When Mack got home and he saw Sammi, a huge smile spread across his face. He clearly hadn’t expected her to go all out just for dinner, but he certainly appreciated her going the extra mile. Not wanting to let her down, he showered and put on one of his nicer black suits with a light blue dress shirt to match his wife’s sparkling eyes.
“Well, we clean up nice,” Sammi smirked, holding onto Mack’s arm as they walked out the front door together.
“Babe, you could be wearing sweatpants and still look like you belong in a fashion magazine,” Mack told her.
“I’ll keep that in mind when I start looking for my next career,” Sammi replied with a giggle.
*
By that Friday, Sammi had completed the memoir of her friends by working on it while Mack was at work. She felt free and happy as she snuck the notebook between a couple of large books on the bookshelf. It brought pride and satisfaction to herself, but it was personal and not for anyone else’s eyes. As strange as it seemed, Sammi felt ready to finally be herself completely again now that she had written the final words about her friends.
Wanting dinner to be ready by the time Mack got home that night, Sammi ordered takeout a little less than an hour before she was expecting him. She was serving everything onto dishes as Mack walked through the door and he laughed and shook his head.
“Are you ever going to learn to cook?” Mack teased with a chuckle as he sat down in front of his takeout pasta.
“Absolutely not,” Sammi told him confidently. “But I do need to figure out what I’m going to do with my life now.”
“What about being a mother?” Mack offered casually, watching Sammi’s face intently.
Sammi froze, dropping her silverware on her plate. Her heart felt funny, larger than usual and beating faster than normal, so much that she could feel it in her throat. She felt dizzy having not expected this conversation, at least not now. And she hadn’t been prepared. She hadn’t been thinking about children since the day after she moved back home, and she honestly didn’t even know what she wanted anymore.
“Babe…babe, relax. It’s okay,” Mack said soothingly as he leapt out of his chair and hurried to Sammi’s side, putting an arm around her shoulders to comfort her. “We don’t have to talk about that now.”
Sammi nodded and buried her face in Mack’s torso, hugging him to her with her unrestricted arm. She wasn’t crying; she was just surprised. And she wasn’t really upset, but she appreciated the softness of her husband. Not wanting to ruin their evening, Sammi quickly straightened up and put a half-hearted smile on her face.
“Grab a beer and meet me on the back porch,” Sammi told Mack with a sly sparkle in her sapphire eyes. “I want to tell you all about my cross-country adventures.”
Mack raised an eyebrow at his wife. He hadn’t asked her for this, and he certainly didn’t want her to get upset talking about her friends. Sure, he was curious, but they had plenty of time ahead of them for Sammi to take her time and grow stronger about the loss of her friends before opening up.
“Are you sure, Sam?” Mack asked, showing concern.
“More than sure,” Sammi replied, smiling more genuinely now.
Convinced that his wife was ready to talk, Mack grabbed a six-pack of Miller High Life out of the fridge and headed out to the back porch. He turned the spotlight on so they could at least see each other and about six feet of the surrounding area.
Sammi joined Mack a few minutes later with the notebook she’d been writing in all week. She sat in a lawn chair next to her husband as he handed a beer to her. Not much of a beer drinker, Sammi put her hand up to turn it down. Then she opened the notebook to where the cross-country-crookery part of the story began and dove into it. She told Mack everything and answered any of his questions, simply happy that he was showing interest in the part of her life that he had never cared much for.
When Sammi got to the part of the story about the car explosion, she got quiet and slightly choked up. But having already written everything out, she was okay sharing the details of the most horrible moment of her life. Mack listened without interrupting and had a total change of heart about Eli when Sammi told him about Eli pushing her out of the SUV to save her.
“I owe Eli my life,” Mack muttered after Sammi finished talking.
“He would’ve stolen me back from you without thinking twice,” Sammi teased with a nervous giggle.
“Oh, I know he would have,” Mack chuckled, lightening up. “I’d assumed he had while you were away.”
“Mack, I wanted you the entire time I was gone,” Sammi told him. “I wanted to hear your voice, I wanted to see your face, and I wanted to feel your arms around me.”
Sammi got up from her chair and moved over to Mack’s lap. Mack held her as she nuzzled into his chest, burying his face in her hair. After a moment of peaceful silence, Sammi tilted her head up to kiss Mack passionately on the lips. He kissed her back until she jumped out of his lap and grabbed his hand to lead him inside to the bedroom.
As they fell into bed undressing each other, Mack’s lips never left Sammi’s. They hadn’t been intimate since before Sammi ran away and Mack worried that she was going to spook, so he wanted to make her as comfortable as possible. But what he didn’t realize was that she wanted this, and she wanted to throw all caution to the wind.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Mack whispered against his wife’s lips as she straddled him, her hair falling all around his face.
“More than okay,” Sammi breathed into his ear.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We Believe
After Sammi fell asleep that night, Mack slipped quietly out of the room and back out to the back porch. Sammi’s notebook was still on the lawn chair she had been sitting on and Mack’s curiosity was getting the best of him. It was late and the low glow of the spotlight wasn’t adequate for a long read so Mack took the notebook in to the loft and settled onto the couch with the floor lamp on.
