Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
But I didn’t do anything more than squeak.
Leaning against the doorway, looking pale while holding my cell phone—the same cell phone I clearly remembered leaving plugged in to charge in my office—was my houseguest.
Who was currently pecking away at the screen.
He knew my password, which was something. But mostly, it was the fact he was fucking standing up that alarmed me. The urge to ask him if it was a smart idea for him to be up was right on the tip of my tongue.
But who the hell was I to say shit? I wasn’t his babysitter. I was the lonely idiot who was taking care of him.
The man standing there in gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt looked a lot more awake than he had a few hours ago. Now that he was standing, his hair seemed longer than I’d thought. It was shorter than mine but not by more than a few inches.
And he was rude. He was so damn rude no matter how handsome he might be as he typed away on my phone’s screen.
Would poison give him the shits? I wondered for a second.
I tugged the shower curtain closer to my neck, even though he wasn’t even looking at me. “Dinner will be ready in about half an hour,” I grumbled, figuring that’s what he was bothering me over.
That got him to finally glance up from my phone, a slight wrinkle appearing between his dark eyebrows. “Where are we?”
Now he was wondering? “What town?” I asked him slowly, narrowing my eyes.
“No, what country,” he shot back.
I swear my chin was this close to hitting the side of the bathtub. There was only enough room for one sarcastic person in this household, and that was me. But when I tried to move my mouth, when I tried to tell him that the last thing I needed was to take care of a man who didn’t know my name, hadn’t even asked for it, I just… choked on every word that flipped through my head.
Rude mother….
He was in pain. He was weak. Something was wrong with him.
All of which were totally foreign to him.
I had promised myself I was going to help him get better. He deserved it.
But oh my god, it was hard. So much harder than I ever could have expected.
Holding my breath, I tugged the curtain back into place, shoving my head under the shower spray as I pictured myself flipping that perfect fucking face off. “We’re in Chama, New Mexico.”
The Defender responded with his unique brand of silence, and I imagined another middle finger aimed right at him. I finished rinsing off, listening intently for him the whole time. Pulling the towel from where I had it over the curtain rod, I dried off and wrapped it around me under my armpits. Moving the curtain aside, I found him standing in the exact same place in the doorway, looking a little pale.
“Do you need something else?” I asked, my voice fucking flat.
Those purple eyes flicked up from my phone again.
All righty then.
Stepping out of the tub, I pretended like him standing there while I was naked except for a towel was no big deal. Like I’d done it before. He’d probably seen thousands of naked bodies. Women more than likely threw themselves at him regularly.
The poor, innocent fools didn’t know any better.
I grabbed my comb and the bundle of clothes I’d taken into the bathroom with me and squeezed by him toward my office, purposely not looking at him even when I brushed my arm against his on the way out, ignoring that buzz that I’d almost gotten used to getting since being around him so much. Locking the door, I got dressed and wrung out the water in my hair into the towel.
I needed to keep my chin up. Get this done. Then I could move on.
I had this.
I tugged on socks and left my office, stopping in the empty bathroom to put some oil in my hair. I spotted him out of the corner of my eye on the couch as I headed straight into the kitchen. Someone was feeling a little better, I guess. I pulled out plates from the cabinet as I waited for the timer to go off.
I was so caught up in thinking about how much I needed to do, that I didn’t hear him move into the kitchen until I heard, “Why… do you… live here…. by yourself?”
Slowly, slowly, slowly, I glanced over my shoulder. He was shuffling toward the breakfast table, reminding me of how my grandma had tried to get around without her walker. Oh boy.
So, somebody wasn’t as healed as he’d tried to make it seem.
I knew I hadn’t imagined his face being pale in the bathroom.
“Well,” I started to tell him as I turned off the oven and opened the drawer where I kept my oven mitts. How much could I say? The whole truth? Only part of it? Maybe he couldn’t read my mind, but he might be able to hear if my heart started beating faster when I was nervous or lying. So where did that leave me? “I didn’t always live by myself. I lived with my grandparents until they passed away. I moved here after that.”