“Hey, Glenda.”He smiled.
He knew Glenda didn’t buy it.She’d been around since he was a baby.She’d helped his mother survive his evil abuser of a father.Glenda hadalwaysbeen there.And while Cal felt a certain kind of affinity for her, knowing there might be things he didn’t remember between the two of them left him increasingly uncomfortable.
“I just needed to talk to Jill for a few minutes.”
Glenda stepped away from the doorframe, let him into their cozy little living room.The cabin they lived in was nearly a tiny house.Just the minuscule living room that led into the kitchen.Then a little hall with two tiny bedrooms and an even tinier bathroom.
But the two women seemed to make it work.
“Shower,” Glenda rasped.
Cal had to fight off a shudder.Hehatedwhen she spoke, and he shouldn’t, considering it had been a big reason his father was now behind bars.Glenda had found her voice and damned Benjamin Bennet with it.
But when she formed words, it scraped against his skin like sandpaper.Like a nightmare was lurking, right there in every word.
He was fucking done with nightmares.
Jill was in the shower.Okay.He’d wait and say his sorry in a few minutes.
He didn’t spend alotof time thinking about Jill or the fact she was an attractive woman.But sometimes little traitorous thoughts from the man he used to be wriggled in there.
Right now, the thought of her in the shower felt a little bit traitorous, because he couldalmostimagine it.Because it had been alongtime since he’d so much as looked at a woman twice.
Probably half your problem.
He might have even tried to conjure an image, just to see if that part of his brain still worked, if Glenda wasn’t standing right there, like she could read his mind.
“Grandma, I—” Jill appeared and came to an abrupt stop in the space between the kitchen and the living room.She was in a flimsy robe, and her hair was twisted up in a towel.She had thick socks on her feet.She kind of looked ridiculous, but there was something about the ridiculous mixed with the sight of her long legs that made Cal smile in spite of himself.
Her tawny cheeks took on a reddish hue.Like she was embarrassed.
She cleared her throat, clutched a hand at the edges of her robe—which didn’t exactly help him ignore how threadbare the fabric was.
“I, um, I’ll get dressed.”Then she turned in a flurry and disappeared.
Dressedalso brought interesting images to mind.Maybe he should be happy that he wasn’ttotallydysfunctional.But he happened to glance at Glenda, who was giving him a narrow-eyed stare.
“What?”he demanded.
He refused to believe ghost stories about the traumatized old woman.She certainly couldn’t read his mind.
But itreallyfelt like she could.
She shrugged.“Garden,” she rasped, then walked through the kitchen and out the back door, leaving Cal alone in the living room.
But only for a moment, certainly not long enough to gather his thoughts.Jill reappeared, dressed in jeans and a heavy sweatshirt.Her wet hair was piled on the top of her head in a clip.She looked fresh-faced and pretty.
Something he could recognize, so maybe he wasn’t as messed up as he thought.
“Sorry for just showing up,” he said.“I wanted to apologize for last night.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do.I was an asshole, and I know that makes it seem like I have issues with your…” He trailed off.
She leaned forward, almost conspiratorially.“You know, if you can’t say it, maybe you shouldn’t be apologizing.”
Using his words from last night against him.
