Heart Signs (5 page)

They were just two human beings. Not the ideal couple. Not romantically tragic. The way she’d painted them was as much a fantasy as any movie.

So why did she want him even more now that she knew he wasn’t perfect? That he hadn’t lived some fairytale romance, that every word he penned didn’t drip from his quill like liquid gold?

She forced out a breath and picked up the letter again. This time she would get through it. All the way. Then she would move on to the next.

T
elling
you would’ve been the fair thing to do. You built your whole world around getting pregnant again. Meanwhile I partied. And I drank. You knew about Melissa, how we flirted. Well, one night the flirting went too far. I kissed her. Just once. I’d been drinking, and it was a mistake. I knew you were home waiting for me and all the pressure to be the man I wasn’t ready to be hit like an avalanche. How could I be a father when I hadn’t even really figured out how to be me yet? Who was I to try to teach anyone else how to be a good person when I was out kissing another woman while my pregnant wife sat home knitting booties?

But I didn’t know you were pregnant that night. I didn’t know about the booties. It was only after you’d died that I found the stash in the chest by the foot of our bed.

You were right to kick me out. But I was right to not want you to hurt like that again. I couldn’t help wanting to protect you. Now you’re gone.

So I’m here by myself, in this shitty apartment that I’ve made that way. It could be more. Just like I could’ve been. But you’d loved me through all of my faults. You’d stood by me, always hoping to find the man you prayed I’d one day turn into. Maybe I hoped too, that you were right. That somehow you knew something I didn’t. There was more to me than just a guy who partied too much, who drank until I puked out my guts, who avoided anything serious because God forbid something bring me down. And now I’m so goddamned low, so fucking lonely, that even these words seem like more of a comfort than I had before.

I can’t stop loving you. If I do that, what will be left of me?

R
ory closed her eyes
, the paper rattling in her fist. Then she set aside her glass and her blanket, jerking to her feet and leaving the letter where it fell.

S
leep
, the fickle bitch, shouldn’t have come easily to him that night. Sam expected it wouldn’t, even stayed up late flipping through some new car books he’d picked up to avoid his bed. But he dropped off the minute he laid down. And wonder of all wonders, he didn’t dream.

Sharing his letters—his secrets, basically—with Rory was probably one of the craziest things he’d ever done. He didn’t know her. In essence they had a working relationship and mixing it with anything more would probably be a recipe for disaster.

Which didn’t sound so bad to him at the moment. Even a spectacular failure would be better than the whitewash hell of the past months.

She hadn’t called him last night. Why he’d thought she might, he didn’t know. He hadn’t given her his number for the very reason that he hadn’t wanted to wait for her to call. But he had anyway.

“Pathetic,” he muttered, rubbing a microfiber cloth over the sweet vintage Trans Am he’d gotten in the shop that morning. The beaut was pink. Since he billed himself as a manly man—except for those pesky billboards and love letters—he would’ve denied loving the color but he did. This car was
sexy
. Polished chrome accents and details like T-tops and spinners all added up to one big dollop of lust.

He ran some figures in his head. Nope, not a chance of coming up with the dough to take this pretty momma home. He already had three classic cars. And no bedframe. The bedframe had to come first.

Hoping some lovely lady might join you in that bed in the near future, Miller?

Dawdling over the memory of Rory’s flushed cheeks and rosy lips, he glanced up as polished red heels stopped beside the Trans Am. When his gaze traveled upward, skimming bare legs nicely displayed in a conservative navy skirt, the hand rubbing circles on the car stopped.

Just like his brain.

“You were smiling.” Rory crossed her arms over her ample chest and cocked a brow. “Yet you stopped when you saw me. Way to offend a customer, Samuel Miller.”

“That’s not my name.”

Straightening, he dragged the cloth down the fender. Focusing on the task took all his attention. He wanted to stare at
her
. She’d done something different to her hair. Teased it higher, pulled the black waves back with jeweled clips behind her ears.

Like magic, the steel beam inside his jeans shot up to regulation height. At least this time he didn’t beg her to follow him home. But he did have a trusty back room…

“What do you mean that’s not your name?”

“My name’s Samson.” He shrugged and flipped over the rag. “Mom went Biblical.”

“So she’s where you got the Bible.”

“It’s sure as hell not mine.” He swung a glance upward and said a quick mental apology while she stifled a laugh.

“Well, excuse me then,
Samson
. Online you were listed as Samuel Miller.”

“Yeah. Helps avoid the telemarketers.”

It wasn’t true. The phone book people had just made a simple clerical error, one he hadn’t bothered getting fixed. But she smiled and he sent up another prayer of thanks. He was managing to talk to her without getting all red-faced and flustered.

