her shoulders hunched and her heart-shaped face pinched, he was conscious of how physically small and fragile she actually was compared to him. Compared to Peter.
He breathed in deep, the familiar salty air and the cool sand between his toes calming him down a little as well. He couldn’t go back to the numbness that had protected him earlier, not while Rhi needed him, but red-hot fury wasn’t productive either. “Can I hold your hand?”
The look she shot him was startled, but after a beat, she held out her hand, and he took it. “You’re a hand holder?” Even her voice was smaller than usual.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess so. Is that a problem?” He’d never been with a woman long enough to determine if he was a hand holder.
Her cold fingers clenched around his. “No.”
Another slice of his mad slipped away. He’d concentrate on making sure she had a safe place to sleep tonight, the night before her big pitch.
Ah jeez. No wonder she’d asked who else was pitching. “Did you know Peter would be here?”
She sighed, the sound carrying on the breeze. “I had a hunch. That night I rushed to your apartment, I had heard a rumor he was cozying up to William.”
His mother had liked to say, if you waited long enough, everything made sense. “Ah.” He didn’t like keeping his aunt in the dark on this, and there was no way he’d let Belle do business with Peter, despite what Rhi had said about her being the only target of his cruel behavior. But he’d figure that out tomorrow. He didn’t want to upset Rhi any more tonight.
“Where are we going anyway?”
He nodded at the weathered blue home as it came into view. “My place.” He’d been relieved That Night, when she’d proposed going to her rental. He wouldn’t have felt comfortable bringing someone into the home he shared with his uncle. When his uncle was alive, that is. Now it was nothing but an empty house.
They walked up the steep stairs leading to the back porch from the beach. The spare key was under a green frog-shaped planter, as it had been his entire life.
He slipped inside the back door and entered the security code. He should change it at some point, he supposed. It was his mother’s birthday still. “Come on in.”
He flipped on the lights in the living room and the kitchen while she placed her small bag on the couch. The place wasn’t musty at all, so he suspected that Aunt Belle had directed someone to come over regularly and air it out. “This is, uh, it.”
“It’s nice. Not what I expected. I thought you would have grown up in a huge house like Belle’s.”
Samson looked around, trying to see the home through Rhi’s eyes. Though sitting on prime real estate, the place was relatively cozy, one giant room split into a kitchen, dining area, and living room. The furniture was large and of good quality, to accommodate his large-framed family, but decidedly dated. Except for his and his uncle’s bedrooms, no one had redecorated in here since his mom had passed. “My parents were pretty frugal.”
“A beautiful place to grow up.”
He softened. Sometimes he avoided thinking about his parents entirely, because his father’s behavior after the Switch had been so painful, but he should probably work on that. They’d had so many good times together. His childhood here had been idyllic. “It was.” He rested his hands on the back of the floral couch. “The place was closed up for a long time. Since my uncle died, and before, too, since my mom died.”
At her questioning look, he continued. “When I started taking care of Uncle Joe, we lived in the big house. A little over a year ago, it started to get challenging. He kept getting lost, not remembering where anything was, not recognizing Aunt Belle when she visited. He was calmer here.” He nodded at the mantel of the fireplace and the display case next to it. It held photos and memorabilia from his uncle and father’s football-playing days. Samson had moved the elder Lima’s Super Bowl rings to his safe deposit box, but they’d carefully been enshrined in the case when Uncle Joe had been alive. “He liked to sit up here and look at all of that. He could remember.”
Rhi drifted over to the display case and peered inside. “This is really cool.”
“I suppose I should donate it or something now.” That was something