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He gave her a slow smile. “Absolutely.”
“Good.” She waved at him to continue before she started going soft on him. “Now go on.”
“What, that’s not enough? My hidden hatred for the poor blameless angel of a child?”
“Nope.” She folded her arms across her chest and regarded him sternly. “There’s got to be serious dirt dug up here.”
“There will be.” His fingers stopped massaging and lay still. She had a feeling he didn’t realize how hard he was squeezing her leg. “I figured out that at lunchtime the kid was in there alone. Alan, his name was. I’d ride my bike over whenever I could get away. Must have been a couple times a week. I’d wait until he was with a customer somewhere in the store, or I’d ask him about something behind the shelf. Then I’d steal candy.”
“Oh, the ultimate irony—a rich-kid shoplifter.”
He nodded, looking adorably contrite. “It gets worse.”
“Mmm, goody.”
He relaxed his grip, bent her leg and began massaging her foot. She closed her eyes and groaned in pleasure. Immediately, the massage stopped. Sandra opened her eyes to find Erik looking at her with such feral intensity she nearly gasped.
“Damn it, Sandra, you are so hot, sometimes it’s all I can do not to attack you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”
For a second, she sat there stunned by the passion in his outburst.
That makes two of us.
“Well.” She tried for a cocky unconcerned tone and failed utterly, struggled to sit up higher, as if her position had interfered with her voice. “You know what you have to do to make that possible.”
“Yes.” He turned back to her foot, leaving her somewhat shell-shocked. How many men had told her they wanted her? Dozens. She was well aware of the vibe she put out, but she also knew how to handle herself and had always felt well in control of the men and of her own actions and emotions. Not so much now. She didn’t like it.
“Keep talking.”
“This went on for two summers. Then I grew up some and realized Alan’s dad was probably just making it financially and that I’d been a complete shit.”
“No argument there.”
“The next summer, the store wasn’t there anymore. I was probably fifteen, sixteen by then. So I did some digging and found out where this kid lived, so I could give him and his dad back the money for what I stole. And then some.”
“Ooh, noble child.” She was more caught up in the idea of the struggling teenage Erik than she wanted to admit. “What happened?”
“I went to his house, in this sort of run-down neighborhood. Their place wasn’t so great, either. I was about to go up and knock, when the kid came out. He had a girl with him, she was pretty, and they were laughing. Then his dad came out and told them to go have a great time, he passed his kid some cash and they headed for a car at the curb not far from where I was standing with a bunch of twenties in my pocket.”
“And...?”
Erik turned and sent her a look of world-weary amusement. “And I turned chickenshit and went home.”
“Oh, no!” Sandra nearly choked on her last sip of amaro. She put the glass down. “No, no, that’s not how it goes. You give them the money and then the kid says, ‘Oh, this is the exact amount I still need for the life-saving operation on my darling mama.’”
“Nope. I chickened out.”
“So, then.” She beckoned, prompting the rest of the story. “Years later, you found him again and sent an anonymous check?”
“Nope.”
“At least tell me you’ve felt guilty all these years.”
He looked pensive. “Not really. It was probably twenty-five bucks’ worth. They survived.”
She threw up her hands. “Not even penitent!”
“He became a corporate lawyer and probably bilked hundreds of people out of much more than I ever did.”
“Erik! That’s not the point.”
He laughed, squeezing her bare foot, lifting it to his lips for a kiss. “I’m kidding, my darling Sandra, though he did become a successful lawyer. I did go back to his house, and I did my penance. I told Alan I’d been stealing from the store. He got this look of disdain on his face. I’ll never forget it. Then it got worse.”
“Oh, no.” She was past being flip, genuinely caring about what happened.
“Because then he said, ‘I know. We had a mirror behind the counter. Every day I put back whatever you stole from my own pay.’ I was flabbergasted. So I asked the kid why the hell he’d cover for me. He said his dad didn’t need any more stress. That the last jerk rich kid they accused got off clean and then his parents sued the kid’s father. He said he would have gotten together boys his age to beat the crap out of me but his religion prohibited that kind of violence.”
