Stranger (32 page)

“My brother’s a lawyer and his lady’s some sort of fancy number cruncher,” Sam explained. He leaned over me to look out my window. “Pretty soon they’ll start pumping out little nerdlings. Ain’t that cute?”

Something in his tone turned my face toward him, and he turned toward me. We were at kissing distance, though we weren’t kissing. He blinked, his mouth thin, and I gave in to my impulse to cradle his face in my hands and kiss him back into a grin.

“Whoa. What was that for?”

“Do I need a reason?” I stroked my thumb along his lower lip, gently teasing open his mouth.

“No. I guess you don’t.” Sam leaned in to kiss me again, but we both caught sight of the front door to Dan’s house opening and he sighed. “Hold that thought for later, okay?”

As if I could forget about it. It was all I’d been thinking about all day long, just as he’d promised I would. I used the minute it took him to open my door to swipe my nose and cheeks with powder and freshen the gloss on my lips.

I was a little overdressed for dinner at someone’s house, but I shouldn’t have worried.

Dan’s wife wore an even more formal outfit, probably what she’d worn to work, though instead of matching pumps she wore a pair of ridiculously large, fuzzy slippers.

“Nice kicks,” Sam told her, kissing her on the cheek. “Elle, you remember Grace, don’t you?”

“Of course.” She shook my hand and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you under different circumstances. Dan! Sam’s here!”

“Tell that bastard he’s late!” came the answering shout from down the hall.

Sam and Elle shared a look, and she put on an even bigger smile. “Your brother’s making spaghetti.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Don’t you mean pasta à la Dan?”

Elle covered a laugh with her hand. “Shh, Sam, he’s actually made his own sauce.”

She looked at me. “C’mon, Grace. Let’s get you some wine and let those two wallow in their own testosterone.”

I wasn’t going to turn down the drink. As Sam headed down the hall, Elle took me down the two steps to the sunken living room, where she poured me a glass of good red wine and showed me around.

“How long have you lived here?” I admired their floor-to-ceiling bookcases and the casually elegant furniture. I’d never be able to throw together something like this, even if I did have a much higher cash flow.

“A little over a year. I had a town house down by the Broad Street Market and Dan had his own place, but this place needed a lot less work than either of ours. And…well, it’s more practical for a family.”

“It’s beautiful,” I told her sincerely, and her face lit.

“Elle!”

She looked toward the sound of the shout, then back to me. “I’m being paged. C’mon.”

In the kitchen, Sam sat on top of the counter, his long legs dangling and a beer cradled in one hand. His brother stirred a pot on the stove from which steam wafted. I smelled rich, tomatoey goodness and garlic bread…and smoke.

“Grab the bread, Elle, would you?” Dan jerked a thumb toward Sam. “Sammy’s claiming oven phobia again.”

Elle laughed and set her wineglass on the table to open up the oven and pull out the tray of garlic bread. “Sammy, move your ass. I want to set this there.”

Sam hopped down at once and came to stand next to me. “See how my brother has corrupted her? It’s Sam, Elle. Sam.”

Elle gave him a glance over her shoulder that didn’t look as if he’d convinced her, and she leaned over to taste the sauce on the spoon Dan was offering. “Fine. Sam. Move your ass, Sam, and set the table.”

He gave me a look. “See how I’m abused?”

I laughed and poked him. “Poor boy.”

Together we set the dining-room table. As he had in my house, Sam seemed to have made himself at home, searching through drawers or hollering for directions on where to find a tablecloth, napkins and silverware. I wasn’t sure Dan and Elle had meant to serve dinner on such finery, but I couldn’t stop laughing as Sam pulled out the ugliest pair of silver candelabra I’d ever seen and settled them with a flourish in the table’s center.

“Voilà.” He kissed his fingertips. “She is complete.”

“What the—” Dan stopped in the doorway with a full platter of steaming pasta in his hands. “Jesus, Sammy. Where the hell did you find those?”

Elle peeked over Dan’s shoulder and started laughing. “Oh, God. My mother gave me those as a wedding gift. Sam, put them away.”

Sam shook his head. “What? They’re…chic.”

Dan put down the platter. “Dude.”

“Dude!” Sam said, hands spread.

Elle shouldered her way between them and plunked a set of fat white candles into the holders and lit them. “Sit down and eat. Grace, ignore them.”

