by Leger, Lori
“You realize what you’ve done, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, still running his hands through her hair.
“Christie went over there with the full story. So everyone is at my mom’s talking about this right now. They’re all wondering what’s going on and what we’re doing all by ourselves. You’ll have to come with me to Mom’s.”
Carrie pulled away from him, but stopped when his tug on her belt opened the robe partially. He groaned as he caught a good glimpse of her smooth, pale thigh and bare waistline.
She grabbed the gaping flap and closed it. “Hey!”
“I’ve been dying to see what you’re wearing under that robe,” he said as he pulled her to him. “And you always smell so good.” He buried his face into the side of her neck.
She scrunched her shoulders. “It’s jasmine bath crystals.” She slapped at his hands as they grabbed for her belt again. “Stop that…you haven’t kissed nearly enough butt yet.”
He gave her a crooked grin. “If you’d just open up that robe, I’d be glad to take care of that for you right now.” He bent down and brought his hands up under the robe and groaned as he made contact with the skin of her thighs. “God you’re soft.”
Carrie pulled abruptly away. “Any butt-kissing will be done on my terms—not yours. Sit. Over there.” She turned him physically and pushed him in the direction of the sofa. “I’ll be ready as soon as I get dressed and blow-dry my hair.”
Carrie picked out a pair of jeans and a rust colored cowl neck sweater to wear, before locking herself in the bathroom. Ten minutes later, she walked out of the bathroom fully dressed and ready to leave. “Ready to go face the mob?” she asked, reaching for her purse.
He gave her a smug expression. “Do I have a choice?”
Carrie straightened. “Yes, you do. We don’t have to do this today, or ever, for that matter.” She shrugged carelessly as she picked up her jacket.
Sam gave her a low whistle as he sidled up close to her. “Then I choose to be wherever you are today.”
She cocked her head to the side and smiled up at him. “I thought you were supposed to have lunch with your family today.”
He grabbed her hand. “Something more important came up at the last minute. And just like at your mom’s, I’m sure they’re having a field day talking about us right now.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “Did I screw things up?” he asked. “I mean, you’re still moving to Kenton, right?”
Her look turned sober. “I don’t think I have a choice in moving, but as to whether or not we’ll be seeing each other? Hmm…I think I’m going to hold off answering that until I see how you handle my family.”
He dropped his head. “Aw hell. What if they hate me?”
Carrie giggled. “Relax, Sam. Compared to my ex, you’re a wade in the lake.”
“Oooh, high praise,” he snorted.
Carrie laughed as she took his hand. “You want to follow me over there in your truck?”
“I’ll drive and bring you home whenever you want,” he said, squeezing her hand.
Sam pulled into the last remaining spot in the front of the house five miles south of town. He exited the truck and gazed at the flat countryside, just a several miles north of the marshlands that branched off into the Gulf of Mexico. He closed his eyes and listened to the call of the geese as well as the distant sounds of cattle. “Man, I don’t hear any of that living in town. Do the geese have a favorite spot around here?”
Carrie pointed in the pasture across the road running in front of her mom’s house. They heard the single pop of a gun in the distance and within seconds, hundreds of geese lifted in flight, filling the air with the sound of calls.
“Oh my God, that’s beautiful,” Sam breathed. “I hear Speckle Bellies and Blue Geese, for sure.”
Carrie watched the sight reverently. “It’s something, isn’t it?” she murmured. “I’ll miss this living in town.” She gazed up at Sam and smiled. “You ready for your unveiling?”
As soon as they stepped inside Sam’s senses were bombarded. A football game blared on t.v., while raucous calls of four men watching from various spots in the small living room joined the cheers of the televised crowd. Breads baking, meats roasting, and the distinctive smell of roux simmering in some kind of gumbo, had his mouth watering.
Carrie’s three brothers-in-law, Tom, Lonnie, and Craig, as well as one brother, Mack, took time out from the game to give Sam hardy handshakes when she introduced them. Sam turned from the last handshake as an older, much shorter version of Carrie entered the room.
