Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
I’d called Beau’s name like a prayer.
One he’d answered.
Heat filled my cheeks at calling out to him like I was a helpless child.
“Sorry,” I quickly said, overcome with guilt. He’d spent years caring for a literally sick child. I’d turned him into a caretaker once more. “You didn’t have to.”
His canine snagged his plump bottom lip as he regarded me. I wanted to squirm under his gaze—it was that probing. Yet there was also a softness there, in the way he looked at me, his posture relaxed. “You were sick and scared and asked for me, Hannah.” He shrugged, speaking quietly. “I did have to.”
I struggled to swallow, my thumping head battling for dominance against my thundering heart.
Beau walked around the bed to my side. I watched in silence as he grasped a bottle of water, shook two pills into his palm, then presented them to me.
I took them wordlessly, both because I needed them and because I didn’t have the words to try to explore this new territory. Nor did I have the strength.
“I’ll order you breakfast,” he informed me, watching me take the pills. “Any requests?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t have named a breakfast item right then if I tried. I barely remembered my own name.
Beau nodded and walked out of the room.
I sank my head back into the pillows, looking at the ceiling. I felt crummy, for sure, but nowhere near as bad as last night. Not the flu. Probably just a nasty cold.
Pulling back the covers, I placed my feet into slippers that were considerately positioned at the side of the bed. Had Beau put them there?
Smiling, I walked to the living room where I could hear Beau’s rumbling voice.
How could I feel terribly wretched and pleased at the same time? I knew how…because I’d slept in bed with Beau Shaw’s arms around me last night. Because Beau Shaw took care of me without hesitation. Because, maybe, maybe I was going to get something sweet from him. Maybe, just maybe, I’d get everything I ever dreamed of from him.
When I entered the living room, his back was turned to me, phone to his ear. My stomach pitched, seeing the tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there moments ago.
“I’ll be right there.” His tone was curt. Cold once again.
He turned to me, and my smile froze on my face.
Because his face was painted with fear.
“Clara’s sick.”
fifteen
HANNAH
THREE WEEKS LATER
The cold ushered in a true welcome to Maine winter, but it also ushered out the sickness that came with the change in seasons.
By some miracle, Clara merely had had a slightly raised temperature and a sniffle.
Beau had raced to be with her the second Elliot called. I’d been left standing in the middle of the hotel room, wracked with guilt. I’d called him countless times the rest of that day. Every call went straight to voicemail until I got a short text that she was fine.
Nothing else.
I rotted in the opulent surroundings of the suite, picking at the breakfast Beau had ordered me—almost everything on the menu—then tried to distract myself.
But all I’d managed to do was think of worst-case scenarios—Clara in a hospital bed. Clara struggling to breathe. Clara’s vitality and health stolen by a cold given to her by me.
The moment the doctor cleared me to go back home, I watched Clara like a hawk. She’d rolled her eyes every time her father or I felt her head, checking her temperature. Aside from the eye rolls, she was good-natured about it because that was Clara. And because she was used to being a patient.
I noticed that that dulled her sparkle, just a little. Beau noted it too, which was why he was home more. We baked a lot and had numerous dance parties, doing whatever we could to brighten Clara’s day.
Both of our efforts went into ensuring that Clara stayed happy and healthy.
Beau almost entirely retreated back to the man he’d been when we first met—haunted, detached. Cold. I practically ceased to exist for him.
Gone was the man who had rubbed my feet, cared for me, and held me in my sleep.
Gone was the man who had drawn me a bath and assaulted a man in front of a police officer for me. Gone was the man who had laid his head in my lap.
The sting from that loss wounded my insides, even if I was beginning to understand it. Beau was blaming himself. I wasn’t entirely sure of the reasons he gave, but he lived his life to protect Clara, and the night at the hotel with me had been his failing somehow.
Maybe he blamed himself for leaving Clara alone—albeit with family who adored her. Or worse, perhaps he blamed me for being sick in the first place, giving it to Clara.
I blamed myself plenty, even though there was nor would there ever be any kind of proof that I caught it first. Germs knew no master, no morals; they just were.