Page 76 of Sweet Little Thing

“It’s paid. You don’t need to,” I said the words before I could think about it. Before I could weigh if it was the right decision to share that knowledge with him.

He tensed, his shoulders straightened, and his back went rigid. The hardness in his expression wasn’t directed at me, but the way his eyes changed, I knew he was fighting a mixture of emotions. Anger was the first, while a flurry of others danced vividly with every breath he took.

He stepped past me and started for his car. He was thinking the same thing I was. It was true. And Jasper wasn’t okay with it. Yet, he had forgotten all about Heidi’s care until I mentioned it.

“Goodbye, Jasper,” I said, realizing more and more just how different we truly were. Stone had been right from the beginning. I would never fit into that world. One where others were solely focused on themselves and how they were affected.

He opened the door to his car and inhaled deeply before swinging his gaze back to look at me. “You’ll need me one day. When that day comes, call me.”

Then he was gone. His car door closed, and he pulled away from the apartment. He left with nothing more than those dark words that I knew he meant as a warning. I stood there for a long time after he was gone. I thought about him, all that we had said, and Stone. It always led back to Stone.

He had made the payment for Heidi’s care. I didn’t have to ask him. The payment had come moments after I left him on the street while I was falling apart. He never mentioned it. Never asked me if the payment had been made. He had taken care of it and not wanted any of the credit.

That couldn’t have been for Jasper’s sake. Could it? If so, wouldn’t he have just reminded Jasper to pay it? Or asked Jasper to pay him back? The home Heidi lived in cost a small fortune.

“Hey!” a male voice called behind me, and I turned.

Mack or Marty was standing at the entrance of the building, waving me inside. “Come eat with us. Stone won’t be back for days. When he leaves for the Manhattan offices, it’s always longer than a week.”

Manhattan? He was out of town? When had he left? Had he been gone all this time? My emotions were so tangled that I couldn’t face anyone right now—especially Mack and Marty. I needed to be alone.

“Thanks, but I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed early,” I told him, hoping my smile looked sincere and didn’t reflect the turmoil inside of me.

“You gotta eat,” he shot back.

“I ate with Geraldine.”

He sighed, then nodded. “Okay. Are you coming inside?”

There was no reason to stand out here waiting for no one. I walked toward him, and he opened the door wider, allowing me to pass him and enter the building.

“The Van Allan guy. He upset you?”

I turned to look up at Mack or Marty and saw the look in his eyes. This was Marty. The flirty gleam that was always in Mack’s gaze wasn’t ever-present in Marty’s.

“That was closure,” I told him.

He studied me for a moment but didn’t ask anything else. He simply nodded and patted my shoulder. “Go enjoy the quiet. Tomorrow will look brighter.”

Would it though? When my chest was this ball of confliction? How did things look brighter? Stone didn’t want me here or to even be around me. Yet he paid for Heidi’s care, refused to discuss my leaving, gotten me a wonderful job.

And if I was honest, the fluttering in my stomach when I thought about Stone was stronger with every new thing I learned about him. I caught myself often replaying the times he would give me a rare smile or when he had calmed me down from the panic attack at Geraldine’s. The man that I saw in those moments, he was the one that I feared I was growing to need.

Chapter

Forty-Five

Beulah

My eyes flew open. The darkness from outside was still casting the moonlight through my window and across my room. Reaching for my phone, I saw it was only two in the morning. I’d only been asleep for three hours. Sitting up, I looked around to see if something had woken me. I’d been dreaming, but there had been a sound in my dream. One that made me pause and wake up.

I was on the top floor of a very secure building. It was incredibly unlikely that someone would break in. Even if an intruder had broken into the building, Mack and Marty would have heard and intercepted them on the ground floor. I felt safe here, but I was almost positive a sound had woken me.

Footsteps in the hallway caused me to freeze but only momentarily. I listened to be sure I wasn’t imagining it before jumping out of bed. I hurried to the door and swung it open without consideration to who it might be or if I should be lockingmyself inside and calling for help. I’d always been the one to go charging headfirst at danger to protect Heidi. It was instinct to go face whatever was out there.

Stepping into the dark hallway I swung my gaze left then right to find Stone standing there. Only a few feet away. I was relieved. He was here. He hadn’t stayed gone. I’d known it was him. I hadn’t been fully alert yet but my instincts had known.

“You’re home,” I said as our eyes met.

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