“You must be Sam,” the woman told him. “I’m Elaine, and you look exactly the way you did in my dream last night.” She walked right up to him and gave him a big hug, surprising both Sam and Carrie. One by one, he met her four sisters and one sister in law.
Christie introduced herself last, grinning up at him. “It’s nice to put a face to that voice of yours,” she told him.
“Yours too, Christie.” Sam leaned forward to the tow-headed toddler hanging onto Christie’s leg. “And this young man must be Max.”
“Yeth,” Max told Sam, giving him a gap toothed grin. He pointed to Carrie. “That’th Aunt Cawee.”
“I sure am, buddy boy,” Carrie said, as she scooped him up and kissed him on his neck, until he chortled with laughter. “Max, can you shake Sam’s hand and tell him hi?”
The toddler reached out to shake hands. “Hi Tham.”
“Hi, Max.”
Elaine took his arm and led him to a chair at the kitchen table. “I see you were able to follow my driving directions?”
Sam nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I found her just fine, and thanks again.”
“There was something in your voice that made me think you were sincere, and to tell you the truth, Carrie’s been smiling more in the last couple of weeks than she has in years. I have a feeling you’re the reason. Sam, are you hungry? We’re about ready to eat.”
Sam lifted his nose to breath in the wonderful aromas coming from the kitchen. “Yes ma’am! My mouth’s been watering since I walked inside this place.”
Carrie elbowed him as they lined up to fix their plates, buffet style. “Just like you to get an early start on buttering up my mother. She’s a sucker for a hungry man.”
“I’m a sucker for good cooking, so we should get along fine.”
“Butt kisser,” she accused.
“Pain in the ass,” he countered. “Besides, I needed all the help I could get to find you.”
“Yeah, well I may turn out to be such a big pain in the ass you’ll wish you’d kept yours in Kenton.”
He slid his hands around her waist and leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Not in this lifetime, Baby.”
The two of them sat in the dining room with several other family members, feasting on the delicious turkey, oven roasted to succulent perfection, various rice and vegetable dishes, as well as wild goose gumbo. Carrie’s siblings had lots of questions for Sam about his work, his home, his children, his parents, and the ultimate question, asked by none other than Carrie’s mom.
“So, Sam, what are your intentions concerning my daughter?”
Carrie kept her eyes on her plate, obviously not inclined to run interference on this particular subject. Both the dining room and adjoining kitchen grew quiet as everyone stopped to hear his answer.
Sam set down his glass of tea and cleared his throat. “Well, I don’t think it’s a secret how I feel about her—”
A female voice from the kitchen table interrupted. “Not anymore.” Giggles and snorts of all genders accompanied the comment, before someone shushed them all into silence.
Sam heard one of Carrie’s favorite movies, It’s a Wonderful Life, playing on the small television set in a room next to the kitchen. Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed sang the last strains of ‘Buffalo Gal’ as he got his thoughts together.
“Ma’am, the ultimate decision is in your daughter’s hands, of course, but a
s far as I’m concerned…” he turned to look at Carrie. “I’m in this for good.”
Seated next to Sam, Carrie swallowed audibly then glanced up as all eyes fixed on her. “What?” she asked. “We’ve only been on one date. I can’t help it if he finds me irresistible.”
Jen’s resounding snort was the first of several comments and noises emitted by her family as they began teasing the couple.
Elaine placed a hand on Carrie’s shoulder. “I don’t mind telling you the antics of that husband of hers were hard to swallow sometimes. But he did have a hand in giving me three gorgeous grandchildren.”
“Okay, y’all need to lay off poor old Dave when he’s not around to defend himself,” Lonnie chimed in. “You just never appreciated him, Carrie,” he added, using the sarcasm he was known for. The statements brought on a chorus of ‘Poor Daves’ that ended in laughter.
