For the Love of Sami (18 page)

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It was eerie, Sami thought as she walked through the house during the next few days. No one had lived in the house since she had left, yet there had been the same feeling then as there was now—the same uninhabited feeling. She was just realizing that no one had ever "lived" in this house. People had worked here, her parents had occasionally visited and entertained here, she herself had been allowed to exist here, but no one had actually "lived" here.

With its fabulous furnishings and paintings, Sami had always thought of the house as possessing a museumlike atmosphere. Now she realized she had been wrong. It was a mausoleum.

She had been there for a week before she decided that she was ready to venture into the east wing, the wing that held the suite of rooms to which she had been confined as a child.

She found her bedroom much as it had been—quite bare of the things that normally surround a child. There were no stuffed animals or dolls. She supposed it had never occurred to anyone that she might like a teddy bear or a baby doll to cuddle. Instead, on those occasions that required gifts, she had been given stocks and bonds, gold certificates, or even pieces of jewelry that were considered to be good investments. That was why she had been so excited by Daniel’s surprise gift of a golden heart that day at the flea market. That was also why she never took it off.

As Sami surveyed the room, she realized there was one part of it she had been avoiding since she had come here: the closet—the closet whose memory had terrorized her for years. She couldn’t avoid it any longer. And she didn’t want to. It was the reason she was here.

With a hand that trembled, she reached for the knob and turned it. With an odd sense of detachment she noticed that the surface of her skin felt cold and clammy. There seemed to be a part of herself that was set apart, watching her own reactions with a dispassionate calm. Slowly, she pulled the door open. The heavy beat of her heart deafened her. Convulsively, her hand tightened around the doorknob, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. Pulling the door open wider, she waited for the mind-paralyzing fear that she was sure would come.

Nothing. Three walls and a door. A shelf across

the top. Bare. Musty. And empty. The closet was empty. There was nothing in it. There were no ghosts. There were no fears or terrors remaining in it. It was just an ordinary closet. It had no power to harm or hurt. Finally, she understood why. It was the people who had put her there who had had that power.

Then she had seen things through the distorted vision of a child. Now she was an adult. She could see things more clearly. She had her own sense of identity and self-worth. And in this instant, Sami realized that love is also a power. Or maybe she had known it all along, and now she had the ultimate proof. Daniel.

Her parents. They had done nothing deliberately, it was true. But that didn’t lessen in any way what they had done. They had been weak and self-absorbed people, who had never bothered to love her. Miraculously, she finally was able to see that they had been the losers.

In a soft voice that seemed to echo out of the bare closet and reverberate around the sterile room, Sami at long last addressed her parents. "You missed out on a lot by not knowing me. And I’m sorry about that. I really am. Yet it wasn’t my fault, and I refuse to take the blame any longer. But do you know what? Despite everything. It’s going to be okay. Besides having a group of wonderful friends, I have a marvelous man who loves me. And if he’ll still have me, I’m going back to him."

Sami made a phone call to her law firm, spoke with Bogart Caruthers at length, paid a parting visit to the caretakers of the estate, and was on the road by late afternoon. She arrived back in St. Paul at about midnight of the third day.

After some thought, she elected to go to the warehouse instead of to Daniel’s house. Although she wanted to see him more than anything, she decided that it would be best to wait until morning. That way they would both be fresh after a good night’s sleep.

Driving up to her warehouse, Sami was a little surprised to see all the lights on in her loft, but then she decided that she must have left them on when she had departed in such a hurry. Sami laughed tiredly at herself. She knew that even if she hadn’t been in a hurry, she wouldn’t have turned them off. She never turned lights off.

Parking the MG in the garage, she took the freight elevator up to the second floor, thinking how good it was to be home.

Pushing open her front door and kicking off her shoes, her eyes alighted lovingly on first one thing and then another: the long-suffering wooden Indian, on which she promptly threw her carpetbag, the birdcage filled with Jerome’s stuffed birds, the carousel, her cherished Victorian furniture, her big brass bed sitting high on its platform underneath the huge skylight—and Daniel.

Daniel.

Astonishingly and amazingly, Daniel Parker-St. James lay sleeping in her bed, with every light in the loft burning brightly.

Silently Sami moved around the loft, turning off all the lights, until there was only one light left, the one by the bed. Stepping up on the platform, she stood at the foot of the bed and watched him sleeping. He lay very still, looking terribly out of place among the feminine ruffles of her rose-and-amethyst patterned sheets and pillows. His dark hair was mussed, as if he had run his hands through it a number of times before he had gone to sleep, and his black eyelashes fanned over his cheeks, creating a hint of shadows against the planes of his cheeks.

She loved him so much, she mused sadly. He had been so patient and gentle with her, seemingly going against his rather staid yet passionate nature.

Without warning, his eyelashes swept up, revealing those beautiful navy blue eyes of his. He smiled slowly. "I’ve been waiting for you."

The breath caught momentarily in her throat. "Have you?"

Daniel adjusted the pillows behind him and sat up. "I’ve been here since the night you left. Of course I had to have a little talk with Eugene first, before he would let me stay here. He adores you, you know. I also had to eventually have the same talk with Edward Thorsson. And Jerome. And Morgan."

"You had all the lights on."

"I didn’t want you to be scared if you happened to come home late at night."

"How did you know I would come here instead of your house?"

"I didn’t, really. It was just a guess. But all of your things were here, and this is where you feel most comfortable, so this was where I wanted to be."

