Bluer Than Velvet

by Mary McBride

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, for lack of a garbage truck to grind and groan outside her window at the crack of dawn, Laura didn’t wake up until nine-thirty. There was a note taped to the bathroom mirror. Back soon. Make yourself at home.

  Then, once again in her pathetic search for something to wear, Laura wandered across the hall to stand in the center of the faded, circular rag rug in Sam’s bedroom, looking around, shaking her head in dismay and disbelief. And people called her weird for clinging to the past, she thought.

  Being in Sam’s room, with its maple bunk bed and boyish plaid wallpaper and sturdy hopsacking café curtains, was like time traveling back two or three, maybe even four, decades. It was a bit like suddenly finding herself smack in the middle of an episode of Leave It to Beaver.

  There were felt pennants tacked here and there on the wall, all of them thickly furred with dust. The bookshelves were dusty, too, and crammed with old textbooks and chunky 8-track tapes and ancient, faded copies of National Geographic. She inspected the desktop with its assortment of trophies, half expecting to find a prom ticket and an assignment notebook hidden among them. Boxing. Baseball. Football. Hmm.

  And who, pray tell, was this waif-like brunette in the sterling silver frame? Laura ran a finger across the top of the frame, finding it to be just about the only dustless surface in the room.

  Very interesting. Very interesting. Sam, you devil, you.

  It wasn’t that she was snooping, exactly, even though she was incredibly curious about Zachary, S. U., especially after he’d decked those two thugs, Jerome and Swat, last night without even blinking or breaking a sweat. The guy had turned into Superman right before her very eyes on that rooftop. Bam! Blam! Then, just as quickly, he’d reverted to his quiet, self-effacing alter ego, Clark Kent.

  If Clark Kent had a bedroom, Laura thought now, this is exactly the way it would look.

  Well, maybe she was snooping a little, she admitted to herself, but it was just an honest by-product of trying to find something to wear. Having awakened in her bra and panties, she’d taken one look at the blue velvet dress and decided she couldn’t bear to put it on again. Not just because it was pretty bizarre out here in West Overshoes, but also because it was merchandise intended for the shop and she didn’t want to wear it out. Bad enough she’d have to pay to have it dry-cleaned now before she put it on the rack at Nana’s Attic.

  Having already rejected Sam’s mother’s clothes because of their fragrance, she was hoping to find a T-shirt and perhaps a pair of pants with a drawstring to adjust them from Sam’s size to her own.

  Then, instead of searching for something to wear, she’d been distracted by this time warped room and its ancient contents. With the exception of one or two current news magazines and paperbacks, it looked as if nothing had changed here since the seventies. Certainly nothing had been dusted in months and months. Well, except for Lois Lane over there in her shiny silver frame.

  She was going to take a much closer look at the photograph when a car door slammed in the driveway. All of a sudden Laura felt horribly furtive, like a thief in the night, or worse, like a snoopy woman poking around where it was none of her business. A half-naked snoop at that, she thought, glimpsing herself in the oval mirror above the knotty pine dresser.

  Deciding it was too late to find a top and a bottom, Laura opened the closet and yanked a blue oxford cloth shirt off a hanger. The cuffs cascaded past her fingertips and the shirttails hit her at the knees, but at least she was decently covered, she thought, as she trotted down the stairs to greet Sam.

  The key was already scritching in the lock on the back door when Laura entered the kitchen. The knob rattled to no avail, then the key scritched and scraped again. Sam, it seemed, was back in full Clark Kent mode, unable to even get in his own back door. For some silly reason, that made Laura smile.

  “Wait a minute, Sam,” she called, rolling up the too-long sleeves on her way to throw the stubborn bolt and open the door for him. “There. I hope you don’t mind the shirt. I…”

  It wasn’t Sam.

  It was a woman who looked just as astonished to see Laura as Laura was to see her. The woman blinked as she jerked the key out of the lock, and for a second her mouth moved, but no words came out. Then she stuttered, “I…I’m so sorry. I had no idea that Sam…”

  Her gaze skittered down the front of the big shirt, to Laura’s bare feet, and then back to her face. “I…I didn’t know Sam had…that he…that he was seeing someone.”

