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)
“I know I said it already,” he whispered against the softness of her mouth, “but thank you for coming here with me.”
Delaney dropped down from her tiptoes, and then popped right back up again to press another quick kiss to his mouth, making Lucas’s grin stretch wide. “We both know you don’t need to keep thanking me for that. I want to be here with you.”
But he would.
As long as she let him.
Chapter 26
Delaney awoke to an empty bed but the robotic, feminine voice echoing from downstairs had her sitting up to catch the tail-end of what sounded like a voicemail box.
“Press one to listen to your message—”
Beeeeep.
Delaney blinked at the punch of a button that seemed to go on for seconds. A familiar chime sounded right after, one she recognized from when she tried to call out to Gracen, as the call dropped.
“Fucking Christ,” Lucas swore severely.
Only to try to dial through to his voicemail again right after. Still trying to figure out the time, considering the darkness keeping the loft shrouded in darkness, Delaney tiptoed carefully off the bed, leaving the warmth and softness of the fresh-smelling quilt behind.
She made it halfway down the stairs before realizing Lucas must have gone outside to turn the generators back on from the glow of the lights spilling into the kitchen from the living space. Of course—he wouldn’t have been able to use the booster to call out on his phone—even to his voicemail—if it wasn’t plugged into the wall.
Her bare feet hit the warmer floors downstairs at the same time his call went through to his voicemail. She came around the den’s wall created by the stairs to find a frustrated Lucas hunched over his phone and an opened newspaper on the table. Pinching the bridge of his nose as he scowled down at his phone giving options for his voicemail, he pressed one before the instructions had even finished.
This time, the call didn’t drop.
“Lucas, it’s Nola—I know you’ve seen the obit by now. Or if not, I guess I’m getting ahead of it,” came the rushed words from a young woman. “Geoff from the Telegraph said Jacob’s father requested the edits, and he apologized, but felt comfortable running the changes. I’m working on getting the date and time out for the memorial. So please don’t worry about that. Okay, so if we chat before you get back to the city, great. If not—”
Beep-beep.
The second beeping chime sounded an octave lower than the first. The sad dullness of the final beep let the quiet room know the call had dropped again.
This time, he didn’t redial, only sighed hard.
Delaney finally let him know she was just a few feet away under the staircase enclave. “What time is it?”
“A little after eleven,” Lucas muttered, not acting the least bit surprised that she stood there.
She would have guessed even later.
Their busy, final full day at the cottage left her tired, and willing to crawl into bed earlier than normal.
“Weren’t you the one who told me I didn’t need to mop the bathroom floor because we could sleep?” Delaney asked.
Lucas dropped the hand hiding his irritated expression to clap on top of his denim-clad knee. “I couldn’t, and you looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to wake you with my restlessness. I made coffee …” He trailed off, reaching out to flip the edge of the newspaper hanging dangerously off the coffee table in front of the couch. “Finally opened that goddamned newspaper.”
He had left it right where the Smith boy put it on the kitchen island for over a day. They spent their last day and night at the little cottage prepping it to close down. Which mostly consisted of cleaning everything, packing away what wasn’t perishable or needed, and doing a small load of wash for the towels, sheets, and quilt they had used. The chopper would land in the small field where it had dropped them off just before noon, if all went according to plan.
She hadn’t quite accepted that their time in Birch Ridge was coming to an end, nor that her bed tomorrow night would welcome her home.
Would it really, though?
With just her alone?
Delaney, in a T-shirt she’d stolen from Lucas that smelled like the leather and musk cologne he dabbed on his throat and wrists every morning, found the spot next to him on the couch. Tucking her legs under her bum, she snuggled in only to feel the tension tightening the ropes of muscles that made up his biceps loosen up at her proximity.
“My father had the obituary I wrote for Jacob changed last minute,” Lucas explained, making sense of that voicemail she had overheard moments earlier. He learned forward, rocking them on the couch, in his task to grab the paper and bring it closer for her to see. “Here, you want to read it?”