Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
She took the colander, but a heat remained in her hazel eyes. “Promise?”
“Do those mean something to you?”
“Maybe, coming from you.”
So be it, he thought.
“I promise,” Lucas said.
Delaney’s gaze shifted away from him, but it took her an extra second to nod like she believed him. “Okay. Do you want to ask me?”
That wasn’t such an easy answer, and Lucas could tell by the irritation she already showed at the topic of conversation. If bringing the subject of her former church, and family ties, worked her up … he didn’t think she wanted to talk about it.
Maybe they shouldn’t.
Except for one thing …
“I care, you know?” he asked, shrugging one shoulder under the gray T-shirt he’d pulled on that morning. “About who you are and what’s made you, you. The good and bad things. Why they make you smile or cry. If you expect me to apologize for wanting to know everything I can about you, I’m sorry, Delaney. I can’t do that. I won’t.”
Her posture softened a bit.
So did her eyes.
She hugged the colander of potatoes closer to her chest. “Well, when you put it like that …”
Lucas chuckled. “Honesty is the best policy, they said.”
Or someone did.
Once upon a time.
“Yeah, but they never learned that the truth hurts, too,” Delaney muttered under her breath.
Wasn’t that, in itself, a sad truth?
One he knew all too well.
“I’ll finish the carrots up while you wash those,” he said, nodding to the potatoes she held as he reached for the bowl of veggies she had left unfinished.
For a second, Delaney remained standing close enough to Lucas’ stool that he could reach over and pull her into his lap if he wanted.
And he did.
So badly.
The urge was nothing but selfishness, he knew. A way to distract the both of them from a tough conversation that probably needed to be had between them. He stuffed the desire down as Delaney headed for the sink on the other side of the island to wash the potatoes.
Far from his reach.
Shame, he thought.
As he promised, Lucas worked on peeling what remained of the three carrots left in Delaney’s bowl before he went ahead and sliced them into a neat pile on the one cutting board she had also been using. She wandered back to him to grab the board full of carrot slices before taking them to the sink to wash as well.
The vegetables plopped into the steaming soup that he could already smell. Despite only having a few spices to add and a can of tomato juice, she produced a soup base for the meat and veggies that had his mouth watering.
His stomach growled, too.
They really should have eaten earlier.
Oh, well.
Delaney remained at the stove, occasionally lifting the lid on the pot to stir the soup before sniffing the steam rising up as if that could give her an accurate read of the taste. He doubted it, but didn’t blame her for the effort.
“It smells great,” he said.
“Thanks,” she murmured over her shoulder.
But back to what really mattered …
Lucas left the comfort of the stool behind to make his way to where Delaney worked at the shove. Coming up behind her, she peeked back at him with a small smile as he sunk his fingers into the loose waves of her black hair falling to her mid-back. The soft tilt of her head every time he raked his fingers through her hair said she liked it, so he kept it up while he talked.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject,” he said.
She shook her head. “It’s okay.”
“Well—”
“It is,” she assured. “Well, it isn’t okay. It is a sore subject, but neither of those things are the problem. It just takes me off guard whenever I have to talk about the church or my family. I left both a long time ago. At the same time, actually, because I didn’t have a choice. I was told to live the way they said was the only acceptable way, or don’t be around them at all. And when that’s all you’ve ever known—church practically every day of the week, a patriarchal house, believing everyone on the outside is bad … the lies, it’s scary when you start to think it might be better to get away. And making that choice forced me to grow up overnight. In a world that I had been told would hurt me in one way or another. Yeah, a little scary.”
“Was it, though? Better?”
“I mean, I didn’t have to hear my father call me a slut every day,” Delaney said, like it was a qualifier to what came next. “Then again, he left a message on my publicly listed cell phone number every month for the first couple of years telling me I was a disgrace to God because I went to the trade school in Grand Falls to study hairdressing, and then opened my first salon with Gracen, so.”