Chapter Four
S omewhere around two in the morning, Sam started screaming. Like, literally yelling out commands while still asleep. Former army , she remembered. Five-five-six. NATO bullets. She lay there listening, wondering whether she should do something. But if she was honest, she was also afraid. When she heard furniture crashing, she threw on her bathrobe and ran into his room. It took a minute to find the light switch, and when she did, he was crouched behind his overturned dresser, white T-shirts and black underwear spilling out from the drawers.
“I can’t find my weapon!” he screamed at her, frantic. “Where’s my weapon?!”
“Sam!” She was afraid to approach him. “Sam! Wake up!”
“Get down! Left! It’s coming from the left!”
“Sam!”
Buttercup barked from inside the closet. Allie quickly opened the door. “Buttercup! What are you doing in there?”
The dog ran over to Sam and nudged him with her nose before squeezing her entire body between him and the dresser. Sam decompressed, slouched, petted Cuppie, and woke up. The first thing he noticed when he came to was Allie standing in the doorway.
He rubbed his hand back and forth over his short hair, his face red and sweaty. “How much did you see?”
“Are you okay?” She needed to know. She was scared to death for him.
“This doesn’t happen often. I promise.”
She squatted near him and asked again. “Are you okay?”
“Not always.”
“What do you need? What can I do for you?”
“Water would be great.”
Even though he’d just experienced something far different than her occasional panic attacks, whenever she had an episode, she needed ice-cold water afterward too. She filled a glass with ice before adding water from her filtration pitcher in the refrigerator. When she came back in, the dresser had been righted, the clothes cleaned up, and Sam was sitting on the edge of his bed in his underwear. She immediately noticed his scarred left arm, but not before his abs gave her a jolt of something she hadn’t felt for a long time. Her hand shook as she gave him the glass.
“Thanks,” he said. “You should go back to bed. You have work in the morning.”
“I won’t leave until I know you’ve recovered.”
“I’m fine.”
The dog lay on the bed beside him, but her eyes were wide open and a little wild. “Is Cuppie okay? She was locked in the closet.”
“Yeah, I do that. When I get these night terrors, I always try to protect her.”
Protect her from what? From himself?
*
Fred made surprisingly good coffee. There was no oat milk, but fresh cream from a nearby dairy worked just fine. Allie took a sip and tried to focus on the computer screen. She was at work, back-to-back with Joey at the desk behind her. She would look up night terrors on her lunch break. There should be plenty of time since Dottie’s food truck wasn’t here today. Thank goodness for the tuna salad currently stashed in her insulated lunch bag.
“Fred started smoking brisket last night,” Joey said, spinning around. “It smelled so good this morning, I can’t stop thinking about it.”
She turned her chair around to face him. “You know, I was actually afraid of Fred’s place when I first saw it. It’s kind of like a Nashville speakeasy—not at all what it looks like on the outside.” To look at it was to think it’d been closed and left to decay for decades.
“This is my favorite time of year at the station. Fred dresses up like Santa. Grows out his beard and all. If we don’t get that brisket soon, it’ll be gone by noon. Let’s take an early lunch.” He said it like it was a foregone conclusion that they would be having lunch together.
Given the cold freezer pack she put in with the tuna salad, it should survive until tomorrow. “Sounds good. I love brisket.”
“Cool,” he said, spinning his chair back to face his desk. “We’ll leave at eleven.”
She stared at her computer screen, stuck in her thoughts. What would people think if she and Joey went out to lunch together? Were there rules against dating your coworker? She didn’t want to risk her job, no matter how much Joey looked like Mark with a bigger nose. “Should we invite Jessa or Libby?”
“We can if you want to.” He didn’t sound very enthusiastic. They both spun their chairs around at the same time. “I mean, Jessa will probably be there anyway,” he said. “Fred’s her uncle, so when her mother isn’t running the food truck, that’s where she goes.”
It was beginning to feel like everyone on the island was related. “Should we invite Libby so she won’t feel left out?”
“Naw, she won’t go. She’s on some sort of bird diet where she only eats seeds and nuts.”
“Seriously?”
“I don’t actually know what kind of diet it is. But she said she will off anyone who eats in front of her. If she smelled that brisket, she’d probably kill us all.”
Allie had only met Libby once. She was the sole employee in the Saltwater Winery’s marketing department, and it was probably good that she didn’t have to answer to anyone aside from Duke. Despite her fancy monogrammed purse and pearl necklace, the woman seemed fully capable of, and maybe even predisposed toward, murder. “Okay, skip her,” Allie said. There were tons of other employees, but most of them worked in the field, in the tasting room, cellar, gift shop, or bottling plant, and she hadn’t met them yet.
