Stranger

by Megan Hart

Strangers. My heart, dammit, skipped in my chest and my throat, dammit, dried up faster than beef jerky in a dehydrator. I kept my expression as neutral as I could, but my face must still have given something away, because Sam’s gaze flared with interest.

  “Are we?” His voice, husky and low, tempted me.

  A lot.

  I nodded. “Yes. We are.”

  Sam stood, all gazillion feet of him. I should’ve felt intimidated with him looming over me, but I only felt…intimate.

  “You need to leave, Sam. Now.”

  He reached to touch one fingertip to my fleece-covered shoulder. The contact was instant, electric, burning. He traced my arm all the way to my elbow and made a right turn to continue until he’d ended at my wrist, where he could go no farther with my hand tucked beneath my opposite arm. Sam’s blue eyes caught mine and held them tight.

  “Don’t you think it means something?” he whispered. “You being here?”

  “I don’t believe in ‘something,’” I said.

  “Too bad.”

  I gave as pointed a glance as I could toward the door. Inside, I shook and quaked. Inside, I got on my knees and took him down my throat and fucked him until we both came ten times.

  Inside. But outside I managed to unhook my hand from beneath my arm and point with a semi-steady finger.

  “Go downstairs and sit with your father. Or leave. Go home.”

  “Can’t. I’m not close to home. I’ve been staying in a hotel for the past month, waiting for the old man to die. But…you already know that, don’t you?”

  I blushed fiercely at the memory of that hotel and what we’d done there. “Go!”

  “Do you treat all your customers so coldly?” He touched the back of his head, then the corner of his mouth. “Or am I just the lucky one?”

  “I don’t ever invite my clients to my personal apartment,” I told him through taut jaws.

  Sam nodded. He hadn’t moved away and the heat from his body was making me sweat inside my heavy sweatshirt. His eyes never left mine, and I didn’t look away from his, either.

  “So I’m not just lucky. I’m special, too.”

  My mouth tried so hard to stay stern, but I lost against the smile. “You have a funeral to go to in the morning. You’re supposed to be sitting with your father. This is a difficult and entirely emotional time in your life—”

  Sam kissed me again. Soft, light, the barest brush of his lips on mine. And like a schoolgirl in one of my role-playing fantasies, I closed my eyes when he did it. It couldn’t have lasted more than a second, but like his legs, that kiss went on forever.

  “What were you saying?”

  This was not a fantasy, and this was not the time nor the place for this. Eyes still closed, I licked my lips and tasted him. “You need to go.”

  “Say it.”

  I knew what he meant, and I smiled without opening my eyes. “You need to go…Sam.”

  His sigh drifted over my skin and I waited for another kiss, but all I got was a chill when his heat pulled away. I opened my eyes and saw him in my doorway. His head nearly reached the top.

  “See?” he said, just before ducking out. “We’re not strangers, after all.”

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter 06

  When I was a kid, Christmas morning always took too long to arrive. I’d wake in darkness and strain my ears for the hint of reindeer on the roof, or the thud of Santa’s boots hitting the floor as he slid down our chimney. I’d creep to my sister’s bed and shake her, though she was nearly always awake, too, and we’d whisper together to urge the sun to rise faster, faster! It never did then, and it didn’t now, either.

  I didn’t know if or how Sam had managed to sleep during his vigil over his father. I knew he wasn’t supposed to, but then he hadn’t been supposed to play the guitar or leave the room, either. Whatever he did was in silence, though, for I didn’t hear even a single note for the rest of the night.

  With three full floors between us, I still felt Sam’s presence beside me in my suddenly too-empty bed. I knew just how he’d feel stretched out beside me, his head on one end, feet at the other. How his body would bump the blankets and ooze warmth all around me.

  It was a very long night.

  By the time I could finally convince myself it was all right to get up, I’d dozed off. Prying my eyelids open I stumbled to a steamy shower, then dressed in my favorite black suit, the one fitted at the hips to give me a silhouette. I paired the outfit with a silky white blouse with wide lapels that layered over the suit’s jacket. The suit was professional but also pretty and feminine. I was dressing to represent my business, but I was also dressing for Sam, and I wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.

