Say It Again Sam Read online

  “You could’ve killed somebody, asshole,” he shouted, striding toward the red car, slapping its rear fender before he reached the driver’s door.

  “I know, Oh, God.”

  The female voice floated through the open window. Well, it wasn’t Joe Dolan unless he’d had a sex change operation. Sam’s anger ratcheted down a notch. Maybe he was a sexist pig, but he didn’t treat women the way he treated men. Never had. Never would. Not in this life.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Just a little shaky,” she said. “That was really stupid of me. I’m sorry.”

  As she spoke, she took one hand off the wheel and reached up to pull the baseball cap from her head. Blond curls—a torrent of them—cascaded onto her shoulders. And then she turned and blinked up at him with those perfect-day-in-June blue eyes.

  Jesus. He couldn’t breathe.

  “Sam?”

  “Hello, Beth.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A few minutes later, Beth Simon was fairly certain she was having an out-of-body experience. What else could it be? Although her actual body was leaning casually against the hood of the car with her arms crossed and her lips moving and making small talk with Sam, her consciousness seemed to be hovering somewhere overhead, gazing down in amazement while offering snide remarks about the little drama unfolding below.

  Beth hadn’t seen Sam Mendenhall in over sixteen years, not since the rat bastard had dumped her and married somebody else. She hadn’t wanted to see him again—ever—and yet here she was smiling and chitchatting and sounding oh-so-sweet and sincere.

  It’s so good to see you.

  When Beth uttered those words, the evil twin above her made a strangled noise.

  So, how’ve you been, Sam?

  Horrible, I hope. Her alter ego stopped strangling and began to rant. I hope you’ve been absolutely miserable. Suffering from migraines and allergies and incurable postnasal drip. Plagued by boils. Chronically unemployed. Homeless. Helpless, Utterly hopeless, incontinent. Impotent!

  You’re looking good, Sam.

  Good? The voice above her snorted. Sam Mendenhall looked great! In sixteen years, the lanky boy she’d loved had filled out very nicely. Very nicely indeed. He seemed taller by an inch or two and more muscular. Strong. Solid. In a word—a hunk.

  Nobody had ever looked better in faded jeans and a black polo shirt that molded to the contours of his broad shoulders and the sculpted muscles of his chest. His brown hair was the shade Beth remembered, only now it was touched with a faint ripple of silver at the temples. His hazel eyes seemed a deeper green, and they were edged by crow’s-feet that told of a million facial expressions that Beth had never had the pleasure of seeing. His mouth was…

  Stop staring, her evil twin commanded from on high.

  Was she staring? Or drooling? Dear God, she hoped not. What had Sam just said?

  “Pardon me?” Beth asked.

  “I said pop your trunk lid so I can get your spare.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to…”

  The Sam she used to know so long ago would have argued with her or spent however long he needed to explain. This guy just muttered a curse and promptly reached through the Miata’s open window and popped the trunk himself.

  “Well, if you insist,” she said to his broad back, as he moved toward the rear of the car.

  “I insist,” he growled.

  Beth reached through the window and grabbed the cell phone from its holder on the dashboard, then punched in her sister’s number in Chicago, While she waited for Shelby to pick up, Beth walked a short distance away from the car.

  It was a beautiful day. At least it had been until just a few minutes ago. There was nothing like a buttery June sun in a clear blue Michigan sky with a cool breeze playing in the treetops. There were no buildings along this stretch of road—just fields—so every now and then you could catch a silvery glimmer of Heart Lake through the foliage.

  This was Beth’s favorite place in the whole wide world. After the long and grueling three-day drive from San Francisco, she’d stomped on the gas coming through Shelbyville, more eager than ever to get to the big house at the lake. And now—dammit—she’d probably have to leave.

  Shelby picked up. Without greeting or preamble, Beth bit a long-distance chunk out of her sister’s ass.

  “You told me Sam wasn’t here. You swore to me, Shelby. You crossed your heart. I think you even mentioned something about a stack of Bibles. How could you do that?”

