Special Delivery: Special Delivery, Book 1 by Heidi Cullinan Read Free Book Online

bodies, and while they excited most men who got Em into bed, for Sam they diffused all thoughts of sex. If she found their snuggles erotic, he hoped she never told him about it.
    She got him up in the morning and fed and dressed him. She’d put him in a pair of her sweatpants and an old T-shirt overnight, and to his embarrassment, he found Emma’s mother had washed his clothes for him. He ate the bowl of cereal Emma set out for him and played nice with the parents as they asked about work, and school, and his summer plans.
    “So what’s the status on the apartment?” Emma’s mother smiled at Sam. “I assume Emma has you roped into her scheme, as usual?”
    “Temporary setback,” Emma declared as she tore into her toast. “By August, Mom, you can turn my bedroom into your scrapbook room.”
    “It’s a lot of money.” Mrs. Day’s voice held a warning, but it was a gentle one. Sam watched her face as she and Emma continued to spar, and it made his chest hurt. That was how his mom had argued with him, and he missed it. It wasn’t fighting. It was verbal jousting, and beneath the tussle, you could feel the love.
    He thought of the cold reception waiting for him at Cherry Hill, and he looked down into his bowl of Cheerios, poking the oat circles beneath the milk as he blinked rapidly and scolded himself for his self-pity.
    Once he finished eating he had to go to work, but Delia was out for the day, so he spent a pleasant morning and early afternoon counting out pills and pasting on prescription labels. Even better than a shift without Delia was going home to find the house empty and a note saying she and Uncle Norm had gone with the Baumgartens to dinner and a movie and that she expected to see the dishes done and the carpet vacuumed when she came home.
    Sam did the dishes and carpets as directed. Then he grabbed his keys, headed to his car and went to the store.
    He came home laden with a bottle of San Pellegrino, frozen pot stickers and Newman’s chocolate alphabet cookies. He cooked the pot stickers on the stove, did up his dishes and took his feast to the den. After nipping downstairs to fetch his VCR tape full of this week’s Dancing with the Stars , he tucked it into his aunt’s player, grabbed the remote and settled deep into the crevice of the couch. Uncle Norm had a state-of-the-art DVR, of course, but there was no way Delia would let him “fill it up with trash.”
    He’d eaten two pot stickers and had a flutter over Gilles Marini as he drew his partner close at the end of a tango when the phone rang. He groaned and almost let it go, but he realized without his cell phone, his aunt and uncle’s phone was now his phone too. Maybe it’s Mitch, his traitorous heart whispered hopefully, which was why Sam tensed and avoided looking at the caller ID as he picked up the phone. “Hello?”
    “Do I need to come over with the vodka?” Emma asked when he answered. “Or are you better now?”
    Sam felt even more ridiculous at his disappointment. “I’m fine. Delia and Norm are out, so I’m watching TV upstairs and eating pot stickers.”
    “What are you watching? Maybe I’ll come over.”
    “ Dancing with the Stars .”
    Emma groaned. “I’m not coming over. Do you want to meet up later, though? Maybe go out?”
    Sam considered his wallet. He might have a dollar, and it was weeks until payday. “No, I’ll stay in. I should study.”
    “You aren’t going to study,” she pointed out.
    “Okay, I won’t study. But I do want to stay in.”
    “Are you pouting?”
    “I am not pouting. I’m trying to watch quality programming. I have two week’s worth of the show to get through.” He gentled. “I’m fine, Em. I really am.”
    “All right.” She sounded unconvinced. “But if you change your mind, call me back.”
    “I will,” Sam promised. He hung up the phone and restarted his show.
    Not even two minutes later, the phone rang again. He stopped the show, picked up the phone and glared as he