I laughed and jerked my chin at Willow. “Ask Miss Showtunes over there.”
“I meant for Edgar Allen Poe.”
With a wink, I said, “I figured as much.”
“So it’s Poe?” Willow asked.
I glanced down at the deer. “Yep, Mr. or Miss Poe.”
“A very distinguished name,” Alexandra said with a grin.
“Now that Poe has a name, we need to work on getting some food into him or her.” Annabel turned to me. “I’m going to need some things from a pet store. I can make you a list.”
“I’ll be happy to go get them for you. Especially a pen.”
“Oh but I planned on the deer sleeping with me,” Annabel teased.
“Think again.”
Her smile once again reached her eyes, and in that moment, I would’ve let the damn deer sleep with her if I could see that much happiness on her face again. I had thought she was beautiful before, but when she truly smiled, she wasbreathtaking. And while I welcomed her newfound joy, I also knew I was in deep, deep trouble.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: REV
ONE MONTH LATER
I had thought initiallythat having Annabel living with me meant that my life would drastically change. But once we learned the pattern of each other’s days and nights, everything fell into place. She rose before I had to leave for work and made coffee and cooked breakfast. She even brought me a home cooked lunch to the pawn shop. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she said she knew how to cook. I had already gained five pounds since she had come to live with me. Thankfully, she had put on some of the weight she’d lost as well.
While I was at work, she sometimes went over to Mama Beth’s and helped her cook dinner. The two were growing very attached to each other. I could tell Mama Beth was everything in a mother that Annabel had never had yet had longed for. In turn, Mama Beth had always wanted daughters, especially those who wanted to help her in the things she loved, like cooking. While I loved that they got along so well, I knew it was only going to cause pain in the long run for both of them when Annabel left. But I’d kept my mouth shut.
Physically, she seemed to heal almost overnight. You could attribute it to her age and her resiliency to overcome what she had been through. Breakneck would come by often to check on her. She did obey him by spending a lot of time off of her feet and resting.
It was her emotional state that worried me. She still refused to let her parents know her location. She did call them once she got to my house and once again she used a disposable phone. Although I didn’t totally agree with it, I didn’t press her about it. It did slightly alarm me when she started researching the veterinarian program at The University of Georgia. She seemed hell-bent on never returning to Virginia, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
She grew more and more dependent on me. After several nights on the lumpy couch, she had finally talked me into sleeping in my bed with her. It wasn’t unchartered territory since we had spent the night in the same bed before. But at the same time, there was an illicit feeling about it. I felt like a teenager sneaking off to do something I shouldn’t, which was not something I had felt for a very long time. While I didn’t want to think about Annabel in any way sexual, it was hard not to when she came to bed in pajama shorts that revealed her legs or thin tops that showed off her cleavage. I knew better than to say anything to her about it, or I’d look like some pervert who had been getting off on her.
There was also the fact that waking up with a beautiful woman wrapped around me did nothing to stop my morning wood. If Annabel ever noticed, she didn’t say anything. I also hoped she didn’t notice my longer-than-normalcoldshowers to eradicate said morning wood. Again, if she knew, she never said anything.
Any inappropriate thoughts easily fled my mind when she woke up, screaming and thrashing, from nightmares at least twoto three times a week. Since I was no stranger to those types of wakeup calls, I would merely reach through the sheets to bring her body closer to mine. “It’s okay, Annabel. You’re okay,” was usually all I would have to say. She would spend a few minutes steadying her breathing in the dark, as if she was trying to determine she was really with me in Georgia and not back in Mexico with Mendoza. Finally, after a small eternity, she would calm down and go back to sleep. I wondered what it would be like for her if I wasn’t in bed beside her. Would she be able to calm down, or would she suffer a lot of sleepless nights like I had in the past?
While I was helping Annabel, it didn’t escape my mind how much I enjoyed her presence either. I wanted her to be well, and to not need me, but her presence was a comfort too. One I expected I would miss when she left.
But at the same time, I was beginning to feel like the human equivalent of a child’s safety blanket. While I wanted to be there for her, I was still so frightened that I was impeding her healing. That as long as I allowed her to use me, she would never be well on her own. However, she never mentioned her therapist voicing these concerns. With Alexandra’s help, she managed to find one she liked, and she had started twice a week appointments.
The true bright spot in her life, and if I let myself admit it in mine as well, was Poe. Who knew a little deer could bring so much love and enjoyment to our lives? Through Annabel’s care, he—we’d discovered we had a boy—was thriving. I was amazed at how much knowledge she possessed to care for him. The whole stimulating him to pee or poop with warm cotton balls blew my mind. When I had said as much, Annabel only giggled. “Well, his mother would do that in the wild to protect him from predators.”
My brows had furrowed. “But how…”
“With her tongue,” she replied.
“Disgusting,” I had muttered.
Poe had moved from a small crate in my bedroom to a larger crate on the back porch. He was soon going to be big enough to use an old dog’s run we had on the property. Annabel never had to do his feedings alone. Willow often came to help give Poe his bottle, but the most amusing was when Deacon or Bishop would come by and gather the blanket wrapped deer into their arms like a baby to give him his bottle.
Friday night found me finishing up a feeding with Poe. I had insisted that Annabel take it easy after she had helped Mama Beth cook a big meal for a family who had a sick relative. When I sniffed my shirt and got a strong whiff of animal, I knew I needed to grab a quick shower before heading up to the roadhouse.
After I showered and shaved, I came out of the bedroom to find Annabel reading on the couch. At the sight of me, she lowered her ereader, and then narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me. “Going somewhere?”
“Uh, yeah, actually I am. I have to go up to the roadhouse. One of our prospects is getting patched in.
