Page 72 of Book of Love


Font Size:  

“Sure thing.” He began ringing up the cans. “How are rehearsals?”

“Great. The kids are working so hard. We’re getting the set design finalized this coming week.”

Joe rang up a box of brushes and punched a few keys on the computer. He frowned. “Looks like you’ve already reached the account limit.”

Grace blinked. “That can’t be right. I’ve been keeping track of my receipts.”

Joe clicked a few more keys and shook his head. “Sorry, Grace. I can’t charge it to the account without authorization. I’m getting a limit notification.”

“There has to be a mistake.” Grace dug into her wallet for her credit card, then stopped. “Can you hold the paint for me until tomorrow? I’ll check in at the office and see what’s going on.”

“Tell you what, go ahead and take them.” Joe put the paint cans back into the cart. “I’ll donate them to the production.”

“Thank you, Joe, but I can’t let you do that.” Grace tossed her wallet back into her bag. “You already donated all the wood and tools for the sets.”

“I’ll get it.” Lincoln pushed his credit card across the counter. “Just add it to my total.”

“Lincoln—”

“Grace.” He surreptitiously patted her hip. “Let me do this.”

Joe glanced from him to Grace, as if waiting for her okay. She hesitated, then nodded. Lincoln paid for the purchases, and they loaded everything up in the car.

“I want to pay you back.” Grace studied the receipt with a frown.

“You’re not paying me back.” Lincoln pushed the car into drive and started back to her house. “I know you must spend plenty of your own money on supplies for your classroom and drama club.”

“I also have school funds…or Idid.” She made a noise of frustration and put the receipt in her bag. “This has to be connected to the principal. He’s been cutting my budget left and right, but taking money from my account would be awful even for him.”

“How much more do you need? I’ll make a donation.”

“Thank you, but you’ve already done enough.” She let out her breath slowly. “This is a longstanding problem that encompasses more than extracurricular activities. I’ll take it up with Hank tomorrow.”

Lincoln started to push for more answers, then stopped. He couldn’t—shouldn’t—get too involved. Better just to write a hefty check without knowing any details or politics, even if it did piss him off that Spruce was shortchanging Grace’s club. He’d make sure his donation went only to the Literature department and related extracurricular activities.

He used the excuse of fixing Grace’s ceiling to stay for the rest of the afternoon, and he saw no reason to decline when she suggested that since he was here anyway, he might as well stay for dinner and spend the night.

Much later, after a couple hours of slow, lengthy love-making that made Lincoln want to stop time so it would never end, he pulled Grace into his arms as she fell asleep. He curled a lock of her hair around his finger and studied it in the dim light.

Her hair wasn’t one color—it gleamed with reddish-gold, firelight, honey, the rays of the setting sun. Kind of like her. He’d never known a woman who radiated so many warm colors.

He’d been right. Walking away from her was going to be brutal. Maybe he—

His phone buzzed with a notification. He grabbed it from the nightstand so it wouldn’t wake her and accessed the email.

A faint tension rose up his spine. The message was from the Centcom major in charge of facilitating his embedding protocol.

Theater clearance approved. ETA June 16. Meeting schedule attached.

He tossed the phone aside and pulled Grace closer. He had to go back to the Middle East for his book. And though he’d told her the truth about being lucky, he still dreaded the idea of returning to the site of the blast. Of remembering and knowing it could happen again without warning.

But now…he had no idea how he’d survive wantingGraceto be the one he called. Every single day.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like