Sam was working. He’d been on duty since noon on Monday, which meant that she hadn’t seen him since he’d dropped her back at Newport a short hour before that. How he could work, she didn’t know. They hadn’t slept for more than two hours at a stretch on Sunday night, and between stretches there had been a most delightful and exhausting activity.
With a feline grin, she took a sip of her drink and slipped a little lower against the bedpillows.
Sam Craig was a gem. He had done things to her that no man had ever done—and she had done things back that were just as shocking to her. She and Sam fought. They could rile each other at the snap of a finger. But they were red-hot in bed.
Her grin remained as she recalled her thoughts of the week before. Oh yes, the bulge in Sam’s jeans lived up to its promise, so much so that she wasn’t dumping him so fast. Her relationship with him could never last—he just wasn’t in her class—but while it did, she planned to enjoy it. Men with the raw, animal hunger, not to mention the stamina of a Sam Craig didn’t come along often.
Poor Savannah, she thought. So innocent. She had no idea what she was missing, and Susan did believe, at last, that Savvy was missing a lot. There had never been anything between Savvy and Sam. She couldn’t possibly have been so blasé about him if there had been. Sam was the type to be remembered with a blush and a sigh.
Susan blushed. And sighed. She looked down at the magazine on her lap. While he worked, she was going to decorate his house. He didn’t know it yet, of course, but he wouldn’t object. He couldn’t object. She was experienced at decorating, and she had impeccable taste. It would give her something to do. It would give her an excuse not to have lunch with Julie Devore on Thursday or play cards at Monica Lang’s on Friday. And it would put to good use the months ofArchitectural Digestthat were gathering dust in the magazine rack in the powder room.
Taking a slow sip of scotch, she studied the issue that lay open on her lap. Sam’s place should be clean and modern. She wouldn’t crowd it with furniture, or with artwork. Dennis Becker would be the decorator to use for an entree to the best stores in New York. Dennis was a friend. He would help her plan everything out, then she would show Sam the plans. He would be hooked.
Anne Murray segued into Alabama’s latest. Sliding even lower in bed, Susan balanced the glass on the magazine on her stomach and folded her hands below it.
Life was looking up.
***
Megan looked down at her fingernails, then curled her hands into balls so that she couldn’t see what remained of nails that had once been finely shaped and polished. In the course of the last two weeks, she had systematically chipped away at the polish, then bitten away at the nails. They looked like she’d clawed her way out of a tomb of dirt and rock, but she couldn’t seem to stop. She needed an outlet for the anguish she felt inside.
She needed a manicure. But that was out of the question now. Most everything she had hoped for was out of the question now. Even Will seemed beyond her grasp—not because he wanted it that way, but because she did. She couldn’t face him and expect his respect, not after the way she’d bungled things.
He was so good. Too good. His sole fault was in falling in love with a loser.
“That was Ricky Van Shelton with ‘Life Turned Her That Way,’”came the slow, deep voice from the radio nearby.“Jared Snow, here, wrapping up a long Wednesday, opening up a new Thursday with you. It’s two twenty-five in theA.M. I’ll be playing the coolest of cool country sounds until six, so stay tuned to 95.3 FM, WCIC Providence. We’ve got greats like Reba McEntire, Willie Nelson, and Glen Campbell on tap, but first let’s kick in to the sweet harmony of Naomi and Wynonna, the Judds. This is Jared Snow in the heart of the night. Stay cool.…”
Stay cool. Stay cool. Megan closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and willed herself into Jared Snow’s peace. She had missed him, missed these moments of escape. She hadn’t wanted to ask for a radio at the hospital, and before that, well, she could have asked until she was blue in the face and it wouldn’t have done a bit of good.
They were animals, the two of them.Animals.
Deliberately she unclenched her teeth and forced herself to take another deep breath.
She was healing. The bruises on her body had turned a sickly yellow, but at least she wasn’t as sore. The hot baths helped. She’d been taking three or four a day since she’d come home. She doubted she’d ever quite feel clean again, but the baths were soothing.
And Will had had the jacuzzi fixed. He was so good.
Slowly she opened her eyes to the ledgers that lay open on the desk before her. As good as Will was, he was still a lousy entrepreneur. She didn’t know what to do with the mess of his books now, any more than she had before.
At least then she had had a solution in sight.
The prospects of that looked dim now. She had every intention of going along with the original plan, but she would bet her diamond wedding band that she would end up with nothing.
The bastards.
Especiallyhim.She couldn’t believe his arrogance. He thought he was so smart, when in fact he was nothing more than a lying, cheating fool. His mistake, she decided, was in underestimating her. Somewhere along the line, he decided that she was a not-so-bright, spineless woman, and in all fairness, perhaps she had given him reason to think that. But he was in for a surprise. She’d show him who had the brains.
Savannah would be pleased.
***
Jared sat in Savannah’s office at four-thirty on Thursday, waiting for her to return from court. He shouldn’t have come, he knew. She needed space. But Saturday morning seemed light years away. He had begun to wonder whether he had imagined it. Talking on the phone was too short, too distant. He had to see her.
Sprawled in the chair with his jaw propped on a fist, he stared at the open doorway and willed Savannah to come through. Court ended at four; Janie told him that she was usually back in the office soon after, though she often ran out again after that. He hoped this wasn’t one of the days when she did the running before the returning.
By four forty-five, he was sitting straighter in the chair, wondering what in the hell he was doing. He had been married to a lady lawyer. He had spent five lousy years waiting for Elise to be there when he needed her. It had been a brutal experience.
What he was feeling at that moment, though, was brutal in a different way. Instead of anger and humiliation, he felt loneliness, frustration, and worry. He figured that either he had become a masochist as he aged, or he was just plain crazy.
