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Authors: Debra Dixon

Slow Hands (6 page)

BOOK: Slow Hands
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“All my life.”

“You’re an orphan.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Clare dropped her purse on the foyer table.

“Poor little rich girl?” Sam asked.

“No.” The jersey slid off her shoulder again.

Clear blue eyes stared into his, unwavering and unfathomable. She didn’t tug her shirt up or offer any more explanations—her tactful way of telling Sam that the subject was closed. Sam got the message, but wondered why her secrets had the power to twist tiny knots in his gut. Unraveling her past was becoming important to him. Important enough that he couldn’t let the sight of a creamy-white shoulder make him forget the dangers of being more than a friend to a woman like her.

Breaking the uncomfortable silence, Clare motioned toward the interior of the house. “Who else lives here?”

“Just me. And William. Come on. I’ll give you the nickel tour. That’s about all it’s worth unless you like antiques.”

“Love ’em,” Clare admitted. “But I figured you for
glass and chrome. Recessed lighting. Linear paintings in obnoxious colors.”

Sam smoothed a hand along the massive banister as he escorted Clare past the stairs. “You like putting people into neat little boxes crammed with your expectations of them, don’t you, Clare?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did,” Sam said gently. “But to answer you, I haven’t changed a stick of furniture since my parents died. The family joke was that Mama had no taste. The woman wore plaid with polka dots and went out in public. Dad said when he bought her this house, she went down to Antiques-R-Us and bought the deluxe twenty-one-room package. But the truth was, she loved this house. She chose every piece of furniture, every pillow.”

His obvious affection for his mother tugged at Clare’s heart. She knew what losing a parent felt like, but she didn’t have the memories. She couldn’t reach into her mind and pull out a hundred funny and touching stories. She couldn’t play “remember when.” Not the way Ellie could, and sometimes she hated Ellie because of it. And she hated herself for feeling jealous over something that was never Ellie’s fault.

Shaking off the black thoughts, Clare followed Sam through rooms filled with curios and cabinets. His mother’s style had been more eclectic than disciplined, but the effect was warm and timeless. Clare itched to kick off her shoes and dig her toes in the thick, patterned rugs that hugged hardwood floors—something she’d never wanted to do in her aunt’s house. Something she hadn’t been allowed to do in her aunt’s house.

By the time they finished the tour, William had dinner on the table in the “family” dining room. The room
had a Shakerlike quality of simplicity, as if it had been designed to minimize distraction during meals. A massive oak trestle table was flanked by two padded benches instead of chairs.

“Exactly how many brothers and sisters do you have?” Clare asked when she realized the table could easily seat twelve people.

“One sister, but Mama always wanted a brood. That’s why she bought the table. She never got the large family, but by then she’d grown attached to the table.”

Clare laughed. “Or your father couldn’t face the thought of having to move the thing!”

The swinging door from the kitchen opened, and William brought in their meal. “If you’re through draggin’ Miss Clare all ’round this old house, you might let her sit down and eat this food.”

“Careful, Clare,” Sam warned as he sat down across from her. “I think William likes you. If you don’t watch it, he’ll start trying to run your life too.”

“Hmmph,” William huffed as he banged the iced tea glasses down on the table. He left the room, but not before firing a well-aimed parting shot. “Some folks could do with a little advice. If you’d listened to me, you wouldn’t have been alone for the last two years. By the way, Rebecca said she could take the name tags out of your boxer shorts anytime you’re ready.”

Clare was torn between two strong emotions—rampant curiosity and laughter. The stunned expression on Sam’s face forced the laughter. With a few choice words William had managed to do something Clare had been trying to do since she met Sam—whittle him down to size.

“God, I hate my butler.” Sam’s pained and humorless
laugh joined hers. “I can’t fire him, but I may have to kill him.”

Laughter subsided into tiny sighs that sounded suspiciously like chuckles. Sobering, Clare pulled her napkin from beneath her silverware and opened her mouth to ask the question that had to be asked.

“Don’t ask,” Sam ordered, knowing she’d ignore him anyway.

“Aren’t you a little old to have name tags in your underwear?”

“What do you think?” Sam asked, and bit off a corner of his sandwich.

