Page 18 of Her Braun
Xiomara smiled when she saw Gibson. "Hey, Lieutenant! Good to see you."
"Doctor Ortiz. Same."
Xiomara gave him a wave and Kay saw her turn back and give her a wink.
Kay looked back at Gibson. "Thanks. For stopping by and for agreeing to help. I would have gotten around to painting it... someday. It's just that I needed the time and the energy."
"I got it, Kay. Really. I'm happy to help. You don't have to go it alone."
Kay backed away from him with a smile playing across her lips. It wasn't until she was back inside that her smile fell away entirely.
He'd hit the nail on the head even though he probably didn't know it.
She knew that he hadn't said it to hurt, but it had.
Alone.
She'd done a lot alone.
Pretty much everything in fact.
Something that he didn't have to know.
Something she didn't want him to know.
It was better that way. The last thing she wanted him to feel for her was pity.
If she ever saw that on his face... in his eyes, she didn't think she could stand it.
So she'd keep her smile in place with him and her walls up around her history. Where they belonged.
Gibson backed up into Kay's driveway and got out of the cab to look up the tiny two-story house in the center of a street. It couldn't be more than eight or nine hundred square feet of space, but inside it felt big.
Well, big enough that he didn't have to duck when he went through doors. Then again, he hadn't been up to the second floor, so that might be a different situation.
A quick look at the property information told him that it had been built in Nineteen hundred. Making the house over a hundred years old, but it looked good on the outside and from what he'd seen on the inside it was still pretty good in there, too.
The first time he'd been there with her, he hadn't paid much attention to the outside of the house. He'd kept his gaze on Kay and yes, her amazing ass. Sure, she didn't wear body hugging clothing, but he could tell. It was the way she walked. The way she carried herself.
She said she wasn't athletic, but she was in shape.
He sat in his car wondering how he'd had the stones to ask her for her keys.
He still couldn't believe that she'd handed over her keys to him without more than a thought.
That, he told himself, was trust.
And he was going to be worthy of that trust.
Walking toward the back of the truck, he reached in to get his drop clothes and other supplies.
"Hey!"
He had to reach in and grab his bucket of paintbrushes, too.
"Hey, you!"
Gibson lifted everything clear of the back of the truck as he turned and saw an older man standing on the other side of the chain link fence on the east side of the property. "Hey."
