PART 6
As her sobbing slowed, Jack carefully lifted her and moved to the front room. His back only protested slightly as he realized how light she really was for such a tall woman. He�d never tell her that she�d been heavy in the past, because she never really had been, but now . . . now he was rather concerned by how light she was.
He meant to lay her down on the couch and make her comfortable, but as he tried to move away, Sam held on to his neck.
�Just hold me, Jack, please,� she begged through her tears.
His heart jumped. She�d called him Jack. She so rarely called him that.
�Okay, Sam, just sit up.�
She raised herself up enough to let him sit next to her; but then, as soon as he sat down, she snuggled even closer. Gradually, her crying subsided and she started to breathe easier. Jack just sat and held her, thinking she might go to sleep.
�I was such an idiot,� she said suddenly, �He . . . Jake was there at the bar the one night Janet forced me to leave the SGC to sleep. He didn�t make a pass at me once. He just listened to me prattle on about how much I missed you and how worried I was about you . . .
Her voice faded as she remembered the night she�d met him.
She had met Jake at the lowest point of her life . . . when her C.O., one of her best friends in the whole world, and the one man she really could love beyond all others if she had been allowed to, had gone missing. Not just missing, but presumed dead. She refused to believe that she�d never see him again.. And that�s what drove her to find a way to bring him home.
Tonight, Janet had declared that Sam had to go home, sleep in a real bed and get some sleep. It was the furthest thing from her mind. So she stopped at Jimmy�s, a bar near the base of the mountain that a few people from the SGC went to when they wanted something �different� from O�Malley�s, which wasn�t often.
When she saw Jake, she was. . . shocked, in the least. He looked a lot like Jack. Maybe a bit younger, but could easily have been Jack�s younger brother, if there was such a thing. They had sized each other up over several drinks, more than Sam knew she was supposed to have
When he approached her, she smiled. She hadn�t intended it to be the smile she gave to the Colonel or Daniel, but it had been nonetheless
�Hullo,� he said with a slight drawl, �not to presume much, ma�am, but you look like you could use a friend there.�
She recognized the Australian accent. She was a sucker for Australian accents.
�Well,� she smiled, �Actually, I could. . . my . . . one of my bests friends has been missing for a week now.�
�Really? Wow, that�s gotta be rough,� he said with sincerity, �Anythin� I could do to help?�
�No,� Sam smiled again, �Nothing on this earth will get him back at this point, but some friends and I are working on it.�
His frown clued her in to the fact that she�d almost spilled the truth about Jack�s whereabouts . . . okay, maybe not completely, but still . . .
�Name�s Jake, ma�am,� he grinned, �An� I�d be glad to be a friend if ya need one.�
�Samantha,� she said, taking his offered hand.
�Nice t�meetcha, Samantha,� he grinned again.
She felt a jolt of . . . of what? . . . electricity? . . . excitement? . . . attraction? She admitted, it was a little bit of all of that. He was a handsome man with an Australian accent and a very sexy smile.
They had spent most of the evening talking about home life, work life as much as Sam could, and getting to know a little about each other. Sam spent a lot of her time trying not to talk about Jack, but he was such an integral part of her life, that he inevitably came up in conversation and stayed there.
When Jimmy finally kicked them out at 2:00 am, Sam hadn�t wanted to stop talking to Jake. Without so much as a hint of concern, Sam invited him back to her apartment where she had a six pack of beer waiting. He followed her home in his car.
When they got to her place, it was like their conversation at the bar had never ceased . . .
�. . . Y�see,� she laughed, �Jack has no clue what I do . . . but I know he trusts me to get him out of any situation he gets himself and our team into . . . that�s why his being missing hurts so much . . . there�s so much I could do if I were there with him, but I�m not . . . and . . . and�
�And ya miss him a lot,� Jake said with insight, �It hasn�t anything to do with your not bein� there. It has to do with your missing him and--�
�And there�s nothing I can do about it anyway,� she interrupted, �Even if I could admit that I miss him, Jack�s my C.O. Nothing can happen and nothing will happen!�
A smile just barely touched his lips at her protestation.
�Ya, right!� he challenged.
That challenge had gotten her. Almost as if it were a dare. She never turned down a dare.
Before she�d realized it, she was in bed having sex with a man she hardly knew. The excitement of something new, something just a touch dangerous, made for a heady evening of nothing more than sex.