With the new day dawned sanity. And a hell of a lot of confusion. Gwenyth still had a hard time believing that Sam had kissed her and felt her up the way he had last night after dinner. And worse yet, she had reacted to him like some wanton woman, no doubt making her seem as easy as the gaggle of other groupies who were always throwing their sorry selves at the great Sam Tremont.
Well none of that for Gwenyth Marie Jones. No sir. Not when she had dreamed and hoped and wished on every shooting star she could find since childhood that she would one day mean a hell of a lot more to Sam than a little sister much less an easy lay.
If Grandmama Verlene had found out about last night’s insane moment of passion, she would have inclined her elegant head and said, “make a man work for it, sugar. The harder he has to work to lay claim to you, the more he’ll want you in the end.”
Granddad Willy would harrumph and disagree. He’d insist that the best way to be claimed by a man like Sam was to do the claiming yourself. “When I was a young gun, your Grandmama came at me like gangbusters,” he would insist, “made me flee in terror from the fear of impending matrimony ‘til I was too tuckered out to run anymore.”
Harry would smile and say simply, “it’s your life, Sis. I’m behind you no matter what.”
Candy would say, “No shit? Jesus, Gwen! Why didn’t you fuck him?”
Gwenyth wasn’t at all certain she wanted to listen to anyone’s sage advice, or even her big brother’s lack thereof. So for the next few days, she closeted herself away from family and friends, trying her hardest to figure out what she was going to do.
She spent her days in the park taking pictures of children playing and ducks squawking. She watched idly as lovers jogged side by side around the grassy slopes, seeing to it that their amour remained trendily in shape. This was Hyde Park after all. Fitness and superficial looks were all that mattered in this tiny, prosperous section of Tampa. Growing up, she herself was the only pudgy female in a hundred yard radius she could ever remember encountering.
While Gwenyth was busy getting her thoughts and feelings in check, Sam was busy fuming. He had called her apartment four times and left four messages on her answering service. The first message had been sweet, with his insisting that he couldn’t wait to see her again and would she please call him back when she got home.
The second message was less sweet, more preemptory than anything, but it was still Sam at his—almost—nicest. The third and fourth messages were downright belligerent. “Where the hell are you, Gwenyth Marie? Call me, damn it!” Click. And then, “I’m gettin’ seriously pissed off, Gwen. I’m going to come over there if I don’t hear from you in the next ten minutes!” Click.
So now Gwenyth sat in a reclining chair near the telephone, biting her lip and wavering back and forth on whether or not she should call Sam back. Verlene would say that Sam’s attitude was a good sign. Gwenyth, on the other hand, wasn’t at all positive she had what it took to stand her ground with an angry, virile man like Sam Tremont. Nope. Playing the coward and leaving town was more in tune with her state of mind.
But what exactly was she trying to run from? Here Sam was back in Tampa—and he wanted her. It was exactly what Gwen had wanted all of her life. Wasn’t it?
She shook her head morosely. No, not like this. Not just for sex. She’d always wanted more. She had prayed for so much more. Gwenyth wanted Sam to love her, to be in love with her.
Oh God! If she wasn’t so upset, she’d laugh at her own childish, naïve thoughts. Yeah right! Like that would happen in this lifetime! Like Sam didn’t have a million other women all vying for the same elusive thing from him.
Gwenyth sighed in frustration as she raked her fingers through her mane of tawny hair. Dealing with her dreams of what could be back when she didn’t stand a chance with Sam was a hell of a lot less complicated than it was now when she did have an opportunity to make them real. Should she seize the moment and enjoy what time they’d have together? Or should she back out totally, knowing full well that if she slept with Sam she’d be in love with him all over again?
A loud shattering sound followed by a fast-moving object hurling through the front window broke Gwenyth out of her quiet contemplation. She yelped and jumped to her feet. Her heart pounding wildly, she moved toward the shards of broken glass until she visually located the offending object.
It was only a baseball.
Gwenyth’s cathartic sigh could be heard from across the room. No doubt little Billy Banes next door was practicing his hitting—badly—yet again. Shaking her head, Gwenyth strolled over to where the ball lay and carefully removed it from its nest of broken glass. She picked it up as she envisioned lecturing Billy on his tendency to wreak havoc on her property, then turned the ball over and read the message that had been scrawled in bold letters for her to see:
NAM.
Just three letters. Three small letters that started her pulse racing and caused her breathing to hitch. It wasn’t Billy Banes after all.
The front door crashed in a moment later and Gwenyth screamed for real. She whirled around, preparing to do God only knows what to her would-be attacker, and found instead—to her wide-eyed relief—a fuming, angry, royally pissed off Sam Tremont glowering down at her.
Thank God.
Sam stomped through the doorway and slammed the door shut behind him. His nostrils were flaring, the muscles in his neck and arms were corded, and his blue eyes were staring daggers at her. Gwenyth had never been so happy to see a disgruntled male before in her life. “Gwenyth Marie Jones! You and I have got to talk!”
Gwenyth bit her lip and nodded. She couldn’t agree more. The fact that she probably wanted to talk about something vastly different than Sam did didn’t register in her brain as she ran toward him and threw herself into his arms.
Sam grunted, whether from the impact of her barreling into him or from male satisfaction she didn’t know. “Now this is more like it, Cupcake. This is how you should have greeted me days ago.”
Sam plowed determinedly onward, apparently not taking notice of the broken glass in the living room or of the fact that Gwenyth was shaking like a frayed leaf caught in a storm. “A man expects to have his phone calls returned after sharin’ an experience like you and I had the other day, Cupcake.” He stroked her affectionately on the back, his hand occasionally drifting down to her derriere as he continued his lecture. “A man expects a hell of a lot more than bein’ avoided by the woman he’s crazy about, that I can tell you.”
The shaking finally started to register a little bit. “Cupcake?” Sam pulled back slightly and used his hand to notch Gwenyth’s chin up toward him. “Cupcake?”
He saw the terror plain in her eyes and realized then and there that the reason Gwen had run to him had been out of fear. That fact should have annoyed him, but it didn’t. It brought out all of his protective instincts and caused his heart rate to accelerate even though he had no idea what had spooked her. “Cupcake?”
“I’m so glad you’re here, Sam,” she breathed out.
Sam could feel the hard something that Gwenyth was clutching in her hand. He looked down at it and, realizing it was a baseball, he gently pried it out of her grasp to find out why she was all fired up and wild eyed over a little ole ball. And then he knew.
