Palomino by Danielle Steel Page A

silently. “Yeah, I will. There’s a lot I have to stop. I guess that’s why I came out here.”
    “And your job?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve somehow managed to keep it through all this. At least I think so if they meant what they said when I left. But to tell you the truth, I don’t know how I did it. I was a zombie every waking minute I was in the office.” She dropped her face into her hands with a soft sigh. “Maybe it’s just as well that I left.” She felt Caroline’s hand on her shoulder a moment later.
    “I think so too, Sam. Maybe the ranch will give you time to heal, and time to collect your thoughts. You’ve been through a tremendous trauma. I know, I went through the same thing when Arthur died. I didn’t think I’d live through it. I thought it would kill me too. That’s not quite the same thing as what happened to you, but in its own way death is a rejection.” There was a vague frown in her eyes as she said the last words, but it rapidly flitted away as she smiled again at Sam. “But your life isn’t over, you know, Samantha. In some ways perhaps it’s just begun. How old are you now?”
    Samantha groaned. “Thirty.” She made it sound like eighty and Caroline laughed, a delicate, silvery sound in the pretty room.
    “You expect me to be impressed?”
    “Sympathetic.” Samantha spoke with a grin.
    “At my age, darling, that’s too much to ask. Envious, perhaps, that would be more like it. Thirty.” She looked dreamily into the fire. “What I wouldn’t give for that!”
    “What I wouldn’t give to look like you do now, age be damned!”
    “Flattery, flattery …” But it was obvious that it pleased her, and then she turned to Sam again with a question in her eyes. “Have you been out with anyone else since it happened?” Sam rapidly shook her head. “Why not?”
    “Two very good reasons. No one decent has asked me, and I don’t want to. In my heart I’m still married to John Taylor. If I went out with another man, it would feel like cheating. I’m just not ready. And you know?” She looked somberly at the older woman. “I don’t think I ever will be. I just don’t want to. It’s as though part of me died when he walked out that door. I don’t care anymore. I don’t give a damn if nobody ever loves me again. I don’t feel lovable. I don’t want to be loved … except by him.”
    “Well, you’d better do something about that, Samantha.” Caroline eyed her with gentle disapproval. “You’ve got to be realistic, and you can’t wander around like a mobile dead body. You have to live. That’s what they told me, you know. But it does take time. I know that. You’ve had how many months now?”
    “Three and a half.”
    “Give it another six.” She smiled softly. “And if you’re not madly in love by then, we’ll do something radical.”
    “Like what? A lobotomy?” Samantha looked serious as she took another sip of hot chocolate.
    “We’ll think of something, but I don’t really think we’ll have to.”
    “Hopefully by then I’ll be back on Madison Avenue, killing myself with a fifteen-hour workday.”
    “Is that what you want?” Caroline looked at her sadly.
    “I don’t know. I used to think so. But now that I look back at it, maybe I was in competition with John. Still, I have a good shot at becoming creative director of the agency, and there’s a lot of ego involved in that.”
    “Do you enjoy it?”
    Samantha nodded and smiled. “I love it.” And then she cocked her head to one side with a shy smile. “But there have been times when I’ve liked this kind of life more. Caro—” She hesitated, but only for an instant. “Can I ride Black Beauty tomorrow?” She suddenly looked like a very young girl.
    But Caroline slowly shook her head. “Not yet, Sam. You ought to warm up on one of the others. How long has it been since you’ve been on a horse?”
    “About two years.”
    “Then you don’t want to start with Black Beauty.”
    “Why