Bluer Than Velvet

by Mary McBride

  Shaking his head as much in disgust as disbelief, Sam took another sip of the sweet, searing coffee. He wasn’t that kind of man. He wasn’t a shirt-wrenching, zipper-breaking, bra-tugging, silk-and-lace-ripping animal. At least he never had been until Laura McNeal worked whatever brand of witchcraft she was using on him. Before now, before her, he’d never even considered himself a very sexual person.

  In all their time together, he and Jenny had gone to bed more as an afterthought than anything else. Making love just hadn’t been that important, not in the grand scheme of their relationship. If it ever had been important to him, he’d either suppressed those feelings or altered them to match Jenny’s cooler temperament.

  She was so tiny, his Jenny, so fine-boned and delicate, and he was always so damned afraid of hurting her that it almost became a relief to hear her say Not tonight, Sam.

  In their final two or three years together, Jenny had said that a lot. He’d gotten used to passion in a minor key. He liked it that way. At least, he’d told himself he did. But suddenly here he was, full of thundering chords and red-hot jazz, a kind of primal music he didn’t like one bit.

  He didn’t want this. After Jenny’s death, getting involved with a woman was the farthest thing from Sam’s mind. If he’d wanted an involvement, if he’d craved any kind of female companionship at all, there was always Janey, waiting patiently on his doorstep, clearly his for the taking.

  Or maybe not so patient, he thought. Drunk as he’d been last night, Wes Gunther was absolutely right. Sam had to do something about Janey. But what? He had to do something about Laura, too, but he’d be damned if he knew what. He was mulling over his options when Laura called to him from inside the house.

  He found her in the kitchen, on the phone. She was wearing—heaven help him—one of his plaid flannel shirts, the tail of which barely succeeded in covering hers. And there, below the shirttail, were those long, lean, mesmerizing legs. That predictable, improbable, uncontrollable heat rushed through him again. Get a grip, he warned himself. You’re not that kind of man.

  When she turned and saw him, she immediately handed him the receiver.

  “I’ve called a cab,” she said, “but I don’t know how to give them directions. Would you, please?”

  “A cab?” he asked stupidly, holding the phone as if it were some mysterious object. A moon rock. A fossil. A hunk of strange debris.

  “I want to go home, Sam.”

  “I’ll take you. You don’t…”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Please just tell the woman at the cab company how to get to your house.”

  Sam lifted the phone to his ear, started to mumble about highways and bridges and intersections, then gave the dispatcher a gruff “Never mind” and slapped the receiver back on the phone.

  “What did you do that for?”

  Because I’m an idiot, he thought. There was no other explanation.

  “I don’t want you going back to your place alone, Laura,” he said. “You hired me to help you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Well, I’ve decided to unhire you.” She blew a stray wisp of hair off her forehead. “You’re not helping me, Sam. You’re not helping me at all. You’re just…I don’t know…confusing me.”

  She raised her arms in a helpless gesture that succeeded mostly in confusing Sam because he didn’t know whether to look at her exposed thighs or her eyes. His gaze kind of floundered from one to the other.

  “What are you confused about?” he asked lamely.

  “Me. You. Us. Well, sex, if you want the absolute truth. I don’t usually…I’m not…oh, hell.”

  Her pretty face was so squinched up in frustration that it almost made Sam laugh. Except there was nothing funny about what she’d just said. That was the same way he was feeling. Oh, hell summed it up pretty well.

  “I don’t usually, and I’m not, either,” he said with a little laugh that sounded more like indigestion than amusement. “I’m pretty confused myself.”

  “You!”

  She had turned to pour a cup of coffee, and with her exclamation, poured more coffee onto the counter than into her cup. “It seems to me your only confusion lies in deciding just how many women you can keep dangling on your string.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  With her back still to him, she snapped a paper towel off the holder and gave a vicious swipe to the countertop. “Well, let’s see. There’s ol’ Janey, who’s so thoroughly hooked that she won’t even give you up for the father of her child. There’s me, and it only took you about twenty-four hours to get me into bed. Twice, I might add. There certainly must be somebody else.”

