THEY DROVE HOME in silence, some tension in the air between them that he wanted to move away from, and that Allie wanted to move toward.
“I’m not ready to go to bed,” Allie said when they arrived at the cottage and went in the door.
“You’re exhausting me,” Sam informed her. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
But she glanced at Sam from under her eyelashes, and he did not look exhausted.
They were home from their magical evening, at that awkward moment when it was time to say good-night, go to their separate rooms and shut the doors.
Lie awake and listen to each other breathing.
“I’m not ready for bed,” she said, again.
He sighed. “Me, either. You know what I want?”
Oh, yeah, she knew what he wanted. She had seen it in his eyes tonight when they had danced, felt it in the heat of his body when the music had turned slow.
“What do you want?” Allie whispered.
He leaned forward. She thought he was going to kiss her. But he didn’t. He touched her hair.
“I want to cut this.”
“What?”
“I want to get rid of those little black tips. I want to banish Tempest forever.”
Hmm…interesting…just when she wanted to let Tempest out.
Without waiting for her answer, he led her out onto the deck. He placed a stool in the center of it, and beckoned for her to sit down.
He went back into the house and got a towel and a clothespin, and secured them around her neck.
“It feels like Superman’s cape,” she said softly.
“Maybe that’s what it is when you become yourself.”
And then with exquisite tenderness he began to cut her hair. Deliberately, his hands brushed the soft nape of her neck. Deliberately, he placed his lips where his fingertips had been. The black hair fell around her, bit by bit, and his lips and hands took the place of everything that hair had represented.
“It’s kind of like Sampson and Delilah,” she told him softly, “only in reverse. My strength is coming back to me with every snip. I am becoming more who I am, not less.”
Finally, he was finished. He took off the towel and stood back regarding her. He took his fingers and ran them through her hair. He fluffed it. He acted as though he could not get enough of staring at her.
“And who are you?” he asked.
“It’s my turn to pick what we do. I want to swim with you,” she said, and heard the huskiness in her voice. “I want to skinny-dip with you in the ocean.”
“That’s not a good idea,” he said.
“I think it is,” she decided. “I’m all done with letting other people decide what the good ideas are, even you.”
* * *
Even you.
As if he mattered to her, but not as much as she mattered to herself. Allie had been beautiful before. As she interacted with him, and Cody and her guitar. But Allie stepping out of that pile of dark hair and fully into herself was more than beautiful.
It was irresistible.
She went into the house, and came back out with a towel wrapped around her.
Sam could feel his mouth going dry. She was naked under that towel.
He tried to reason with himself: she was always naked under something, her clothes, her bathing suit.
She walked by him, and helplessly he followed her to the water’s edge.
She dropped the towel, and stood there. The night was dark and yet her skin glowed white, luminescent. She gave him one look, one seductive smile, and dove into the waves.
He dropped his shorts and followed her into the water.
She was swimming out beyond the break, treading water and tilting her head to the stars.
“You’re going to get us arrested,” he told her huskily.
She turned her face away from the stars and looked at him. He saw her bravery. He saw what she was asking.
He did what he had wanted to do since they had danced together, since he had cut her hair.
Since the first time he had tasted her lips, probably since the first time he had seen her, lying on the floor, those huge eyes taking him in.
Even then, the bravery had been there.
He closed the small distance of dark water between them. He growled her name. She answered by twining her arms around his neck, by pressing herself against him. Her skin was hot in contrast to the cool of the water. Her body was substance, something you could hang onto, something solid in a liquid world.
He took her lips.
Her answer was tentative. A tasting. A nibble.
And then less tentative. Her hands twined more tightly around him, and her mouth invited him deeper.
He could not refuse the invitation. He was a man who had been dying of hunger and thirst, and this moment offered him what he had turned his back on.
Life.
Her lips tasted of seawater and hope. Her lips tasted of the wine she had sipped earlier and of dreams. Her lips tasted of laughter.
Her lips tasted of a future.
He groaned, and pulled her to him. He carried her out of the water.