  “Seeing?”

  It took a second for the woman’s meaning to register, and when it did, Laura started to laugh, thinking she probably did look like she had just slipped out of Sam’s bed and into his shirt. “It’s really not what it looks like. Believe me. I’m just a client.”

  The woman had stopped blinking. Now she just stared, pretty suspiciously, too, in Laura’s opinion. She was wearing a sleeveless cotton dress, Laura noted, and more than an everyday application of makeup. Lipstick, eyeshadow, liner, mascara, blush. The whole nine yards. Not a single brunette hair was out of place on the woman’s head, either. Somehow she looked vaguely familiar, and then it suddenly occurred to Laura that this was none other than Lois Lane, the face in the dustless silver frame upstairs in Sam’s room.

  Uh-oh.

  “You’re Sam’s client?” Lois asked now, although it was really more of a nasty accusation than a question.

  “Yes, his client,” Laura insisted. “I hired Sam to…well…he’s sort of my bodyguard.” Not that it’s any of your business, Lois, honey, she added to herself. She might have even said it out loud except just that moment Sam’s big Chevy Blazer crunched into the driveway and rolled to a stop.

  “Oh, there’s Sam.” Lois was suddenly all smiles. “Well, good luck with your problem,” she called over her shoulder as she made a beeline for the Blazer, or more precisely for its driver.

  Great Caesar’s ghost. Laura sighed and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, while she watched Sam’s big, goofy smile as he greeted the woman. If she’d gotten the poor man in a world of trouble, she’d make it up to him somehow. Still, the way the little brunette was standing close to him, reaching out to touch his arm or his hand or his cheek, smiling up into his face, it appeared as if all had been forgiven already.

  Good, Laura thought, even as she was aware of a tiny tic of disappointment somewhere deep inside her which didn’t make any sense at all. Sam Zachary wasn’t hers to lose. Not only that, he wasn’t her type. She was a city mouse, born and bred, and not the least inclined to country bumpkins. And over and above all that, she reminded herself, she’d sworn off men completely. Who needed them? All they ever did was leave.

  She was standing at the sink, downing a tall glass of cool water, her back to the door, when he came in.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning.” Laura turned to find him giving her a slow and thorough once-over from head to toe.

  “Nice outfit,” he said.

  How she could have forgotten she was wearing his shirt, Laura didn’t know, but now she squinched herself smaller and shorter to make sure the shirttails covered everything. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said.

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t mind. It looks a lot better on you than on me.”

  For a second she swore he was blushing like some big, dopey teenager, the one who slept in the time machine upstairs, then his expression cooled.

  “Here,” he said, offering her a paper grocery bag. “I stopped in town and picked up a few things just to tide you over.”

  Laura took the bag, peeked in to see jeans, a T-shirt or two, a pair of sneakers, a hairbrush and toothbrush and some pastel underthings. Her underthings! She’d bought the matching pink lace bra and panties only three or four weeks ago. “These are mine,” she exclaimed.

  “Well…yeah.”

  “But where did you get them?”

  His mouth stayed closed, but his eyes widened and his whole f
ace seemed to say Well, duh. “At your place,” he finally said. “Where else?”

  “How did you know where I lived?” The subject hadn’t come up. Laura was certain of that. “I never told you where I lived.”

  “You didn’t?” He scratched his head, shrugged, then grinned. “I must be one hell of a detective, then. I left some frozen stuff in the car. Be right back.”

  An hour later, Laura was putting down her fork on her plate and letting out a long, satisfied sigh. “I don’t know about your detecting skills, but you’re one hell of a cook, Sam. What did you put in that omelette?”

  “Fennel.” He was sifting a second spoonful of sugar into his coffee as he spoke. “Did you like it?”

  Laura nodded even though she didn’t have a clue what fennel was. Probably something else from his locust-plagued garden. A little shiver raced down her spine at the mere thought.

