“I hang my clothes all facing the same way.”
“Short sleeve with short sleeve?”
“Yes.”
“I hang my T-shirts.”
Her chuckle set his groin in motion again.
“When are we going to get together?”
“I’m not sure. It’ll have to be a time when you don’t have Darin and I don’t have Kara.”
“Or when Kara’s asleep. People who have kids still have sex.”
“Right.”
Was she having second thoughts? He almost asked but didn’t want to chance the answer.
Running his hand through his hair, he wondered if that was a coffin he saw up there on the ceiling. Were the shadows changing? He couldn’t find the breast.
“So when does that leave us?”
And wasn’t this precisely why he wasn’t in a relationship? There simply was no time or occasion with the obligations he had.
“I was thinking…maybe…depending on your schedule…a week from Wednesday? I checked my book and, unless I get an emergency, I don’t have an appointment between three and four, which is when Kara has predance class at day care and Darin’s in therapy. I can block out the time now so that nothing gets scheduled.”
She’d already checked her book. Didn’t sound like second thoughts to him.
“At your place?”
There was the breast again. How could he have missed it up there?
“Yeah. We can say you were working on my landscape lighting.”
It was already installed.
“In your bedroom?”
“No one is going to know you were in my bedroom.”
Good. They were on the same page. “So we’re agreed that no one will know about the change in our…situation.”
He had to be discreet. For Darin’s sake. His brother didn’t deal well with change.
“Of course.”
He was making an appointment to have sex.
Feeling tired all of a sudden, Grant pulled the covers up over his waist. His life wasn’t typical, wasn’t for everyone, but it was his.
And he had it under control.
* * *
LYNN WAS HOME with Kara Sunday evening, enjoying some rare alone time with the precocious three-year-old, when her phone rang.
Lila was with a woman at the clinic. A new arrival with obvious injuries. She had no idea how serious they were and the woman refused to let her call an ambulance, certain that her husband would get to the hospital and finish off what he’d started.
Lynn would have liked to think the woman’s fears were grounded in drama and overreaction, but she knew better. According to Bureau of Justice statistics, a woman died of spousal abuse in the United States every six hours.
Maria Cleveland was not going to be one of them. While her injuries had been serious enough to require a trip to the emergency room, Lynn had accompanied her and stayed with her. And she and Maria had signed paperwork to allow Maria to be released into her private care.
It was almost two in the morning by the time Maria was settled in a bed in the bungalow closest to Lynn’s, with one of the residents sitting up with her, waking her every hour, so Lynn could head back home.
A light was on next to the sofa, and she could hear the television.
“Hi, everything okay?” Amy, a sixty-year-old grandmother who had been at the Stand for a little over two months, greeted her. The worried frown on her face had been perpetually there when she’d first come to them. But it didn’t show itself as often these days.
“She’s going to be fine,” Lynn gave the rote answer. The only one she could give until Maria signed occupancy papers that would allow those within the walls of the shelter to share in her care. She might or might not opt to share her personal story with other residents. That was one of the choices she’d be making when she was able to make decisions about her immediate future. Right now, she just needed to rest and allow her body to heal.
Amy nodded, shoving some yarn and needles into a big cloth bag. “I’ll be getting on home, then,” she said. “Kara had the apples you had assigned for her snack at seven-thirty, her bath at 7:45, went down at eight, fell asleep during the first story and hasn’t made a peep since then. I’ve checked on her every half hour.”