by Leslie Kelly
“Ruthie can make canned beef stew taste like a feast,” Eve said with a heartfelt nod.
“Great, I’m famished.”
Glancing up, Eve was not a bit surprised to see Ruthie hurrying toward them from the kitchen, her red curls falling in disarray from the bun on top of her head. A smudge of flour dusted the front of her pink apron. Several people recognized Ruthie, stopping her to comment on their meals. Eve loved watching Ruthie handle her gastronomic fans. She looked completely flustered, her hands fluttering until she clasped them together, behind her back, as Diana had taught her to do during Speech 101. Her sweet, round face wore a look of complete surprise as if she couldn’t believe people had actually driven two hours from the outlying boroughs just to sample her cooking.
“She made it, too,” Eve murmured to herself.
Sam obviously heard. “That’s your friend?”
Eve nodded. “Ruthie. The dreamer.”
“She’s one of your quartet?”
Eve chuckled. “Oh, yes. Ruthie and Diana were roommates when I met them, so much like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger it wasn’t even funny. With one exception—neither one of them was very neat.”
“I resent that remark,” Ruthie said as she came to stand next to the table, thrusting her fists on her hips. She bent down to give Eve a quick kiss hello on the cheek, then straightened and stared suspiciously at Sam.
Eve quickly made introductions. “Ruthie, this is Sam Kenneman. Sam, the irrepressible Ruthie Sinclair.”
“Sam Kenneman. Yes, I think I’ve heard of you,” Ruthie said, her normally sweet voice hard.
Sam sighed. “Yeah. I know.”
Eve gave Ruthie a quick kick under the table, silently reminding her to be good. Ruthie bit her cheek to hold back a yelp of surprise. The redhead glared at her before turning her attention back to Sam. “Of course. You work with Diana at that men’s magazine.” Her words were syrupy sweet, any sign of animosity gone under Eve’s warning glare.
“Yes, I do.”
“We’re famished, Ruthie,” Eve said, wanting to change the subject and wishing she’d had a conversation with Ruthie in private before bringing Sam here.
“What do you recommend?” Sam asked.
The long pause that followed made Eve suspicious. Finally her friend replied, “Why don’t you just let me surprise you with some of our favorite dishes?”
Eve didn’t trust the look in the other woman’s narrowed eyes. Ruthie was never good at deception, though she loved to play practical jokes. Unfortunately, she had a bad habit of giggling at the most inopportune moments. Or, worse, of blushing so badly her face turned beet red. Now she looked about as red as the tomato sauce that had spilled on Sam’s kitchen floor.
“Sounds great!” Sam said decisively as he shut the menu.
“Ruthie, why don’t we go to the ladies lounge and catch up for a minute,” Eve said, wanting to tell her friend to back off on any revenge plots against Sam. She hadn’t had a chance to tell her the whole idea was down the drain, and that Sam was really a nice guy, and wanted to before Ruthie put any food in front of him.
She didn’t think her friend would go so far as poison. But she couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility of a sneaky ingredient—super hot peppers, for instance—finding its way onto his plate.
“Good idea,” Ruthie said. She stepped back as Eve pushed her chair away from the table. Before they got clear of the dining area, however, a man came bursting through the swinging kitchen doors, muttering in French.
“Oh, dear, raincheck on the gossip, girlfriend,” Ruthie said with a sigh. “I think we’ve got another crisis. Francois is simply unbelievable with pastries, but tonight he’s having a hard time keeping his cream in his éclairs.”
Eve grinned, unable to stop the picture that came to mind. Ruthie caught the expression and burst into giggles, trying ineffectually to smother them by putting her hand over her mouth.
“You are so bad,” Ruthie said, shaking her head as she began to walk away to deal with Francois.
“Well, don’t you be. Leave Sam alone,” Eve called after her.
Ruthie paused, put a hand on one hip and looked back at Eve over her shoulder. She gave her an innocent smile. “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”
“I mean it Ruthie. He’s not what you think he is.”
