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Chapter 33
I’m great at multitasking. I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once.
Cole
Ienter our apartment to find Ellie half-asleep on the sofa. This is how I find her most days when I come home from work. She’s finally slowed down. She didn’t want to, but she didn’t have much choice with being eight months pregnant and exhausted all the time.
I kiss her forehead. “Hey, Ellie girl. You feeling okay?”
“I’m tired, my feet hurt, and I think my skin is going to explode any second now.”
“But think of the reward. In one month, you’ll be holding our daughter in your arms.”
“Son,” she grunts, because no matter how tired the woman is she can always rally to be stubborn.
I throw my mail onto the coffee table before walking to the kitchen to begin making dinner. A task I gladly took over a few weeks ago after five nights in a row of extra-spicy Indian food. I enjoy spicy food, but unlike the pregnant Ellie, there’s a limit to how much spice my digestive system can handle before it goes on strike.
“What do want to eat for dinner?”
“Chocolate ice cream and a big, fat juicy hamburger with a ton of pickles.”
I chuckle. “Can we eat the hamburgers first or do we mix the two items together?”
Besides ice cream and spicy food, Ellery hasn’t had many pregnancy cravings. There have been no middle of the night trips to the convenience store, which is a good thing since Winter Falls doesn’t have a convenience store and Nature Coop closes at eight every night without fail.
“Ice cream first.”
I grab a carton of chocolate ice cream from the freezer – which I quickly learned to keep stocked with chocolate ice cream and frozen chocolate chip cookie dough – and hand the carton to Ellie along with a spoon. She cuddles it to her chest before diving in.
When she moans, I growl. “You’re killing me, Ellie girl.”
Her gaze meets mine, and I notice chocolate ice cream smeared around her face. Pregnant Ellery is not a clean eater. I want to lick the ice cream from her face before exploring more inventive places to lick ice cream from her body.
Her eyes flare but she blinks, and the heat dies before she wags her spoon at me. “Food now. Sex later. Little Freedom’s hungry.”
I roll my eyes at her reference to the baby as Little Freedom. She knows I don’t want our daughter to be named Freedom, which means she uses every opportunity she can to call the baby by that name.
“Do you still want a burger?”
She gasps and drops the spoon in the ice cream. “Cole Hawkins, you’re not depriving the mother of your child of dinner, are you?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I mutter before leaning down to kiss her forehead. “I’ll start the grill.”
I’m at the door when she gasps. “What’s this?”
Shit. She found the letter. I considered throwing it away, but I didn’t want her to find out about the letter some other way, and trust me, she would. I don’t know how, but it’s impossible to keep a secret in this town. I wouldn’t be surprised if the gossip gals take turns searching everyone’s trash.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter? Now I have to know what it is.”
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
“Good thing I’m not a cat.” She snatches the letter out of the envelope. She doesn’t read long before her eyes widen, and she gasps again. “How does this not matter?” She fists the letter and shakes it at me.
I sigh before sitting in front of her and snatching the letter from her. “Because I’m not interested in another job.”
I was shocked when I received the letter today. As I haven’t been searching for another job, a letter from a headhunter came as a complete surprise. When I discovered I’d been scouted for a job with one of the biggest architectural firms in the country, I wanted to run to Ellery to share my news.
