Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 101466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
I held in my enthusiasm for her choice. That was the farthest spot from me, so I wouldn’t hear it as much.
“Which one?”
She held out her hands, and I gave her the box. Her look of delight turned into a frown. “You have them all bunched up.” She held up a mass of string, shells, and bells, the sounds all clanging together in muted rage.
“Oops.”
She glared at me, her hand on her hip. “It will take two people to untangle this mess, Thorne. And you’re helping me.”
I withheld my groan. “Fine. But my reward is dinner.”
“Your reward is that I didn’t file a real report at the station.”
“Would you really do that?” I asked, tilting my head to the side and studying her. “Tarnish my reputation?”
Her mouth pulled upward at my teasing. “I guess you’ll never know.”
I answered her grin. “I guess we’d better get this mess straightened out.”
It took a long time to untwist and fix her wind chimes. Longer than I expected. My suggestion of taking a pair of scissors and simply cutting them and starting over was met with a frown. Casey’s patience seemed endless as she untied, un-looped, and freed each one, then started the seemingly never-ending task of untangling the individual ones.
I looked around the room, noticing a few more changes.
“Nice bookcase.”
“I got it at the local thrift shop. I thought it looked good there.”
I studied the books. “You like to read, obviously.”
“Yes.”
I squinted, mouthing the titles. “I see. You’re a closet historical romance reader,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes, not stopping in her busy endeavors. “Nothing closet about it. I already found a book club. I love regency. So much pent-up passion under layers of rules and forbidden lines.”
I chuckled. “Are you going to come down the stairs in a ball gown on your way to your book club?”
“Don’t be an idiot, Thorne,” she replied with a straight face. “I only wear the ball gown for the dances we hold.”
I had to laugh at her drollness.
At one point, she slapped my hands. “Stop it, you’re making it worse.”
“We’ve been at it for hours,” I complained.
She glanced at the clock. “One hour.”
“Seems like longer.”
She hip checked me. “Sit down and be quiet. I’ll do this part, and then you can help hold it away so it doesn’t get re-tangled.”
I sat down, feeling the exhaustion of the past few days catching up with me. I leaned my head back and shut my eyes. “Damn, this chair is comfortable,” I murmured.
“I know,” she replied as she worked. There was a steady rhythm to her movements, and for some reason, I found the sound of the bells and gentle chimes relaxing. I let out a sigh, deciding I would sit quietly for five minutes until she needed me again.
Just five minutes.
Chapter Nine
CASEY
Iglanced over at Jesse when he started snoring. Quiet rumbles that indicated he’d given in to his exhaustion. I stopped what I was doing, studying him. He had a five-o’clock shadow darkening his chin. I only saw it on his days off since he had to be clean-shaven, he had explained to me, for the equipment to adhere properly on his face. But the rest of the time, he let it grow.
Good God, how was it possible that scruff made him even sexier? Slumped in my new chair, his arms loosely crossed over his chest and his head lolling to one side, he was absolutely delicious. His Batman T-shirt stretched across his biceps and chest, showing off his muscles. He had big hands—blue veins running along the backs, and his fingers were long, the nails neatly trimmed.
For some reason, my wicked fantasies hit me again, and I wondered how those fingers would feel on my skin. Touching me. Stroking my clit.
I shook my head before my lurid thoughts got me in trouble.
He looked so tired. And with his face relaxed, he seemed peaceful. He wasn’t frowning or barking out demands.
I had only planned on dropping off more cookies at the station until I saw Martha. I remembered her from when I lived here as a child. She had been much younger—in fact, in my mind, I remembered she was quite the sexy woman behind the desk, the single cops and firefighters falling all over themselves for a moment of her time. But she was married and only had eyes for her husband, who back then had been the owner of the one garage in Covington. He would drop by with lunch or to visit his wife. He was a big, burly man, covered in tattoos and rather scary-looking. But Martha looked at him as if he were a movie star. And he acted as if she had hung the moon. He was always sweet to me if he saw me there, talking to me in a low, friendly voice.