  I met the Stewart family first thing Monday morning. Though I’d met Dan previously, this was the first time I’d met his mother. He ushered her into my office and seated her in the middle chair, while he took the one to her right.

  “My brother’s not coming,” he said, revealing a lot more with his expression than with his actual words.

  My heart sank.

  “He’ll be here.” Mrs. Stewart clutched a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes occasionally with it but didn’t sob.

  Dan didn’t sob, either, though his eyes had the red-rimmed look of a man who’s been fighting tears for hours and barely winning. His face had grown a hint of beard and his sandy hair looked rumpled, but he wore the same sort of natty suit he’d worn at our first meeting. He pulled the folder I’d given him from his black leather briefcase, but didn’t open it.

  “Sam’s not going to be here, Ma.”

  Mrs. Stewart shook her head and answered in a quivery voice, “He will. Of course he will.”

  Dan slid a look to me, then shook his head. “I told him not to come.”

  Most families have hot spots that can usually be ignored, but even those who manage to keep everything shiny most of the time can stir up drama when faced with the pressure of dealing with a death. I’d seen just about everything from stuttered accusations to a fistfight over an open coffin.

  There was a moment of awkward silence while Mrs. Stewart turned in her seat to stare at her son. “Why would you do that?”

  Dan scrubbed his face with his hand, but then looked at her. “We don’t need to talk about this now.”

  “Fine.” She faced forward, hands clutched tight in her lap, and now her lower lip trembled with the threat of tears. “Fine, Daniel, fine. You’ve decided it all, haven’t you?”

  Dan shot me an apologetic look, and I gave him what I hoped was an appropriately sympathetic look of my own. “Yeah. Ma, whatever. Let’s do this.”

  I waited a beat to see if she’d reply, but she only sniffed and refused to look at him. I held out my hand for the navy blue folder he still held. He passed it to me. Since we’d already preplanned the arrangements and talked with the rabbi who’d perform the service, there wasn’t much to talk about. In keeping with Jewish tradition, the service would be held as soon as possible, later this morning.

  Mrs. Stewart made a strangled noise, and I looked up. She dabbed her eyes again. “So much to think about! So much to do!”

  Dan looked as if he might reach for her shoulder, but drew back his hand at the last second. “Ma, that’s why I arranged all this ahead of time. There’s nothing to worry about. Dad’s going to be taken care of.” He looked at me. “Right?”

  “Absolutely, Mrs. Stewart.” With Jewish funerals I really didn’t have to do much other than provide the place for the body to rest until burial and get the deceased to the cemetery. “I’ll be happy to help you take care of everything.”

  Mrs. Stewart sighed and gave me a shaky smile and looked at Dan. “I’m sure you will. I just wish your brother was here.”

  “He’ll come to the service.” Dan’s face was stony. “At least, he said he would. He doesn’t have to be here now.”

  “But maybe he’d have some ideas—”

  “Ma,” interrupted Dan in a tone that said
he’d gone over all of this before. “Everything is under control. What would he do, anyway? Play guitar?”

  Another moment of heavy silence surrounded us. Dan looked back at me, but Mrs. Stewart looked at her hands twisted in her lap. “My brother,” Dan said, “isn’t very responsible.”

  Mrs. Stewart let out another long, shuddering hiss into her hankie. This time when Dan reached to pat her shoulder, he actually did instead of pulling away. Then he leaned across the desk to shake my hand.

  “Thanks, Ms. Frawley.”

  Again, his politeness touched me. “You’re welcome.”

  “We’ll be back in a couple hours for the service,” Dan said. “C’mon, Ma. Let’s go rest until it’s time.”

  I walked them to the door of my office. A woman with long dark hair held back from her face by a wide black band looked up from her seat in the hall. She stood, clutching a handful of tissues.

  She could have been a sister or a cousin, or just a family friend, but the way Dan’s eyes lit when he saw her told me there was nothing else she could be but his.

