The Kept Woman (3 page)

"Mmm-hmm." Monte nodded with approval. "You did a bang-up job, girl."

Sam sighed, and Monte watched quietly as her friend began her ritual. She would stare at each of the eight paintings that hung on the off-white living room walls. She would allot three seconds to each painting, making a silent evaluation of her art and her life, then move on to the next, until she'd reviewed them all.

Monte didn't need to look along with Sam—she knew each of her friend's brush strokes by heart, even the ones Sam hid in the basement, covered by a drop cloth and years of dust. The combination of tiny dots and broad sweeping arcs defined all of Sam's oil paintings. The colors were so bold and rich it didn't seem possible that they'd come out of the petite, pretty, auburn-haired mommy sitting on that couch. But they had. And Monte knew those paintings were as much a product of Sam as her children were.

"You'll be able to paint again someday. I know you will."

Sam took a sip of wine and offered Monte a weak smile. "I'll start painting the day you get up onstage and belt one out like the old days."

Monte laughed. "Lord, that's not fair, and you know it! I couldn't squeeze into one of my stage dresses if my life depended on it."

"Then buy a few new ones."

"Hmmph. I think I'd be better off going to night school for my degree and maybe one day I can get off my feet."

The doorbell rang, and Sam pushed herself up off the couch and went to answer it, ushering in Kara along with a cold blast of wind. Monte watched the women hug briefly, and Sam draped Kara's expensive shawl-collared dress coat on one of the dinette chairs.

"Hey, Monte!"

Despite the friendly greeting, Monte could tell Kara wasn't pleased to find her there. Now she was certain something was up. She could smell it. There was no way she was leaving now. "Hey, Kara," she said. "We were having a glass of wine. Would you like to join us?"

Kara looked nervously around the room, like she was trying to make the decision to bolt or stay. "That would be nice," she said, just as Sam returned with an extra glass. Kara sat on the love seat and immediately let out a squeak and reached under her bottom.

"Sorry," Sam said, holding out her hand for the small plastic figure. "Seems you sat on Bob the Builder."

"Hope it was as good for Bob as it was for me," Kara commented drily, and everyone laughed.

"So what's up, Kara? Is there something wrong?" Sam leaned her elbows on her knees and stared at the new arrival, clearly as perplexed as Monte was.

Kara's eyes darted toward Monte, which prompted Sam to say, "Whatever we need to talk about, I'm sure Monte won't mind listening."

Kara chuckled and put her untouched wine on the coffee table. She brushed the sleeve of her suit jacket. "Well, it's a legal matter. A personal legal matter."

Sam and Monte snapped to attention.

"You suing Le Cirque?" Monte asked, appalled.

"
What?
" Sam gasped, just as Dale loped into the living room and jumped up on Kara's blended-wool pencil skirt.

"No! God, no! Are you kidding?" Kara laughed, placing the dog back on the floor without missing a beat. "Thanks to you, no one in this town knows I went gray at twenty-six. This has nothing to do with the salon. I love you guys."

Monte sat up even straighter. Wild dogs couldn't drag her ass out of there now.
Hell
no.

"I don't understand," Sam said, shaking her head.

"
Diaper change me, Mommy, and don't forget to use the wipes
."

Dakota had suddenly appeared in the living room. He stood next to the couch in only a T-shirt, which hit just above his little knob of a belly button. A heavy training diaper sagged from his hand, and his little baby parts dangled in the breeze.

Sam sighed. "Sweetie, if you'd use the big-boy potty, you wouldn't be uncomfortable every time you tinkled in your pull-ups."

"No. Nuh-uh. I don't like the big potty. Change me now." Dakota held out the soggy lump of plastic.

Monte shook her head, watching this familiar but futile exchange between mother and son. Dakota looked like a redheaded cherub, but he was a devil child when it came to his bodily functions, no doubt about it.

"How about we go on in and sit on the big potty just to see—"

"No, Mommy! No. No. No! Change me now! Use the wipes!"

Monte and Kara stared at each other with raised eyebrows, not saying a word, until Sam returned a few moments later and collapsed on the couch. She sighed deeply. "At this rate, he'll be wearing pull-ups when he goes up onstage to receive his diploma—and I'm talking the one from
college
."

Kara cleared her throat. "Speaking of college—"

"Oh my God!" Sam sat straight up and smacked her palms on her denim-covered knees. "Does this have something to do with Mitch? Did you come here to tell me they found him?"

