Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries Box Set Nanci Rathbun (i love reading books txt) 📖

the third day. I spent one night with Papa and Terry, then went home to my condo, over their protests. I kept up a brave front with family and friends, working a few hours each day—my business doesn’t run itself—and pretending all was fine. But at home, I let my calls go to voice mail, popped pain pills and slept.

I tried to talk myself out of the pit of self-pity that I descended into. So what if Wukowski was attractive? There were better-looking men out there. So what if he was funny, on occasion? I knew funnier guys. So what if he appealed to me like no one else had for years? So what if there was something special between us? No answer for those.

It was still dark, early in the morning of my fifth day out of the hospital, the sun not yet up over the horizon. I was curled up on one end of the couch, spooning Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey right from the carton into my mouth. My bruises had faded to a putrid yellow-green. After my morning shower, with my side still too sore to bend over, I didn’t bother with underwear or socks, just slipped into a cotton nightie. I looked and felt like hell.

When I heard the front door lock snapping open, I yelled, “Papa, if that’s you, please go home. Leave me alone. Just for a while. Desidero essere solo.” It sounded so much better when Garbo said it—I want to be alone. So sophisticated and self-sufficient. I sounded whiny. I didn’t care.

A hand emerged from the hallway, holding a steaming cup from Starbucks. A man’s hand. Wukowski’s hand. My heart started to hammer and my mouth went dry.

Wukowski’s face popped around the entryway. “Peace offering,” he said.

I sat there, unsure of how I felt and what I wanted to do. I was both angry at him and glad he was there. I didn’t want him to see me looking this way and I couldn’t stop my eyes from feasting on the sight of him. I wanted to hug him and I wanted to kick his butt right out the door. I decided to play it cool. “Thanks,” I said, as I took the cup and sipped from it. My hands were steady and my voice didn’t break. So far, so good. “Who gave you the key?”

“Lela. Don’t be mad at her, I forced it out of her by threatening a traffic ticket every time she pulled her car onto the street.” He drew in a ragged breath. “I had to see you in person, Angie, and I was afraid you wouldn’t open the door.” Then he asked, “How you feeling, beautiful?” just as he had at the hospital.

I lost it. I slammed the cup down, coffee flying everywhere. I coughed and sputtered and cursed at him like a navvy, words I didn’t even know I knew, words I won’t repeat. “What the hell were you thinking?” and “You’ve got some balls, Wukowski!” and “You think you can waltz in and out of my life, without a word, without an explanation?” and “You are some piece of work, Wukowski!” and finally “These were the worst five days of my life.”

“Mine, too,” he said, simply, quietly. “Mine, too. I had to stay away, Angie, I had to face myself and decide what I wanted. I had to face Liz’s ghost and figure out if I could care for a woman whose job puts her in danger. I had to decide if you were worth the fear and the pain. I had to decide if I was man enough.”

“And?” I stood my ground, waiting. I was not going to make this easy for him. He either had to come to me with an open heart and an open mind, or walk away. No middle ground. No going back to the Angie of my marriage, the Angie who compromised herself away.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” he asked, as he took a step toward me.

“That’s not good enough,” I said. “There are a lot of reasons why you might be here.” I started to tick them off on my fingers. “One—You might want to get laid. Two—You might feel sorry for me, want to be sure I’m okay. Three—You might need information for the case against Jane and John. Four—You might feel guilty.”

Before I could continue, he stepped up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Five—I might think I’m falling for you. Six—I might want to confirm it. And oh, yeah, back to One.” His left hand moved, the fingers skimming my forehead where the goose egg had subsided to the size of a large marble, then cupping my chin as his thumb ran lightly over my fading black eye. Then it dropped to my waist and he asked, “Does it hurt?”

“Not at the moment,” I answered, as my arms reached their own decision and encircled him.

His kisses were tentative at first, little nibbles, as if he were afraid to hurt me. His hands rested gently on my back. But as I let my hands move, as I explored his neck, his shoulders, the small of his back, I felt his hands start to move in those entrancing circles, down, down, until he whispered, “Angie, are you going commando?”

“Wukowski, I’m too sore to bend over to put on underwear.”

“Works for me,” he said.

Suddenly it dawned on me that I was about to make love with a man whose first name was a mystery to me. “Wukowski, I don’t go to bed with strangers. What’s your name?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” he answered.

“It is morning,” I said.

“I mean tomorrow morning.”

“Works for me.” And it did. It did, indeed.

THE END

Cash Kills

Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries #2

Cash Kills—An Angelina Bonaparte Mystery Copyright ©2014 by Nancianne Rathbun. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,