What on earth, besides the fact that she was an easy lay, did Chase ever see in her?
She pulled out a pair of jeans, and since she'd lost a fair amount of weight in prison, they no longer looked like a streetwalker’s pants. They actually had a little looseness to them, which suited her just fine.
The past couple of nights she'd taken a couple of her lowest cut t-shirts and sewed material from another shirt that matched to cover up her cleavage. Selecting the dark-blue t-shirt she'd modified last night and a pair of jeans, she headed into her bathroom to clean up and begin to integrate into society.
6
Turning his motorcycle into the driveway, the first thing Chase noticed was the flower beds. They were pristine, clean, and vibrant. Clearly LuAnn had been busy these past couple of weeks.
Dropping the kickstand, he dismounted and walked to the front door. Before he neared it, the door opened, and LuAnn stepped outside. Her smile was tentative, almost shy, but beautiful to see.
She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder, "Hi."
"Hi. It looks like you've been busy."
Her head turned toward the flower bed along the front of the house and her smile grew more becoming than before.
"Yeah, it's been fun watching it transform. I have pictures, too."
Reaching into the front pocket of her denim shorts, she pulled out a phone and tapped a few times. Stepping from the top step, she met him halfway up the sidewalk and showed him a picture.
"You can scroll through if you like there aren't many."
"When did you get a phone?"
"Oh, about four days ago. Linda took me to get it."
"You didn't call to tell me you had one." The disappointment he felt was like a punch in the gut.
"Chase, I don't want to put pressure on you." She tucked her hair behind her ear, and he noticed her hand shaking.
"Hey," he waited for her to look up at him. "No pressure, okay? I want to stay in touch with you, LuAnn. I want to..." What? What did he want? He wanted her. All of her. But, when he thought about going back to where they'd been his stomach tightened up and his heart felt heavy.
She quietly waited for him to say more but he couldn't articulate what he wanted to say. So, he pulled up her contacts in her phone, added his phone number, sent himself a text so he had her number and handed it back to her.
"Now you have my number in your phone and I have yours."
She smiled at him and swallowed as she took her phone back.
"I got a job." Her cheeks turned pink as if she was embarrassed to say it.
"That's fantastic, where?"
"The greenhouse on County E, Forget Me Nots. I'm only working in the back, tending to the plants and flowers, but it’s perfect. I started two days ago. They know all about my past and my record, but they were willing to give me a chance. The couple that owns it are both from Germany and speak very broken English, so communication has been interesting. But, I just go in and work hard and so far they've been pleased with me. Jan, one of the owners, has taken to just giving me a thumbs-up when I do good. It works."
"I'm proud of you, LuAnn. You're really going to do well."
She nodded, opened her mouth to say something, but choked up and looked over at the flowers. "Would you like to come in and see the arrangement of flowers I did for Linda with some extras from the greenhouse? They turned out so pretty."
"Sure."
He followed her into the house. No lights were on, but the large picture window allowed the sunlight from outside to fill the room and it looked bright and cheery. A fireplace on the far wall was framed in light brown brick; on the hearth sat a full arrangement of flowers in oranges, reds and yellows. It was bright and happy.
"I made this one."
"I don't know much about flowers, LuAnn, but this is fantastic. Very bright."
She walked over to the arrangement and picked a dead leaf from one of the flower stems, then turned to him; her smile said it all, she was proud of herself, too. It was becoming on her. This new demeanor and the lack of crassness she'd had before was gone and replaced with a shyness and simplicity that was hard to resist.
"Thank you. Did you want something to drink?"
He shook his head slightly.