Chapter Nine
Morning sun bled through the gauzy white curtains, and Chelsea thought the day was starting far too early.
She hadn’t expected to spend another night but Linda had wanted to break out the pictures and home movies again.
Chelsea couldn’t deny her that, and after a quick run back to her condo to pick-up an overnight bag, they stayed up late and reminisced.
“It’s too early,” she told the birds that chirped from their perches in the Nymans’ pine trees. She was an early bird herself, but even the sleepy, crack-of-dawn tweets were too early.
She rubbed her eyes, and still wearing her comfy sweatpants and old college tee, she stretched to begin her day with a fresh start, thankful that dreamland had coaxed her to a magical place where Julia was a phone call away, Liam didn’t seem stuck, Chelsea’s photography didn’t stink, and her self-analysis didn’t abound.
She’d fallen asleep re-reading her handwritten notes in the margins of the pictorial layouts. Chelsea lifted the closest one and cringed. “Sleep didn’t help. I still suck.”
The photos she’d snapped could’ve been taken by a child—a distracted one who didn’t know how to focus or when to use a flash, and Chelsea tossed the papers away.
Self-pity and frustration bubbled again.
No matter which versions of the same picture she studied, no matter if the shots were lightened, darkened, or cropped, they wouldn’t work.
Chelsea fell onto her pillow. “One of the many reasons I still wish you were here.”
But whispering to a nonexistent Julia wouldn’t change Chelsea’s lack of photographing talent. Maybe she had taken the celebration of life as hard as Liam, but in a different way.
She rolled out of bed with all the grace of a linebacker and caught a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror. She even looked like a football player with dark mascara smudges under her eyes.
Swiping the makeup with her fingers didn’t help, so she grabbed the makeup remover from her overnight bag and a tissue off the dresser. Then, presto—the football-player eye-black wiped clean.
Adorably horrible picture frames decorated the top of the dresser, and Chelsea twisted the makeup remover bottle closed.
She wasn’t sure why Linda insisted on keeping the picture frames that she and Julia had made years ago.
The preschool gifts looked like Pinterest fails with painted acorn-and-macaroni embellishments.
Yet Linda displayed them as if the girls were the second coming of Monet.
The guest room was a museum to their arts and crafts.
Chelsea snorted. One of the frames didn’t even have a picture. The silly thing would probably fall apart if anyone tried to add one. She carefully lifted the fragile frame and ran her thumb along the finger-painted edge.
Maybe her work photographs were similar to their childhood frames. Maybe someone wouldn’t think the pictures she took were delete-worthy. Maybe all Chelsea had to do was give herself a semblance of grace and take another look.
Or, maybe not. A blue-and-yellow acorn dropped from the frame. “Oh, coconuts,” she muttered and set the frame down before she could do more damage.
She hoped a cup of coffee and a smoothie would turn her mood around. Smoothie first. Those were always better than caffeine.
Then perhaps her pictures deserved another look. She grabbed her pages, slipped out of the guest room, and padded toward the kitchen. The coffee hadn’t been brewed yet. It was still too early for even Frank and Linda.
Chelsea eased around the corner, yawning—and jumped. “What,” she hissed, “are you doing?”
Liam sat alone. The oversized stuffed chair had been angled to face the front hallway and door. “Nothing.”
The erratic racing of her pulse had barely settled. “Do you have any idea how badly you scared me?” Do you have any idea how awful you look? Dark shadows hollowed his eyes, and his hair pointed in odd directions, as though he’d run his hand over his forehead and through his hair a hundred times.
She assessed the facial scruff and the exhaustion in his barely focusing eyes. He looked as though he were on a night-shift bender. “Have you gone to sleep?”
“Since when?”
Oh, there was an answer that said precisely what she needed to know. She eased onto the couch and put her printouts on the coffee table. “Liam?”
His forehead furrowed. “What?”
“I really think you need to sleep.”
“I will.”
“Like, now,” she insisted.
He barely shook his head as if she couldn’t understand where he was coming from. “I can’t. Not right now.”
Chelsea chewed her bottom lip, unsure of how to convince a trained operative who was confident he could handle sleep deprivation that the time had come to wave the white flag at the Sandman. She came up empty but asked, “Nightmares?”
His brows knit. “I’m not having nightmares.”
“Linda has a couple sleeping pills,” she pressed. “I can get you one.”
He snorted then cocked his head, staring as if she couldn’t be more oblivious. “I don’t need a damn pill, Chelsea.”
She matched his scowl. “Well, you need something.”
“Yeah.” He softened. “I do.”
Like sleep! But she bit her tongue—then she recalled how he’d rushed out the door. “Where did you go?”
His dark-green eyes shot to hers. The color intensified, almost as if he had so much to tell but couldn’t. “Nowhere.”
Lying eyes—that was what they were called. “All right then. You don’t need anything. You’ll sleep later, and you can’t recall where you went.” She pushed up from the couch. “Everything is obviously perfectly okay.”
He cracked his neck then returned to his vigilant study of the hallway and front door. “Obviously.”
She snatched her printouts and turned. “When you finally go to sleep, try to be a nicer person when you wake up. To you and everyone else.”
She stalked to the kitchen, frustrated that someone who seemed smart and acted tough couldn’t see that she wanted to help—and how she genuinely hurt for him.
“I can’t,” he muttered before she made it to the kitchen.
Chelsea stopped, surprised by his worried tone. She pivoted and leaned against the wall. “Why not?”
Liam looked like the poster boy for sleep deprivation. Cloudy eyes and a pallor that set off her internal alarm. “Tell me why.”
Remorse flickered across his face, though it was only a hint and was mostly hidden by shadows that fogged his eyes and cheeks. As much as she wished he’d share, she couldn’t make him. Trying would fail. She had enough of that right now. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it.”
“Good.”
Irritation pricked. She’d given up too quickly. She didn’t move. He didn’t acknowledge she remained, simply watching the door and hallway. What if he’d come up with some butternut bananas idea that he has to patrol the Nymans’ house?
The more she studied his alert-yet-exhausted stare, the more convinced she became that he was on a self-imposed patrol. She couldn’t understand his rationale, but she knew he desperately needed to sleep. “Liam, I can stay here,” she quietly offered.
His chin jerked up, and the greenness of his eyes reminded her of a dark forest hidden by a foreboding storm. Perhaps he’d think she was the crazy one. What she offered made no sense unless she’d guessed correctly. In a long silence, the semi-ridiculous offer remained on the table.
“I can watch,” she continued. “If you’re making sure they’re okay.” Chelsea gestured in the direction that led to Linda and Frank’s bedroom. “I’ll watch if you promise to sleep. Go take the guest room. Just throw my stuff to the side.”
Two small lines deepened between his eyebrows. “You think I’m cracking up?”
“Does it matter?”
He scrubbed his face with his hands, pushing his fingers into his thick hair. “You’re armed?”
His question worried her, and she would much rather be the one with a gun in the room. “Should I be?”
“If you want me to get some sleep,” he said.
“Give me a minute.” Even when she was off-duty, her service weapon wasn’t far away.
With his agreeing nod, Chelsea collected her gun, which was safely tucked in the guest bedroom, then thought about how long he would need to sleep. No fruit smoothies for her. Her icy-fruit jones would have to wait, and one day, Liam would owe her big time.
She snagged a granola bar from her purse to go along with the Glock 9mm handgun and wondered when Linda or Frank would wake up. “A gun and granola.” She headed back toward the living. “Not how I thought this day would go.”