Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
There were no witnesses to prepare other than the ME and a DNA expert, so I felt like I was on top of the case. Which was good because I had taken a week of vacation time to go home for Christmas. Alex was coming with me and I couldn’t wait to spend family time basking in the comfort of home and tradition. I needed it for the mental health care it would bring. I was in dire need of mental health.
I hadn’t talked to Carson since he had left my house via the back sliding glass door a couple of days before. I needed space. Everything with him had come on so fast, so unexpectedly. Just like the first time. I guess that was just us. Not that there was an us. But still. I was emotionally discombobulated. And I was still feeling guilty and brittle over what I’d done to Alex, something I didn’t have any intention of telling him about. We weren’t married yet. Yes, technically, I knew I had cheated on him. But would it really hurt him if he never knew that once his fiancé had kissed another man? Oh okay, and had an intense orgasm on another man’s muscular thigh as he held her up against his office wall? I groaned out loud in shame as I sat at my office desk. God, I hated myself.
Apparently, Carson was respecting the fact that I needed space from him because he hadn’t contacted me. That was good. Although I was intensely curious about why he hadn’t been with anyone else since me in almost five years. I wanted to ask him. And I had to admit to myself that a thrill raced up my spine whenever I thought about that. I was the last woman Carson had ever touched.
Was it simply because he had been overseas most of that time? That had to be it. Still, weren’t there willing women in ports all over the world? And why hadn’t he taken Lara up on her advances? What were his reasons? I shouldn’t care so much about knowing. After all, I had my own life now—and my own man to think about. I shouldn’t be thinking so much about Carson. But I simply couldn’t help it.
I had also been wondering more and more if Carson had anything to do with the case against Josh Garner. They were friends who had a military history and had both moved to Vegas at the same time for essentially the same reason. That didn’t mean Carson knew more than he had told Detective Powers when she interviewed him. But I got this strange feeling that he did. Add to that the fact that another teammate owned the hotel they both worked for and the large bail that had been posted, and questions kept rolling through my mind. Something nagged at my brain. There was a connection; I just couldn’t fathom what it could be.
I sighed loudly and sat back in my chair. Getting away for a week would be good. I’d talk to my sisters—get a better perspective on this whole confusing, mind-boggling, distressing…
Unsettling…
Annoying…
Disruptive—I’d bust out the entire thesaurus as I explained the—situation to my sisters. It was just what I needed.
I worked until nine o’clock that night. Alex had started his vacation a day early as he’d put all his Christmas shopping off until the last minute and needed the day to hit the mall. How typically male. I wondered where Carson was spending Christmas. I knew about his mom, and if their relationship was still the same as it’d been when I first met him, then surely he wouldn’t be going back to LA. I sighed, trying to clear the constant thoughts of Carson away. Whatever he was doing for Christmas was not my business.
When I got home that night, I immersed myself in laundry and packing and by the time I was done with that, I was exhausted. Alex would be picking me up at five the next morning in order to catch our flight. I was so tired and yet I lay in bed for hours, unable to sleep, watching the reflection of my neighbor’s Christmas lights twinkle beyond my curtain.
_________
Carson
I sat across from Josh as he leaned back on the couch in the condo I had delivered him to secretly. No one had followed us here, I was sure of that. Leland had just called to make sure we had arrived safely and I’d assured him we had.
“How are you doing?” I asked Josh.
He sighed. “Great, Carson. The last couple weeks have been like a dream come true.”
I frowned, not in the mood to banter with him. “What happened, Josh? We weren’t supposed to split up. Number-one rule.”
“Yeah, no shit. I fucking made up that rule,” he said bitterly.