As he pointed out things to her across the river, they stood locked together, his arms around her, her hands on his bare forearms. Leaning her head back against his shoulder, she could feel the warmth of him, the solid sturdiness of him, knowing how safe she felt when he was near, as though nothing or no one could ever hurt her again. “Mike, thank you for the pin.”
“Anytime,” he said, his voice soft and low, as though he were feeling some of what she was.
Samantha started to say more, but a child, a toddler about two years old, came hurtling toward the fence, running on unsteady legs and not looking where he was going. His nanny yelled, but the child didn’t stop running. As easily as though he’d done it a million times, Mike’s hand scooped down and caught the child’s head, keeping him from hitting the fence.
Safe but startled, the child looked up at Mike, then his eyes widened and welled with tears, while Mike knelt in front of the child. “You were running pretty fast there, Tex,” he said. “Might have made a hole in that fence. We couldn’t let that happen, could we?”
Nodding, the child sniffed and smiled at Mike just as his nanny, at least seventy pounds overweight, came trudging up to her charge.
“Thank you so very much,” she said, then took the child’s hand and led him away. The little boy looked back over his shoulder and waved at Mike, who waved back.
When Mike turned to Sam and held out his hand for her, she didn’t hesitate in entwining her fingers with his. They started walking south, leaving Sutton Place behind.
“Do you know that I’ve never so much as changed a baby’s diaper?” she said, thinking of how familiarly Mike had dealt with the little boy.
“It’s not exactly a highly skilled task,” Mike said, then looked at her. “I’ll tell you what, we’ll go to Colorado and visit my family, and you can change all the nappies you want. I’d place money on it that my whole family will let you learn on their kids. Inside a week you’ll be an expert.”
“I’d like that,” she said seriously. “I’d like that very much.”
Squeezing her hand, he led her to the curb, caught a cab, and gave directions to the driver to take them to Chinatown.
By four o’clock Samantha was tired, but very happy, for she had spent yet another heavenly day with Mike. They had walked
until her legs hurt and seen and done more than Samantha could remember. Mike had fed her until she was ready to pop. He had made her laugh, made her see things she never would have seen without him. He took her to tiny, out-of-the-way stores, such as the Last Wound Up, which had nothing but wind-up toys. He showed her statues and parks and street fairs; they listened to street musicians and saw performers who were very, very good. She tried on hats at a stall and talked Mike into buying a shirt made of Balinese cotton. And as they walked and saw things, they talked.
The talking was what had pleased Samantha most. For the first time since she’d met him, Mike didn’t try to be Sherlock Holmes and get every little piece of information out of her that he could. He didn’t ask her a single question about her father or her husband or about what her years in high school had been like. The absence of questions made Sam relax, and as she relaxed, she asked him questions about his life and childhood. Mike didn’t seem to have a secret in the world—with the exception of other women, that is. If she’d not been able to look at him, not seen the way other women in the street looked at him, she would have thought he’d never so much as had a date before, for all the mention he made of the women in his life.
He told her about his brothers, all eight of them, and his three sisters; he told of his parents and his many cousins. He told about what he’d studied in college and his many years of graduate school. He told her anything and answered everything she asked, but he didn’t mention women.
At four o’clock they sat down at an outside table in a little restaurant, and when a very good-looking, well-built young man walked by, Samantha glanced up at him, only to turn back to see Mike scowling at her. “Think he’s a bodybuilder?” she asked with exaggerated innocence.
Glancing over his shoulder at the man as he took a drink from a glass of beer, Michael Taggert, who, if allowed, would eat nothing but beef and beer, muttered, “Looks more like a bellybuilder to me.”
Laughing, Samantha gave her order to the waitress.
Over Cokes and muffins, Samantha fiddled with her straw and said idly, as though it meant nothing to her, “You haven’t been married?”
He didn’t answer, so she looked at him. He was staring at her intently, with no humor in his eyes.
“Sam,” he said softly, “I’m thirty years old, and I’m heart-whole. I’ve had affairs with women—Vanessa and I were together for two years—but I’ve never been in love. In my family we take marriage seriously; we actually believe in those vows a man and woman exchange. I’ve never asked a woman to marry me; I’ve never met one I wanted to spend my life with. I’ve never met a woman who I thought was good enough to be the mother of my kids.” Reaching out, he took her hand in his. “Until you.”
Her breath held for a moment, she pulled her hand back. “Mike, I don’t—”
“If you’re again going to give me that crap about not wanting to commit, save it. I don’t want to hear it.” He looked down at his plate. “Sam,” he said softly, “I want to ask you a question and I want you to answer me honestly.”
She braced herself. “All right.”
“Did your father ever…touch you? Sexually, I mean.”
For a moment, she felt anger race through her, but then she calmed herself. In a time when every magazine brought a new confession of some woman who had been a victim of incest, it wasn’t a bad question. “No,” she said, smiling at him, “my father never crawled into bed with me, never touched me in any way except with affection and love. He was a very good father, Mike.”
“Then why…?” he began, but closed his mouth. He had started to ask her why she was so turned off by him, but he didn’t want to hear her answer. Maybe it was just him. Maybe she didn’t like him and that was the reason she continually pushed him away. “Is it me?” he said in spite of himself. “Do you like a different type of guy?” He looked up at her. “Raine maybe?”
“Mike, you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my life. Why would any woman like Raine better than you?”
He didn’t smile. In fact, her answer seemed to make him more confused. Although he’d found out a great deal about her, there were still missing pieces of the puzzle that was Miss Samantha Elliot. But the more time he spent with her, the more he was sure she was worth the effort.
Standing, he put money on the table. “You ready to go? I have to get back and get cleaned up. I have a date tonight.”