Sun-Kissed Secret Baby by Leigh Jenkins
Chapter 22
Allie stood barefoot in Sam’s living room, wearing a short sun dress with very little under it. They’d had lunch, delivered up from the kitchens, and then spent a couple of hours making love.
It had become their routine for the past week; as soon as Allie dropped Daria off at camp, she would walk up to Sam’s cabin, and either read quietly on the sofa as he worked at his desk, or sit with him on the porch looking out to sea, enjoying his company, talking and catching up. Sometimes they watched a movie; sometimes they listened to music.
As for the sex, it was delicious icing on a delectable cupcake. Sam was attentive and sweet, gentle and passionate, and seemed to find her body irresistible. Many of her old insecurities melted away under his questing, appreciative hands and gaze, and slowly her uncertainties faded into the background. He delighted in her. In his company, she no longer felt as if she was sitting on the single-mom shelf, gathering dust.
“Hey.” Sam came up behind her, wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans, and put his arms around her, pressing his lips against her neck, sending shivers up and down her spine. He placed a pair of steel pan sticks into her hands and positioned them over a shiny new chrome tenor pan that was swaying gently on its stand.
“Do you remember?” he asked softly.
Allie knew he was talking about the night, ten years ago at the Carnival steel band competition, when he’d held her hands just so, and taught her the notes. After that, they’d kissed in the park, on and on and on….
“I remember this,” she told him, pointing at the notes with a stick: “F sharp, B, E, A.”
He looked at her admiringly. “Did you keep playing?”
She shook her head, her hair brushing her cheeks. “Never had the chance to learn. Just like I let the drums drop.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said gently.
He took the sticks from her and tapped out a light tune, which she noticed was one of his own soca compositions. The steel pan was a gift Sam had custom ordered for Daria, and he planned to deliver it to her after camp today.
Allie wondered if Daria had any idea what was going on between her parents while she was off swimming and kayaking, and how it would affect her if she did. Worse yet, how would it affect her when camp was over in a week, and they had to fly back to Denver?
Was what she was doing with Sam working for or against Daria’s best interests? Was she being selfish, indulging in her desire to be with him?
And, equally important, was she doing herself harm, getting this attached to the man once again? It had taken her years to shake him off, to banish him from her thoughts. Was willingly reintroducing these feelings and desires into her life, after she had fought so hard to get rid of them, the smart thing to do?
“Is there no other way,” he asked, still playing, “for you to take up your music again? It seems such a waste.”
She sidestepped his embrace, and he immediately set the pan sticks down in the curve of the pan, as if realizing that he’d brought up something serious.
“You have no idea, Sam, what it’s been like. Take up music again? Dude, I had to fly three thousand miles just to have enough time to get myself a cut and color!” She tugged on a strand of her gold-streaked hair. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch other women your age go to the clubs? Eat out on a Friday night? Even find the time and money for a pedicure?”
He shook his head mutely.
She went on, sensing herself getting upset but unable to do anything about it. “Plus, you know Daria swims competitively. That means getting up at four to get her to practice at five, before she has to dress for school at eight. And then all those swim meets, many of them out of state. What did you expect?”
“I’m sorry.” He looked empathetic, but Allie was too frustrated to accept his concern. “Between that and your chef’s training, it looks like you’ve given up on your dreams—”
Now,she thought, he’s gone and said the wrong thing. “I gave up on them because I had to,” she snapped. “But what about you? What about the rising soca star I met way back then? You talked on and on about what it felt like to be onstage, how all you wanted was for people to see you and hear you. You wanted to be a star! And for a while, you were. When did you give up on your dreams?”
He stepped away, shoulders stiffening, getting defensive. “You know what happened to my dad—”
“What happened to your dad was tragic. And I’m really sorry about it. But it wasn’t your fault—”
“It sure as hell was. If I hadn’t—”
“You were riding high on success, and you wanted your dad to share in it. And then what happened, happened. It’s no good reason to give up on your singing! You were good! Everyone loved you!”
He shrugged. “Well, after Dad was killed, I didn’t love myself all that much. Besides,” he gave her a wry smile that looked more like a grimace, “maybe I didn’t like the man I was becoming under the limelight. Maybe Onstage Sam was a kind of a dick offstage: women, parties, spending money wildly….”
She flinched at the mention of women, but what had she expected? He had been on his way to becoming an internationally recognized name before he’d dropped off the radar. That, coupled with his wealth and good looks, would have made it a certainty that he would be living fast and loose.
But she tried to argue for the music, rather than his lifestyle. “Not singing won’t bring your father back, Sam, but it does rob the world of a voice it still longs to hear again—”
He paced up and down, and then headed for the porch, where he placed his hands on the railing. Allie had noticed that about him: whenever he was in turmoil, he looked to the sea. “I may not be singing anymore,” he conceded, still sounding defensive and irritable, “but at least I’ve put my money and resources towards building the careers of young singers coming up behind me. With my help, there are a lot of new soca artistes out there who are finally making their names.”
