“Oh, Sam, please…”
“Are we okay here? Safe?”
“Yes.” She ran her fingers through the hair at his temples, drew him back to her lips.
He freed himself from his pants and slowly, neatly, pulled her onto him. She gasped as he filled her. With his hands under her bottom, he lifted her so that he held her off the table, her legs wrapped around his waist. Kissing her deeply, he lifted her up and down gently. She held his shoulders, feeling the tension of his muscles at work, and rocked with him. Her pleasure was rising and rising until she thought she would scream, and then it exploded inside her, showering her with the greatest bliss she had ever known. In her ecstasy, she bit down on his lip, startling a small noise out of him. While she was gripped in orgasm, she heard him whisper, “Oh…God…” Spent, she began to go limp, but he said, “Hold me, Sarah. Tightly.” He thrust once, twice, and then exploded inside her.
He gently rested her back on the table, but continued to hold her tenderly as his kisses began to come softer, sweeter. She wouldn’t let him go, but returned his kisses for a long while, and then he gently slipped out of her.
“My God, Sarah,” he said. “Did you know that was going to happen?”
She shook her head, smiling. “But I’m glad it did.”
He touched her hair. “You’re really something.”
“You did all the work. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life.” She laid her head on his shoulder and he held her, quiet and close, until she shivered.
Sam fastened his trousers and reached to the floor for her blouse. He held it for her to slip into and then he slowly buttoned it. “I’ll need a minute,” she said. He helped her off the table and into her shoes.
Sarah went into the little bathroom in her studio to freshen up. She heard him rustling around in the studio. He’ll go now, she found herself thinking. Then she heard the soft sound of music—the slow melodies of late-night radio. When she opened the door, she found he was still bare chested. He held a hand out to her, pulled her into his arms and danced with her, taking tiny steps in the small space.
Nothing could have prepared her for this. She knew he would be an extraordinary lover, but she hadn’t counted on him being so romantic. As she held him, moved with him, kissed him to the strains of soft jazz, it wasn’t long before his kisses became deeper, more demanding. His hand went again to her breast, but this time he managed the buttons. His mouth on her was sheer heaven; his hands were magic. And her hands were all over him, caressing his shoulders, down his arms, past his flat belly. Again she was lifted to the worktable. He nibbled at her lips and said, “Try not to bite me this time. Unless you have to.” He brought her onto him again, again bearing all her weight as she enjoyed a thundering climax in his arms, and when she was done, he matched her. The only thing he said when he caught his breath was, “We need a bed.”
It was almost five in the morning when she locked the shop door. “Will your father be worried about you?”
“No. It’s not uncommon for me to get caught up in something and stay here all night. How about your mom?”
He shrugged. “I work overtime sometimes,” he said. He kissed her and said, “I’ll follow you home, make sure you’re in safely.”
The next afternoon, a floral bouquet arrived at the shop. There was one word on the card. “Wow.”
Sam called Sarah once that week, asked how she was, but when the weekend came she didn’t hear from him. The following Monday afternoon when she found him on the slopes, she passed him an envelope. Inside was a key to a room in the small motel at Lander’s Pass near the pub they had frequented. When he opened the door she was already there, in the bed. Beside her was a bottle of wine and two glasses. The sheet was pulled up to cover her naked breasts.
“Damn,” was all he could say.
As Christmas drew near, Sam’s life was changing. Ten years of tension fell from his shoulders and a mysterious smile played so often at his lips that cop friends asked, “What’s up with you, man?” All he could do was grin.
The first day he’d seen her on the slopes, he warned himself about getting mixed up with another one of these McCarthy women. Especially this one—clearly the most beautiful. The sexiest. But instead of pushing him away, Sarah seduced him and in her arms, in her body, he found a thrill like nothing he’d ever known. She was an incredible lover.
He started calling her every day, stopping by the shop, buying her little things. He found a green cashmere sweater that just lit up her eyes, and lit up his eyes when he took it off her. He found some cloisonné combs for her pretty hair. He took her to dinner in Lake Tahoe and halfway through the meal, slid a room key across the table to her. They didn’t finish dinner.
When he had her in his arms, he felt like the world’s greatest lover. She melted to him like hot butter and he found that hardly any effort was required to bring her to climax after shattering climax, the sound of her purrs and sighs, the sound of his name as she reached her pinnacle again and again, causing him to answer with a deep, lusty laugh. It filled him with some kind of male pride to work her body so well. And brother, did she have a way with his body. It caused him to shiver involuntarily in the middle of the day. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been with a woman so passionate; he’d never had so much sex in his life. He thought he’d been cursed with an overactive libido until Sarah; hers was a definite match.
As he held her in the aftermath, looking down into those bewitching green eyes, he said, “You like sex, don’t you, baby?”
And she laughed.
“Is that funny?”
“Sam, I haven’t had sex in years….”
“Huh?” he said, stunned.
“In the last twelve years I’ve had two boyfriends. One for five years, one for five weeks, and neither of them could hold a candle to you.” She touched his face. “I haven’t been with a man in ages. Whew. I had no idea what I was saving up for.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “You’re practically untouched.”