None of them seemed to have given a second thought to my being here, or to making me a part of what was clearly, despite the beatings, a close family. I wondered what Sam had told them about me. I wasn’t getting a vibe about being surreptitiously checked out or approved of.

Or not.

Dinner was nice, too, with good food and increasingly rowdy conversation. Sam and Dan circled each other with words, taking jabs whenever possible, and though I detected an undercurrent of tension between them it was good-natured for the most part. Elle was quiet, but with the sort of dry humor I always admired and never quite managed, myself, but she kept the pair of them in line with her subtly snarky comments when all I could do was laugh at Sam’s put-upon expressions and Dan’s grandiose hand gestures. Nobody treated me like Sam’s girlfriend, which led me to believe that was what he’d told them I was.

Seated across from me, Sam wasn’t close enough to touch me. Not with his hands, anyway. His gaze, however, managed to caress me with no problem, and I felt that touch all over my body.

“So, Sammy’s got another few gigs lined up around here.” Dan held up his glass for Elle to refill. “Have you heard him play, Grace?”

“Yes, I have.” I waved away the offer of a refill for me. Even though I’d finally let Jared take first call, I didn’t want to get drunk. Plus, I’d been watching Sam put away beers with barely a pause between them.

“Bastard’s not half-bad, huh?” Dan grinned as Sam flipped him off with both hands.

Elle got up to clear the table and I rose, too, and she waved away Dan when he tried to get up, too. “Play with your brother.”

In the kitchen, she opened the dishwasher. “The last time we had dinner together, they ended up having a sponge battle in the kitchen. I’d rather clean up, myself, than have to spend the whole night mopping.”

“I don’t blame you.” From the dining room came a flurry of insults. When I looked back at her, she was smiling.

“I don’t think they’re going to punch each other. Not tonight, anyway.” Together we cleared the table and tidied the kitchen while Dan and Sam watched some shoot-emup movie on the big-screen TV in the den.

I was definitely the girlfriend.

Elle pulled out a thick chocolate cake from the fridge and put it on the table. “The fudge icing on this is thick enough to make me gain ten pounds just from looking at it. Let’s eat it before they get a chance at it. If I know Sam, it’ll be gone before we get more than a nibble.”

“He’s got a sweet tooth.” I laughed as she put out clean plates and forks. The first bite of cake was good enough to make me groan.

“Yeah.” Elle sighed and licked the tines of her fork as she leaned against the counter.

“Heaven, huh? Coffee’ll be ready in a minute. We’ll call them in when it’s done.”

She wasn’t much of a talker and didn’t fill the silence between us with lots of happy chatter the way many women would’ve, but with the cake to occupy my mouth I was glad not have to come up with small talk.

“So,” she did say after a minute filled with the clank of our forks on the plates and our chocolate-sated sighs. “Sam.”

I looked at her and wiped my mouth carefully with a napkin. “Is this where I get some speech about not hurting him?”

Elle looked surprised. “No. Did you expect that?”

I put my plate in the dishwasher so I wouldn’t be tempted to have another slice. “I didn’t know what to expect, actually. My relationship with Sam is—”

“Complicated?”

“That’s a good way to put it.”

Elle helped herself to another forkful of cake and sighed happily. “Good cake. Well, Grace, I’m not Sam’s mother, so it’s not really my place to protect him, is it?”

I laughed. “I don’t think you need to protect him from me, anyway.”

Elle brought down cups and saucers, then sugar and cream from the fridge. The coffeepot hissed and the good, strong scent of caffeine filled the air. “Sam’s a good guy. I don’t know him that well. I mean, I’ve only really had the chance to spend time with him since Morty died. Not the best time to make a judgment on someone, would you say?”

“No.” I helped her put out spoons, but didn’t shy away from meeting her frank gaze.

“Listen, did Sam tell you something about me?”

“No. But I think he told Dan some things. They had a fight about it. Dan seems to think Sam’s got his head up his ass a lot of the time.” She smiled and looked toward the den, where a shout had arisen over something on television. “Dan’s had a hard time with his dad’s death. And I think he’s upset that it hasn’t been harder for Sammy.”

I’d never have guessed Dan had a problem with Sam dating me by his treatment of me, and I told her so.

“It’s not you,” she said as she poured coffee. “It’s about Sam and Dan. I stay out of it. But I did want to tell you something, Grace. Something I do know that I think neither one of them do…or would admit to, maybe.”

