Page 13 of Lush Curves

Well, OK. If Annie had found someone who was good to her, then Sam would be happy for her. He’d also want to kill the guy.

Time to find out, then.

He brought the coffees over to Annie, and those gorgeous eyes watched his approach warmly. The thing that had always taken him aback about Annie was her sweetness; he supposed that she’d buried it deep for reasons, maybe because she thought that it made her vulnerable. Weak. So she’d perfected her hard bitch persona, erected a tough shell that masked her true nature – one as a surprisingly kind, giving person. Sam had known it the second that he’d seen Annie reach out to Jax that horrible night three years ago – when she’d reached out physically and emotionally, reached past her own fear and anger, reached him in the middle of what was a mother’s worst nightmare.

Sam knew that people revealed true things about themselves in the horror of the E.R. Any strains or tensions between family members exploded, any fault lines cracked fast and hard, any resentments bubbled over and drowned everyone standing in the vicinity. Selfish, small people became more so; generous, loving people did, too. Whatever face Annie showed the world to survive, she’d revealed her real, honest face time and time again when her daughter had been hovering near death.

It was a beautiful, strong, amazing face. It was a face that Sam admired deeply – and wanted to see all the time. He wanted that desperately.

“Thank you,” she said now as he set the cup of coffee in front of her. “I’msolooking forward to enjoying this bad coffee.”

Sam sat, gave her a grin. “I know, right? Enjoy.”

“Oh, I will.” She took a sip, mostly hid her slight grimace at the bitterness. “So… how have you been?”

“Good,” Sam said, relaxing into the seat across from her. “Really busy, with my usual crazy night shift hours, but I like that.”

“Being busy? Or working nights?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Ihatedthe nightshift at the diner,” Annie said. “Worked it for twenty years, and I swear that it made me a nervous wreck.”

“Lots of drunks?”

“Oh, yeah. Drunks and kids looking for trouble and shady characters passing drugs under the table in the corner. Prostitutes, too, looking to get warm before having to go back out, and they kinda broke my heart, ‘cause so many of them were so damn young. Kept seeing Sarah when I looked at them, you know? Lots of fights, too, which meant lots of clean-up after. Broken glass all over the damn shop.” She looked over at Sam. “But I imagine it’swayworse in the E.R. at two a.m. on a Saturday.”

“Can be. People drunk and high can be hard to control.”

“No lie. ThankGodI don’t have to take every hour that my boss tries to hand me anymore, so I can mostly work days, or even go a few days without hours if nothing’s being handed out but nights. It’s great, after years of taking anything that I could get just to pay the bills.”

“So things are better financially?” Sam asked quietly. He’d never asked of course, never once probed Annie about her bank balance, but he’d known that things were tight back then. “More steady?”

“Yes. Incredibly so.”

“Is it OK if I ask why?”

“Sure,” Annie said, startled. “It’s not like it’s a threat to national security to talk about it.”

“No?”

“No.” There wasthatsmile again, dear sweet God above. “It’s because the kids have become independent. They pay their own way.”

“Bothof them?” Sam was stunned. “Noah earns enough off painting to pay for his life?”

“Oh, he told you about that, did he?”

“Yes. He works with Naomi Abbott’s organization.”

“I’m still not done being in shock overthat. I mean, Sarah and me always knew that he had talent, but we had no clue that he couldsellwhat he painted. His painting was more about… I don’t know. Keeping him calm so Sarah could do her work when she was at him with him, mostly. But it was also about him expressing himself. You know? He couldn’t really talk to us, but when he painted, we saw things about him. It was amazing, and he really seemed happy when he was in his world painting, listening to music, creating. And when Naomi told me that she had people who wanted to pay thousands of dollars for one of Noah’s paintings? You could have knocked me over with a feather.”

“I’ll bet.”

“So, he earns great money. Jax’s accountant set things up for him, ‘cause I don’t know the first thing about managing that kind of money, and he’s got a nice little nest egg.”

“He lives with you still?”

“Oh, no. You heard of Carly’s Place?”

---