Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“Are you sure that’s all he’s doing?” she asks, keeping her voice low.
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s clearly keeping you company,” she says. “And I see the way he looks at you, how his eyes linger a little too long and his lips crack a sly smile whenever you walk into the room. I’ve been around long enough to know what attraction looks like.”
“Again, you’re reading into everything,” I say. “Promise.”
She lifts a brow, skeptical.
I leave before she can say another ridiculous word.
Carrying the waters outside, I sense my mother’s watchful stare, and with each step, I tell myself she’s wrong. I don’t like him.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
I shouldn’t.
And he doesn’t like me . . .
I’d know if he did.
The man’s certainly not shy about asking for what he wants in this life, nor does he hesitate to go after it.
Besides, there’s no possible scenario I can conjure in my mind of the two of us running off together into the sunset. The man hasn’t been stateside in a decade and clearly has attachment issues, and I’m still nursing a shattered heart and bruised ego.
Two broken halves do not make a whole.
“You guys thirsty?” I deliver their drinks with a smile and make a conscious effort not to let my gaze linger anywhere on or near Lachlan’s vicinity.
They thank me, stopping to rest for a bit, and my father begins to say something, only I head back in with the swiftness of a hummingbird.
I lose myself in busywork the rest of the day, sanding and staining and cleaning and prepping before rinsing and repeating. I stop for an email break and manage to make it to inbox zero. And for that handful of hours, I almost forget Lachlan’s even here.
But at the end of the workday, just before dinnertime, I catch him exiting the upstairs bathroom, his hair shower damp and a towel tied tight and low at his hips. My stomach ties in a million knots at the sight of him, and I draw in a long, slow breath, holding it tight in my chest. He doesn’t notice me; he simply veers into his bedroom and closes the door, leaving a foggy trail of woodsy aftershave in his wake—a scent that has lately become one of my favorites.
The stairs creak, and I snap out of it, turning to find my mother making her way up.
“Anneliese, what are you doing just standing here in the dark?” she asks, chuckling. She places her hand on the small of my back before brushing past me in the hallway. “Is everything okay? Dinner’s about ready. First meal cooked in your new kitchen . . .”
“I’ll be down in a bit. Just need to clean up,” I say.
She disappears into my bedroom, and I head into my bathroom to grab a quick shower and change for supper. I’m almost done when I catch myself dabbing on a touch of makeup to make the bags under my eyes a little less noticeable . . . which only serves to make my pale lashes paler, so I slick on a couple of coats of mascara . . . but then my eyebrows scream for attention. I fill them in lightly before deciding a few pats of cream blush on my cheeks might put a little life into my complexion.
By the time I’m finished, I’ve given my mother every reason to hold close to her opinion, but at least I look halfway human.
I head downstairs, confused, with butterflies in my middle that have no business being there. Everything was so simple before—relatively speaking. Now I’m going to spend the rest of the night hyperaware of every look, glance, touch, or word that comes out of my mouth and ends up in Lachlan’s direction.
Not only do I not want to give my parents the wrong idea, but I’d hate to give him the wrong impression as well.
I take a seat at the unfolded card table in the kitchen—while the room might be finished, I’m still lagging in the furniture department. Mom pulls a casserole from the oven, and my father spreads a paper napkin over his lap, studying me.
“Sounds like someone had quite the productive afternoon,” he says to me. “I’ve always found that productivity has a snowball effect. Sometimes all it takes is a little momentum to keep it going.”
I bite my tongue, deciding not to remind him that for the past six months, I’ve been renovating a six-thousand-square-foot home by myself while running a side business and pinching pennies to keep the lights on.
“Won’t be much longer, and you’ll be on your way to wherever life takes you next,” he says.
Mom shoots him a look: a dead giveaway that they’ve been talking.
“I’m praying life takes her home for a bit,” Mom says.
My dad chuckles. “If it were up to you, Linda, she’d still be living at home.”