Stranger (12 page)

He shrugged. “I was just surprised. They didn’t tell me there was going to be anyone here.”

“I knew there was going to be someone here, and I still was surprised.”

Sam sipped. “You live here?”

I nodded. He nodded, too. His smile tilted the side of his mouth I hadn’t made bleed. His lip was already puffing a little.

“Convenient.”

“Most people usually say creepy.”

He grinned. “Nah. Dead’s dead.”

“Yes.” I wrapped my hands around the mug. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

Sam’s crooked smile faded into nothing. “Yeah. So’s everybody else.”

I offer a lot of sympathy. Part of my job is knowing when to stop. I didn’t say it again.

Sam cleared his throat. “Anyway. Sorry I freaked you out.”

“I’m sorry I hit you. And about your head. Oh, God, you need some ice, don’t you?”

Sam put a hand to the back of his head and winced again. “That might be nice. And some aspirin, if you have it. Hell, a bottle of Smirnov might work better.”

“I can get you the ice and the aspirin, but I don’t have any vodka.” And the ice and aspirin weren’t here, they were upstairs. “Are you going to go back to your dad, or should I bring it here?”

Sam shook his head. “If you don’t tell my mom or brother I left him, I’ll come get it. I’ve had my fill of singing tonight.”

I hesitated, not sure I wanted to take him to my apartment but unable to think of a reason why. “Are you sure?”

Sam nodded with a grimace. “Yes. To tell you the truth, my dad hadn’t stepped foot in a shul for the past fifteen years. His favorite appetizer was shrimp wrapped in bacon. Somehow I doubt the old man would give a rat’s ass about someone sitting with him until he’s in the ground.”

I understood Sam’s reference to Jewish dietary laws, just barely, but I nodded as if I knew what he meant. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“Dead sure.”

I’ve heard jokes like that before, but it didn’t seem like Sam was making one, because an instant after he said it, he winced.

“Sorry. Bad choice of words.”

“It’s okay. I’m used to it.” I gestured. “C’mon upstairs with me.”

Sam followed me upstairs, and again I pretended I didn’t feel the heat of his gaze on my ass. I also ignored the fact I never, never took men here. Not ever. Yet here I was, taking a man upstairs not just to my office, which was a private space, but to my apartment. To my home.

It was only slightly less foolish than not calling the police had been, but I was glad now I hadn’t dialed. I’d have been thoroughly embarrassed had they shown up.

I hadn’t even closed my door. Sam followed me inside. He was looking around when I turned to face him.

“Nice place,” he said.

“Thanks. Have a seat.”

Like we were at a cocktail party. Ridiculous, particularly when I remembered that within twenty minutes of meeting him for the very first time I’d been following him up to his hotel room. My mind might wish to block out the memory, but my body wasn’t so willing. My heart kept up its insistent pitter-pat and every movement seemed made through butter, slick and sweet.

I grabbed a sweatshirt quickly from the back of my bathroom door and slung it over my head, then grabbed out a bag of frozen brussels sprouts from my freezer, found the economy-size bottle of ibuprofen, along with a glass of water, and took them to Sam who’d made himself comfortable on my couch.

“Here.”

He looked up and took what I offered, swigging down the pills and setting the impromptu ice pack on the back of his head. He handed me back the glass and settled against the cushions, those million-mile legs stretched out like he belonged there.

And, heaven help me, he looked as if he did. Like my couch had been made to cradle him.

Like my brussels sprouts had been grown for his comfort.

Shaking myself, I took the glass to the kitchen. His mouth had left a smudge on the rim, and I touched it with my finger before putting it in my ancient dishwasher. When I turned to look at him, he’d stretched out with his head propped on the frozen sprouts on the arm of the couch.

His legs hung all the way down to the other end.

When I came around to look at him, his eyes had closed. He looked paler than I remembered, with grayish blue circles under his eyes. Even his lips looked pale beneath the puffiness. A definite hazy bruise was forming on his jaw. “Sam.”

His eyes fluttered open, half-lidded. My guts clenched. Weren’t people with head injuries supposed to stay awake?

“I don’t think you should go to sleep.”

“No?” He gave me a lazy, tilting smile.

“You hit your head pretty hard. Aren’t you supposed to stay awake? How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Both of you are holding up two.”

