As she reached the warm vestibule of her parents’ building, she heard voices at the top of the stairs.
“You broke my daughter’s heart. You think I don’t know why she came home to her mama?”
“I know I did, Mrs. Ramos. That’s why I’m here.”
Sam. He’d followed her.
She hurried up to her family’s apartment and found Sam standing in the doorway, her mother blocking the door, her arms folded across her chest. Her gaze dipped down to check his right hand to see if he still wore the ring, but he’d stuck his hands in his coat pockets. Surely he wouldn’t be still wearing it if he were here.
“You made my Rosie cry.”
“Mama!”
Sam turned at her call. “Rosie! God, I’ve missed-”
“No, no, no.” Her mother insinuated herself between Sam and the top of the stairs, forcing Rosie to stay on the second step. “You don’t try to sweet talk my Rosie, you big oso.”
“Mama,” Rosie whispered. “It’s all right, you don’t need to protect me. And for heaven’s sake, I wasn’t crying.”
When her mother switched to Spanish, Rosie didn’t bother to tell her that Sam would understand every word. “You think you can fool your mama? You think I couldn’t tell from your eyes this morning that you weren’t crying half the night? Or that I wouldn’t hear it in your voice, or see it as you drag yourself around like a puppy that had been kicked?”
Sheesh, did her mother have some hidden camera in her room? And what was wrong with her eyes-she’d looked in the mirror this morning just in case and they’d looked fine. Maybe Rick should think about hiring her mom to do interrogations. Heck, Homeland Security should hire her.
She chanced a glance at Sam and instead of the amused grin she’d expected him to be wearing, he looked mortified.
“Senora Ramos,” not taking his eyes from Rosie, Sam addressed her mother in their own language though he used a European Spanish rather than their Puerto Rican, “I never meant to hurt Rosie, and I certainly never-”
“Sa-a-m.” Rosie clenched her teeth together. He was going about this all wrong if he wanted to win over her mother. He needed to smooth talk her, compliment her, not admit he was wrong. Once he’d shown a weakness, her mother would never let him forget it. But depending on what he was here to say, maybe she didn’t want him to charm her mother.
“Let the man speak, cariсo.” Her mother lowered her voice and spoke out one side of her mouth, still not getting that Sam could understand every word. Or maybe she did, but just didn’t care. “It doesn’t hurt for a man to grovel once in a while. Especially when he’s hurt someone he loves.”
“Mama, Mr. Watson’s my boss.” God help her if her mother discovered she’d been sleeping with him without benefit of a wedding ring.
“Pssht.” Her mother batted her hand in Rosie’s direction. “You’re in love with him, Rosie, don’t argue with your mama. If Mr. Watson’s here looking for you-at your home-that means he loves you too.”
Rosie stifled the urge to roll her eyes. Sam however hadn’t taken his eyes off her, the heat from them as intense as a laser beam.
“You come in, Mr. Watson, you talk with my daughter. Tell her how sorry you are that you made her need to run home to her mama and papa.”
“Mama!”
Her mother grabbed her arm and hauled her into their apartment only half-whispering, but loud enough that Sam, who was following, could hear. “He’s not married, is he? If he is, I’ll get rid of him, don’t you worry.”
“No, Mrs. Ramos, I’m not married. And Rosie came home because she knew it was the only way I’d listen to her.”
“Ay, my Rosie tries to teach you a lesson, no? And what did you not want to listen to that was so important?”
“That the past is the past, and she’s my future.” His voice grew soft, soothing.
Rosie forced her legs to keep walking away from him instead of turning around. She knew if she looked at him, she’d melt and accept everything he said.
“Ah.” Her mother stopped in the middle of the room and pushed Rosie toward the couch. “Sit. Both of you. I’ll get coffee and some nice cake I baked this morning.”
When she started to shrug off her jacket, Sam’s hands brushed hers. The electricity between them still crackling, she dropped her hands. He folded her jacket and laid it neatly over the arm of her father’s chair, and stroked it once before turning back to her.
Feeling dwarfed by him, feeling the walls closing in about her, she took a step away from his towering presence but couldn’t go any farther because of the Christmas tree jammed into the corner of the tiny room.
Once, twice, she opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words.
“I would have gotten here sooner, but I’d been told you’d gone to Puerto Rico so I flew there first.” He stayed where he was, as if he sensed her reluctance to be near him.
Her gaze darted up to his then fluttered away again. He’d flown first to Puerto Rico and then all the way to New York? Surely that meant he wanted her back. Didn’t it?
“I had my ticket in my hand and was ready to go through security and then…” She didn’t think she could have survived making small talk while watching Jose and Elba coo over their new son, painfully aware that she wouldn’t be a mother any time soon. Besides her eldest brother would have asked why she’d decided to visit them on such a whim, and asked questions she didn’t want to answer. Not that her mother had been any better. “I just changed my mind, that’s all.”
“It’s a woman’s prerogative.”
She toyed with an angel her mother had hung on the tree, still not willing to look at him. “I wasn’t sure whether you’d want to see me again.”
He chuckled, but it held no humor in it. “I was thinking the same thing in the taxi coming over here. About whether you’d want to see me.”
“I wasn’t in on their plan, you know. Not until that day.” When I realized you were in love with a ghost.
“I know. I don’t blame you for anything that happened, if you’re worried about that.”
“I’m not.” She was.
Her mother bustled back in, carrying a tray loaded with two coffee cups from her grandmother’s special collection, and her grandmother’s sugar and cream set. “There, I’ll leave you two alone for a while. Call me if you need anything.”
Rosie perched on the couch and added two teaspoons of sugar to one cup. “You should be honored, Mama only uses this china for special occasions.”
“Rosie…”
She hurried to speak before he could say anything more. “My grandfather worked for a week building shelves for a jeweler when they’d first come to New York. He’d wanted to buy my grandmother a birthday present, but they didn’t have any money, so he negotiated with the jeweler that if he built the shelves, he could…” Why was she babbling? “…he could choose something of equal value in trade. It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
Sam knelt in front of her, placed one hand on her knee. His right hand. He wasn’t wearing the ring anymore. “If you don’t want me here, if I make you uncomfortable, or unhappy. I’ll leave. Just say the word.”
“Would you really leave if I asked you to?”
The expression on his face changed so she couldn’t read what he felt. “Do you want me to leave, Rosebud?”
His nickname sliced through her objections. “No. I don’t want you to leave.” She carefully placed the coffee cup back on the tray, grateful her hand didn’t shake betraying how everything inside her quaked and roiled. “But why are you here, Sam?”
“To tell you I love you.” He lifted his hand and stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “To tell you you’d never come second to anyone in our relationship.”
“I love you too. But I also know you were right that day. About love not being like a light switch you flip on or off. You can’t tell me that in the two days since I last saw you, you’ve been able to forget about Jill.”
“Jill will always be a part of me, Rosie.” He touched a finger to her grandmother’s coffee service, ringing the top of the empty cup. “Same as your grandparents will always be part of you. Same as your mother and father, and