"Oh, sweetie, no." Kara tilted her head and groaned. "Look, Sam. I have a proposition for you, an offer that could change your life and your kids' lives. It's a little off-the-wall, but I figure I can at least throw it out there for your consideration."

Sam grew very still and said, "OooK."

Kara cleared her throat. "Do you remember what you said last Friday at the Lizard Lounge? About how there was nothing wrong with being a kept woman?"

Sam blinked. "I said
what
?"

"Sure she remembers," Monte said, uncurling her legs and placing her feet square on the floor. "Go on."

Sam glared at her. "I do?"

"Sure you do. You said if there was a way to swing it without damaging the kids you'd do it in a heartbeat."

Sam frowned, then dragged her gaze back to Kara. "Obviously, Jose Cuervo was doing the talking last Friday, not me." Then she laughed. "Why? Did you go out over the weekend and find some loser who wants to be my sugar daddy?"

Kara folded her hands in her lap and bit the inside of her cheek to keep a straight face. "Actually," she said, noting how Sam's grin was slowly melting into something akin to horror, "I was hoping you might help him be a winner."

Jack hadn't been this nervous since his first and only Super Bowl appearance, at the end of his first and only year as an NFL starting quarterback, when he realized the TV cameras were going to be as unforgiving as the fans. His hands had been so sweaty that he fumbled the first snap, dread coursing through him as the textured leather of the ball slid right through his fingers and bounced on the AstroTurf. His fingers were nearly that wet now, and no matter how many times he jerked at his tie, he couldn't seem to get rid of the nagging feeling that he was choking.

He couldn't fumble this. Kara had been right. This was his last shot at an elected office on the national level. In his heart, he knew it.

"The hard stuff is over, Jack. Relax. This is a formality."

Jack chortled, twirling a felt-tip pen in the fingers of his damp right hand and ignoring Stuart.

"That little lady was quite a negotiator, too, let me tell you." Stuart walked over to the miniblinds at the windows and pulled them shut, casting the sixteenth-floor conference room in muted light. "A signing bonus, private school tuition, college trust funds, monthly stipend. . .I haven't worked that hard to hammer out a contract since the labor dispute at the kosher meatpacking house back in '99."

Jack looked up at his lawyer accusingly. "I hope you're not implying that I'm being led to slaughter."

Stuart smiled. "Of course not. Did you read the opposition research we did on her?"

"Yeah. Nice work." Jack shook his head in amazement. Kara and Stuart had done such a complete background check on the Monroe woman that Jack almost felt guilty—she'd be walking in that room in a moment and he'd already know everything about her, from her shoe size to her credit score.

Sam Monroe's health was excellent—no current prescriptions; allergic to codeine; hospitalized for childbirth only. No complications. Minor carpal tunnel from her job. Four ceramic fillings in her molars. She saw a counselor during and after the divorce and was treated for mild depression for six months.

She made forty-five thousand dollars in commission last year, not counting tips. She still owed a few thousand on her student loan, but her 1997 Toyota minivan was paid for. She rented a house for nine hundred dollars a month and she was often late with the rent. Her Visa and Discover cards were maxed out.

She'd graduated from Valparaiso public schools and earned a respectable B average at Hanover, a college for artsy-fartsy brainiacs.

Her divorce had become final a little over three years ago. Prosecutor's office records showed her ex-husband, Mitchell James Bergen, no known address, was currently fifty-four thousand dollars in arrears in child support payments. She had no history of felony charges or convictions, but her DMV records showed three speeding tickets in the last fifteen years and a warning for a broken taillight. Her registration and auto emissions inspections were current, and her children had no juvenile truancy or criminal issues.

Her job history was flawless. She'd been at the salon for thirteen years and was loved by her clients and boss. Apparently, she used to paint Kara said that she was talented and had sold some pieces, but her stuff was too abstract for most people's tastes.

Her parents and a married younger brother still lived in Valpo, though they weren't particularly close. Sam was attached by the hip to a fellow stylist named Monte McQueen, a never-married mother of one who paid for cosmetology school by singing in a now-defunct Indianapolis R&B band. It seemed the drummer's sperm donation was the only thing he'd ever done for their son, Simon, and the two women and their kids acted as a de facto man-free family unit.

Jack figured that, in contrast, Samantha Monroe probably knew just the standard things about him—the knee injury and the teachers' convention debacle. Of course, she also knew he was pathetic enough to pay someone to pretend to adore him.

