Sweet Liar (8 page)

He sighed. “Is it me you hate or all men?” He was surprised at how much he wanted her to say that she didn't hate him personally.

But Samantha didn't answer his question as she looked at her eggs. “Why don't you tell him the truth?”

It took Mike a moment to remember who they'd been talking about. “You mean tell Barrett that I want to write about him?”

“I can fully understand his aversion to writers.” She said the word
writers
with disgust in her voice.

“I take it that writing is another mark against me,” he said with a sigh. “Want to tell me why?”

He didn't even expect her to answer. “All right, keep your secrets. Ever hear of Al Capone? Of course you have. The reason you've heard of him is not because he was the biggest gangster or even the most violent. You've heard of him because Capone loved publicity. He used to take corps of pressmen along with him when he went fishing. The man thought everything he did was worth recording. Actually, in his day in New York, Barrett was bigger than Capone, but Barrett hated publicity of any kind. Wouldn't even allow a photo to be taken of him, and never gave an interview.”

“So now you think that if you wrote and told him the truth, saying that one maybe-granddaughter and one nosy writer wanted to meet him, he'd say no?”

“I'm sure of it. That's why I have to be something close and personal to you. Sure a husband is out? Okay, then how about a fiancé?”

“How about my half brother?”

“If Barrett has seen Maxie, he'd know that was a lie.”

She tried to think of something else for him to pretend to be, for she didn't want the implied intimacy between them even for one afternoon.

He knew what she was thinking as clearly as though he could read her mind. “What is it you have against me anyway?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you
really
want to marry me? Settle down, have a couple of kids?”

“I hadn't planned on getting married this week,” he answered.

“Then you're not in love with me? Deeply, really in love?”

“We haven't had a conversation yet that wasn't full of hostility.”

“Ah…Then what you really want is to go to bed with me and that's all.” She leaned forward. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Taggert. Just as you're an old-fashioned man, I'm an old-fashioned woman. I'm not a modern woman who debates whether or not to go to bed with a man on the first date. I'm the kind of woman who debates whether or not to
kiss
a man on the
third
date. I do not want to go to bed with you and, heaven help me, I do not, under any circumstances, want to get married again. One major mistake per life is my motto, and I've made mine and I've learned from it. Do I make myself clear?”

Leaning back in the booth, Mike stared at her, trying his best to understand where all her hostility was coming from. Nothing Dave had told him had prepared him for this animosity.

“I thought so. Now, do we have things clear between us? I want to fulfill the requirements of my father's will and get out of this city, and I'll do what's necessary but no more. Understand me?”

“A little better than I did,” he said softly.

“Good. Now maybe we can proceed. You may write Barrett and tell him I'll come with my fiancé. After the meeting I'll move out of your house and you will give me a document saying that I have fulfilled the requirements. Agreed?”

“Almost. I have a stipulation. Between the time we send the letter and when we receive a reply, probably a few days at most, I don't want you out of my sight.”

“What?”

“I don't want you staying alone in your father's apartment. Until your father's will is carried out I am responsible for you.”

“Of all the—Oh, I see, you said before that you thought I was near suicide. I can assure you, Mr. Taggert, that I—”

“And I can assure you, Miss Elliot, that I have made up my mind about this. We can do whatever you like, go shopping, visit the Statue of Liberty, whatever, but we do it together.”

“I will not—”

He started to leave the table. “This conversation is over. Let's go back to the house and I'll help you pack.”

“Pack?”

“So you can leave.”

“But…” She knew what he meant. Either she did what he wanted in the way he wanted it done, or she left his house. He held all the cards. If she wanted the money her father had left her, she had to do what he said. “All right,” she said in disgust as she stood up. “But keep your hands off of me.”

He was looking at her oddly. “That husband of yours must have been one big bastard.”

“Not particularly so. Show me a woman who's been married to the same man for more than two years and I'll show you a woman with a very high pain tolerance.”

“I guess your pain level wasn't too high or you'd still be married to him.”

She looked away. “That's where you're wrong,” she said softly. “My capacity for pain seems to be limitless.”

T
he mirror on the wall shuddered when Samantha slammed the apartment door behind her. Just who did he think he was? she thought. What right did he have to give her ultimatums? The instant she thought the words, she knew the answer. Her father had given him the right to decide whether she met the requirements of the will or not, but her father hadn't given him the right to control every minute of her day, she thought defiantly.

She opened her closet doors. Statue of Liberty, she thought with disgust, knowing how much she genuinely hated anything that could remotely be called a tourist attraction. In the four years she had lived in Santa Fe she had never visited anything that was frequented by busloads of people who were ruled by timetables prepared by someone else.

