The Kept Woman (7 page)

The lady could do casual just fine.

"Nope. I'm good," she said, staring out at the basketball court.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Sam tilted her head and raised her blue eyes, peering up beneath the brim of Jack's ball cap. The look on her face spoke volumes. Enjoyment apparently was not her primary sensation at that moment.

"Do you even like basketball?" Since she was already looking at him and he was already bending down toward her, he decided to use the opportunity to get in one of his required whispers of the first quarter. The instant he brought his lips to her curls, he felt her tense up. "Relax, Sam," he soothed. "Pretend like you're having the time of your life, that I'm Prince-Freakin'-Charming."

That got a little chuckle out of her, and Jack felt surprisingly proud of himself.

"I'm a little out of practice with the whole dating thing, and I've never really cared for basketball." Sam made this admission with a whisper.

Jack feigned horror. "And you call yourself a Hoosier? My God—the next thing I know you're going to tell me you don't like car racing! Or country music!"

Sam made a little humming sound deep in her throat that caused the hairs on Jack's forearms to spike to attention. It had been such a sexual sound, though unintentionally so. He wondered how she made that sound and how he could get her to make it again.

"The truth? I don't like either. Never have. I think car racing is noisy and stupid and country music gives me reflux. Sorry."

Jack blinked. "That's treason, babe." His lips brushed against her hair as he spoke. "Downright sedition. If anyone gets wind of this I'll lose the election for sure."

Sam turned her face toward him, and this time her eyes sparkled. Blue eyes like hers were lethal enough without the sparkle. He felt that buzzing sensation again.

"Maybe you should have checked me out before you brought me on board as the future Mrs. Jack Tolliver."

He grinned. Oh, he'd been checking out Sam all right, and he wasn't referring to the detailed reports he'd been given from Kara and Stu.

"But football isn't bad, I guess," Sam continued, a faint curl at the edge of her lips.

"Oh yeah? Ever see me play?"

She shook her head. "Unfortunately, your years with the Colts coincided with the years I spent breast-feeding and working overtime. Didn't have a lot of room in my life for sports back then."

Oh, damn. Now he wouldn't be able to stop staring at her breasts. It seemed Sam wasn't at all shy discussing bodily functions. Maybe motherhood did that to a woman. Not his own mother, of course. MDT made a point of avoiding a variety of topics, especially anything unduly earthy or real.

He wondered if sex was one of the bodily functions Sam didn't mind discussing.

"How did you manage to nurse babies while working overtime?" Jack surprised himself by asking but figured it was a way to keep Sam's breasts at the center of their conversation.

"I didn't have much choice." Sam's gaze strayed to the action at midcourt. "I was supporting all of us while Mitch tried to get his glass studio going. Mitch is my ex-husband. He was a glassblower." She looked at Jack again, a tiny frown between her neat auburn eyebrows. "Well, I guess he still is—it's not like he's dead or anything. At least not that I know."

It was all Jack could do not to make the observation that apparently, from what Kara had told him, glass had not been the only thing Mitchell was blowing back then.

Sam tilted her head to the side and smiled wistfully. "Anyway. I used a breast pump. Ever heard of those?"

Damn, damn, damn. Jack was thoroughly enjoying this conversation. "Of course."

"I did that for all my kids, but Dakota didn't want to stop. I was still nursing him in the morning and at night when he was over a year old."

So the kid was a boob man—Jack had something in common with the little streeker after all. "Seems he has his own timetable for everything."

Interesting. He hadn't really expected this, but Sam was now smiling at him in a way that nearly knocked the wind from his lungs. It was a combination of sparkling eyes, white teeth, dimples, tiny little crow's-feet, and joy that shocked the hell out of him. She was responding to him. Her shoulders had relaxed. Her leg had stopped bouncing. And she'd just made another one of those soft humming sounds he liked so much.

And all he had to do was feign interest in her children.

She nodded. "Dakota is definitely his own person."

