McDonald_MM_GEN_Dec2013

by Donna McDonald

  Eve laughed and felt great relief as she watched the older woman walk quickly away. Why had Sam told Angeline’s parents so much about her? To distract herself from thinking too long and too hard about it, she turned and surveyed the room. Her gaze landed on an antique buffet lined with at least thirty framed photos.

  Walking over, she looked at each one, recognizing a beautiful young woman and a young Sam gradually aging with every new picture she saw. There were also some of Nathan looking very much like a younger Sam. She picked up a particularly beautiful picture showing an obviously proud man with his arms around his wife and his son.

  Despite her growing romantic interest in Sam herself, she was not a bit jealous of his past. David had been like that with her and the kids. Neither she nor Sam had arrived where they were in their lives without their fair share of previous love and heartache. The only unknown was what they intended to do with what was unfolding between them.

  “I think in that picture they were in their late twenties. Nathan was about three or four,” Joyce said.

  Eve turned her best smile towards Joyce. “They look incredibly happy together.”

  “I believe they were,” Joyce said softly, coming over to peer at the photo. “Sam was the only man that ever made Angeline that happy. I was glad she married him and more glad of it when I saw how loyal he was when she got too sick to be a wife to him. He was loving, supportive, and steadfast beyond what I think most men would have been. It’s probably why I want to see him with someone as good and wonderful as he is. Life is too short to not live it fully.”

  Eve set the photo back down. “Sam said that to me yesterday. I didn’t know he was quoting you.”

  “He wasn’t,” Joyce said. “I was quoting him just now.”

  Eve laughed again, unsure what else to do. Looking back at the photo, she almost squealed when Joyce touched her arm.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Joyce asked in a whisper.

  Nodding, Eve swallowed hard, almost afraid to hear.

  “I think Sam has a big crush on you. Other than Angeline, you’re the only woman I’ve ever heard him talk about. He always smiles when he says your name,” Joyce said.

  They stepped apart when they heard male voices and booted footsteps in the kitchen.

  “Everything’s ready. Let’s set the table and have ourselves a feast,” Joyce said, patting her arm before heading off to the kitchen once more.

  Eve set the photo back on the buffet before Sam and Greg came and caught her sighing over it.

  Chapter 7

  Eve smiled as she turned from watching what was going on outside the car window. The man beside her was no enigma. On the contrary, his face was very familiar to her. She had seen that face with shaving nicks, with a beard, and scraped as clean as a twenty-five year old’s. Even though Sam still looked a bit like the young man in his mother-in-law’s photos, the older version was still easily one of the most handsome, masculine men she had ever known.

  She shook her head to clear it of such strange thoughts. Maybe it was the intimacy of the car making her suddenly notice every little thing about Sam. For example, today he smelled like the woodsy cologne he had been using lately. It was something new, something he’d only been wearing for a couple of months. Before that, he’d smelled like the ocean. She’d like the ocean smell on him too, even though she’d never mentioned it. Commenting on how he smelled had always seemed too personal to her.

  Now that she saw things differently, she realized that Sam had been quietly changing for some time. She had noticed the many little differences in his behaviors and choices, but had chosen not to comment on any of them, just like she’d said nothing about his new cologne.

  Not commenting on personal things or asking meaningful questions had been a long-time comfortable pattern between them. They got to have each other’s company without taking any risks of getting closer. But the physical intimacy they seemed to be heading for would definitely require a deeper personal connection. Or at least it would for her. Eve figured the man beside must fundamentally work like that too, given how many personal things he’d been sharing with her over the last couple of days.

  “You’re being awfully quiet. Did Joyce talk your ear off?” Sam asked.

  “No. It’s because I make my living talking. Sometimes I like a good, comfortable quiet,” she said.

  Sam grinned in the fading daylight. It was barely seven thirty and yet dark as midnight outside the car. In her red dress and red coat, Eve and her brightly colored blonde hair lit up the car’s interior every time the street lights illuminated her. “You look like Christmas is supposed to look.”

