Deadly Notions - By Elizabeth Lynn Casey Page 0,43
just said.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Then I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re right.” She let the laugh win, the sound bringing an audible smile to her ear.
“I thought about you this evening when I was taking Paris for a walk.”
She closed her eyes around the image of Leona strolling along the town square with a garden-variety bunny wrapped in Egyptian cotton and nestled in her arms. “And?”
“I’d rather hoped the phone call Milo got was from you.”
“You saw Milo?”
“I did. We were just getting ready to pass each other on the sidewalk when that silly song he has on his cell phone made Paris’s ears bolt upright.” Leona’s voice grew louder as she returned her full attention to their conversation. “And within no more than thirty seconds he was shoving it back in his pocket and taking off in a sprint in the other direction.”
She sat upright on the bed. “Did he look upset?”
“I couldn’t tell if he was upset or eager. But, either way, he didn’t even acknowledge my presence.”
She worked to soothe Leona’s rumpled feathers all the while her mind was picking through reasons Milo might have reacted in the way he had. Had his mother fallen ill? Had something happened at work? She gripped the phone still tighter as she swung her gaze toward the clock one last time. “I better go, Leona. I want to make sure Milo is okay.”
“You haven’t heard from him yet this evening?”
“No.”
“You really must train that young man better, dear.”
For a moment she considered correcting Leona, but opted instead to let it go. Making sure Milo was okay was higher on her list of priorities than trying to correct Leona’s outlandish ways of dealing with the opposite sex. “I’ll work on it, Leona. Have a good night and give Paris a kiss for me, will you?”
She flipped her phone shut then opened it once again, her fingers finding Milo’s position on her speed dial in short order.
One ring morphed to two and then three.
A woman’s sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”
Pulling the phone from her ear, she checked the screen to confirm whose number she had, in fact, dialed. Sure enough, Milo’s name was scrawled across the top.
“Um, hi.” She felt her stomach churn and tried her best to ignore it. “Um, is Milo Wentworth there?”
A giggle tickled her ear. “Oh, silly me. I must have picked his phone up off the nightstand instead of my own.”
Her mouth gaped open as the woman’s voice filtered through her ears and conjured up a face to match.
Beth Samuelson.
“His nightstand?” she echoed.
“Which is beside his bed . . .” The woman’s voice dropped to a whisper as she continued. “He’s sleeping right now. He’s totally spent after . . . well, you know.”
She blinked against the burning in her eyes, willed her mind to focus on the realities she knew to be true.
Milo was a good man.
Milo was not Jeff.
Milo wouldn’t hurt her this way.
Gripping the phone still tighter she considered her various options. She could demand that Beth wake him and put him on the phone. She could get in her car and drive over to his house and see whatever was going on with her own two eyes. Or she could wait until morning when she could ask him face to face. Sans Beth.
“Tell him Tori called, would you? And that I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
“Tori? Oh, I didn’t know that was you. I could roll over and give him a little poke if you’d like.”
She closed her eyes against the image of them lying side by side in his bed. Swallowing against the bile that rose in her throat, she forced her voice to remain even. The last thing she wanted was to give the woman on the other end of the line reason to gloat. She was stronger than that. “No, that’s fine. I’ll speak with him in the morning.”
“I’ll let him know when he wakes up. Unless . . .” Beth’s voice trailed off only to return in the wake of one of her infuriating giggles. “Well, unless we get sidetracked.”
With a heavy heart she flipped the phone shut, her mind at war with her emotions. While there was a part of her that wanted to cut Milo off right then and there, there was another part that wanted to believe she hadn’t been wrong about another man. Especially a man who had taken the time to get to know her—her thoughts, her dreams, her likes, her dislikes.