My guts clenched again, until I saw his smile twisting and realized he was teasing. “Not funny.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. He blinked again, slowly. “I’m okay. Really. Just tired.”

“Sam!”

His eyes flew open. “Grace, I promise you, I’m fine!”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Then you can be fine downstairs. You don’t have to be fine on my couch.”

Sam sighed and shifted his weight a little, but didn’t get up. “So I’ll stay awake.” Pause.

Beat. Breathe. Smile. “Any ideas on how we might do that?”

I was not in the mood for flirtation. Not here, not even with him. “I think you need to leave.”

At that, he sat up. “Hey, I’m sorry. Really. I just thought—”

“What?”

He shrugged and set the bag of frozen vegetables on the coffee table. “Hey, it’s not like we’re strangers.”

“I’m sorry, Sam, but we are.”

Strangers. My heart, dammit, skipped in my chest and my throat, dammit, dried up faster than beef jerky in a dehydrator. I kept my expression as neutral as I could, but my face must still have given something away, because Sam’s gaze flared with interest.

“Are we?” His voice, husky and low, tempted me.

A lot.

I nodded. “Yes. We are.”

Sam stood, all gazillion feet of him. I should’ve felt intimidated with him looming over me, but I only felt…intimate.

“You need to leave, Sam. Now.”

He reached to touch one fingertip to my fleece-covered shoulder. The contact was instant, electric, burning. He traced my arm all the way to my elbow and made a right turn to continue until he’d ended at my wrist, where he could go no farther with my hand tucked beneath my opposite arm. Sam’s blue eyes caught mine and held them tight.

“Don’t you think it means something?” he whispered. “You being here?”

“I don’t believe in ‘something,’” I said.

“Too bad.”

I gave as pointed a glance as I could toward the door. Inside, I shook and quaked. Inside, I got on my knees and took him down my throat and fucked him until we both came ten times.

Inside. But outside I managed to unhook my hand from beneath my arm and point with a semi-steady finger.

“Go downstairs and sit with your father. Or leave. Go home.”

“Can’t. I’m not close to home. I’ve been staying in a hotel for the past month, waiting for the old man to die. But…you already know that, don’t you?”

I blushed fiercely at the memory of that hotel and what we’d done there. “Go!”

“Do you treat all your customers so coldly?” He touched the back of his head, then the corner of his mouth. “Or am I just the lucky one?”

“I don’t ever invite my clients to my personal apartment,” I told him through taut jaws.

Sam nodded. He hadn’t moved away and the heat from his body was making me sweat inside my heavy sweatshirt. His eyes never left mine, and I didn’t look away from his, either.

“So I’m not just lucky. I’m special, too.”

My mouth tried so hard to stay stern, but I lost against the smile. “You have a funeral to go to in the morning. You’re supposed to be sitting with your father. This is a difficult and entirely emotional time in your life—”

Sam kissed me again. Soft, light, the barest brush of his lips on mine. And like a schoolgirl in one of my role-playing fantasies, I closed my eyes when he did it. It couldn’t have lasted more than a second, but like his legs, that kiss went on forever.

“What were you saying?”

This was not a fantasy, and this was not the time nor the place for this. Eyes still closed, I licked my lips and tasted him. “You need to go.”

“Say it.”

I knew what he meant, and I smiled without opening my eyes. “You need to go…Sam.”

His sigh drifted over my skin and I waited for another kiss, but all I got was a chill when his heat pulled away. I opened my eyes and saw him in my doorway. His head nearly reached the top.

“See?” he said, just before ducking out. “We’re not strangers, after all.”

And then he was gone.

W
hen I was a kid, Christmas morning always took too long to arrive. I’d wake in darkness and strain my ears for the hint of reindeer on the roof, or the thud of Santa’s boots hitting the floor as he slid down our chimney. I’d creep to my sister’s bed and shake her, though she was nearly always awake, too, and we’d whisper together to urge the sun to rise faster, faster! It never did then, and it didn’t now, either.

I didn’t know if or how Sam had managed to sleep during his vigil over his father. I knew he wasn’t supposed to, but then he hadn’t been supposed to play the guitar or leave the room, either. Whatever he did was in silence, though, for I didn’t hear even a single note for the rest of the night.