  Eve glanced sideways and laughed. “It’s fascinating how your mind works. I don’t know why I never noticed before. You broke our comfortable silence with a compliment meant to make me swoon in delight. Who knew you were a closet romantic?”

  Sam grinned. “I love the way you talk. Swoon in delight. No one says stuff like that anymore, but you do. And you do it over the air during your show.”

  Sighing, Eve shook her head. “You’re just as poetic with those compliments you toss out randomly. I bet you kept your wife on her toes trying to earn more of them.”

  “Not really,” Sam said. “Angeline always thought I was being silly, even when I was being serious. My romantic side was a bit much for her. Was David romantic?”

  “No. Not at all. David would buy me a new bathrobe for Christmas—every Christmas. He did that for most of our married life together. And the bathrobe was not a sexy one. No sir. It was a good, sturdy bathrobe that was fluffy and warm all winter. By the following Christmas, the old one hit the giveaway bag when he would insist I start using the new one. Only the color changed from year to year. When he bought me sapphire earrings for our twentieth anniversary, I was speechless for a good ten minutes,” Eve said, the memory hitting her as hard as it always did. “And then I got mushy and cried every time I looked at them afterward. David never bought me another bathrobe after that. I loved him more for figuring it out.”

  Sam laughed. “I loved my wife too, even if she wasn’t very romantic. Angeline was enthusiastic and saw good in everything. It’s nice to live with someone like that.”

  “I could tell you loved her from all the pictures,” Eve said. “Nathan tells Megan he wants to be just like you and love her the way you loved his mother. From what I can tell, he’s made a damn good start. I’m definitely going to like having your son in my family, Sam.”

  “I think I’m starting to understand what Angeline meant by the compliments making her feel more uncomfortable than charmed,” Sam said.

  Eve giggled at his embarrassed reaction to her praise. “How can you be man enough to dish out compliments, but a wimp about taking them? Face it buster, the women in your life think you’re wonderful. It’s no wonder you’re arrogant. It’s probably a natural by-product of all that success you innately have with anyone oozing estrogen.”

  “Is any of my success working with you?” Sam asked.

  “Not really. My estrogen level is waning these days,” Eve said. “But I have enough to know quality testosterone when it walks under my mistletoe. At my age, you have to rely on your brain as much as your body to know such things. However, I’m willing to let you kiss me again just to see if you’re still able to get my motor running like you’ve been doing. According to Hilde, that’s the kind of man I need in my life.”

  Sam shook his head. “Are you ever going to give me a straight answer to any question I ask about your interest in me?”

  “Depends on the question,” Eve said.

  Sam grinned in the darkness between them. She could see his pleased smirk when the street lamps lit the car.

  “Your confusion is your own fault, Sam. If you would have let me get drunk enough last night, I’d have let you give me one of those dozen orgasms you bragged about being capable of and we’d already be lovers. I think my mood has shifted since I’ve had dinner with your dead wife’s parents. This
entire day has been spent feeling guilty about lusting for you.”

  “You’re lusting for me?” Sam demanded, splitting his attention between her and the road.

  Eve laughed. “No. I’m just thinking about your kiss every three seconds and walking around in wet underwear for the first time in three years. That may or may not be lust. It could be something else—like temporary insanity. Or desperation. I hear that often happens to women my age.”

  Sam swerved across the line and an oncoming car blew it’s horn at him. “Let’s go back to that comfortable silence you like so much until we get home—to my house. Is that okay?”

  “Sure,” Eve said, shrugging with a smile on her face as she looked out of the window again.

  It wasn’t long before Sam’s hand reached over the console and captured one of hers. His tight grip on her fingers made her smile.

  After Sam parked in the garage, Eve climbed out and waited for him to open the door into the house. What she found inside was yet another surprise to her. “Wow, this place sure looks different. I guess I haven’t been here in a while.”

  She took off her coat and laid it across a chair, as Sam looked around too.