“Not anymore,” she said.
Monday nights they stayed over at Lander’s Pass, but there were other times. There were rooms available in Breckenridge, and he frequently found himself at that art shop for some groping and kissing, and sometimes more. That little table in the back room was getting a workout.
While he was in bed with her one night, looking down at her, smoothing her hair back from her face, he asked, “Have you told your sisters about us?”
The question clearly took her by surprise. “No,” she finally said. “Why?”
“I thought you three told each other everything.”
“Not everything,” she said.
“Why haven’t you told them about us?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Maybe I just want you all to myself. Why are you asking me?”
“Well, I’m not trying to keep you a secret, but I have something to tell you,” Sam said. “To explain. It’s about my daughter. She’s just a kid, you know. Molly doesn’t have a mother in the picture, and she’d like one. That’s why I can’t…” He struggled, so he stopped talking and just kissed her. Then he said, “I can’t let her get attached to you until…I can’t have her get all hopeful and then it doesn’t work out between us. Do you understand?”
She nodded, but the look on her face told him he had just frightened her. He smiled into her eyes. “We’ve only been together a few weeks, Sarah. And I don’t have any reason to think it won’t be a lot longer. But once, some years ago, the first serious relationship I had after Molly came along, something went wrong. I’m still not sure what happened. Roxanne and I were together a couple of years and then she decided it wasn’t what she wanted. Molly was crushed. I think she took it harder than I did.”
“Oh, the poor little thing,” Sarah said. She touched his face with her hand. Finally she said, “You’re going to wait for two years?” she asked.
He laughed and kissed her, bit at her lip playfully. “That’s not
why I’m telling you this now. I have to spend Christmas with my family. If it weren’t for Molly…Or if she were quite a bit older, I’d invite you to join us. I would have already brought you home to meet the family, but she’s so young. I have to be so careful with her feelings. Her expectations. She’s tenderhearted.”
“It’s okay, Sam. I’ll meet them soon enough. I’ve already met them, actually. Remember? Homecoming.”
“I mean as more than a friend. You know.”
That made her smile. “I know.”
“But I want to see you. I want to be with you. If I get us a place—will you meet me? Christmas night? After all the family stuff is over?”
“Yes, Sam.”
“Will you spend the night?”
“The whole night,” she said.
Pete went to Clare’s house, just two days before Christmas. She let him into the house and into her embrace. She gave him a little kiss, nothing passionate. Jason was just down the hall. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked him.
“I’m sure,” he said. “Is he home?”
“Right in the family room. Nervous?”
“A wreck. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, Coach,” she said. As he headed for the family room, she gave him a swat on the butt.
Pete found Jason half sitting, half lying on the couch. The boy had awfully long legs, he found himself thinking. Huge feet. “Hey, bud,” he said.
Jason straightened up. “Coach?”
“Got a minute?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Wassup?”
Pete sat on the love seat that made an L with the couch. “I want to ask you something. Permission, as a matter of fact.” He cleared his throat. “I wonder if it would be all right with you if I date your mother?”
That really put a rod in the kid’s spine. “Huh?”
“Your mother, Jason. I’d like to date your mother. But only if it’s okay by you.”
“Why you asking me?”
“Well, because it’s just you and your mom here. And then it’s you and your dad over there,” he said, gesturing with his chin toward another place, another home. “I don’t want to disrupt your family life. You know?”
Jason got a goofy grin on his face. “What if I say no?” he asked.
Oh, he’s going to torture me, Pete thought. And enjoy every second of it. “I was counting on you saying yes,” was all the answer he could think of.
“Yeah, I don’t care,” he said. “Man, that’s too weird. Having some guy wanna date your mom!”
“Thanks, bud.”
“How come you never dated her before?”
“Simple. She was never available before.” He stood up and put out his hand. “Thanks, man. I’ll let you get back to your show there.”
Pete left the family room most gratefully. He met a grinning Clare in the foyer. “So?” she asked.
“Whew,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “He really made me sweat. I wondered how I was going to get around it if he said no.” He kissed her. Then he kissed her again. Then he wrapped his arms around her and really gave it to her.
“Hey!” Jason said.
They broke apart and looked at him.
“I said you could date! I didn’t say nothin’ about that!” But he had a stupid grin on his face.
“You date your way,” Pete said. “I’ll date mine.”
Thirteen
The first two hours of Sam’s shift was like a mini crime wave, in the nastiest wet weather they’d had in a while. He worked swings—2:00 p.m. till ten, and he’d already helped recover a stolen car, stopped a fight in the Target parking lot and booked a man who’d been knocking his wife around. Sometimes he thought that rain made people do things.
As he drove through Breckenridge, he looked up at the mountains. Snow. A soft fresh blanket. It made him think about Sarah. The last really good snowfall had been two weeks ago at Christmas. The memory of that night made his pulse race a little. It had been perfect.
For reasons primarily nostalgic, he had taken Sarah to the inn on Lander’s Pass where the snow had cooperated beautifully by falling in thick white drifts, closing the pass. Sarah had made an excuse to her family that she was going to the house of a fellow artist in Reno for a Christmas evening open house and would stay the night there. So Sam brought champagne and gave her a beautiful gold bracelet, which was the only thing she wore as she pushed him back on the bed and, leaning over him, said, “And now it’s time for your present….”
