I didn't mean to impose on you. I didn't mean to ask more of you than you've already given, and, about the money for the furniture, you don't have to lend it to me and—”

“Samantha,” he said firmly, “I don't want to hear it. Money is the least of my problems and as soon as I get dressed, we'll go buy Maxie some furniture. We need to get out of the house anyway because my sister is going to be here today and I don't want to be in her way.”

With that he left the room, without so much as turning to look at her.

It was a strained day. Usually they talked so much that they tended to talk over the top of each other, but today, there seemed to be nothing to say. Mike did just as he'd promised and took her to Newell's where she saw floor after floor of heavenly antiques, and he took her to the Antiques Mart where they went to shop after shop, but she wasn't having very much fun. Doing her best to think of Maxie and not herself, she bought a couple of pretty bed jackets, a bottle of perfume, and even some earrings, but she could think of little else except that Mike was angry with her.

The worst part of the day was when Mike jumped away from her if she got too close to him, as though he couldn't stand for her to touch him. By the afternoon, Samantha was weary with it all, weary with what was happening now, weary with her memory of the past, for her ex-husband had done the same thing to her. In the beginning of their marriage they had held hands and kissed and had enjoyed touching, but after the first few months he couldn't seem to bear her touching him. Now it was turning out to be the same with Mike. But it was a great deal more understandable with Richard, because she'd been to bed with him. Go to bed with Samantha Elliot, she thought, and be turned off sex with her forever.

By late afternoon she was so nervous that when she accidentally touched Mike's hand, she jumped. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to touch you. I know you don't want me to touch you. I didn't mean—”

Turning toward her, Mike said, “Oh, Sam, you don't understand at all, do you?” Pulling her into an empty corridor of the Antiques Mart, he drew her into his arms and kissed her sweetly, longingly, her body pinned between the wall and his big, warm torso.

When he drew his lips away from hers, she put her head on his shoulder, her heart beating wildly. “I thought you hated me. I thought—”

He didn't want to hear what she thought, nor did he want to talk about what was bothering him, he didn't want to have to put it into words. “I'm taking you to Blair's and leaving you there because I have to go out tonight and you can't return to the house.”

All she could do was nod, so glad that he was again looking at her.

In the taxi he was silent and she wished he'd tell her what was bothering him, but no matter what questions she asked, she couldn't get him to talk. At Blair's apartment building, he practically dropped her at the curb, waiting only to see that she got inside under the care of the doorman.

“You look as though you could use a drink,” Blair said as soon as Samantha was inside her apartment, which was small and neat and furnished with comfortable, modern furniture. “You and Mike have a fight?”

“I…I think so,” she began as she took a seat on Blair's couch. “But, actually, no, we didn't.” Looking at Blair, her face showed her distress. “I don't know what's wrong, but Mike's angry at me and I don't know why.”

“Sex,” Blair said quickly. “With men at this early stage of courtship it's always sex. They think of nothing else.”

Taking the gin and tonic Blair held out to her, Samantha grimaced. “It couldn't be sex because there isn't any.”

For a moment Blair didn't understand what Samantha was saying, then she laughed. “Poor Mike. I'll bet this is a surprise to him. Since he was a teenager I doubt if any female he's wanted has taken longer than twenty-four hours to fall into bed with him—and that includes high school.”

“If he fell into bed with me, he'd never want to see me again,” Samantha said heavily.

Blair had been trained as a physician, but right now her experience as a woman was of more use to her, and she could see that something was wrong with Samantha. Viewed from a distance, it was odd that Samantha and Mike weren't spending every minute of every day in bed together, since she'd never seen two people more enraptured with each other. Seeing the two of them together was enough to nauseate a healthy individual. They laughed uproariously at each other's slightest witticisms, got nervous when one left the other alone in a room, making weak excuses to follow. They looked at each other with eyes so big and drippy they'd make a cocker spaniel's eyes seem cruel.

As far as Blair could tell, since Samantha had moved into Mike's house, the two of them hadn't been more than a few feet apart from each other, except for the day Samantha had gone out with Raine and Mike had followed them and been hit over the head with a rock by a passing stranger—a story which Blair didn't believe for a second.

Last night Raine had come by her apartment and told her about driving Mike and Samantha to see Sam's grandmother. Raine had had a good laugh about how besotted his cousin was and said he looked as though he'd walk across fire if Samantha wanted him to—or if he thought it would impress her. “I hope to hell
I
never fall as hard as Mike's fallen,” Raine had said. “I think Mike would have gone after me with a shotgun if I'd so much as touched the hem of her skirt, which I wouldn't mind doing given the legs under that skirt. I do rather envy him his nights.”

