Heaven and Hell (31 page)

“We can’t stay in a hotel. The only hotel in
town is a motel and that was where Cooter was murdered so that’s
out. I like the people who own it, they go to my church. Still,
it’s the principle of the thing. It wouldn’t do for me to stay at
the motel my husband used to cheat on me then got half his head
blown off in. I’d have to ask Celeste about how appropriate amongst
the jet-set that is but I’m thinking her answer will be a big, fat
no.”

Sam was grinning when he murmured,
“Probably.”

“Definitely.”

“Then it’s North Carolina.”

My body tensed and I whispered, “Sam –”

I stopped talking when his face got to
within an inch of mine and all humor fled from it.

“Right, I like you, baby, I’m hopin’ you’re
gettin’ that I like you a lot. A big part of being able to keep
doin’ that is you need to be breathing,” he stated, I bit my lip at
the scary veracity of his words and he kept talking. “And I like
fuckin’ you and I’m hopin’ you’re gettin’ that I like that a lot
too so I wanna keep doin’ it and if you’re in the bedroom you grew
up in and I’m on the couch and your Dad feels like wrestlin’ me out
the door if he hears a floorboard creak, that is not gonna make me
happy. The motel that piece of shit bought it in is out. So, what
we gotta do is, we gotta get you home, connect you with your people
for a few days, get your fuckin’ dog and get your ass to my place
in North Carolina which is big, it’s got a security system, I have
guns and I feel more positive about the fact I can keep you safe
there. Is this a plan?”

“You’d take Memphis?” I whispered.

“Does the dog come with you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Then yeah.”

My body relaxed and I said softly, “Then
yeah, we have a plan.”

He closed his eyes and I saw relief in his
face for the briefest moment but I saw it, I definitely did and it
rocked me because I knew he liked me but it wasn’t until I saw that
that I had an indication of just how much.

And it was then I understood his earlier
anger.

It wasn’t so much he was mad at me.

He was angry because he had feelings for me,
he’d found out I was in danger and he was hot guy, ex-commando
worried.

“Sam,” I whispered, his eyes opened and his
mouth came to mine.

“We got an hour before you call home and at
least that until I get some callbacks. Your tests came back clean;
I don’t have to wear a condom so all I get to feel is you so I know
what we’re gonna do with that hour.”

“Sa –” I started his name but didn’t
finish.

His head slanted and he kissed me, hard, wet
and long.

And then we did what Sam knew we were going
to do.

And it was over an hour before I was again
clothed, sitting cross-legged on the bed certain my hair was beyond
wild and raised by apes, Sam was murmuring on the phone in the
lounge and I had my cell in my hand.

Mom first.

I hadn’t spoken to her since Florence and,
obviously, a lot had happened and, further, Mom was not big on not
being in the know with what was up with her kids. She’d had seven
years of me keeping secrets, living in denial and thus shutting her
out and, from that, I’d bought nearly five months of Mom being more
up in my business then Luci was in Sam’s.

This could go in a variety of ways, not all
of them good.

Shit.

I sucked it up, scrolled to her contact and
hit go.

It rang twice then, “Sweetie! You’re home in
three days!”

I smiled. “Hey, Mom.”

“Oh Kia, honey, are you having a good
time?”

“Yeah, Mom, it’s been great.”

“Good, I’m so happy. And you’ve lit a fire;
I’ve been talking to your Dad for
ages
about taking me to
Europe and just the other day I saw him on the internet looking at
tourist sites for London. I think I’m going to have a good
Christmas present this year!” she declared gleefully.

I kept smiling. “That’s cool, Mom, listen
–”

She cut me off. “I’m calling Paula, Missy,
Teri. We’ll have a get-together. Margaritas, your Dad’s brats on
the grill and you can show us all your pictures. I cannot
wait
to see your pictures.”

“Mom, I’ve met somebody,” I blurted.

Silence.

No.

Loaded silence.

And it was listening to her loaded silence
that I knew more than I already knew that my Mom had been through
hell. The first and only boy I dated, I married, it was a supremely
bad decision and the weight of her silence meant she wasn’t feeling
confident in my ability to choose another one. Especially on
vacation in Europe where I could get played by a whole new field of
losers. Probably also especially due to the fact that Cooter had
been dead for just shy of five months and she might suspect this
was a rebound.