  “There’s nobody else.”

  After dropping the crumpled paper towel in the trash can, she turned to face him. “I’m just not in your league, Sam. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not the kind of person who falls into bed with a man after only knowing him for a day or two.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, at least I didn’t used to be. There! You see? You’ve got me so confused I don’t even know what kind of person I am anymore.”

  He didn’t know what to say. A wan shrug was the best he could offer at the moment. It was either that or wrapping his arms around her, and he didn’t think that was a very wise move under the circumstances.

  Laura continued, pacing back and forth in front of the sink, her coffee sloshing in its cup. “Not only that, but I don’t know what kind of signals I’m giving off these days. First there was Artie with all his unsolicited gifts and his proposal and his unsolicited fist. Then you, all of a sudden, with that mesmerizing mouth of yours and those great hands and your…well…my God.” Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling again.

  He still didn’t know what to say, and a second shrug seemed way too cavalier. An embrace was still out of the question.

  “I just want to go home,” she said, putting the cup down, shaking her head. “I just need to go home. Now. Right now.”

  What he wanted to say was Stay, but instead he said, “Okay. I’ll take you home.”

  Laura watched the farms and green fields gradually give way to strip malls and office complexes. It was the reverse of their drive just two days ago, but she felt as if she’d been away far longer than that. Weeks. Even months.

  She stared silently out the window, remembering how she’d worried during that earlier drive that Sam might turn down some country road and attack her. Little did she know that when the time came she’d be such an eager participant. Not once, but twice, for heaven’s sake.

  Sam Zachary, despite his vegetable garden and his ruffled, blue gingham apron and fussy culinary skills, was an amazing lover. Urgent. Ardent. All-consuming. Laura glanced to her left, at his hands on the steering wheel, those strong, sure hands that had done such incredible things to her body the night before. She tried to remember the name of the song he had played on the piano. “Liebestraum.” That was it. Dream of Love. She couldn’t have dreamed it any better.

  No one had ever made love to her with such passion. Not that she was an expert, or required even a whole hand of fingers to count her previous lovers. There had only been one, and it had taken an engagement ring and more than a little persuasion plus a good deal of champagne to get her into bed. Not like Sam. Not a bit like Sam.

  Laura had promised herself she’d never dream of love again. Then Sam had played her like “Liebestraum” last night. Twice.

  This morning she’d awakened, her mind still half dazed and her body deliciously sore, and decided then and there that she’d rather take her chances with Artie than spend one more day with Sam. When it came right down to it, a broken bone didn’t sound half so bad as a broken heart.

  There was already a jagged stress fracture in that poor organ, for despite all his protests, Sam had finally agreed to take her home. They were only a few blocks away when she asked, “Do I owe you any more money?”

  “No,” he said irritably, not taking his eyes off the street ahead. “
In fact I should probably give you a refund. I didn’t exactly solve your problem for you.”

  “That’s okay. It’s my problem. I’ll figure out a way to handle it. And anyway, you’ve got enough problems of your own.”

  Even as she spoke, Laura was wondering what Sam was going to do about Janey and Wes and their little girl. The fissure in her heart cracked a little bit more when she realized that she’d probably never know, that what had seemed like her concern for a day or two, really wasn’t any of her business at all.

  “I hope everything works out for you, Sam,” she said, meaning it with all her heart. “If you ever decide to get rid of your mother’s clothes, why don’t you give me a call? I could sell them on consignment for you, or I could just buy them from you outright. Whatever you prefer.”

  “Maybe,” he said, scowling as he spoke and sounding more as if he meant probably not.

  He stopped the Blazer at the light, then turned the corner of Stevenson Boulevard onto shabby Russell Avenue where Nana’s Attic was located just two blocks east. Laura still felt as if she’d been gone more than a few days. Rolling her window down, she drew in a long breath of exhaust fumes and blistering tar and dumpsters. Ah, the fragrance of home. Who needed clean country air?

