Stranger (34 page)

He had such a knack of making me laugh, even when my stomach was churning and my eyes felt as if they’d been filled with sand. I didn’t want to know if it was really three in the morning, not when I had to be up by seven. “I just think we need to talk about what this is.”

“Ah.” He returned to my side. “It’s
that
sort of three-in-the-morning conversation.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of clingy, desperate woman. And I’m not saying this has to be anything. But…I think it is.” I’d admitted it. “And I’m not used to that.”

He looked at me. “You don’t do the boyfriend thing. I got it.”

“I don’t. I haven’t, not for a long time.”

His tilting grin tempted me to return it. “But you think you might want to now?”

I bit my lower lip to hold back that return smile but lost out. “I’m just saying that I want us to be up front with each other. That’s all. If you’re just interested in being fuck-friends, I’m not saying that’s out of the question—”

“Hey!” Sam frowned again, turning. “Don’t say that!”

I stopped, confused. “Don’t say fuck?”

“Fuck,” Sam said, and ran a hand through his hair. “No. I mean, don’t say that all I want is to be your friend with benefits.”

I waited a second or two before continuing. “Well, what do you want?”

Sam got out of bed and I was certain I’d lost him. Why, exactly, I didn’t know. I watched him grab up his boxer briefs and put them on, and after a minute I did the same with my pj’s. I’d pissed him off somehow, but I couldn’t be too surprised. Conversations about what “this” was usually had an element of angst in them.

Sam put his hands on my shoulders to get me to look at him. “What I want,” he said slowly, “is to keep doing what we’ve been doing for the past few months, only with a helluva lot more of what we did for the past few hours.”

My heart dropped as my stomach jumped, and both met someplace in the middle with a nearly audible
thunk.
“Okay.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Not just okay. Okay?”

“O…kay?” I laughed. “Sam, it’s very late. We’re both tired.”

Sam didn’t laugh. He pulled me close and kissed me. “I like you a lot, Grace. I like spending time with you, hanging out. I like kissing you. I like touching you.”

“I like all those things, too,” I told him, half melted already.

“I don’t want to be just some guy you sleep with. I don’t want to be just some boy toy.”

Oh, the irony of that. “Of course not.”

Sam nodded, as if my answer had satisfied him. “Good. It’s settled.”

Nothing seemed settled to me other than my insides had become a tumbled, jumbled mess and I couldn’t quite think straight. “It is?”

“Us. This.” He waved a hand around the room.

I stared at him. “Us. We’re an us?”

Sam got on one knee, my hand clasped in his. “Cuz you’re my lady!” he sang. Loud. The next line, too, and the one after that, while I laughed and tried to pull away.

“No! All right! All right, anything you want, just stop singing that song!”

He got up, and up, and up. Long, tall Sam. He kissed me again. “Admit it. You’re crazy about me.”

“I think I’m just crazy.”

Sam scooped me up with a hand beneath my knees and the other behind my shoulders and laughed when I yelped. “That would be par for the course. Bed. Now. You and me.”

He tossed me onto the bed and followed after with a leap. Onto my ancient, hand-me-down bed. The footboard promptly cracked in half and the mattress hit the floor.

“Well, then,” said Sam. “I think that bodes well, doesn’t it?”

All I could do was laugh.

I had on a few occasions in college gone to work without enough sleep, but never since graduating had I gone to work with no sleep at all. After breaking my bed, Sam and I had decided breakfast might be in order. Over eggs and toast we’d talked until dawn lit the sky. The conversation was serious but punctuated with laughter and joking as we talked about ourselves.

About us.

Sam didn’t delve into why I’d avoided boyfriends or ask me about my sexual history, and I avoided asking him the same. We concentrated on a subtle negotiation some people would have found extremely unromantic but I liked because it laid it all out on the table for both of us.

No, we wouldn’t see other people. Yes, he could sleep over as long as he brought his own toothbrush. No, we didn’t have to see each other every day, but yes, we could if we wanted to.

Sam understood the nature of my job and warned me his wasn’t much more predictable.

The lessons he gave during the day sometimes got rescheduled and if the opportunity for a gig came up, he needed to be able to take it.

