“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“Damn it, I don’t even know what I was going to say anymore.”
“You do, but you’re not going to tell me. Fine. My turn. What did you find in the water?” she demanded.
“You didn’t tell me anything, why should I tell you?”
“You did find something.”
“Maybe.”
“Tell me,” Sam insisted.
“I’m not telling you anything until you come clean with me,” Adam informed her curtly.
She didn’t like his attitude. “Why should I tell you anything until you come clean with me?”
“You owe me an explanation.”
“
“I did save your life, remember?”
Sam exploded with an expletive, telling him what he should do with himself, and rose from her side of the bed. She walked into the shower, turning the water on hard and hot.
A second later he had stepped in behind her. Groping for the soap. Groping for…her.
“I thought you didn’t like the shower?”
“Not for the first time after so many years.”
“Ah.”
He lifted her, drawing her legs around him, bracing her against the tile. The tile was cool. The water was stingingly hot. The steam rose around them. Sam felt as if she was sinking into it as they made love within the steam and heat of the water. Finally the water cooled. She was still in his arms, glad of his strength; she couldn’t have stood on her own. She didn’t speak, neither did he. The water continued to pour around them.
Only now it was turning cold.
“You have to trust me,” he said to her at last as she slid down his body, finding her feet, feeling the chill of the water.
“
To her surprise, he looked away, not denying what she said.
She felt a shivering inside her.
He knew something.
Something she wasn’t going to like.
Yancy wasn’t at breakfast. Lillie was filling in for her in the dining room.
“Is anything wrong?” Sam asked Lillie. It wasn’t like Yancy to have anyone substitute for her.
“No, the baby had a restless night. Yancy says she’s exhausted.”
“I’ll just check on her,” Sam said. She left her coffee by the buffet table and hurried up the stairs to Yancy’s room. Jem was just coming out of his own.
“Everything okay?” she asked him, not at all sure why she had such an uneasy feeling.
“As far as I know,” Jem said. “We’re still diving the Steps, huh?”
“I guess.”
“You’re the boss here. You can change the itinerary if you want.”
“If everyone is obsessed with the Steps, then we’ll go there. My dad was obsessed with them—you know that’s why I’m not crazy about diving there. But I haven’t got the right to keep others from it because of my own hang-ups.”
Jem grinned. “That sounds like a bunch of psychological claptrap to me. You want to go, we go—that’s where the truth of it lies. You almost ready to head down to the boat?”
“I’m just checking on Yancy.”
“Yeah, she seems wiped out today.”
“You talked to her?”
“Yeah. She looked like hell. Well, you check up on her, and I’ll see you down at the boat. By the way, we’ve got to keep an eye on the weather in the next few days.”
“A storm?” Sam asked, pausing.
“Yeah. That depression that formed off the east coast of Africa last week has been steadily strengthening. It rose to tropical storm velocity last night, and they’re expecting it to reach hurricane proportions by midnight tonight. It’s still a fair distance away, and you know how these things go. It probably won’t even hit here.”
“Yeah,” Sam muttered. “That’s what we were all saying about Hurricane Andrew right before it wiped out half a dozen cities. You’re right, we’ve got to keep an eye on it.”
“Yeah. Thank God
“Don’t you dare torment me about Adam O’Connor, Jem Fisher. You brought that wretch right into my house.”
“And I suppose I twisted your arm into sleeping with him?”
“Jem!”
He chuckled softly. “Hey, the poor fellow didn’t have a chance the last time he was here. He would have had to be dead to resist you, the way you went after him.”
“Jem Fisher, that’s terrible.”
“Samantha Carlyle, that’s the truth!”
“Will you just go—go eat a doughnut or something!”
“We can use him here now,” Jem said quietly. Then he smiled and started down the stairs.
Sam looked after him thoughtfully for a moment. He was right. Maybe she did need Adam now.
And maybe he had been right in other ways. Maybe a lot of what had happened had been her fault.
She turned, still thoughtful, and tapped at Yancy’s door. There was no answer. She tried the knob. It was open.
She tiptoed into the room.
Brian was in his crib, sleeping away. He looked so sweet, in fact, that Sam experienced one of those little surges of panic that he might not be breathing. She gently set a hand on his back, then smiled. He was breathing quite nicely.
She turned and tiptoed to Yancy’s bed. Yancy, too, was asleep. Deeply asleep. The covers were practically over her head.
“Yancy?” Sam whispered.
“Umm.”
“I don’t mean to wake you, but do you need anything? Are you all right?”
“Hmm…tired.”
“Okay, get some sleep. I’ll see you later.”
Sam quietly left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
When Sam had gone, Yancy sat up. Emotion began to shake her. Sobs, laughter. Laughter, sobs.
Oh, God….
Sam….
Soon, Sam, soon….
Adam watched Sam as they motored out to the dive site at the Steps. It was a beautiful day. There might be a storm coming, perhaps presaged by the very calm that seemed to sit upon the water, but it made for great conditions today.
Sam didn’t get much of a chance to reflect upon their trip. She was seated in the back of the
