Tipping a couple of the pills from the bottle she had swiped from her date’s bathroom cabinet into her hand, Ruth dry swallowed them. She should probably check in with Naomi when she got home. It had been at least a month since she last spoke to her sister, and Naomi would worry if she didn’t check in soon. At least her sister still thought she was in rehab, so she might not be expecting to hear from her for a while yet.
Ruth froze at the end of the block.
A car had pulled up in front of her, she hadn’t paid it much mind until someone stepped out of the drivers’ door.
For a moment she was startled.
But then she smiled.
“Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here?”
* * * * *
11:11 A.M.
“You doing okay?” Sam’s voice rumbled quietly in her ear.
He hadn’t moved far from her side all day, and he’d already asked her several times if she was doing okay. Naomi would have thought that she’d find his hovering and constant questioning irritating and invasive, but she didn’t, she found it comforting and sweet. “I’m okay,” she whispered back.
And it was true.
Or at least mostly true.
She was trying to enjoy being here with her family, just hanging out, but her brain was still running on overdrive. She knew she couldn’t keep going on like this. The nightmares last night were proof of that. She rarely had them anymore, maybe a couple of times a year at most, but three in one day that was unheard of these days. It was her stalker and telling Sam about what had happened to her as a child that had triggered them.
She felt so conflicted.
The stalker had managed to give her the push she needed to admit her feelings for Sam and finally let him in. She had admitted things to him that she had never thought she would tell another living soul. Told Sam.Sam. Who never talked about feelings, who was usually gruff, and who ordered everyone around. But he had been so gentle, so tender with her, he had been everything that she needed. He was still her quiet, fierce, trust him with your life Sam, but he was also different. Maybe finally being able to tell her how he felt about her and to have her reciprocate had changed him too.
But part of her didn’t feel right about beginning a relationship with Sam while the people around her were dying. It didn’t seem fair. Nicole was dead, her son left without a mother. Oscar was dead, his girlfriend left alone. Sam’s nephew Anthony was dead, his baby now an orphan. And she had almost lost her own sister. Herpregnantsister. She was thrilled to pieces for Clara and Jonathon, but how could she have lived with herself if because of her Clara and her unborn baby had been killed? And they still weren’t safe. No one was. Not until her stalker was caught or dead. She wished so desperately that she knew who he was so they could end this. That was why she hadn’t been able to fall asleep last night, even in Sam’s arms. She’d needed to clear her head, and nothing did that better than the freshness of outdoors, so she had sought solace in Sam’s backyard.
Her head felt so heavy like it was too full of thoughts, and it felt like she could literally no longer hold it up. Wearily, she rested it against Sam’s shoulder. Naomi had been concerned that she would feel uncomfortable being publicly affectionate with Sam in front of her sisters. Never before had she mixed a guy she was dating with her family. In fact, she made it a point not to because none of those guys ever mattered enough to have them around her sisters. But Sam was different. Even if she couldn’t yet say the words aloud, she loved him, and when he had sat beside her and draped an arm across her shoulders, leaning into him had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. It hadn’t bothered her at all to be lying in his arms in front of her sisters.
A gigantic yawn caught her off guard, and her eyes so badly wanted to close, little sleep last night was catching up with her.
“You should go lie down for a while,” Sam said in a tone that bordered on ordering.
“We have company,” she reminded him.
“You should lie down,” Clara quickly agreed. “Your body is still recovering from everything that happened the last few days, you need rest.”
“Hey, you were hurt too, and you're pregnant,” she protested. “Why don’t you have to go and lie down?”
“I have a couple of superficial cuts, you were shot and almost died in a fire,” Clara pointed out.
“I don’t know.” Shewasexhausted and lying down actually didn’t sound like too bad an idea. And maybe with Sam and her sisters here, she might be able to relax enough to sleep, and maybe even not to have bad dreams.
“Go, Naomi,” Aggie smiled, “you look like you need the sleep, and we’ll still be here when you wake up.”
“All right,” she conceded. “Maybe just a short nap.”
“Or a long one.” Jonathon grinned at her. Actually, he hadn’t stopped grinning since he’d gotten here, nor had he been able to stop touching Clara’s stomach, he was clearly thrilled about the prospect of becoming a dad.
Naomi doubted that even as tired as she was, she would sleep for more than a few hours, she never usually got more than four or five hours of sleep a night.
“I’ll take you up,” Sam announced, picking her up before she had a chance to stand.
For once she didn’t protest being carried in Sam’s arms, she just slipped an arm around his shoulders, and rested her head wearily against him. She loved that Sam was strong, that he could take care of her, that she was safe with him. She could take care of herself but knowing that there was someone there who could and would do everything within their power to make sure she was safe was kind of nice.