“Does it also help you avoid women wanting to get their car fixed?”

“I gave you my card.”

“You did. Without your home number.”

“So you looked me up,” he said, hoping his pleasure at that fact didn’t show in his voice.

He’d fallen out of practice at anything even resembling flirting. Not that he’d call this flirting per se. More of a flirtatious conversation. Hard for it to be anything but when Rory looked so damn teeth-achingly gorgeous and had such a sparkle in her eyes.

He felt like a guy who’d been on a diet for years when finally confronted by the all-you-can-eat buffet. There wasn’t one particular food—or part of her—he wanted to sample first. He’d prefer to swallow her whole.

Not that he intended to do anything about that. Yesterday’s colossal screwup had proven he wasn’t ready to hop back on the saddle or in the sack just yet. But he couldn’t help angling just a little closer to smell the sweet, toasted marshmallow scent of her hair.

“Yes. I considered calling you at home. Then I decided you hadn’t given me your number so you must not want me to call you there.”

“Didn’t stop me,” he said, moving around to buff the other side of the car.

She whisked her fingertips over the hood and let out a sigh. “Nice ride,” she said, conveniently letting the subject of the phone call drop.

In all likelihood, she felt sorry for him after reading the letters. Pity usually wasn’t the stuff eager phone calls were made of. Or else she’d gotten bored while reading them. Other people’s trauma couldn’t be that interesting.

He should let it go. She didn’t have to respond to them. He’d done what he felt he needed to—for reasons he still didn’t understand—so now he had to relax and stop wondering what she thought.

“Did you read them?” he asked, scrubbing a hand over his head.

Her gaze snapped up from her perusal of the car. “Just one.”

That was it? She wasn’t going to say anything else? What had happened to a woman chattering a guy’s ear off? Maybe things had changed since he’d been an active member of the dating scene.

Well, too bad. She wouldn’t dissuade him with silence.

“And?”

She reached up to toy with one of her hair clips. “I didn’t realize you’d lost a baby.”

Shit, that first letter had gotten down to the nuts and bolts. He hadn’t really remembered all the details. “Two babies, actually.” His voice didn’t waver. “Both right around five months.”

Her sharp intake of breath seemed to echo in the small parking lot in front of his shop. “God, Sam, I’m so sorry.”

“Me too.”

“Five months is so late in the pregnancy. Your wife must’ve been devastated.”

An extreme understatement, but words were never adequate. “Yes. I was too.”

Her face paled. “Oh, I didn’t mean—”

“I know, Rory.”

When she stared at the ground, he fought back a groan. Why hadn’t he just agreed?

“I never say the right thing. Never. I’m the girl who, at ten, asked her friend’s dad if he was going to get his dog stuffed when it got run over by a car. He was a hunter and had all these heads on the wall…” She trailed off when he laughed. “It was horrible. My friend started crying.”

“Did she stop being friends with you immediately?”

“No. We’re still friends to this day.” Her lips trembled into a smile. “I’ve said worse things than that. When my aunt told me she was getting a divorce, I asked if it was because she was such a bitch.”

“Were you ten then too?”

“No. Twenty-six.”

He laughed again and went back to polishing the car. Being with her felt too easy. Like sliding into a favorite pair of shoes or drinking out of his favorite mug.

The feel of her mouth wrapped around his cock flashed into his mind.
Yeah, not always so easy.

“You might be surprised to find out I’m the same as you. Open mouth, insert size-thirteen shoe.”

“Thirteen?” Her eyes rounded. “Really?”

“Wanna check the tag?”

Her gaze zoomed downward then back up to his face with a flicker of her eyelashes. “So what they say is true. Always thought it was an old wives’ tale. Or maybe a new boyfriend’s.”

It actually took him a minute to get what she meant. Then
he
blushed. Obviously seduction and banter were skills that needed frequent practice to keep sharp.

“So, ah, you came by for me to fix your car?”

Her slow smile simultaneously left him feeling as if she understood and at the same time wishing that she didn’t, that she’d pushed for more. “Just the scratches. I don’t even care if they get fixed, like I told you. Mostly I just wanted an excuse to come see you.”

“Oh.”
Oh.
“So you weren’t repulsed by the letter you read?”

“Repulsed? It was beautiful. Moving. Embarrassing.”

“Huh?” How was his letter to his dead wife embarrassing to
her
?

“It’s so intimate. I felt like a peeping Thomasina, nose pressed against the window.”

“She never saw those letters.”

“I know. That makes it even worse. It’s weird being privy to something she wasn’t. A really uncomfortable threesome.” At his flinch, she pressed both hands over her mouth so fast that her purse strap drooped toward the crook of her elbow. “Oh my God. I need to superglue my lips shut.”

