For the Longest Time (19 page)

“That was Cici. She hates my guts.”

“I got that. Her reason is . . .”

“A mystery?” Sam pulled the hair of her low ponytail over her shoulder to toy with. “You just met one of the reasons I was so anxious to get out of here. I, um, didn't
have a great time in school. Most of the people who facilitated that didn't leave, so I did. Not like there was anything for me here anyway.” She rolled her eyes, flustered. “It shouldn't matter.”

“Of course it matters. People's roots run deep in a place like this. There are certain patterns, and if you stay, you're expected to fall into them. If you don't, there's usually trouble.” Zoe's smile was full of understanding. “You're trouble. It's one of the reasons I liked you right away.”

Sam's smile felt as though it covered her entire face. “I like you, too. What does that make you?”

“Also trouble. Birds of a feather and all that.”

Sam thought it was entirely possible that she'd never liked anyone quite as much as she liked Zoe in that moment. “Thanks for covering for me,” she said. “They're going to figure out it was crap eventually, but I'll just deal with that when I have to.”

Zoe only shook her head. “You can't let those two get under your skin. I don't know the one who has a hate-on for you, but Petunia—”

“I swear to God, Zoe, if you keep calling her that I'm going to screw up and do it in public.”

“I certainly hope so. Anyway, Petunia and her friends aren't everybody around here. They're not even most of everybody. Just because they're an outsize pain in the butt doesn't mean you should write off Harvest Cove. I'm not going to fold up and leave just because I'll probably never get an invite to that damn party. Which is a shame, since I'm nosy
and
I like to dress up.”

“Yeah.” Sam tapped her fingers on the table beside her. “That's Jake's ex-girlfriend. And Petunia and her friends are also his. That's my issue.”

“I guessed that after your parting shot. Which was really well done, by the way. I think you scored a direct hit.” Zoe considered her, looking inordinately interested. “So how did trouble hook up with one of the town princes? I feel like there's an older story under the new one here.”

Sam tipped her head from side to side. “I guess.”

Zoe crossed her arms over her chest. “You going to make me pry it out of you?”

Sam thought about it. “I don't know. You really want to hear about all that? It's not very interesting.”

“Maybe not to you.” She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “All right. I was holding off on this because you didn't seem like you needed one more thing to deal with, but you leave me no choice. You can get your butt over to my place this weekend. There will be tea—
maybe
coffee if you're lucky—and you are going to lay it on me about you and this place. After that, it will be my turn to dump some of my problems on you. When these things are done, you and I will officially be in this together, no going back, point of no return, abandon all hope, ye who enter here. And may God have mercy on your soul, because I am not the easiest woman in the world to have as a friend, but Lord knows we both need one.”

Sam stared at her in awe. She had known very few people like Zoe. They were forces of nature, capable of wielding great power and apt to get very pissy if what they saw as the natural order of things was upset. She tended not to get that close, being prone to a certain amount of chaos herself. But this time, her chaos and Zoe's order seemed to work together just fine.

Maybe because, just as Zoe had said, they were both trouble.

“I thought we were already friends,” Sam said.

“We were. I'm just moving it to a higher level.”

She couldn't stop the smile, though she did manage to stifle the laugh that wanted to ripple out of her throat. “I'm getting a cat tonight. How's tomorrow?” Gallery hours were shorter on Sundays, and she'd have most of the afternoon to herself. Spending some of that with Zoe sounded like an excellent use of the time.

Zoe gave a curt nod. “Good. I'll buy the chocolate.” She studied her. “For what it's worth, she's got nothing on you. If the hot vet doesn't see that, then I will personally send Treebeard to his house to dump a forest on his floor.”

“It's probably already happened. They're cousins.”

Zoe groaned. “Everyone here is related. I'm going to need you to make me some kind of flowchart. In the meantime, let's sell some more of our horrible pedestrian artwork to the masses and make enough money to throw our own obnoxious I'm-better-than-you party.”

“You heard the pedestrian comment?”

“I have five older brothers. I hear
everything
.” The bell above the door rang again as a couple of regular browsers wandered in. Sam returned their friendly waves, and Zoe followed suit before continuing.

“Get them to buy the March they've been drooling over. I've got a couple calls to deal with, and then I'll go grab us some lunch.” Then, her orders given, she flashed a quick smile, turned, and strode off toward her office in the back. Sam had the strangest urge to salute.