Now Blair was hearing that Sam and Mike had never gone to bed together. It was rather like finding out that Romeo and Juliet had been faking their love for each other.

“Where did Mike go tonight?” Blair asked.

“To find out more about my grandmother,” Samantha answered and explained a bit about the note. “He doesn't want me to go with him because I'm not suitable for a bar. You know what he said about me? He said that I have an old mind in a young body. He thinks I'm…that I'm the motherly sort, the little church girl. I'll bet Vanessa went to bars with him.”

“What do you know about Vanessa?”

“What do
you
know about Vanessa?”

Blair laughed. “Did you know that Vanessa slept with other men while she was going out with Mike and that Mike knew about it and didn't care?”

A bit stunned by that news, Samantha blinked a couple of times. “Since Mike is the most jealous man in the world, that's a little difficult to believe. He's jealous of Raine and this city and everything that I like that isn't him. Sometimes I think he's even jealous of computers.”

“Well, he wasn't jealous with Vanessa. She was a showpiece and she was there when Mike wanted her and left him alone when he didn't want to be bothered. But then, it's my opinion that Vanessa would have done anything Mike wanted, because she liked his money more than she liked him.”

“Is Mike wealthy?”

“Yes.” Blair was pretending that her attention was on her drink, but actually, she was watching Samantha intently.

“But Raine said all the Taggerts were poor.”

“Compared to the Montgomerys, they are. Mike inherited around ten million on his twenty-first birthday, and by now, with his skills at investing, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd tripled the amount.”

With a big sigh, Samantha finished her drink. “I was beginning to think that was the case.”

Blair laughed at her tone because she sounded as though she'd been told Mike had some great, unchangeable flaw. “Mike's money isn't a tragedy, you know. It gives him a lot of freedom.”

“Freedom to have any woman in the world,” she said heavily. Blair nearly laughed again. Mike wasn't the only victim of the green-eyed monster. “I think Mike is…is…”

“You don't have to tell anybody what you think of Mike; it's in your eyes for everyone to see.”

“I wish it were on my body,” she muttered, then looked up at Blair sharply. “You know what I'd like to do?”

“What?”

“Look like a slut.”

“What!?” Blair nearly choked on her drink.

“I think maybe I have some talent as an actress. I put on a dress my grandmother had worn in the twenties and I sort of, well, turned into her. Actually, I was an altogether different person. I sang an old blues song for Mike and I think he was a little shocked, and, truthfully, maybe I was too. Anyway, I wish I could put on a minuscule outfit and high heels and go to this bar and pick up Mike. I couldn't do that as myself, but maybe if I were another person, dressed as another person, I would have some courage. I'm not sure what I'd do with him once I'd picked him up, but—”

“I have every confidence that my oversexed cousin will help you figure out something to do with him. You know, I might have a few pieces of clothing that could be just what you're looking for. How does red lycra sound?”

“Like a leotard.”

“This is much smaller than a leotard. In fact, I've seen finger bandages larger than the skirt I have in mind.”

“It sounds perfect. Could I see it?”

“Sure. I'll get a magnifying glass and we'll start searching in my closet.”

Laughing together, the women headed for Blair's bedroom.

“Would you look at that?” Nelson said, cigarette smoke curling about his head.

Mike didn't turn to look at what had to be the fiftieth girl this creep had declared to be the most sensational creature on earth. Taking a drink of his third beer, Mike leaned toward the skinny little man. “You planning to tell me what you know in this century or not?”

He was sounding belligerent now because he was feeling belligerent. For two hours he'd been here in this sleazy bar trying to buy, sweet talk, bully, whatever he could think to do, information from this old alky. So far, he'd had no luck, and he was beginning to think that the anonymous note-writer at Jubilee's had been lying when he'd hinted that Nelson knew anything.

“She's buying a pack of cigarettes now,” Nelson said, his eyes to the right.

Pulling another fifty from his pocket, Mike slipped it across the table. “That's the last of it. You don't tell me anything after this, I'm leaving.”

“Keep your shirt on, muscle-boy. Can't you spend a little time with a guy who's down on his luck?”

Nelson was one of those people who had been born down on his luck. No doubt he'd found something wrong in his childhood, his mother spoke too sharply to him or some such, and now he used it as an excuse to wallow in grief and spend his life in bars cadging drinks. He was little, thin, dirty, and weasly looking, and he felt the world owed him a life.

“I guess you got better things to do than sit here with the likes of me.” His voice was a self-pitying whine. “Maybe you got somebody at home waiting for you.” The implication was that Nelson didn't have anyone and that's why he was so unhappy and had to drink and make those marks shooting whatever it was into the inside of his arm.