Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 138904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Vicki’s mouth trembled, and her eyes filled at the kind offer. Something in the other woman’s demeanor told Vicki that Charity had likely guessed that Vicki wasn’t being entirely truthful. But she didn’t probe.
“Thanks, Charity. That means a lot.” Vicki’s voice was thick with tears. Her eyes and nose burned with them. She refused to shed them until she was alone.
Charity’s beautiful dark eyes were brimming with sympathy. She nodded and stepped away, allowing Vicki to shut the door.
Charity was coming down the hall as Ty hastened toward Vicki’s room. He had been trying to get away from Brand and Miles and their exaggerated fishing stories for the last ten minutes. In the end, he’d brusquely excused himself, impatient to get to Vicki. Neither of the other men had seemed to notice how upset Vicki had been when she’d left, but Ty could not shake the memory of the absolute devastation in her shimmering eyes.
He should have told her. Why hadn’t he fucking told her? He’d been too damned chickenshit, that’s why. Chickenshit and in denial. Delaying the news by an hour, then a day, then a week.
She’d been upset before Miles had dropped that bomb on her, but afterward…
The hurt in those lovely gray eyes was seared into his brain. It just about killed him to think of it.
“Vicki’s not feeling too well,” Charity told him, as they drew abreast of each other in the hallway. She hooked her hand in his elbow to halt his forward momentum.
“I wanted to see if she needed anything,” he prevaricated hastily.
“A little beyond the scope of your usual duties, isn’t it?” she asked, with a skeptically raised brow. “She’s safe under her brother’s roof. No immediate threat to life or limb. I would think you’d want to enjoy the free time.”
He had no real comeback to that.
Charity sighed and shook her head, looking disappointed…
In him.
Shit.
“I don’t think she wants to see you right now, Tyler.”
Yeah, she definitely knew something was happening between Ty and Vicki.
His throat worked as he tried to figure out what to say. He couldn’t think of a single thing and mutely stared at her. It felt like he had been sliced open and his guts were painstakingly being picked apart by curious onlookers.
“Is—is she crying?” he finally asked. Hating the smallness of his voice. Even though it matched the smallness of his character right now.
“I suspect so, yes.” Her bluntness made him flinch, and—unable to meet that penetrating dark gaze—his eyes drifted to the family pictures on the wall behind her. Miles, Hugh, and Vicki as happy, smiling little kids.
“I never meant to hurt her.” He shocked himself with that tacit acknowledgment of the intimacy between him and Vicki. Charity looked unsurprised, further confirming that she had somehow guessed the truth of their relationship.
“Yet you did.”
“Yeah. I did.”
She sighed again.
“Doesn’t look like you’ve come through it unharmed either,” she observed. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and shrugged. He should have worn something more casual, but he was always so damned aware of the fact that he was not a guest, that he was working, that these people were not his friends. The clothes he wore emphasized that separation. It had always served as a convenient barrier between him and the world.
No fraternization or friendships, please. I’m working here.
Right now, that was the last of his concerns. All he cared about was Vicki, and the fact that she was probably in that room crying.
Charity patted his forearm. The gesture felt reassuring. She left without another word, and he remained in the hallway, and tried to figure out what to do next.
Leaden feet carried him to Vicki’s bedroom door, where he stood, palm pressed to the wood, forehead resting against the back of his hand. He couldn’t hear anything, and he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. His hand curled into a fist, and his arm tensed as he readied himself to knock. That was when he heard it…the smallest of sniffles. Followed by another and another.
Aah, fuck!
He pushed himself away from the door and raked both hands through his hair and stood there for another long beat.
In the end, he slowly made his way to his own door and let himself in.
He sank onto the edge of his bed—buried his face in his hands—and listened to the muffled sound of her crying.
About half an hour after Charity had left, a soft knock sounded on the bedroom door. It startled Vicki out of the light nap she had drifted into after a bout of self-pitying tears. Now she blinked blearily at the door through swollen and itchy eyelids and wondered who it could be. She hoped it wasn’t her mother. The last thing she wanted was to worry her mother when the older woman should be enjoying every precious moment and memory of these last few days before the wedding.