“Next level friends still doesn't mean I'm drinking tea,” she informed Zoe's retreating back.

“Oh, yes, it does.”

Once she was gone, Sam quickly got back to work,
losing herself in the usual bustle of a Saturday afternoon. The March went home with the Blackmons, several pieces of pottery sold to a nice older woman she remembered working at Henderson's Store when she was a kid, and a group of mothers openly ecstatic about getting an afternoon out treated themselves with jewelry. It was hours before Sam found herself in the quiet again, standing in front of Tegan March's grouping of paintings. They pulsed with life, vivid and bright. If she had the money, she'd want one for herself. As it was, she was just glad she got to admire them on a daily basis.

That was when she felt it again, the snap of the spark that had propelled her into the attic two nights ago. She thought of the half-finished painting. She thought of what needed to be added, and more, realized there was another idea lurking in the wings asking for attention. Everything she'd felt today asked to be let out, poured onto a canvas, bursting with color.

It was a better method of expression, and catharsis, than heading down to the docks to toss Cici Ferris into the water, even if the latter might be just a tiny bit more entertaining in the short term. Still, as the ugliness of the meeting faded, Sam found herself looking forward to the evening. Jake would bring her Loki. She would paint. And all would be right with the world for just a little while. The thought gave her one more burst of courage that carried her back into Zoe's office.

“So I was thinking,” she said as Zoe's curious gray eyes met hers, “about the studios upstairs.”

S
he'd expected to hear from Jake by six.

When that came and went, Sam thought it might be more like seven. At seven thirty, with both texts and a phone call she'd sent unanswered, she stalked upstairs, threw on her pajamas, then returned to the kitchen to get herself a glass of wine. Apparently, seeing both Shane and Cici in one day had been an omen she should have paid attention to.

She wanted her kitten. She was increasingly furious with Jake. She had no interest in listening to her mother assure her that something must have happened to keep him without letting them know. And since that left no one to take her ire out on, she headed to the attic to inflict her mood on a fresh canvas. The colors were violent. Her technique was loose, but effective. And by the time Andi's voice sounded behind her, the beginnings of a scene had unfolded on the canvas in front of her.

“Honey? Are you up here? Jake just called and he—”

Sam jumped, then whirled around to find her mother staring openmouthed at what she'd been up to. “Oh, Sammy. You're painting again? That's . . . This is . . . Sammy, that's beautiful!”

She wasn't quite sure what to do with her mother's
obvious joy. Joy was about the last thing she felt capable of dealing with right now. But some part of her thrilled at it just the same. She had also, Sam realized, calmed down enough to be able to tell Jake exactly where to go calmly enough that he would hear actual words instead of incoherent high-pitched rage noises.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said. “Don't tell anybody, okay? I'm not really ready for that yet.”

“I won't.” But she still threw her arms around Sam and gave her a huge hug, which forced a half smile out of her despite her best efforts. “I'm just glad you're painting again. Even if that piece looks like everything is on fire,” she said when she pulled back.

“Everything
is
on fire. I was about to start painting the bodies in it. It's a new direction for me.”

Andi winced. “I don't think that'll really—”

“I'm kidding. Mostly. What did Jake want?” she asked.

“He's been at the hospital with his mom. He would have called sooner, but his phone disappeared. And of course, he was a little upset. Hadn't realized what time it was.”

She immediately felt like the world's biggest jerk. Sam didn't think she'd ever managed to get un-angry so quickly.

“Oh my God. Is she okay?” she asked.

“They think so. It was a mini-stroke, probably blood pressure related. More scary than anything. She seems fine now, and they're doing some tests. He sounded tired. . . . Sammy, are you okay?”

Robbed of her anger, Sam felt oddly deflated. The emotions that flooded in to fill the void were just as unpleasant, but all directed inward. Worry. Regret. A high level of self-loathing. She gently set down her brush. The painting was good, she decided. But she would finish it
later, with a cooler head and minus the flaming bodies. The anger in it was already there, and it worked for the picture, even if she was embarrassed about where it had come from.

“I'm fine,” she finally said. “I just, you know.”

“Uh-huh. You have to stop expecting the worst of people, Sammy. Not everybody's out to hurt you.”

“I don't expect the worst of everybody.”

Andi sighed. “Then where are your New York friends? You haven't mentioned a one.”

