Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 54645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
I can’t. I can’t do this. Be here, think this, imagine that.
I can’t.
I’ll explode if I stay. We need some space.
I do have somewhere to be—something to do. I slip my wallet from my purse and double-check that I’ve got the money for my rent. Just the thought of seeing my landlord makes my stomach turn. But still. It’s something. It’s something to do, something to focus on, so I don’t get consumed by these feelings.
So I step outside the house and find the limo driver, sitting on the patio outside the guest house, reading. The bright sunshine helps clear my mind, just a little. He looks military, more or less, with a clean-shaven honesty. He stands up when he sees me.
“Can I help? I’m Edward. At your service.”
“Yes. I need a ride to my apartment.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and gives me a playful but still respectful salute. “Trent told me your wish is my command. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 7
Kat
The Humvee limo slides out of the driveway, making me feel like I’m some big deal. I turn to look over my shoulder at the front door, halfway hoping, halfway dreading, that I’ll see Trent there, watching us pull away.
Chasing down the limo.
But he’s not there.
The window in the partition slides down. “Where to?”
“Corner of Cass and Central Boulevard.”
I watch the driver’s eyebrows furrow in the rear-view. “What’s a girl like you got to do in a place like that?”
Good question, buddy. But times have been tough and it’s a long freaking story.
“That’s where I live. 450 Central Boulevard. The Treemont.”
His blue eyes dart back at me in the mirror. “But Corporal Reynolds said you’re living here, with him, didn’t he?”
“Well, my landlord doesn’t know that. Yet,” I say, swallowing back the bile in my throat at the thought of him. “And rent won’t pay itself, whether Trent is home or not.”
The driver sniffs, nods. “I hear you. To the Treemont it is, then. Want me to close this window? Or do you want to be able to talk?”
Truthfully, I want to curl up in a ball and let my mind wander back to Trent’s tattoos. But that’s not going to happen. That can’t happen. “Open is fine.”
“So what do you do, Miss Kathryn?”
I snuggle back into the cool leather seats and try to clear my mind of thoughts of Trent, and all his hills and valleys. His chiseled muscles and veins and strength. “I’m an accountant. Book-keeper, really.”
“Is that so? Where?”
At a skeezy little strip club where there’s coke residue on all the bathroom sinks. “Let’s just say it’s not exactly H & R Block. But it pays the bills.”
“Dang. If I knew there were accountants out there that look like you, I’d have been looking forward to Tax Day all this time.”
I know he’s just being nice, but I’m not in the mood. I struggle to muster up a smile, a little laugh. But I can’t stop my mind racing back to Trent. The pictures. The sketches. The look.
God. The look.
The further we get from the house, the less anxious I feel about what happened. But still, a heaviness settles in my heart. I know I’ll have to go back. But I know that when I do, there is something waiting behind the curtain that neither of us is ready to reveal.
I squeeze my thighs together, and scoop my hair over my shoulder, focusing on the cooling whoosh of the air conditioning, blowing on my skin, and the low rumbling hum of the engine.
The Humvee moves gracefully down the highway, off the exit, through town. I am so used to my Jeep’s squeaky brakes and worn-out shocks that it’s almost hypnotic, moving through the world so effortlessly like this. Before I know it, we’re rolling up on the Treemont.
“You live here? Seriously?” Edward asks. We take a right onto Cass Avenue, with its litter-filled gutters and burnt-out trap houses.
“Not because I want to.”
Edward picks up on the edge in my voice. “Understood.”
“Thank you.” I’m grateful that he drops the topic because there’s so much to explain. And so little I can say.
He maneuvers the limo through the Treemont parking lot with its usual suspects all looking like extras out of The Walking Dead.
“Will you wait here for me? I’ll be like, five minutes max.”
“You’re damned right, I’ll wait,” Edward answers, turning to talk to me through the partition. “Corporal Reynolds would kill me ten different ways to Sunday if I left you alone in a place like this. If you’re not back in five minutes, I’m coming in after you. As a matter of fact, why don’t I…”
I pop the door open. The oppressive heat radiating up off the pavement seeps into the limo, as does the acrid smell of unemptied dumpsters. “I’m fine, just wait here.”
Three of the regulars are sitting outside the building, bottles covered in brown paper bags in hand. Their bloodshot eyes stay locked on the limo as I hustle past. This isn’t the sort of place to draw attention to yourself, not now, not ever, and certainly not with a ride like that.