Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92371 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92371 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
I need to strangle something. Instead, I stretch an understanding smile across my face even though I don’t at all understand how we got on this topic. “What should my response be?”
“It should be something comforting, like how you were young and stupid, and what you thought was love was nothing more than bored infatuation with a stranger. And when you met me, that’s when you knew you had never really experienced love.” She crosses her arms over her chest.
“Blair, I have never asked you about your failed engagements. I fell in love with the person you are with me, not with them. But right now, I miss the self-assured artist I met at an art expo in San Francisco. The contagious smile. The flirty batting of your eyelashes, and your unassuming talent blended with just the right amount of confidence. I miss the way you giggled at everything and laughed at people who took life too seriously. That’s the woman I asked to marry me. So I don’t know if it’s just the stress of planning this wedding or your studio or what, but maybe you could use a few days away to clear your mind.”
“Yes, Murphy. Meeting with the contractor and apartment hunting without my fiancé seems like a great way to clear my mind.” She rolls her eyes and sulks out of the bedroom.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alice
Temptation is unavoidable,
but not uncontrollable.
Nurse Alice to the rescue.
Vera and Blair take a private jet to New York for the holiday while I stay here and take care of Mr. Morrison. He has a cold, and Vera says he’s the worst when he’s sick.
I’m fairly certain it was their wedding vows that contained the “in sickness and in health” clause, not my employment contract.
“Did you get that chicken from the coop out back? Chase it down? Break its neck? Pluck all the feathers from it?”
I smirk, keeping my attention on pulling the meat from the chicken bones as Murphy refills his coffee mug.
“Or is that just what you tell Hunter, like telling him you made his favorite hand soap?”
“What makes you think I didn’t make the hand soap?”
Murphy pulls out a barstool to the island and gets comfortable watching me work. “For starters, common sense tells me you didn’t make it. But I’ve seen you take it out of the sack from the store where you also buy the lavender linen spray that he thinks you make as well.”
I lift my head and we have a stare-off.
“Your secret’s safe with me.” He winks.
Without acknowledging him, I return my attention to the chicken and keep tossing the meat into the stockpot.
“Is your nephew good at soccer?” he asks.
I can’t hide my grin. “Yes.” I toss the bones into the trash and wash my hands. “Were you good at soccer?”
“I was decent.”
“Do you have other siblings or just a brother?”
“Just a brother. How did you meet Blair?”
“I met her at an art expo in San Francisco. What’s your brother’s name?”
“Why? Are you making a family tree for me?”
“I can if you want me to.”
I shake my head.
“What’s his name?” Murphy is unrelenting today.
“Arnold,” I say.
“Like Arnold Palmer?”
“Like Arnold Yates.”
“Alice and Arnold Yates. Interesting. You know, I used to have a cat named Arnold Palmer. He went by Palmer.”
“Surprising. You don’t seem like a cat guy.”
“Why is that? What constitutes a cat guy?”
“Empathetic. Sensitive. Nonconformist.”
He laughs. “You don’t think I’m sensitive and empathetic?”
“Are you?” I lift my gaze briefly while cutting carrots.
“Blair would say no, but she hasn’t been in her right mind lately. Wedding derangement syndrome or something like that.”
“Probably the most important time to be sensitive and empathetic is when your bride-to-be is stressed over the wedding.”
“Thanks for your advice. I’ll take it with a grain of salt.”
Again, I lift my gaze to his.
“Sorry, was that too insensitive?” he asks.
“Don’t you have work to do?”
Murphy sips his coffee. “Yes, I have work to do, so will you stop distracting me?” His grin is not only clownish; it’s irresistible. I don’t need irresistible.
“Get out of here. I’ll bring you a bowl of soup when it’s done.”
He stands. “Soup? Heck no. It’s too hot for soup. I’m not sick. I’ll run out and grab my favorite Banh Mi.”
I stay in character, the homemaker who didn’t fall in love with this man eight years earlier. “Enjoy.”
“If you don’t want hot soup, I’ll let you ride along with me to get a sandwich.”
I clear my throat. “Do you think your fiancée would approve of that?”
“It’s a sandwich, Alice. Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m a taken man.” He smiles like the devil, not like a taken man.
After I finish the soup, serve Mr. Morrison a bowl in bed, and read him a few chapters of a new book (a steamy romance), I poke my head into Murphy’s room. “Is the Banh Mi offer still good?”