  “About six months ago, I decided I needed it to be different. Mostly the makeover is just paint and new furniture. The only part of the house that still looks the same is the kitchen and Nathan’s room. I did buy a new desk for my office. I got in the habit of working from home when Angeline got sick. Now I do it because I like it, so I wanted to be more comfortable in the space.”

  “I haven’t changed anything in the house,” Eve said, feeling now as if it was something important that she’d forgotten to do. “Most of the time I find the familiarity of it all to be soothing to me.”

  Sam tossed his keys on the wraparound counter and hung his coat on the back of one of the high-back counter stools. “Nathan and Megan helped me do this. I think they did a good job. Don’t you?”

  That had her attention shifting. “Megan helped? That may just be the first secret she’s ever kept from me in her life. I think I’m actually proud of her for not saying anything.”

  Sam smiled at her teasing. “Can I offer you a glass of wine? I have two kinds of red. One is the kind you like best.”

  Charmed, Eve nodded. “Why do you have the kind of wine I like?”

  Sam didn’t answer at first. He opened the bottle, attached an aerator, and poured out a glass for each of them. He walked around the counter to hand her one.

  “I have your preferred wine in my house because it allowed me to dream of moments like this one. Plus, I don’t do much booze even though I drink wine pretty regularly. I guess I believe all that stuff about red wine being healthy.”

  “Me too. Well thank you then—for having the wine I like—and everything else,” Eve said, taking a sip. “I had a good day, Sam. Joyce and Greg are terrific. They adore you.”

  “The feeling is mutual. I have exceptional in-laws,” Sam said.

  “Indeed, you do. Most are like mine. My in-laws tolerated me, but they didn’t approve of my relationship to their son,” Eve said, taking the wine glass he offered. “Care to show me your gas fireplace? I’m glad you got Greg and Joyce’s furnace going. Their house was definitely chilly for several hours today and I hadn’t necessarily dressed for warmth. I’m thinking any fire that takes the chill off me tonight is a good one.”

  “Would that even be true of the fire I’m intending to build in you?” Sam asked.

  Eve smiled and took the hand Sam held out to her, feeling something inside her shifting into acceptance. “Yes. Even that one,” she said.

  ***

  They were sitting on pillows on the floor much like they had sat on the rug at Eve’s house the evening before. With a fire in front of them and his Christmas tree twinkling behind them, Sam thought the day probably couldn’t get much better for him, but he was going to go for it anyway.

  Reaching behind the chair he leaned against, he pulled two Santa hats into his lap. The largest one he put on his head, squashing it over his wildly curling hair that needed a haircut he’d forgotten to get. The other hat he handed to Eve.

  “Mood enhancer,” he said.

  Eve sputtered trying not to laugh. Sam looked like a wicked Santa with that mischievous glint in his eyes. She set what was left of her wine on a nearby table and then took the other hat still dangling from his long fingers. “What mood are you wanting to enhance? I’m not sure we know each other well enough for you to be enacting my naked guy fantasy yet.”

  “Don’t be a skeptic. Just put the hat on,” he ordered.

  To be a good sport, she complied. She flopped the white fuzzy ball to the side of her head, snickering when it bounced off her ear. Sam nodded when she was done and reached behind him again to pull out a gold foil box. He handed that to her as well.

  “When in the world did you have time to buy me a present?” she demanded.

  “It’s nothing major. I bought this when I bought the rose and the decorations for your sound booth at work,” he said.

  Eve smiled. “The decorations were amazing. Tell me the truth. You’re really an elf, aren’t you?”

  “If you mean elf as in a tiny guy with small extremities, then no—I’m definitely not an elf,” Sam said.

  Eve chuckled. “More bragging?”

  “Not even,” Sam said.

  “How can I open this present? I feel completely guilty. I didn’t get you anything,” Eve protested.

  “You slept with me last night, which was very nice by the way. Then you spent Christmas day with me, at my in-law’s house no less. Those acts are more significant to me than anything you could have bought in a store.”

