Pain tightened in Lou’s chest and tears
burned the backs of her lids. Her fingers shook as she tucked a
wayward curl behind her ear. She gazed at Sam, hoping he’d betray
some emotion, some sentiment that he felt every bit as miserable as
she. That he wanted her as much as she wanted him—God help her,
even now, she wanted to be in his arms—that he loved her even a
fraction of the amount she loved him. Lou looked for a glimmer of
understanding…and saw nothing.
His face might as well been carved in granite
for all its lack of emotion.
“
Th-thank you,” she managed
at last.
“
Forget it. It’s my
job.”
The reminder pierced her to the heart. A
bitter smile curved Lou’s lips. Well, if that was the case, then
she’d paid him well for his time. He’d not only get her substantial
bonus, he’d had his pound of flesh as well. Lou swallowed
tightly.
Her heart.
Sam leaned back in the uncomfortable airline
seat and feigned sleep. They would land in Atlanta in less than two
hours. Funny that everything should be over that quickly, Sam
thought. But he supposed it would be for the best. Like pulling off
a Band-Aid, he reasoned. Just get it over with.
Besides, quite frankly, he didn’t know how
much longer he could hold it together. When he’d heard Lou tell her
father she would be coming home, Sam had felt like he’d taken a
sucker punch to the stomach. He suppose the last three days when
he’d been savoring every second with Lou, he should have been
bracing himself to watch her leave.
In his business, he’d had several accidents,
broken several bones…but none of his physical hurts could compare
to the ache of a broken heart. Part of Sam wanted to rail at Lou,
blame her for getting under his skin, for making him fall in love
with her. He wanted to hate her for being the answer to his dream,
then snatching it out of his grasp.
Over the past few days, Sam’s “Honey, I’m
home” dream had begun to shape into a reality. The toddler he’d
dreamed of tackling him around the knees had suddenly started to
bear a remarkable resemblance to Lou. Sam wanted it all. But if he
couldn’t have it all, he just wanted Lou.
But he’d obviously
overestimated how much he’d thought she’d wanted him. As soon as
her father had caught up with her and crooked his finger, Lou had
instantly agreed to go back. A tough smiled tightened his lips.
Regret and pain twisted inside him, intensifying the hurt to an
almost unbearable degree. Sam sighed. If only James Honeycutt could
have crooked that finger
before
his daughter found her way to his
office.
Sam tensed at the lie. He couldn’t accept
that thought. Because, had her father found her, Lou would’ve most
likely married a man she didn’t love, and been locked into a
lifetime of sorrow and unhappiness. And if anyone deserved to be
happy, it was Lou.
Furthermore, though he regretted the pain
that would follow her imminent departure from his life, Sam
couldn’t regret knowing her. Or loving her. He swallowed hard,
feeling miserable.
Sam breathed a sigh of relief when the plane
landed. He helped Lou with her carry-on and followed her off the
plane. She paused as soon as they’d entered the terminal and laid a
hand on his arm. He tensed.
“
Sam?”
Lou’s eyes were soft and bright, and unshed
tears made them shine. A shaky smile was all she could manage. “I-I
just wanted to thank you-you know, for everything you’ve done. I’ll
never forget it.” She paused, and stared at the floor, then brought
her gaze back to his. She looked fragile and uncertain, qualities
he’d never associated with her before, and briefly Sam wondered if
she was as miserable as he. “I’ve certainly had the time of my
life.” She made a weak rah-rah jab with her fist, but her joke, if
that’s what she’d intended it to be, fell pitifully flat.
“
So have I, Lou,” Sam
murmured softly, ignoring the ache in his heart.
“
Good-bye,” Lou whispered,
gently hugging him. Torturing him, killing him. Sam felt tears of
his own well, but he wasn’t going to cry. Real men didn’t cry. For
one insane instant, Sam considered hauling her to him and begging
her not to go.
Don’t walk out of my life.
Don’t leave me alone. Don’t go…
Lou pulled away, ending the contact before
Sam could articulate any of his desperate thoughts. She
straightened her shoulders and turned and walked away.