Before Ruthie could say another word, the frantic Francois had taken her by the arm and tugged her back into the kitchen.
Eve went to the ladies room, returning to their table just as a waiter placed two dishes upon it. She recognized the appetizer on her side—Ruthie knew how much Eve loved baked brie. When she glanced across the table at Sam’s plate, however, she gasped in horror. “Oh, my God, that’s disgusting, I’ll kill her!”
Roaches. Ruthie had given him a plate full of roaches. Artfully arranged around the edge of a deep dish were shelled little critters that looked like they’d come right out of the nearest Roach Motel. “How could she?”
About to snatch the plate away and march into the kitchen, Eve paused when she heard the waiter’s offended sniff. He rolled his eyes at her, then turned his attention to Sam. “Miss Sinclair’s New Orleans style crawfish are quite delicious, sir.”
Eve stared at him suspiciously, then watched as Sam reached for the plate, a wide grin on his face. “Craw-daddies! How did she ever guess I have an absolute weakness for anything Cajun?”
Swallowing hard, Eve watched him break open and suck dry one of the little creepy-crawly things that still, to her, looked awfully bug-like. “Sam?”
He nodded, a grin on his face as he finished eating. “Fantastic. You’re right, your friend can cook.”
Sighing in relief, Eve watched as Sam dug into his appetizer, and finally she relaxed enough to eat hers. Just as she finished, and put her fork down on her empty plate, she saw Ruthie slowly approaching their table from the direction of the kitchen. The redhead was watching Sam eat, and Eve noticed a distinct frown on her face at Sam’s obvious enjoyment of the food.
“Ruthie, how did you ever guess that Sam just loves crawfish?” Eve asked waspishly as the other woman reached their table.
“Loves?”
Sam nodded, washing down the food with a mouthful of icy cold beer. “Last time I went to New Orleans I ate for three days straight. I don’t suppose you have any gumbo back in that kitchen of yours?”
Ruthie nodded, still frowning. “As a matter of fact, we offered seafood gumbo as one of the specials tonight. Would you like some?”
“I’d love it,” he replied with a big smile.
“And hold the fish heads, would you?” Eve added.
Ruthie merely shrugged.
This time, Eve wasn’t letting her get away without filling her in. Leaping from her chair, she grabbed her friend by the arm and escorted her back to the kitchen, hissing the truth with every step. As they reached the swinging doors, she concluded, “Sam is a great guy, Ruthie. The scheme is off, don’t you dare do a thing to him because I’m falling in love with him!”
She froze, hearing the words that had come out of her own mouth.
Ruthie did, too, her eyes huge and round, her mouth hanging open.
They stared at each other for a long moment, then Ruthie squealed and threw her arms around Eve, giving her a tight hug. “I’m so happy for you. This has been such a long time coming. Finally!” Letting go and stepping back, she chattered on. “I mean, the rest of us have fallen in and out of love a dozen times, but never you. Not until now.” She glanced at Sam across the restaurant, flashing a big, Ruthie smile, muttering, “But you know, if he breaks your heart, I’m going to slice his dick off with my Forschner-Victorinox boning knife.”
Eve didn’t know what that was…but it sounded sharp. Laughing at her friend’s vehemence—which came, she knew, from a place of deep love—she replied, “I promise you, there won’t be a need. Sam and I have fallen into something wonderful, and I don’t think anything can happen to screw that up.”
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br /> Chapter 12
"Always date women with lots of girlfriends. That way, when you break up, they'll all be there to pitch right in and help you get over the loss." - from 101 Ways To Avoid Commitment
The next seven days with Sam were among the happiest of Eve’s life. Certainly they were the most sexually fulfilling, but she also just had so much fun being with him. They spent the weekend out enjoying the summer weather, driving downtown to do a few touristy things neither of them had ever done, despite having lived in the area for several years. Neither of them had seen the Liberty Bell, so they made that obligatory stop. Then they went to the Terminal Market, ate too much, drank some wine, and walked hand-in-hand through the throng.
