A Promise to Cherish (21 page)

Sam studied her back, reached to cup a hand over her shoulders, and pulled her securely between his legs again.

“Go on,” he ordered quietly, slipping his arm across her collarbone.

She closed her eyes and swallowed, then continued in a strained voice. “His lawyer brought up the subject of economics, and mine argued, but it seems economics enter into the . . . the emotional well-being of children. I had no means of support, no career, no prospects. I’d been a wife raising babies, how could I have?” A shudder went through her. She swallowed and opened her eyes. Tears slipped down her cheeks, and a lump lodged in her throat.

“Oh, Sam . . . have you any idea wh . . . what it’s like to have your children t . . . taken away? What a failure you f . . . feel like?”

A hot tear dropped on his arm. He squeezed her shoulders and chest in a bone-crushing gesture of comfort, resting his cheek against her hair. “You’re not a failure,” he whispered thickly. “Not to me . . . because I love you.”

How many times this week had she longed for those words? Yet at the moment they tore at her soul, for it was because she loved him too that she wanted to be perfect in his eyes. But she wasn’t—oh, she wasn’t—so, she went on purging herself. “This week I realized I’m totally inadequate as a mother. The courts were probably right to take them away from me. She’s done a better job than I ever could. I d . . . did everything wrong. I l . . . let them get s . . . sunburned and I—”

“Lee, stop it.”

“I didn’t know how to c . . . comfort Matthew when he had a b . . . bad dream and—”

“Lee!”

“And I . . . I . . .” The tears broke free again, and she struggled on in self-recrimination. “I c . . . can’t m . . . make—” He grabbed her roughly and swung her around until her face was pressed against his chest where the last word came out a muffled sob—“lasagna.”

“Oh God, Cherokee, don’t do this to yourself.”

“I d . . . did everything wrong.” She clung to the back of his shirt, wailing out her pitiful litany.

“Shh . . .” He patted her hair and held her head tightly with both hands.

“They ran to h . . . her and f . . . forgot all about m . . . me when she . . .”

His mouth stopped her words. He had jerked her roughly up to him and held her now in an awkward embrace, twisted as she was at the waist while they perched on their two different steps. He kissed her savagely, then lifted his head and held her jaw as he studied her face.

“They’ve been away from you for a long time, and they’re used to her now. That doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Don’t blame yourself. It breaks my heart to see you like this.”

And from the depths of her misery she realized what she had in Sam Brown. Strength, understanding, compassion. Her hurt was his hurt for he absorbed it and his eyes became a reflection of the pain he saw in hers. She trembled on the brink of understanding the true depth of love. And, not wanting to put him through more agony, she finally made a shaky effort to control her tears. When they eventually lessened, he pushed her gently away from him, but only far enough to raise one hip and pull a handkerchief from his back pocket. When she’d dried her eyes and blown her nose, she felt better. Heaving a giant sigh, she sat down beside him on the same step. Bracing both elbows on her knees, Lee gingerly covered her burning eyelids with her fingertips and declared unsteadily, “My eyes hurt. I haven’t cried this much since the divorce.”

“Then you needed it.”

She lowered her hands and looked at his understanding face.

“I’m sorry I unloaded on you. But thank you for . . . for being here. I needed you so much, Sam.”

He studied her swollen eyes with their red rims, the fingers behind which she hid her cheeks. He reached and took one of her hands and interlaced his fingers with hers. “That’s what love is all about, being there when you need each other, isn’t it?”

She touched his cheek with her free hand. “Sam . . .” she said, quiet now, overwhelmed by love for him, certain that what he said was true.

Their eyes held, then he turned a kiss into her palm. “Have you decided yet whether you love me or not?”

“I think I decided on the day you came over here in your jogging shorts.”

A brief smile lifted his lips, then they fell serious again. He said quietly, “I’d like to hear you say it once, Lee.”

They were sitting side by side in a curiously childish position, holding hands with only the sides of their knees touching as she said into his eyes, “I love you, Sam Brown.”

