Page 96 of Clara Knows Best

“Ilive on Yoli’s block,“ Cody said. “But I don’t know anyone like that.”

“They made him up,” Helio exclaimed, and the machine gun laughter started up. “They made him up! Messing with you!”

“No,” Jesse said at once, but he had a sinking feeling that said otherwise. “No, they’re obsessed with this guy.”

“There’s no Marine named Sam on Yoli’s block,” Cody said with certainty.

“What else do you know about him?” Roy Bent asked. “I go to the VFW all the time. I could ask around.”

“Let me guess!” Helio gasped, between laughing like a fool. “He’s perfect in every way.” More machine gunning. “And he’s interested in Clara, and he showed up right when you did,” he added before giving in to rapid, high-pitched laughter again.

Everyone else laughed with him.

Jesse rubbed his face as he made peace with the sad truth. He had been duped by a couple of low-level con artists.

“Why?” he wondered finally.

“Dude, wake up, you’re dating Clara! Save yourself!” Jordan blurted, and then ducked his head as everyone reached in to hit him again.

“All right, enough gossip, ladies,” Roy said sternly. “Let’s play some cards.”

35

Clara awoke at the first note of her alarm and silenced it immediately. She got ready as quietly as humanly possible, reluctant to wake the man across the hall—assuming he’d come home sometime in the night from his poker game. He hadn’t been home at eleven when she’d gone to bed.

She could just picture him pulling the big-brother act and asking the other guys about poor tattooed Sam, who had just popped out of Yoli’s head a few days ago like Athena out of Zeus. Oh, Yoli and her big mouth!

Would they have given him a hard time when he realized there was no such animal? Would he be mad? Shocked? Was there any chance he’d just be amused by the antics of two silly girls?

Thank goodness for the STEM kids, giving her an excuse to be unavailable for comment all morning. Even if Jesse made an appearance, it might not be a bad idea for their first post-poker night meeting to take place in front of minor witnesses.

The club was meeting at the house today for the first time; Dr. Wilder had called their parents and offered the teens use ofthe Colonel’s workshop for their robotics projects, and they were showing up at eight to get started.

Clara crept softly down the stairs, preheated the oven, and threw together a cheesy egg casserole and a cinnamon-swirl coffee cake—Miss Mabel’s mother’s recipe—before she even started the coffee. It wasn’t strictly necessary to provide breakfast for the teens, but it was very satisfying to see how enthusiastically they gobbled up whatever she brought them.

Greer, still drowsy from her medication, stirred in her crate, and Clara took her outside to pee and then gave her some water. She went back to sleep without a fuss, so Clara didn’t feed her.

She was doctoring her coffee when the back door opened and Jesse Flores came in from his—run? Did he go running with bruised ribs and a shoulder sprain? He wasn’t wearing the sling.

Play it cool, Clara! Maybe he didn’t even ask them about Sam the Marine!

“Good morning,” she said lightly.

“’Morning, ladies,” he boomed, including Greer. “Oh.” He took out his earphones. “Was that loud? Sorry.”

She shook her head quickly. “Did you run?”

“Walked. Felt good.”

“Oh, good.” This was going surprisingly well.

“You lied,” he said directly, coming towards her.

“No,” she denied automatically, but she knew it sounded guilty.Technically, though, she had never said anything to him about Sam. He had eavesdropped and made a bunch of assumptions. Assumptions that had been designed for him to make.

She watched him warily as he approached, but she wasn’t prepared for him to pick up her coffee and gulp it down. She felt her mouth hanging open but couldn’t seem to close it.

He set the cup on the counter, more than half-empty now. “That’s good coffee. Smells great in here.” He pressed his nose against her hair and inhaled deeply. “Nope. It’s not you.”

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