It had only been a little over a month they’d been intimate, but in his mind it seemed as though he’d been born in her arms. It was as if they had a long, long history when in fact it was all new. And he loved that she was getting bolder with him—a little aggressive from time to time. When she made some lusty move on him, it would cause him to laugh in loud, surprised delight and let her have whatever she wanted.
He looked at his watch—almost five. The winter sun would be setting soon. He pulled into the grocery to get a drink and some flowers for Sarah. He was standing at the checkout with bottled water and a bouquet wrapped in cellophane. Peeling a few dollars out of his clip, he glanced up into the security mirror. Aw, Jesus, he thought. There were a couple of teenage boys loitering near the liquor department. They were fidgety and goosey; they were about to commit a smash-and-grab for a six-pack.
Sam said to the cashier, “Keep this here, I’ll be right back.”
The boys had obviously entered the store ahead of Sam. Had they seen the squad car out front, they would’ve crossed this particular store off their list. He went around a store display of canned goods, staying out of sight. He circled around to the back of the liquor aisle, coming up behind them. His timing was perfect. Just as one of the boys grabbed a six-pack, he grabbed the collar of the other. Boy number one dropped the six-pack and fled the store while he shook boy number two as he would a bad puppy.
“What’re you doing, boy?” he demanded. He turned the kid around and came face-to-face with the startled expression of Jason Wilson. “Oh, brother,” he said.
“Hey, please. I didn’t do anything,” Jason pleaded.
“I’m not buying that,” Sam said.
The store manager was upon them at once. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Just a close call,” Sam said. “There’s your beer. The thief got away and his accomplice here is going to come with me.”
“Aw, Sam,” Jason whined. “Come on, man…”
“I’m gonna let go of your shirt, Jason, and if you run I’ll be waiting at your house for you when you get home. I’m not chasing you in this rain, but I will get you. You copy?”
“Yeah,” he said in total disgust. “Yeah, I copy!”
Sam kept a hand on Jason’s elbow as he went to the cashier to retrieve his water and flowers. Then he took the boy to the car, but he put him in the passenger seat rather than the back. The flowers he threw in the back. “So,” he said to Jason, “gonna have a little after-school party?”
“We just wanted a beer,” Jason sulked.
“Drink a lot of beer, do you?”
“No! We don’t!”
“I have a choice here,” Sam said. “I could just take you to the station for petty theft. Or I could take you home.”
“I think I’d rather go to jail,” he said. “It’s going to be prison one way or another.”
“Let me ask you something, Jason. Why didn’t you boys just pilfer a little beer from the icebox at home? Why’d you decide to steal some from a store? Which, by the way, is a misdemeanor.”
“Because Stan’s old man doesn’t drink beer, and my mom drinks so little, she’d know if some was missing.”
“There you go,” he said. He put the squad car in gear. “Where is Mama today? The store? Home?”
“Can I just go to my grandpa’s?” he asked.
“Nope.”
Jason sighed and got smaller in the seat. “She’s at the old house she’s fixing up.”
“
Address?”
“I don’t know.”
Sam gave him a little swat in the arm.
“Jefferson Avenue. Fourteen something.”
That old house, he thought. He keyed his radio. “Control, DP-thirty-five, I’m out at fourteen-fifty Jefferson Avenue, returning a juvenile to his mother.”
“DP-thirty-five, copy.”
As they rode, Sam said, “You might want to go ahead and think about what you’re going to tell her. Since I’ll be right there, eavesdropping, start with the truth.”
“You’re killin’ me, man.”
“No, snookums,” he grinned, and he hoped he grinned meanly. “I’m taking you to the woman who’s gonna kill you.”
By the time they pulled up to the old house, Jason was so small in the seat next to Sam, he was all but disappearing. “Come on, pal,” Sam said. “Let’s get this over with. You’ll feel better.”
“I doubt that,” Jason said, getting out of the car.
“Look,” Sam said, “it’s not like your mom has it that easy. You might try cutting her some slack. At least keep your skinny ass out of trouble, huh?”
“What do you know about it?”
“I lost my dad when I was just a kid, younger than you. My mom did it alone. It’s hard. At least you have a dad around.”
“Yeah,” he said, hands plunged into his pockets, walking toward the house, head down. “And when she’s done killin’ me, he’s gonna start.”
“That’s comforting,” Sam said, not displeased. This was not what Sam would consider a serious crime—not compared to what he dealt with daily. But it was a golden opportunity for the parents to get control right here, right now.
Jason pushed open the front door. “Ma?” he called.
She was working in the living room but apparently hadn’t seen Sam pull up to the house. She had a ball cap on, a sweatshirt and jeans and wore heavy work gloves. In her hands she held a crowbar. Lying around the floor were pieces of baseboard that she’d pried off the wall. A fire blazed in the hearth. “Jason?” she said, confused. Sam stepped into the house behind him. “Sam?” she said, even further confused.