"They're late, right? I bet she's changed her mind."

Stuart checked his watch. "They are not late and I doubt it. I think Samantha Monroe is anxious to sign on the dotted line."

"Am I actually doing this?" Jack pushed back from the conference table, stood, and sent his leather chair rolling halfway across the room. He headed to the wet bar, his mind racing.

Allen Ditto had pulled the rug out from under Hoosier politics with his surprise announcement that he would not seek another term. He was seventy-nine years old and had served for nearly three decades but was still sharp as ever. Most everyone, Jack included, assumed that Ditto would serve until he died. But the old man shocked everyone at home and in Washington with his announcement that he was done.

"
I never intended to serve so long that I'd have to be carried out of here
," Ditto had said in his press conference. "
I prefer to leave on a high note, giving Indiana voters an opportunity to think long and hard about my replacement
."

Yeah, well, the old fucker could have at least given Jack a heads-up—Ditto had been one of his father's best friends.

"Could you grab me a bottled water while you're over there?" Stuart asked.

"Sure." Jack sighed. If only he'd seen Ditto's move coming, he could have been more prepared for this. It was Ditto's fault he had to rent a fiancee.

Jack brought the bottled water to the conference table and leaned his palms flat on its surface. He hung his head and laughed at himself. Hell! He didn't even
want
a fiancee. If he'd wanted one, he would have gone out and found one on his own! It wasn't like he was actively avoiding finding a bride; it's just that he'd never encountered one he could envision in that role, let alone the rest-of-your-life that followed.

And now here he was, about to enter into a legal agreement with a female he'd never met, who'd be paid to pose as the woman who'd finally gotten badass Jack Tolliver to settle down.

His mother was going to shit a brick when she found out what he was up to.

Jack laughed out loud.

"What's so funny?"

He looked up. "It just dawned on me that Samantha Monroe and I will be admitting in advance and in writing that we're using each other. How refreshing." Jack smiled and stood up tall, patting his friend on the shoulder. "Stuart, this might very well turn out to be the most honest relationship I'll ever have with a woman in my life."

Just then, the conference room door opened, and Stuart's secretary ushered in Jack's last resort. She looked taller and wider than her pictures, and her hair was blond and spiky instead of the soft auburn curls he'd expected, and her face—holy hell! Her face was far more severe than he remembered and Jack was just about to slap himself when the defensive end of a woman moved into the room to reveal Kara, followed by the woman he'd been waiting for.

Jack went completely still. Samantha Monroe was cute. Real damn cute. She looked wholesome, just like the photos Kara had shown him. She seemed nervous, and he couldn't blame her. Her eyes were huge and blue and they scanned the room, seeking him out, and when her gaze clicked with his he swore it made a noise that everyone could hear.

It reminded him of the sound of an air lock being sealed, and he suddenly had trouble breathing.

Samantha Monroe lowered her chin and gave him a nod accompanied by what might have been the most disarming smile he'd ever seen. It conveyed embarrassment, humor, and cunning. As Stuart introduced everyone, Jack reached over the conference table to awkwardly grab Samantha Monroe's cute little hand. That's when he started to buzz all over. He was still buzzing as he lowered his body into his seat, realizing a nanosecond too late that his seat was still somewhere across the room.

Jack rebounded from the floor, easing into the chair Stuart had kindly wheeled back into place. His knee hurt like hell. He saw Kara roll her eyes. He heard the Amazonian attorney snicker. And he looked over to see Samantha Monroe gaze at him with pity, like she was about to reach in her purse, pull out a Band-Aid, and apply it to his boo-boo.

Dear God. He wasn't sure getting elected to the U.S. Senate was worth this.

"Shall we get started?" Jack asked, like the graceful statesman he was.

Sam decided not to panic. So what if Jack Tolliver was a goof? He wouldn't be her
real
fiance. And she sure wasn't going to laugh, because there was nothing funny about being in a conference room full of lawyers who were about to deposit a huge honking wad of cash into her gasping checking account. She was taking all of this quite seriously.

Tolliver looked exactly like his pictures; she'd give him that. He wore an expensive, perfectly tailored charcoal gray suit. He had the presence of a movie star, complete with a long, muscular frame, big shoulders, thick, well-cut dark hair that would need a trim in two weeks. He had a high, strong nose, forest green eyes, and a wickedly attractive set of lips. Sam and the kids had spent hours researching this guy on the Internet. According to Greg, if it hadn't been for the career-ending knee injury in the third quarter of the Super Bowl, Jack Tolliver could have been one of the game's greatest. According to Lily, anyone that tall, dark, rich, and hot had to be a complete jerk, and she'd shown Sam the articles about the national teachers' convention scandal to prove it.

