“This is really too much,” she said as she went back down the hill.
As Mike blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, a handkerchief appeared before his eyes. Taking it, he pressed it to his head in the general vicinity of the pain.
“Are you all right?”
He recognized the voice of his cousin and as Mike tried to stand, there was a strong arm placed under his to help him up.
“Mike?”
“I’m okay,” he managed to say when he was standing and holding the handkerchief to his temple, feeling the warmth of the blood that was beginning to trickle down through his hair.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
“No,” Mike said, not looking at his cousin. “Is Sam all right?”
Raine looked into the sunlit field where Samantha was watching some children play. “She’s fine. Is there a reason she might not be all right?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone wants to harm her. There’s no reason to hurt her.” He looked at his cousin. “Watch out for her, will you?”
Raine nodded, then watched Mike walk away through the trees and saw him stagger once and catch himself on one of the many boulders in the park.
After a moment, Raine went down the hill to Samantha and told her he had to make a telephone call. If he knew Mike, he’d not go to a doctor with his head wound, so Raine was going to call a doctor and request a house call.
11
It was an hour and a half later that Samantha walked into Mike’s house and by then her temper was boiling. She’d had more than enough time to think about his following her, and she had strengthened her resolve to leave New York as soon as possible. Tomorrow afternoon she would go with him to see his old gangster, then early on Tuesday she’d catch a plane out of the city.
By the time she reached the town house, Raine close beside her, her only thought was to tell Mike what she thought of him. Standing at the door, she politely thanked Raine, even offered him her hand to shake. Instead of shaking it, he sweetly and expertly kissed the back of her hand. At another time Samantha would have been flattered by his attentions and his polite respect, but now her only thought was of getting to Mike and telling him what a lying, sneaking, rotten creep he was.
When Raine was gone, she unlocked the front door to the town house, her hands made into fists as she prepared herself for the coming argument. She had rehearsed how she was going to tell him that he was never to do anything like that again—not that she was going to give him the chance since she was leaving in under two days—but she wanted to let him know how childishly he had behaved.
The house was quiet, almost too quiet. If there was one thing Mike wasn’t, it was quiet. She went into the garden, then into the library, where he was often sitting at his old-fashioned typewriter, then into the kitchen. Looking at the empty living room, she frowned, for it hadn’t occurred to her that he wouldn’t be in the house waiting for her.
It was when she was leaving the living room that she thought she heard a sound. Turning back, she walked fully into the room and saw Mike asleep on the couch.
“Michael Taggert,” she began, “I want to talk to you about—” She broke off because she realized that he was asleep. But there was more to the way he was sprawled on the leather couch than mere sleep, for he was shirtless and shoeless, but he still wore his trousers, which were grass stained and dirty.
“Mike,” she said, walking toward him, but he didn’t move at the sound of her voice. She walked closer, and as she did, she stepped on his shirt lying on the floor. As she nearly always did, she picked it up—and saw the blood on it. Dark, dried spots of blood were on the collar and the right shoulder of his shirt.
After hanging the shirt on the back of a chair, she bent over him. “Mike,” she whispered, and when he didn’t stir, she touched his bare shoulder, but he still didn’t move. On the table beside the couch was a brown bottle of prescription medicine, which she picked up, reading the name of a drug she knew to be a pain killer and a narcotic.
Putting her hand on his chin, she turned his head to face her and saw a large white bandage on the right side of his head. Stunned, surprised, even feeling a bit of fear, she sat down heavily on the floor beside him and sighed, “Oh, Mike, what in the world have you done?” She had a vision of his following her and in his blind obsession, falling against the boulders in the park.
He stirred in his sleep, his arm falling off the couch and landing against her. She started to place his arm on his chest, but there wasn’t enough room on the couch for the width of Mike. Was there anything in the world more appealing than a strong man who was temporarily helpless? she wondered. While trying not to think of what she was doing, she touched his face, ran her fingertips over the rough whiskers just under his skin, and felt an almost uncontrollable urge to climb on the couch beside him to snuggle against him. He was in a drugged sleep so he’d never know what she’d done, she thought, and for a moment she’d have the wonderful feeling of touching another human being.
When he stirred again, he nearly fell off the couch, and Samanatha found herself with a great deal of Mike’s weight leaning against her. If she moved, he’d fall to the floor, and if she didn’t move, about two-thirds of her body was going to go to sleep in about twenty seconds.
“Mike,” she said, then louder, “Mike!” She tried to push him off of her, but two hundred pounds of sleeping male muscle was more than she could handle. “Mike!” she screamed, pushing as hard as she could.
Partially opening his eyes, he saw her and smiled. “Sammy,” he said dreamily, putting his big hand into the curls of her hair. “You okay?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer before he went back to sleep, still half on the couch, half off, still leaning on her.
“Michael Taggert!” she screamed. “Wake up!”
Reluctantly, he opened his eyes again and blinked at her.
“You’re crushing me,” she said.
With a sleepy smile, he pulled her up on the couch on top of him and, comfortable now, went back to sleep.