I looked to Chassie. “These are them.”
She took the covers from her mouth. “You were right about them being in a bedroom,” she breathed.
“Go. Read, darling. Christian can look after Chassie,” Battle encouraged.
He so got me.
I was dying to dig in.
However.
I turned to Chassie. “You’re okay?”
“The scream was surprise. It’s not that bad. But Christian won’t let me move until it’s iced and he can have a look at it,” Chassie answered.
“Good man,” Hamish said while pushing Tempie out the door.
Battle took hold of me, but his attention was on Christian, “You have her?”
Christian nodded. “I’ve got her.”
I checked out Chassie through this. Her color was back to normal, but her eyes were bright and happy.
Seemed Christian wasn’t the only one who received a reward last night for being a hero.
Battle guided me down the hall, into our room, to one of the couches into which he pressed me. He went to the closet, came out with a snuggly, fluffy wool black throw and tossed it over me.
He then said, “I’ll go get you some more coffee. Did you get enough breakfast?”
No.
But I was not about to delay diving into these letters in order to eat.
“Yes,” I said.
He bent and touched his lips to mine.
When he pulled away, he said, “Weight off that knee as much as you can. Yes?”
I nodded.
He left the room.
And at long last, I pulled the ribbon off the letters.
Five hours later…
After a lot of reading.
After a spot of lunch brought up by Battle.
And after a quick, clandestine (I didn’t want Battle to catch me) totter out to the studio to retrieve Aileen’s diary and the clippings, I was back in Battle’s room with my now-fully-charged phone (I took care of that too, after going to get Aileen’s things).
I called him.
He picked up with, “Do you need something?”
“Can you come up here?”