By the time I had to get ready for work I’d passed exhaustion and had started operating on caffeine and determination. When he kissed me goodbye to head off to his mother’s house to get ready for his own day, Sam smiled.

“See you later,” he told me, and I had no doubt I would.

Unfortunately, that was when all hell decided to break loose.

It wasn’t that I’d never had all hell break loose before. Let’s face it, when you work in the funeral-home business, all kinds of things can go crazy in a day.

“Shelly? Have you seen…Shelly?”

No Shelly.

No Shelly at her desk, or in the bathroom, or in the small lounge where families waited for me. No Shelly in the parking lot or the chapel, either. I called her name again. I’d seen both her and Jared earlier, each going about their separate tasks. Jared had gone to the basement to work on unpacking some boxes of supplies, but that had been a few hours ago.

I called both their names again. I needed that paperwork before I could get started on Mrs.

Grenady, waiting for me in the embalming room. Her family wouldn’t be happy if it came time for the service and she wasn’t ready.

“Jared? Shelly!”

I heard a soft hum of music from the embalming room, but neither of them were in there.

Only Mrs. Grenady, and she wasn’t able to tell me if she’d seen my office manager and my intern. The music, though, was something Jared would have chosen. I turned it off to listen.

The room where I’d heard Sam playing his guitar was just down the hall, and the door to it was closed. I knocked, but nobody answered. I didn’t have anyone scheduled to be waiting in it, but I suspected it wasn’t empty.

“Shelly?”

I opened the door and closed it again just as quickly, my eyes shut and face burning.

Oh. God.

That was a sight that would linger, and not in a good way. Seeing Jared and Shelly in flagrante delicto was sort of like catching my brother beating off to
Hot Juggz
magazine.

Embarrassing and more than a little disturbing.

I was at the end of the hall when the door opened and Jared came out. Fully dressed, thank heavens, though his hair and shirt both could’ve used a good brushing. He’d misbuttoned but managed to tuck it into his belt. He had forgotten, though, to zip up his fly.

“Grace, I—We—”

I held up a hand. “Not interested.”

“But wait!”

His pleading tone gave me pause, though I didn’t turn. I had no desire to catch another glimpse of Jared’s junk. “Think carefully about what you say, Jared. I’m not in the mood to be generous.”

“I know. But it wasn’t what you think. And it’s not Shelly’s fault.”

“That’s not true!”

I almost turned at Shelly’s voice, but at the last minute kept myself staring at the door to the embalming room. I had even less desire to see Shelly’s goods. “Both of you get dressed.

Fully dressed! And come upstairs.”

Silence met my proclamation and I imagined them exchanging looks. Dammit, I hated playing the Gorgon, but for the love of all that was holy…in the funeral home? At work? I’d had sex in some risqué places, but never at my job!

Though I had had some screaming-hot loving in the funeral home, I thought with a grin as I left them to prepare themselves. The grin had faded by the time they got up to my office. Jared looked sheepish, but Shelly had that stubborn tilt to her chin.

I’d found the paperwork by then, but that didn’t make me inclined to be forgiving. Their behavior was out of control, and I was beyond tired. I gave them each a glare. Jared cut his eyes from mine, but Shelly took that time to take his hand. She linked their fingers, and he looked down at their hands with a grateful expression.

“I told you before not to let this thing get in the way of work or to affect my business.” I stared at Shelly.

She tipped her chin up a bit farther. “It wasn’t getting in the way of work.”

Jared was smart enough not to make excuses. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. But it wasn’t Shelly’s fault.”

“Stop saying that!” she snapped, and dropped his hand. She looked at me. “Don’t listen to him.”

“So, it was your fault?” I was careful not to yawn in front of them, though my mouth desperately wanted to stretch open.

“That’s not what I meant. I meant, there’s no fault.”

“Shelly, are you seriously telling me that fucking Jared in the basement of my funeral home while you’re both supposed to be working is appropriate?”

We stared each other down, and damned if she didn’t give me even more attitude.

“We got a little carried away, but we weren’t…doing what you said!” There came the blush, painting twin circles high on her cheeks.

“You would’ve been if I hadn’t walked in just then.”

“If you hadn’t walked in just then,” Shelly snapped, “you’d never have known!”

