“What’s the matter, Sam?”
The lights faded as the car disappeared onto Beacon, but her expression stayed taut. “I told you, I need to talk to Vivi.”
“At one in the morning, in disguise.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Obviously.”
She glanced toward the street, clearly torn. “When’s she coming back?”
“No clue. Don’t even know where she is.”
She frowned. “Do you live here, too?”
He managed a shrug. “I’m between places, crashing here.”
A couple of college kids climbed out of a car, heading for the Star Market on the corner, and Sam’s posture subtly changed, growing even more guarded and wary. The store closed at midnight, so what were they doing?
“I guess I have to go back, then,” she said.
“Your cab left.”
She gave him a sharp look. “You were watching?”
“Waiting.”
“To ambush me?”
“Once I knew you were coming, I just thought it would be polite to meet you at the door.”
“From behind,” she noted scathingly.
“You used to like it that way.”
Her eyes flashed, not in insult or anger, but in fear again. “You were out here waiting for me and I didn’t even see you.” She sounded angrier at herself than at him. “You could have been anyone. You could have been…”
She jumped a foot at the sound of a car door. He’d seen that reaction to a loud noise before. He’d had that reaction. “C’mon. Inside.” God damn it all. What else could he do? He’d been the idiot who said “come on over.”
But she reached for her phone. “I’ll call a cab.” But that little tone of desperation in her voice squeezed his chest.
He nudged her toward the door. “Put the phone away and get inside. Whatever has you all jacked up won’t get you there.”
“Really, I… I can’t.”
The two men who’d just gotten out of a pickup walked directly up Tappan, within eye contact range, which they made, looking directly at Sam.
“Okay, let’s go inside,” she said quickly, the words running together as she bolted for the door, scooping up the wig he’d knocked off and stuffing it in the front pocket of her hooded jacket.
“You going to tell me what happened to make you like this?” he asked as he unlocked the entry.
She looked up at him, her gaze dropping over the scar that ran along his cheek, the flesh burning with each second she stared. It always stung, always hurt. But this kind of scrutiny just made the pain more intense.
The entryway light might as well have been a thousand suns blasting on his face, deepening the crevices, spotlighting the handiwork of a grenade that he had deserved to swallow on account of sheer stupidity.
“Are you going to tell me what happened to make you like that?” she countered.
For a beat, he said nothing, fighting the natural instinct to turn away. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
Seconds ticked by as he stared as hard as she did. Funny, he might not have recognized her face as easily as he had her body. It was Sam, of course, the same proud, straight nose and extra-full lower lip that always looked pink, as if she’d been gnawing on it. Or he’d been. She’d never been much for makeup, just flat-out pretty in a disarmingly straightforward way, but tonight her complexion had a sallow tone, and her brows were drawn into enough of a frown to put a line where none should be on a thirty-year-old.
She didn’t look older, but more mature, wiser, maybe not so… confident. No longer the carefree career girl he’d met at his sister’s party three weeks before he went wheels up.
Sam looked as if she’d waged her own private wars while he was fighting the country’s battles. For a split second, he got suckerpunched with guilt, then put it away and headed down the hall to the back stairs, expecting her to follow.
It wasn’t his fault if she was miserable. He hadn’t made any promises he didn’t keep. He hadn’t made any promises, period. No declarations during tearful good-byes. Therefore, he had no reason to feel guilty. No reason to feel anything, which was his preferred state of mind.
“Just so you know,” she said, close behind him. “I have no intention of picking up where we left off.”
“I can’t remember where we left off.” Liar, liar.
“Then maybe I should remind you.” She grabbed his elbow and forced him to turn and face her. “I was flat on my back, in the position I spent the better part of three weeks from the night I met you until the morning you left. If I recall correctly, you were stuffing your feet into boots. And I told you I loved you.”
Yep. That’s where they left off, all right. He just stared at her.
“And that’s exactly what you said in reply.” She snorted softly. “Nothing. Not then, not when you got there, not when you…” She flicked a finger toward his scar, making him wince. “Not a phone call, Zach. Not an email.” She jabbed his shoulder with a finger. “Not a letter.” Another poke. “Not a fucking postcard.” Jab, jab, jab. “Nothing.”
He closed his hand around her finger and removed it like a knife from a wound. “There was nothing to say.” Nothing she wanted to hear, anyway.
And that much hadn’t changed in three years.
Nothing to say?
She watched him walk down the hall, vaguely aware her jaw had fallen into the vicinity of her chest. Nothing to say?
Why? Because once the three weeks of bone-melting sex ended… so did their relationship? Of course. That much was obvious, and Sam could not let herself forget that.
She kept her distance behind him, gritting her teeth, forcing herself to stick with the decision she’d just made. No, she didn’t want to follow Zaccaria Angelino into an empty apartment—the very apartment where she’d met him and launched that unforgettable interlude of lust and laughter—but those men had made her nervous, and right now, Zach was the lesser of two evils. But still, an evil.
