Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
“Okay…I’ll…uh…go finish getting ready. There’s coffee brewed in the kitchen, if you want.”
I disappeared into my bedroom. The outfit I’d planned on wearing seemed suddenly not good enough for Caine West to appreciate, and I wound up changing three times before I even started to dry my hair and swipe on some makeup. When I was finally ready, it was close to ten o’clock. I thought I’d find Caine tapping his foot, but instead he still seemed intrigued by my apartment. I found him studying the framed pictures on the wall.
“I’m so sorry. I lost track of time.”
“It’s fine. I helped myself to two cups of coffee.”
“Oh, good.”
As I dumped my thesis files and notes into an old leather tote, I noticed Caine had stopped in front of a framed black and white photo.
“Is this your mother?”
I’d looked at it so often that I knew every nuance in the photo, even without looking. She was sitting on a swing in the yard of the house I grew up in, a white daisy tucked behind her ear. Her smile sparkled so wide, I sometimes used it to brighten my day.
“Yes.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Thank you. She was.”
He turned to me and studied my face. “You look just like her.”
“Cancer,” I blurted out.
I had no idea what possessed me to say it. To this day, I don’t think I’ve spoken about her to anyone but my sister. I’ve been friends with Ava since we started undergraduate school five years ago, she was my roommate for years, and she has no idea what my mother died from. It wasn’t a secret; I just kept a lot of things bottled up.
I stared at the photo. “Ovarian.”
Caine put his hand on my back and gently rubbed. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat and pointed to a different picture. “This is my Aunt Rose and Uncle Nate—my mom’s sister and her husband. They raised me and my sister after…well, they raised us as their own after Mom died. My father wasn’t in the picture from the time I was an infant.” Even though I’d opened the bottle voluntarily, I wanted to cork it. “You ready? They serve lunch at twelve-thirty, and I don’t like to interrupt Umberto’s routine.”
“Just waiting on you. As usual.”
“Do you need to be back at any specific time? Sometimes I take a break and write my notes while he has lunch and does an activity or two. Then I go back and finish up.”
“Nope. I’m yours for the entire day.”
I liked the sound of that.
Rachel
Caine drove a stick shift, a little old Porsche that had been meticulously maintained. I don’t know anything about cars, but I suspected it was a classic and had more value than a new one. It seemed to fit him—expensive, yet sexy and understated.
I’d never been so happy to be stuck in traffic. Caine had to constantly change gears, and something about the way his large hand gripped the shifter just worked for me. Not to mention his forearm…and that damn vein. God help me. I was still finding a vein attractive.
Caine noticed me watching him. “Do you know how to drive a manual?”
“No. I tried once, and I hurt my nose.”
His brows drew down. “You hurt your nose?”
“I kept stalling, and the car would jerk. On the fifth or sixth time, I was letting off the clutch and starting to move, and then the damn tires screeched to an abrupt halt, and I lurched forward and hit the steering wheel. I thought I broke my nose.”
Caine chuckled. “I think you might be a little too tightly wound to drive a stick.”
“Me? You’re more tightly wound than I am.”
He side-glanced at me. “Did you forget how we first met?”
“That was different. I thought you hurt my friend.”
“So rather than determine if I was the person you thought I was, you jumped down my throat. You’re wound tight.”
My first reaction was to argue the point with him, which I realized would only prove his conclusion further. “Maybe you’re a little right.”
“Just a little.”
“You know, that’s how I became interested in musical therapy. Growing up I learned to use music to relax.”
“Did you have music on when you tried to drive the stick shift?”
I thought back. “You know what? I didn’t. I was nervous and didn’t want to be distracted, so I turned off the radio.”
“Maybe you should have left it on.”
“Hmmm…I never thought of that. Maybe you should let me drive yours and see if that works.”
Caine laughed. “I like my clutch too much.”
The drive to Umberto’s in New Jersey was normally about forty-five minutes on Sunday mornings, but today it was more like an hour and a half. The GW Bridge was closed except for one lane, and we crawled to cross. Once traffic opened up on the other side, we started to talk about my research.