  She noticed a hand-written Going Out Of Business sign in the window of Stemmler’s Drug Store, and she was sure the notice hadn’t been there when she left. Still, it didn’t surprise her. Art Hammerman, who owned nearly every building on both sides of the street and was hatching a plan for an inner-city upscale shopping street, had probably raised Mr. Stemmler’s rent another notch and this time succeeded in driving the poor old man out of business. The Hammer had struck again.

  Nana’s Attic, sitting smack in the middle of the block, was undoubtedly somewhere on his list. Laura was wondering just how long she had before he raised her rent sky-high and drove her out of business, too. It was a shame, really, that Artie was such a creep because a relationship with the Hammer’s son could have been so beneficial.

  She was thinking that, instead of hiring a private eye, she would have been a lot better off picking up a copy of How to Swim with the Sharks, when she heard Sam’s sudden and sharp intake of breath. When she looked down the block in the direction of his gaze, all Laura could see was a fire engine parked in the street, right in front of where her building used to be.

  Chapter 8

  “You’re absolutely sure it was lightning?” Sam asked the fire marshal, a big-bellied, blue-uniformed, brass-buttoned man who seemed much more concerned at the moment about the condition of his shoeshine than the gutted building directly in front of him.

  “That was one hell of a storm last night,” the man said, giving a last woeful look at his soaked and grimy brogans. “Hell of a storm. Lightning hit the roof of Saint Stephen’s, too.” He pointed a stubby index finger. “Got this building right there at the southwest corner.”

  “There were witnesses?” Sam asked.

  The fire marshal aimed a thumb toward a place called Hal and Sandy’s on the opposite side of the street. “Yeah. Several,” he said, “and not all of them three sheets to the wind. It was lightning, all right. No doubt about it.”

  That came as an enormous relief to Sam, whose immediate suspicion and worst fear had been that Laura’s erstwhile friend and stalker, Artie, might have been responsible for the blaze. He was grateful that wasn’t the case, but at the same time he dreaded telling Laura, as afraid of storms as she was, that a random bolt of lightning had had her name on it last night.

  Jesus. At least she hadn’t been there when it struck. He wondered if it had happened while they were making love, a literal lightning strike comparable to the figurative one he had felt when he exploded inside her, a jolt that had left him feeling a little like the smoking rubble in front of him now.

  “You live here?” the fire marshal asked.

  “No. A friend. She wasn’t here last night.”

  “Lucky.”

  “Yeah.” Sam rolled his shoulders to ease the tension there. “She’s waiting in my Blazer over there. She’s pretty upset. This was her business as well as her residence. You need any information from her?”

  “Just a routine form filled out since she wasn’t the property’s owner. She can mail it to us. Hang on. I’ll get one from my car.”

  Sam looked back at what was left of Laura’s building. Not much. They were getting ready to pull the rear wall down so it didn’t collapse onto the alley. The second-floor apartment—Laura’s home—was gone. The first-floor shop was gone, as well. Everything above street level, every stick of furniture, every item of clothing, every board and cross-beam, was now reduced to cinders in the soggy wreckage of the basement.

  He walked through the maze of fire hoses on the wet pavement, back to where Laura waited in his truck. He leaned down, bracing his forearms on the window opening.

  “It’s totaled,” he said. “Nothing’s salvageable, Laura. I’m really sorry.”

  She was pale, and her blank gaze was similar to the hundred-yard stare of a soldier in battle.

  “I have insurance,” she said weakly. “I mailed in a payment just a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure I did.”

  “That’s good,” he murmured, hoping hard that her next question wouldn’t be about the origin of the fire.

  “Can’t I even pick through what’s left? I might… There might be something…”

  “Too dangerous, honey.” He leaned a little farther in the window to softly touch her cheek. “There’s nothing. Trust me. They’re going to bulldoze it and haul it away tomorrow.”