And his face. Her insides had turned at the sight of the jagged scar that ran from under a menacing black eye patch, ripped over the skin of his cheekbone, and then disappeared into three days’ growth of beard stubble. Oh, Lord above, why hadn’t Vivi told her that he’d been hurt in Iraq? Or Afghanistan. Or… wherever he’d been.
Because she and Vivi had hardly talked in the past year or so, their friendship as damaged as his face. Vivi had always been loyal to her twin brother, and never once, even in the early months of his deployment, had she whispered where he was, what he was doing, or when he was coming home. She’d only said “it’s classified,” which Sam eventually interpreted as “he lost interest in you the minute he got on that plane for Kuwait.”
From the way he positioned himself ahead of her, all she could see was his right side—which was as freaking perfect as she remembered—and the locks of long black hair that curled down his neck, shaggy and uncombed.
This was Zach Angelino, Sergeant First Class, Army Ranger, military hero, blistering-hot lover who brought her to her knees with his very first kiss? Not that he couldn’t make a girl’s knees weak. He was muscular to the point of distraction, but now a vicious-looking black and purple tattoo of thorns encircled one of those thick biceps. He was still impossibly larger than life, but that flirtatious, audacious, delicious man who’d followed her into the bathroom at Vivi’s party, pushed her up against the wall, and kissed the holy hell out of her… was gone.
In his place was someone dark, brooding, and dangerous. Could war change a man that much? Or had it just brought out a side of him she hadn’t been willing or able to see when she was blind with lust and falling fast in love?
Something told her he wasn’t going to answer those questions, so she opted for a more innocuous one. “How long have you been back?” she asked as they climbed the stairs.
“A while.”
She slowed her step, still processing how he’d changed. Was this the same man who could talk her into an orgasm? And had.
On several occasions.
He turned, half facing her. The unscarred half. “You coming?”
Like she had a choice at this point.
On the fourth floor, he unlocked Vivi’s door to incessant clawing on the other side. “It’s just Fat Tony,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Vivi’s cat.”
“I remember him,” she said. “I met Vivi right after she got him. Tried to talk her into ‘Snickers’ or ‘Whiskers.’ ”
He snorted. “This is Vivi we’re talking about.” He opened the door as the black and white cat looked up and purred, clearly not happy they weren’t who he’d been expecting. “Be happy it’s not named Aerosmith.”
Fat Tony, who wasn’t really that fat, ambled to Sam, sniffing her jeans. She reached down to give his neck a rub while Zach headed down the narrow hall, disappearing to the left, to a darkened living room. Sam followed, passing Vivi’s bedroom on one side and an office on the other, where an air mattress filled most of the floor, covered with a mess of sheets and blankets.
She got a little dizzy at the thought of Zach in that makeshift bed, tangled up in linens and sweat and her. The night they’d met she’d ended up in that same spare room; it had been a sleeping bag then, not an air mattress, that had been his crash pad while he waited to deploy. The next day, the action moved upstairs to Sam’s old apartment and a real bed, where sometimes it seemed like they stayed for the whole three weeks before he had left.
Then, he was gone. Until tonight, when she was least equipped to deal with the emotional impact of seeing him.
In the living room, he was draped over a navy blue sofa against the wall, his feet propped on a coffee table overrun with mail and magazines and clippings and papers. A mountain of newspapers teetered on an end table, vying for space with Vivi’s collection of framed pictures of their enormous, adopted American family, the Rossis.
“What kind of trouble are you in, Sam?” The question was delivered with a clear subtext—no more bullshit; we’re inside now.
“Nothing that concerns you.” Because nothing in her life concerned him. Hadn’t he assured that?
She dropped onto the armrest of a chair, not willing to get too comfy and relaxed, but also giving in to the bliss of relief. Sanctuary and safety enveloped her for the first time in a week.
Not that Zach was safe… but no one who wanted her dead at the moment knew where she was. She was so grateful, she decided to be civil.
“When do you think Vivi’ll be back?”
“I have no idea.” The only light was a golden glow from a distant streetlamp that filtered in through the rounded bay windows that faced Tappan and Beacon streets. From this angle, his scar was in the shadows, and she could barely make out the darkness of his eye patch. His gaze did follow her, though, black as his hair, somehow twice as intense as it used to be, not half, as one might imagine.
Still, a little piece of her broke off inside. His damage was obviously irreparable and permanent, robbing the world of one of its most incredible faces.
“Not like her to leave without her phone,” she said, nodding toward the BlackBerry on the coffee table between them.
“Yeah, I was surprised when I saw it there. But, if you said she filed a story, she has her laptop. You can email her or you can—”
“No. That’s not…” Safe. “A good idea.”
He leaned forward, threatening in a different way than he’d been outside. “Why not?”
“It’s just not.” She stood, crossing her arms and pacing the room, avoiding the windows out of habit, stealing glances at him, still unable to reconcile the man she saw with the one she had known so briefly. “Are you out of the Army now?”
“Yeah. Don’t change the subject. Who’re you running away from? A boyfriend? A lover?” His lip almost curled. “A husband?”
She didn’t answer.
“You’re married?” Was that a note of disappointment in his voice? That took a lot of nerve, seriously.
