Twelve
We parked around the block because there was no room on the street anywhere near his parents’ house. He put a hand on my shoulder and led me down the alley that ran behind the two-story, redbrick, A-frame home. When we went through the back door into the kitchen, I heard my name called.
“Jory!”
Regina was on me instantly, her arms open to receive me, and as we hugged each other tight, I heard Sam’s grunt of approval from behind me.
“I brought Jory, Mom, if that’s okay,” he teased her, laughing softly.
She pulled back to smile into my face. “Since I called you this morning and demanded you bring him with you…yes, Sammy, it’s okay. How are you, my darling?”
“I’m good.” I smiled back.
We stared a few seconds before she let me go and grabbed my hand, dragging me over to where she was chopping potatoes and onions.
“I’m going to teach you how to make Hungarian goulash.”
It sounded scary, but I was game. “Okay.”
Sam left me, and I heard the shouts of his name as the swinging door closed behind him.
I stayed in the kitchen and helped his mother with dinner, alternating between preparations, dishwashing, and listening to her talk.
When Sam’s sisters showed up with their husbands and kids, I was introduced to everyone.
Jen came with her husband, Mitch, and gave me a big hug when she pretended to meet me for the first time.
“Jesus, Jen,” Mitch said, chuckling, shaking my hand afterward. “Don’t crush the kid.”
“He’s not a kid,” she said as she stared into my eyes. “He’s got a very old soul.”
“Oh does he?” Mitch teased her, pulling her sideways to kiss her temple. “You’re adorable.”
And I saw her flinch, like every kindness was painful. The guilt was smothering her.
“You wanna help me?” I asked, trying to give her some relief.
“Yes,” she breathed out, taking off her coat and gloves, shoving them both at her husband. “I’d love to.”
I was introduced to her daughters, Ally and Carla, two and four respectively, and they both wanted to hug me.
Carla touched my hair and told me how pretty it was and that she wanted gold hair, like Cinderella, instead of brown.
I explained how much better brown was than gold.
She gave me a look as she twirled her fingers in my hair.
Funny to be getting the side-eye from a preschooler.
“How come it’s so long?”
“’Cause I need a haircut?” I answered, realizing that my hair now hit my shoulders.
“It’s too pretty to cut, Jory,” Jen told me. “I would kill for your highlights.”
“Yes,” Regina echoed her daughter. “You have beautiful thick hair, leave it alone.”
I shrugged and put Carla down on the counter so I could go back to cooking.
I told her she could help me. It was cute how she scooted around, getting comfortable and then looking up at me expectantly.
Her sister, being only two, had more interest in walking around the kitchen opening drawers and peering inside.
Sam came into the kitchen a half hour later with two other guys and his father. Amazing how much he looked like Thomas Kage. They were both big, tall men, but while Sam was covered in thick, hard, rippling muscle, his father had grown a bit softer in the face and around his middle.
“I just think we should sell it, Dad, and get our money out of it. Who the fuck cares what these assholes want? They don’t give a shit about you.”
“Samuel Thomas Kage,” Regina snapped at him. “It’s the Lord’s day.”
“Mother—”
“What’s going on?” I asked quickly. He looked over at me, and I waited.
“My dad and I have a piece of property in Naperville that we need to sell.”
“And?”
He tipped his head at the other two men. “These two have been saying they’re gonna buy it for, like, three months, but nothing’s happening. I’m sick of holding on to it, so I wanna sell it.”
“I see.” I nodded, looking over at Mr. Kage. “What do you think, sir?”
“I’m sorry, who are you?” he asked me jovially.
“This is Sam’s friend Jory,” Regina explained.
He nodded as he looked me over. “I see. Well, Jory, I think that I want to wait for my nephews Levi and Jesse to buy it.”
Both of Sam’s cousins nodded at his father’s words.
I looked back at Sam. “If your dad wants to wait, why’re you arguing with him?”
“Because it’s crap. Half of it’s mine, and I wanna get rid of it. We could wait for years before these two jerks get enough money to—”
“Okay.” I yawned. “Here’s whatcha do. Let your dad win the argument this time and you got dibs on the next one. Better to not be an ass where your family’s concerned, right?”
“I’m being an ass?”
I gestured at his cousins. “Well, yeah. I mean, who cares how long it takes them? They’re your cousins. Wait forever if you can help them out. What do you need the money for anyway?”
He glowered at me, and I arched a brow at him as we shared a long look.
“Fine.” He threw up his hands, stalking to the refrigerator for a beer. “I don’t give a shit,” he said before he left the room.
I shrugged and looked at his mother. “I think he enjoys the complaining more than anything.”
