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CHAPTEREIGHT
Rosalie lifted her head from the armrest as the buzzing from her phone met her ears. It was probably another scam call, as she’d gotten several over the weekend. Her mom and sister had left that morning, and Rosalie had baked the rest of the hours in today away in her denial that she’d have to go back to work tomorrow, as well as sleep in her house alone tonight.
“Momma,” Autumn said, and Rosalie glanced over to her daughter. A cartoon played on the television, which Rosalie had been facing but not watching.
“Yeah, baby?” The phone vibrated against the table down by Rosalie’s feet, and she made no move to pick it up.
“Look at my horse.” The girl held up a coloring page that had been ripped from the book, her face filled with pride. She’d made the horse yellow and orange and brown, and Rosalie smiled at it.
“That’s great, honey,” she said, her stomach giving a vote of protest as she sat up. “Are you hungry? Do you want any dinner?” She’d eaten a lot of chocolate chip bread that day, as well as at least three cookies before she’d taken the rest next door to Tess and Frank.
“I don’t know,” Autumn said, and that was about the answer Rosalie had been expecting. She didn’t usually rely on her four-year-old to tell her if she was hungry or what she wanted to eat. She fed her and took care of her.
Rosalie got up and moved down to the end of the couch, the blue light at the top edge of her phone blinking. “I’ll make you a ham sandwich,” she said. “Then you have to get in the tub, okay?”
“Okay.”
She swiped on her phone, her eyes reading faster than she could comprehend. Her brain reacted, and the phone fell from her hands. Her heartbeat had also zoomed to epic speeds with the information from her brain, and she quickly stooped to pick up the phone, muttering, “Please don’t be broken.”
For Lee Cooper had called her.
Finally.
It had taken him almost seventy-two hours, but he’d called. She’d missed it, but he’d called.
Rosalie pushed her breath out of her lungs one ounce at a time, noting that her phone had not cracked or broken. While she held the device, it started to vibrate again. Lee’s name came up on the screen, and Rosalie dang near yelped.
Instead, she glanced over to her daughter, who now held a green crayon in her hand. “Baby, I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Okay, momma.”
Rosalie clutched the phone to her chest and practically sprinted down the hall to her bedroom. With the door only slightly ajar, she swiped on Lee’s call. Running—or rather, the tip-toeing near-run she’d performed—had been a big mistake. Her breath felt stuck in her lungs, and she didn’t want to sound like she was panting.
“Hello?” she asked, as if she didn’t know whose voice would come through the line.
She did, and when Lee said, “Rosalie, I got you,” she sighed right out loud and let all the tension sag out of her shoulders. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, her brain trying to make sense of what “I got you,” meant.
“Great.” He let a beat of silence go by. “Listen, I’m no good at any of this, so I guess I’ll just say it all, and then you can decide what it is you want to do.”
“All right,” she said.
He barely waited for her to finish with the last word before he said, “I had a great time the other night. I felt like you did too, so that’s why I…I don’t know. I think you’re beautiful, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, and I know it was real presumptuous of me to think I could kiss you. I’m sorry about that, and I won’t do it again, I swear.”
Rosalie sank onto her bed, her smile warm and pleasant on her face. All of the worry and unrest that had plagued her since Lee had dropped her off on Thursday night simply evaporated. “It’s okay,” she said.
Lee blew out his breath. “Is it?”
“Of course,” she said, lifting her head and watching the crack in the door. Autumn could color happily for hours with Rosalie half-asleep on the couch, but the moment she wanted to take a private call or go to the bathroom, the child suddenly needed her. “Well, most of it.”
“Most of it?” He seemed genuinely confused, and Rosalie’s guilt hit her right at the sternum. “I should’ve texted you,” she said. “So you weren’t worried all this time.”
He said nothing, and Rosalie decided she better lay everything out between them too. “You were right about a lot of things,” she said. “I did have a great time on Thursday. I’m glad to know you think I’m beautiful, because what woman doesn’t want to hear that?” She gave a light laugh, beyond thrilled when Lee chuckled with her.
“I hope all the thinking about me is good thinking,” she continued, trying to keep the conversation serious and not so flirty. “I think about you a lot too, Lee.” She did, and she didn’t see the point in trying to hide that fact. “There’s just one thing you said there at the end I didn’t like.”
A couple of seconds went by, and then Lee said, “The apology?”
