“That’s not the point. It’s a matter of pride, Susan. Don’t you see? I’m proud of what I have. I’m proud of what I’ve done with my life. You suggested it wasn’t good enough—”
“I didn’t!” she cried and reached for his arms. “Listen to me. You were the one who said I said it wasn’t good enough. I love your place. It has more warmth to it, even without a stitch of furnishing, than my house does. But you mentioned decorating, so I thought I’d do it. I guess I got carried away. I thought you’d be pleased. I wanted that.” Then she realized something else, and with the realization came a return of the vulnerability she had been feeling so much of lately. Releasing his arms, she tucked her hands in her pockets and said quietly, “I wanted to please you, just… wanted to please you.”
Looking at her, seeing the rawness of her expression, hearing the naked need in her tone, Sam couldn’t doubt her. “Why, Susan?” he asked softly. “Why would you want to do that?”
He had no way of knowing that his own expression was as raw or his tone as naked. But Susan saw and heard, and the urge to cry that had hit her earlier brought tears to her eyes now. “I don’t know,” she whispered. Taking her hands from her pockets, she closed her fingers around the lapels of his jacket and clung to the wool. “I don’t know. You’re so different from other men I’ve known. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
He touched her chin with no more than his thumb and forefinger. “The feeling’s mutual.” When a tear trickled from the corner of her eye, he blotted it up. “I want to see you again.”
Susan wanted that more than anything in the world, but the problems that had driven them apart remained. “We fight so much. I don’t know if I can go on like that with you. It hurts, Sam.”
“It hurts me, too, but it hurts more to be without you. Can’t we try it again? Can’t we approach the thing differently this time?”
“Like how?” she asked cautiously.
He thought for a minute, searching for the words to express what he meant without offending her. “Maybe it was too physical before. For both of us.” He hurried on. “We’re great together in bed, but we let that be the starting and stopping point of our relationship. It was a high. We fell back on it, especially when we were feeling insecure about so many other things.”
“You’ve never felt insecure.”
“Of course I have. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I feel insecure a lot when I’m with you. It’s a new feeling, and I’m not sure how to handle it, but I have to do something, because it’s there. You’re special, Susan. Classy. Don’t you think I want to please you, too?”
“You do,” she whispered.
“Not as much as I’d like. You said I was traditional, and I never thought of myself that way, but when it comes to you, I guess I am. Possessive. Protective. Give you a few drinks, and you need a protector. Stone sober, you’re pretty self-sufficient.”
“Shows how much you know,” Susan murmured but said no more because there was something else she needed just then. Slipping her arms inside his coat and around his waist, she leaned against him for the warmth that had been so missing from her life.
Making a small sound deep in his throat, Sam crushed her close. He didn’t try to kiss her. He just needed to hold her. He needed to know that they’d have another chance. “Ahhh, sweetheart,” he breathed into her hair. “You feel so good.”
“I always did.”
“Not like this. This is special.” He hugged her tightly for another minute, then took her face in his hands, turned it up, and spoke with exquisite gentleness. “You teach me a lot. You may not believe that, but it’s true. You teach me things about myself. Like being old-fashioned. I am, I suppose. And that’s not the best way to be in this day and age.”
“Then again,” Susan argued, able to do so because he’d made the admission first, “it’s not such an awful thing. There are times when a woman wants to feel protected.”
“Do I do that for you?”
She nodded. “Besides that, you think. You say what you feel.”
“You don’t always like what I say.”
“It’s not what you say that bothers me, as much as the way you say it. When you yelled at me last week—”
“I didn’t yell. You were the one who yelled.”
“Well, itfeltlike you were yelling. I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. I really wanted to help, Sam. It wasn’t a question of walking all over you. I thought you’d be happy.Thatwas what I wanted.”
Sam had no comeback, because his mind was grappling with the sudden realization that of all the women he had known, none had ever said that to him. That Susan, who had so much and was by some measures spoiled, should be the one to say she wanted him happy—and to say it with such sincerity—affected him deeply.
Unable to speak, he lowered his head and kissed her, but it wasn’t the kind of fevered kiss they’d so often shared before. It was a kiss from the heart, deep and filled with soul.
Susan, who’d never received a kiss like it, was stunned. It pulled at something deep inside her, sparking thoughts of once upon a time and forever after. But before she could begin to grapple with those thoughts, the approach of a third car intruded.
Still holding her face in his hands, Sam looked around, then watched in disbelief when a full-fledged police cruiser drew to a halt. The officer riding shotgun rolled down his window.
“Any problem here, folks?”
“No, sir,” Sam drawled.
