Secret Games

“What about him? Wait a minute….” Maggie stared at Lyn. “You’re not suggesting I invite Sam?”

“Why not? You’re without a guy du jour, and Sam’s perfect. He’s the closest thing you’ve got to a long-term relationship. You’re comfortable with him, and he cares about you. I’m sure he’d be happy to help.” Lyn lifted her eyebrows suggestively.

After being forced to accept that her therapy needed help that her own extensive, but abysmal love life couldn’t provide, Maggie couldn’t handle this type of reasoning. Sex with Sam? This was not something she could tackle in the light of day.

Snatching the brochure off the desk, she shot to her feet. “Sam is my best friend. I can’t have sex with my best friend.”

“Why ever not? I have sex with my best friend at least three times a week. Four, if you don’t show up to play poker.”

“Oh, don’t tell me that.” Maggie beelined toward the door, knowing she’d never be able to step foot inside Lyn and Charles’s town house again without feeling guilty for curtailing what might have otherwise been a steamy evening.

“Seriously, Maggie.” The earnestness in Lyn’s tone stopped her before she escaped. “Give Sam some thought. Sleeping with him might be the smartest thing you ever did. The minute you get close to a guy, you freak out and start finding reasons to dump him. You won’t have a reason with Sam. You already know the good, the bad and the ugly about him.”

Maggie winced at hearing her behavior whittled down to such unforgiving terms, but she didn’t argue. Couldn’t. “Even if I was attracted to Sam, which I’m not, he’s totally not my type.”

Fantasies didn’t count while the sun was up.

“What type is that?”

Maggie waved her arms while she tried to find the right words to describe Sam. “He’s stable, loyal, predictable.”

Lyn stroked her chin, clearly considering. “Stable is good. Loyal is good. We could work on predictable, but that’s no tragedy. He’s a nice guy.”

“Yes, he is.”

“So what’s wrong with nice? Last I heard we were recommending nice to our patients.”

Nothing was wrong with nice guys, except it never seemed to matter whether they were nice or naughty—she always ended up by herself. Sinking back against the wall, Maggie blew a strand of hair from her eyes with an exasperated breath. Sam was definitely a nice guy, the nicest guy she’d ever known. That’s what made him special. That’s what made him off-limits. How could she possibly explain her feelings about him to Lyn?

They’d grown up together. Experienced so much. Both good and bad. Ever since Sam and his parents had moved into the house next door when she’d been in the fourth and he in fifth grade, they’d been connected.

They’d been there for each other through disappointing report cards and a host of parental punishments. She’d stuck by him when he’d broken his leg skateboarding and couldn’t run with the neighborhood kids. Sam had cradled her and Hambone in his arms when her elderly Maltese had peacefully exited from life.

He’d proven himself the best of friends by helping her cope with the ugliness of her parents’ divorce and the emotional fallout afterward. She’d led Sam through the process of funeral arrangements after his parents had died in a car accident and remained by his side during the long dark months while he’d dealt with his grief.

They’d survived her stint with vegetarianism and his fascination with home beer brewing. Sam was her friend, her anchor, her lifeline when life got crazy.

He was the only man in the world with whom Maggie could be herself. The only man she could count on not to turn his back when the going got tough. Through good times and bad, through changes of jobs, schools, friends and lovers, Sam was always there. Maggie trusted him in a way she’d never trusted another man. Not even her father. Especially not her father.

Sam was her ideal, the yardstick she held all other men to. Sex with Sam would mess things up completely.

“He’s too important to me,” she finally said. “Sex complicates things, and I won’t risk ruining the special relationship we have, or risk losing him. Not to address the weak link in my therapy. Not for anything.”

“Sex doesn’t have to complicate things. It can add depth to a relationship and make it even stronger.”

“With my track record? Please. The only reason my relationship with Sam works is because we stay out of bed.”

Maggie clung to the doorjamb, longing to propel herself into the hallway, snuffing out the sound of Lyn and her too-close-for-comfort observations. All right. Maybe it was high time she took a long look at why she couldn’t stay in a relationship past the time it took her guy du jour to memorize her phone number. Was her problem recognizing trouble in long-term relationships symbolic of her own inability to stay in one?

“I’ll think about whom I might invite, Lyn. That’s the best I can do.”

“Ask Sam.”

“Even if I was willing, Sam wouldn’t be. He dates, but he doesn’t do one-night stands. He’s only had three long-term relationships in the entire time I’ve known him. And to my knowledge, he’s never even had a quickie.”

“Then you won’t run the risk of catching anything.”

How Lyn delivered that statement with a straight face, Maggie would never know. “Very funny.”

“You need practical application, Maggie, my friend. Accept it and ask Sam. He’s your best choice for the job. You can’t go to this superclub alone and whoever you take is bound to have sex on the brain. At least you and Sam are long-term. Taking him will serve a purpose.”

Lyn had a point. If Maggie spent most of her visit to Falling Inn Bed, and Breakfast circumventing sexual advances, she wouldn’t have the time or the energy to observe the interplay between other couples.

Perhaps Sam was the best choice for the job. Sex didn’t factor into their relationship, so he wouldn’t be distracted by the sexual theme of the place.

“I think I will ask Sam to come with me,” she said, taking an inordinate amount of satisfaction when she wiped the smile from Lyn’s face by adding, “to observe.”

“Now you’re back to unrealistic expectations,” she scoffed. “I’ve spent enough time with you and Sam to safely guess he isn’t suffering from an inactive libido. If you take the guy to a sex club, he’s going to want to have sex.”

“Falling Inn Bed, and Breakfast is not a sex club—it’s a romance superclub—and Sam won’t want sex. He’s my friend.”

“Charles is my friend, too.”

Maggie scowled. “Observation, Lyn. Not practical application. I’m going home now.”

And not to ask Sam to have sex. Observation, only. Though, if Maggie were completely honest with herself, Sam wasn’t the one she should be worried about. Those late-night fantasies of hers didn’t need any encouragement.

But she’d already had enough honesty today, thank you.

2

TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP, pause, tap-tap.

The sounds vibrated from Sam Masters’s antiquated heater in a series of harsh taps that jarred the midnight quiet. Sam smiled. The crude, but familiar melody translated into a secret code. Though he never consciously hoped to hear it, he was always glad when he did.

Are you alone? Got time to talk?

He set down the mug of coffee he’d been nursing while reviewing a client’s investment portfolio and made his way into the living room. A miniature replica of a judge’s mallet hung by a leather loop from the side of the furnace heater.

Though Maggie always improvised with her own rendition of the Morse code he’d taught her when he was still in Boy Scouts, Sam adhered to the formal rules of the dots, dashes and spaces. Retrieving the mallet, he hammered out the word yes.

Tap-tap, tap-tap, pause, tap, pause, tap-tap-tap.

He waited.

Tap-tap. On my way.

Within seconds, Sam heard the tread of Maggie’s footsteps loping lightly down the bare wooden stairs. He opened the door to their shared hallway just as she stepped off the last riser.