Mack read through the story of Sammi’s friends once, then twice more. He lost track of time, immersed in a world that he realized he had been only partly familiar with. These people that he had met and even one he had lived with for quite some time seemed to come even more to life on the page. It occurred to him that he had wasted his opportunity to get to know these remarkable people.
“What are you doing?” Sammi asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes as she joined Mack in the loft.
“Sammi, this is incredible,” Mack announced, finally putting the notebook down to look at his wife.
“It’s nothing,” Sammi shrugged, settling into Mack’s lap without waiting for an invitation. “I just did it for me.”
“It’s not nothing, babe. You should really be proud of it,” Mack told her, hooking his arm around her tiny waist.
“Please don’t make a big deal out of this. It’s bad enough that you read it without asking.”
Mack nodded with his chin on Sammi’s shoulder. Although he had every intention of making a big deal about Sammi’s writing, she didn’t have to know it yet. Dropping the subject, he carried his wife to bed so he could get a few hours of sleep with her.
*
On Sunday, Mack snuck the notebook into his squad car, hiding it in the glove compartment until the next day. He took it into work on Monday and stowed it away in his desk until he had a minute to talk to Hobbs. At lunchtime, he grabbed the notebook and let himself into his Captain’s office.
“Hey, does your wife still work in publishing?” Mack asked, dropping into the chair across from Hobbs.
“Cheryl is still in accounting like she has been for twenty-five years,” Hobbs corrected his Lieutenant. “But her sister is an editor.”
“I was close,” Mack shrugged and tossed the notebook onto the Captain’s desk. “Anyway, Sammi wrote this and it’s really good.”
“Come on, Mack. Haven’t I done enough for the two of you?” Hobbs asked with a sigh.
“I’m just asking you to read it, man
,” Mack said, throwing his hands up. “If it’s lame, I won’t mention it again.”
Hobbs sighed again and slid the notebook over to his side of the desk. Mack thanked him, added that Sammi didn’t know the notebook was missing yet, and went back out to his desk to scarf down a quick lunch.
Before he left for the day, Mack got called back into Hobbs’ office. Captain Hobbs was sitting in his usual spot behind his desk and had Sammi’s notebook sitting open on the desk in front of him. Mack took his usual seat and waited for Hobbs to speak.
“So, let me get this straight,” Hobbs said, rubbing his temples with his hands, “you want my sister-in-law to publish your wife’s confession to about sixty armed robberies.”
“So, you do think it should be published?” Mack asked excitedly.
“I couldn’t put the damn thing down,” Hobbs admitted. “I read it twice before I even realized what time it was.”
“Will you at least just pass it along to your wife’s sister?” Mack inquired.
“I will, but only because it’s really good,” Hobbs told him.
“Thanks, boss. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Mack was grinning as he got up from the desk and left the office to head home. He was super happy with himself for getting Sammi’s book in front of someone, but also super proud of Sammi for writing something so impressive.
*
Sammi kept busy on Monday by finally finishing unpacking her bags and moving back into the house. But by Tuesday, she was bored and went looking for her notebook so she could type up her story for something to do. She tore the loft apart looking for it and still came up empty-handed. It wasn’t a huge deal, so she chose not to bother Mack at work and decided to read a book instead after cleaning up the loft.
Losing track of time, Sammi forgot about dinner until Mack had already gotten home from work. She apologized and Mack just laughed before ordering their favorite takeout. While they waited for their food, Sammi asked Mack if he had seen her notebook.
“Not since Friday,” Mack said with an innocently subtle shrug.
“It’s not in the loft,” Sammi told him, frowning.
“Well, where else could it be?” Mack asked, trying to sound helpful.
Sammi responded with a scowl, sensing that Mack was playing dumb on purpose. She couldn’t think of a reason for him to be lying so she let it go and figured she’d look even harder for the notebook the next day. But she didn’t find it the next day, or the day after that, and she started to suspect foul play from her husband.
Before Sammi could work up the nerve to confront Mack with her suspicions, she was visited by a stranger at the house while her husband was at work. Sammi invited the forty-something-year-old stocky, bespectacled woman with dark hair inside and up to the loft upon her knowledge of Sammi’s name without an introduction. They sat across the coffee table from each other and the stranger tossed a thick folder onto the table, providing a shivering flashback of Hobbs with her criminal case file.
“I’m sorry to just drop in on you like this,” the lady began speaking, “but Captain Hobbs insisted that you’d be home.”
“What is this about?” Sammi asked, growing more nervous at the mention of her old boss.
“Do you write, Sammi?” the woman responded and Sammi’s face contorted in confusion.
“Uh, not really,” Sammi said with a glare. “I think you have the wrong person.”