As she looked at the contents of her wardrobe, she smiled. Perhaps he could force her to do what he wanted her to do, but he couldn't make her enjoy it. Perhaps if she were disagreeable enough, he'd leave her alone. Rummaging inside two packing boxes, she found what she was looking for.

Mike wrote the letter to Barrett, called an express mail service, and sent it off, letting out his pent-up breath when the letter was gone. Now it was up to Barrett as to what he did, but Mike hoped he'd allow Samantha and him to visit. It was Mike's guess that the old man would very much want to see his granddaughter—at least Mike hoped that was the case. But who could tell what a ninety-one-year-old man was going to do?

As Mike watched the express mail truck drive away, his thoughts turned to Samantha and he smiled. For all her bristles, all her hostility, he was looking forward to spending the day with her. It wasn't just that she was the sexiest female he'd ever seen or that he wanted to take her to bed, there was something about her that intrigued him. He wondered what she was like when she wasn't angry. Now and then he caught a glimpse of her, a glimpse of what he had come to think of as the real Samantha. He'd seen the real Samantha the first day he'd met her, and last night when she'd drunk the glass of wine and had made jokes, he'd had a look inside her. These rare sights made him sure there was another Samantha under the one she presented to the world, or he thought with a smile, maybe she presented the bristle-coated side only to him.

Now, he wondered, what did one do with a young lady who looked as though she wore a hat and gloves to church on Sundays? He couldn't very well take her to his favorite New York haunts, some of which consisted of bars, nor did he think she'd appreciate visiting Daphne and her friends.

Picking up the telephone, he called his sister Jeanne, for she would know what to do to entertain someone like Samantha, he thought as he dialed his parents' telephone number in Colorado. His mother answered the phone.

“Mom, is Jeanne there?”

“No, Michael, dear, she isn't.” Patricia Taggert knew the sound of each of her children's voices, and she knew when they needed something. “Can I help you?”

Feeling a little odd asking his mother such a personal question, Mike prayed she wouldn't start asking awkward questions, but he did need a woman's advice. “I met a woman—Now, wait a minute, before you start thinking orange blossoms—”

“I didn't mention orange blossoms, Michael, dear,
you
did,” Pat said sweetly.

Mike cleared his throat. “Well, anyway, I met this woman. Actually, she's the daughter of a friend of mine and—”

“Is this the young woman who's living in your house with you?”

Mike grimaced. His mother was in Chandler, Colorado, over two thousand miles away, yet she knew what he was doing in New York. “I don't even want to know how you know who's rented the apartment,” he said.

Pat laughed. “Tammy cleans for your cousin Raine, too. Remember?”

Mike rolled his eyes. The big mouth of one of his Montgomery cousins. He should have known. “Mom, you want to answer my question or find out every tiny detail of my life secondhand from other people?”

“I would love to hear directly from you.”

“She's never been to New York, and the place terrifies her. Where can I take her to make her like the city?”

Pat's mind raced. Why was the young woman living in New York if she hated the place? To be near her son? And if she and Mike were in love, what was she like?

“I mean, Mom, should I take her to the top of the Empire State Building? Rockefeller Center? What about the Statue of Liberty? How about Ellis Island?”

Pat drew in her breath, for she knew that Mike hated tourist attractions. Unfortunately, her son was much more at home in a smoke-filled bar than in a group of gawking sightseers, but he must be serious if he was willing to brave the Statue of Liberty for her. “Is she a normal girl?”

“No,” Mike said. “She has three arms, practices several bizarre religions, and talks to her black cat. What do you mean, is she a normal girl?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” Pat snapped. “Is she like that stripper who visits you, or is she one of those muscle girls from your gym? Knowing you, Mike, she could be a down-on-her-luck prostitute.”

Mike smiled at the phone. “And what would you say if I said she was one of those and that I was going to marry her?”

Pat didn't hesitate. “I'd ask what you wanted for a wedding gift.”

Mike laughed. “Okay, she's normal. Very normal, if by that you mean prim and proper. Sam could marry a preacher.”

Pat put her hand over the phone, rolled her eyes skyward, and whispered, “Thank you.” “Take her shopping,” Pat said with enthusiasm. “Show her the stores on Fifth. Take her to Saks. Your cousin Vicky is a buyer at Saks.”

“Oh?” Mike said without much interest. He had too many relatives to remember half of them. “And which one is she?”

“You know very well that she's J.T. and Aria's youngest. If your young lady still doesn't like New York after she's seen Saks, take her walking on Madison. Start at Sixty-first, walk up to the Eighties, and look in all the store windows.”