  “You’ve got to stop saying things that make my heart flutter in my chest. What am I going to do with you and your constant compliments?” Eve demanded.

  Sam laughed at her consternation. “Are you taking suggestions?”

  Eve flushed at the wickedness lighting his eyes and couldn’t help wondering what Sam might actually have the nerve to ask of her. “On second thought, I’m not sure I’m ready to take suggestions yet.”

  “Fine. Then open the gift I got you instead,” he ordered.

  Sighing in resignation, Eve undid the store wrapping and carefully lifted the lid. Inside was a necklace with a gold mistletoe charm dangling from a beautiful chain. She looked at Sam and suddenly knew why he’d bought it for her. “Is this a keepsake? A test? Or a combination of both?”

  “You have always been both beautiful and smart,” Sam said. “What it means depends on you. If things work out like I hope, next Christmas you’ll be saying that we got together because of a kiss under the mistletoe. You can wear the necklace when you want to remember that.”

  “And if we crash and burn instead?” Eve asked.

  Sam shrugged. “You’ll give it away to a friend, or to Megan, I suppose. But I’m going to try like hell not to let that happen. I’m willing to take a chance and see if it will work. Are you?”

  Eve held the gold necklace up and watched it sparkle in the firelight. “You’re not a bathrobe buying kind of guy at all, are you?”

  “I’ve been known to buy some lingerie now and again. Maybe I just have a different idea about how to keep a woman warm during winter,” Sam said, leaning over and kissing her cheek. When Eve laughed nervously, he reluctantly pulled back. “Was that funny? I was going for sexy. I must be more out of practice than I thought.”

  “Not at all. It’s just that I feel like we’ve speed dated a year’s worth in a couple days this week. You’re moving awfully fast for me, even though I admit you have successfully woke up all my girly parts out of hibernation,” Eve said.

  “Tell me the truth, Eve. Am I really moving too fast?” Sam asked, his voice a husky whisper.

  Eve sucked in a deep breath as she tried to explain. “I don’t know. I am so confused right now that I couldn’t even begin to answer that question. Or any question about how I feel about the changes between u
s.”

  Sam sighed and leaned away. “So I am rushing you. You can tell me so, Eve. I’m a big boy.”

  Eve sighed back. “You’re a big boy who obviously pouts when his romantic gestures aren’t instantly returned. Get that defeated look off your face right now, Sam. I said I was confused. I didn’t say I wasn’t turned on. You already know that I am.”

  She put the necklace carefully back in the box. Then she crawled over the short distance between them into his lap, not surprised when Sam accepted her action and pulled her closer.

  Putting her arms around his surprisingly firm shoulders for someone who did desk work for a living, Eve hugged him close. All the warmth of sleeping in Sam’s arms last night came back, along with memories of Joyce informing her that Sam had a crush on her.

  Eventually, she pulled away and looked into his face. “How long are you willing to wait for me to figure out how I feel about this change of situation between us?”

  Sam slowly let out the breath he’d been holding. “I’d like to say for as long as it takes, but loneliness is gnawing a hole in my gut. I’ve been desperate to fill that space for a while now. I’ve been celibate for almost as long as you have, Eve. If you’re not interested, I’ll probably have to go look for someone who is, even if she isn’t you. It’s not what I want though.”

  Her hands tightened on him. The idea of Sam finding someone he wanted other than her didn’t sit well. “No matter how confused I feel, I don’t think I can let you do that now that I’ve kissed you. Last night was . . . I guess last night got me thinking about how nice it would be if . . .this is hard as hell to say, Sam. Baring my body is lot easier than baring my soul to you.”

  Groaning, he leaned forward and buried his face in her neck as he swept hands up and down her back. She felt wonderful and smelled amazing. This was the woman he wanted, if she would have him. “I want to promise you anything it takes to keep you in my lap as well as my life, but in the long run, I can’t do any of that. All I can say is that I’ve waited for this chance with you. I will always be glad I told you about my feelings, no matter what you ultimately decide.”