  “Thanks for getting my clothes,” she said, watching in mute horror as he dipped back into the sugar bowl for a third heaping teaspoon, wondering why he didn’t weigh a thousand pounds.

  As it turned out, Sam had remembered the name of her shop—Nana’s Attic—and had gone there first thing this morning to retrieve some clothes for her. Brian, her part-time assistant, had directed Sam to the apartment upstairs.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, stirring his treacly brew.

  “Thank you, too, for not telling Brian where I am or what happened. It would just upset him.”

  “No problem. Did I tell you he said not to worry, that he could keep the place open until you came back?”

  “Yes, you did, but I don’t mind hearing it again. I need as much business as I can get since I can barely pay the rent as it is.”

  “Not much demand for secondhand clothes, huh?”

  “Vintage clothes,” she corrected him, glaring a little over the rim of her own cup of pure, unadorned, undiluted black coffee, then inquiring irritably, “If you don’t like coffee, Sam, why in the world do you drink it?”

  “You mean the sugar?” He looked guiltily at his cup. “It’s just a habit, I guess. Beats smoking.”

  “Well, it’s a bad one, nevertheless.” Laura picked up their plates and carried them to the sink. “I’ll do these,” she said. “You probably have to get back to work.”

  When he didn’t answer, she looked over her shoulder. “You do have to get back to work, don’t you?”

  He shook his head. “I am working,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  Laura felt another inexplicable little stitch of disappointment inside her. Of course, he was working. He was working for her. She knew that. This wasn’t a date, for heaven’s sake, or even two pals getting together over brunch. Theirs was a purely professional relationship.

  She turned the water on to rinse the plates, raised her voice over its noise. “I met your lady friend. She seems nice.”

  “My what?” He was standing so close behind her that Laura jumped.

  “Your lady friend. The woman who was here when you got home.”

  Sam was reaching around her, running a coffee cup under the hot stream of water. “Janey?” He chuckled. “She’s not my lady friend. What made you think that?”

  “I don’t know. She seemed…well…possessive of you, not all that thrilled to see me here.” Pretty ticked, actually, although Laura didn’t add that.

  “Well, we’ve known each other a long time. For ever. I guess maybe Janey does tend to be a little possessive. I was engaged to her older sister, Jenny.”

  “Was?”

  He dumped the sugary dregs of his coffee into the sink. “She died,” he said.

  “Oh, Sam.” Laura whirled around and found herself practically in his embrace. “How awful for you. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He didn’t step back when she turned, but stood there, slightly off balance, one hand still reaching into the sink, the other now coming forward to brace himself on the edge of the counter.

  If there was even an inch between them, Laura couldn’t tell because the space seemed to be filled with tangible heat. Sam’s warm brown eyes flickered with desire while an odd smile—part wistful, part wanting—cut across his lips. It made Laura’s heart free-fall to the pit of her stomach.

  Then suddenly he shifted his weight, stepping back, removing his arms from that almost-but-not-quite embrace. “It’s okay,” he said again. “It happened a long time ago.”

  “Even so…”

  “Thanks for doing the dishes,” he said, cutting her off not only with words but with a resumption of a neutral expression. It was as if he’d donned a mask. “I’ve got some work to do in my office downstairs. It shouldn’t take too long. Just make yourself comfortable, okay?”

  “Sure. Okay.”

  He walked to a door just off of the kitchen, but to Laura, Sam Zachary looked like a man who would have broken into an open-field run if only he had had the distance.

  It had been a long time since Sam had felt the stirrings of desire. In the two years since Jenny’s death, he really hadn’t even looked at a woman until Miss Laura McNeal came through his office door, planted herself in the chair across from his, and then somehow—probably through his own damned misguided gallantry—planted herself in his life. Like a weed, he thought. A ditzy little dandelion. No. Worse. Like pernicious Velvet Leaf.

  This morning he had stood in the bedroom of her apartment, gazing at the jumble of sky blue sheets and blue-and-yellow patchwork quilts on her unmade bed, feeling more than a little like a Peeping Tom, fighting the urge to press a rumpled pillowcase to his nose in search of Laura’s fragrance.