Every night was an exploration in sensuality—sometimes tender, sometimes so hot she wondered that they didn’t catch his apartment on fire.
Honestly, after living with him for a week, she didn’t know how she was going to readjust to being back in her own apartment, in her own bed. Waking up without him beside her at night would be utterly painful.
But it had to be done. School would resume soon and she had a few pre-planning meetings to attend the following week. So, while Sam was at work on Friday afternoon, Eve packed up her belongings. He intended to follow her home that night, spend the weekend, then come back to the city. They’d already made plans for next weekend. And the one after that.
The hour-long distance definitely wasn’t going to change the basics of what they had. They would be together; just not as much. This whole adventure had started out hot and heavy. Now they were taking a step back and picking up the dating part of a romance. At least for a little while.
Dragging her suitcase out of Sam’s closet, Eve was startled by a knock on the front door. Certainly Sam wouldn’t be knocking, and he didn’t seem to be on a stop-in-and-say-hi basis with his neighbors. Curious, she went to the door, peered through the peephole, and was surprised to see Sam’s cousin, Robbie, standing out in the corridor. Flipping the lock, she opened the door and welcomed him with a smile.
“Hi there, nice to see you again,” she said. In case he didn’t remember her, she added, “We met a couple of weeks ago—I’m Eve.”
“I remember, of course,” he stammered. His face was a little red, a sheen of moisture on his brow.
“Please come in and cool off,” she insisted, gesturing him inside. “It’s brutal out today.”
“Yes, it is.” He followed her in. “I’m sorry to bother you like this.”
“It’s no bother,” she insisted. “But Sam’s not home from work yet.”
“I know. It was actually you I came to talk to.”
Surprised, she waved a hand toward the sofa. “Please, sit down. Would you like something cold to drink?” He sure looked like he could use it.
“No, thank you,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the sofa, his elbows on his knees, as if he didn’t want to sit back and get comfortable. His foot tapped on the floor, and his hands clenched and unclenched a large, manila envelope. Nervousness dripped from the man along with his sweat.
“So what can I do for you?” she asked, more and more curious about the visit.
Swallowing visibly, he glanced around the apartment. He flinched when he saw Quigley eyeing him from beneath the coffee table…a former victim, perhaps?
“I see he still has the Tasmanian Devil,” Robbie said.
“You’ve met?”
He nodded. “When Sam went on his book tour I came over and took care of him. Got to the point where I’d run in, pour the food and water, then dash back out,” he said with a light laugh.
He cleared his throat. Niceties over.
“Eve, I can’t tell you how badly I feel about showing you this,” he mumbled, looking down at the envelope in his hands.
Focusing on it as well, Eve began to feel the tiniest hint of trepidation, but shrugged it off. She and Sam had no more secrets, there was nothing he didn’t know about her. So she didn’t have any reason to feel nervous. But something in Robbie’s demeanor made her feel that way, anyway.
“What is it?”
Nibbling his lip, he finally reached for the flap of the envelope and unfastened it. His hand visibly shook as he reached inside and retrieved a sheath of folded papers. Still totally confused, Eve wracked her brain, trying to imagine what could be so troubling.
Then she saw the photos. And the headline.
“Oh, my God.”
“Don’t worry—it’s not in print yet!” he insisted.
Yet? Meaning it someday would be? Because if that article—along with those pictures—ever hit the news media, her carefully reconstructed life, in which she was very happy, would be over.
One photo was of her father. In handcuffs. It wasn’t an old shot, it looked like it had been taken in Miami very recently. Meaning he was in trouble again.
The rest of the photos were of Eve dressed in skimpy lingerie, posing for pictures. They weren’t taken back when she was a teenage model. No, these were snapped just a couple of weeks ago at the His World offices…the photos nobody was ever supposed to see. They were sexy, provocative, and definitely not high school English teacher material.
“I thought Diana had deleted the digital files,” she mumbled, speaking more to herself, hearing the shock in her voice.
“I’m sure she meant to,” he replied, commiserating as he handed her the pages so she could peruse them more fully.
