Dark Abyss Kaitlyn O'Connor (best fiction books of all time .TXT) 📖

wanted to cook some of my veggies! Could you bring them up for me? I would’ve brought them myself, but I couldn’t figure out how to climb the ladder with the bowl.”

He didn’t look very enthusiastic, but he left her to bathe and went to get the bowl.

* * * *

Anna decided it was actually fun sharing the kitchen. There were some traffic problems at first, but when she’d finished chopping her vegetables and set them in water to soak, she merely ‘assisted’ Caleb.

“Did your mom teach you to cook?”

Caleb frowned. “My dad.”

Surprise flickered through her, but she managed to refrain from showing it.

“You’re close?”

“We were.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Me, too. Simon sort of took me under his wing then so it wasn’t as rough as it might’ve been.”

Anna frowned. “How did that come about?” she asked curiously.

“He was a watchman—my dad. Simon was his partner. That was before he came up through the ranks and became High Guardian—before his father was killed.”

Anna felt her belly clench. “It’s that dangerous?” she asked, dismayed.

Caleb sent her a piercing look. “Life ’s dangerous these days,” he said dryly, “or hadn’t you noticed?”

She grimaced. “Mostly lately. Not so much before.” When she saw that he was almost done frying up the fish he was cooking, she checked the time and decided her vegetables had soaked long enough. Getting up, she mixed the batter while Caleb finished up the sides he’d been cooking. “So … Simon was your father’s partner before he was yours?” she asked as casually as she could.

Caleb flicked a knowing look at her. “Does it matter?”

She sent him a blank look. “What?”

“How old he is?”

Anna felt her face redden. “Not really … I mean not to me … uh … I was just curious,” she stammered.

“Not curious about me?”

She smiled when she saw he was teasing. “I am. None of you really seem to want to talk about yourselves. You all know my life history and I hardly know more about any of you than I did the first time I came.”

He sent her a look of innocence. “I’m an open book.”

She chuckled. “No, you aren’t. You seem that way, I suppose, to most people.

They see you smile, and joke … probably flirt outrageously with any female you happen across, but ….”

“But what?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter to watch her while she patted the vegetable chips and dropped them in her batter.

“Better stand back! These probably still have enough water to pop like crazy!”

He moved a little further. “But?”

She threw a smile at him as she very carefully placed a few chips into the hot grease he’d left. “You’re … a lot like Simon, I think. Inside.”

“Those are going to taste like fish,” he observed.

“They do anyway, trust me!”

He picked up the first one out of the pan, blew on it a minute, and popped it into his mouth. “Not bad. Pretty good, actually,” he said, sounding surprised.

She smiled wryly. “Proof positive that you can batter just about anything and fry it and it’s better.”

“So … what else have you deduced, Dr. Blake?”

She frowned at the frying chips, flipping them. “That you’re good people.”

He uttered a cynical snort. “How did you come to that conclusion? Because we’re watchmen?”

“I’m not that naïve!” she retorted sourly. “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. There are at least as many men wearing a badge who only wear it for the power behind the shield and the benefits they can reap from it as there are good cops, maybe even more. I concluded that you’re good people because you don’t use your positions for self-gain or to bully other people. You could, but you don’t.”

“And you think you’ve been around us enough to know we don’t?”

“I’ve seen enough to know you have respect. You wouldn’t have it if you hadn’t earned it.” She sent him a sober look. “You’ve earned mine.”

His face reddened. Trying to hide the fact that she’d made him uncomfortable, he gathered the dishes he’d cooked and set them on the table.

Ian and Simon returned as they were finishing setting the table and, although it was a rare occurrence, they all sat down together to eat.

Ian and Simon were tense, Anna noticed. She wasn’t certain what it was, but they barely waited until the food had been passed around for distribution before Simon made the announcement they’d clearly been bursting to tell.

“He made a mistake,” he said with satisfaction.

No one asked who. They didn’t have to. Anna felt excitement waft through her.

“What kind of mistake?”

Ian grinned at her. “He admitted that he’d sent Paul Warner to get you.”

Anna grimaced. “I know … and you were right. The minute I said I’d been kidnapped, his lawyers started setting me up, trying to make it sound as if I was lying.”

“That was his fatal mistake,” Simon said with satisfaction, “admitting he’d sent Paul. Mrs. Bagley will testify that you were kidnapped. That means his admission is going to hang him.”

Anna was afraid to get too hopeful, and yet she felt a great uplifting, felt suddenly light, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “You think she can convince the jury?”

Simon chuckled. Anna felt her pulse leap, but it went beyond her pleasure at the certainty it seemed to suggest. It lightened his entire face and made him so handsome it took her