Page 35 of In Safe Hands
“That went well, don’t you think?” Without giving him a chance to answer, she added, “It felt like it went well. At least, I’m pretty sure it did. Right?”
He waited until she fell silent. “You done?” She glared at him, but he just looked amused. “It went very well.”
Slumping back against the wall, Daisy felt suddenly exhausted—happy, but exhausted. “It was nice of you to lead the training.”
He shrugged off her thanks. “I enjoyed it. If I ever get sick of being a cop, I might become a personal trainer.”
“You can practice on us, then.” She smiled at him. “We’ll give you good references when you start training the rich snow bunnies who want to improve their skiing.”
Making a face, he admitted, “That doesn’t sound appealing. Maybe I’ll stick with training cops instead.”
“And me,” Daisy said on a yawn.
“And you, snoozy. Go take a nap.”
Surprisingly, she felt like she could sleep for a week. “Are you taking off, then?”
“Yes, if you can pry yourself off the door.” His smile was teasing.
“I suppose.” With put-on reluctance, she straightened and stepped to the side. “Thanks again, Chris.”
He was watching her in an odd way, but he just said, “You’re welcome, Dais. Sleep well.”
* * *
She couldn’t take her eyes off the gun. Even when she heard the sheriff’s deputy yelling at him to drop his weapon, and she knew that help had arrived, her gaze remained fixed on the matte black surface of the pistol. She saw his finger, curled around the trigger, pull tighter and tighter until—
Something woke her abruptly. Sitting up quickly before she was fully awake, she swayed a little as she listened for whatever noise had disturbed her sleep. All was quiet, though, and she eventually relaxed.
The clock on her nightstand glowed, showing that it was close to ten p.m. With a yawn, she relaxed back against the pillows, but the spurt of adrenaline that had shot through her veins when she startled awake kept her heart beating quickly and her eyelids open. With a sigh, she resigned herself to being awake for at least a few hours.
Kicking off the covers, she slid out of bed. If she wasn’t going to sleep, there was no sense in wasting time lying there and staring at the dark ceiling. She might as well be productive.
Daisy cleaned the training room first, snickering to herself at the sight of Max’s now-covered lower half. As promised, Callum had brought a pair of sweatpants and had even dressed the dummy himself. While she stood on a bench so she could wipe down the pull-up bar, the memory of the guys having their impromptu competition made her smile again.
It had been a fun day. Before the group training session, Daisy had been worried that she’d accidentally do something or say something that would drive them away, never to return again. As much as she loved her books and computer time, it would’ve been hard to go back to seeing only Chris and her father occasionally. Now, she had Monday night’s get-together to look forward to, plus they’d been talking about making the training sessions a regular, couple-times-a-week thing.
As she moved the mats so she could vacuum, she did a mental inventory of the pantry and freezer. The Monday evening meeting would be held too late for a big meal, but she had the ingredients to make teriyaki meatballs and crab wontons. She wished she had eggs, so she could make some brownies, too.
“What do you think, Max?” she asked over the whine of the vacuum. “Would it be crossing a line to ask Chris to pick up a few things at the store?”
The dummy dangled silently on his hook, his new sweatpants hanging low on his hips.
“I know he brought groceries today without me asking, but it’s different when I request it. It changes it from a favor between friends to, I don’t know, a duty for the poor housebound girl, I guess. I don’t want him to see me as helpless and needy.”
Max’s silence felt slightly judgmental.
“I know, I know. I am needy and kind of helpless. It’s stupid, but I want Chris to look at me and see a whole person, not just this living ghost haunting my house.”
Turning off the vacuum, she gave Max an accusatory glare.
“It’s a good thing you’re useful in other ways, Sir Maximillian, because as a therapist? You kind of suck.”
By the time she finished with the training room, Daisy was in full-on cleaning mode, so she decided to tackle the rest of the house. Her dad’s room had a slightly stale smell from disuse, and she left the door open to let it air. It was close to one in the morning by the time the house was done.
Feeling grubby, Daisy took a shower and then crawled back into bed. She knew she wasn’t tired enough to sleep, so she grabbed a book off her nightstand. It was by one of her favorite urban fantasy authors, and it was a sign of how crazy her life had gotten over the past few days that she hadn’t finished it yet. It had been a long time since her real life was as interesting as what happened in her books.
After rereading the same page over and over for a half-hour, she gave up on the book. Her brain was spinning with so many things—the training session, Chris’s recent weirdness contrasted with his consideration, the renewed possibility that Deputy Macavoy might actually have been hauling a dead body around at three thirty in the morning, the Gray case and the fact that the other women were interested in getting her, Crazy Daisy’s, opinion about it, and even the pros and cons to making brownies for Monday night, if her dad returned in time to make an egg run. How could a book, even a good one, compete with all that?