“Then let’s get married.”

Her startled eyes opened wide. She stared at him for a full ten seconds, then stammered, “G . . . get married!”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Well, don’t look so surprised, Cherokee. Not after the last wild and wonderful month we’ve spent together.”

“B . . . but . . .”

“But what? I love you. You love me. We even
like
each other! We’re both in the same line of work, have terrific senses of humor, and we’re even the same breed. What could make more sense?”

“But I’m not ready to get married again. I . . .” She looked away. “I tried it once and look what it’s put me through.”

“Cherokee, you’re not going to go through this again, not if you marry me.”

“Sam, please . . .”

“Please?” His voice took on an edge. “Please what?”

“Please don’t ask. Let’s just keep things as they are.”

“As they are? You mean sex every night at your house and nothing more than a polite hello at the office? I said I love you, Lee. I’ve never said it to another woman. I want to live with you and hang our clothes in the same closet and have a family to—”

“A family!” She jumped off the step and stood at his feet facing him. “Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve said? I had that once, and it was the worst tragedy of my life! I lost my sons—the only ones I ever plan to have—in a divorce court. I’m not equipped to be a mother. I told you that!”

“That’s all in your head, Lee. You’ll be as good a mother as—”

“It’s not in my head!” She swung away toward the living room. “I . . . I’m insecure and hurt, and I’ve failed once at being both a wife and a mother. I don’t think I’d be very good at either one again.”

He stood behind her in the middle of the living room.

“That’s your answer, then? You won’t marry me because you’re afraid?”

She swallowed and felt the damnable tears spring to her eyes again. “Yes, Sam, that’s my answer.”

“Lee.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it away. “Lee, I won’t accept it, not if you really love me. The only way to get over being afraid of something is to try it again. You’re . . . we’re not going to fail. We’ve got too damn much going for us. I just know it.”

“It’s out of the question, Sam. I just don’t understand how you . . .” She turned to face him. “Sam, you can’t know how a thing like losing your children can undermine your self-confidence. I swore when it happened that I’d never go through such a thing again. I’d prove to the world that the judge was wrong. I wasn’t just a . . . a stupid
squaw
with . . . with no career and no visible earning power. I had things to prove, and I’m not done proving them yet.”

“Squaw?” he retorted angrily. “Is that what this is all about?”

“It’s part of it. Nobody will ever convince me that judge wasn’t influenced against me because I was Indian and Joel wasn’t. It has as much to do with the decision as the fact that I couldn’t support the kids. Well, I couldn’t do anything about my heritage, but I certainly could about my financial status. I set out to earn as much money as any man, in a job only men have traditionally done, but I have a long way to go before I reach my goals.”

Sam’s face was grim. “Lee, you’ve got a red chip on your shoulder about the size of the original Indian nations! You carry it there, daring anybody to knock it off—that’s why most people try. When are you going to learn you’re melted into the pot here, and stop flaunting your heritage?”

Fresh anger flared through Lee. “You don’t understand a thing I’ve said here today! Not a thing!”

“I understand it all, Lee. I’m just not willing to buy some of it. I love you and I accept you exactly as you are, without any question that we could make a successful marriage—babies and all. You’re the one who doesn’t understand that if you really love somebody past histories should be forgotten and you should put your entire trust in the strength of that love.”

She reached out to touch him, her face tight with pain. “I
do
love you, Sam, I do. But do I have to prove it by marrying you?” He removed her hand from his chest and held it in his own.

“That’s the usual way, Lee.” He looked up, and his dark eyes held a glint of hurt before he added softly, “The honorable way.”

What could she say? After the way they’d parted last time, the hurts they both carried since then, how could she argue with him? She saw a grave weariness settle over his features as he stood holding her palm with the tips of his fingers, brushing his thumb across her knuckles.

She stared at him, already stricken with loss. “Sam, don’t go.”

Again she saw his weariness and the burden of sadness that her refusal had so suddenly brought upon him. He looked into her eyes, and his own were heavy with regret.

