Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
When he finally collapsed on top of her, she smiled at the ceiling and ran her fingertips along his back. Not a bad way to fall asleep, she mused. Caleb, though, didn’t seem to agree. He pulled out of her and pushed himself off the bed. It was decidedly colder in the room without him close. She watched as he tossed the condom into the trashcan beside the bed. For a moment, he sat silently on the side of the bed, as if he couldn’t decide what to do now. She remained silent, letting him make up his own mind. After a while, she half-expected him to get up, take his clothes and leave her with a towel. To her surprise—and delight—he lifted his legs back into the bed and lay down next to her.
He didn’t touch her, which was disappointing, but at least he was there. Instead of putting something on, she simply pulled the sheet up over her breasts and snuggled into Caleb’s large bed. After a few moments, her eyes fluttered closed.
Chapter 19
Caleb woke in the dark and it took a moment for him to remember that there was someone, a female someone, lying next to him. Or there was supposed to be. But when he reached behind himself and ran his hand along the mattress, he felt nothing. He turned to look and found the other side of the bed empty. He sat up and rubbed his face with one hand. He was surprised he’d slept so well with another person in his bed; then again he was surprised he hadn’t heard her leave, either. He glanced over at the bathroom but the door was wide open and it was dark inside. He knew she hadn’t left the house entirely. He would have heard the front door open.
Throwing back the sheets, he searched for his briefs, found them on the floor along with a scattered pile of his clothes. He dressed in the dark, not bothering with a shirt and headed toward the living room. He wished he could put off the pending awkward exchange for a few hours more. Surely most people waited until sunrise to face the person they’d slept with but shouldn’t have. He wasn’t sure what to expect from her, frankly, and he was uncomfortable at the thought of a dramatic scene. Though when he considered Izzy for a moment, he decided she probably wouldn’t be that difficult. She seemed too practical to get upset with him.
He crossed the darkened living room and headed toward the lighted kitchen. He found her at the table, laptop out and headphones on. Beside her on the floor was her open suitcase. She’d retrieved it from her car and gotten dressed in fresh clothes. He marveled at the fact that he hadn’t heard her go outside. Her back was to him but she seemed to sense his presence because she turned around. She gave him a half smile and pulled off the headphones.
At a loss for what would pass for conversation at this point, Caleb glanced at her computer screen. “You’re working? At three o’clock in the morning?”
She shrugged. “Skips don’t catch themselves. Well, sometimes they do,” she amended. “If they’re dumb enough. We had a guy, a flasher, get released. He missed his court appointment, then showed up outside the police station the next day, naked except for a pair of rubber rain boots.”
Caleb laughed and turned on the coffee maker. He probably couldn’t go back to sleep now. And it seemed…rude maybe?… to leave her to putter around his house alone. He couldn’t exactly kick her out in the middle of the night. “Who’s we?” he asked as he got a mug out of the cabinet. He closed it before he realized he’d need two. He was really fucking bad at this.
“My dad,” she replied. “He was a tracer. Taught me the job.”
“Where is he now? Why isn’t he with you on this one?”
Izzy frowned and pushed her laptop away. “He died,” she told him.
Caleb grimaced, feeling guilty for asking. He wasn’t all that great at conversation, he supposed. “Sorry.” He thought about Izzy, chasing a suspect all the way from Denver and straight into the Badlands Buzzards clubhouse. “Did…how… was it… the job?” he asked delicately.
To his relief, she shook her head. “Heart attack. He died in his favorite chair in front of the television.”
“Oh.” This seemed a lot better to Caleb than the alternative, but it still probably sucked, depending on what kind of father he’d been. “Sorry,” he repeated. “So, you do this job alone? Izzy, that’s fucking dangerous.”
Instead of arguing, as he’d expected her to do, she nodded in agreement, surprising him. “Yeah,” she said. “Money’s running low,” she confided. “The best payouts are the toughest takedowns. Psychos, usually. Tough to hunt them on my own. I mostly stick to non-violent offenders.”