Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(75)

“All right.”

“I’m not informing them of the, uh… other stuff.”

“Probably a good idea.”

I drew in breath.

Sam spoke.

“Do you want some good news?”

“Yeah, Sam, that would work,” I replied and he grinned.

“Clinic in Heraklion called. Your tests came back clean.”

Well, thank God for that.

Sam had located a private, clean, exclusive (by the looks of it, though I wouldn’t know since he’d insisted on paying, something he insisted on doing all the time, I hadn’t so much as bought a drink) clinic in Heraklion and I’d gone for my tests the afternoon of the day we arrived on Crete.

So there you go. Cooter didn’t give me herpes; he just put a hit on me.

At least that was one way Cooter didn’t screw me from the grave.

“Excellent,” I muttered and my head turned back, my eyes going to the ceiling.

Sam’s hand pressed into my belly and he asked, “What’re you tellin’ your folks about us?”

I stopped breathing.

Oh God.

What was I going to tell my Mom, Dad and friends about us?

I forced air into my lungs and my eyes slid to Sam.

“Uh…” I mumbled and he grinned again.

Then his hand slid around me and he pulled me to my side, facing him, my legs fell into his, his immediately shifted to tangle with mine and he pulled me into his solid heat.

“How’s this?” he whispered, I stared into his warm, intense eyes and stopped breathing again and he kept talking. “We met, we clicked, this is somethin’ we both wanna explore so that’s what we’re gonna do. Right now, things are up in the air so when we go home, you might be comin’ with me to my place in North Carolina or I might be goin’ with you to Indiana. You’ll let them know when we know.”

I consciously made myself breathe again and asked, “North Carolina?”

“If I think you’re safer there, that’s where you’re goin’.”

This made sense.

But I totally could not do this.

“Sam, I can’t go to North Carolina with you.”

His brows drew together and he asked, “Why not?”

“Well, Memphis, one. My house just sold and I have tons of stuff to do, two. I haven’t seen my family or friends in five weeks, three. I’ve never been gone this long before in my life and they miss me, four. And I’m going to be homeless if I don’t get my shit sorted and find a house, five.”

To this, Sam countered with, “You got a man who knows you live in Heartmeadow who’s got you in his crosshairs.”

If we were writing lists, this would go in big, block letters at the top of the con list for returning to Indiana.

Shit.

I closed my eyes and tipped my chin down.

Sam kissed the top of my head.

God, he was sweet.

“Tell me about the unit,” he murmured.

“They upped their offer another ten K.”

“Back out.”

I opened my eyes and tipped my head back, shocked by this instantaneous and decisive reply.

“Really?”

“Baby, it’s a condo in Heartmeadow, Indiana, not a co-op on Central Park. You’re lookin’ at least at putting thirty large over asking price into it in a market that is far from stable. The market could nosedive and you’ll be sittin’ on a condo that’s worth less than you paid for it and in this market that could conceivably happen in a day. No shit. This is a bad investment. Back out.”

Right.

Well, that was easy.

Except…

“But I want it,” I told him.

“I see that but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad investment and when I say that I mean a really f**kin’ bad investment.”

Hmm.

“My buyers have gone fast-track and Paula says I could close on my house in three to five weeks. One of those is already gone. If I don’t find something, where do I live?”

“This shit gets sorted, move in with your folks for awhile.”

“Do you like my ass?”

His head jerked slightly on the pillow then he answered, “Uh… yeah.”

“Would you like it if it was five times the size?”

He grinned and his arms gathered me closer.

Then he muttered, “I’m not gonna answer that.”

This was a good choice.

“Mom doesn’t drain the grease off hamburger meat when making chili, spaghetti, anything and she might say you can help in the kitchen but what she means is, you can stand there, drink a beer and chat with her while she concocts meals that are at least five thousand calories a plate and even the vegetables are fried. So, no. I am not moving in with my parents.”

“Honey, you’re twenty-eight, buy and eat your own food.”

At his statement, I even felt my eyes get big.

If I tried to bring carrot sticks and yogurt into my mother’s house and inform her she could not find some way to fry the former or use the latter in a cake, she’d lose her mind.

“Are you nuts?” I cried, the last word rising three octaves.

Sam burst out laughing.

I watched because I liked it but I didn’t participate partly because there was a good possibility he thought I was overreacting when I… was… not.