Sam retrieved the colander that Laura had apparently flung off into space when she was attacked, and now he was picking up scattered vegetables and at the same time trying not to think about the heat his hand had so recently encountered beneath all that blue velvet. He started to say something, but she sliced him with a glare.
“And don’t you dare say they’re more afraid of me than I am of them, Sam Zachary, because it isn’t true.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Sam said, reaching to break off a few tender leaves of endive and laying them on top of the tomatoes and radishes and green onions. “I was only going to ask you how you like your steak and what kind of dressing you prefer on your salad.”
“Oh.” She gave a little shrug. “Medium, I guess, and Thousand Island. French would be fine, too.”
“Okay.”
He shouldn’t have asked, Sam thought, since he had every intention of grilling the rib eye black on the outside and a perfect, medium-rare pink inside, and tossing the salad with a tarragon vinaigrette.
All of a sudden he felt irritable, curmudgeonly, like a doddering old bachelor too set in his ways to even listen to anyone else’s preferences. Or worse. Too comfortable with the familiar to appreciate something new and different. Someone new and different.
“Better get back inside,” he grumbled, “before the praying mantises start to swarm.” He handed her the colander. “Here. Take this. I need to get my shotgun.”
She shivered. “Not for the praying mantises, I hope.”
“No.” He picked up the gun. “I only use this on the wolf spiders.”
“You were kidding, right, about the wolf spiders?” Laura asked halfway through dinner.
They were sitting in the kitchen on opposite sides of what she considered a very retro aluminum-and-plastic dinette set. The whole room, in fact, was fabulously retro. It looked as if it had been lifted from another era with its white metal cabinets, its fake marble linoleum floor, and almost boxcar-sized white enamel stove.
“Yes, I was kidding,” Sam answered with a subdued little chuckle. “How’s your steak?”
“Fabulous.” She took another mouthwatering bite. “It would’ve been a waste to use it on my eye. The salad’s great, too. You made the dressing yourself?”
He nodded.
Sam Zachary was still wearing his apron, but the blue gingham and ruffles couldn’t make even the slightest dent in his masculinity. In an odd way, Laura decided, they seemed to accentuate it all the more. God, he was gorgeous. Not that that was any big deal. Not that she cared.
“So, where’d you learn to cook, Zachary, S. U.?” she asked, putting her knife and fork down to pick up the cold bottle of beer he’d put at her place.
“Right here. After my mother died last year, it was a case of either learning how to cook for myself or wasting away to skin and bones.”
Laura nodded. She knew what that was like. She’d been in a similar situation a few years before when her grandmother passed away, but she’d solved the skin-and-bones problem with pizza deliveries and salad bars and take-out Chinese.
“I meant what I said, Sam. About not having to feed me. I’m sure I’m not paying you enough for…”
“I’ll put it on your tab,” he said, pushing his empty plate away, then taking a swig from his own bottle of beer. He put the dark brown bottle down, returning it precisely to the wet circle it had made on the tabletop, before he leaned back and crossed his arms. “You want to tell me a little bit more about this Jones guy so I have a better idea what I’m dealing with?”
“Jones?”
“The slugger?” He gestured to her eye.
“Oh. That Jones.”
She shifted in her chair, but the vinyl seat had such a good grip on her thighs, it felt as if she’d ripped off a layer of skin. It didn’t help, either, that she could almost hear Nana chanting Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
“Artie, you mean.”
He gave her a long, silent, steely-eyed stare which seemed to translate as yes, that was exactly what he meant and not to confuse the blue gingham apron with a blue gingham disposition.
“Artie’s, um, well…persistent,” she said.
“How long have you been seeing him?”
Laura blinked. “Seeing him?”
“Dating him,” Sam clarified.
“Dating Artie?” She almost laughed, then shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I’ve never gone out with him. He’s my landlord’s son and for some reason he’s been giving me presents the past few weeks. Flowers. Candy. Stuff like that. I thought it was, well, kind of cute in the beginning.” She reached out, tracing a finger along the label of her beer bottle, frowning now. “It stopped being cute this morning.”
“So you’ve never gone out with him?”
“Never. Not once. Come to think of it, he never even asked me out.” She quit staring at the label and lifted her eyes to Sam’s. “Pretty weird, huh?”
More than weird, Sam was thinking. He could well imagine, once having met Laura McNeal, wanting to shower her with gifts, but he couldn’t fathom not asking her out on a date, as well. Unless, of course, this Artie guy knew that she was already involved with somebody else. If she was, though, why hadn’t she gone to that somebody else for help?
“Do you live alone?” he asked her, not quite hitting the target of his curiosity dead-on, but edging close.
She nodded. “I live in an apartment over my shop.”
“Your shop?”
“I told you. Remember?” She gestured to her dress. “I have a vintage clothing and jewelry store. Nana’s Attic.”
“Ah.” He had forgotten, which didn’t say a lot for his ability to process information at the moment. He wanted to blame the beer, but he knew it was that damned grasshopper down the front of Laura’s dress. The backs of his fingers still felt warm from their brief contact with her flesh.
Abruptly, he picked up his empty plate and carried it to the sink.
“I’ve got a job tonight,” he said over his shoulder, over the splash of the water from the faucet. “I need to drive back into the city around midnight. Just for a few hours. You can stay here if you want. You’ll be safe. But if you feel uncomfortable, you can come along with me. It’s up to you.”
“What kind of job?” She picked up her plate, too, and headed toward him at the sink.
Sam had forgotten about her legs during dinner while those long and lovely limbs were concealed beneath the table. He remembered them now, so vividly he almost forgot what she had just asked him. Oh, yeah. The job.
“Surveillance,” he said. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two.”
One of her finely shaped eyebrows arched a bit more. Her blue eyes twinkled and a smile played at her mouth. “Ooh, surveillance. Sounds dangerous. Real private eye stuff, huh?”
“Right.” He took her plate and rinsed it under the faucet. “But it’s not dangerous. Don’t worry.”
“Oh, I wasn’t worried. It’s kind of exciting, actually. Who are we spying on? A murderer returning to the scene of his crime? A robber casing a bank? A big drug deal?”
“Not quite.”
“Well, what then?”
She was standing so close that he could see tiny golden flecks in the blue of