  “Elle,” he said. “Hi.”

  “Hi, honey. Hi, Dotty.” Elle gave a small, half smile when Dotty Stewart embraced her.

  “My wife,” Dan said to me.

  She reached for his hand, and he took it. That gesture seemed more intimate than a kiss.

  The three of them left.

  Sam hadn’t shown, just as his brother had said he wouldn’t.

  My office window had a good view of the parking lot. Dan Stewart and his wife stood next to a dark gray Volvo. He leaned into her, his face pressed into her shoulder and his arms around her waist. She stroked her hand down his back while the other cupped the back of his neck.

  It felt prurient to watch them, but I couldn’t look away. Her hand moved down his back in a pattern of three. Three strokes, pause. Three more, pause. I felt soothed, watching, and I wasn’t even upset.

  I didn’t expect to feel the prick of envy. The way his face had looked when he’d seen her…I’d never deny wishing sometimes someone looked that way at me. But what if it were her dressed in white and laid in that pine box? How much greater would be his grief if he were faced with the loss of the woman he so clearly adored?

  His shoulders heaved a little, and she stroked his back again. I could see her murmuring into his ear. He nodded. She squeezed him, and he pulled back a little. They kissed, there in the parking lot, and at last I turned away.

  I’d already had a service planned for later that afternoon, but the Stewarts’ religious requirements meant they needed to bury Mr. Stewart as soon as possible. I got started on setting up the chapel. The rabbi was bringing the small booklets containing the Hebrew prayers, since I didn’t keep them in stock, and compared to some of the other services we had, this one was going to be swift and sparse.

  I’d never fumbled so much in arranging the chapel for a service. I dropped the guest register, its crisp white pages bending, and had to get a new one. I scattered pamphlets left over from a recent service all over the floor and had to scramble to scoop them up. Everything took twice as long as it should have, my speed and dexterity thoroughly constipated by my new habit of looking over my shoulder every other minute.

  At last I stood and took a deep breath. Sam would be here with his family to honor the passing of his father. Nothing more. Thinking of anything else was ridiculous on my part. In fact, it would be best if I weren’t there at all. He didn’t need such a distraction, and I didn’t need to be at the service. Shelly and Jared could take care of the mourners as they arrived, and the rabbi, who’d just come in to hang up his coat, would handle everything else.

  I didn’t really need to be there, but there I stood in my pretty suit, feeling like a fool as one by one the family and friends of Morty Stewart entered the chapel and took their places in the comfortable seats I’d had re-covered in soothing shades of green and mauve. One by one, and none of them Sam.

  I shouldn’t have had time to think about it. Not with getting the cars aligned and fitted with the appropriate purple “funeral” flags. Not with packing up the leftover booklets for the rabbi and making sure all the mourners knew where to go. Not with doing my job.

  I rode in the front of the hearse as Jared drove. He had a habit of humming under his breath and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. I usually didn’t mind, but today I finally had to reach over and stop the incessant motion of his fingers. He glanced at me.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “Sure. Fine. Don’t forget to turn left up there.”

  Jared hadn’t made many trips to the Jewish cemetery, but he was very good at his job. He didn’t need me to give him directions. Jared, mild-mannered as he was, didn’t comment on my touchiness again and turned left at my gesture.

  At the graveside, those who’d come to pay their last respects gathered around the hole in the earth. Men had labored for days in the past to dig graves; now it was done in half an hour with a backhoe. I didn’t need to be close to the grave or part of the service, here, either, and I held back from the crowd, listening to the rabbi as he recited Psalm 91 and led the way to the grave.

  “It’s not fair to bury someone on a day as perfect as this.”

  I heard the woman say it as she passed, clutching the arm of an older man, who nodded in agreement. I was glad she hadn’t said it to me. I’d been to a lot of funerals, and they were always better on the days of perfect weather. Rain, gloom and snow only made everything more miserable.