She nestled into him. “Warrior,” she said, the maiden being carried off.
But nothing could be further from the truth. He was not a warrior—he was the conquered. This was the very thing he was sworn to fight.
But his weakness was such that he could not remember why he needed to fight. He set her down slowly, pulled on his shorts, watched out of the corner of his eye as she pulled the towel around herself.
And then he scooped her back up. He carried her through the darkness, through the sand, aware she felt featherlight. How could someone so powerful be so light?
He slid open the patio screen with his foot, carried her through the darkened house and to his bedroom. He tossed her on the bed, and stood drinking her in, the unearthly beauty of her.
He laid down on the bed beside her. He traced the sacred places of her. He made her quiver with wanting him. He made her sigh and cry. He made her play out each of the things going on inside of him.
Far away, something was trying to pierce his awareness.
“Leave it,” she whispered, a plea.
But he pushed up on his elbows and listened. It was his phone, in some faraway room.
Boing. Boing. Boing.
Allie’s brow furrowed as she recognized the tone. “That’s Kathy and Bill’s ring tone,” she said, sudden panic, that mirrored his own, in her voice.
“What time is it?” she asked.
He looked at the clock beside her bed. It was nearly three in the morning. Nothing good had ever come from a three-in-the-morning phone call.
He got up and raced through the house, following the sound of the phone. Allie, the towel pulled around her, was right behind him. The phone had been abandoned out on the deck.
He found it, and stabbed at the keypad in the darkness.
“Hello?” he cried desperately.
He could hear a sound, but not a voice. He was pretty sure it was Kathy, but she wasn’t speaking.
She was crying.
It was a terrifying reminder of what happened when you let go of control, what happened when you let your guard down.
“What’s happened?” Sam demanded. “What’s happened to Cody?”
“Nothing,” Kathy managed to stammer. “Sam, he’s fine. I’m sorry I frightened you. No, he’s more than fine. He’s already gone back to sleep. But I wanted you to know.
“He spoke.”
Sam knew he should ask questions. A good person would ask questions. A good person would not make it all about him. A good person would at least ask what Cody said.
He was silent, because he could not trust his voice if he spoke.
Kathy laughed, a little nervously. “I’m sorry. It’s the middle of the night. I probably shouldn’t have woken you. But Cody woke up, and he spoke, and I just wanted you to know so badly.”
“Thank you,” he said, forcing the words out past the lump in his throat. He could not trust himself to say more.
“I’ll let you go.” She was crying again. “I just wanted you to know. We’re going to leave really early. We’ll be back at the beach house in the morning. Come for breakfast. You and Allie. I’ll tell you all about it then.”
Allie was at his side as he ended the call, looking at him with those huge eyes.
“Is everything okay? Is Cody okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, “everything is fine.”
“Sam?”
Allie was touching him. Her hand on his naked skin felt scorching, like a brand. She was gazing at him with a look that could steal whatever was left of his strength.
But life had just reminded him of the danger of the kind of moments—minutes, hours, days—that he had let himself share with her.
Just as he relaxed, just as he began to allow himself to have hope, life let you know.
You are a failure.
Not at business. When it came to business, he had the proverbial Midas touch. But where it really mattered? With people?
He had failed his nephew. A few days with other people—normal people, wholesome people—and Cody had spoken.
But his failures had begun long before that. He had failed his sister and brother-in-law. He had failed at marriage.
And he would fail Allie, too.
He knew what he needed to do. And he knew it was going to be the hardest thing he had ever done.
“What is going on?” Allie demanded. “What’s happened to Cody?”
He forced his mouth into a smile. He forced himself not to look at her mouth, or her hair still wet from the sea, with no black left in it. He forced himself not to look at the long stretches of her not covered in the towel.
“Cody spoke,” he said. “Kathy wanted to let me know.”
“What did he say?” she asked. Her eyes filled with tears, joyous tears. “Sam! This is incredible.”
She didn’t get it. At all.
He had come here looking for an answer, looking for a sure direction, needing to know what was best for Cody.
He had come here begging to know what was right.
