Palomino

Chapter One Hurrying up the steps of the brownstone on East Sixty-third Street, Samantha squinted her eyes against the fierce wind and driving rain, which was turning rapidly into sleet. It whipped her face and tingled as it pricked at her eyes. She made a soft purring noise, as though to urge herself on, and then stopped, gasping, as she fought with the lock, her key refusing to turn. Finally, finally, the door gave, and she fell into the warmth of the front hall. For a long moment she just stood there, shaking the dampness off her long silvery blond hair. It was a color one rarely saw, like spun silver meshed with fine gold; a towhead they had called her as a child, and she had hated it, and then in her teens and twenties her hair had won her lavish praise. Now at thirty she was used to it, and when John had told her that she looked like a fairy princess, she laughed at him, her blue eyes dancing, her beautiful, delicately angular face in sharp contrast to the full breasts and softly rounded hips. Her legs were long and thin and endless. She was a woman of a thousand contrasts, huge dancing eyes with a sharp look that saw all, in sudden contrast to the sensual fullness of her mouth, the narrow shoulders, large breasts, the long graceful hands; the softness of her voice in contrast to the intelligent precision of her words. Somehow one expected Samantha Taylor to have a southern drawl, to languish on a velvet chaise longue, her form framed by a neglig'e trimmed in marabou. Instead she was given to jeans and bounded across rooms with a long stride. She was filled with energy and life, except tonight, except for the past hundred nights. She stood now, as she had since late August, silent, still, waiting, the rain running off the tips of her hair, listening...but for what? There was no one here anymore. She was alone in the old brownstone. The couple who owned it had been in London for six months, their duplex apartment had been lent to a cousin who was almost never there. A reporter forParis-Match,he spent more time in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Chicago than he did in New York. And then there was the top floor. Samantha's domain...Samantha's...only hers now, although once upon a time it was Samantha and John's, an apartment they had put together with such devotion and such care.Every elegant inch of it, dammit.Samantha thought of it again with a small frown as she left her umbrella in the front hall and made her way slowly upstairs. She hated to come home now and managed to see to it that she came home later every night. It was almost nine o'clock this evening. But it had been later than that the night before. She wasn't even hungry. She hadn't been since she had first heard the news. "You're what?" She had stared at him in horror on a broiling August evening. The air conditioner was broken, and the air was heavy and still. She had come to greet him at the front door, wearing only white lace underpants and a little lilac bra. "Are you crazy?" "No." He had stared at her, looking wooden and strained. Only that morning they had made love. And now his Viking-like blond beauty seemed...beyond her reach. He looked like someone she didn't even know. "I can't lie to you anymore, Sam. I had to tell you. I've got to get out." For what seemed like hours she had only stared at him. He couldn't mean it. He had to be kidding. But he wasn't. That was the insanity of it. He was deadly serious. She knew it from the look of agony on his face. She walked slowly toward him, but he shook his head and turned away. "Don't...please don't." His shoulders shook softly, and for the first time since he had spoken she felt pity slice through her like a shaft of pain. But why was she feeling sorry for him? Why? How could she feel sorry for him after what he had just said? "Do you love her?&quSteel, Danielle is the author of 'Palomino' with ISBN 9780440167532 and ISBN 0440167531.