Sam stood, immobile, as she cut a path
through the busy airport and walked to her father. Chad, the lucky
bastard who almost got to marry her, stood at James Honeycutt’s
side, and a petite woman with snowy white hair stood with them as
well.
Sam watched while Lou hugged her father,
hugged Chad, and murmured something to the woman. His heart
threatened to burst right out of his chest. His breath stalled in
his lungs, his entire body frozen, seemingly unwilling to continue
to function without the benefit of Lou’s presence.
He swallowed again, choking on his pain.
“Good-bye, Lou.”
It had taken less than a
few hours to straighten out things with her father, Chad and
Edwina. As she’d suspected, Chad had been secretly relieved at her
decision. He’d admitted to what he called a fondness for her, but
couldn’t confess to any undying devotion on his part. Lou didn’t
know whether to be offended or hurt by the admission, so she’d
laughed instead. “You're just a friend,” Chad had confessed, then
apologized for not saying anything sooner. But Lou was as much to
blame for that as he, so they parted without an animosity. Chad was
a good man and would undoubtedly make some lucky girl an excellent
husband someday—just not her.
Surprisingly, her father, whom she’d dreaded
dealing with the most,had been the easiest to talk to. He’d
blustered and carried on for a few minutes, taken exception to some
of her wilder behavior in public, but in the end had simply hugged
Lou and told her that her happiness was the most important thing to
him. She wondered what had ever made her doubt that. In the end,
he’d promised to make a concerted effort to stay out of her
personal decisions. Lou couldn’t ask for more.
Her father made another
startling revelation as well. Apparently, while he and Edwina had
been joined in their outrage at Lou’s disappearance, they’d
discovered another way to merge Honeycutt Foods and Reedwater
Snacks—ironically,
they
were getting married.
Lou was shocked, at first, but then she’d
noticed the affectionate gleam in her father’s eye when he spoke of
Edwina, saw the way Edwina’s eyes softened when she gazed at
James.
A pang of envy struck Lou, making her loss
all the more raw. It had barely been a week since she and Sam had
parted company. But it felt like so much more. Pain was a living,
breathing entity inside her, and she’d begun to wonder if the
feeling of loss would ever lessen. Then again, it marked her last
tie to Sam, so she couldn’t be certain she necessarily wanted it to
end.
Rather than deliver her check in person, Lou
had a courier deliver it to him. She couldn’t bear to see him,
couldn’t withstand the onslaught of regrets sure to bombard her.
She’d sat by her phone, moped around her house for days,
alternately praying and wiling him to call.
But he hadn’t.
It appeared Sam had made a clean break, Lou
thought morosely. She only wished she could say the same for
herself, because the only thing she’d managed to break had been her
heart.
A spark of anger lit at Sam’s indifferent
attitude. Why had he been able to shut himself down and walk away
emotionally unscathed?
Or had he?
Lou thought back to the last few hours they’d
been together. She’d interpreted Sam’s withdrawal as anger at her
for going back to her father. But perhaps that hadn’t been it at
all. Perhaps he’d used that anger as a protective device, a way to
guard his own heart.
Lou knew Sam had been surprised by the
intensity of their lovemaking, the countless good times they’d had,
free and easy and on the road. Several times she’d caught him
staring at her in the most perplexing way, as though he couldn’t
quite decide what to make of her. His silvery eyes had been like
molten steel when they’d made love, Lou remembered, feeling a
shudder of remembered pleasure eddy through her at the mere
thought.
Could she have been wrong? Lou wondered. Did
Sam care for her?
Well, she decided, she could either wallow in
self-pity and regret, never knowing…or she could be adventurous and
find out. Lou grinned at the thought and for the first time, she
allowed hope to bloom in her heart. So what to do? How to best
discover if Sam loved her or not? An idea struck her—a simple and
ingenious idea. Lou grinned. She’d go back to the beginning...and
bring the contract.
“
I’m going to quit if you
don’t stop treating me like this,” Mona whined.
Sam started, lost his paperwork. What the
hell was she talking about? He’d gone out of his way to make sure
that his present surliness didn’t extend to his quick-tempered
help. “Like what?” Sam asked patiently.