And now he knew.
“You,” he said, “should not be luring men you barely know into middle-of-the-night naked swims with you.”
“Barely know?” she whispered.
“No pun intended,” he said coldly, and was satisfied to see her flinch and pull that towel a little tighter around her body.
It would make it easier for her if the cut was cruel. Oh, who was he kidding? It would make it easier for him if she didn’t know the truth.
If she knew the truth—how hard it was to walk away from the light and back into darkness—she might wrap her arms around him again. She might soothe the demons in him with the sound of her voice. She might sing him back to this world.
He couldn’t drag her down with him. He despised himself for how badly he wanted to go back into the circle of her arms, the comfort she was promising him.
He’d almost taken advantage of this fragile, broken girl.
Oh, sure he had cut her hair, he had led her part way back to who he could see she was. But would there be a worse choice than him to restore her?
No, he would be the worst choice.
He went into his bedroom. He shut the door, not with a slam, that might have revealed way too much, but with a click that said nothing at all.
He laid down in the bed they had shared. He could taste her on the air, and smell her in his sheets.
He waited until he heard her go to bed. And then he waited an hour beyond that. The dawn was coming up when he tiptoed out the door, a carelessly packed bag over his shoulder, and left.
He left Popsy with her. Even the dog knew the truth about him.
* * *
Allie woke up in the morning, with Popsy licking her face frantically. She realized it was very late. Well, it had been very late when she had finally slept.
At first the dog’s attention made her feel happy, but then memories of the night before crept in. She remembered the terrible coldness in Sam’s face after that phone call, and how nasty he had been to her. Then she became aware of a silence in the cottage, a feeling of utter emptiness.
She got up and raced to Sam’s room. The bed was neatly made. The closet was empty. She ran to the front room and looked out the window. His car was gone.
She went to Cody’s room. His things were still there, his books, his suitcase. Sam would not abandon Cody.
Or Popsy.
With panic rising in her, she ran all the way down the beach to Kathy and Bill’s. It looked as if they had just gotten back. Kathy opened the door, and let her in.
“Is Sam here?”
“Here? No. Why would he—”
“I woke up this morning, and he was gone.” She tried to keep the panic out of her voice. She couldn’t let Cody hear. “Something happened last night when you called. I don’t know what—”
Kathy’s phone rang. She looked at it, and then nodded at Allie. “Sam? Allie’s here. Where are you?”
She listened and then said, “Sam, you’ve got this all wrong. When Cody woke up he said—”
She frowned and stared at her phone. “He’s hung up on me.”
“What did he say?” Allie breathed.
“Cody said Need Unca.”
As important as it was for Allie to hear that, that wasn’t what she meant. “What did Sam say?”
Kathy shot a look toward the hallway to make sure no little ears listened. “Something about meeting with his lawyers. Something about us, Bill and I, taking custody of Cody.”
Allie felt as if she was breaking apart inside. “He was worried from the moment he arrived that that’s what you wanted.”
“What? We never wanted that. Of course we love Cody. Of course we are aware that Cody is how Adam goes on. We have been exploring how to spend more time with him. Bill has been looking at a transfer to his company’s American office. That’s part of the reason for this trip. We feel Sam is as much a part of our family as Cody is. It’s so apparent how they have gotten each other through this. We can see the bond. Anyone could see the bond. How could he think we would want to break that bond?”
“He thought Adam and Sue probably named him guardian as a lark, back when they thought nothing bad could ever happen to them.”
“You know, nobody liked a lark as much as Adam. And Sue, too. But when it came to their child? That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. They would have made that decision with all the weight it needed. And they made the right one. It’s so obvious when you see Sam with Cody, don’t you think?”
“Cody talked for you, not him. Sam will see that as a failure, as proof that he’s not the best person for Cody.”
Kathy was watching her intently. Somehow, as she looked at Allie, the worry lines faded from her face.
“Oh, my,” she said. “It’s all way more complicated than Sam and Cody, isn’t it?”
“In what way?” Allie stammered.
“You love him. And I wonder how he feels about you.”