With three full floors between us, I still felt Sam’s presence beside me in my suddenly too-empty bed. I knew just how he’d feel stretched out beside me, his head on one end, feet at the other. How his body would bump the blankets and ooze warmth all around me.

It was a very long night.

By the time I could finally convince myself it was all right to get up, I’d dozed off. Prying my eyelids open I stumbled to a steamy shower, then dressed in my favorite black suit, the one fitted at the hips to give me a silhouette. I paired the outfit with a silky white blouse with wide lapels that layered over the suit’s jacket. The suit was professional but also pretty and feminine. I was dressing to represent my business, but I was also dressing for Sam, and I wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.

I met the Stewart family first thing Monday morning. Though I’d met Dan previously, this was the first time I’d met his mother. He ushered her into my office and seated her in the middle chair, while he took the one to her right.

“My brother’s not coming,” he said, revealing a lot more with his expression than with his actual words.

My heart sank.

“He’ll be here.” Mrs. Stewart clutched a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes occasionally with it but didn’t sob.

Dan didn’t sob, either, though his eyes had the red-rimmed look of a man who’s been fighting tears for hours and barely winning. His face had grown a hint of beard and his sandy hair looked rumpled, but he wore the same sort of natty suit he’d worn at our first meeting. He pulled the folder I’d given him from his black leather briefcase, but didn’t open it.

“Sam’s not going to be here, Ma.”

Mrs. Stewart shook her head and answered in a quivery voice, “He will. Of course he will.”

Dan slid a look to me, then shook his head. “I told him not to come.”

Most families have hot spots that can usually be ignored, but even those who manage to keep everything shiny most of the time can stir up drama when faced with the pressure of dealing with a death. I’d seen just about everything from stuttered accusations to a fistfight over an open coffin.

There was a moment of awkward silence while Mrs. Stewart turned in her seat to stare at her son. “Why would you do that?”

Dan scrubbed his face with his hand, but then looked at her. “We don’t need to talk about this now.”

“Fine.” She faced forward, hands clutched tight in her lap, and now her lower lip trembled with the threat of tears. “Fine, Daniel, fine. You’ve decided it all, haven’t you?”

Dan shot me an apologetic look, and I gave him what I hoped was an appropriately sympathetic look of my own. “Yeah. Ma, whatever. Let’s do this.”

I waited a beat to see if she’d reply, but she only sniffed and refused to look at him. I held out my hand for the navy blue folder he still held. He passed it to me. Since we’d already preplanned the arrangements and talked with the rabbi who’d perform the service, there wasn’t much to talk about. In keeping with Jewish tradition, the service would be held as soon as possible, later this morning.

Mrs. Stewart made a strangled noise, and I looked up. She dabbed her eyes again. “So much to think about! So much to do!”

Dan looked as if he might reach for her shoulder, but drew back his hand at the last second. “Ma, that’s why I arranged all this ahead of time. There’s nothing to worry about. Dad’s going to be taken care of.” He looked at me. “Right?”

“Absolutely, Mrs. Stewart.” With Jewish funerals I really didn’t have to do much other than provide the place for the body to rest until burial and get the deceased to the cemetery. “I’ll be happy to help you take care of everything.”

Mrs. Stewart sighed and gave me a shaky smile and looked at Dan. “I’m sure you will. I just wish your brother was here.”

“He’ll come to the service.” Dan’s face was stony. “At least, he said he would. He doesn’t have to be here now.”

“But maybe he’d have some ideas—”

“Ma,” interrupted Dan in a tone that said he’d gone over all of this before. “Everything is under control. What would he do, anyway? Play guitar?”

Another moment of heavy silence surrounded us. Dan looked back at me, but Mrs. Stewart looked at her hands twisted in her lap. “My brother,” Dan said, “isn’t very responsible.”

Mrs. Stewart let out another long, shuddering hiss into her hankie. This time when Dan reached to pat her shoulder, he actually did instead of pulling away. Then he leaned across the desk to shake my hand.

“Thanks, Ms. Frawley.”

Again, his politeness touched me. “You’re welcome.”

“We’ll be back in a couple hours for the service,” Dan said. “C’mon, Ma. Let’s go rest until it’s time.”

I walked them to the door of my office. A woman with long dark hair held back from her face by a wide black band looked up from her seat in the hall. She stood, clutching a handful of tissues.