Think About Love (18 page)

Cal was nervous. He didn't figure he should be, not after the way Sam had responded to him last night when he held her in his arms, but reason aside, as they drove north on Vancouver Island, Cal found himself worrying about the resort, about the night.

A breathless, mad kiss, the woman who was now his wife moaning in his arms. His blood flamed as he remembered the softness of her breast, the hard bud of her nipple under his thumb, the heat of her mouth.

He thought of the resort somewhere ahead of them. Cabins by the water, privacy amid the luxury of nature. His father had booked the resort, and he wasn't likely to have booked twin beds or separate rooms.

As much as he ached to hold Samantha naked in his bed, he wanted this marriage to work even more. He'd promised her nothing would happen until they both wanted it, and he had no right to assume that last night indicated consent. Not when she'd been trembling when he kissed her after the ceremony, her eyes wide with nerves or terror.

She'd looked stunned when his father presented them with the gift certificate to Haida Sunset. She couldn't be afraid of him. He didn't believe she was really afraid of anyone, except perhaps the social worker and judge who held the power of Kippy's future. He'd soothed that fear, he thought. Brenda had told them she was recommending they be given custody, and Cal had already briefed Dexter and his own lawyer to work on adoption proceedings to make it permanent.

When they went to court next week, Kippy's future should be secured.

Theirs—Cal and Samantha's—was going to be trickier. Despite the fact that she was obviously attracted to him, Sam hadn't answered last night when he'd asked her if she trusted him. They'd worked together smoothly for months, but he was beginning to realize that the trust they'd developed between them at Tremaine's wasn't automatically going to translate into their marriage.

He'd have to earn her trust, and rushing her into bed— even if it was a king-sized one— was not the way to do it. Marriage and the prenuptial—
postnuptial
—agreement aside, a man had no right to assume that two incredible kisses constituted consent to sex. And he didn't.

But when they walked into the room at Haida Sunset and found the bed that would inevitably dominate the room, it was going to look like he'd assumed just that.

When Cal unlocked the door to the small cabin, Samantha walked in ahead of him. She heard him set their suitcases on the floor.

She stopped three steps inside the door, facing a king-size bed with a floor-length maroon spread. Cal's family had given them this weekend, and of course the room had only one bed.

Big, very big. Room for two people to sleep without touching.

Cal said, "The bed wasn't my idea."

She needed to say something. Last night he had kissed her, touched her, and she'd felt flames. Now....

What next? Undress together or one at a time? Here, or in the bathroom? When? Would the room be filled with early evening light?

Dark would be easier.

"Samantha?"

Coward, staring at the bed, afraid to face him. Thirty-one years old; too old for these jitters. She forced herself to turn, to meet his gaze. The gray of his eyes seemed darker, inscrutable.

"I told you that when we make love, it will be because we both want it. I meant that."

"What do
you
want, Cal?"

"I want you—when it's time."

She felt a wave of sensation, heat flooding her face.

He dragged one hand through his hair. "What I don't want is to put pressure on you. I wish to hell we hadn't ended up staring at this damned bed when we've hardly had five minutes alone with each other."

If he touched her... if he lowered his mouth to hers as he had last night....

"Not tonight," she said, a whisper instead of a voice. He stood in front of her, six feet of pure man—broad shoulders, narrow hips, and mouth tight with tension.

"It's your call, Samantha."

She should do something. Move, walk to the window, break their locked gazes.

Just kissing her, his mouth stirred flames. What would it be like to lie with him, to feel his mouth on her breast, his erection against her naked belly?

Stop it!

He captured her hand and lifted it to his lips. Her heart slammed into her rib cage as he pressed a light kiss into her palm. She lifted her chin slightly.

"What are we going to do about the bed?"

"I could sleep on the sofa," he said.

"It's a love seat. You'd be crippled by morning."

He grimaced acknowledgment. "Let's have dinner; then we'll tackle the bed."

"Tackle?" Laughter bubble inside Samantha at the image of Cal taking a flying tackle at the monstrous king-size bed.

"Badly chosen word," he admitted, and somehow they were laughing together.

She found it easier then to turn away and walk to the window. Outside, the shadows from tall cedar trees blurred the path leading to the ocean.

"We're a hundred feet from the beach," she said. "Let's walk after dinner."

When she turned to face him, the look in his eyes sent uneasiness flooding over her. He would reach for her... she would step into his arms and this tension, this hideous tension, would melt away when their lips met.

"Do you want to change for dinner?" he asked abruptly.

She shook her head. She'd been too many years without touch, without sex. This feeling of control slipping away... just hormones. A psychologist would probably call it repression, all those years. And now....

The dining room occupied the ocean side of the resort's central building, a few hundred feet along the path from their cabin. Cal walked beside her, not touching, somehow making her more aware than if he had put his hand on her shoulder or her waist.

When she stepped on an uneven piece of ground and stumbled into him, he caught her arm and she gasped.

"All right?" he asked, releasing her abruptly.

"Yes. I just tripped."

"Your shoes?"

"They're fine. I'm fine."