Clare’s mouth hurt from the effort of keeping a grin off her face. “Then why do you have name tags in your underwear?”

Sam contemplated slow tortures for William. How could he explain about the name tags without revealing his status as a world-class slob? A woman as compulsively organized as Clare would certainly get a hoot out of that story. No, he’d rather not tell it. “It’s a long story.”

“Okay,” agreed Clare as she speared a green bean. “You don’t have to talk about your boxers. We can talk about why you’ve been alone for the last two years.”

“No, we can’t. And don’t believe everything William says.”

“Do you have name tags in your underwear?”

Sam dropped his half-eaten sandwich to his plate and shoved it away. “Yes, I do, but that’s beside the point.”

“Have you brought a woman home in the last two years?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know.” Clare sipped her tea and smiled into
the bottom of the glass before she looked up. “But I’m having fun. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

The topic of conversation was not one he would have chosen, but Sam had to admit that Clare was definitely relaxed. She hadn’t mentioned the office, or cleaning her house, or the long list of unfinished tasks waiting for her. She seemed perfectly content to enjoy William’s culinary masterpiece and quiz him about his underwear and his love life. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have accused Clare of flirting. “Why this sudden interest in me?”

“Turnabout’s fair play. It’s been open season on my life history from the moment I met you. Now it’s my turn. I’m getting to know my partner. Remember?”

“All right,” Sam agreed, and wondered if Clare realized that by admitting her curiosity, she’d taken a step toward seeing him as a person and not the enemy. “What do you want to know?”

“Why haven’t you brought a woman home in the last two years?”

Sam drew his thumb down the side of his tea glass, wiping away the moisture that clung to it. “I was busy having a midlife crisis.”

“Aren’t you a little young for a midlife crisis?”

“Trust me. When your father dies, you instantly become middle-aged. Regardless of how young you are.” Sam heard the bitterness in his voice and wished her question hadn’t struck that particular nerve.

Once again Clare felt a flash of empathy for Sam. As he stared into his glass, his eyes looked old. Almost dead. Clare wondered if that’s how other people saw her, and knew she didn’t like the comparison. Sam dragged his gaze back to hers, and the spark in his eyes ignited. Sam was Sam again.

“So I did what any self-respecting man would do. I changed my entire life. Sold my business, sold my condo at Southwind, and burned my day planner.”

Choking on her tea, Clare covered her mouth with her hand and snatched her napkin out of Sam’s hand as he held it toward her. “Day planner?
You
had a day planner? I thought you couldn’t plan fun.”

“I didn’t. I planned my life. Right down to the second. I planned for everything. Except I didn’t plan to lose the lady in my life.” Sam stood up abruptly and fought the urge to blurt out that he hadn’t planned on being so busy that his father, already devastated by his wife’s death, killed himself from loneliness. The guilt of not making time for his father was suddenly very near the surface, and he knew this wasn’t the time or place to talk about the skeletons rattling in his conscience.

“Come on,” Sam said, and motioned toward the front of the house. “Let’s get out of here and find some ice cream. I’ll tell you all about my blighted love life and how just mentioning William scares most women away.”

Clare popped the last bite in her mouth and took a swig of tea. “Shouldn’t we tell William we’re going?”

Taking her elbow and guiding her away from the kitchen door, Sam said, “No need. I’m sure he heard everything we said.”

Beyond the door, a metal pot clanged loudly into a counter, and Clare heard a disgrunted “Hmmph.”

“Well, what’ll it be?”

Clare looked around and decided Sam had a screw loose if he thought she was going to eat anything prepared inside the shack in front of her. Yellow lights beneath
the awnings glowed in the twilight, and the menu was a bulletin board crowded with a patchwork of faded paper. Prices had been written on the paper, scratched through, and written again. Bright neon starbursts were tacked on every available surface, and bold Magic-Marker printing promised new taste sensations like Passion Sundaes and Raspberry Fudge Rhapsody.

Overwhelmed, Clare simply stared at the large concrete drainage ditch that flanked the ice cream joint. People seated in the al fresco area of cinder-block benches were oblivious of their surroundings, unbothered by the exhaust fumes from the busy intersection that invaded the air. The redneck honky-tonk across the street began to rock and roll as four-wheel-drive truck doors slammed in a predictable rhythm.