  She was biting her lower lip to keep it from trembling. “I just can’t believe this. Did…did they say how it started? Do they have any idea?”

  Sam closed his eyes a minute. God, he didn’t want to tell her it was lightning. That might really freak her out.

  “Was it arson?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m sure it was,” she said. “It had to be Artie.”

  Now he didn’t know which would be worse, letting her believe that her stalker was capable of such a vicious crime or telling her about the lightning. Laura spared him that decision, however, with her next question. It came out somewhere between a wail and a wet, pitiful sigh.

  “What am I going to do? Where am I going to go?”

  Home, he thought, with me. But he didn’t dare say it. “Can you stay with relatives? Friends?”

  “The only relative I have is a cousin in California, and the only friend I could impose on like that moved to Kansas two years ago.” She knuckled away a tear. “Pretty pitiful, huh?”

  Sam drew in a breath. “You could always impose on me.” What the hell, he thought. The worst she could say was no.

  “Yes.”

  Laura’s lips had been about to frame a distinct and unequivocal no when the sleek black stretch limo turned the corner half a block away and glided to a stop in front of what used to be her building.

  The license plate read Hammer-l, not that anybody needed to see the plate to know who the vehicle belonged to or who sat in the back seat behind those smoked glass windows. Chances were good that Artie sat there, too, accompanying his father on this inspection of their devastated property. Ha! Returning to the scene of the crime was more like it.

  “If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition, Sam,” she said, sliding down in the seat, trying to make herself small if not invisible. “At least until I can come up with something else.”

  “Great,” he said, blinking and looking a bit surprised.

  But hardly more surprised than Laura was herself. Going back to Sam’s house was the last thing she ever thought she’d be doing today. Or ever.

  “Could we go right now?” she asked, peeking over the dashboard, watching the Hammer’s driver and his bodyguard emerge, one from each side of the front seat.

  “Uh…sure. Absolutely. Let me just talk to the fire marshal a second. He’s got some form he needs you to fill out. I’l
l be right back.”

  “Okay.”

  Hurry, she wanted to add, watching the bodyguard’s hand reach for the handle on the limo’s rear door, not knowing who would emerge or what would happen next. Whoever emerged, though, Laura figured he’d be smiling. Art Hammerman, Sr., had just acquired another empty lot to advance his shopping mall scheme. Junior, the creep, had just revenged himself on the woman who had scorned him, not to mention furthering dear old dad’s investment plans. The Hammermans, large and small, had really scored big on this one.

  Hurry, Sam, she thought, watching him amble along the wet sidewalk past the limo toward the bright red fire marshal’s vehicle. He was nearly shoulder to shoulder with the Hammer’s bodyguard, and Laura couldn’t help but notice that her own bodyguard looked quite capable of taking the other man, at least two out of three.

  She let out a tiny sigh of relief, but sucked it right back in when the Hammer, in his shiny gray shark-skin suit, oozed out of the limo’s back seat, stood on the sidewalk a moment readjusting his French cuffs, then promptly shook hands with Sam!

  Laura’s heart slammed against her ribs. She slid down farther in the seat, hugged her arms tightly about herself and squeezed her eyes closed. This couldn’t be happening. The Hammer was shaking hands with Sam. They were greeting each other like long lost buddies. Brothers reunited. Siamese twins rejoined at the wrist. What in the world did that mean? It couldn’t be anything good. It had to be horrible. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

  The instant he reached out to grasp Art Hammerman’s hairy paw, all the puzzle pieces came together in Sam’s brain and he felt like using his other hand to slap his forehead. Artie! He should have known. Laura’s landlord’s son was no Jones. He was Artie Hammerman, junior thug. No wonder Laura was terrified. No wonder she had to work her way down to the Zs in the Yellow Pages before she could find somebody who would help her.

  “It’s Sam, right? Sam Zachary, the P.I.?” the Hammer asked in his gravelly movie-gangster voice.