A Dream to Cling To (9 page)

The heat in the small booth was enough to keep her warm for the whole winter, Brittany decided hazily.
She loved the feel of his finger on her lips, but she pulled his hand away, holding it between hers, so she could talk. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she said huskily.

His laughter warmed her even more. “I don’t quite know how it happened, how we ended up here, but it was a nice journey. I suppose everyone should visit Shadyside at least once.”

She nodded solemnly. “Not to mention sampling a side of beef.”

Sam glanced up at the clock behind her. Nearly seven-thirty. Where do they go from here? He and this lovely, flowering woman who was spinning a web clear around him. He couldn’t leave her, that he felt in every part of himself. Not quite seven-thirty. Thursday evening. Thursday evening! He threw his head back and groaned painfully. “Oh, Brittany …”

“Sam!” Startled, she sat upright. “What is it?”

“
It
is Uncle Felix Winters.”

She looked frantically around the empty shop. “Uncle Felix? Sam, what are you talking about?”

“I have an appointment tonight to talk to your uncle Felix about the game. I don’t understand it. I don’t usually forget appointments.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “Sam, don’t scare me like that. What time is your meeting?”

“Eight-thirty. At his men’s club.”

She slid out of the booth, her mind trying to collect and control the unleashed feelings still floating freely inside of her. A rush of disappointment washed through her. She’d wanted the day to go on and on and on. She didn’t want to think rationally, she just wanted to feel, because the way Sam made her feel was delicious and sweet and she couldn’t seem to get enough of it. Her eyes met his and she knew it flowed out easily, what she felt. It was plain and simple. She wanted the feeling to grow until it exploded. She wanted Sam to make love to her.

“Would he understand if I had a sudden case of yellow fever and rescheduled?” Sam’s voice was husky.

She shook her head slowly. “No, Sam, not Uncle Felix. One
never
breaks an appointment with Uncle Felix.” She tore her gaze from him and walked toward the door.

“Not even for emergencies?” He was right behind her and his breath was warm on her neck. “I don’t think our day is over, Brittany … I’d like to spend more time with you.”

Her hand was on the door and her heart was somewhere high up inside her, beating rapidly. She turned slowly and managed a smile that matched nothing she felt. “Sam, I was late once for a meeting with Uncle Felix … an appointment I had … to sell him girl scout cookies.”

He slipped his hands into her hair and held her head back so he could see her face. “And …?”

“And … he reported the tardiness to the National Council of Scouting … for my own good …”

Sam bent and kissed away the ending of her words, his lips blotting out all sound except heartbeats and the dim noise of traffic in the background. Finally he pulled away and looked up, just as the round clock down the street began to fill the air with ringing bongs. Small groups of men moved along the street, jacket collars lifted to ward off the night chill.

Brittany looked after them, then reached up and stroked his cheek. “Poker, Sam. It’s not for us. Come, Uncle Felix is waiting.”

The next afternoon Brittany stood in front of a nondescript office door. She had taken the day off from Petpals, letting the volunteers chauffeur the pets around while she ran various necessary errands—like grocery shopping. Sam had said he’d be working on her father’s game at his office, and had invited her to drop by. This was the first time she’d been to Sam’s office and when no one answered her knock, she checked the address he’d scribbled on a piece of paper to make sure it was the right number. Suite 103. That’s what he’d said, although he hadn’t mentioned it was in an old brownstone in the renovated section of Windemere. The building had been carefully fixed up and quartered into offices. It was a pleasant surprise from the usual squat, concrete office building,
if
it was the right place. But there was nothing on the door that said Creative Games, nothing at all to indicate this was Sam’s business. Just painted numbers on the smoked glass surface. Beyond the door she could hear music playing softly. A symphony …? Puzzled, she knocked again, and this time the door opened a crack. She stepped through, and her eyes widened.

The outer office was crammed full of cardboard boxes,
one on top of the other in haphazard fashion. Some were still closed, while the contents of others—dice and brightly colored playing pieces—spilled out onto the clean floor. And nothing else. No furniture. No cheerful plants. No desk. No
living person
. But filling the air were the wonderful themes of a Brahms sonata that came from a rather elaborate stereo system lined up against one wall.

She shook her head and stuck her hands into the pockets of her wool slacks. Strange. Perhaps she should have called first. She enjoyed the music for a moment, then gave the room one more cursory glance and walked with growing curiosity into the next room.

There was hope here, she decided, though no life. Several desks were positioned about the room at odd angles and a drawing board stood in front of a window. Mugs filled with artists’ tools were lined up neatly on the sill.

She walked over to the drawing board and glanced at the sheet of paper lying across the smooth surface.

“THE GORDON WINTERS GAME” was sketched in neat letters in the center of the white sheet and was bordered on all sides by game squares. The name of the New England town in which her father was born was printed in one, the church in which he’d been married in another, and so on around the board. Beneath the words tiny cartoon-type characters romped across the squares, acting out the events.

She smiled and her heart skipped a beat. This wasn’t at all what she had anticipated when the game idea had been explained to her a little over a week ago. What Sam was undertaking was a thoughtful, gentle exploration; it wasn’t a mechanical study at all. In fact, Sam’s way of questioning her had been so subtle, she’d felt he was doing it because he cared about her, as a
person
, not as a client or a source or a reference. He was making it all as painless as eating candy.

She took a deep breath and walked through the final
door into what must have been a kitchen in the original house. A round butcher-block table was set in front of shuttered windows, and a tiny stove and refrigerator were still in place. One window was open to let in the crisp autumn breeze and through it Brittany heard animated voices. She stepped closer and looked out through the thin curtain.

