To this, Sam countered with, “You got a man who knows you live in Heartmeadow who’s got you in his crosshairs.”
If we were writing lists, this would go in big, block letters at the top of the con list for returning to Indiana.
Shit.
I closed my eyes and tipped my chin down.
Sam kissed the top of my head.
God, he was sweet.
“Tell me about the unit,” he murmured.
“They upped their offer another ten K.”
“Back out.”
I opened my eyes and tipped my head back, shocked by this instantaneous and decisive reply.
“Really?”
“Baby, it’s a condo in Heartmeadow, Indiana, not a co-op on Central Park. You’re lookin’ at least at putting thirty large over asking price into it in a market that is far from stable. The market could nosedive and you’ll be sittin’ on a condo that’s worth less than you paid for it and in this market that could conceivably happen in a day. No shit. This is a bad investment. Back out.”
Right.
Well, that was easy.
Except…
“But I want it,” I told him.
“I see that but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad investment and when I say that I mean a really f**kin’ bad investment.”
Hmm.
“My buyers have gone fast-track and Paula says I could close on my house in three to five weeks. One of those is already gone. If I don’t find something, where do I live?”
“This shit gets sorted, move in with your folks for awhile.”
“Do you like my ass?”
His head jerked slightly on the pillow then he answered, “Uh… yeah.”
“Would you like it if it was five times the size?”
He grinned and his arms gathered me closer.
Then he muttered, “I’m not gonna answer that.”
This was a good choice.
“Mom doesn’t drain the grease off hamburger meat when making chili, spaghetti, anything and she might say you can help in the kitchen but what she means is, you can stand there, drink a beer and chat with her while she concocts meals that are at least five thousand calories a plate and even the vegetables are fried. So, no. I am not moving in with my parents.”
“Honey, you’re twenty-eight, buy and eat your own food.”
At his statement, I even felt my eyes get big.
If I tried to bring carrot sticks and yogurt into my mother’s house and inform her she could not find some way to fry the former or use the latter in a cake, she’d lose her mind.
“Are you nuts?” I cried, the last word rising three octaves.
Sam burst out laughing.
I watched because I liked it but I didn’t participate partly because there was a good possibility he thought I was overreacting when I… was… not.
When he stopped laughing, he smiled down at me and muttered, “Strike that. Your Mom obviously is serious about her command of the fridge and, we’re with your parents, I f**k you, you can’t moan the way I like to make you moan.”
That was when I felt my mouth drop open as well as my eyes get wide again.
“We’re not ha**ng s*x in my parents’ house.”
He started chuckling and through his chuckles he said, “Baby, again, you’re twenty-eight.”
“And honey, you grew up in LA where things are fast and loose. This is Indiana. This is in the Bible belt. LA and all the rest of the world may have hit the new millennium a good while ago but Indiana is firmly stuck in the 50’s and they… are… never… coming… out. And my parents are happy as clams right there until… they… die. You do not sleep with your boyfriend in the same bed in your parents’ house and even if we were married for twenty years we would not stay at my parents’ house and have sex. If we did, the house would explode and then everyone in Heartmeadow would know we tried to have sex at my parents’ house!”
Sam burst out laughing again but this time he rolled into me while he did it.
When he was done, his torso on mine, smiling down at me, he murmured, “Right, so, I find a way to make you safe and get you home to your Mom, your dog and your friend who has a cutout of me in her bedroom, you close on your house, we’re staying in a hotel.”
“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 f**kin’ 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 f**kin’ 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.