“You know him,” I told her.

“I… know him?” she asked hesitantly.

“Or, I mean, you know
of
him.”

“Kia –”

“It’s Sampson Cooper,” I said quickly then
finished, “Sam.”

More silence then a shrieked,
“
What?
”

I pulled the phone away from my ear on a
wince then put it back and told her, “I, uh… met him at breakfast
about a week and a half ago. In Lake Como. We, um… hit it off. He
came to Crete with me.”

“You met Sampson Cooper, hit it off and he’s
in Crete with you,” Mom stated.

“Yeah.”

“You met Sampson Cooper, hit it off and he’s
in Crete with you,” Mom repeated and I grinned.

“Uh… yeah.”

“I don’t… I can’t… this is…” Mom stammered
and through her stammer I heard Sam call from the other room,
“Baby?” and I knew Mom heard it too because she instantly stopped
stammering.

Sam didn’t stop speaking.

“It’s lunchtime. I’m starved. I’ll order.
Have a… fuck, sorry.”

He’d been walking in looking down at an open
binder but then he looked at me and saw I was on the phone.

“Mom,” I told him then bugged my eyes out at
him.

He smiled and muttered, “Right.”

Then he threw the binder at the foot of the
bed, skirted it, came to me, wrapped his hand around the back of my
head, leaned in to touch his lips to mine and then said right there
so I knew Mom would hear and I also knew that was exactly his
intention, “Tell her I look forward to meetin’ her.”

“Ohmigod,” Mom breathed in my ear as Sam
grinned again, let me go and straightened.

“I’ll let you get back to it. Have a look,”
he tipped his head to the binder. “Or you want me to order for
you?”

“If you’re hungry, just order for me,” I
answered.

“All right, baby,” he replied then strode
out of the room.

I watched his ass in his jeans while he did
it, somewhat mesmerized.

“He calls you baby?” Mom whispered to me and
I jerked my attention back to her.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Coop calls my baby,
baby?
” her voice
was rising both in octave and in volume.

“Mom –”

“
Ford!
” she screeched and I took the
phone from my ear but had no problem hearing her because she was
still shrieking, “
Ford, get in here! Get in here right this
instant!
”

I put the phone back to my ear, “Mom –” I
started but it was Mom’s turn to have a conversation with her man
that I was not a part of except hers was about me.

“Woman, Jesus, what the hell?” I heard Dad
ask.

“I’m talking to Kia,” I heard Mom
answer.

“Oh shit,” I heard Dad mutter and my heart
flipped.

Damn. He’d lived through hell too.

Mom didn’t delay. “She’s met someone.”

“Oh shit,” Dad repeated and my heart flipped
again.

“
Sampson Cooper!
” Mom screamed and I
had to take the phone away then put it back when I heard her going
on. “I just heard him,
right on the phone,
he calls her
baby!
”

Silence from Dad.

Not from Mom.

“And he said he’s looking forward to
meeting me!
”

Suddenly I heard the phone jostle then
Dad’s, “Kia?”

“Hey, Dad,” I said softly.

“You doin’ okay?” he asked.

“Great, Dad,” I answered, deciding to focus
on the fact that I was, indeed, doing great outside of being scared
silly that there was a hit on me.

“Havin’ a good time?” Dad asked.

“Fantastic.”

“This shit your mother’s sayin’, it
true?”

I paused then, quietly, “Yeah, Dad.”

Silence then a quietly returned, “No
shit?”

I drew in breath.

Then I whispered, “No shit.”

Silence again.

I knew my father liked Sampson Cooper. He
said over and over again he was a good ballplayer even when Sam was
playing for the UCLA Bruins. Dad was super pleased the Colts got
him in the draft. And I remembered him having a conversation with a
bunch of his buddies (and Cooter, who was not a buddy, he just
happened to be there) where Cooter was dissing Sam for his choice
to leave football for the Army and Dad had said firmly, “Man’s got
mettle. One thing to play at warrior wearin’ pads on a field.
Another thing all together to
be
one.” Cooter had no reply
to that but his face got hard and his eyes got scary though,
luckily, he got over this before we got home and he could take it
out on me.