  The stunned silence on the other end of the line was a dead giveaway. Ms. Shelby Simon, famous advice columnist and Big Fat Liar, was scrambling for an answer.

  “I am so angry,” Beth went on. “What the hell am I going to do now? Where can I go? I can’t stay here.”

  “Well…”

  “Don’t you dare give me advice,” Beth snapped.

  “I was just…”

  “Well, don’t. Don’t just anything. Just… Just shut up.”

  “Hey! You called me, Beth. Remember?”

  “Yeah. I know. And now I’m hanging up.”

  “But…”

  Beth stabbed the OFF button, wishing she were using a big old black telephone whose receiver she could slam into its cradle. Twice! Cell phones simply didn’t cut it when a person was throwing a fit.

  For lack of a phone to slam, she walked a few paces, reached down for a rock, and pitched it as hard as she could across the road and into the field. Her little act of violence didn’t make her feel any better, though. In fact, the sudden pain in her hand reminded her that acts of violence—punching someone, for instance—often resulted in more suffering for the puncher than the punchee.

  It wasn’t like her to slug people, as she had slugged her business partner and former boyfriend, Danny Eiler, a few weeks ago in San Francisco, injuring herself in the process while leaving him unscathed. It wasn’t like her to lose her temper and hang up on people as she had just done with the Big Fat Liar. There’d even been a moment while chatting with Sam that she’d wanted to kick him in the shins or to smush half a grapefruit in his ever-so-handsome face.

  What was happening to her?

  She’d always been kind and gentle and agreeable, forever willing to compromise to settle any dispute. She was diligent and thoughtful. She was steady and reliable. Ask anyone. Beth Simon wasn’t the sort to rock the boat. Could a thirty-three-year-old woman suddenly become a sociopath? she wondered.

  Probably not, she decided. It was just that she’d been under so much stress lately, trying to make the final break from Danny, trying to convince herself that returning to Michigan was a step forward in her life rather than two steps back.

  And then—Bam!—Sam.

  Beth dragged in a long breath. Get a grip, she told herself. Be cool. At least be civil.

  Turning to walk back to her car, Beth saw a white convertible approaching. When the car came alongside the disabled Miata, its driver hit the brakes. That was when Beth noticed that the vehicle was crammed with teenage girls—five of them to be exact, two in front, three in back, all giggling like… well… like teenage girls.

  “Hi, Sam,” they called out in what sounded like a single, simpering voice.

  Sam stood up, smiling as he wiped his greasy hands on his jeans. “Ladies,” he replied, the word rumbling sensuously in his throat. The giggles in the car increased. There was considerable sighing.

  Beth rolled her eyes. Oh, this was just great. The former love of her life was now apparently the Hunk of Heart Lake, setting young hearts afire with a blazing grin and a voice as deep as God’s.

  “We’re going to Blue Lake for some serious, kick-ass water-skiing, Sam,” one of the girls said. “Wanna come?” Her invitation was followed by a backseat chorus of Please, oh please.

  “Maybe some other time,” he told them.

  By now, Beth was standing only a foot or so away from The Hunk.

  “Oh, go on, Sam,” she said. “I’ll call the Gas Mart and have somebody c
ome finish changing the tire. You don’t want to disappoint your… um… fans.”

  He pitched her a dark glare, then squatted to resume work on the tire.

  “Sorry, girls,” Beth said with a smile and a little shrug.

  The young blonde behind the wheel glared at Beth. “Yeah. Right. I’ll just bet you’re sorry,” she said before she floored the accelerator, laying several feet of rubber in the convertible’s wake.

  Beth watched the car speed north with its youthful and flirtatious cargo of long, shiny, windblown hair and tan, supple flesh. Fans of Sam, one and all. She remembered the feeling.

  She wasn’t the sort of woman who obsessed about her age, and she could never understand all those over-the-hill parties with their black balloons and black crepe paper and goofy, depressing gifts. Her own thirtieth birthday three years ago hadn’t bothered her a bit. She’d felt like a grown-up at last.