“I had friends,” she insisted, though she hated the defensiveness she heard in her own voice. “Just not really close ones! It's not like I sat around by myself all the time, Mom. I worked. I did things. It was hard to get too close with anyone at the gallery because we were all in danger of being fired, and the one good friend I did make moved to Philly once Mona cut him loose. We text sometimes, but he's busy.” She paused, frowning. “Don't look at me like that.”

Andi tilted her head. “I'm your mother. I can still look at you any way I want to. And I know how you are. You let people get just so close before you back off. It wasn't always like that, but the older you got, the more I noticed. I wish I'd known what was happening sooner. Maybe I could have fixed it.”

“No,” Sam replied with a soft, humorless laugh. “No. You couldn't have. And me being, well, me didn't help.”

Her mother looked so sad that Sam wished she could erase all of it, all the years of worry and not knowing what to do for her misfit daughter. “You were just expressing yourself.”

“Yes, well, the nastier the kids got, the more creatively I expressed myself.” Sam shrugged, trying to downplay
it. She remembered thinking of her increasingly interesting hair and clothing choices like costumes, like armor. It was easier to deal with school if she was playing a part, rather than running the risk of being vilified for who she actually was. “Look at it this way, Mom. It probably helped my art.”

“Oh, bullshit. You would have been an artist whether you were unhappy or not. All school did was make you hightail it out of here for the better part of ten years.”

“That, too.”

Her mother looked again at the work in progress, and at the partially finished work from a couple of nights ago that she'd set aside. Then she looked at Sam again, and the pride in her mother's eyes was so fierce that it stunned her.

“You keep going with these, Sammy. They're beautiful. Just promise me you're going to show them to Zoe at some point.”

“I'm going to,” Sam replied. “I'm moving most of this stuff into one of her studios on Monday.” Even though the thought of it brought on the sort of nerves she hadn't felt over showing off her work in a long time. That was what the months off had done . . . they'd sent her back to the beginning, in more than one way. But Zoe had been ecstatic. And her mother looked ready to burst with pride. Those things counted. They mattered.

“Good,” Andi said. “Your dad would have loved that you were painting up here again, you know. Especially now.”

Sam looked around, and though he'd faded in her memory like a well-loved and worn photograph, she could still see him up here, the grin on his face as he threw his arms wide.

“Ta-da! What do you think, kiddo? Today the attic, tomorrow, the art world!”

“I think so, too.” She felt herself getting a little misty and cleared her throat. “So, um, am I supposed to call Jake? Or, but you said his phone was gone.”

That was an unfortunate coincidence, and Sam couldn't quite believe it
was
a coincidence after she'd basically announced to Cici that she was sleeping with him. But maybe Andi was right and she should start from giving her the benefit of the doubt.

After all, Cici could be a complete bitch without being a
sabotaging
complete bitch. It was possible. Not likely, but possible.

“He said he'd be by in the morning. I told him you work ten to two, so I think it'll be early.”

“Okay,” Sam said, then kissed Andi's soft cheek to say good night. She was grateful that her mother had been there to pick up the phone, grateful that she hadn't managed to light into him before he could explain that he was actually dealing with an emergency. And along with that, she was scared as hell. Because the anger and pain she'd felt before she knew the truth were so strong that it meant she was doing a terrible job of taking her time.

Falling for Jake—really falling for him—was a risk she wasn't ready to take. Nothing she'd been through had broken her yet, but putting herself on the line one more time and having him walk away? That would do it, and she wasn't sure just how she'd get the pieces back together again afterward.

“Sammy? You might want to give Jake a chance not to hurt you, either.”

Andi had paused at the top of the stairs, and Sam just
smirked and shook her head. “Don't worry about it, Mom. It's fine.”

“
Hmm
. I'm taking my book to bed. If you finally feel like eating, the leftover pizza's in the fridge.”

“Got it.” She watched her mother head down the stairs and realized that she might actually be hungry, now that she could think straight again. Cold pizza in pajamas was always a good idea. And then she thought she might do some work on the piece she'd started two nights ago. She really loved what she had, and it wouldn't take much to finish it. There was something missing, though. Maybe it was because she'd been expecting Jake, or maybe it was just the comedown after allowing her head to almost explode, but it would have been nice to have some company.