“You gotta be kidding me,” she finally said.

“I never joke about ice cream.”

Clare lowered her voice. “Sam, do you see a posted health certificate? I don’t.”

“Inside on the wall.”

“You can’t see through the grime on the windows!”

“Relax, Clare. This isn’t going to kill you.”

“Probably not,” she snapped. “I’ll die of carbon monoxide poisoning first.”

Sam laughed and reached for her. “You’d have to relax enough to breathe before the fumes could get you. Come on. My treat. What’ll you have?”

Instead of backing away, Clare found herself leaning into the strength of Sam’s body. He squeezed her shoulder and winked at her as he pulled her toward the small sliding glass window to place an order. When his hand slid lower to cup the curve of her waist, warning bells began to clang in Clare’s head again. Almost nonchalantly,
his fingers drifted beneath her jersey and rested against bare skin, his thumb casually rubbing tiny circles against her side.

The window slid open, and an orange-haired woman plopped a small green order pad on the counter. “Yeah?”

“I’ll have the Super Split,” Sam said. “With walnuts. And she’ll have—”

“The … Raspberry Fudge Rhapsody,” Clare said, and admitted to herself she had wanted one from the moment she read the neon starburst. She wet her lips in anticipation.

“You sure, honey? The Super Split’s our Spring Fever Special this week,” the woman explained tonelessly. “Buy one, get one free.”

“Oh,” murmured Clare. “In that case, give me one of those instead.”

“No,” Sam said immediately. The terse correction was a knee-jerk reaction, but all he could see in his mind was a picture of a quiet little orphan sitting in a restaurant, trying not to be a burden.
No, thank you. I don’t want dessert. Really.
The tone of voice was the same one that he’d heard Clare use—so polite, so disappointed.

Sam shook his head at the woman and pulled his wallet out of his pocket. “Give the lady what she ordered.”

When the window slid shut, Sam glared at Clare. “When you’re with me, I expect you to order what
you
want, not what’s easiest or cheapest.”

Sam’s tone brought Clare’s chin up sharply. “Next time you’re paying, I’ll order one of everything. Excuse the hell out of me for being practical!”

“Practical? Hardly. I saw your face. I saw the conditioned response. I asked you once if you’d spent a lot of
your life giving up things. You avoided the question. I’d bet my last dollar the answer was yes.”

Heat rushed to her cheeks. To hide the flush, Clare glanced over her shoulder at an approaching couple. “You’ve been reading too damn many pop-psychology books.”

Leaning over, Sam whispered, his breath fanning her cheek. “The only reading I’ve been doing is between the lines. And God help me, you fascinate me.”

Startled by the husky promise in his voice, Clare drew in a sharp breath and swung her gaze to his. The uncertain yellow light cast shadows that darkened his eyes to black. When he didn’t look away, her stomach gave the funny lurch it always gave when she found herself losing control. She wasn’t having fun anymore. She didn’t like the electrical charges that zipped along her nerves as he managed to hold her with nothing more than a look in his eyes.

She felt like an actress who’d been promised a wonderful part and then given a blank paper. She was supposed to be witty and charming and send him on his way with a pat on the head. Instead, she was tongue-tied and wanted to bury her fingers in his blond mane.

He wasn’t supposed to make a troubled confession about finding her fascinating. But he had. The look in his eyes wasn’t supposed to awaken the most unlikely places in her body. But it did. She wasn’t supposed to want him to kiss her. But she wanted to, all right, and she was having trouble remembering why kissing Sam was a bad idea.

“You want napkins?” asked the woman as she slid two large containers of ice cream through the window.

“Please,” Sam said, and finally turned away from
Clare. He grabbed their desserts and jerked his head toward the benches.

Relieved that the awkward moment had evaporated, Clare chose the concrete table farthest from the intersection and sat down. Sam slid in across from her and handed her the ice cream container, urging her to take it.

“I won’t bite,” he said. Then he added, “At least not until you’re ready.”

Audibly, Clare sucked in a breath, and then clamped her mouth shut.

Sam ferried a spoon of whipped cream, fudge, and strawberry to his mouth. “At least you have the good sense not to deny it anymore.”

BOOK: Slow Hands
12.87Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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