Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
The phone was taken from my hand, and then Aodhan was asking questions I hadn’t thought to ask.
“When did this happen?” He paused. “Where were y’all again?” Another pause. “Do you have security camera footage?” Pause. “Are you both okay?” Pause. “Are the police there?” Pause. “Do they need us there now, or will they be heading our way?”
It went on like that for a solid five minutes, and I listened to both ends of the conversation, still in a state of shock.
My building was toast. At least, the front part where all the interactions with the customers, and all the coffee was made. The back was practically a storage room, and my office may not have been harmed, but I was sure it’d still have to be gutted if there was any smoke damage.
“I’ll have her down there in ten minutes,” Aodhan said, reaching over and flipping the blanket off of himself.
He stood up, and I watched the muscles in the back of his thighs and butt ripple.
My stomach clenched for a different reason then, and I swear to you, I was a horrible person. Who thought about pulling their lover back down into bed and forgetting your problems when your place of business just burned down to the ground?
“Do you have private access to your camera system?” he asked.
I pulled out my phone and looked into the system. “Kind of. If there was any tampering to the camera outside my office, then I’m not sure what kind of luck I’ll have…”
He bent over the bed, pushed me back onto it, and the phone fell to my side. My eyes flared wide and landed on him.
“What’s with that red?” he asked, trailing the back of his index finger down my cheek.
I blushed harder.
“Thinking about naughty things there, Mama?” he teased.
God. Mama.
How I’d missed hearing him call me that.
And to hear him calling me that when he was all but pressing me into the bed? While we were both naked? Yeah, that was the biggest shock to my system.
Last night had been incredible. We’d spent all day and all night getting reacquainted with each other in the biblical way. Now we were having to face the real world again.
But I didn’t have to do it alone.
“There’s likely a ninety percent chance that I’m going to pass out today,” I said.
I wasn’t necessarily due, but I had a feeling what I was about to see in my office would set all my nerve endings to fizzling. Getting mad was one of my biggest triggers with my POTS.
He continued to run his finger over the apple of my cheek before saying, “I’ll always be there to catch you, Mama.”
Then he pushed off of me.
I watched him walk toward his bathroom, and only when he was completely gone from view did I pull up my phone app for my camera system.
I watched a man in his late forties come into the shop, walk up to the register, and tap his fingers. With each second that passed, he seemed to get angrier and angrier. He made absolutely zero attempt to call out to anyone, or make his presence known.
After about five minutes of waiting, he turned around and left, pushing over a bottle of creamer on the counter as he left.
Minutes later, you could see the smoke start to fill the area.
I switched to a different view, this time watching him enter and exit.
But it wasn’t the man that started the fire.
It was someone else.
Someone that walked through the door of my coffee shop, poured something out on the closest table, stuffed a roll of paper towels from the table into the middle of a pile, and then pulled out a lighter and lit it all.
The paper towels took all of two seconds to flare up.
The table took even less time, since I’d found them all made from repurposed barn wood.
The stuff was dry, original, and it went up like kindling.
The arsonist watched the paper towels burn, and then once he was sure that they would catch the other tables, he left.
“Babe, what is it?” Aodhan asked.
Stomach in knots, I watched a mini version of the man standing in front of me run out of my shop, then turned my eyes up to him with my heart shattered.
I did not want to tell him what I just saw.
But I showed him anyway.
He took the phone from my hand, his eyes wary, and looked at the video that was now on repeat.
At first, he watched.
I knew he saw the man leave, pissed as hell for not getting any service in the five minutes that he’d been standing there—that would be something I was going to talk to Martine and Theresa about. That was ridiculous. Nobody should have to wait five minutes for someone to show up.