Jared and I both gaped at her. I recovered first. “Oh, no, you did
not
just try and make this somehow my fault.”

Shelly crossed her arms and said nothing. What had happened to the shy girl who baked me cookies and cried when my dad looked at her the wrong way? I eyed Jared. He must have a magic wand in his pants, and not one for making good spells. He’d turned Shelly into a witch.

He didn’t seem to have expected the change in her, either. “Shelly!”

Then the waterworks started, and Shelly fled my office, slamming the door behind her.

Jared and I stared at each other until he sat in one of the chairs in front of my desk. He rubbed his face with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “It just got out of control.”

“Jared, I can’t have this sort of thing going on. You know that.” I sighed, too. I wanted a cup of coffee. A vodka. A nap.

“I know. But she told me she broke up with Duane, and I kissed her, and it just went on from there.” He looked up at me. “Were you ever doing something that you knew was going to get you into trouble even when you were doing it, but you couldn’t stop yourself?”

“Um…yes. I have. But not,” I said sternly, “at work!”

Jared gave me a small smile. “It won’t happen again.”

“It better not. And you’re lucky I’m too tired and desperate for help around here, or I’d fire you both.”

He smiled again as if he knew I didn’t mean it and got up. “Thanks, Grace. I’d better go check on her.”

“Tell Miss Attitude she’d better get back to work pronto.” I was too tired to put much force behind the threat. “And we need to take care of Mrs. Grenady, so be back in five minutes or I’ll kick your butt.”

Jared saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

God. I was
so
not a ma’am, but whatever. “Go!”

We spent the next few hours actually working. Jared was bubbling with enthusiasm about music, about the upcoming weekend, about what he was going to have for dinner. He was so caught up in his own little love bubble he shouldn’t have noticed mine, but he must’ve caught sight of my own secret smiles because he pinned me like a wrestler on the Friday-night smackdown.

“So, who is he?” Jared ran water in the sink and started tidying the equipment we’d used in Mrs. Grenady’s preparation.

“Don’t forget we need to order some more of that cleaning fluid.” I wasn’t pretending I didn’t hear him. I was deliberately not answering.

“Yes, boss. But c’mon. You’ve got a grin on your face and you otherwise look like crap.”

Jared stepped in front of me so I had to look up at him. “Hey, I don’t think we have any secrets from each other anymore.”

I raised a brow. “I hardly think what I saw this morning puts you on a ‘need-to-know’

basis about my private life.”

Jared grinned. “Come on.”

I grinned, too, giddy from lack of sleep and the sheer emotional roller-coaster ride I was on. “It’s Sam.”

It was Jared’s turn to raise a brow. “Sam Stewart? Dude with the earring?”

“Yes.”

“The one who brought Chinese?”

“Same Sam.”

Jared let out a low whistle. “Same guy whose dad we took care of?”

“Yes, Jared. Is that a problem?” I glared, again without strength. “I need some coffee.”

Together we transported Mrs. Grenady up to the chapel to await the service with her family later that afternoon. Jared didn’t continue poking me about Sam, but when I’d poured us both coffee and given him a mug, he grinned again. I ignored him this time and told Shelly to order more cleaning fluid. She, apparently, wasn’t speaking to me, but she sniffed and flipped open the supply catalog.

“Sam Stewart,” Jared said. “Wow.”

“What’s wrong with Sam?” I snapped.

Shelly looked up. “Grace is going out with Sam?”

“None of your business!”

“She is,” Jared said.

“You’d think she’d be a little more understanding then,” Shelly muttered.

I chose to ignore her. I didn’t really want to fire her. Who’d make me cookies?

“I think it’s about time.” Jared nodded. Suddenly an expert.

“Are you two finished with the commentary?” I glared at them both.

Shelly shrugged and picked up the phone to take an order. Jared laughed and said he had to finish cleaning up the embalming room. I was taking my coffee to sit in my office and maybe steal a power nap, when the back door opened and Hannah came in with the kids in tow.

Hannah never came here. It was something of a tradition, if not a joke, that my sister never came to the funeral home where she’d lived until she was four. Now she hustled in, a hand wrapped firmly around each of her children’s wrists.

“I need you to watch the kids for half an hour until Mom can get here to pick them up.”