  But now all of a sudden she felt old, absolutely ancient, as if she’d gone from a relatively young, moderately buff thirty-three to a wrinkled and crotchety ninety-three, all in the past few minutes.

  Gazing down at the top of Sam’s head while he tightened the last of the bolts on her wheel, Beth found herself searching for more gray hairs among the brown ones and any telltale signs of a receding hairline or incipient baldness. He’d be thirty-five now, two years ahead of her going over the proverbial hill.

  Not that it showed. His hairline was right where she’d last seen it sixteen years ago. The line of his jaw was firm as granite. His biceps didn’t show a hint of flab. She searched his beltline for evidence of love handles, if not the beginnings of a potbelly. There was nothing there but muscle.

  Physically, he was perfect. Too bad she couldn’t say the same for his character.

  “There you go,” Sam said, standing up once more. He pointed to the spare. “That’ll get you to the house, at least, but it’s just temporary, Beth. You’ll need to get a new tire as soon as possible.”

  She looked up into those deep green eyes and thought how easy it would be to drown in them all over again, how tempting it would be to forget what went wrong and go back to the time when loving Sam was a simple thing, the only thing, the center of her life. She thought about their last moments together before he’d left for basic training.

  Funny. Sixteen years ago they had driven down this very road from Heart Lake to Shelbyville, where Sam was due to catch an early-morning bus for Detroit. Neither one of them had slept the night before. Undoubtedly, they’d made love, but that wasn’t what Beth remembered. Her most vivid memory of that night was Sam cradling her on his lap. For hours, he’d practically rocked her like a child while he stroked her hair and whispered.

  Come with me, Bethie.

  Marry me.

  “I will,” she said now, meaning she’d see to the tire while she wondered what might have been if she’d said those same words sixteen years ago.

  Sam nodded rather stiffly, then began to replace all the bags and boxes he’d removed from the trunk of the Miata in order to get to the spare.

  “You don’t have to do that, Sam. I can take it from here.”

  Sam ignored her, picking up her crammed, two-ton suitcase as if it were packed with feathers, and wedging it easily in the trunk. Since she couldn’t dissuade him, Beth stood idly by and watched him.

  He moved purposefully and without hesitation, unfazed by the amount of boxed-up junk on the pavement and the limited space in the trunk, packing it far more efficiently than Beth herself had done when leaving San Francisco.

  With his ropy forearms and his mouth flattened in concentration, he moved with a kind of masculine grace that made it difficult for Beth to look away even as she felt the beginnings of longing deep inside her, a hunger that had nothing whatsoever to do with food or the fact that she hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning because she’d been so anxious to get on the road.

  When her cell phone suddenly chimed, she was incredibly grateful for the distraction. And when the little caller ID window displayed Shelby’s number with its Chicago area code, Beth answered it anyway.

  “What?” she barked instead of hello.

  “So, tell me,” Shelby said almost in a whisper, as if she knew that Sam was standing nearby. “What’s going on up there?”

  “It’s not a good time,” Beth said through clenched teeth.

  “You’re with Sam? Right now?”

  “That would be the case. Yes.”

  Her sister was quiet a moment on the other end of the line, as if she were carefully considering her next words. As if for the first time in her life she was thinking before she spoke. “Give it a chance, Bethie,” she said. “It might work out this time. For what it’s worth, Mick spent some time with Sam last year and really liked him.”

  Whether or not Lieutenant Mick Callahan, Shelby’s new husband, liked Sam didn’t seem to be relevant.

  “Okay. Fine,” Beth replied.

  “It was my fault, sweetie. There. I’ve said it. I can’t believe I’m admitting it, but I was wrong. And I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have talked you out of eloping with him all those years ago.”

  It was probably the first time in her life that Shelby Simon Callahan had ever made such an admission. Under different circumstances, Beth might’ve let out a giant whoop or popped the cork on a bottle of champagne, but right now her sister’s apologetic words carried little consolation and even less satisfaction. Hearing them, Beth simply rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll have to call you back, Shelby,” she said, noticing that Sam was shoving the last of her luggage in the Miata’s trunk.

