All Grown Up Read Free

had kept his baby
girl locked up like a nun for much of her life, but probably out of guilt, he
had indulged her passion for pretty clothes.
    Sam sighed. “Don’t try to stand up yet. I’ll brew a pot.” In
moments, the aroma of coffee permeated the air. Annalise hadn’t moved from the
chair where he put her. But she was pointedly ignoring him, smart phone in hand
as she scrolled through messages.
    He found a china cup, filled it with hot, fragrant liquid and
set it on a saucer at her elbow, along with a tiny pitcher of cream and the
sugar bowl. He smothered a grin as she frowned at the add-ons and instead put
the cup to her berry-colored lips and drained half of it, black and straight,
the same way Sam liked it.
    He turned a chair around and straddled it, facing her across
the table. “How’s your dad?”
    She paused, the cup halfway to her mouth. “Fine.” Her
suspicious gaze scanned his face as if searching for a secret agenda.
    “And your uncle Vic?”
    Annalise set down the cup. “Also fine.”
    “Lots of weddings in your family in the last year.”
    Her face softened. “Yes. It’s been wonderful. Gracie, Olivia,
Ariel, Gillian… I finally have sisters.”
    “Your family deserves happiness more than any set of people I
know. I’m glad the past is behind you.” When Annalise was a toddler, her mother
and aunt had been kidnapped and murdered. It was a blow that had marked them
all, and it had taken years for them to truly recover.
    Annalise’s eyebrows lifted, a glint of defiance in her
expression. “Thank God for that.” She laughed, but there was little humor in the
sound. And the sideways glance she shot him said louder than any words that a
certain moment in their past was definitely not forgotten.
    He reached across the table and took her hand in his, stroking
the back of it, feeling the smooth skin, the delicate bones. “Give me a break,
Annalise. We can’t work together if we don’t hash this out. I’ll admit I could
have handled things better back then. But I’d known you since you were in
kindergarten. And you were still a kid as far as I was concerned.”
    She jerked her hand away. “I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”
    Her scowl would have deterred most men. But Sam was tired of
being treated like the Ebenezer Scrooge of the romance world. “Your father would
have neutered me.”
    “You said I was like a sister to you.”
    “Damn it.” His clumsy lie was going to haunt him. “Clearly, I
didn’t mean that. I was trying to escape with some grace.”
    “So you were a lily-livered coward. Is that what you’re telling
me?”
    This time he had to count to fifty. Standing abruptly, he tried
not to notice the plump curve of her bottom lip or the way dark lashes made
feathered crescents on her cheeks when she looked down at her cup.
    “Yes,” he said, conceding defeat. If she wanted to hold a
grudge, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. “I was a coward.”
    His admission seemed to take the wind out of her sails.
“Whatever.” She sniffed and crossed her legs, picking at a spot of lint on the
cuff of one pant leg.
    As a comeback, it lacked a certain vocabularic grace, but he
was willing to let it slide. “Why don’t I show you your room?” he said, trying
to live up to Gram’s notion of hospitality. “I’ll get your bags. Relax and make
sure you didn’t do any permanent damage.”
    Her small, wry grin disarmed him. “My butt bone is probably
bruised, but I’ll live.”
    Seeing her smile in his presence was such a novelty, he was
momentarily stunned. He swallowed. “I’m glad.”
    Unable to come up with any response more scintillating than
that, he turned and executed what might be considered a hasty retreat, striding
down the hallway toward the front of the house in order to give himself time to
regain his footing. If Annalise Wolff was going to start smiling at him, all
bets were off.
    He flung open the front door and stopped dead. A string