Sam found it curious that, for someone so intent on being a badass, she sure didn’t seem interested in discussing it. But no matter, especially as it was none of his concern, anyway. “All done,” he said, loading up his own plate with several sandwich halves before turning back to the refrigerator. Carly’d already poured Travis a glass of milk, but Sam wanted iced tea. Preferably dumped over his head. “Thanks to your father. Can’t remember the last time I saw anybody get such a kick out of replacing fence posts.”
“Yep, that’s Dad.” Sam noticed how cautiously she was eyeing the four-year-old, giving him the feeling she didn’t spend a lot of time around little kids. Then she picked up a napkin and wiped a dribble of milk off Trav’s chin, which earned her a shy smile. She smiled back, sort of, then forked in a bite of lettuce and said, “So I guess that means the two of you didn’t spend the whole time discussing my errant ways.”
“Not the whole time, no. Just on the ride there. And back. And whenever we got close enough to hear each other.”
She reached out to move Trav’s cup of milk back from the edge of the table. “I wouldn’t’ve thought there was that much to discuss.”
“And here I was thinking it sounded like he’d barely scratched the surface.”
That got another moment’s stare before she said, “Anyway…I think Dad’s missed working with his hands.” Sam checked out hers—long fingers, smothered in all those rings, but no nail polish. “Mom was convinced he’d bought an old house on purpose so there’d always be something to fix. And believe me, there was. The kitchen alone took the better part of a year.” She smiled. “I swear, all the clerks at Home Depot knew him by name.”
“Sounds like a man after my own heart,” Sam said, and she rolled her eyes, making him chuckle. But her smile dimmed as she stabbed at a hunk of lettuce.
Travis asked for another sandwich half. Carly beat Sam to it. “Doing nothing makes him crazy. After he retired from the Army, he started his own security business. Except when Mom got sick, he sold it so he could spend as much time as possible with her. Then after she died, he got rid of the house right away and moved into an apartment. I understand why he did what he did, but he’s been at loose ends ever since.”
Sam waited out the twinge of sadness, faded more than he would have ever believed possible three years ago, but not entirely gone. For a moment, he almost envied the other man, being able to cherish what he had, to say goodbye. Losing Jeannie so suddenly had been like being shoved off a cliff into an ice-cold waterhole—there was no time to get your breath before you had all you could handle just to keep from drowning. But as hard as Jeannie’s unexpected death had been on him and the kids, at least she hadn’t suffered. Watching somebody you loved dwindle away…he could only imagine how hard that must have been. “Too many memories in the house?” he finally said, as his own echoed softly from every nook and cranny of the one they were sitting in.
“That’s what I figured, but he never really said.”
“I’m done,” Trav piped up. “C’n I be ’scused?”
Sam said, “Sure,” and the kid slid down from his seat, his feet hitting the floor with a thump before pounding out the back door, Radar—having recovered from the cat’s brutal attack—hot on his heels. The screen door whined shut, leaving him and Carly alone. Together. With the water still humming through the pipes and Sam well aware that voicing Lane’s probable motivation for selling his house could possibly let Carly more into his own head than he might like, especially since a few of those memories now whistled through his brain like wind through a canyon. With some difficulty, Sam swallowed the bite in his mouth and said, “Your dad must be bored out of his mind. In an apartment, I mean.”
She gave him one of those looks that women do when they’re trying to translate what you just said into their own language, then nodded.
“You have no idea,” she was saying, taking another bite of lettuce, her posture bringing to mind the deceptive strength of a sapling.
“So you decided what he needed was a road trip to jump-start him again.”
“Both of us, actually. Although when I brought it up, Dad definitely pounced on the idea.”
“How long’ve you been on the road?”
“About a month.”
“Since you lost your job?”
“That happened about three months ago, actually. Which is when the sports doctor told me I could have surgery, with no guarantee I’d ever dance again anyway, or quit dancing altogether and the problem might clear up on its own.”
“Some choice.”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
Her bravado wasn’t doing a particularly hot job of masking her disappointment. “And how long until you go back home?”
“We hadn’t decided that. One of the perks of being in limbo,” she said with a grand wave of her fork. “I’ve got a half offer from an old dance school friend who’s married with munchkins and the minivan and the whole nine yards in a Chicago suburb, she wants to open a dance school and wondered if I’d be interested in teaching.”
“Are you?”
That bite of lettuce finally found its way into her mouth. After several seconds of chewing, she shrugged. “It’s an option.”
The pipes groaned again, this time from the water being turned off. “But…not one you’re very excited about.”
“Hey. I’m thirty-seven. Even without my knee sabotaging me, I only had maybe five good years left, anyway. Eight if I didn’t mind pity applause,” she said with a short, dry laugh. “Still. Somehow, even though most dancers turn to teaching after they retire, I somehow never saw myself doing the Dolly Dinkle Dance School routine. Teaching a class full of everybody’s precious darlings in pink leotards and tutus… I can’t see it, frankly. I’m not really into kids.”
Sam thought of her wiping Travis’s chin and smiled to himself. “Yeah. I can tell.”
“It’s not that I don’t like them,” she added quickly. “Exactly. I just never quite know what to say to them. How to relate to them. I mean, my biological clock’s merrily ticking away and I’m like, ‘Fine, whatever.’ Shoot, it’s all I can do to take care of myself.”
Chuckling, Sam polished off his last sandwich, then chased it with the rest of his iced tea. When he finished, he leaned back in his chair. “You always this up-front with people?”
She shrugged. “Pretty much. Does it bother you?”
“It’s a mite unnerving, but no. Not particularly. Actually it’s kinda nice to be around someone who has no trouble saying whatever’s on her mind.”
“Most men wouldn’t agree with you.”
“That’s their problem,” he said mildly. “So tell me about your dancing.”
Brows lifted. “This isn’t a date. You’re not going to win any points by pretending to really be interested in what I do.”
“Humor me. It’s not every day I have an honest to God ballerina sitting in my kitchen. And I’d add ‘eating my food’ but that would be stretching it.”
Her eyes followed his to her plate. “Ah,” she said, with an understanding smirk, before her shoulders bounced again. “I’m not anorexic, if that’s what you’re thinking. I ate like a pig at breakfast, that’s all.”
“What? A piece of toast and a grapefruit half?”
“Hah. Three pieces of