She wasn't fine at all. She was jangling with nerves. She'd said not tonight, hadn't she? And he'd agreed. So why couldn't she relax? She'd walked with him a thousand times, down the corridors of Tremaine's, on sidewalks, in restaurants. Walked side by side without touching. Except for the last few days, since she'd agreed to marry him. Now, when they walked, he often touched her, a hand on her waist, her arm, a touch on her shoulder, as if her consent had conferred the right. And she'd... somehow his touch on her had begun to seem right, natural. Just like the times he lifted the baby's weight gently out of her arms.
 

The baby. If Kippy were here....

She hadn't realized how nervous she'd feel once they were alone, with no baby to care for, no wedding to plan, no prenuptial clauses or company contracts to discuss. Nothing. No agenda, just Samantha and Cal... and a king-size bed.

In the dining room, the hostess seated them at a window table that looked out on the island-studded ocean.

"What's that island?" asked Cal when they'd ordered their drinks.

"Hornby Island. I spent a few summer nights there in my teens, camping."

"I didn't get this far north on my cycling tour."

The waiter delivered two glasses of wine and Cal lifted his to her. "To us."

"To us," she agreed. "To our partnership."

They both ordered—seafood nibbler for Cal, and Neptune salad for Samantha. Cal questioned her about the Gulf Island chain that included Gabriola and Hornby islands while the ocean turned from blue to gray and the sky slowly darkened.

"Tell me about your childhood," Samantha asked, a fork filled with greens and crab halfway to her mouth. "Did you grow up in San Francisco?"

"Denver."

"Cold winters."

"Makes you tough," said Cal. "Addie and I were born in LA. My parents met when Dad was a medical student, Mom a trauma nurse. They got married two months after they met, had me a year later. Not wise, Mom always said, but they were in love and they got by between his student loans and her nursing salary."

"I thought she was a doctor?"

"Not then." Cal speared a small round ball of something and chewed it with evident pleasure.

"What is that? Scallop?"

"Stuffed with something delicious. Want one?" He speared another and offered it to her.

She parted her lips and he slipped the tasty morsel inside her mouth. She couldn't look away from him, trapped by the intimacy of his casual action.

"It's good," she mumbled, disobeying Dorothy's strictures not to talk with her mouth full. "Delicious. When did your mom become a doctor?"

"After Dad finished his residency. He did his residency in Denver, started a practice there. I was about six when Mom went back to school, fourteen when she finished her internship in Denver. Then she got a chance to do her residency in obstetrics under a doctor she admired in San Francisco, and we moved."

"Your father moved his practice?"

"They supported each other. She got him through medical school; then he got her through. Together they made sure we had what we needed. Love. Consistency. Good role models."

His strong confidence came from his family, his secure childhood... and something else, a fire deep inside. She wondered what sort of child he had been, wondered how old he'd been when he started taking charge of his own life.

"What were you like as a boy?"

"Troublesome," he said with a grin. "Always taking apart the basement for my projects, getting Adrienne involved. Making a spaceship when I was eleven, raising gerbils, then rats when I was thirteen and wanted to make money. Adrienne made an animal hospital out of the basement later, after I left for college."

"You never wanted to be a doctor?"

He pushed his plate aside. "Those genes skipped me. Addie got them all. I wanted to take things apart, build things, make computers stand on their head—once I got into computers." He sipped his wine and she found her gaze caught on the movement of his lips. "What about you, Sam? I've met Wayne, but I know nothing about your parents. I don't even know how you got to be a dual citizen."

She picked up a piece of parsley and rolled its stem between her fingers. "The usual way. I was born on Lasqueti Island, Canadian mother, American father."

"Lasqueti Island?"

"Not very far from here. On the other side of Georgia Strait, near the mainland."

"And—"

She dropped the parsley onto her plate and pushed the food aside, her appetite gone. "I grew up, went to college, took a job at Tremaine's."

He reached for her hand, took it between both of his. She stared at their hands. She needed to change the subject. "Did Adrienne—"

"Tell me about your mother."

Her eyes flew wide open, meeting his.

"It's a place to start. You seem to have trouble getting started."

"Started what?"

"Telling me about yourself."

She stared down at their linked hands. "The details are boring."

"Look at me."

She didn't want to, but her gaze seemed pulled back to his eyes, as if he controlled her.

"You don't need to lie to me, Sam."

"It's complicated." She shivered and pulled her hand away.

"We've got time for you to explain."

She told herself to stare out the window, but her eyes seemed locked on his. "I don't remember Lasqueti Island. We left when I was three, Sarah a few months old. We went to New Mexico, then Arizona, Montreal, San Francisco."

"Was your dad in construction?"

"My dad...." She searched for the short version. "Gerry, my mother's third husband, was in construction in Montreal. He built houses. Sarah and I used to sit on the sawhorses, pretending they were real horses. I remember when the electrician came. We collected all the round metal plugs from the electrical boxes and pretended they were money." They'd planned what they would do with the money, Samantha remembered with a frown. They'd go to the bus depot and get a ticket to Grandma.

"What happened to Gerry?" asked Cal.

"Well...." She shrugged and tugged at her hand, but he wasn't letting go. "My mother moved around. We left Lasqueti Island after my father died. He was a lot older than her, an American who came to Canada to avoid the draft during the Vietnam war. He met my mother on Gabriola, talked her into moving with him to a commune on Lasqueti. New Mexico was a commune, too. I do remember that wedding. I was five... strange music, laughter. Later came the fights. I was seven when she left us at the commune on Sarah's fifth birthday."