The Lovely Return by Carian Cole EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Carian Cole
- Language: English
- Genre: New Adult & College Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2.4 MB
- Price: Free
LAURA – 2013
“I’m going up to bed,” Ben says as he rises from the couch. He stretches his
arms over his head, yawning loudly. “I have an early meeting in the
morning.”
I smile at him as I unfold my legs across the warm cushion he just
abandoned. “I’ll be up in a few minutes. I’m just going to finish my wine.”
He throws me a look that might be disappointment—or maybe just
exhaustion—before he disappears upstairs.
There was a time, which feels
like a long time ago but really wasn’t when we went to bed together every
night. We’d make love, or I’d lie next to him in bed and read until I was too
tired and fell asleep. We were happy and content. Building a life together
like people do. But lately, we’ve been in a state of perpetual annoyance with
each other. Therefore, I prefer to sit alone for a while each night, sipping
my wine and staring out the window at our quiet street.
After a few minutes pass, I take my glass into the kitchen and place it in
the sink. I check the French doors leading to the deck out back and then the
front door, ensuring the double locks and dead bolts are secured. On my
way to the stairs, I pause in the foyer to enter the passcode into our security
system. It’ll trigger a siren sound that could wake the dead if any doors or
windows in the house are opened.
I flick off the lights and pad upstairs on thick, plush carpet. Ben didn’t
want carpet on the stairs when we bought the house and remodeled, but I
did. Carpet is softer. Safer.
At the top of the stairs, instead of going left to the main bedroom suite, I
go right and quietly open the door to my daughter’s bedroom. Closing my
eyes, I inhale a quick prayer that I’ll find her cuddled up under her pink
blanket with her favorite plush fox, sleeping peacefully like every six-yearold should be at eleven o’clock at night.
My shoulders fall and a long, weary sigh escapes me when my eyes
adjust to the dark room illuminated by a glowing teddy bear night-light.
She’s not in her bed, but sitting on top of her white wooden toy chest under
the double window. Her little palm is pressed against the glass. Still as
stone, she gazes out into the darkness.
I’ve found her this way every night for the past eleven or twelve
months. It may have even been longer than that. I’ve wished so many times
that she’d been inspired by bedtime stories and was looking up at the stars
or the moon, seeking magical worlds that sprang from the pages of her
books. Or perhaps a sleigh pulled by reindeer. But soon I realized that
wasn’t the case at all.
Quietly, I sit next to her on the toy chest and gently move her long,
wavy red hair away from her petite face. “Penny…” I say softly. “It’s very
late. You should be in bed now.”
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