So, it looked like she had a date with Joey. Alone.
“Come get me in the lab when you’re ready,” she said.
The truth was, she needed to get away from the computer. She hadn’t gone for a run in two days. Every time she tried to type out a report, she would compulsively hit the delete button. It took her twice as long as it should to get it done. And the lack of sleep wasn’t helping. She desperately needed exercise and a nap.
“Hey, Al?” Jessa popped her head into the sterile lab. “Your roomie’s here to see you.”
The glass pipette Allie held nearly slipped from her grip. “Sam’s here?”
“Yup. And, as my mother would say, that man is hotter than the inside of my deep fryer.”
“Shoot. I need to finish this. Can you tell him I’ll be there in, like, ten minutes?” She checked her watch. It was nearing eleven o’clock. Why was Sam here? His timing was terrible. Now Joey was going to know that her roommate was a man and wonder about them. Wonder about her . Actually, everyone at her place of employment was probably going to wonder what was going on between her and Sam. Dammit. Her private life was supposed to be just that—private. She wanted to be seen as a highly educated professional enologist, not a single woman living with a random hot guy and going out to lunch with her attractive male coworker. She felt her face redden as she tried to come up with a plan for dealing with Sam. And Joey.
Ten minutes later, she still hadn’t decided what to do as she stepped outside and saw Sam and Cuppie waiting for her by Duke’s flower garden. Actually, it was Duke’s dead wife’s garden, as indicated by the sign over the arched arbor entryway that said Amelia’s Patch of Happiness . Duke was always in there planting and pruning and generally looking glum, and she prayed he wasn’t there now to see his newest employee leaving her desk to talk with a man and his wolf-dog.
Sam brazenly kept his eyes on her as she walked toward them, which made her question if she was walking weird. She looked around at everything except him, grateful that she wasn’t wearing heels.
“Hey,” she said as she approached. “Everything okay?”
“I think we should exchange phone numbers,” he said. “I couldn’t text to make sure you’re okay. Rough night last night.”
“Here,” she said, extending her hand. He placed his phone on her palm, and she entered her number. “You’re right. We probably should have that information.” The clock on his phone said 10:55.
“Yeah, and Cup’s been a little off all morning, so I thought it might do her some good to see you and have an outing.” He looked around at the huge oaks, wooden picnic tables, rope swings, cornhole games, and colorful metal wine bottle trees dotting the acreage all the way down to the water. It was like a rustic resort except that it didn’t have a hotel. “Nice place to work.”
“Good wines too.” She bent down to pet Cuppie. It was the first time she’d ever shown the dog affection, and Cuppie seemed okay, if not flat-out happy, about it. She wagged her tail and made a sweet whining sound. Maybe the drama of the night before had created some sort of trauma bond between them. “Feel free to walk around,” Allie said. “There’s wine tasting inside if you like that kind of thing.”
“I went into town for groceries this morning, and I can make us some lunch if you want to come back to the house. Do you get a lunch break?”
“An hour,” she said. “But I’m sorry. I already made plans.” Joey was probably looking for her at that very moment.
“Alright.” Sam seemed completely unbothered by her refusal. “I’ll have dinner ready when you get home.”
“You don’t need to make me dinner!” She may have said it a little too strenuously. What was a he? A house husband? He was being way too nice. “It’s probably not smart to set up these sorts of expectations. You do you, and I’ll do me. Okay?”
“It’s just for now,” he said. “Cup and I will be getting busy with the house soon, and I figure if I’m gonna cook for myself, I can cook for my roommate too. It’s no big deal.”
The way he said it seemed perfectly logical, and the pot roast he’d made had been the best meal she’d had in weeks. Months, maybe. She watched Duke putter around in the garden while she thought about it. “I don’t know what time I’ll be getting home. I’m new at this job, and I might need to work late. Thanks, though.” Joey would be walking out any second, looking for her. “Sorry to be so short, but I need to get back to work.”
“You don’t have to eat dinner with me,” he said. “I’ll save you a plate.” That was it. He’d made a definitive statement.
“Well, I can cook sometimes too.” She wondered what the old man hunched over and sweating in the garden ate for dinner. Was he alone every night? Then she hoped that Sam liked chicken tenders and fruit. That was her go-to dinner.
When she turned away from Duke’s garden, she was no longer standing with just Sam and Cuppie.
Joey was there too.