The strange lady leaned forward and flipped the top of the folder open to reveal its contents. On top was Sammi’s missing notebook, which Sammi snatched up in a flustered rage. Underneath the notebook was Sammi’s story already typed up and printed out with editing marks in red ink. Clutching the notebook to her stomach, Sammi picked up the rest of the folder and glanced through the revision notes with a look of total annoyance on her face. At the very bottom of the stack of pages was an offer letter for a publishing contract for Sammi’s book.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know how you got this, but this is for me and nobody else,” Sammi said with a pause. “Actually, that’s a lie. I know Mack had something to do with this.”
“Look, I’m not here to pry,” the lady told her. “I’m just here to deliver the offer. All of my contact info is in there. I hope you at least consider it. You’re a good writer, Sammi.”
The strange woman then got up and saw herself out of the house before Sammi even realized she had never gotten her name. Still annoyed, she threw the folder back down onto the coffee table and watched her visitor drive away. All she could think about was how badly she wished she could call Kodi and complain about what Mack had done while her best friend took her side and justified her feelings. Angry with Mack and depressed about Kodi, Sammi went into the bedroom to lie down and try to sleep off her emotions.
Once again, something she didn’t ask for was being thrown at her.
*
When Mack got home that evening, he was surprised to find Sammi sleeping. She’d had a pretty healthy sleeping schedule the past two weeks and hadn’t needed to sleep during the day. But then he found the editor’s folder up in the loft and knew right away that he was in trouble.
Going for a preemptive strike, Mack went back into the bedroom and sat on the bed beside his wife’s peacefully sleeping body. He put his hand at the center of her back and gently massaged her until she began to wake up.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” Mack said, smiling as Sammi rolled onto her back to look up at him.
“What time is it?” Sammi asked in a panic.
“Relax, it’s dinnertime,” Mack told her with a chuckle. “Come on, I’ll order us a pizza.”
Mack kissed Sammi’s forehead and left the bedroom to give Sammi a minute to finish waking up. She didn’t seem nearly as mad as he had anticipated but he still wanted to get a jump on the subject. He finished ordering their dinner just as Sammi emerged from the bedroom, so he quickly intercepted her and had her sit at the kitchen table with him.
“So, I saw that you had a visitor today,” Mack said innocently, keeping his head down but his eyes on Sammi’s face.
“I’m not mad that you tried to get it published,” Sammi told him bluntly, getting right to the point. “I’m mad that you stole it and lied to me.”
“Tried?” Mack asked, surprised. “So, then they don’t want to publish it?”
“They do,” Sammi admitted, “but it’s not for them.”
“Sammi, why are you so resistant to good things happening for you?” Mack challenged his wife, not completely prepared for this battle but eager to make his point.
“And why do you always think you know what’s good for me?” Sammi argued.
“Because I love you and your happiness is kind of a priority of mine,” Mack replied calmly and sincerely.
Sammi got quiet and looked down at her feet. Mack had never won an argument so clearly before and Sammi had never just shut up and listened to him so well. Not wanting to push his luck, he put an end to the conversation and stood up so he could kiss his wife.
*
After dinner, Mack finally changed out of his work clothes and into a pair of grey sweatpants before lounging on the couch in the living room. Sammi hadn’t stopped thinking about what Mack had said and she was ready to have a real conversation about her book. So, she grabbed the folder from the loft and joined Mack in the living room, plopping down next to him on the couch. Placing the contract offer on top of the folder, Sammi handed everything to her husband.
“I don’t want to keep putting up a fight against the good things in my life,” Sammi told her husband. “But I need your help.”
“I’ll always have your back, Sam. You don’t have to face anything alone,” Mack replied, shifting on the couch so he could get his arm around his wife and still hold onto the folder with his other hand.
The cozy couple went through the contract together and then read the editor’s revisions. Sammi got the sense that Hobbs’ sister-in-law didn’t realize that Eli, Howard, and Kodi had been rea
l people and Mack couldn’t really dispute the thought. He wasn’t surprised when Sammi got discouraged.
“There are other publishers,” Mack offered, wanting his wife to have hope.
“But none that knew Kodi,” Sammi told him, disheartened. “None of them knew the warmth of Eli’s embrace or the genuine kindness of Howard.”
“That’s what the book’s for, cutie,” Mack replied, squeezing Sammi to him and kissing her forehead. “It makes everyone wish they had known those extraordinary people.”
“You knew them,” Sammi reminded him.
“Not like you did.”
Sammi felt sad and missed her friends so she curled up under Mack’s arm and snuggled into his side. Mack held her tighter and turned the television on so she wouldn’t feel obligated to keep talking about the book. Publishing it was a new idea to her and she deserved the time to think it through properly.
Neither Sammi nor Mack mentioned Sammi’s book over the weekend. The folder remained in plain sight on the kitchen counter, so it stayed present in their minds, even if they didn’t want to talk about it. The more Sammi thought about it, the more she found herself lost in daydreaming about a new career in writing. She just couldn’t help but wonder if maybe this wasn’t the story she should share with the world.
The following Monday, Sammi was haunted by the unmoved folder while Mack was at work. She avoided the kitchen, trying to avoid having to think about the book and making any kind of decisions. But even though she wasn’t in view of it, her mind couldn’t seem to think about anything else.
Love Against the Law Page 25
