“Not forever,” Sam said. “And not if winning means marrying Pearson. It’s a match made in hell.”
“I agree.” Lucy leaned her head against the back of the sofa, contemplating Sam. A bittersweet smile curved her lips. “I need to get back to my glasswork. It’s the only thing that will help me to stop thinking about Alice and Kevin and my parents.”
“What can I do?” Sam asked quietly.
Lucy found herself looking up into his blue-green eyes and thinking that in the neatly organized inventory of all her plans and hopes, Sam Nolan didn’t fit at all. He was a complication she hadn’t counted on.
But despite Sam’s self-admitted flaws, he was an honest, caring man. God knew she’d had too few of those in her life. The problem was that
Instead of focusing on what she couldn’t have with him … maybe she should try to discover what was possible. She’d never had a relationship based on friendship and pleasure without the entanglement of emotions. Could she do that? What would she gain from it?
A chance to feel alive, and let go. A chance to have some pure, unadulterated fun before she went on with the next part of her life.
Making the decision, Lucy looked at him resolutely. He had asked what he could do for her, and she had the answer.
“Have sex with me,” she said.
Eighteen
Sam stared at her for so long, and with such a flabbergasted expression, that Lucy began to feel somewhat indignant.
“You look like you just swallowed one of Renfield’s heartworm pills,” she said.
Tearing his gaze away, Sam raked a hand through his hair, leaving some of the dark brown locks standing on end. He began to pace around the room, each step infused with agitation. “Today’s not a good day to joke about that stuff.”
“Dog medication?”
“Sex.” He said the word as if it was a profanity.
“I wasn’t joking.”
“We can’t have sex.”
“Why not?”
“You know the reasons.”
“Those reasons don’t apply now,” Lucy said earnestly. “Because I’ve thought about it, and … please stop moving around. Will you sit next to me?”
Warily Sam approached and sat on the coffee table, facing her. Bracing his forearms on his spread knees, he gave her a level stare.
“I know your rules,” Lucy said. “No commitment. No jealousy. No future. The only things we exchange are body fluids, not feelings.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Those are the rules. And I’m not doing any of that with you.”
Lucy frowned. “You told me not long ago that if I wanted to have revenge sex, you would do it with me.”
“I had no intention of going through with it. You’re not the kind of woman who can do friends-with-benefits.”
“I am, too.”
“You’re so
“What if I
“You will anyway.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because my kind of relationship only works when both people are equally shallow. I’m great at shallow. But you would throw the whole thing off balance.”
“Sam. I’ve had bad luck with relationships. Believe me, there is no man on earth I couldn’t live without, including you. But this morning when we were upstairs together … it was the best feeling I’ve had in a long time. And if I’m willing to try things your way, I don’t see why you should have a problem with it.”
Sam had stopped in the middle of the room. He stared at her with baffled annoyance, having clearly run out of arguments.
“No,” he eventually said.
Her brows lifted. “Is that a definitive no, or an I’m-thinking-about-it no?”
“It’s a no-way-in-hell no.”
“But you’ll still have dinner with my parents and me tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
Lucy shook her head, dumbfounded. “You’ll have dinner with me and my parents, but you won’t have sex with me?”
“I have to eat,” he said.
* * *
“There’s a simple rule for managing stairs on crutches,” Sam said later in the day, staying close behind Lucy as she approached the front steps of the house. “Up with the good, down with the bad. When you’re going up, always lead with the healthy leg. When you’re going down, lead with the bad leg and the crutches.”
They had just returned from the doctor’s office, where Lucy had been fitted with an Aircast brace. Having never needed to use crutches before, Lucy was discovering they were much more difficult than she had assumed.
“Try not to put any weight on your right leg,” Sam said, watching Lucy’s wobbly progress along the path. “Just swing it through and take a hop with your left.”
“How do you know so much about it?” Lucy asked, puffing with effort.
“I fractured an ankle when I was sixteen. Sports injury.”
“Football?”
“Bird-watching.”
Lucy chuckled. “Bird-watching is not a sport.”
“I was twenty feet up a Douglas fir, trying to get a view of a marbled murrelet. An endangered species that nests in old-growth forests. Naturally I was climbing without rigging. I caught sight of the murrelet chick and got so excited I slipped and fell, hitting just about every branch on the way down.”
“Poor thing,” Lucy said. “But I bet you thought it was worth it.”
“Of course it was.” He watched as she hopped forward on the crutches. “I’ll carry you the rest of the way. You can practice later.”
“No, I can do the stairs. It’s a relief to be moving around again. This means I can go to my studio tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow or the next day,” Sam said. “Don’t push too hard, or you’ll reinjure that leg.”
Lucy’s smile turned quizzical. His mood was difficult to interpret. Ever since her proposition, he’d been back to treating her with the impersonal friendliness of the first two days at Rainshadow