Sam glanced over at Carrie. “I guess he didn’t have time to establish much of a fan base among your family, did he?”
Katie answered for Carrie. “He had plenty of time, just no inclination. Trust me, Sam. That divorce was way past due.”
Carrie looked up, her gaze scanning the room to encompass her family. “I needed a plan, okay? When you have three kids, no education, and no place to go, you have to wait until the time is right. You’re supposed to be picking on Sam today, not me.”
“Is that why you brought me here? So they could pick on me?” Sam asked her.
Carrie grinned. “Yep, throw you to the wolves, and see if you come out standing like a man, or cowering like a mama’s boy. I had to see if you could handle the pressure.”
“Oh, I think I can. The previous competitor doesn’t appear to have been too stiff…” Sam treated everyone at the table to a devilish grin. “Or maybe he was.”
“You must have met old Dave,” Susan answered, joining in the others’ laughter. “Personally, I’ve always thought of him as our own Stanley Kowalski. You know…Brando, drunk and yelling ‘Stella!’ at the window.”
He gazed somberly at Carrie as he answered. “I’ve only seen Dave in passing, but haven’t had the particular pleasure of meeting him yet.”
“Whatever she’s told you about him, it’s probably worse than that.” Katie said, lowering her voice. “Sometimes, I think little sister has kept a lot of what went on in that part of her life to herself.”
Sam’s gaze lingered on Carrie, as she cleared her throat. “We’re not here to talk about Dave.”
“Apparently, we’re here to talk about me,” Sam said.
Carrie’s siblings spent the next hour or so regaling Sam with hilarious family stories and anecdotes. Carrie’s mom told him about the time when two year old Carrie used a stool to climb onto her counter top.
“Did you get a spanking?” he teased Carrie.
“No. Mom was so impressed, she snapped a picture then moved the stool and walked out of the room, without taking me off of the cabinet. Of course when I tried to get down without the stool, I fell on my butt.”
Sam laughed then asked the obvious question. “What were you looking for up in that cabinet, Nosy Rosy?”
Fudge, of course,” she commented. “Mom always kept a plastic container on the top shelf with fudge in it.”
“She’d hide it from us so we couldn’t get to it,” Mack added.
“It sounds like she didn’t hide it good enough,” Sam answered.
“Aw hell, we all knew where to go to find the fudge,” Christie answered.
“That was my PMS stash…back before PMS had a name, of course,” Elaine admitted. “Good Lord, I blamed your father for years!”
And now you know why the very first thing I learned to cook was fudge,” Carrie told Sam before turning to face her mother. “It was in self defense.”
Sam laughed along with the others as the stories continued.
After a while, the women got up to clean the kitchen and the guys migrated to the living room to watch some football. Sam hung around the kitchen with Carrie and the women.
Elaine turned to her daughter. “Carrie, before you got here this morning, Ruth called wanting to know when you needed that furniture. She’s studying for exams this week but said she’d be free after lunch if you wanted to go take a look at what she had. I told her I didn’t know if the furniture was going to Gardiner or Kenton. “Which is it?”
Carrie chewed her lower lip thoughtfully and dried her hands on a dishtowel. She grabbed hold of Sam’s belt loop and pulled him gently toward the doorway leading out to her mom’s back yard. “Come on, we need to talk.”
When they got out to the deck Carrie let go of his belt loop and walked down the steps and out behind her mom’s house for a little privacy.
Sam followed in silence, stopping behind her as she stood with her arms crossed tight across her chest, staring out toward the back pasture. Other than a few muffled thumps coming from inside the house, the only sound came from the north wind rushing over dry, frozen grass.
The sigh Carrie emitted was deep, long, and sad-sounding. “I don’t think I can do this, Sam.”
CHAPTER 17
Carrie felt Sam place his hands on her shoulders. His voice was low and pleading.
“Come on, Babe, can’t we talk about this?”
She turned to face him. “There’s nothing to talk about. Unless you can tell me right now that you’re willing to help me pick up some furniture and bring it to my new place in Kenton.”
