'Yeah, well, when our old man died, James became my substitute father. I followed him into the marines as soon as I turned eighteen. And when he got married, James's wife told me that their home would always be mine. Sandra was a special lady.'
Jeannie clasped Sam's hand. 'It's all right to still feel sad about their dying so young.'
'Elizabeth was only twelve. She really needed her parents, but she was lucky. She had a great-aunt who understood what it meant to be psychic. Legally, I was Elizabeth's guardian, but her great-aunt Margaret was the one who raised her.'
'You love Elizabeth dearly, don't you?'
Sam brought Jeannie's hand to his lips, kissed the open palm and laid it over his heart. 'She's the only person I had in my life to love.' He gazed down into the wine, sighed, then took a sip. 'But she's a grown woman now, married and a mother. Every time I look at her little boy—'
'You want a child of your own, don't you, Sam?' She sensed the need in him, tapping into his emotions simply by touching him. Big, macho, hard-edged soldier, government agent and bodyguard, Sam Dundee had a central core of goodness, a wellspring of pure golden love just waiting to be lavished on a child.
He jerked away from her, spilling his wine. Standing, he faced the sun, then shaded his eyes with his big hand. She watched him, his broad shoulders moving slightly when he breathed.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I couldn't help picking up on what you were feeling. I didn't mean to intrude on something that's obviously painful for you.'
She knew! Dear God, she knew. She had gotten that deep inside him.
Sam willed himself not to think about what had happened six years ago, about what had happened to the child who might have been his. 'Your childhood was pretty rotten, wasn't it?' he asked her, deliberately changing the subject. 'Until you went to live with Julian and Miriam Howell.'
'You can't imagine.' Jeannie sipped the wine slowly. 'From when I was six and Mama married Randy Foley, until I was thirteen and they died in the car crash that crippled me, I lived in pain every day of my life. Except…'
Sam sat down again on the quilt beside Jeannie, cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her face upward. She stared into his eyes. 'Except when you came to Le Bijou Bleu for vacations.'
'This island was my heaven. And Manton was my guardian angel. He was the first person I communicated with telepathically. I never told Mama and Randy. It would have been one more thing they would have tried to exploit. And I didn't try to develop the talent. It never happened again until Miriam became sick and…' Tears gathered in Jeannie's eyes; she bit her bottom lip. 'I loved her so dearly.'
'Cancer can be a horrible way to die,' Sam said.
'She suffered unbearably near the end.' Jeannie swallowed her tears as the memories of Miriam's final days flooded her memory.
'And you shared that suffering. You made it bearable.' He pulled her into his arms, stroking her back, resting his head atop hers, his cheek brushing her hair. 'It must have been terrible for you.'
'Yes and no. It would have been worse for me if I hadn't been able to absorb some of her pain, to take away the suffering for just a few hours, to give her a little relief. There came a time when the drugs didn't help.'
'She was very fortunate to have you.' Sam kissed the side of Jeannie's face.
She slipped her arms around his waist, touching his naked skin beneath his loose cotton shirt. 'I was fortunate to have her for a mother for so many years. She was an extraordinary woman. Beautiful. Brilliant. Compassionate. I would have done anything for her.'
'And you did.' He soothed her with his hands, caressing her tenderly.
'Can't you understand?' She looked at him, asking him to put himself in her place. 'If you saw someone you loved in excruciating pain, wouldn't you want to make the pain go away? Wouldn't you, if you could, suffer that pain for them?'
Sam kissed her. Hot. Fierce. Demanding. Yes, he understood what it meant to care so deeply for someone, to be willing to die for that person if necessary. When he released her mouth, she gasped for air.
'Sam?' She'd felt it, that tiny kernel of emotion called love. It was there, buried so deep within Sam that he wasn't even consciously aware it existed. All these years, there had been no one to keep love alive in Sam, no one except Elizabeth.
But Sam had never been deeply in love, had never bonded with a woman. Not until— But their bonding was incomplete, despite a week of making love and sharing private thoughts and feelings. He wouldn't allow himself to love her. The risk was too great. And as much as he wanted a child—even if he denied that great desire—he had not made love to Jeannie again, after that first night, without using protection.
And just who was he protecting, she wondered, her or himself?
Sam peeled off his shirt, dropped it on the quilt and nodded toward the ocean. 'How about a swim before we eat lunch?'
Jeannie held up her arms to him. He lifted her, carried her across the beach, and together they dived into the water. Within minutes, his dark mood lightened and the sadness left her eyes. They frolicked in the Gulf like two playful children. Later they sat in the shade of a huge old live oak with branches that drooped to the ground and had taken root. They ate the cheese and fruit, drank the wine and made slow, sweet love.
With each passing day, with each shared intimacy, Sam and Jeannie's joining became stronger. If Sam could ever bring himself to love her, truly love her, they would become one. Every beat of his heart, hers. Every breath she took, his. Her thoughts, her emotions, her feelings, would belong to him, and his to her. How deep the bonding would go, even Jeannie did not know.
« ^ »
Jeannie cuddled in Sam's arms. The late-afternoon sun was behind them, the ocean breeze soft and warm on their bare skin. With an occasional backward sweep of his foot, Sam kept the wooden porch swing in slow but continuous motion as he held Jeannie close. Caressing her shoulder with one hand, he rested his cheek against the side of her head. Her fresh, clean smell surrounded him. Turning her head just a fraction, she glanced up at him and smiled. Bringing his mouth down on hers, he kissed her with the wonderful sweetness of familiarity. In the twenty days they'd spent on Le Bijou Bleu, Sam had allowed himself to drown in the pleasure of loving Jeannie, of being at her side night and day, of discovering the incredible sensations of having his lover experience his every emotion, just as he was beginning to experience hers.
They hadn't spoken about what was happening to him, the fact that he was becoming more and more attuned to Jeannie's thoughts and feelings with each passing day. Although Sam didn't scoff at the idea of psychic powers, having been exposed to Elizabeth's psychic talents for so many years, he'd never experienced any himself. Until now, with Jeannie. Although whatever was happening to him was on a limited basis, he had to admit that he could communicate with Jeannie telepathically, to a certain extent. And each time they made love, the sensation of feeling what she felt grew stronger and stronger. He couldn't imagine what it was like for her, experiencing his fulfillment and her own.
Manton's piano music drifted through the open French doors. Every afternoon, without fail, the gentle giant of a man played his sentimental compositions.
'Listen,' Jeannie said. 'That's something new. He's never played it before.'
The tune seeped into Sam's mind, and for some odd reason, its sweet, vibrant melody resurrected long- buried memories. That night six years ago, a three-piece band had played on the riverboat nightclub owned by Louis Herriot, a man the DEA wanted badly enough to place Sam and new agent Brock Holmes in a dangerous undercover operation. And everything had gone exactly as planned, until Connie Bell inadvertently walked into the middle of things as the sting was coming down.
'Sam?' Jeannie touched his face.
He jumped, then stared at her, suddenly aware of where his thoughts were leading him. 'I'm all right.'
'No, you're not.' She caressed his cheek.
Closing his eyes, loving the feel of her, he covered her hand. 'There's no point in talking about what happened. It's over and done with, and I'll have to live with the consequences the rest of my life. All the talking in the world won't change anything.'
'Talking might help you deal with the grief and the guilt.' She sensed his resistance, his fear, his guilt. Several
