Chapter Twenty Four
Sammy's heart was in her mouth, it was the first time she'd been kissed in years, and she'd loved every minute of it, but now, as she looked down at the shattered picture frame on the floor at her feet, the beautiful smile of Marcus looking up at her, she felt sick. Dropping to her knees to clear the mess was the easiest thing to do, easier than facing Joel, and easier than facing up to how she was feeling.
She could feel him moving away from her, crossing the room, giving them space, distance, but she couldn't look up. Her face was flushed, her body still humming, but again she had to block that out. The glass front of the small frame had literally fractured into shards, pulling the photograph free she shook the glass from it then stared at it for a moment, Marcus was grinning, his arms wrapped around her as they stood on the beach on the second day of their honeymoon. Because of what he told he was a big business deal he couldn't afford to take her anywhere exotic, anywhere long haul, instead they went to a friend's villa in Greece, not the place they'd met, but another sun-kissed island. She was wearing the bikini he'd bought her at Heathrow; scarlet satin that he swore made her pale skin look luminous. As she looked at him, bronzed, happy...godlike, she felt sad, and she felt guilty.
"Shit!"
Her lack of concentration meant that she'd stabbed the pad of her thumb with one of the needle-like shards of glass. And it started to bleed...lots.
"What the fuck..." Suddenly Joel was there, pulling her to her feet and wrapping a tourniquet to her thumb as he pulled her to the kitchen, he hadn't looked at her face as he pulled her hand over the sink then removed the offending piece of glass. The coincided with a spurt of blood and he cursed under his breath. Grabbing a tea towel he knotted it tightly over her thumb stemming the flow of blood.
"That's deep," he offered still staring at it, he still wasn't looking at her. She still had no idea what he was thinking, how he was feeling.
"Thanks," she offered.
He nodded, "sit here and keep the pressure on, it's small but deep." Then he turned and headed to the lounge and she could hear him cleaning up after her. She wanted to cry, her thumb was starting to hurt, but that wasn't why, she had a myriad of emotions all swirling around in her head, and she had no idea what she felt, couldn't comprehend what had happened.
"You ok?" She looked up to see Joel stood in the doorway, the glass, the frame or rather the remnants of it were on a piece of newspaper in his hands. When she gave a nod he added, "I need the vacuum cleaner, make sure it's all out of the carpet, don't want Ellie getting hurt."
"It's under the stairs," was all she could muster.
He dispatched himself off and she could hear the whir as he turned it on, clearing away the evidence of the damage...but the damage and turmoil in her heart and head would never be cleared away as easily.
The sound of the vacuum seemed to take over his thoughts, and Joel needed that relief. The last twenty minutes had thrown his whole world into chaos. He'd thought about kissing Sammy, back in the day, but also maybe more recently. But they had been fleeting thoughts; he never intended to act on it. He'd been stunned by his own actions, but also b y her reaction. That hadn't been a one way kiss, far from it, at the moment that picture had fallen, knocked by their escalating passion, Sammy had been giving back as fast and as furious as him. He closed his eyes for a brief second and thought of Marcus, he was like a bucket of cold water being thrown on their antics, and he had never felt so much shame in his life. What was he thinking of? Throwing himself on his best friend's widow, when she was clearly grieving for her mother who was fighting cancer. He was a first class bastard.
He thought of the moment he'd heard her shout, when he walked in the room and saw the ridiculous amount of blood...he panicked, really panicked, because there was so much blood, and she was so pale, so stunned, so scared.
Joel's first aid head kicked in and he managed her injury in an efficient manner, and that meant he didn't have to think about what had happened, and more importantly what would happen from now on. But now, as he cleaned the carpet, he knew as soon as he turned off the vacuum cleaner, he'd have to talk to her, he just wished that he knew what to say.
He wound the lead expertly back to the machine once he'd finished. Then returned it to its space under the stairs. Every delaying tactic possible to prevent the confrontation with Sammy. Finally he took a deep breath and made for the kitchen.
She was sat at the table, the fabric acting as a tourniquet on her thumb was bloodstained, her forehead was resting on the placemat in front of her. He paused a moment before he touched her shoulder.
"You ok?"
When she lifted her head he was shocked by how green she looked, "I don't like blood."
He smiled, "go and rest, sleep it'll feel better in the morning. But you'll need a plaster on that. You got a first aid kit?"
She gestured to a kitchen cupboard and he retrieved it easily. Taking the temporary bandage off he had to keep one eye on her to make sure she didn't pass out, but quickly he redressed it with a band aid, and then a small bandage which he wound tight enough to prevent more bleeding.
"Ok?"
Her bewildered eyes glanced up to meet his and he grimaced at her confusion. Grabbing her shoulders, he pulled her to her feet then turned her and pushed her gently in the direction of her bedroom. As the door closed behind her, he almost missed the breathy, "thank you."
Sammy's thumb woke her, her alarm clock read just before six; this was earlier even than Eleanor ventured up. When she flicked on her bedside lap, she groaned, the pillow, as well as the bandage on her thumb were stained with blood. It was a mess. With a roan she pulled herself into sitting, at least she wasn't feeling as woozy as she had been the previous evening. She'd never been good with blood, especially her own, and after all that had happened, her reaction to cutting her hand seemed like the icing on the cake.