“I know.” She stood next to him, examining his profile, trying to determine if he was upset with her for bringing it up, or simply with the situation.
He continued. “I just want for those other kids to have someone step in the way someone stepped in for me. Starting a music career is expensive. I needed a backer then, and if it wasn’t for Liv and her dad—”
Allie gasped. “Liv? Do you mean Olivia? My Olivia?”
He nodded, seemingly oblivious to her incredulity. “She called me just a few weeks after you guys returned to Colorado after Carnival. Said she’d talked to her dad, and he was interested in financing my first album. The two of them flew in twice in the following year to make it happen.”
Allie felt woozy from the shock. When they’d first arrived in Sabina, she and Olivia had been best friends, had shared a cabin at Batali Beach Resort. A problem had reared its head when both girls had set their sights on the same guy: Sam. And at first, it had seemed that he was leaning in Liv’s direction, drawn by her slender, blonde beauty and over-the-top flirtatious manner.
It had hurt Allie, watching the two of them flirt and smile at each other, knowing that she, plain old boring Allison Muller with her mousy brown hair and muddy brown eyes, with her little tummy roll, couldn’t compare.
When Sam had begun to show an interest in Allie instead, she had been flattered and delighted, but Liv had been less than pleased. The rest of the vacation had been strained, and even though they’d tried to make their peace on the return back to their hometown, the friendship had begun to disintegrate.
The discovery that Allie was pregnant was probably the nail in the coffin. She had pleaded with Liv not to message Sam about it, and Liv had agreed… but to be honest, she’d been thinking rhetorically. It had never entered her mind that the two would ever have crossed paths again.
Leave it to Liv, Allie thought. She’d always been a girl who got what she wanted. “Liv came back,” Allie repeated. “To Sabina.”
“Sure.” From the look in Sam’s eyes, he was beginning to see how the news was affecting Allie, as if the memory of that early rivalry was only now returning to him.
“And she stayed at Batali Beach?”
“Yes, but….”
“Were you two an item?” she demanded. “Did you sleep with her?”
“No,” he says irritably. “But what would it matter if I had? You broke up with me back then, remember? You dumped me, right out there on the beach!”
It was her turn to become irritable. “Are you still hanging onto that? You must understand—”
“I’m hanging onto it because you broke my heart—”
“I broke my own heart too! But I had to go back. We were young then. Too young to save ourselves, much less each other.” She wanted to put her hand on his arm, hug him, make things right, but she was too upset. And so, it appeared, was he. His brows were drawn, and he seemed to be vibrating with negative energy.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Sam. And I wish you’d forgive me for it.”
“I have,” he mumbled, but he still wasn’t looking at her.
She snorted. “Have you?”
It was too much; she couldn’t stay, but she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave it like this between them. Her feelings for him were getting way out of hand, so much so that sometimes she couldn’t even bear it when things were going well, much less when emotions had become difficult to handle, like now.
She spun around, wheeling away from the balcony and heading back inside. He followed close behind. “Allie….”
She looked around for her bag. “I’d better go. Camp will be over soon, and I need to head down to pick Daria up.”
He began looking for his key. “I’ll walk down with you.”
“No!” she said hastily, and he froze, puzzled and hurt. “I mean, I need to… just walk alone right now, okay?”
His mouth was set, but he nodded.
She didn’t want to give him a chance to say anything else. She hurried out into the garden, noticing as she looked up that clouds were gathering. She glanced at the time again; it was a few minutes early still, but from the looks of the weather, she hoped Charlie had the good sense to call the kids in off the water. She didn’t know much about tropical weather, but even she could tell it was about to rain.
She walked with a determined stride, hoping that her sharp movements would help shift her focus from the upheaval inside to the simple smack of her beach slippers and the rustle of the wind.
She almost felt silly, getting upset so quickly over events that were way in the past, but honesty compelled her to admit that it was not so much the past that bothered her, but the present and the future.
This… thing between her and Sam, the lazy afternoons together, the sex, the lunches, it all existed in a bubble. It was as ephemeral as a honeymoon, and if she and he were indulging in each other’s company without admitting to themselves that it was soon to end, they were fools.
A week from now, she and Daria would be signing out of Half Moon Bay’s register, saying goodbye to the camp and the friends they’d made, and heading home. And Allie knew it was going to hurt—both her and Daria. And if pain was inevitable, wouldn’t it be better to face it now, rather than stretch this anguish on longer, and make it worse when it finally happened?
As the first fat drops of rain began smacking Allie on her face and bare arms, she picked up the pace, breaking into a jog down the path. And the question began roiling in her mind like the undertow on a dangerous beach: should she stay and get hurt later or should she go and take the pain now?