Mona shot him a baleful look. “So…nice! Stop
being nice to me! I liked things the way they were. What the hell’s
wrong with you? You haven’t been the same since you got back.”
Mona’s gaze turned sharp. “It’s that snack-cake woman, isn’t
it?”
Cursing her insightfulness, Sam swore to
himself. He hadn’t even mentioned Lou. Hell, it hurt to think her
name, much less utter it. So how had Mona figured it out?
Sam snorted. “What makes you think that?” he
asked nonchalantly.
Mona gave him another shrewd look. “Oh, I
don’t know. Possibly because you’re going through a couple of boxes
of Fudgy-Nutty cakes a day, and you sit around and moon at the box
like a lovesick calf.”
Moon? Like a lovesick
calf?
He didn’t moon, Sam thought,
outraged. “You’re insane,” Sam snapped. “Go to work, and turn that
damned television off. No more daytime talk shows and if I find
another call to the psychic hot line on my bill, you’re outta
here?”
“
Now that’s more like it,”
Mona told him, pleased with herself. She started across the office.
“Oh, and Sam?”
“
What?”
Mona smiled evilly. “Lou Honeycutt’s here to
see you.”
Sam’s entire body tensed. Lou was here? In
this office? To see him? What for? Sam wondered, momentarily
panic-stricken. She’d sent over a check, so that couldn’t be the
reason. Sam wanted more time to consider Lou’s motives before he
saw her. But Mona, damn her calculating hide, ushered Lou
in.
Sam’s breath caught in his lungs at the sight
of her. Her hair was down, her baby blue eyes—eyes that had haunted
his dreams—were wary and an uncertain smile curved her sweet lips.
Need broad-sided him. He swallowed thickly.
“
Hi,” she offered
tentatively, coming across the carpet.
“
Hi,” Sam returned, his
voice rusty. He stood and offered her a seat. “Is everything okay?”
he asked, and as the words left his mouth, a thought struck him.
Sweet heaven…
was she pregnant?
A surge of possessiveness bolted through him at
the thought and instinctively his gaze strayed to her flat
belly.
“
Everything’s fine, I
suppose…except I miss you.”
Leave it to Lou to knock him senseless. Sam’s
ears roared. “I’m sorry?”
“
I said that I missed you,”
Lou repeated clearly. He watched her delicate throat work up and
down as she swallowed. “A-and I wondered if you’ve missed me,
too.”
He smothered the hysterical
need to laugh.
Had he missed her?
Was the world round? Did eagles fly?
Sam contemplated lying, but there hardly
seemed a point. Lou was part of his heart, and the more he tried to
extract her, the more it bled. Besides, she’d admitted to missing
him. That was a start, right? A beginning? True, they were from
different worlds, but Sam didn’t care. Lou could be from an
entirely different planet and he’d still love her.
Sam nodded because his throat had clogged
with emotion. “Yeah. I’ve missed you,” Sam murmured, congratulating
himself for delivering the understatement of the millennium.
Lou’s sigh coupled with a relieved smile.
“Well, in that case—” Lou pulled a sheaf of paper from her bag.
“—I’ve brought along a contract.”
Sam felt his eyes widen. “A contract?” he
repeated dumbly.
“
Yes. It’s pretty simple
stuff really,” she told him. “Here.” She slid the papers across the
wide expanse of his desk. “You read it.”
Frowning, Sam drew the papers to him and
began to read. Within seconds his heart was pounding, his chest
constricted with emotion. He mouth parched.
In a few eloquent clauses, Lou swore her
undying devotion, her unconditional love, her support of his
dreams, and pledged her heart solely to him. Below all of those
heartfelt assurances, she’d scrawled her name and dated it. Should
he agree and wish to reciprocate her feelings, the last page
awaited his signature.
Sam’s unbelieving eyes looked up at hers. A
tender emotion surged through him, making breathing next to
impossible. Lou had come here, to his office, and essentially
opened herself up to him. Her courage equally astounded and humbled
him. God, how he loved her.
“
Lou—”
She quickly stood. “You don’t have to tell me
now. I can wait. Just think about it,” she rattled on nervously. “I
mean, I’m going to love you forever, so there’s really no rush. I
just wanted you to know—”