Beyond the window and stretching the width of the brownstone was a tiny square patch of patio. An old picnic table stood beneath the one tree—a proud maple whose brilliantly colored leaves drifted down in slow motion to the uneven brick below. Leaning against the tree, his pipe held loosely in a hand that moved slowly through the air, was Sam Lawrence.

Brittany stopped short, her pulse quickening. A feeling of familiarity rushed through her so suddenly it startled her.

With two fingers she pulled the curtain back and let her gaze run freely over the shadowed figure beneath the tree. He wore jeans today, and a tan V-neck sweater over his shirt, and the same crooked smile that was laced through her dreams. His standing position afforded her a view that not only brought attention to the rugged lines of his face but emphasized the muscular strength of his beautifully proportioned body as well. Even in a casual stance he seemed brimming with carefully controlled energy, a kind of energy she wanted to touch with her fingers and feel with her body. She shivered, but continued to stare unabashedly, her gaze traveling slowly across the hard curve of his shoulders and the expanse of chest, then on downward until the catch of her own breath in her throat made her stop short.

She pinched her eyes shut and breathed deeply to quell the gushing warmth rising within her. Finally, feeling some semblance of control return, she looked out the window again and noticed the others for the first time.

Seated at the table were three people, all listening attentively to Sam, laughing comfortably at intervals, and scribbling occasionally on yellow legal pads.

All were in their early twenties, Brittany guessed, and were dressed as casually as Sam. The only female in the group was a dark-haired woman. Her hair was pulled loosely back into a French braid and she wore an attractive sweater and jeans. She was pretty, Brittany thought, concentrating on the girl’s pleasant smile and shapely figure. She watched her ask Sam a question, then leaned closer to the window to assess his answering smile.

Even from a distance she could see it was a friendly, satisfied group. They smiled like people who shared jokes and knew each other well.

She spotted a back door next to the sink and walked quickly through it. Best not be caught spying.

“Brittany!” Sam spotted her immediately and his warm smile welcomed her out into the sunshine. “Wonderful! I was hoping you’d make it. Come meet the crew.” He was at her side in three long strides and slid his arm around her waist. “This skeptical hodgepodge of humanity is claiming you’re a figment of my overactive imagination.”

“But I can see you are definitely quite real,” broke in a bearded man. Sam introduced him as Gary Williams, the artist who created the game boards. Gary’s eyes were admiring as he shook her hand. “So happy to meet the lovely muse who has Sam working so hard.”

“Oh, to the contrary. Sam’s the slave driver,” she said, then turned to meet Tim Warner and Jill Ford, the two game designers who worked under Sam’s direction.

Sam stayed close beside her, his fingers playing lightly on her waist. “We were ironing out some wrinkles in the game and hoped the weather would inspire us,” he said. “But now we have
real
inspiration.”

“It’s going to be a top-notch game, Brittany,” Jill said. “I think your father will be pleased.”

“What a frontiersman your father was,” Tim added with respect in his voice. “He wasn’t afraid to try anything, was he?”

Brittany fought to concentrate on the designer’s words. Sam’s fingers had played their game along her waist, and now they’d dipped beneath the edge of her sweater and traveled slowly back and forth across the smooth bare skin of her back. “Yes,” she murmured, “I guess he has broken his share of new ground. And I can see his life is in good hands here.”

That
, at least, was true enough. But when she looked sideways and caught the flashing light in Sam’s eyes, she wondered fleetingly what was happening to her own careful life.

Sam’s slow smile gave her no answer.

“Well, Brittany, what do you think of the crew?” Sam stashed his notes into a tan file holder, then turned his attention back to the woman sitting in an old leather chair near the window. He’d had trouble all afternoon keeping his eyes off her. Bless Uncle Felix! He’d kept Sam for hours last night, carefully detailing twenty years of Gordon Winters’s life, and nearly as much of his own. And Sam had smiled and responded, and all the while had slowly, tenderly, made love to Brittany in his mind. Just the sight of her this afternoon had brought it all back, the tightness, the sensations—

“I like them, Sam,” she said. “They’re exhilarating. Ideas flew around here so fast, I felt as if I were in the middle of a Ping-Pong game.”

He picked up his pipe and leaned against the edge of the desk. “Good, I thought you’d approve. They’re great kids—and their differences mesh like a Monet painting.”

“Where did you find them?” She tilted her head to one side and watched the smoke circle slowly above his head.

“Here and there. I asked around. Jill is fresh out of Harvard. Quick as a whip and has a creative bent that doesn’t stop. She thought she’d go off to New York and find herself, but I corralled her with my charm and taught her about making games. And she’s terrific at it.”

“And Tim?”

“Tim was one of those kids who never fit in anywhere because no one understood the intricacies of his mind. The ideas that kid comes up with are incredible. I know he’ll push Creative Games into whole new directions.” Sam’s face lit up with excitement as he spoke, the pipe moving in rhythm with his words, his eyes flashing. “It’ll be something, you wait and see, Brittany Ellsbeth Winters. And you can say you were here in the early days.” His husky laugh rumbled through the cluttered office.

“I don’t doubt that in the slightest, Sam. In the few short days I’ve known you, I’ve become convinced you can do most anything you put your mind to.”

“Well, maybe that’s a
slight
exaggeration. Just a tad, though, mind you.” He laughed, a comfortable, infectious laugh that easily pulled Brittany into it.

“What kind of plans
do
you have for Creative Games?” she asked.

“Well …” He took a thoughtful draw on his pipe and stared off into space. “What I’d really like to do is make sure it can stand on its own two legs with enough clients to hold it up and support the kids—”

“There you go again. Sam, they’re not kids!”