“I have to, Cherokee. This time I have to.”

“Sam, I . . . I need you.”

He stepped close again, drew up her face, and placed a good-bye kiss on her lips, which were swollen yet from crying.

“Yes, I believe you do,” came his tender reply.

He studied her black pupils, touched a thumb to the purple skin of one lower eyelid, then turned, and a moment later the door closed behind him.

I
F she were asked to define exactly who brought about the changes between them, Lee could not truthfully have named either Sam or herself. She only knew they’d reached an impasse that hurt deeply during the weeks that followed. Facing him each day at the office was sheer hell. He no longer passed her desk in the late afternoon to ask what time she’d be leaving for home. She no longer asked if he was coming over. Lee knew either of them could have broken down the invisible barrier that had sprung up between them. It would have taken no more than a single word, yet neither spoke it.

On the surface everything was the same. They consulted each other on bid work, bumped into each other in the copy room, pored over plans together. But through it all Sam maintained an incredibly unfluctuating air of normalcy, while Lee gave him neither pointed indifference nor veiled languishments. Instead they treated each other with neutral geniality, which made her wince inwardly. He opened doors for her if they were heading out together, and they chatted about jobs with a heartiness that distressed Lee’s lovelorn soul.

One day in mid-September Sam passed her as she sat near the fountain eating lunch. He waved a roll of plans in greeting, never breaking stride as he called, “Hi, Lee. Enjoying the beautiful weather?” An acute sense of loss pierced her as she watched him stride purposefully into the building.

In late September six members of the office staff treated Rachael to a birthday lunch at Leona’s Restaurant in the Fairway Shops. They all piled into Sam’s car for the short ride. Lee ended up in the back seat. Being there brought back memories of the days of intimacy with distressing clarity as she studied the back of Sam’s head.

At Leona’s, Lee found herself seated at a right angle to him. As they pulled their chairs in, their knees collided under the table. “Oh, excuse me!” Sam apologized. “It’s these damn long legs of mine.” His alacrity was as impersonal as if he had bumped Frank’s knee, and again Lee felt raw inside. Yet she heard herself laugh and copy his nonchalance.

But for Lee being with him became a refined form of torture. At times she studied him across a room, wondering if he had intentionally plotted this insipid neutrality to punish her. Was he aware of it? Did he maintain this jovial air knowing that every day now put her over the rack? Or had he simply chalked up their affair to experience and moved on to greener pastures? If he loved her, as he claimed he did, how could he be so . . . so damn mundane! When he caught her looking at him, he smiled and turned back to whatever he was doing without the slightest sign of constraint and certainly without flashing any intimate messages with his eyes. But then, did she herself flash any?

September crept to a close, and the first hint of fall tinged the air. Sam called Lee into his office one day, but again he was his ineffable genial self, announcing that she’d been there two months and he was giving her a raise because he was very pleased with her work. Though it was a small boost in pay, he said he meant it as a vote of confidence and ushered her to the open door, where they stood for a minute in full view of the draftsmen. He smelled so familiar that saliva pooled beneath Lee’s tongue. The sight of his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, exposing summer-bronzed forearms, and the familiar way he slipped a hand into his trouser pocket as they talked, raised goosebumps of awareness across the low reaches of Lee’s stomach.

Sam leaned against the door jamb and crossed his arms over his chest, discussing some aspect of the Little Blue River job, which was in full swing by this time. The apples in the orchard would be ripe now, the mosquitoes gone, the red-winged blackbirds and goldfinches flown south.
Oh, Sam, Sam, I haven’t stopped loving you.
He continued to discuss business as if nothing had ever happened between them.
Sam . . . Your Honor . . . I want to reach for you, burrow against you, and be part of your life again.
It was time to make some major decisions about equipment, he was saying, while from Lee’s body came both a physical and emotional outpouring of need for him.
How can you act as if it never happened when every nerve in my body feels touched by you?
“. . . so Rachael will make the plane reservations. Plan to be gone overnight,” Sam was saying.