Dad broke the silence. “How’d this
happen?”

“Well, we, uh… were in the same hotel in
Lake Como, we were seated at tables next to each other at
breakfast. Then the maitre d’ moved me to his table, we started
talking, hit it off, he asked me out, I went and we’ve kinda spent
nearly every minute together since.”

And, it occurred to me just then, this was
true. Except when Sam worked out or ran, when he went to his room
to get clothes and when he left me at Luci’s to go back to the
hotel, we had not been apart, like, at all.

Whoa.

More silence then, gently, “He know about
your recent business?”

Boy did he ever.

“Everything,” I whispered. “He’s, uh… I’ve,
well…” I pulled in breath. “He’s not had a very good time of it,
Dad. Being away from home, having time to think, stuff has come up
for me and Sam’s borne the brunt of that. I’ve tried to, well, push
him away and we’ve had some dramas. He’s helping me work through
stuff.”

“He’s helping you work through stuff,” Dad
whispered back.

“Yeah,” I kept whispering.

More silence.

I broke the silence.

“Dad, all the things you might think he is,
he is but he’s more. He’s very wise and he’s very protective and he
can be gentle –”

“Gentle,” Dad whispered and I felt my throat
close. “My girl deserves gentle.”

Oh
man.

“Dad,” I choked out.

But it was Dad who cleared his throat then
he asked, “So, where’s this goin’?”

I drew in a calming breath and answered,
“He’s coming back to Indiana with me and I’m going to deal with
some stuff I have to deal with there then Memphis and I are going
to his house in North Carolina for awhile.”

“Inseparable,” Dad muttered.

“Sorry?”

“Nuthin’, honey. I look forward to meetin’
him, you tell him that.”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me but
said stupidly, “Uh… he’s not Sampson Cooper.”

“Say again?”

“He’s not Sampson Cooper,” I repeated then
explained, “It’s just that, well, when you first meet him, that’s
all you’ll see but he’s not Sampson Cooper, he’s not Coop. He’s
Sam.”

“He’s Sam,” Dad repeated after me.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“Right,” Dad whispered back, my phone binged
and my brows drew together. “What’s that?” Dad asked.

“I think I have another call,” I told
him.

It was probably Celeste, she could leave a
message and I’d call her back.

“I’ll let you go,” Dad said.

“No, that’s –”

“You go, take your call and we’ll see you in
a few days. Can’t wait to have you back home, honey.”

“Right, Dad.”

“Love you, Kiakee.”

Man, I loved it when Dad called me “Kiakee”
and, lucky for me, he did it all the time.

“Love you too, Dad.”

“Love you, sweetie!” Mom shouted in the
background.

“Love to Mom too,” I told Dad and my phone
binged again.

“‘Bye, honey,” Dad said.

“‘Bye, Dad,” I replied.

Then he disconnected, I took the phone from
my ear and grabbed the next call, putting it back to my ear before
seeing the name come up on the display.

“Hel –”

“
What the fuck?
” I heard Paula
screech and I took the phone from my ear with a wince again then
put it back.

“Paula, sweetie, I’m so sorry I didn’t text.
I’ve decided I’m backing –”

“
What the fuck, fuck, fuckity, fucking,
fuck, fuck, FUCK?
” she shrieked.

Again, I did the phone and ear business and
when she stopped squealing, I hesitantly put it back and started,
“I’m not sure that unit is a good invest –”

I didn’t finish.

This was because Paula announced, “I am,
right now, sitting at my computer looking at you wearing a
kickass
tank with some serious
kickass
lace at the
back but it is
not
the awesome tank I see but freaking,
freakity, freak, freak,
freaking
Sampson Cooper
wrapped around you and
you’re kissing!
”

Ohmigod!

“Uh…” I mumbled, thinking fast.

“Uh! Uh!” Paula shouted. “What the
fuck?”

“Paula, swear, I was
just
going to
call and tell you that I, um… well, I met Sam in Lake Como and we
kinda hooked up.”

“
You kinda hooked up?
” she
screamed.

I did the wince, phone, ear thing again then
put it back and whispered, “Paula, honey, you’re going to shatter
my eardrum if you keep shrieking at me.”