Some Bright Someday (Maple Valley #2) - Melissa Tagg Page 0,41
isn’t polite to ask, but I know I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t.”
Jenessa tipped her head to the side. By the time she’d returned to the kitchen after her shower two hours ago, Lucas had apparently found the hoodie he’d left here the other night. He’d been wearing it ever since. How would he answer Vi now?
“Well, I got some burns a long time ago. They were pretty bad and I never got to a hospital, so they didn’t heal as well as they might’ve otherwise.”
It was a vague answer, but apparently it was enough, because Violet let him go on reading. Until a couple pages later. “They don’t hurt you?”
“No. They itch sometimes, but that’s it.”
Yes, she’d seen him rubbing his arms often enough. But he’d never given her any more of his story than he gave Violet.
She allowed her posture to sag against the wall as her gaze wandered to the attic doorway. She really ought to bring a couple of boxes down. If she went through two or three each night, she’d at least make some kind of progress on sorting through everything. But just the thought made her already tired brain flinch.
Somehow she had to get up tomorrow and do all of this over again. What if the meeting with the elementary school principal went as poorly as today’s meeting had? Had Colie said even one word to her the rest of the day?
“Jen?”
She jerked away from the wall at the surprise of Lucas’s baritone voice. “Finished the book already?”
The dim hallway lighting did funny things to Lucas’s eyes, bringing out a tawny, almost amber tint. She’d always sort of wondered why he let his hair grow so long. But now she wondered why she ever wondered that in the first place. It gave him a sort of rugged appeal. Or maybe that was the beard.
Yikes, how long had she just stared at him? She really was tired.
“You keep coming to the rescue, Luke. I keep having more and more reasons to thank you.”
He cast a glance down the hallway, to where a sliver of light shone under Colie’s door. “She’s a quiet one.”
“She’s an angry one. Doesn’t want to be here. Doesn’t like me.”
“Everyone likes you, Jen. Just give her a little time.” He rubbed both palms over his cheeks. “Which is the same advice I’m trying to give myself regarding Noah.”
“You know I still don’t entirely understand what your deal is with him. Frankly, I don’t know how I’ve let you off the hook for this long. Normally I’d have lured all the details out of you by now—who he is and where he’s from and how you know him.” She knew enough not to interrogate Lucas about his time in the Army or the hard few years after, but his present-day life wasn’t usually off-limits.
The part of it he spent in Maple Valley, anyway. Rarely did he have much to say about the months he spent working down in Mexico. Maybe there simply wasn’t that much to say about it.
“I told you. He’s an Army acquaintance in need of . . . I don’t know. Guidance, I guess.”
“And you’re the one providing it?”
He lifted one corner of his mouth. “Shocking, I know.”
“Actually, it’s not.”
Now the other corner of his mouth lifted, too. “So what are you up to now? Early bedtime? Clandestine, kid-free viewing of Toy Story 4?”
“I was trying to convince myself I had the energy to retrieve a couple of boxes from the attic. I can’t sell this house if it’s still crammed to the gills with my parents’ things.”
The color in his eyes shifted again—a light gold brightening his irises. “Well, if you’re going up, I’m going too. Because I’ve got something to show you.”
What could he have to show her in her own attic? He was already moving down the hallway and in seconds, they were making their way up the dusty attic steps.
“By the way, that helmet is right at the top of the steps. In case we run into any more bats.”
She whacked the back of his leg as she climbed the stairs behind him. “Not funny.”
“Just looking out for you, Belville.” He reached the top of the steps, then grabbed hold of her hand when she emerged onto the landing. “Come on. Over here.” He tugged her through the labyrinth of boxes and furniture.
He let go of her hand as soon as he reached the circle window at the far end of the