Without warning the vision appeared to him—Sam stretched out on the guest bed's white sheets, her compact femaleness bursting the seams of that red thong and demi bra set he was going to purchase as soon as humanly possible. She would bend a knee and slide a bare foot up along the sheet, tuck it up near that cute butt, stretch her arms out over her head, and give him that full-force smile. Her curls would spill out on the pillow. He'd start his ministrations just behind her ear—the barest of kisses on the most tender spot of flesh. He'd let his tongue lick inside the hollow of her throat. He'd kiss down her sternum, letting his lips linger over those creamy mounds of flesh plumped up inside their prisons of crimson lace.

Sam had stopped talking and was obviously waiting for him to respond to her last comment. Unfortunately, he'd been too busy thinking about licking her to have heard what she'd said, but he figured it was a safe bet that it had something to do with potty training, so he took it from there.

"Well, truth be told, I'd be crapping my pants, too, if my parents had named me Dakota."

Jack froze. He hadn't wanted to say that
aloud
. What was wrong with him?

"Pardon me?"

"I'm saying that Dakota is an unusual name. Maybe it contributes to his unique personality."

Sam shrugged. "Yeah, well, Mitchell insisted on it. Some celebrity named their baby Dakota and he thought it was cool. So there you go."

Yes, and celebrities also name their kids after fruits and vegetables
. Jack managed to keep that observation to himself. "So what's his middle name?"

Sam sighed. "Benjamin."

"Now that's a normal, dignified name. Maybe if you called him Ben he'd feel a little less antisocial."

Sam frowned. "What?"

"Just a thought."

Sam laughed. She laughed with such gusto that Jack noted that several people swiveled their heads from the action on the boards to the sound of Sam's amusement. He laughed right along with her, just as a series of camera flashes went off near them.

"And exactly how much experience do you have in child rearing, Jack?"

He grinned down at her, knowing this was the absolute perfect time for the night's first kiss on the cheek. "No experience whatsoever," he said, bringing his lips to the soft, smooth side of her face. She smelled good enough to eat. Devour, really.

Flash. Flash. Flash
.

"So, Sam. Getting back to something you said earlier. . .exactly how long has it been since your last date?" Jack already knew the answer—eighteen months. He even knew who it was—the architect Sam's boss hired to renovate the salon. They went out twice. Dinner the first time. His place the second.

Sam blinked, her laughter coming to an abrupt halt. "Let's just say I've been out of circulation," she said.

Jack knew he wasn't pacing himself well, but he couldn't help it. Samantha Monroe was just too delicious. He leaned in for his second required kiss of the night and made sure the corner of her mouth touched his, which caused her to gasp.

"Popcorn?" Jack asked.

If it weren't for the new receptionist—a girl who'd just moved to Indiana for God's sake and didn't even know who she was—Christy was certain this would have been less of a hassle. Yes, she was a week early for her touch-up, but she'd been one of Le Cirque's most loyal and high-profile clients for six years now and expected to be squeezed into Marcia Fishbacher's schedule if and when necessary.

Marcia seemed a bit flustered today, juggling three clients at once, and Christy looked around the salon straining to catch a glimpse of that Samantha Monroe woman. Christy had nearly given herself a forehead slap that morning when she'd seen the photo in the
Star
. Of course that's where she'd heard that name before—she'd only been staring at the woman once every four weeks for six years. Samantha Monroe worked for Marcia! And although Christy hadn't said three words to Samantha in all that time, she recognized her immediately when she opened the morning paper.

"Now let's see how we're progressing here, shall we?" Marcia opened a neat fold of foil attached to a hunk of hair near Christy's face, peeling it back to check the progress of the bleach. In the mirror, Christy saw the same trim, neat, and preserved brunette she'd always seen, and once again wondered if Marcia was forty or sixty. It was impossible to tell. "I think we're good to go. Let's do a wash and then squeeze in a quick trim."

Before Christy could respond, her stylist was halfway across the salon, instructing a young apprentice to meet Christy at the shampoo station toward the back. Clearly, it was so busy in here today that if she wanted any information out of Marcia, she'd have to just dispense with the small talk and get right to it.

