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  He gave me a look. “See how I’m abused?”

  I laughed and poked him. “Poor boy.”

  Together we set the dining-room table. As he had in my house, Sam seemed to have made himself at home, searching through drawers or hollering for directions on where to find a tablecloth, napkins and silverware. I wasn’t sure Dan and Elle had meant to serve dinner on such finery, but I couldn’t stop laughing as Sam pulled out the ugliest pair of silver candelabra I’d ever seen and settled them with a flourish in the table’s center.

  “Voilà.” He kissed his fingertips. “She is complete.”

  “What the—” Dan stopped in the doorway with a full platter of steaming pasta in his hands. “Jesus, Sammy. Where the hell did you find those?”

  Elle peeked over Dan’s shoulder and started laughing. “Oh, God. My mother gave me those as a wedding gift. Sam, put them away.”

  Sam shook his head. “What? They’re…chic.”

  Dan put down the platter. “Dude.”

  “Dude!” Sam said, hands spread.

  Elle shouldered her way between them and plunked a set of fat white candles into the holders and lit them. “Sit down and eat. Grace, ignore them.”

  None of them seemed to have given a second thought to my being here, or to making me a part of what was clearly, despite the beatings, a close family. I wondered what Sam had told them about me. I wasn’t getting a vibe about being surreptitiously checked out or approved of.

  Or not.

  Dinner was nice, too, with good food and increasingly rowdy conversation. Sam and Dan circled each other with words, taking jabs whenever possible, and though I detected an undercurrent of tension between them it was good-natured for the most part. Elle was quiet, but with the sort of dry humor I always admired and never quite managed, myself, but she kept the pair of them in line with her subtly snarky comments when all I could do was laugh at Sam’s put-upon expressions and Dan’s grandiose hand gestures. Nobody treated me like Sam’s girlfriend, which led me to believe that was what he’d told them I was.

  Seated across from me, Sam wasn’t close enough to touch me. Not with his hands, anyway. His gaze, however, managed to caress me with no problem, and I felt that touch all over my body.

  “So, Sammy’s got another few gigs lined up around here.” Dan held up his glass for Elle to refill. “Have you heard him play, Grace?”

  “Yes, I have.” I waved away the offer of a refill for me. Even though I’d finally let Jared take first call, I didn’t want to get drunk. Plus, I’d been watching Sam put away beers with barely a pause between them.

  “Bastard’s not half-bad, huh?” Dan grinned as Sam flipped him off with both hands.

  Elle got up to clear the table and I rose, too, and she waved away Dan when he tried to get up, too. “Play with your brother.”

  In the kitchen, she opened the dishwasher. “The last time we had dinner together, they ended up having a sponge battle in the kitchen. I’d rather clean up, myself, than have to spend the whole night mopping.”

  “I don’t blame you.” From the dining room came a flurry of insults. When I looked back at her, she was smiling.

  “I don’t think they’re going to punch each other. Not tonight, anyway.” Together we cleared the table and tidied the kitchen while Dan and Sam watched some shoot-emup movie on the big-screen TV in the den.

  I was definitely the girlfriend.

  Elle pulled out a thick chocolate cake from the fridge and put it on the table. “The fudge icing on this is thick enough to make me gain ten pounds just from looking at it. Let’s eat it before they get a chance at it. If I know Sam, it’ll be gone before we get more than a nibble.”

  “He’s got a sweet tooth.” I laughed as she put out clean plates and forks. The first bite of cake was good enough to make me groan.

  “Yeah.” Elle sighed and licked the tines of her fork as she leaned against the counter.

  “Heaven, huh? Coffee’ll be ready in a minute. We’ll call them in when it’s done.”

  She wasn’t much of a talker and didn’t fill the silence between us with lots of happy chatter the way many women would’ve, but with the cake to occupy my mouth I was glad not have to come up with small talk.

  “So,” she did say after a minute filled with the clank of our forks on the plates and our chocolate-sated sighs. “Sam.”

  I looked at her and wiped my mouth carefully with a napkin. “Is this where I get some speech about not hurting him?”

  Elle looked surprised. “No. Did you expect that?”

  I put my plate in the dishwasher so I wouldn’t be tempted to have another slice. “I didn’t know what to expect, actually. My relationship with Sam is—”

  “Complicated?”

  “That’s a good way to put it.”

  Elle helped herself to another forkful of cake and sighed happily. “Good cake. Well, Grace, I’m not Sam’s mother, so it’s not really my place to protect him, is it?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think you need to protect him from me, anyway.”

  Elle brought down cups and saucers, then sugar and cream from the fridge. The coffeepot hissed and the good, strong scent of caffeine filled the air. “Sam’s a good guy. I don’t know him that well. I mean, I’ve only really had the chance to spend time with him since Morty died. Not the best time to make a judgment on someone, would you say?”

  “No.” I helped her put out spoons, but didn’t shy away from meeting her frank gaze.

  “Listen, did Sam tell you something about me?”

  “No. But I think he told Dan some things. They had a fight about it. Dan seems to think Sam’s got his head up his ass a lot of the time.” She smiled and looked toward the den, where a shout had arisen over something on television. “Dan’s had a hard time with his dad’s death. And I think he’s upset that it hasn’t been harder for Sammy.”

  I’d never have guessed Dan had a problem with Sam dating me by his treatment of me, and I told her so.

  “It’s not you,” she said as she poured coffee. “It’s about Sam and Dan. I stay out of it. But I did want to tell you something, Grace. Something I do know that I think neither one of them do…or would admit to, maybe.”

  I waited.

  “Sam’s having a harder time about his dad dying than he’s letting on. Harder than Dan, I think. Dan had issues with his dad, but he got to work out a lot of them before Morty passed away. Sam didn’t. And as much as Dan wants to share his misery with his brother, and as much as he won’t admit he’s jealous that his baby brother seems to be getting away scot free yet again, I think he’s glad to be the only one suffering. Gives him a reason to be angry at Sammy for a lot of things but blame it all on that one. You know?”

  She said all of this calmly and slowly. She sounded as if she’d spent a good deal of time thinking about this situation. Elle impressed me as the sort of woman who thought a lot about a lot of things.

  “I know. Death affects everyone differently.” I stirred sugar and cream into my coffee.

  She nodded and might have said more, but the room was suddenly a lot smaller with the addition of the two men. Sam slapped the back of Dan’s head as they came through the doorway, and Dan turned without a pause and punched Sam in the arm hard enough to make a loud noise.

  It was like watching a tumbling pair of puppies scrambling for the alpha spot.

  I looked at Elle, who stared at her husband as though she’d never seen him before. “That’s my Dan,” she murmured with a slight roll of her eyes.

  Dan straightened, brushing back the hair Sam had tousled, went to her and dipped her down for a kiss. She didn’t protest too heartily. Sam, apparently thinking this was a good idea, went for me with a warm, beery kiss. He kept me dipped a few seconds too long for comfort and nearly stumbled when pulling me up.

  “Get some coffee in him,” Dan suggested, rubbing his hands in glee at the sight of the cake. “Sober him up.”

  I eyed Sam as he poured himself coffee and cut a h