“I would agree,” she said quietly, nodding. “I think you’ve got him pegged right.”
I went back to the dishes until I felt the hand on my back.
“Jory.”
His dad was next to me, looking at my face.
“Yessir?”
“How long have you known Sam?”
“Not too long,” I told him. “I actually got in a little trouble, and he’s helping me out.”
“I see.” He smiled warmly. “Well, thank you for speaking up. He actually owns fifty-one percent to my forty-nine, so if he wanted to, he could sell it.”
“He won’t if you don’t want him to,” I assured him. “But you know that.”
“Do I?” He indulged me. “I don’t know about that, Jory.”
“I don’t either.” One of the men moved over to hold out his hand. “Jesse Kage, man, good to meet you. This is my brother, Levi.”
I shook his hand and then his brother’s. “Good to meet you both.”
Levi smiled as he looked me straight in the eye. “And you, Jory.”
The door swung open suddenly, and Rachel, Sam’s oldest sister, came in. “Oh, Mother, how could you let your son bring that woman back over here after the last time?”
Regina chuckled. “Do you mean Paige?”
Her groan made everyone laugh. “Oh God, yes. Could she be any more condescending or conceited or…ohmygod, Mother, she’s such a bitch.”
Regina laughed out loud. “Rachel!”
“Mother,” Rachel said sharply, pointing out into the other room. “Do you have any idea what she just said to me?”
“No.” Regina giggled, unable to stop.
“She said it was wonderful that I could throw away all my dreams to stay home and raise children. You’re lucky I didn’t smack her right there!”
“She’s young, dear, and—”
“Rach,” a guy began as he walked into the room, “why’re you being such a jerk to Paige?”
“Ohmygod, Mike, did you hear what she said to me?”
Michael Kage looked a lot like his brother, but where Sam’s features were fine, chiseled perfection, Mike’s were blunt and unfinished. He was still handsome—as far as I could tell, all the Kage men were—but not one of them was as drop-dead gorgeous as Detective Sam Kage.
“Yeah, I heard, Rach, and she was only responding to you asking her if she wanted kids. I mean, could you be any more obvious? Just because I’m ready to settle down and get married and start a family doesn’t mean she is.
We’ve only been going out for three months. For crissakes, could ya lay off her?”
“I—”
“So she’s different from you and Jen and all your friends. Give her a break.”
“Oh, so, what? I’m the wicked witch because I chose to be a housewife?”
“That’s not what I said. You just gotta—”
“C’mon, Mike,” she huffed at him. “She’s a prissy, snooty little—”
But she shut up instantly as the swinging door opened and a woman leaned into the kitchen. The lady in question was stunning but far too immaculately dressed for a simple Sunday dinner in the suburbs, with perfect makeup and designer shoes.
“Hi,” she said softly, glancing around the room. “I just—Jory?”
I forced the smile. “Hello, Miss Ralston.”
She strode into the kitchen, her entire focus on me. “How are you?”
“Good, thank you. And you?”
“I’m well,” she said, her stiletto slingbacks clicking across the linoleum floor as she reached me.
She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, all the rest of it pulled up into a French twist. If Barbie could come to life, she would look like Paige Ralston.
But not Malibu Barbie or something simple like that.
Paige would be the expensive kind, the one you never took out of the box.
She was a collector’s item—flawless, perfect, with beauty that was unattainable unless you, too, were encased in plastic.
“You look well,” I said to make conversation.
She bit her bottom lip, and I saw her take a quick breath. “How is Dane?”
“He’s good.”
“I was hoping to see him at the AIDS benefit.”
What she had hoped was to be the highest bidder at the bachelor auction and thus win the privilege of going to dinner with him.
I’d forgotten about her when I was thinking of women who would have paid to be alone with him.
He had definitely shortchanged the charity by just giving them a check for ten grand.
He could have easily made them double that amount if he’d bothered to show up.
“He made a sizable donation,” I told her.
“But you know he hates that kind of stuff.” She nodded, even though she had no idea what I was talking about.
This, then, was why he had walked away from her.
She loved being rich and all the social events that came along with it.
Dane did only those things that were necessary.
They could not have been more different.
“I haven’t seen him in months.”
I smiled, trying not to squirm.
“Will you give him my best when you see him tomorrow?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned and left the room, and all eyes were on me.
“Jory, is it?” Michael asked me as he came closer.
“Yes.”
“You know I met Paige Ralston after she came from Harcourt, Brown, and Cogan. Do you work for Dane Harcourt?”
“Yes.”
“Are you his assistant?”
“I am. Are you an architect too?”