A few moments later Christy was perched in the chair at Marcia's station. Christy's wet locks hung straight from a center part at the top of her head, looking almost brown in the mirror. She wondered for an instant if she should go brunette but laughed it off. Christy Schoen—journalist, political analyst, TV personality—was a blonde. It was as simple as that. So why would she allow her hair to return to its natural lackluster mop? Why mess with excellence?

"All right. This is looking lovely. Just lovely." Marcia finished inspecting the lightened strands and reached for her scissors. "How have you been, Christy? Something unexpected come up? An event or something?"

As Marcia snipped proficiently, removing microscopic portions of hair around her face and at the ends, Christy spun a tale about having a last-minute assignment that interfered with her regularly scheduled appointment. Like she'd ever allow that to happen! She wasn't ashamed to admit that she built her work schedule around hair, nail, and eyebrow-shaping appointments. It was the nature of the TV beast.

"Well, I do apologize that we're a little rushed in here today. It's been crazy trying to juggle clients since one of our busiest stylists took some time off. I'm telling you, we've been running around like chickens without heads lately."

"Oh? Which stylist was that?"

"Samantha Monroe. Do you know her?" Marcia pointed across the room with her scissors, then resumed trimming. "Her station is over there, next to Monte."

Christy smiled into the mirror. Things came so easily to her sometimes it was scary. She looked over at the tidy—and clearly empty—styling station near a large window. There were no pictures tucked into the edges of the mirror. No tubes or bottles placed on the counter. No indication she'd be back anytime soon.

"I see. Did she have a baby or something?"

Marcia laughed and shook her head. "She's already done her service to mankind—three times over. Sam asked for a leave of absence to work on a new relationship and spend time with her kids. Apparently she's so serious about this man that she's moved into his house. I had to let her do it, even if it meant us being shorthanded."

Christy felt her body start to hum with the oddest mishmash of emotions—shock and anger chief among them. This had to be a mistake. The caption under the photo this morning was something cutesy about how Jack Tolliver may be keeping mum about his candidacy but wasn't the least bit shy about the way he felt about Samantha Monroe, his date for the Pacers game. The photo showed Jack leaning close to give the Monroe woman a kiss on the cheek. The kiss was obviously mid-laugh for both of them, and Samantha's head was tilted back at a slight angle, her eyes bright. Christy could tell by the way the muscles in Jack's neck strained that he was laughing, too. The kiss looked spontaneous. It looked real. It looked intimate.

That bitch was
living
with Jack?

"You don't say?" Christy smiled bravely, then swallowed. "Come to think of it, I did see her picture in the paper this morning with the former lieutenant governor. Is that the man she's moved in with?"

Marcia stopped snipping, and Christy watched the woman's glance slide over to the opposite end of the room, toward the stylist named Monte. It almost looked like Marcia didn't want the woman to overhear this conversation.

"Sam's trying to keep it low-profile," Marcia said in a whisper. "Apparently, it's happened pretty fast and she's really crazy about this guy. I think he has his own apartment and is just letting her live in his family's house or something. Honestly, I'm trying to respect her wishes, but I swear to God I'm so happy for Sam I could bust! I can't keep my mouth shut about it! After everything she's been through these last few years, Sam deserves to have a little happiness. I swear, I cried when she told me about him. It's like a fairy tale. We're all thrilled."

While Marcia had been talking, Christy witnessed the transformation of her own expression reflected in the mirror. She looked thoroughly disgusted. She needed to get her act together.

Marcia looked into the mirror to catch Christy's eye. "Oh no. I've done it now, haven't I?"

Christy smiled sweetly. "This is a real dilemma for me, as you can appreciate."

Marcia let out a groan, just as Monte sauntered by. The woman nodded at Christy, her dark eyes quickly scanning her over as she passed. The encounter wasn't exactly lovey-dovey.

Christy lowered her voice to a whisper, too. "You've given me some really good stuff in the past, Marcia. I've never revealed you as a source and I won't do it now. Please don't be concerned."

The stylist shook her head. "It's not that, Christy. It's just that this is so important to Sam and I'm so pleased for her. I don't want anything to screw up this chance at happiness for her and the kids."

Christy was about to respond, but Marcia had already grabbed the blow-dryer and round brush. So she endured the noise and the heat of the dryer and thought this through.