Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“Everything but.” The words shot out of her mouth sharply, before she could round their edges.
Walsh rolled his eyes, but his smile stayed in place.
“I can do everything but, for now. I mean, you tortured me for the last year. I think I can last another three months.”
Kerris looked up at him, tiny firecrackers going off everywhere his hands had touched.
“And you’re fine with us not…well, with how I want to handle things. The fact that we can’t—”
“We won’t.” He leaned down, pressing his lips behind her ear and down her neck, leaving a wake of sparks. “God knows I want to, though.”
He pulled her closer, and feeling him hard and stiff against her softened the cartilage around her knees. She slumped a little and his fingers tightened on her elbows. She looked up and his green eyes, dark and hot and tender, were waiting for her.
“So tomorrow night, we are on our own. I love Mama Jess, Kerris, but I don’t need a chaperone.”
Kerris allowed her mouth a small grin.
“I just want us to have something we’ve never had,” Walsh said. “Time uninterrupted. Alone.”
“I know, Walsh, I just…”
“You trust me, Kerris?”
She always had. Almost from the beginning. Irrationally. Stupidly. Completely. With her secrets and, even though it wasn’t his to take, with her heart.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He bent to leave the words on her lips. “Then pack a bag.”
Chapter Fifteen
The tinkling bell above Déjà Vu’s door signaled someone had entered the shop. Kerris trapped a sigh behind her lips. She recited all the reasons she should be pleasant and patient with this final customer. She owned this place. She was responsible for its success. Over the last year, while Kerris healed, inside and out, Meredith and Mama Jess had borne more than their share of the work here. Kerris didn’t begrudge them this day off. So even though seeing Walsh tonight had dominated her thoughts all day, she needed to suck it up and be nice.
She closed the register drawer and looked up, the warmed-over smile freezing on her face when she saw her last “customer.”
“Trisha?”
Kerris had barely gotten the name out before Walsh’s assistant came behind the counter and pulled her into a perfume-scented hug.
“Kerris, you look awesome.” Trisha’s chocolaty eyes inspected Kerris from her Betty Boop T-shirt, her flared denim skirt, and up to the messy bun Kerris had pulled her hair into over the course of the day. “I mean, we have work to do, but I haven’t seen you since the accident and you’re in one piece, so you look awesome.”
“Trisha, thank you? I think? And what work? What are you doing here?”
“Walsh sent me.”
“From New York?”
“I flew in with him yesterday, yeah.” Trisha looked around the shop. “You done here? We need to get going.”
“Trisha, I hate to be slow, but what are you talking about? I thought Walsh was picking me up.”
“Not exactly.” Trisha ran a hand over her closely cropped burnished cap of hair. “We’re meeting him.”
“Okaaaaay.” Kerris gave the shop one last glance and rushed over to flip the sign on the door to CLOSED before anyone else showed up. “Just let me get my things together.”
Kerris grabbed her purse and the overnight bag she had promised Walsh she’d bring. Her fingers trembled around the handle. She couldn’t sleep with Walsh, not while she was married to Cam. As deeply as her feelings ran for him, Ms. Kris was right. She had compared Kerris to the river whose course, once set, couldn’t change. Kerris sometimes wasn’t sure what was right, but when she knew, she wouldn’t be swayed. And having sex with Cam’s best friend when their divorce wasn’t final? That wasn’t right. That could not happen.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Kerris stepped back into the shop. Trisha was taking pictures with her phone of one of their display cases. She looked up, a grin creasing her golden brown cheeks.
“I forgot all about your jewelry.” Trisha took one more shot of the Riverstone Collection Kerris had started selling in the shop a few weeks ago. “I’m sending these pics to my friend in New York I told you about.”
“Really?” Kerris bit into the smile pulling at her lips. “Wow. Thanks.”
“I’d forgotten how unique your stuff is. She’ll flip.” Trisha slipped her phone into the leather clutch on the glass display case. “Now we really need to go.”
On the ride to wherever they were going, Trisha asked Kerris about her recovery from the accident and shed light on her part in getting Walsh to the hospital that night.
“I’m glad Meredith called me.” Trisha flicked her eyes away from the road to glance at Kerris in the passenger seat. “I’ve always known Walsh felt something for you.”
Kerris’s cheeks heated up but she refused to retreat; to run away from these feelings, from her past mistakes, from this conversation. Dr. Stein would be so proud.