“It’s okay. Believe me, I’m way worse than you.”

“Not possible. I’m like a bag of potato chips. I never stop at just one awkward comment. They just keep coming.”

“Constant coming doesn’t sound so bad to me,” he said with a hint of a smile, resting his palm against the frame of the vehicle. If the car wasn’t so gorgeous, he would’ve gone into full-on flirt mode and casually leaned back, but he couldn’t do that with his buddy Josh’s prime Trans Am. Even slouching near it showed disrespect.

“I think I’m taking a little hiatus from that.” She shored up her purse on her shoulder and gave him what he figured was her serious face. “Sometimes sex gets in the way of stuff.”

Since he hadn’t figured out how to do “it” post-Dani yet, her declaration didn’t faze him too badly. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Relationships. Meaningful interactions with men that don’t include ripping down their pants and sucking them off without any meager attempts at conversation first.” She gave a sheepish shrug. “That kind of thing.”

Sam twisted the rag between his hands. “Some guys probably like being sucked off without talking first.”

She snorted. “Yeah, probably. But I’m trying something new. So, ah, you wanna go to that car show in November?”

He knew the surprise had to telegraph across his face. “You’re asking me out?”

“Not necessarily. As friends. Friendly people who like cars.” Now she was twisting her fingers together. A lot of twisting going on with them today. Nice to know he wasn’t the only nervous one. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. I was just thinking—”

“I like when you think.” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “Smooth, Miller. See? We’ll get along just fine.”

Her laughter bubbled up and washed over him, as airy as the breeze that skittered the newly fallen autumn leaves across the parking lot. “So?”

“It’s the fourth and fifth, right?” A little more than five weeks from now. A long-ass time. Not so long considering he’d never even laid eyes on her before yesterday and had erroneously believed for almost two years that she was a man. But still. After what had happened between them, he didn’t know if he was ready to let her disappear from his view so fast.

Especially not with his letters.

“Yes. In Shalesville. Have you ever been?”

Only every year. “Yeah, a few times. You?”

“I’ve been to a few shows over the years but not that particular one.”

“Developing an interest in classic cars?”

“I always had one but I never spent much time pursuing it. Now I am. Besides,” she jerked her chin at her raggedy sedan, “that baby’ll be snapped up in a hot minute if I bring her around. I’ll probably leave the fairgrounds with an offer in my pocket.”

“Probably.” He ducked his head and grinned. “I’ll go to the car show with you on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

He didn’t fully know what his condition would be until the words were out of his mouth. All he knew was he liked the way he felt when he was around her. Something about her smile, about the way she looked directly into his eyes, made him feel less like a grief-stricken shell and more like a man. Someone not fundamentally broken.

Someone who could start living again. Who even wanted to.

“Go to Loki’s with me next Saturday.”

“Deal.” Her rapid agreement made his grin deepen. “Busy this Saturday?”

“Yeah.” He’d promised his mom he’d help her clean out her spare room. He needed the time with his family. His little brothers, two still at home, were always good for his mood. “Family thing.”

“Ah.”

“But next week, I’m all yours.”

“Sounds like a plan. Just be prepared.”

“For what?”

“Loki’s gets a little loud.”

Yeah, she’d need help seeing him as something other than the widowed spouse. Giving her his letters to Dani probably hadn’t been the smartest move, but he’d felt compelled. Much as he felt compelled to keep her in his sights just a little longer. “I’ve been to sports bars before.”

“My friends are kinda insane.”

“I’ll bring my body armor and earplugs.”

“Okay.” She smiled and turned to go, her long gold sphere earrings swinging.

“Wait.”

She looked back and raised a brow. “Yeah?”

He fumbled a business card and stubby pencil out of the breast pocket of his Miller’s Classics work shirt. After scrawling his number on the back, he handed her the card, barely resisting a shudder when the tips of their fingers touched.

Had she
felt
that? Pure electrical energy, shooting from her body to his. Judging from her rapid blinking, she had.

Shit, he was surprised the concrete hadn’t cracked at his feet.

“You’re going to call me, right?” he asked, his voice lower and hoarser than he’d expected. One brush of fingertips and his cock threatened to bust right through his pants.

“Yes. I will.” She swallowed hard and tucked the card in her purse. “Bye, Sam.”

“Bye.”

She climbed into her car and gave him a wave before pulling away from the curb. He watched her small sedan disappear around the corner, a smile playing around his lips.

Somehow he knew Rory Fowler would either rock his world or chip off more pieces of it. There could be no middle ground.

Not with her or with them.