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“Here.”
Bryson had gone to the sink and now held a damp dishtowel.He gently cleaned her hands and winced when she did.
“You scraped them up some and I see at least four, maybe five, splinters.Want me to get them out?”
Since most of them were in her right hand and she was right-handed, she nodded.“Please.Sorry to be such a fuss.”
“You’re not fussing.Do you have tweezers or do you want me to use a knife?”
A knife?She quickly moved to the downstairs bathroom and found tweezers in one of the drawers and alcohol swabs in the first-aid kit she’d tucked beneath the kitchen sink after treating Mary Elizabeth’s injury.
Supplies gathered, Bryson donned his sunglasses, tilting his head a certain way as he stared down at her hand.She realized then they were prescription, and even though it was silly, she liked that visible sign of his age.It drew her like so many other things about him.Scary things like the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled and the little hint of a cleft in his chin.The fact that his voice revealed his frustration with her, and it was starting to dawn on her as to why.
Bryson had Hadley sit on the kitchen table, her hand propped palm up on her knee.He went to work on retrieving the first splinter while she studied him, liking that she could observe him so closely without him being aware.“You keep coming to my rescue.Thank you.”
“No problem,” he murmured, focused entirely on his task.“Ah,” he said, holding up the tiny prize.“One down.”
He went to work on splinter number two, and she noted the laugh lines on each side of his mouth.The sight reminded her of her crush on Tom Selleck as a girl.“Tell me about your wife.”
The words appeared out of nowhere, and Bryson stilled for a moment, shooting her a quick glance over the glasses on his nose, but after a moment, he went back to what he was doing.
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything.I’m sure she was pretty.”
A smile crossed his handsome features and she felt a niggle of envy—or was it jealousy?She had no right to that, but the fact that she was reeked of something she wasn’t quite able to accept just yet.
She’d love to be loved by someone that way, all the way until the end.That’s how marriage was supposed to be.Till death do us part.That was the struggle she had.The fact that she had initiated the divorce because she’d been left no other choice, but didn’t want to give up on her marriage after so many years.It was that spot between the rock and hard place, where to stay meant accepting Kyle’s infidelities and overlooking them but to go meant destroying the only thread left holding them together.
“She was.Tish had bright blue eyes, jet-black hair.A laugh that was just… No one could hear it without laughing, too.”
“What did she like to do?Did she work?”
“Yeah,” he said.“She was a preschool teacher.Her kids loved her.”
His gaze flashed to hers momentarily once more before moving back to her hand.
“You know those old black-and-white movies?The classics?She’d pop some corn and settle in and binge on them for hours.”
“That sounds like a lovely way to spend an evening.”
“It was,” he said softly.After a few seconds he cleared his throat.“So how about you?Tell me about your ex.”
“Ah, well,” she said, wondering what she should share.“He’s handsome.Charming when he wants to be,” she added.“Arrogant, which seems to be a given in his profession.I don’t know what he likes at this point, nor do I care.The last two years we were together were very different from the others.”
“And your kids?”
As always, a proud smile came to her lips.“Incredible.Smart, beautiful.Determined to conquer the world while taking selfies.”
He laughed at her joke and gently rubbed his thumb over the spot he worked on after she flinched.
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“How about some ice to numb it?”
He didn’t wait for her to respond but moved to help himself to the ice dispenser in the fridge, carrying the pieces back to the table where she sat.“Thanks.”
