Footprints in the Sand - 1

Sam Baldwin covered the short distance from his rental car to the double-doored entry of the Victorian house called Seascape with resolve. The determined pace of his approach hid his churning emotions. Behind the house, some three hundred odd yards away, the gentle slap of the surf kept pace with his vacillating emotions.

The sea island home he had shared with his wife and daughter was dark. Was his soon-to-be-ex wife staying in Charleston with her parents? On the fairly safe bet that she had not started running home to her mother, Sam resisted the impulse to use his key. Instead, he rang the doorbell and waited impatiently for some sign that the house was occupied.

Almost immediately, a rosy-tinted glow appeared through the stained glass windows framing the double doors. When one of the heavy carved doors swung inward, Sam nearly stopped breathing.

Damn her! His wife had never been more beautiful.

Her thick, dark hair was piled high on her head, her long, curling lashes wet and spiky. For an instant he wondered if she’d been crying. Then he came to his senses. Anna Reardon Baldwin never cried.

She looked surprised to see him. “What do you want?”

You. Us. Susana. Not necessarily in that order.

“Glad to see me, huh?” He forced the quip and swallowed once to clear the lump from his throat. The light at the back of the wide hallway shone through the thin silk of her boxy red pajamas and cast every curve of her figure in flattering backlight. “Let me in, Anna. I need a place to stay.”

“You chose to leave months ago, Sam. Give me one good reason I should let you come back now.”

She presented a picture so intimately familiar, so filled with memories, it was all he could do not to reach out and haul her into his arms. Rubbing a hand across his tired, scratchy eyes, he chose his words carefully. He didn’t dare let her know how he really felt. How lost he was without her. How much he still loved her.

“Because it’s been one hell of a trying week, and I’ve traveled nearly twenty-four hours to get here?”

She didn’t so much as blink.

He tried again. “Because you used to care about people who needed your help?”

After a flash of something he could identify only as pain deep in her fathomless dark eyes, she recovered her indifferent demeanor and stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “You’ve never needed anyone’s help, especially not mine.”

What he’d give not to need her now. But a glance over his shoulder at the rental car with its precious sleeping occupant drove home the fact that he did.

“I need you now,” he admitted, deliberately changing the focus of his need and wondering if she noticed the double entendre in his words.

“So, I’m supposed to believe that the invincible Sam Baldwin, who doesn’t possess a human emotional weakness, who can get over the death of his daughter as easily as–”

Her voice broke, and Sam stared in amazement at an Anna he had not seen since before Susana’s death. Maybe she hadn’t become quite as cold and detached as he had believed. Maybe the ice around her heart was beginning to melt.

She swallowed visibly, and in the space of a few seconds, she was again the distant, dispassionate woman he remembered from the months following Susana’s death. “I’m supposed to believe you need me, Sam?”

“I’ve never lied to you.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Not intentionally, maybe.”

“Never, Anna. And you know it.” The anger that had simmered in him for months abruptly boiled over, and Sam retreated into familiar territory, into sarcasm, sarcasm that was meant to sting. “Deception and lies are your department, darling. Or have you lost your memory?”

“That’s the least of what I’ve lost.”

He met her cold stare and remembered why he’d left. Her eyes. Those dull, obsidian-colored eyes that had once sparkled life and humor and love. He’d been unable to face those once beautiful — but now dead — eyes another day.

With memory came pain. Pain laced with regret and a sadness so deep it soaked into his soul. Somewhere nearby crickets chirped, breaking the silence of the warm night and anchoring Sam to the present.

“We’ve both lost, Anna,” he corrected softly, hoarsely, his throat achingly raw. “We’ve both lost big time.”

A tense silence stretched between them. Then, without a word, she moved aside and motioned him inside.

Sam stepped past her and into the foyer of the huge old house they had fallen in love with and purchased on the spot six years earlier. His gaze panned the richness and beauty of the expensive antique furnishings she’d considered so important, so essential. So much a part of the image of her success as one of South Carolina’s most sought after trial attorneys.

How could their whole world have changed so much in just six years?

“What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?” came Anna’s cool, husky voice from behind him. “Did you and your trusty Nikon step into the middle of another coup? Snap an unflattering photo of another foreign dignitary? Or has another drug kingpin become miffed at your damning photos and ordered a hit on you?”

Sam glanced over his shoulder. She had crossed her arms and rested stiffly against the wall. For a moment he thought he detected a hint of emotion in her eyes, then decided he had imagined it. He drew a deep breath. This wouldn’t be easy.

“You opinion of my work is well known, Anna. Just tell me straight up whether or not you’ll let me stay.”

“You have an apartment. Remember? A separate domicile, as your lawyer so succinctly put it. Stay there.”

Weariness overtook Sam, and he sighed. “I’m too tired for this, Anna. I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t desperate. The truth is, I need more than just a place to stay. As I said before, I need your help.”

She rubbed a hand across her eyes. “Why me, Sam? Why now?”

“Timing never was my strong suit.” Tossing away the last of his pride, he asked, “Please, Anna, will you help me?”

She took her time answering. If he didn’t need her so much, he swore he’d turn and walk away, for good this time. But he did need her.

Even more, though, she needed him. He realized it for the first time now as he watched the first spark of life he’d seen in her expression since Susana’s death a year and a half ago. So what if that spark was anger? Any emotion was better than apathy.

Just say yes, Anna. For God’s sake, say yes.

Abruptly she pushed away from the wall and moved toward the back of the wide hallway. Over her shoulder, she said, “You can sleep in one of the guest rooms. I’m going to bed.”

At his silence, she glanced back. “Alone.”

He almost laughed and spread his arms and nodded in a gesture of concession. Then he watched her go, watched the unconsciously seductive way her hips swayed with each step. “Works for me,” he murmured to her retreating back. “I didn’t expect an enthusiastic, wifely welcome.”

Just hoped for one. Idiot!