Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(74)

“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled.

“Barney Oswald just got himself a shitload of help.”

I sighed again.

He straightened, bent into me and wrapped a hand around the back of my neck as his face got in mine.

“I won’t let anything harm you,” he whispered and I knew by the timbre in his voice he was very, very serious but even if the timbre in his voice didn’t say it, the hard, glittering look in his eyes did.

“Can you do me a favor?” I asked quietly.

“Anything.”

“I know it’s you and I know you’re allowed to have a genuine reaction to whatever happens, including getting pissed off but until I’m used to it, can you at least try not to scare the shit out of me when you get angry?” I watched remorse score across his features, I hated to see it and I uncurled an arm from my legs, wrapped my fingers around his forearm and squeezed as I whispered, “Seven years, Sam, I’ll do my best to get over it but I had it for seven years. And you’re bigger, you’re stronger and when you get pissed, that’s all I can see. If he could hurt me, you could break me. I know you’ve promised me you won’t and you’ve given me no indication you ever will. I know this is all about me and I have to work on it. I’m just asking you to help.”

“I’ll check it,” he whispered back instantly and I gave his arm another squeeze.

“I know you won’t be able to do that, it’s impossible but I’m asking you to try.”

“Baby,” his face got closer, “I’ll… check… it.”

I stared into his eyes and somehow I knew he’d check it.

And there it went. That settled in my soul too.

“Well, in your defense, it isn’t often you find out the woman you’re banging has had a hit put out on her.”

Sam stared at me. Then I watched his face warm and my heart warmed with it.

Then he leaned in, touched his mouth to mine, pulled back an inch and said softly, “Shower. Calls. Then we’ll figure out what’s next.”

I nodded.

He moved in again to kiss my nose.

Then he let me go and strode into the bedroom.

I watched him until he disappeared.

Then I watched the space where he disappeared.

Then I shoved my face in my knees.

Then I made a mental note to call Paula in three hours and tell her I was the woman Sampson Cooper was currently banging before she pulled up any of her gossip sites at the office (which I knew she did first thing while listening to phone messages), found out before I could tell her and lost her marbles.

Then, suddenly, I whispered, “I f**king hate you Cooter Clementine,” to my knees.

Cooter, being dead and buried in Indiana, had no reply.

Chapter Twelve

My Girl Deserves Gentle

After Sam had a shower and got on the phone, I hopped into the shower and did what I did since I started things with Sam which meant the whole shebang of shaved legs, shaved pits, all over lotion, half-squirts of perfume in strategic areas and a cute outfit of white short-shorts and tight-fitting, coral pink, eyelet camisole that kicked ass with my tan.

Seeing as we were on the Med and I was confined to quarters due to the possibility that my life would imminently be snuffed out, I forewent makeup and the big blow out of my hair as such effort was clearly unnecessary. But I did blow out the long fall of bangs that fell past my eyes because, really, if I didn’t, it could get scary. The rest of my hair I was going to let dry curly, wavy and untamed and if Sam thought it made me look like a wild woman raised by apes, so be it.

I had bigger things to worry about.

Seriously.

And anyway, he’d seen me at the beach and he hadn’t escaped in the middle of the night so I figured I was good.

Then I went to the bed, laid on my back, cocked my knees, stared at the ceiling, tried and failed to eavesdrop on Sam’s various conversations in the lounge, gave up on that and was far more successful in plotting Cooter’s grisly death and imagining it to its culmination.

Unfortunately, Cooter was already dead.

Still, a girl could dream.

I also counted down the minutes to when I could start calling my family and friends. I wasn’t sure I was going to get into the fact that my life was in danger, that might be too much after the, “Sampson Cooper is doing me” news.

I had an hour left to wait and Cooter had died in twelve bloody, painful, macabre ways in my murderous fantasies that were even more bloody and macabre than having half his head blown off when I felt Sam’s presence enter the room.

I kept my eyes to the ceiling even as I felt Sam’s presence enter the bed.

He stretched out beside me and I felt his hand come to rest on my belly.

“What are you thinking?” he asked quietly.

“I’m plotting Cooter’s murder,” I answered.

This brought silence and then, “Baby, he’s dead.”

“Good, I can’t go to prison for plotting the murder of a dead man.”

“Kia –”

I turned my head and caught his eyes. “Sam, he put a hit on me.”

Sam pressed his lips together, his eyes went hard and scary and I made a mental note not to remind him my dead husband hired a hit man to murder me.

It was clearly time to change the subject.

“In an hour, I’m starting the round of calls to my friends and Mom and Dad telling them about us.”