Sam pursed her lips, remembering that video clip they'd all watched. It was about a half hour before the event began. Jack had apparently thought no one was paying any attention to him as he placed his notes on the podium. His eyes had strayed to the sight of one of the conference presenters, bent at the waist, retrieving a dropped pen. It was like he couldn't stop himself. He smiled and said, "
I'd gladly stay after school to get me a piece of that
." A week later he lost his bid for Congress. Exit polls showed he got less than 20 percent of the female vote. The press called him everything from a cad to a sex addict.

But looking at Jack now, as he tried to recover from literally falling on his ass, Sam didn't know what to think of the man.

He began to talk, and Sam heard the deep resonance of the voice more than she heard the specific words. He had an orator's voice. A politician's voice. An actor's voice. Jack Tolliver's voice was mellow but precise, and he used his hands when he made a point. His hands were large, masculine, and well manicured. She'd seen many photos of him cradling a football, his arm cocked, ready to shoot it off into space. She remembered the way his big, smooth hand had cradled hers just moments ago.

Denny cleared her throat "Sam?" Her attorney scowled down at her.

"Yes. Right. The living arrangements." Sam smiled, pleased that she'd apparently been listening subconsciously while allowing her mind to wander, a skill she'd perfected as a mother and a hairstylist. "I've already told Mr. Foster that we'd prefer a home of our own."

"Please call me Stuart," Jack's lawyer said with a friendly smile. "As I explained to you previously, and as my client was just reiterating, we can't do that for you. It's either your children's private schooling through high school accompanied by the college trust fund or a home. Not both. Like everyone, Mr. Tolliver's resources are finite."

Sam smiled to herself, aware that Jack Tolliver's definition of "finite" might be a bit different from her own. Things were so damn finite at her place that just last week she'd had to choose between new rear tires and Greg's birthday dinner. She would make it up to him. She always had.

"Of course," Sam replied.

"Your family will have use of the Sunset Lane estate for the duration of your agreement, which will end fourteen days after the primary, so that would be May 23." Stuart flipped through some documents and continued. "We agree that you will not formally engage the services of a real estate agent in your search for your own home prior to May 31, correct?"

Sam shrugged. "If that's absolutely necessary."

"It is," Stuart said, his eyes serious but kind. "The press could easily find out you were house hunting, and the homes in your price range would not corroborate the story of you and Jack planning a permanent union."

"But I can look for a house on my own if I do it discreetly, right?"

"Only if you're very discreet." Stuart looked at his copy of the agreement again. "And, as we have agreed, Jack will continue to reside at his condo on the canal downtown but use the office at the estate when necessary. You do agree to that, Samantha?"

"Well, sure! It's his house. Of course he can use it." She looked over at Jack. He sat quietly, studying her, and his expression had softened some. He'd dropped the politician's mask, and for just an instant Sam saw something very appealing in that face. For a brief moment, Jack Tolliver looked almost sweet.

"The dog has to stay outside," he said.

"How about an enclosed porch? You have one of those?"

Jack nodded. "Fine. But you will be held accountable for any damages to the Sunset Lane house, and any repair costs will be taken directly from your monthly stipend."

OK, so he wasn't sweet.

Denny piped in. "Aside from normal wear and tear and maintenance, of course. My client can't be held responsible if one of the outdoor shutters were to come loose, for example."

"Unless the kids were swinging from it at the time," Jack said.

Sam cocked her head and blinked at him. OK—maybe he wasn't even decent. Maybe Lily had been right about him being a complete jerk. "My kids don't swing from shutters, Mr. Tolliver."

"How about chandeliers?"

Sam smiled sweetly. "How about you just take your chandeliers and shove them—" Denny stomped on Sam's toes under the table. "Into storage for the next six months?"

Stuart inhaled sharply. Kara groaned. Denny placed her hand over Sam's. But it was Jack who had Sam's attention, those deep, dark, green eyes boring into hers, shining with surprise and maybe even amusement. Then his mouth hitched up. He smiled at her.

"Excuse us." He stood. "Ms. Monroe and I are going to grab a quick bite of lunch."

"We are?"

"Yes." Jack arrived at Sam's side and touched her elbow. "I think we need to have a chat before anybody signs anything."