Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“It’s delicious,” I assured him.
His pleased grin before he took another bite was mesmerizing. Jerking my gaze off him, I stared down at my food before reaching for my glass of wine and taking a long drink.
“Weather making you nervous?” he asked.
I shrugged. “A little,” I lied.
With King here, I wasn’t even thinking about the weather. I was too focused on how close he was sitting, how good he smelled, and how he made me almost lightheaded when he smiled.
He took the bottle of wine and filled my almost-empty glass this time. “Drink up,” he said, then nodded toward the glass. “You’ll be relaxed in no time.”
Wanting that to be true, I drank some more.
King took a fork and jabbed it into the fries, then held it out to me. “You haven’t tried these.”
Obediently, I opened my mouth, and he slipped the fork inside. I was sure I had never been fed before. It was almost as if someone was taking care of me. I liked it. I shouldn’t, but I did.
His blue eyes watched me closely as I chewed. He was right; these were really good. The buffalo sauce and what I assumed was goat cheese since it didn’t have a strong bite to it mixed well together. I swallowed, then smiled at him, unable not to. He looked so anxious to know what I thought.
“Wonderful,” I told him, although that was probably too strong of an adjective. Being fed by him was the wonderful part.
The lights flickered as rain beat against the windows and thunder rolled across the sky.
King set the fork down and stood back up. “We are gonna need some light soon,” he said, then headed in the direction of the bedroom.
I heard a door open and figured it had to be the closet. Then, I heard something else open and waited, staring at the doorway for him to reemerge. The doors closed, and then he came walking back in with two oil lamps.
He held them up. “I’ll get these lit.”
Those had not been in the closet. I would have seen them before.
“Where did you find those?” I asked him.
“Secret storage inside the closet,” he replied before he disappeared with them into the kitchen.
I hadn’t known about a secret storage inside the closet. He hadn’t shown me that when he gave me the tour. Why did they have it, and what all was in it? Just lanterns? That seemed odd.
Both lanterns were lit when he returned to the living room, and he set one down on the coffee table and another on the table where the television sat. He was almost back to the sofa when the electricity went off with the newest round of thunder.
“Just in time,” he said as he sank back down on the sofa beside me.
“Why is there a secret compartment in the closet?” I asked, leaning back on the sofa with my glass of wine, then crossing my legs.
King’s gaze dropped to my legs a moment before lifting to my face. The mischievous gleam in his eyes made me smile.
“To keep the lanterns, extra supplies, that kind of thing,” he told me, then reached for his glass of wine. “I heard Doc say your ribs are healing perfectly. How’s the pain?”
The doctor had done another X-ray on Friday. Talking about it only reminded me that my time was coming to an end here. I still had no plan for what I would do next. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to watch the news and see if there was anything about Hill’s death, missing wife, or accusations that I had killed him. I felt as if I were living in my tiny bubble, but I knew, soon, this information was going to be on the news, and someone here was going to see it. Maeme possibly. I had to face reality and figure this out.
I took a long drink from my glass. “The pain is barely an ache now. Which means I should start planning what to do. I can’t thank y’all enough for letting me stay here and helping me the way you have, but there are things…I just need to prepare to leave. Soon.” Saying the words were easier than I had imagined. Perhaps it was the wine’s effect on me.
King sat back up and took the bottle of wine to refill my glass. “You still plan on leaving then?”
“Yes…I can’t live here, and I don’t want to bring my trouble to your door.”
He’d known I wasn’t going to stay, but he seemed bothered by the fact that I was leaving. Reading too much into that was a path I didn’t need to take, but my mind was taking it anyway.
He turned his attention back to me and studied me for a moment. “It would be a real bad idea for you to leave, seeing as your husband was found shot in his home. A colleague of his found him, but his wife, Carmella Millroe, was missing, as was his Mercedes. He was taken to the hospital, survived. His Mercedes was found at a Buc-ee’s just outside of Pensacola, Florida. Then, one day after he was sent home from the hospital, he disappeared.” He paused and used his glass to point at me. “That pretty face of yours is all over the news. So is his. You leave here, and someone will recognize you.”