Mike was laughing. “Especially in the jewelry store windows? Maybe buy her a diamond or two? The kind of diamonds in engagement rings? Tell me, Mom, how many women have you mentally married me off to in my short life?”

“At least six,” Pat said, laughing in return.

Mike's voice changed to serious. “Mom, you and Dad are happily married, aren't you?”

At the tone of his voice, Pat thought her heart skipped a beat, for something was troubling her child. “Of course we are, darling.”

“Samantha—that's her name—said that any woman who has been married for longer than two years to the same man has a very high pain tolerance.
You
don't think that's true, do you?”

After a futile attempt at controlling her laughter, Pat released it. Even when Mike kept saying, “Mom! Mom!” she kept laughing. Even when she knew he put the phone down in disgust, she still couldn't stop laughing.

Mike put down the telephone, more than a little annoyed at his mother, actually, annoyed at all women. If they thought marriage to a man was so horrible, why were they all trying to get married? All of them except Samantha, that is, he thought. Or maybe her reluctance was merely an act.

Smiling, he went to the bedroom to dress. For Samantha he would put on a suit and tie. Maybe he'd even wear that Italian number his sister had picked out for him.

Forty-five minutes later, he emerged from the bedroom, showered, shaved, and dressed, then checked the hall mirror and straightened his tie. Not bad, he thought. Not bad at all.

“Sam!” he yelled up the stairs. “You ready to go?”

He had to wait a few minutes before she came down the stairs, but when he saw her, he smiled at her and offered her his arm.

When Samantha saw the way Mike was dressed, she wanted to die. Just plain sit down and die. She'd had dreams of embarrassing him, of making him say that he wasn't going to be seen with her dressed as she was—that's what her ex-husband would have said if she had appeared wearing her workout clothes—so she'd dragged an ancient pink sweat suit, worn bare in places, discolored in others, from the closet. Across the chest of the sweat shirt was emblazoned “At first he put me on a pedestal and now he wants me to dust it.”

As Samantha stood at the head of the stairs, looking down at Mike in his beautiful dark suit, she knew she had never seen a better-looking man in her life. At least this time when her father had chosen a man for her, he had picked one who looked good. She hadn't been as fortunate with Richard.

After one look at Mike's eyes, she knew he wasn't going to be embarrassed by her. In fact, she wasn't sure he was aware that what she had on was inappropriate. Smiling at her as though he was looking forward to going out with her, he held up his arm for her to take.

“I can't—” Samantha began. “I have to—”

“Samantha, it's eleven o'clock. If you take any longer to get dressed, the stores will be closed.”

“Stores,” she said, horror in her voice as she tried to pull away from him, but he held her firmly.

“I cannot go to a store looking like this,” she said.

Mike looked her up and down and read her shirt. “You look fine to me. I like pink on you. Besides, we can buy you new clothes if you want.”

Pulling at her arm didn't gain her release. “I have to change.”

Giving her a look of frustration, one of those count-to-ten looks, he said with exaggerated patience, “If you didn't like what you had on, why did you wear it?”

Samantha wouldn't answer that, since she couldn't very well tell him that it had been her intention to make him refuse to be seen with her, especially not since he didn't seem to notice what she had on.

Feeling like a child who was being punished, her chin down, she followed him out of the house and into the streets. So far, her total experience of New York had been Lexington Avenue. Now she walked with Mike toward Madison Avenue, then to Fifth, and the closer they got to Fifth Avenue, the more Samantha became aware of her atrocious clothing. In magazines one saw models wearing gorgeous designer clothing, and a person in the real world of Middle America sometimes wondered who in the world
wore
those things. Most Americans wear bright-colored sportswear, looking as though they spend their lives climbing mountains or running marathons. But in New York the men and women—especially the women—looked to Samantha as though they had stepped from designer showrooms.

As she walked with Mike, her hand held firmly in his arm, Samantha was painfully aware of the women around her. They were so fantastically well groomed. Their hair looked as though they shampooed it with fairy nectar, their nails were perfectly trimmed and polished, as though they never used their hands, and their clothes were nothing less than divine.

Of course one drawback to New York women was their snobbery. Many of the women gave Samantha looks of pity when they saw the way she was dressed, and some of them even smiled at her in a way that made Samantha move closer to Mike, as though for protection. Turning, he looked down at her, patted her hand, and smiled when she moved closer to him, seeming to have no idea what was going on between the woman who clung to him and the women on the street. Samantha thought it must be wonderful to be able to be oblivious.