Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
I nodded in thanks, relieved, and then got out of there before I screwed it up.
The next morning, I woke up, stretched and frowned. Something was different. It took me a moment to figure out what it was.
For the first time in years, my back didn’t hurt. Maybe there was something to this yoga stuff after all. More importantly, I’d patched things up with Lorna. I grinned.
Then I caught my reflection in the mirror and it was like I’d stepped outside my body and was seeing myself with fresh eyes. With their eyes, Jillian and Max.
What the hell was I doing?
My feelings for her were getting stronger and stronger. When she’d been mad at me, nothing had mattered except putting things right. And Cody, too…when I thought about the two of them, it triggered echoes deep in my chest, right where Jillian and Max used to live.
And that made me feel like the worst husband and father in the world. Because no one, no one was allowed to replace them.
I had to get out, now. Walk away before things went any further. But I couldn’t. She needed me.
So what the hell was I going to do?
28
LORNA
I leaned low over Cody’s math book, the sides of our heads pressed together. “Almost,” I prompted gently. “Remember what we said about solving it when you have a negative constant?”
I waited patiently. Three breaths, then Cody gave an ohhh of understanding and feverishly wrote in the correct answer. “Attaboy!” I said, squeezing his shoulder.
“Enough work,” Paige told us. “Eat your eggs!”
I sat down and quickly buttered some toast, even though I probably wouldn’t get time to eat it. Cody had to head to school any minute and I should really already have gone if I wanted to make a dent in the mountain of work I had. But I loved helping him with his math homework: it was one of the few parts of being a mom I felt confident in. And it let me forget, just for a few minutes, that iron band constricting around my chest, the stress of everything that was going on. “What else have you got today?” I asked.
“History,” said Cody despondently. “I’ve got to discuss which of General Lee’s officers failed him.”
“Trick question,” rumbled JD as he walked in. “Whatever they did or didn’t do, Lee’s biggest problem was that he thought his men were invincible.”
I loved the way he walked. Some guys strut, chests puffed out, but JD had this way of moving, unhurried and quiet but absolutely sure, like he knew exactly where he was going and he had nothing to prove. And with me seated, he looked even bigger, his shoulders huge as they rocked gently from side to side. He hadn’t put his suit jacket on yet and as the morning sunlight blasted through his white shirt, it silhouetted the hard lines of his torso. God, I could just reach out and touch him, trail my fingers along the hard ridges of his obliques as he passed… I grabbed my coffee mug with both hands and gripped it firmly.
“Where’d you learn that?” Cody asked.
“First hand,” said Paige, before JD could answer. She turned to him, eyes mock-innocent. “What was life like, back then?”
JD gave her a glower, she handed him a mug of coffee and they both grinned. This had become part of our breakfast routine: her teasing him about his age and him playing the grump. I was glad they got on so well.
Cody finished his breakfast, I gave him a kiss and he and Paige headed for the elevator, Cody fist-bumping JD on the way out. They were getting on well, too, but that made a hard knot tighten in my stomach. I liked JD so much it scared me. And he would so obviously make a great father: calm, patient and honorable, a great role model. But every time the two of us got close, he pulled away. And if we couldn’t be together, if he was going to be gone as soon as the danger passed, I didn’t want Cody to get attached and have to lose another man in his life.
The danger. I glanced out of the window at New York and suddenly, the band around my chest was back, making every breath tight. Since Poland, I hadn’t had cause to leave the building, but tonight was the charity ball in aid of injured firefighters and my dad hadn’t missed it in twenty years. He’d have wanted me to go and I wasn’t going to let him down.
I needed something to wear so I’d blocked out forty-five minutes that afternoon for a lightning shopping trip. I spent my life in jeans and sneakers so I’d had to research on the internet where women bought ball gowns and we had an appointment at a specialist boutique.