I waited.

“Sam’s having a harder time about his dad dying than he’s letting on. Harder than Dan, I think. Dan had issues with his dad, but he got to work out a lot of them before Morty passed away. Sam didn’t. And as much as Dan wants to share his misery with his brother, and as much as he won’t admit he’s jealous that his baby brother seems to be getting away scot free yet again, I think he’s glad to be the only one suffering. Gives him a reason to be angry at Sammy for a lot of things but blame it all on that one. You know?”

She said all of this calmly and slowly. She sounded as if she’d spent a good deal of time thinking about this situation. Elle impressed me as the sort of woman who thought a lot about a lot of things.

“I know. Death affects everyone differently.” I stirred sugar and cream into my coffee.

She nodded and might have said more, but the room was suddenly a lot smaller with the addition of the two men. Sam slapped the back of Dan’s head as they came through the doorway, and Dan turned without a pause and punched Sam in the arm hard enough to make a loud noise.

It was like watching a tumbling pair of puppies scrambling for the alpha spot.

I looked at Elle, who stared at her husband as though she’d never seen him before. “That’s my Dan,” she murmured with a slight roll of her eyes.

Dan straightened, brushing back the hair Sam had tousled, went to her and dipped her down for a kiss. She didn’t protest too heartily. Sam, apparently thinking this was a good idea, went for me with a warm, beery kiss. He kept me dipped a few seconds too long for comfort and nearly stumbled when pulling me up.

“Get some coffee in him,” Dan suggested, rubbing his hands in glee at the sight of the cake. “Sober him up.”

I eyed Sam as he poured himself coffee and cut a huge slab of cake. He’d had a few beers, but I hadn’t thought he was drunk. He looked up to see me watching and shot me a grin.

“Don’t pay attention to my brother. He can’t hold his liquor.” Sam forked a huge bite of cake between his lips.

Dan and Elle exchanged looks I couldn’t interpret. Sam didn’t notice or ignored them, but I did and it left me feeling awkward enough to say, “Sam, it’s getting late.”

He didn’t even look at the clock, just nodded and put his plate in the sink. He kissed Elle’s cheek loudly and punched his brother’s arm, then turned to me. “I’m ready.”

I thanked them for dinner and offered to help clean up the rest, but Dan waved me away.

“No. You’re right, it is late. Get going. Nice meeting you, Grace. Again.”

I echoed the sentiment, but we were out the door and down the sidewalk in minutes. I stopped Sam at the car, though. “I’ll drive.”

He stopped, keys in hand, at unlocking my door. He straightened. “Don’t let what my brother said worry you.”

“I had one glass of wine. You had a few beers. There’s no point in taking chances. Cops hang out up here, Sam. You don’t want to get pulled over.”

I watched a series of emotions flit across his face. He wasn’t a stranger anymore, but I couldn’t read him. He handed me the keys without further protest, though, and I was glad. Some men got belligerent.

Sam didn’t. Sam sang all the way home, loudly and in tune. Sam opened the window and stuck his face into the breeze. Sam told dirty jokes that made me laugh even as I cried, “Ew!”

When I pulled into the parking lot behind the funeral home, easing Sam’s car into the space next to Betty, he’d toned himself down a little. The wind had rumpled his hair, but that was a good look on him.

“Are you going to invite me up?”

I pulled the keys from the ignition and handed them to him. “What do you think?”

“I think yes.” A small smile tugged the corners of his mouth.

I’d expected a grin. Honestly, after the months of pursuit, I’d sort of expected not to make it into the house at all. And suddenly, I was as nervous as Sam looked.

No longer singing and telling jokes, he followed me inside and up the stairs. I fumbled with my keys in the lock, and he waited patiently until at last I got the door open. Inside, he stood, hands in his pockets, while I hung up my coat and purse and tossed my keys into the dish by the door.

I’d imagined hands groping, mouths meeting, bodies slamming up against walls. Yet neither of us moved toward the other. I asked him if he wanted something to drink, and he asked for water. I poured us both glasses and we sat at opposite sides of my small table and stared at each other.

“Dinner was nice,” I said.

“My brother’s an okay cook. You can’t do much to ruin pasta.”

“Yeah.”

Silence. We stared at the floor, the table, our glasses. Anywhere but at each other.