Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
As soon as I stepped out of the bathroom, he swept me into his arms like I was a bride. I gave a startled cry but wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “W-what are you doing?”
“You looked ready to pass out.” He carried me easily and then sat me down on the bed, facing the headboard.
“Um, I don’t usually sleep this way.”
“Where’s your hairbrush? And do you have hair ties?”
I pointed across the room to the old-fashioned dresser. I’d bought the cottage fully furnished and hadn’t had a chance to put my stamp on the décor yet. “On there.”
I watched Cavendish as he strode across the room to collect the items. When he returned, he sat down on the bed facing my back. I craned my neck to meet his gaze.
“Oh.” He stood up to pull a phone out of his back pocket and then sat again. “You’ve got several missed calls.”
Worry cut through me as I took my phone and typed in my passcode. Sure enough, there were texts from Jared from yesterday and four missed calls this morning. I jolted at the feel of the hairbrush gently detangling my hair, and I shot Cavendish another look of confusion.
His focus was on my hair, however, and the careful way he was brushing it.
Turning toward the headboard, I called my cousin while Theo Cavendish combed my hair. The sensation made me feel like a drowsy cat, but I pushed through.
“Sarah?” Jared answered, sounding frantic.
“Hi,” I croaked, my words nasally as I hurried to apologize. “I’m so sorry I didn’t pick up. I caught a cold and I’ve been in bed.”
“You sound awful. You sure you’re okay? I’ve been worried sick. I was seconds away from jumping in the car to come see you. Do you need me to?”
“No, no.” I didn’t want to drag Jared away from the farm. “I’m really okay. I’m just sorry I made you worry.”
“Don’t think on it. I’m glad you’re all right. You sure you don’t need me there?”
I thought of the man sitting behind me, taking care of me … So surreal. “I’m all right, I promise. Just tired.”
“I’ll let you go, then, but try to check in with me later.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
When I hung up, Cavendish murmured, “Why so many phone calls from your cousin?”
“He worries about me.”
“Aren’t you a grown woman?”
I bristled. “I am. But he’s more like an overprotective big brother than a cousin.”
“Sounds a little suffocating.”
“No, Mr. Cavendish, it sounds like family.”
The hair brushing stopped for a second, and I thought he might say something, but the bristles gently glided through my well-combed hair again. “I think considering the circumstances, it’s quite all right for you to call me Theo,” he suggested.
Theo.
It sounded so familiar.
To my surprise, I felt him part the hair down the middle, then he took one section and started to pull the hair together. I realized quickly that he was braiding it into two pleats.
“Where did you learn to pleat hair?”
Cavendish—Theo sighed. “Years ago, when I was an entirely different person, I had a girlfriend who liked when I played with her hair.”
It was universally known that Theodore Cavendish was a bachelor, a playboy, and a commitment-phobe. The revelation that he’d once had an actual girlfriend whom he’d indulged in such a way was … well, astonishing.
There was something in his tone, a slight bite, that warned me not to press him for more information. Instead, I enjoyed his gentle ministrations, my eyelids fluttering with drowsiness.
“For someone so shy, you’re rather comfortable with silence.”
“Doesn’t that make sense?” I murmured sleepily.
“I’ve learned that shy people are insecure people, and insecure people tend to need to fill silence.”
I huffed. “That’s not my experience at all. Moreover, silence is undervalued and underestimated.”
He stilled behind me. “How so?”
“Silence is a safe space. Not only does it give you time to think through what you’d like to say, it offers peace from all the things others say, all the everyday noise and clutter that mucks up everything inside our busy brains. Silence is where my imagination has space to flourish into novels.”
“I’m glad that’s what silence is for you. But it’s not like that for everyone, little mouse. Silence is a thing some people escape because thinking isn’t a safe space for them. People have obsessive and intrusive thoughts. Silence is the last thing they want.”
I’d never thought about that, but I realized he was most likely correct. I’d had a friend at school who was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive thoughts, and she never seemed to sit still. She was always on the go. Now I wondered if maybe she was just running away from her own mind. “Are you one of those people?”
“Thankfully not. Like you, I need silence to write.”
I wondered, then, how he understood silence could be so different for other people. Had he known someone with obsessive and intrusive thoughts? The girlfriend, perhaps? “I’m sad for people who are afraid of silence.”