Once Upon A Marriage. Tara Taylor Quinn
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stood out as a threat. Elliott recognized him anyway. Burton Augustine. Her longtime theater date. She should have told him that she had matinee tickets. He’d let them know they were under higher security protocol. She knew what that meant. All three of the Arapahoe owners knew what that meant. It hadn’t been that long ago that they’d all lived under the protocol full-time.
Waiting while she bade the other man goodbye at the door, Elliott approached her before she had her purse off her shoulder.
“We need to talk.” His voice was always an octave below base. Came with his size. But even he heard the extra note of...displeasure in his quietly spoken words.
And wondered at it. She’d gone out, escorted, in the light of day. Yes, he should have known. If something had happened to her...
But, really, the infraction wasn’t so great as to raise his ire...
At a fast walk, Marie led him down the hall to her office, dropped her purse on her desk and shut the door behind him.
“What’s up?” Her cheeks, her lips, were pinched.
And he felt like a heel for upsetting her.
“You should have let me know you had tickets to the matinee.” He’d toned down the potentially threatening tone. Had a lot of practice doing so. His voice, as low as it was, had a tendency to scare people.
Something he’d learned while he was still in high school and had been called to the principal’s office for allegedly trying to intimidate a teacher—after which he’d learned to keep his mouth shut as often as possible.
“I didn’t have tickets to the matinee,” she said, frowning. Grabbing her purse, she moved it to the drawer at the bottom of her desk where she normally kept it, locking it in. She looped her apron over her head, giving it a yank when it got stuck on her ponytail. Dropped the desk keys into the pocket. She sat. And then stood. “Burton and I went for a short drive and shared an avocado sandwich.”
Freshly made that morning, he translated. By Marie. For sale at her shop with the rest of the organic lunch options on her limited menu.
“And before you say anything else, Eva wasn’t supposed to be alone. Sam was here. He just left because his mother called saying his son had a fever. They called me and I came straight back.”
She’d seen Burton for lunch. A change in their routine. Could indicate a change in the relationship from casual to more serious.
The tightening in Elliott’s stomach was as unexpected as it was uncomfortable. Emotion swirled within him. Negative emotion. Not warning signals. Not a sense of imminent danger.
He sat. And so did Marie.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d stick to the high-security protocol for at least a few more days,” he said.
She nodded. Looking straight at him, but for once the warm look in those big brown eyes was absent. Her gaze was almost vacant.
As if she was looking past him.
He’d grown accustomed to the compassionate openness she’d shown him since the first night they met.
“Have I done something to displease you?” he asked. Hoping that his tone of voice hadn’t put her off. He’d had no business being...
Jealous.
“No, of course not.” she said, appearing to focus on him now. “If anything I was beginning to think I’d scared you away,” she said with that unique openness of hers.
Such an incongruent woman, she was. Open and sharing and giving everything of herself. And trusting no man with her heart. No wonder her mother worried about her.
She was the type of woman people took advantage of.
“I don’t scare,” he said. “But just for full disclosure, what do you think you’d done that I’d find distasteful?”
He’d eased down in his seat and rested an ankle over his knee. And she still had to look up to meet him eye-to-eye.
“All that nonsense about thinking Liam would be unfaithful to Gabi. And giving you my disastrous love life history...”
He’d already known about the ex-boyfriends. Marie’s past relationships had fed Barbara’s own fears about her bighearted daughter following in her footsteps. Her “disastrous” love life, as she’d just described, was a big part of the reason Barbara had felt compelled to hire a private investigator bodyguard when Marie called to say that she was investing her savings to go into business with Liam Connelly and, with Gabrielle, purchase the historic Arapahoe.
“How could I possibly think less of you for caring about your friends? Or for the fact that the men in your life have treated you shabbily? If anything, I was impressed by the way you handled the Jimmy Jones situation.”
Barbara hadn’t told him about that one. Maybe, with the whole thing happening so quickly, Marie had opted not to tell her mother about the debacle. A shame, really. It would have done Barbara good to know that her daughter had been able to see through the man and then take care of herself quite effectively.
He’d have lingered awhile, curious about what else she might have to say, but Eva buzzed her, letting her know they had a line out front.
Reminding her that they were on high-security protocol, Elliott watched her all the way to the front of the store and then let himself out the back.
* * *
SHE DIDN’T HAVE to make a trip to the members-only bulk store that exact night. Marie bought enough in advance to always have extra supplies on hand. But she’d opened her last case of organic chips and the store had a coupon special on them. She also wanted a new air purifier for the apartment and those were on sale, too. Ben Schumann, the seventy-seven-year-old who, with his wife, Matilda, lived on the second floor with her, had been smoking in the hallway again and the stench was beginning to permeate her apartment and was driving her crazy.
Probably because she had enough quiet time to notice it there, all alone as she was.
She didn’t, technically, have to call Elliott to let him know she was going out, either. But he’d asked. Insisted. And she didn’t want to be more of a pain in his backside than she’d already been.
When his agreement to accompany her lit a burst of excitement inside her, she knew she had to start getting out more. To get a life.
Living alone, being alone every evening, just didn’t agree with her. Maybe she should find someplace to volunteer in the evenings. And start looking for a new roommate.
The fact that the weight had started to slowly lift from her heart as she walked down the huge aisles of floor-to-ceiling warehoused bulk sale items with Elliott walking quietly beside her, his hands in the pockets of his black chino pants, reiterated her earlier thought. She needed a roommate. To get out more.
She...
“Sorry about that.” His deep voice sounded beside her as he pushed the oversize cart that was getting heavy beneath the load she was piling in it. Cases of organically grown beans for salads. Toilet paper for downstairs and up. Paper towels. Trash bags for home and the shop.
“Sorry about what?” With a frown she glanced over at him.
“The stares. They can be off-putting the first few times.”
He didn’t quite smile. But she liked the way his eyes had softened. She was also confused. “What stares?”
With a movement of his shoulder he directed her gaze to the right. A teenager was looking at them. He turned away as soon as he saw them noticing him.
And she glanced at Elliott. “Maybe he likes your sweater.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t say anything else, and Marie turned down the aisle of professional-grade vacuum cleaners, smoke detectors and air purifiers. She read the specifics of the three models