  When he’d opened a bureau drawer in search of clothes, his fingers had drifted longer than they should have through the tumbled silks and laces. Just now, upstairs in the kitchen, when she’d turned and they’d stood so close…

  He didn’t need this. He’d almost kissed her. He must be nuts.

  Sam wrenched off his polo shirt and jeans, then stabbed his legs and arms into his worn gray sweats. He lowered himself onto the seat of his rowing machine, intent on working out ferociously until his mind was a total blank and his body gave up desire in favor of pain.

  He was rowing across the Atlantic.

  He’d begun the punishing trip a week after Jenny’s funeral and one day after he’d resigned his job as county sheriff. It was either that or choosing between the slow death of bourbon versus the quick oblivion of his service revolver.

  So Sam rowed.

  In his imagination, he began his journey at the southern tip of Staten Island, hugging the fortieth parallel, his back to the east, his destination a deserted beach in Portugal that was, by his calculations, three thousand eight hundred seventy-two miles away. In two years and two months, at a steady pace of four miles an hour, across an ocean smooth as glass, he ought to have been only seven hundred miles shy of that Portugese beach today.

  But there was always weather, which depended on his mood, and since his moods were stormy more often than not, full of squalls and sou’ westers and occasional raging tempests, as of today he had traveled exactly fifteen hundred eighty-one miles, putting him dead in the middle of the North Atlantic.

  Right now it was blowing up a storm. Hurricane Laura.

  Sam used every muscle in his body, every ounce of strength he had to pull against the hard currents and high waves and punishing winds. An hour later, his gray sweats were dark and heavy with perspiration, and rather than four miles ahead, he marked his course at eight miles back at fifteen hundred seventy-three.

  Laura was dusting in the living room when he came upstairs to take a shower. Where she’d found the red-feathered duster was a mystery to Sam. Why she was humming so cheerfully was even more of a mystery. A woman on the run from a lover who’d punched her in the eye and threatened further vio lence shouldn’t be so damned chipper. But at least she wasn’t wearing that skimpy blue outfit anymore, he thought at the same instant that he noticed the snug fit of the seat of her jeans and the firm cur
ves outlined by her T-shirt.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said from the foot of the stairs.

  “I know,” she called back, standing on tiptoe and stretching to reach the curtain tops. “I just wanted to keep busy.”

  That was what he should do, Sam decided. Keep busy. Start thinking with his brain instead of the area considerably south of his head. It had been a mistake, bringing Laura here for safekeeping, but he’d just have to deal with it until he could come up with a better plan.

  He started up the stairs, but stopped when Laura called out, “The phone rang while you were in the basement, Sam. I didn’t think you heard it, so I answered, but whoever was on the other end of the line hung up without saying anything.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” he said. “I’ve got Caller ID on the extension upstairs. I’ll check it out.”

  Sam took a last glance over his shoulder at the woman happily flitting red feathers across all the junk in his living room, then trotted up the stairs. There was only one call registered on the ID screen, and he recognized it immediately. Janey Sayles. He sighed out loud.

  He’d known Jenny’s younger sister almost all of his life. Janey might as well have been his own sister. He’d tried hard to be there for her, to be a dependable big brother, even before Jenny’s accident. Years ago, when Janey asked him to take her to her junior and senior proms, he’d been happy to oblige. He’d attended her high school graduation, helped her move into her dorm at college, helped her move out when she was homesick three weeks later.

  When Janey came to visit Jenny in California, it had been Sam who’d played escort at Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. In Paris, too, when she’d come to visit Jenny there. In fact, the only request of Janey’s he’d ever refused was to be her Lamaze coach three years ago when she gave birth to her out-of-wedlock child.

  “Why doesn’t she ask you?” he’d asked Jenny, who’d laughed and replied, “Because she’s not in love with me, silly.”

  Sam hadn’t believed it then, and he didn’t believe it now. Janey Sayles was just lonely, even more so after Jenny’s death. Hell, he was lonely. He punched her numbers into the phone, and after a long series of rings, he heard her muted hello.