Caleb
Istartthetruck’s engine and get ready to take Lizzie into town. As it turns out, I was right to worry about letting her stay. I barely got an ounce of sleep last night. Having a woman in the house—any woman—is an inconvenience. Having Lizzie Lucas at my place is an all-consuming distraction. Yesterday evening had been a lengthy trial of willpower and willful ignorance.
Lizzie had kept to herself as she’d promised. I’d shown her the spare room, where to find clean sheets, and warned her that the blind over the window got stuck if drawn all the way up. She’d made no comment on the bare decor or how small the room was. She’d simply thanked me and asked where the shower was.
After that, she’d kept out of sight, turning her presence into a torture my ears couldn’t avoid.
I’d done paperwork to avoid listening to her move about her room. I’d turned on the hob and started dinner to ignore the hiss of the shower. I’d damn well had to measure the spices for the chili down to the last grain so as not to think of what was happening in that shower.
Luckily, I’d been forced to endure only a fleeting glance of the shining, pink-cheeked creature who reappeared from the bathroom. Lizzie simply took the plate I’d made up for her, thanked me and then disappeared to her room at the far end of the house.
My actual time with her, after tending to her feet, totaled less than ten minutes.
And still I’d been kept awake all last night. Driven to insomnia by her sheer existence and the disruption that she’d brought to my solitary world.
As we drive into town this morning, I think again of breaking my celibate lifestyle. Perhaps I’d be less prone to the effects of a pretty girl if I’d seen one naked a little more recently…
“I’m sorry.”
I frown as I glance over at Lizzie in the passenger seat.
“Sorry? For what?” I ask.
For making my bathroom smell like tantalizing citrus this morning? For appeasing my ego by clearing your dinner plate? For testing my limits with an entirely sleepless night?
“For last night. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
My teeth grind and my knuckles pale on the steering wheel as I navigate the truck out of the woods and onto the main road that will lead us into town.
“You didn’t scare me,” I say.
You just startled the crap out of me.
My torment hadn’t ended when lights were off and we’d both resolved ourselves to sleep—or lack thereof, in my case. I’d been granted one final temptation.
“Well, I won’t come out of my room next time. I didn’t think you’d be awake.”
There won’t be a ‘next time’, I reassure myself. Because she’s not staying another night.
The plan is already formed in my mind. As soon as I drop her off in town I’m going to head over to Janice Miller’s place and then to the Winters’. Both have adult children away from home and may have a bed without an occupant. She isn’t staying with me another night. Given the little episode she’s apologizing for, I’m pretty sure I won’t survive it.
Not if she made a habit of exploring the house in her panties.
If I were in a more charitable mood, I’d recognize that Lizzie had only been getting up for a glass of water. And she’d had no reason to suppose I was still awake.
But after a night of sleep deprivation, I’m annoyed by the image that flashes across my eyes with every blink. Golden hair, white camisole, pale blue panties, and yards of white legs that glow like satin in the twilight dark.
I’d given up sleep last night and resorted to parking it in my dad’s old armchair, deafening myself with headphones and praying for oblivion. What I’d gotten was a ghostly slip of pale beauty, streaking its way to my kitchen. An image that now haunted me whenever I closed my eyes.
“It’s not a problem,” I tell her. I’ll just have my eyes transplanted like Tom Cruise in that weird movie… Easy fix.
“Well, I still want to thank you again. I know you didn’t have to put me up last night. Or drive me now. The faster I find a place to work and to stay, the faster I’m out of your hair.”
“I’m headed that way, all the same,” I assure her. If only because I can’t argue with that logic. “Where do you want me to drop you off?”
“I saw a mechanic shop in town. It had a wrench bent like a phone on its sign?”
“The Winters place.” I nod, as the sign in question appears above the nearest rooftops. “Jace Winters and his old man run the mechanic repairs and the gas station next door. You need screen wash or something?”