A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting this, folks...but heeeere's Sammy! This is my first shot at writing from his POV (thanks to bees for the idea, BTW), and I'd love to know what you think--good, bad, or truly awful. ;)

Chapter Seven

Sam woke up and looked around. Maddie's guest room. Not exactly where he'd hoped to be this morning, but close. Definitely close.

Last night had been...well, it'd been great. As they embraced on the dance floor, he could feel all the familiar responses kick in: her cheeks flushed, her body grew warm, she sighed slightly into him.

They had shared several more kisses after that, including a pretty passionate one in her entryway (he tried not to think about what had gone on there the night before). He didn't push things further, though—he knew Maddie would want a little time to think.

So he was the perfect gentleman. He'd kissed her one last time, told her how beautiful she was, and then headed upstairs, leaving Maddie looking after him.

Now, subdued rustling was coming from next door. He leaped out of bed, pulling on a sweatshirt and jeans. Maddie had never been much of a cook; surely she'd appreciate some breakfast.

The coffeemaker was already burbling when she came down. "Oh, you're a lifesaver." She bussed his cheek and looked at her watch before taking a sip. "Mmmm...I've got to go." She set down the mug, grabbing her purse.

Catching her around the waist, he pulled her closer. "Hey, don't I get a goodbye kiss?"

She complied. "Well, have a good day, dear," he joked, in his best June Cleaver imitation.

Was it him, or did her laughter sound a little nervous?

* * *

He hadn't been to a conference in a long time, and now he remembered why: scientists, astrophysicists in particular, loved to talk. And talk. And talk. Unfortunately, most of them didn't do it well. Sam scanned the room, taking in a field of glazed eyes, hoping that he'd have a livelier audience when it was his turn.

In the next seat was a slim brunette, sort of bookishly attractive in a crisp white shirt and black trousers. She smiled at him; she wasn't paying attention to the speaker either, judging by the equations and sketches that covered her conference-issued notepad. They looked like roughs of a new type of O-ring, he noted. Intriguing.

Eyes on the prize, Sammy, he thought, reminding himself of the real reason he was in L.A.: it was time to find a wife, and there was only one person he could imagine in that capacity.

Miss Madelyn Hayes. The first time he had seen her was in church; he and his parents had moved in down the street from the Hayes' just the day before. Mr. Hayes, who was ushering that Sunday, greeted them as they came into the sanctuary.

"Well, now, aren't you our new neighbors? Here, you must meet my wife...Virginia? This is the..."

"Crawfords," Sam's dad supplied. "Bill, my wife Marion, and this is our boy Sam."

Sam was shaking hands with a pretty blond-haired lady when Mr. Hayes said, "Maddie? Meet Sam."

She was picture-perfect, like a lifesize doll: her pink skirt splayed out on the pew and her blond hair tumbling down in corkscrew curls (created, Sam learned later, by Maddie sleeping all night with her hair bound up in rags). White-gloved hands were folded meekly in her lap, and she sat very still, but yet…there was a kind of animal energy there, as though she might suddenly leap up and bolt down the aisle to freedom.

He sat down next to her and couldn't resist pulling softly on one of those curls, just to watch it spring back up.

The look from her cornflower-blue eyes started a fire in his gut that had never really gone out, and he blurted the first thing that came to mind: "Bet you can't climb to the top of my oak tree."

"Watch me," she whispered vehemently.

And sure enough, by the time he got home and changed into playclothes, there she was, feet wedged in the crook of the topmost branch, somehow even prettier in rolled-up jeans and a red shirt, with a smudge on her cheek and pollen in her curls.

She grinned down at him and then disappeared. Before he knew it, she was jumping lightly down onto the grass beside him.

"Told you I could! Now you do it!"

So Sam hurried up the tree as fast as he could go...but missed his footing on a crucial branch, and fell through the leaves to land, very painfully, at Maddie's feet.

She signed his arm cast and brought him cookies every day for a week afterward. He gave her his six-year-old heart, and never bothered to take it back again.

Sam blinked back to the present day just as the lecturer was finishing. Smiling at the memory, he checked his watch and realized he had enough time to make a quick visit to Century City before his own presentation.

He traded waves with the brunette as he hurried out of the lecture hall.