Page 108 of His Wounded Heart

“You like breakfast? I thought you lived on coffee,” she teases.

She starts to roll out of my arms, but I’m not having any of it. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to get up and start the coffee.”

“I just thought of something better for us to do with our time.”

I grin as I read the glowing response from my client. He’s thrilled with everything I’ve done. There is not one single change that he wants to make on the website. He tells me to bill him an extra fifteen percent since I was done two weeks earlier than anticipated and he wants to sign a two-year maintenance contract with me. Normally this would have me walking on cloud nine, but that’s hard to do when you start out the day walking on cloud number four hundred.

It was hard seeing Simon go, but I need to get back to things before Bella comes home. Of course, he’d stayed with me as I’d opened my email to make sure there was nothing more from the evil AOL account. He was going to go visit Bernie again, give him updates on Vincent Marsh and Adelaide Winters, since he’d had to give them their supplies three days after the ice storm.

I’m pretty sure he’s visiting Bernie just to keep his spirits up. I want him to find out who the lady friend is that took Bernie into the doctor for his gout in the first place. It seems to me she’s fallen off the face of the earth. I want to know if Bernie kicked her to the curb as soon as he got a scary diagnosis because he didn’t want to burden the little lady.

Such a typical man thing to do.

My phone rings. I look down and see it’s Chloe again. Sometimes it sucks having another sister with flexible work hours—it means they can stalk you. I pick up this time, otherwise she’ll be coming over, probably in Zarek’s Jeep with Slayer riding shotgun.

“Hello,” I answer. “Don’t you have a patient you need to be bending in some godawful way to make them feel better?”

“I’ve told you a thousand times, that’s not how physical therapy works. But even if I did have a patient, I would have called you before the session or after the session.” There was a pause. “Oh wait. I did. You didn’t answer.”

“I’ve been busy. I finished that big job I told you about, the client is real—”

“Horsefeathers. If you think I’m calling about your job—or my job—you are out of your mind. You tell me in minute details exactly how it went with you and the silver-haired God last night. I mean, this man even went to the trouble of finding out what your favorite restaurant was.”

My eyes glaze over just thinking about it.

“I don’t think I can possibly ever explain it, Chloe.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long time.

“Does he make you happy?”

“He makes me feel beautiful. He makes me feel…” I have to stop talking. I’d been so happy this morning. I still am. But my emotions are overwhelming. “Chloe, it feels like I’m safe with him.”

“And for an Avery girl, that’s the best praise in the world,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “But I don’t know what he’s planning to do with his life. I’m trying to be logical.”

Again, I was met by silence.

“Chloe? You there?”

“Trenda? Can I give you some advice that you once gave me years ago?”

I think back to when Zarek first stormed back into her life, and how much she resisted.

“Yeah, hit me with it.”

“Take the good moments God gives you, and hold them tight. It’s all you can do.”

“God, I sounded really sanctimonious.”

“No, you sounded like my wise big sister. I love you, Trenda.”

“Love you, Chloe.”

I can’t wait to pick up Bella. She encompasses so many of my life’s precious moments, and it always kills me to be away from her overnight, even to be with Simon. Today was gerbil day, which had a big red circle on our calendar for the last month. Bella is going to be able to take Apollo, the gerbil from school, home tonight and babysit him. I’ve already been given all of the instructions by her teacher on what I need to make Apollo comfortable.