  Many of the headstones had pebbles placed on top of them. I studied the names carved into the stone as I waited for the service to end so I could herd everyone back into their cars and help them on their way. Many of them would be heading back to Mrs. Stewart’s house to sit shiva, the seven-day mourning period, and I had directions and an explanation for the funeral attendees in my neat navy blue folder.

  A figure in black eased itself into my peripheral vision, but didn’t join the rest of the people gathered around the grave. A man. He spoke along with the rabbi. I didn’t know what the words meant— “Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei rabbah,” but I recognized the murmur of “amen.”

  I turned. It was Sam. He wore a white shirt open at the throat and unfettered by a tie, and his black suit lacked a formal cut, but he’d shaved and slicked his hair back from his forehead.

  The diamond in his ear winked in the sunshine. He stared straight ahead, mouth moving along with the prayers.

  I didn’t speak. He didn’t look at me. The service ended and I attended to the business of making sure everyone knew where they were meant to go.

  The argument started as the mourners began filing into their cars. I’d collected all the funeral flags and passed out instructions regarding what was meant to happen after the funeral and was about to close the door of the Stewarts’ car when Dan boiled out of the driver’s seat.

  He, unlike his brother, hadn’t shaved, and his hair was rumpled. His suit jacket bore a ragged tear on the left breast pocket, part of traditional Jewish mourning custom for a parent. He was followed almost at once by his wife, whose hand he shrugged off.

  “Danny, calm down,” Sam said from behind me. “I already told Ma I’m taking my car. I’ll meet you back at the house.”

  Caught in the middle, I took two hasty steps back. Dan didn’t look at me, but Sam did. So did Dan’s wife. She reached for Dan again, this time snagging his sleeve and holding him from moving forward.

  “Why bother, man?” Dan swiped a hand through his hair, then flung it out in a gesture of disgust. “Why even bother?”

  Sam’s lean features settled into icy distance. “Because Ma wants me to.”

  “Since when do you do what anyone wants you to do?”

  Sam looked at his brother without flinching. “Apparently, since Dad died.”

  “Dan,” Elle murmured. “C’mon. He’ll meet us back at the house. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” Dan said through gritted teeth, bu
t with another glare at his brother he ducked back into the driver’s seat of his car.

  Elle looked at Sam with an expression I couldn’t interpret, and Sam looked back as blankly. Then she got in the car and shut the door, and they pulled away.

  Nobody likes to linger in a cemetery. Everyone had gone, and I needed to leave, too. I had other services to oversee. I was already going to be cutting it close. Jared waved at me from his seat behind the wheel and I gave him a nod, but I didn’t head for the hearse just yet.

  “You’d better get going.” Sam jerked his chin toward Jared. “He’s waiting.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  The distance between us wasn’t vast. Might even have been considered close by someone who didn’t know we’d once spent a couple hours fucking each other to oblivion. I couldn’t forget that, once, I’d been close enough to count his eyelashes.

  “My brother’s going to kick my ass,” Sam said conversationally.

  “I’m sorry. The death of a loved one’s always difficult—”

  Sam shook his head, and the slicked-back hair feathered forward over his forehead. “That would be a nice excuse, but it’s not really about my dad dying.”

  “So…what are you going to do?”

  He smiled. “Apparently, I’m going to get my ass kicked.”

  “Good luck with that,” I told him, and backed up a step.

  “Hey.” He took one forward. “Grace, about last night—”

  I held up a hand. “Like I said. The death of a loved one is always difficult. People do crazy things. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not worried. Well. I’m a little worried, but not because I kissed you.” Sam made as though to reach for me, but caught only empty air. It was enough to stop me, though. “Just worried I might not get another chance.”

  I turned my back then, despite the leap of my heart. Because of it, in fact. “My condolences on the loss of your father, Sam. You’d better get going, and I’m going to be late.”

  “Grace!”

  I didn’t turn, just kept walking toward Jared and the hearse. I could see Jared inside, bopping his fingers on the wheel again, mouthing along to some song. He must have turned on the radio. Without a body in the back, we often cranked up the tunes.