Sam cocked his hooded gaze to the side. “What did you say?”
Carrie hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans. “I said, I was wondering if you’d be available to help me pick up some furniture and bring it to my place. You know; that cute little house just across from that cop and his crazy neighbor in Kenton?”
Sam threw his head back with a shout then reached out to pull her close. “Nothing would make me happier right now, except this.”
He placed both hands on her face and kissed her long enough and deep enough to make her toes curl.
***
Back in Elaine’s kitchen, every woman in the family was pushing for a space at the only window with a view of them.
“Would you look at that,” Christie crooned. “Well ladies, it looks like Carrie’s moving to Kenton.”
“Wow,” Jen murmured. “Look at them go. I so envy that.”
“God, can y’all even remember what that felt like?” Katie added. “When you thought you’d die if you were away from your man for even one night?”
Christie snorted. “Damn, I need a cigarette.”
Carrie’s younger brother, Josh, who’d snuck in past the snoozing men in the living room, chose that moment to walk in on his sisters. “What the hell’s out there?”
Christie jumped the highest, and punched her brother on the arm. “Dammit, Josh! You scared the crap out of me.”
Josh cackled gleefully. “What are y’all gawking at?” he asked, craning his neck to see.
Carrie’s making out with her new boyfriend, Sam Langley,” Susan told him as she turned around to give her youngest brother a hug. “It’s good to see you, little brother.”
Josh returned her hug. “Merry Christmas, Susie.” Once he’d spread around the hugs, he turned his attention to the view out of the window. “Now, who the hell is this Sam Langley character? Doesn’t he know he can’t suck face with number six until number seven has cleared him?” He banged loudly on the glass pane, getting their attention.
***
Carrie and Sam turned to the sound of banging on the kitchen window.
“Who the hell is that?” Sam asked, as a man yelled out a beefy “Get a room!” from inside the kitchen.
“Little brother Josh just made it in. And we’ve got an audience. Jesus, nothing changes around here, it’s still like living in a fish bowl. Let’s go face the steadily increasing mob.”
Sam pulled her back to him. “Not without telling you this, first.”
“Sam…” She glanced up at the window where
her siblings still watched with keen interest.
“They’ve been at that window since we walked out here, and nobody’s tried to chase me off with a shotgun yet,” he said, wrapping his long arms around her and nuzzling her neck with his lips. He brought his mouth up to her ear. “I love you, Carrie,” he whispered.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I know you do and I thank you for that.”
After another mind blowing kiss, he lowered his forehead to hers and brushed away a single tear with his thumb. “I understand it’s too soon for you, but are you worried that you can’t return the feeling some day?”
“Aw Sam,” she murmured, pushing away from him. “It’s not that I can’t love you, it’s that I shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“Clarify it for me.”
“Look, between my kids, my crazy ex husband, and my mystery caller, it’s more than I should expect any man to handle.”
“Why don’t you let me decide what I can handle.”
“There are too many things that can go wrong.”
“I know that, but I’m asking you to let me try, anyway.”
She stood back and stared up at him. “God you’re stubborn.”
“I can be, when it’s something important to me. And you’re pretty damn important to me.”
“I don’t want to let you down if things don’t…”
“Stop,” he said. “This is going to happen…We are going to be together.” He stepped forward and embraced her. “I want to be here for you, Baby. Please…” He lowered his forehead to touch hers. “Please, let me be here.”
She stared up at him and gave one final sigh. “All right,” she said, pointing her finger at him. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He smiled down at her. “I won’t have to. Can we pick up that furniture today?”
She nodded. “We may as well.”
Sam gave her a cheesy grin. “Hell, I feel just like that kid who got his BB gun on The Christmas Story.”
Carrie pushed her windblown hair out of her eyes. “Just don’t shoot your eye out, Ralphie. Now come on, you’ve got another brother to meet. Josh is the one who’s thirteen months younger than me.”