“No. Please don’t ask any more questions.” Like how I’ve been. And if I missed you. And did I wait for word that never came?
“You know, Sam, I’ve been at war a long time, and all it’s done is hone my ability to pick up signals, subtle or otherwise. Terror is rolling off you in waves. What the hell is going on?”
She looked at Vivi’s phone, black screened with a red light flashing to indicate a message, the edges of a ragged black and white sticker that Sam knew was probably a logo for some skateboard or guitar company curling around the plastic.
“Maybe I should email her, and use that phone instead of mine.”
“Be my guest.” He dropped back on the sofa, scratching the cat, who’d climbed up next to him and pressed against his thigh.
“Then, if she’s not coming back…” She was not spending the night alone with him in this apartment. She’d take her chances and get home. “I’ll decide what to do.”
He lifted an uninterested shoulder. “Suit yourself.”
His indifference cut. But, what did she expect? “Oh, Sammi, please stay here and let’s talk about all that’s happened since we’ve been apart”?
Get real, Sam Fairchild. He wasn’t interested. He wasn’t making a play; he hadn’t even looked hard at her except outside when all he did was scrutinize her bedraggled face. He hadn’t tried to reach her in three years, after that mind-blowing three weeks. That ship had sailed, sister, and sunk.
“Why do you need her so bad it can’t wait for morning?” he asked.
She paced the room, turning in case the hurt showed on her face. “Because she’s the only person I think can get me what I need.”
“At one in the morning?”
She glanced at him, trying to interpret the rueful note in his voice. “Yes, at one in the morning.”
“So you must need information, Vivi’s stock in trade.”
“I do. And fast.”
He clasped his hands behind his head, the position exposing a well-toned bicep. She let her gaze move down over his stomach, still hard and flat, and his jeans, tight and worn right where they should be, down to bare feet on the coffee table.
Her mouth went dry, and a tendril of very female response twisted through her lower half.
God, could she not even be in the same room with him? Was she that weak?
“As much as it pains me to admit this,” he said, pausing just long enough that she dreaded what he could possibly say next. “Sometimes my sister doesn’t always come home at night.”
Sam frowned. “Is she involved with someone?” The last she knew, Vivi was single and happily building a résumé as an investigative journalist.
“She’s married to her job.”
“And that keeps her out all night?” She abandoned the pacing and went back to the chair across from where he sat, this time sinking into it, beaten by the week and the worry and the realization that she could be in this apartment a long time, alone with Zach.
Slowly, he stood, towering over her, his knees close to hers, his hips and that worn bulge on his jeans right in front of her face. Heat coiled through her as she gritted her teeth and looked up. What the hell was he trying to do to her? Test her resolve?
The jackass. Did he think she couldn’t resist him?
“I like to go with her when she’s out at night,” he said. “But she says I scare her sources.”
“You probably do.”
He got one centimeter closer. “Do I scare you?”
There were no words for how much. “Not in the least.”
He placed his hands on the armrests of the chair, trapping her with his body, locking her knees with his and leaning over. “ ’Cause you seem kind of scared.”
“Not of you,” she shot back.
“You sure?”
Right then, she wasn’t sure of anything, except that the sense of smell really was the strongest memory trigger in the body. And with each slow and unsteady breath of Zach-infused air, the mental images firing off in her head got… dirtier.
Zach laying her down… kneeling over her… his erection bursting and ready… lowering himself to start what they could never seem to stop.
“Of course I’m sure.” The words stuck in her bone-dry mouth.
“You don’t sound sure.”
His face was inches from hers, his body just as close. All he had to do was relax his knees and he’d be right on top of her.
They’d done it in a chair once.
For one insane second, she couldn’t even remember what they were talking about. That’s what he did to her. Every single time she looked at him, common sense and intelligence got trumped by hormones. She could not let that happen again.
She flattened her palm on his chest, not sure which surprised her more, the impact of how hard it was… or the heartbeat that slammed against those muscles. “Get away,” she said coolly. “I’m not interested.”
“Neither am I.” But he didn’t move. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong with you.”
“I can’t breathe, that’s what’s wrong.” She pushed harder. It was true. She couldn’t breathe. At least not without inhaling some wildly erotic memory. “Move it. I’m leaving.”
He straightened suddenly. “You are?”
For a nanosecond, he sounded disappointed; then the uninterested body language took over again, and he walked away, toward the kitchen. “I’ll tell her you stopped by.”
Just like that. See ya, Sammi.
She smacked her hands on the chair with more force than was necessary and pushed herself up. In the kitchen, she heard the pop and hiss of a beer bottle.
“Want a Sam Adams?” he asked. “They’re your favorite.”
Her heart wrenched. He remembered that? “Not anymore,” she said quietly, pulling the wig out of the hoodie pocket. “I’ve moved on.”
Wordlessly, she headed toward the hall, pulling Cleopatra’s hair over her ears. She had made it far enough to get her hand on the knob, when one landed on her back.
“You forgot to say good-bye.”
She closed her eyes, swallowed, and turned. “You forgot to call or write. So, we’re even.”