Frowning, she went and picked up her cell phone off of the stack of boxes she'd set it on. It was almost ten. Too late to call Zoe, since she wasn't sure what sort of hours Zoe kept yet. There was, however, one other person who might be available. And when in doubt, it was always best to pester someone who really had no choice but to put up with you.

She scrolled through her contacts and touched the right name, then put the phone to her ear. When an irritated female voice answered, Sam grinned.

Jackpot.

“Yes, I know what time it is. No, nobody died.”

She listened a moment, then rolled her eyes. “I have cold pizza and a stack of superhero movies and nobody to share them with. Come over, Em. I know you have about as much of a life as I do.” Sam moved to start collecting her brushes to clean, and then laughed at her sister's grudging agreement.

“Yeah, I know I'm lucky you love me. Just come over. It can be a slumber party. Like when we were kids, except with wine. Okay. Bye.”

Sam hung up, finally feeling as though she'd done something right. Emma had been a grump like always, but she'd also sounded surprised. And she'd agreed pretty quickly. They would probably bicker, because that's just what they
did
, but Sam couldn't shake what her mother had said about not letting people get too close. She had a bad feeling Emma was on that list, at least in her mother's opinion.

Maybe, maybe not. The distance between them over the last few years had grown, and that was on both of them. Still, Sam decided, as long as she was here she could try to own the part that was hers and do what she could to repair it.

They were sisters. If they couldn't get rid of each other, they could stare at eye candy together and try to make it work.
Allies
, she thought. She didn't need many, just a couple of good ones. And if she couldn't count on her big sister, then she might as well hang it up and start saving for a personality transplant. Emma could be a butt, but she wasn't unfair. She also needed to lighten up, but that's what the wine was for.

There was just one more thing she needed to do before she could get comfortable and settle in for the night. She had to look up Jake's home number—she hadn't needed it before. At least it was easy to find. She lectured herself while the phone began to ring.

You're seeing him. You seem to be sleeping with him. So it makes sense that you would leave a message. This is like, not love.

Even if just the thought of the l-word made her feel
all weird and fluttery and remember the way he'd looked at her last night when he'd been deep inside her. Like she was beautiful. Like she was everything.

No, damn it. Think of something else. Like pie.

“This is Jake, leave me a message and I'll get back to you.”

Sam laughed quietly at the furious barking in the background, then started to talk. “Hey, this is Sam. I hope your mom's doing okay. I wanted to ask if you could do me a favor tomorrow.” She made her request, even said good-bye. But something, some awful sneaky part of her that refused to think about pie was fixating on things better left alone, had a simple addition to make that fell from her lips before she could stop herself.

“I missed you tonight,” she said, and it didn't sound like her. It sounded too vulnerable. Too honest.

Too much like the girl who'd offered him that damn picture all those years ago.

“Okay, bye,” she said quickly, and hung up.
Smooth, Sam.
Her cheeks flushed, and her thoughts were agitated, jumbled. Maybe it was the paint fumes. Or maybe she'd just tell herself that and go watch Captain America save the world with only his shield and the power of extreme hotness.

She started to pick up the brushes again, and almost managed to convince herself that nothing had changed since last night. Not really. And she almost managed it.

Almost.

* * *

Much later, in the darkest part of the night, Sam lay curled beside her sister and dreamed. Some part of her knew, as she leaned back against the worn bark of the Witch Tree and began to sketch, that she'd done all this
before. But as she focused on the drawing, on the warm breeze and the soft background sounds of birds and passing cars and bits of conversation, the knowing slipped away.

She was sixteen again.

“Sam?”

She knew that voice. It was one she homed in on instinctively whenever she heard it, no matter how many times she told herself just how pathetic that was. Guys like Jake Smith didn't talk to girls like her. And it was just as well, because if he did, she doubted she'd like what he had to say.

Except she was pretty sure he'd just said her name.

“What are you drawing?”

Her eyes widened. It sounded like he was right beside her. Which meant he could see—

“Well . . . I . . . um . . . just, things, I guess.” She splayed her fingers over the sketch she'd been working on, an attempted copy of some fantasy art she'd seen at the comic shop. The dragon was coming along pretty well, she thought. But there was no way Jake would see it as anything but weird. And not in a good way.

She flipped the book shut as quickly as she could, took a deep breath, and made herself look up into a face she knew as well as her own. He was never this close, or this completely focused on her. It was as though one of her stupid daydreams had bled over into real life. And it made it almost impossible to speak over her pounding heart.