[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

soldering iron. "Sam?"
He didn't say anything.
A warning bell went off in the corners of her mind, and she pushed herself up from the table. "Sam, you
do have a written contract with the man, don't you?"
He became unbelievably busy with the board he was putting into the burn-in box.
"Sam?"
He turned on her belligerently. "I didn't think about it, all right? I was excited. I just didn't think about it."
She pulled off her reading glasses and rubbed her temples.
Suddenly she felt very tired. Her love for him kept blinding her to the fact that he was only a kid. A wild
kid with a silver tongue. And she was an uptight socialite, and Yank was a hopeless nerd, and none of
them knew what they were doing. They were goofing around, playing at being grownups. Why was she
even surprised that he hadn't thought to draw up a contract? At that moment, she realized how
insurmountable their problems really were. They were deeply in debt. It was only a matter of time before
this house of cards they were building came crashing down around them.
"Look, don't worry, okay?" he said. "I told you the guy's a hardware freak, and we've got the best piece
of hardware in the whole Valley."
She wanted to yell at him and tell him that it was time to grow up. Instead, she said wearily, "No more
oral agreements, Sam. From now on everything has to be in writing. We can't ever let this happen again."
"Since when did you start giving orders?" he retorted. "You're sounding like a real bitch, you know that?"
Perhaps it was the effect of the heat, or the ache in her muscles, but her customary patience deserted her.
A surge of righteous anger swept through her, and she slapped the flat of her hand down on the table.
The sound reverberated through the garage, startling her as much as it did Sam. For a few seconds she
stared down at her hand as if it belonged to someone else, and then, incredibly, she found herself
slapping it down again.
"You're the one who made the mistake, Sam. Don't you dare attack me. You're the one who messed up!
Not me."
He looked at her for a moment and then wiped the back of his forearm over his sweat band. "Yeah,
you're right. Okay."
She stared at him. Was that all there was to it? Had she actually won an argument with him?
He grinned at the expression of surprise on her face and began to amble toward her, running deliberately
lecherous eyes over her body. Susannah experienced a moment of deep pleasure, a sense of the strength
of her own womanhood that was new and wonderful. Without thinking about what she was doing, she
hooked her index finger over the snap on his jeans and tugged. When he came up against her, she gave
him a trashy kiss, open-mouthed and deep.
"Would you be a doll baby and do a shampoo for me? I hate to interrupt, but I'm really backed up."
Susannah pulled abruptly away as Angela came through the beauty shop door. Sam whirled around.
"She's not your shampoo girl, for chrissake!"
Susannah interceded. "My back hurts and I need to stretch for a few minutes. I don't mind. Yank will be
here before long, and Roberta's coming over this evening to help."
Sam's lips tightened at the mention of Roberta, but since he was the one who had called her and told her
she had to help assemble the boards, he couldn't really protest. Susannah suspected he would have made
the elderly women in Angela's beauty shop stuff boards if they had better eyesight.
A blast of cool air from the window air conditioner hit her as she stepped through the door of the beauty
parlor. One elderly woman was under a hair dryer, and Angela was giving another a perm. Susannah
ushered the third to the shampoo bowl and supported her as she leaned back. She didn't mind helping
Angela. Sam's mother was so good-natured it was impossible not to like her. Besides, when Susannah
was helping out, she felt less guilty about the fact that she wasn't contributing anything toward her room
and board.
As she gently worked the lather through the elderly woman's thin hair, she thought about how badly she
needed money. All her life she had been dependent on her father, and now she was dependent on Sam
and Angela. She had even been forced to ask Sam for money to buy a box of Tampax. He had given it
to her without comment, but she still found the experience demeaning.
"Well, h-e-l-l-o there." Angela's voice, flirtatious and sassy, rose over the sound of the water running in
the shampoo basin. Susannah glanced up, then sucked in her breath as the walls of the small shop
seemed to tilt in crazy directions.
Joel Faulconer stood in the doorway, aloof and out of place in a hunter-green polo shirt and crisply
creased khaki slacks. He had put on some unneeded weight since she had last seen him, and his golfer's
tan had faded. It was probably only her imagination, but he seemed older than she remembered.
He gazed around him without saying anything. In the past few weeks, Susannah had grown accustomed
to her surroundings, but now she saw it all again through his eyes the garish mirrored tiles, the plastic
plants and ugly photographs of overly elaborate hairstyles. She saw herself cheap and common in a
man's T-shirt and a pair of threadbare slacks she had once worn for gardening. She could almost read his
mind as he watched her shampoo the hair of a woman who was wearing blue bedroom slippers with slits
cut in the sides to accommodate her bunions.
Susannah heard a cry of pain and realized she had dug her fingers into the poor woman's scalp. "I'm
sorry," she apologized, releasing her. Her hands shaking, she finished rinsing out the woman and wrapped
her head in a towel. Then she went over to her father. Angela looked on, making no attempt to hide her
curiosity.
"I I tried to call you," Susannah said.
"So I understand." Joel's eyes flicked over her clothing, revealing nothing except distaste.
Angela's charm bracelets had stilled, and Susannah could feel the curious eyes of her customers. Making
an awkward gesture with her hand, she indicated that Joel should follow her into the workshop. It was
empty. Sam must have gone to see someone about the cases to house the computer boards.
The burn-in box gave off a warm plastic smell that mingled with the sharp scent of perm solution. The
garage seemed unbearably hot and airless. She hugged herself. "Would you like me to get you some iced
tea? There's a pitcher in the kitchen. It'll only take a moment."
Ignoring her, he wandered over to the workbench and looked at the board that was sitting on it. He
snorted contemptuously.
"I can fix you a drink if you'd rather," she said quickly.
He turned and stared at her so coldly, she couldn't believe that he had ever regarded her with tenderness.
She couldn't bear it. Her throat tightened as she gazed at the man she had loved for nearly as long as she [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

razem.keep.pl