Page 84 of More Than Nothing
I’m fine. Did you save the photos I sent you?
Yes
Elenie:
I’ve deleted my copies. Can you email them to Dorsey and I’ll text her an explanation?
He held off from answering when he could see she was typing again. Her next message came from left field.
Elenie:
Also, any chance you could phone through an order for donuts in the morning and come into the diner to pick them up? It’s kind of urgent.
Roman frowned.
Of course. Do I need to specify the fillings?
Elenie:
Let me surprise you.
Sweetheart, you keep surprising me and I don’t know if I can take it
Elenie:
Good night.
You too
He flicked off the lamp, his heart just a little lighter in his chest, wondering how the hell donuts linked with drugs and guns. When he slept, fully expecting a disturbed night and bloody dreams, his thoughts were only of the way Elenie had felt around him and the bliss of being buried deep within her body.
And in the dark, he burned for her.
Chapter 39
Elenie
Roman strode into Diner 43 just before ten the next morning, and an aeronautical display of butterflies let loose in her stomach.
His face was set and fierce, his long strides eating up the floor as he crossed to the counter. Anyone watching them would have taken the way his gaze raked over her as possibly aggressive, definitely unfriendly. Elenie saw the concern in his intensity as clearly as if he’d shouted it, and knew from his rigid posture how hard he fought not to reach for her. Desperate to fling herself at him, she recognized the conflict. Why was life this complicated?
Lifting the tray she’d just loaded up, Elenie shot him a quick glance. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Business had been steady all morning and she knew she didn’t have much time to spare. Delivering a selection of cooked breakfasts and drinks to a family of four, she emptied the tray and headed around the back of the counter.
Roman slid a takeout bag and an empty disposable drinks cup toward her. “Get rid of this for me, would you?” He stood like a watchful statue, brooding and serious. His eyes never left her face, fingers tap-tapping on his thigh.
“Sure.” Elenie chucked the featherlight cup into the trash can and paused with her hand on the screwed-up paper bag. It wasn’t empty. Reaching down to one of the lower shelves beneath the counter, she stuffed it to the very back, behind a tall stack of crockery. Then she retrieved the takeout box she’d filled earlier from its position nearby, right in the corner where no one else would see it. Not that there was anyone else but her who might. You still didn’t mess around with a special order like this one, though.
Placing the box on the counter, Elenie pushed it toward him. “Your donuts, Chief Martinez.”
He closed his large hands on either side of the cardboard and picked it up. One eyebrow flickered when he registered the weight.
She held his eyes for a moment. “I hope you enjoy them.”
Roman gave her a brief nod. Elenie could smell his aftershave, his cleanness, in the air around him. A yearning twisted in her stomach. He looked like he wanted to say something and the silence stretched heavily between them. Then Delia clattered another pair of plates through the serving hatch and the opportunity passed.
Thanks to Dean and his laziness—plus a huge slice of knee-tremblingly good luck—inside the box, beneath a wedge of paper napkins and some artfully displayed donuts, lay the handgun. In used condition with who knew how many careful owners. She suspected Roman had guessed what was inside. Whether the gun would link back to any crimes was a gamble but Elenie knew for sure that not every family made late-night collections like this. And the instruction to toss it into the lake? Well, that wasn’t your average way to pass on an unwanted firearm.