"But why?"

He gave her a tender half smile. "Because I love you. Sami."

A lump formed in her throat, and she reached for a strand of hair, beginning nervously to twist it around her finger. She had to ask him a question that was very important to her, and it took nearly all of her courage to ask it. "Daniel . . . Daniel, can you live with the fact that I’m Samuelina Adkinson?"

A glimmer of amusement danced briefly in his eyes. "I have for months, and it didn’t make one bit of difference. I don’t know why you would think it would. I loved you as Sami Adkins and I loved you after I knew you were Samuelina Adkinson. It obviously didn’t change anything, because you didn’t even realize when I found out."

She gazed thoughtfully at him. "I didn’t, did I?" Walking around the bed, she sat down on the edge, beside him. "I had to go back to Boston, Daniel, to the house where I was raised."

"You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to."

"You have a right to know. There were old terrors I had to face and ghosts I had to exorcise."

"And did you?"

"Yes." Sami’s mouth quirked self-deprecatingly. "And strangely, I found there wasn’t much left to do. Your love had done most of it for me."

He brought her hand to his mouth, kissing the palm. "I’m glad. I talked with Morgan—very nice lady, by the way—"

"How is she? And the baby?"

"They’re both fine and home, waiting anxiously to hear from you. As Is Jerome. Anyway, she and I figured out that you had gone to Boston. My first impulse, of course, was to go after you. But after Morgan talked to me and I had a chance to calm down, I realized this was something you had to do by yourself. And, hard as it was—I have to tell you that some days were pure hell—all I could do was wait."

"I’m sorry."

"Hey, there’s nothing to apologize for. You’re back."

"Daniel," she began hesitantly, "there’s something else."

"What?"

"It’s about all this money I have."

He laughed. "I don’t think you’ll need it, do you? I have more than we’ll ever need. Put yours in trust for our children and their children to come. Give it away; I don’t care."

"Actually," her lips twisted into a wry smile. "I’ve been trying to give it away for years, but there’s just so much of it. And the bankers I put in charge of it are infuriatingly competent. They just keep making more for me."

"Then you chose them wisely."

She nodded. "I’ve always been capable of making good decisions on a business level." She looked at him. "Just not lately. Not on a personal level."

"It’s okay," he said softly.

"Anyway. I’ve just managed to give away quite a bit more of it. Before I left Boston, I called my lawyer, Mr. Caruthers, and gave him some instructions that I’m afraid fairly staggered him."

"Is that Bogart Caruthers?" At her affirmative nod, he continued, "I know him. He’s one of the best."

"Yes, he is, even though he’s a little excitable. But his firm has handled my family’s affairs for years, and I trust him implicitly."

"A little excitable? Those must have been some instructions."

"I told him I wanted to make the house and grounds into a shelter for psychologically and physically abused children, and it’s to be run only by the very top people in the field. A team of child-oriented decorators is to go in there and completely redo the place from top to bottom. They’re to keep only what they think the children might enjoy. The rest will be donated to museums. I also directed him to set up a large trust, so that the shelter will never suffer for operating funds."

His voice was very gentle. "I think that’s wonderful, Sami."

"Really?" Her heart seemed to swell with the love she felt for him.

"Really! Now, why don’t you come to bed?" His low tone sent hot tingles along her skin.

"N-not yet. There’s one more thing we’ve got to talk about."

"What’s that?"

"I’m afraid I can never be like the people in your circle of—"

"Oh, Sami, don’t you realize I love you just as you are? You’re the other half of me. You complete me. You make me whole."

She looked at him for a long moment, and when she spoke, her voice trembled with the strength of her feelings. "Daniel?"

"Hmmmm?"

"I love you."

"I know, sweetheart," he said softly, pulling her down to him. "I’ve known for a long time."

And Sami reached over and turned out the light.

Another hot story from Fayrene Preston . . .
An excerpt from

Outside, the moonless night had wrapped itself around the city, sealing it in a cocoon of black midnight and hushed shadows. Inside, eddies of conversation swirled through the smoke-filled room that was Charlie’s Bar. Off to one side, the worn keys of an old upright piano were being pressed, sending the tinkling music of Duke Ellington’s ‘Satin Doll’ out into the room, where it met up with the conversation and somehow became a part of it.

Charlie’s was a rundown bar located on a side street in the middle of downtown St. Paul. Back in the forties, Charlie’s had been an elegant saloon, catering only to the elite. Now its elegance was faded to a comfortable seediness, and it had developed an underground popularity with a whole new generation, a generation that didn’t care who you were or where you came from as long as you had the money for a drink and minded your own business.

Taking in the ambiance of the bar from beneath half-lowered lids, Jerome Mailer decided once again that it was his kind of place. Especially tonight, with this odd mood upon him.

"Excuse me."

Jerome’s head jerked up. It was she! And she was beside him! Quickly he rose. "Hello."

"Hello." She smiled. "I wonder if you would mind if I joined you?"

"Not at all," he murmured smoothly, pulling out the chair opposite him. "Please sit down."

After settling her at the table, he sat back down and treated himself to his first good look at her. All of his impressions had been right. She was darkly, mystically beautiful. Clouds of rich brown hair curled around her face and spilled down the front of the white dress she wore. Dark brows formed wispy arches over brown eyes, alluring and full of unlit depths. Her skin was the color of beige-tinted cream and had the texture of fine porcelain. She was a woman men dream about their whole lives.