Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Her voice was a lot closer the second time. “I’m here, and I have nothing else to do. Nothing else I want to do,” Delaney clarified at his back. “And thank you.”
Sipping from the water, Lucas turned to face her as his back leaned against the sink. She placed her plate next to his on the island.
He eyed her. “Why are you thanking me?”
“For asking me to come here. I don’t need you to say it to know this place is special. And besides that, it takes a lot of courage to admit you don’t want to—or can’t—be alone, Lucas, never mind telling it to a stranger.”
He tried to smile.
It felt miserable like him.
“You’re not so strange,” he offered back.
The best attempt at humor he could do.
Delaney leaned against the side of the island. “Yeah, well. I’m not sure how exactly you’re going to send the obituary out if we do get something written that you like,” she said, making a face. “I can’t get a single bar of service on my phone here.”
Ah, that little troublesome detail.
A minor inconvenience of Birch Ridge.
No service.
Lucas waved it off. “There’s a booster upstairs. Your phone has to stay on it, but it works.”
“Oh. There’s also twin beds up there.”
“Mmhmm. I prefer the couch.”
Delaney nodded. “I wondered …”
“What?”
“If we could just shove the two beds together?”
Lucas welcomed the directional change of their conversation, if only for the moment. “To keep warm, I imagine?”
Delaney grinned.
The sight sped up his heart rate.
“That’s a bonus, too,” she agreed.
“I can shove ‘em together, no worries there.”
Her expression turned somber. “I wish I knew what to say about your brother. I’m sorry doesn’t seem like enough, does it?”
No, it wasn’t.
It barely scratched the very tender surface.
Lucas sighed. “I guess, it’s the best we’ve got, huh?”
Chapter 19
There was something to be said about a person waking up in an unfamiliar place without a sense of fear. Delaney blinked awake to consciousness with warmth wrapping her tight, focused more along her front, and a heavy weight resting across her body. She didn’t start awake by the fact that she couldn’t move, or that the gentle rumble of a snore coming from somewhere above meant she wasn’t alone in the bed, either.
And she knew instantly …
They hadn’t moved once in the night.
Delaney did her best to stretch under the heaviness of Lucas’ arm wrapped around her back to keep her tucked close to his bare chest under the quilt, but it only served to jostle the sleeping man enough that he pulled her tighter. His snoring, a sound she hadn’t heard throughout the night, cut in and out for a choppy couple of seconds until he settled into sleep once more, satisfied with his shifting.
Delaney peeked up to find Lucas’ lax profile sunk into a pillow. Her arms, tucked up in around her head, had acted as something to rest on because she hadn’t wanted to move. Not after the big bear of a man had slipped under the quilt with her the evening before and found her shivering in the bed.
It wasn’t from any chill.
Even if he had taken it that way …
His arms and the quilt had become the cozy cave wrapping around Delaney, keeping her warm and shut out from the new surroundings and the faint smell of firewood burning in the cabin. Why would she want to move?
His chest, dusted all the way down a toned belly with dark hair, lifted and fell rhythmically with steady breaths and snores. Delaney, the type to curl into a ball with her knees pulled high, had somehow gotten her lower limbs entangled with his during the night. The cotton fleece of his sleep pants were soft, but heavy, around her legs as she tried to unweave the two of them enough to get the sleep out of her lower half.
It didn’t work.
He kept her caged in like his own personal teddy bear, but Delaney kind of liked it. It didn’t escape her thoughts that Lucas, the same man who shared the bed so intimately with her while she wore nothing more than an oversized T-shirt and boy shorts to sleep, held her like he might for a lover.
Yet, he’d not even asked her for a goodnight kiss.
She’d been the one who pulled him closer to her under the quilt to shorten that gap between them, needing to feel the plush softness of his lips pressed to hers. If only for a few seconds. Oh, she’d certainly wanted to kiss him, but she had also desperately wished that kiss would wipe his sad frown away.
It had.
For a moment.
Delaney understood his deeply rooted pain, though, so she didn’t hold his quietness against him when all he had seemed to want and need was to hold her tight. She let him do that, too.