Just The Way You Are(72)

Sam kissed the top of her head. "You're beautiful, Alli."

His compliment brought another tear to her eye, another ache to her heart. "You're beautiful, too," she said huskily.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, a silence that gradually began to turn tense as they struggled to find something to say to each other. This had always been the hard part, the moments after they made love, moments when they should have felt closer than ever, yet somehow didn't.

Finally, she raised her body away from him and put on her clothes, fumbling with the hooks and zippers. When she was done, she stood up. "We better go home. I think the rain has lessened." In fact, she could barely hear the wind that had sounded like a freight train only a few minutes earlier.

"Home," he said heavily as he stood up. "Where is that exactly, Alli?"

"What do you mean?" she countered somewhat warily, hearing a note in his voice she didn't like.

"Our home or your home?"

She hesitated. "Do you think things have changed?"

"Do you?"

"We've made love before. Making love has never been our problem, Sam. It's the one thing we do really, really well together."

"But—"

"But you still used a—a condom," she said. "And you still can't say you love me. And I'm not sure you can even say you really wanted this, that if we hadn't come out in the storm we would have even made love."

"I used a condom because the last thing we need to do right now is make a baby."

She turned away, but he put a hand on her shoulder and swung her back to face him.

"You're my wife, Alli. Of course I love you," he said somewhat awkwardly. "Didn't I just make love to you?"

"So you care about me because I share your name and your bank account? Is that what you mean by 'You're my wife'? That's not the same as 'I love you. I don't think I can go on breathing without you, because without you I'm only half a man, and if you leave me I would probably die from a broken heart.'"

He sighed.

"Oh, forget it," she said. "I'm not scripting it for you."

"That's exactly what you're doing."

"Actually, what I'm doing is going home." She moved out of the office and into the shop. She picked her slicker off the floor and handed him his. Then she opened the door and saw that the rain was still coming down, although not with as much ferocity as before. "Can you help me push a couple of sandbags up against the door?" she asked as they stepped out onto the porch.#p#分页标题#e#

The task took only a few moments and they were ready to leave.

"I wonder what would really be enough for you," Sam said somewhat cryptically as they got into the car.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean, would you even believe me if I told you exactly what you wanted to hear? Because I don't think you would, Alli. I think you believe deep down that no one can love you that way, especially me, because I'll always love Tessa."

Her heart thudded against her chest at his words. "Is that the truth, Sam? That you'll always love Tessa?"

"You think it's the truth."

"Can you deny it?"

He shrugged. "If I say yes, will you believe me?"

She hesitated for a split second too long. "That's what I thought," he said.





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Chapter 18



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The morning after the storm dawned bright and sunny, as crisp as a new dollar, as fresh as an ocean breeze, but filled with more regrets than Sam would ever have imagined. Besides the regrets, he had a bear of a headache, the result of downing half a bottle of Scotch in the early hours of the morning when sleep had eluded him.

He sat back in his car and stared at his house, at Alli's house, he reminded himself, where his wife—make that his almost-ex-wife—had retreated the night before. He could still see the glimpse of light, of warmth in the house, teasing him just before she'd shut the door in his face—because he didn't love her and he never would.

Damn, he was sick of those words that she wanted so desperately to hear. He didn't remember his father telling his mother he loved her, although everyone had known that was the case. He didn't remember his mother making a big deal out of things like anniversaries and birthdays. There had been a few cakes over the years, a present here and there, but no one had called for a divorce because of a forgotten holiday or a pile of photographs. No one but Alli.

He knew that she was insecure, that she didn't believe in herself. But he couldn't fix what was wrong with her. She had to do that on her own. And maybe he needed to do some fixing within himself.

He would have liked a little time to regroup, but low tide waited for no man, and they needed to be down at the tidal flats by eleven A.M. so they could retrieve the oysters and find the pearl for Phoebe's necklace. He forced himself out of the truck and across the wet grass to Alli's front door.