It didn’t help. Because the problem wasn’t just that Sam’s cousin was in possession of these pictures for some reason. It was that the pictures were printed on a mock-up page of some kind of tabloid or magazine, with an article titled Former Child Star Bares All While Daddy’s Still Up To His Old Tricks!
Her stomach rolled and she lifted a hand to her mouth, fearing she would be sick.
“Do you want a glass of water?” Robbie asked consolingly.
She managed to shake her head, focused on scanning through the article, which talked about her father’s arrest for his involvement in some kind of land scam in Florida. Then it segued into a dissection of her life, the entire section filled with pithy innuendo, and outright lies. It put a microscope over her whole sordid past, her father, the trial, and exposed her current job as a teacher in a small, conservative Pennsylvania town.
By the time she’d finished reading it, she’d already begun mentally composing her resignation letter. Because no way would the private school that employed her let her keep her job once these pictures and the nasty, salacious article hit the news. She couldn’t possibly teach a room full of teenagers about classic literature if they were imagining her nearly naked body or Googling her old television commercials.
She was ruined. Completely ruined. She knew, logically, that on one level she deserved it for agreeing to pull a stupid prank on an innocent stranger. But still, the punishment seemed excessive for the crime.
Eve didn’t dig deeper into her emotions to decide how she felt about her father’s situation. That was just too raw and painful to even think about yet. The surface catastrophe was quite enough for right now.
One more thing she noticed before giving Robbie her full, shocked attention: There was no byline on the article. Nor was there any kind of masthead to show which tabloid or magazine was publishing this smear piece.
“Is it true? About my father?”
Robbie merely averted his gaze, which told her all she needed to know.
She wondered if her stepmother had finally cut the purse strings. Lord knew her father would never go out and do something ordinary like working for a living.
“I don’t suppose it matters that I never signed a release for those photos,” she said, her voice laced with bitterness, knowing tabloids seldom worried about that kind of thing. They would claim the photos were “leaked” by an anonymous source or let her try to drag them into court, laughing all the way to the bank.
“I’m sure this won’t ever be published, Eve,” Robbie said, leaning forward in his seat, appear
ing earnest.
Shaking her head in confusion, she could only stare at the man and wait for him to explain.
“I mean, I am 99.9% sure it would never go as far as actual publication.”
“Well how far is it supposed to go, other than my utter humiliation?” Not to mention the stab in the heart and kick to the gut?
He shook his head, taking the article from her and slipping it back in the envelope. “It’s all about Sam. He’s…”
Her jaw dropped and she was shaking her head before he even finished the sentence. “No way. There is no way in hell you’ll ever convince me Sam had anything to do with this,” she snarled.
Robbie flinched, as if she’d slapped him, and slowly shook his head, obviously a little surprised by her immediate defense of his cousin. Well, he didn’t know she’d fallen crazy in love with the man. But because she loved Sam—because she knew him—she had no doubt he would never have done something like this. It just wasn’t in his character.
“I don’t mean Sam is responsible, of course, not directly, anyway,” the man said, rubbing his palms against his pants, as if they were sweaty. He spoke slowly, cautiously, as if considering each and every word. “I mean, well, some people think that Sam is too distracted by his relationship with you to think about what’s best for his future.”
She couldn’t contain a short, humorless laugh. “His father, you mean.”
Robbie shrugged, looking more and more miserable.
Trying to piece it all together in her mind, she thought about the conversations she and Sam had had in recent days about his father’s efforts to manipulate him into taking over his newly acquired magazine empire. And Sam’s refusal to do it. Though it sounded as though father and son were getting along better now than they had in a while, that issue still remained a big bone of contention between them, and she knew Sam had no intention of backing down.
Did his father seriously think Sam would change his mind if Eve weren’t around?
The whole picture materialized, the nastiness of it creeping into the crevices of her brain. “So I’m being blackmailed to break up with Sam? To, what, break his heart so he’ll want to crawl back to the family business?”