She had to face Joel, she had to speak to him, but she had no idea what to say, the photo of her and Marcus crashing to the floor like that seemed like karma. Was this too soon to move on? Did she want to? And was Joel the man she wanted? She didn't want to screw this up, she'd come to rely on Joel, she couldn't bear the thought of losing him. She had to tell him that. But she wasn't looking forward to apologising, because she'd been wild when he kissed her.
At the thought of the kiss her body tingled, it had been that special. Or that long since she'd kissed a man, or been kissed. Groaning again she shook her head, it wasn't just her pillow that was a mess.
Despite being as quiet as she could be, the kitchen light clicking on must have woken Joel who was still insisting on sleeping on the sofa. She'd only managed to half remove the bandage when he appeared at the doorway.
"It's STILL bleeding?" Suddenly he took over, pulling off the band aid, cleaning the cut with disinfectant. What had been a deep puncture wound the previous night was a haematoma the following morning, and it was bleeding at a pretty constant rate.
"You're going to have to go to casualty; you must have severed a vessel."
She shook her head, "I'm pretty sure that there's no major artery in your thumb. I'll be fine."
He raised an eyebrow, "hasn't stopped in what eight hours, despite a tourniquet. You need to see a doctor."
She wanted to protest but then part of her knew that he was right. Not that she had time to deal with more incidents.
Instead she nodded then reached for the fresh tape, and a wodge of gauze, and secured her thumb. "I'll go later, do you want coffee?"
"Sammy, we need to talk."
That was what she was dreading, and so she dropped her eyes to avoid him, "not now. Eleanor will be up any moment."
He reached for her as she moved away, pulling her back towards him, "we kissed. We can't pretend we didn't."
"It shouldn't have happened, I'm sorry that I kissed you, I don't know what I was thinking. I've had a rough few days, it's been difficult, I was emotional."
He laughed at that, "the kiss was because you were stressed, emotional? What a release of your tension? Lucky I was here hey?"
She bit her lip, didn't know what to say, but as she watched him watching her, she knew she had to get away from there, break whatever link there was between them. She needed him to support them, that was as far as it went. That was as far as it could go.
"Whatever it was, it was a mistake. It was wrong."
She disappeared like the coward that she was to the safety of her bedroom, where was Corinne when she needed emotional support? And why the hell wasn't Eleanor awake?
When she emerged from the bedroom dressed in as much of a power way as Sammy got, a blouse...she never wore a shirt, not like that, and officious looking trousers. As Joel watched her, Eleanor on her hip cross to the kitchen, he realised how much he rather her in jeans and one of her soft sweatshirts. But then her clothes weren't the only barriers she'd erected overnight.
Eleanor was jiggling in her arms and shouting in his direction, so he followed them into the kitchen and caught the little one when she almost threw herself from her mother's grasp.
Sammy sighed with relief, but he merely glared at her for a moment, "at least someone in this house still appreciates me."
It was a childish jibe, but he couldn't resist, she'd hurt him and for a moment he wanted the juvenile pleasure of striking back at her. He got his result; she paled for a moment, then blushed, deeply.
"I appreciate you...too much. But I need all the friends I can get, and I'm not ready for anything more."
He shrugged, "not sure I'm ready to step in to my best mate's shoes."
He watched her fingers grip into a fist, if he hadn't been holding Eleanor she'd have lashed out, he knew that. But unsettling her, hurting her didn't give him any pleasure, instead he felt like the prick he was being.
"Sorry. That was out of order."
But her defences had only grown and she gave him an empty smile, "well we both know that Marcus was telling us something last night, in case either of us didn't realise it was a mistake." He gasped at her implication, but she wasn't finished. "I'll take Eleanor with me today; you can go back to London."
He shook his head, "I've taken the week off, and I'm looking after my goddaughter to be, plus I promised Clifford that I'd get the paperwork for the house faxed back to him today. So you'd better sort that before you go to the hospital." Not waiting for her to answer, he smiled down at Eleanor. "You want breakfast?"
She gurgled enthusiastically and he started to move around the kitchen getting her cereal ready.
Corinne sat across the chipped Formica hospital cafe table nursing her tepid cup of weak coffee.
"You kissed? OMG. That WOULD happen the day I leave town. How was it? Did it make your hair curl?"
Sammy closed her eyes for a moment, then sighed, "I knocked a picture of me and Marcus over, right at the wrong moment, you know? He skittered away like a scared rabbit. Then did this when I cleaned up." She held up her stitched thumb complete with a comedy huge bandage that Wylie Coyote could have worn after a disaster with an ACME product.
"Shit! Talk about amorous disaster." Corinne shook her head, "and now you're both thinking it was divine intervention or a voice from beyond the grave?"
Sammy shrugged, "he rushed off, quicker that I did. But the more I think about it the more I feel awkward. I mean...it's too soon."
Corinne reached out and took Sammy's un-bandaged hand between her own, "no. Frankly it's not too soon. Marcus has been dead for over eighteen months, you are young, you deserve some fun, some romance, some companionship. Do you like him?"
Sammy shrugged, "we get on really well. We like all the same things, I feel like I know him inside out. But..."
"...you keep thinking of Marcus? I can see that."
Sammy shook her head, "no. That's just the thing, when I'm with him I DON'T think about Marcus, and that makes me feel more guilty that I ever imagined."