"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.
Chapter 13
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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 times she had been right on the verge of telling him she was aware of the terrible pain eating away at his soul, but he'd sealed himself off from her, and she had respected his privacy.
"Don't you know you can share anything with me and I'll understand? If you'll only let me, I can ease your suffering."
Releasing his hold on her, he moved away, then stood, keeping his back to her. He thrust his hands into the front pockets of the cutoff jeans he wore. "Like you did the day you saved my life?"
She shivered with the force of his anger as it spiraled inside her. Reaching for her cane that rested against the wall, she slid to the edge of the swing. "Yes, like I did the day I found you on the beach. You felt guilty for two people's deaths. You didn't think you deserved to live."
"Yeah." Sam walked down the veranda, stopping several feet away from her. "I thought I was dying, and when I came to and saw you, I thought you were an angel." He emitted a grunting laugh. "Ironic, isn't it? As it turned out, that's exactly what you were."
"You can't spend the rest of your life blaming yourself, hating yourself, letting that guilt destroy your ability to live and love." Positioning her cane, Jeannie stood and took several steps toward Sam. She laid her hand on his back. He flinched.
"Don't do this," he said. "I don't want you to suffer for me. I don't want you to know what it feels like."
"Please trust me, Sam." She slipped her arms around his waist, holding tight when he started to withdraw from her. "You must know how much you mean to me. You're the one person in this world I most want to help."
His unrelenting guilt hit her with shattering force. She clung to Sam, resting her head on his back. Dear God, the pain inside him was unbearable. Dark, bitter rage simmered in his soul. Damned forever. Oh, her poor Sam. A lesser man would never know such guilt.
"Stop it!" He realized what had happened, what he had allowed to happen. Dammit, he wasn't going to let her absorb any more of the tormenting grief from which he could never escape. His grief and guilt were his punishment, not hers. She was innocent, so very innocent.
"Talk to me about what happened. Let it go. Give it to me and let me share your burden. Allow me to help you." While she held him with the fierceness of that abiding protective devotion, she gave those very feelings over to him, allowing him to experience the great depth of her emotions.
"I don't want your help!" Jerking out of her embrace, he stalked off the veranda and across the wide expanse of lush green lawn.
Jeannie stood on the veranda and watched him walk away. Tears filled her eyes, ran down her cheeks, trickled off her nose and over her lips. She couldn't force him to come to her, expose his heart's deepest emotions and bare his soul. But neither could she let him suffer alone, as he had done for the past six years. If he would not allow her to take away his guilt and grief for a few hours, she could still be at his side, supporting him while he grieved anew.