Once Burned (Morelli Family 3)
“What do you want me to do tomorrow?” she asks, once I’ve stopped moving around.
Her question catches me off guard. “Whatever you want. I have to go out for a little while in the morning, but I’ll come back around late afternoon and we can go grocery shopping.”
She nods, but still looks a little uncertain. “Well, good night, Adrian.”
“Good night, Elise.”
—
It’s only been two days, and Elise already seems miserable when I leave. Apparently she’s an early riser, or she’s just still in the habit of rising before the sun from working at the mansion, but here, there’s nothing to occupy her time.
The first day I went out, she had her clothes and mine all put away in the closets when I came back from job hunting. The second day, I came home to a dozen of three different kinds of muffins crammed onto the tiny counter and Elise throwing together a salad. She bought dried cranberries out of habit, and neither of us eats them. When she realized her mistake, she added them to her salad, but I caught the strange look on her face when she chewed them, and she pushed them off to the side after that.
The third morning I leave, she sits on the couch despondently, nursing a cup of coffee and staring at the television. It’s not even on.
While I’m out I come across a book store, so I run in and grab a few things I think she might like.
She still reads to me every night. It does seem like she at least looks forward to my coming home, but probably only because she’s bored out of her mind by herself. I told her she could go out during the day, but she doesn’t feel safe going out alone.
Today I come home to Elise mixing a big bowl of pasta salad. She still hasn’t adjusted to only cooking for two, so we end up with much more than we need, even to last the week.
“I brought you something,” I tell her, offering the bag.
Her face lights up and she plants the spoon in the bowl, grabbing the bag and peering inside. “Oh, thank you, Adrian.”
“It seemed like you were getting bored during the day. I figured I’d give you something to do.”
“I’m going to start offering to clean for the neighbors here soon,” she states, nodding.
“You can do more than clean,” I point out.
“But I like it,” she says, looking at me.
I nod, but don’t say anything. It’s not like my disapproval of the good majority of Mateo’s life is a secret, but right now I’m feeling particularly disenchanted with him. Elise was in her formative years when he took her, and now she’s brainwashed into this indentured servant. It’s not like I expected her to unlearn it in less than a week, but it still baffles me how she misses it.
Who misses housework?
“Do you have to leave every day?” she asks.
“Well, I have to find work. I thought I’d have time to line something up before I left, but then Mateo’s world went to hell and I got too busy.”
“Yeah,” she says, her mouth turning down. “I wonder how Meg’s doing.”
“I’m sure she’s hanging in there.”
“Maria said he killed his first wife.”
I hesitate, not wanting to discuss Mateo. “Yeah,” I say, because it’s simplest.
“Do you think he’ll kill Meg?”
“No. He would’ve already.” I glance at her, wishing she’d look bored enough that I could justify dropping it, but of course now I’m holding her attention. “Mateo’s pretty even-tempered, but the Morelli men as a general rule can get sort of… malicious when they’re enraged. I don’t think he meant to kill Beth. He was a mess afterward. He just got so angry and…” I shrug, indicating that was that.
“So, it wasn’t like they make it sound? Cold- blooded?”
“Do we have to talk about him?”
Shaking her head, she places the books down on the counter and goes back to stirring the already combined pasta salad. “No, of course not. I’m sorry.”
I hate that she apologizes to me—she does that every time she thinks I’m slightly inconvenienced. Sorry when she realized she bought Mateo’s dried cranberries. Sorry when she realized two people didn’t need 36 muffins. Sorry when she stole the blanket in the middle of the night, sorry when she accidentally ran the hot water out because she didn’t realize the tank here was so small, sorry, sorry, sorry.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing to me,” I say, because I can’t help it.
“I’m sor—” She stops herself, flushing.
I bet she wants to apologize for that, too.
Chapter Three
On the ninth day, I get to see Elise’s temper.
I finally get a call-back for a second interview, so I leave in the morning to do that. It goes pretty well, but when I come home in the evening, expecting dinner (not because I’m an ass, but just because there’s always dinner) I find Elise sitting on the couch staring at the blank television again. The last of her new books beside her, apparently finished.