Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 28432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
It’s thoughts of Trace that calm me. He’s here with me. I’m safe.
Still, I wait until the shower water shuts off before I turn off the lamp beside the bed. The darkness only makes me curious about Trace and his isolated life here in the mountains.
He opens the bathroom door, light from behind outlining him. He looks like an angel. My big, bearded angel that rescued me.
“You’re still awake,” he grunts. “Thought you’d be asleep by now.”
“It’s weird sleeping in such a big bed,” I admit. How come it doesn’t remind him of how alone he is? Or maybe it does, and he likes that. “Where are you going to sleep?”
“Living room,” he grunts the words.
“The lumpy couch doesn’t look particularly comfortable,” I point out. The thing looks like it’s one second from falling apart. “You could sleep in here. The bed is so big I’d bet we’d never even touch each other. We could even make a pillow line down it. You know, like a border and each of us stays on our side and then everything is perfect.”
Why am I still talking? Why can’t I ever just shut up?
“I didn’t realize pillows could make everything perfect,” he answers, but his tone sounds amused. At least, that’s better than the annoyance he seems to feel toward me.
I sit up and turn on the bedside lamp again before grabbing pillows. I arrange them in a careful line down the blankets. “See? It’s comfortable for both of us now.” I risk a glance at him which is a huge mistake. Because the man is wearing gray sweatpants. Gray sweatpants and nothing else. Gray sweatpants that hug a very prominent bulge.
Does this mean he likes me or is that just a normal reaction to something else? Should I say something about it? No, definitely don’t want to make this anymore awkward than it already is.
He stalks across the hardwood floor and eases down on the mattress gingerly with his back to me. It’s covered with scars. He’s been hurt before, white marks that go up and down his back. I saw something like that once in my history book. It was a picture of a man who had been whipped.
My breath catches in my throat at the thought that someone hurt this big man in the same way.
“I was a troubled kid,” he says, seeming to understand my response. “Had it coming.”
I can’t stop myself from reaching out. My fingertips ghost along the scars, my own heart hurting. Who did this to him? Is this why he understands what it’s like to be on the run? He said he had to leave everything behind once too. “No kid deserves this.”
“Molly,” his voice is strained, angry. “The border exists for a reason.”
I snatch my hand back, feeling as if I’ve been burned. My cheeks sting from the harsh reprimand. I mumble an apology and turn onto my side, blinking back tears. For the things he must have gone through as a kid. For the way I keep being an idiot who puts herself out there.
I feel the mattress dip as he settles onto it. He adjusts his pillow twice before he sighs. “I’m not good with people.”
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure if he’s trying to apologize or explain. Then again, it doesn’t matter. He has every right to be mad at me. Here I am crashing into his life, and he’s gone out of his way to be kind, but I keep wanting to cling to him like a barnacle.
“Or being touched,” he adds.
My heart breaks even more at his confession. I don’t know what to say. It must have taken Trace a lot to be vulnerable with me and I worry I’ll get this wrong just like I have everything else with him. In the end, I don’t say anything and eventually I drift to sleep and dream of a scowling mountain man with piercing blue eyes.
The next day, I half expect to wake to Trace sending me away. But he doesn’t. Of course, he doesn’t. He’s too kind, too gracious to send a homeless woman away from his presence. I resolve to do better by him. I’ll work harder, study him and learn what makes him happy. Would he let me stay then?
I brush away the question as his phone lights up with a call. I pause where I’m standing in front of the mirror, gurgling mouthwash, to glance at the screen.
Fear shoots through me when I see the call is from a cancer center. Is he sick? Is that why he’s out here all alone? Has he come out here like a wounded animal to prepare himself for the end?
I slip the device into the pocket of my blue jeans. When I woke up this morning, my clothes were freshly laundered and folded, waiting on the bed. Everything was there, even my bra and panties.