Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 68006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
I hold her close to me, trying to get back to sleep, but it’s no use. I hate to leave her, but I crawl out of bed and try to be very quiet as I go into the bathroom and take a shower.
Once I’m done, I dress in jeans and a T-shirt, my hair still wet, and pad as quietly as I can to the kitchen where I start a pot of coffee.
I haven’t yet told Kelly that she doesn’t have to work tonight. Knowing her, she’ll lash out at me for changing her schedule, but in the end she’ll be grateful. She needs a day off. A day when she doesn’t leave my side, when she doesn’t need to be afraid of anything.
I have plenty of groceries in the apartment, and even though I’m not much of a cook, Kelly and I will have enough to eat today without leaving the apartment.
When she wakes up, if the two of us do nothing but make love all day, I won’t have any complaints.
Once the coffee is brewed, I pour myself a cup and grab a couple of doughnuts out of the breadbox. Then I sit down at my small table, open my iPad, and read the news for the day.
Nothing about the break-in at the building, and nothing about what happened at the restaurant last night. Good.
The Wolfes do as much as they can to keep their father’s victims out of the press. I’m sure a lot of reporters have been paid a handsome paycheck for not printing stories.
The last thing Kelly needs is to see her name plastered across some tabloid.
I check my emails, check in with Reid, and once eight o’clock rolls around, I go into the bedroom to make sure Kelly is okay.
She’s sitting up in bed, stretching her arms.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” I say. “I was hoping you’d still be asleep. You need your rest.”
“No,” she says. “It’s better if I keep regular hours.”
“Regular hours for you, with your evening shift, means sleeping until ten or eleven, Kelly.”
“I can’t do that. I’ve tried. I’ll just have to learn to get by on less sleep.” She tosses the covers off. “Actually, I don’t even have to learn. I’m doing it.”
“I have good news for you.”
She widens her eyes. “They found him?”
“Well, not that good of news. But you don’t have to work tonight.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean I don’t have to work tonight? I’m scheduled.”
“Lois changed you to Sunday,” I say.
“Why? And why would she do that without telling me? What if I’m busy on Sunday?”
“Are you?”
She frowns. “Well… No, but—”
I quiet her with two fingers on her soft lips. “No buts, Kelly. It was Lois’s idea, and it was a good one. She knows what you’ve been through. She knows how late we were talking to police officers last night because she was there as well.”
Kelly opens her mouth—to object, I’m sure—but then closes it.
“Good. You’ve decided not to fight me.”
“Would it do me any good?”
“Absolutely not. You know as well as I do that this is what’s best for you. You’ve worked two shifts at The Glass House so far, and you’ve kicked ass on both, including last night when you were working on empty. You need to take today. We’re not leaving this place. I have food, and I’m going to cook for you.”
“You know how to cook?”
“Not exactly, but Reid left me a cookbook.”
“God… Well, it just so happens that I do know how to cook. I worked in a diner for five years, remember?”
“As a server, not a cook.”
“But I—” She clamps her mouth shut.
“What?”
She bites her lip. “I cooked a lot when I was a kid. I was expected to make dinner for my mom from the time I was about eight years old. And believe me, I had to get really creative because there was never much food in our house.”
“Kelly…”
She shakes her head vehemently. “I don’t want your pity, Leif. Not now, and not ever.”
“Honey, it’s not pity. It’s concern. It’s sadness. Aren’t I allowed to feel bad about what you went through?”
“No.”
“Sorry. You’re not in charge of my feelings, Kelly. Just like I’m not in charge of yours.”
She opens her mouth again but shuts it.
“I’m happy to cook. If you want to, I will gladly give it up.”
She sighs. “I need a shower.”
“All right. I’ll give you some privacy.”
“Who said I wanted any privacy?”
“I was trying to be a gentleman, Kelly.”
“I know, but…”
“But what?”
“It’s just… This is going to sound ridiculous, but I’m not used to gentlemen, Leif. I’m used to men taking what they want from me.”
My heart cracks. Every time I hear another story about her life, about how she was treated, about how she never knew how worthy she was…I lose a little bit more of that vital organ.