  “I was wrong, Beth,” her sister said again.

  “Yeah. Yeah.” Beth broke the connection just as Sam slammed the trunk lid.

  He brushed his hands on his jeans, drawing Beth’s gaze downward, where the faded denim conformed to the muscles of his thighs.

  “There you go,” he said. “All set.”

  She forced her gaze upward to meet his. “Thank you, Sam.”

  “No problem. Get that tire replaced in the next few days, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “And lay off the accelerator going through town,” he said.

  “I know. I know.”

  “It was good seeing you, Beth.” He started walking toward his vehicle, parked several yards behind hers.

  This was it? That’s all there was? After all these years? Beth felt a flutter of panic in her throat. “Sam! Wait!”

  He turned, his eyes narrowed and his whole expression suddenly pinched with impatience. “Yeah?”

  “Well, I… I want to repay you for the favor. For the tire.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Why don’t you come to the house for dinner tonight?”

  Oh, God. No sooner had Beth said the words than she wished she could take them back.

  Once again her evil twin materialized overhead, smacking her forehead, groaning, I can’t believe you just did that.

  Beth couldn’t believe it either.

  It was as if she’d lapsed into autopilot, extending her customary invitation to a meal. She was a great cook, if she did say so herself, and that was how she thanked people who did nice things for her—with coq au vin, with bouillabaisse, with roast chicken and rosemary potatoes to die for. But not Sam, She wasn’t that grateful. Or that stupid.

  Since she couldn’t erase the invitation, she wished a bolt of lightning would strike from the clear blue sky and reduce her to a sizzling little patch of DNA on the pavement.

  Then, when lightning didn’t strike, she found herself silently praying, Say no. Please say no.

  Sam was quiet, so she assumed, if the man had any sense at all, he was formulating a plausible excuse. Hey, a flat-out no way or an I’d rather eat dirt would’ve been fine with her.

  “Sure,” he said finally, without much enthusiasm. “What time?”

  Beth, practically speechless, pulled a number out of the air. “Eight.”

  Sam nodded, jus
t as the sound of a cell phone shrilled from his parked jeep. He ignored it, though, and continued to stare at her, his lips slightly parted as if there were something else he wanted to say.

  Beth could only hope it was to tell her that, on second thought, he couldn’t come to dinner because of a previous engagement, whether it was true or not.

  The phone shrieked insistently at his back until Sam finally grimaced, and muttered, “I better get that.”

  “I guess so.”

  “See you at eight, then.”

  “Eight,” Beth echoed, vaguely hoping that the world would end at seven-forty-five.

  Sam slung a hip onto the jeep’s front seat and practically ripped the bleeping cell phone from the dash.

  “Yeah,” he growled.

  “Well, you don’t have to bite my head off, for heaven’s sake. What did you eat for breakfast, Sam? Nails?”

  It was Blanche Kroll, Shelbyville’s town clerk and longtime busybody. Between her and Thelma Watt, the postmistress, no secret was secure within a ten-mile radius of the town. Because the constable had no official office, Sam worked out of an old battered desk in a corner of the little cinder-block town hall where Blanche held sway.

  “Something else has gone missing,” she told him now.

  “Thelma’s flag,” Sam said as he watched Beth maneuver the Miata back onto the road and head north at a reasonable speed. The turnoff to the Simon house was only three-quarters of a mile ahead.

  “Something else,” Blanche snapped.

  She sounded like a snake about to strike, and Sam held the phone away from his ear a moment before listening again. He caught her in midsentence.

  “… took the darn thing right off the windowsill.”

  “What thing?” Sam asked.

  “The apple pie she’d just baked and set in the window to cool. She no more’n turned around, and it was gone.”

  Sam got the gist of the crime. “What time did this happen?” he asked.

  “About fifteen minutes ago.”